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goddess-pan · 3 years

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Ore Hybrid!Reader x Dream SMP

Dsmp x reader prompt; Ore hybrid!Reader in the Dream SMP. Credit would be appreciated so more people can find this and make their own things based on it.

Requested from my idea list by @smolbox-png, if you would like to request something, you are still able to.

Mostly fluff and crack type prompt, but could be used for angst at some parts.

TW! Manipulation for one bit, and what could be a non-descriptive panic attack in another with it marked in bold (both the start and the end) for people to skip and remains as coherent piece with either or both removed/skipped. Also slight talk of blood, but non-descriptively in few places.

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Let's start of with the reader being an ore hybrid in general and then later move on to the specifics of the ore types if there are any unique features related to that ore specifically.

The reader's skin has a greyish tint to it and is covered in veins of the ore they are a hybrid of. The veins as well as their nails are made of their ore type. In some cases were they are more ore than human their bones are also made of the ore and their blood is a molten version of that ore. Most are at least slightly fire resistant, but not necessarily resistant to lava.

If the reader's ore can be made into armour they naturally have half of the protection wearing that armour type would provide. If their ore type doesn't have an armour set they only have slightly stronger skin, but still harder than a regular humans.

The reader would feel most at home either under or in the ground around the y-level the ore of their hybrid spawns at, and in the right dimension. So they would most likely have an underground base, whether that base is actually in a cave, a mine, an abandoned mineshaft, inside a mountain or a hill depends on preference and what’s available.

I think among the other people on the server who would have natural affinity to them depending on their ore type;

For Phil it would instinctually be any ore hybrid whose ore is shiny, in this case; Iron, gold, diamond and emerald. Plus redstone, but only if it's activated, and netherite, but only if the gold parts of them are visible.

For Techno it would instinctually be gold and netherite.

For Foolish it would be instinctually be gold and emerald.

For Fundy it would be instinctually be emerald, but only by a slight margin.

Some ore specific things that some of the different version can do;

Netherite hybrid wouldn't have the grey tint to their skin due to not only being a refined ore (an alloy, more specifically) but also due to not being based from an overworld ore. If one looked closely they could see tiny specs and streaks of gold in the veins. They are also the only one immune/resistant to lava and fire.

Gold hybrid passively pacifies piglins similarly to wearing gold armour. The only ore hybrid whose skin could be tinted grey or red, depending on whether they are overworld or nether based. Their favourite biome would be either the badlands (the mesa) if overworld based and the nether in general if nether based.

Iron hybrid would be able to use themselves to set things on fire if they have a piece of flint. They would also feel a weird kinship towards iron golems.

Redstone hybrid would emit a light if they get hit or tapped due to getting activated that way.The light lasting for about a minute before stopping. The redstone in them gets activated by active redstone like redstone torches and blocks of redstone.

Lapis lazuli hybrid would need one less piece of lapis lazuli to enchant since they can just use their nails to write or coat the enchantments on whatever they are enchanting. Their blood dyes anything it touches very easily and it's almost impossible to wash off.

Coal hybrid would have strange affinity to wither skeletons that they don't quite understand. They can light their fingers on fire and use them as an impromptu torch. Probably the only one who could make their base on the surface overworld and still be comfortable.

Emerald hybrid tends to get a lot of discounts from any villagers they trade with. Their favourite biome or most specifically the one they are most comfortable in would be the mountains/extreme hills.

Now on to some small scenarios of them interacting with others on the server or the other way around;

Tubbo definitely wanted to perform some experiments with them to test their powers/abilities similar to the way he did to Ranboo when they found about his silk touch hands.

TW! Panic Attack Ranboo having a mental breakdown, because he wanted to make the reader some gifts with their specific ore type (for ex. having a piece of it as the center piece of jewelry he made) but now that he thinks about it he isn’t sure of whether they would be delighted or horrified that he technically used their kin to make things that he would gift them. Aaand now he’s facing the moral dilemma of whether this is ethical or not. Techno ends up finding him spiraling and goes to try and calm him down, but then Ranboo ends up telling him about it. Techno starts to think about the times he’s not only gifted them things, but also about the times he ended up using the ore without even thinking with them in the same room as him. And now they are both spiraling. When Phil finally finds them both, he had to call the reader on the comms to ask them about it so that they would have definitive answer and calm down. TW! End

Several people have made the joke “Could this be considered blood money?” when the reader has bought something using their ore type (since it technically could be).

Ranboo has on few occasions while sleepwalking picked the reader up and moved them to another place. Should the reader try to move away while he’s still around he would end up getting agitated, but still move them back. So in short; they have to wait for Ranboo to either leave the area or wake up. This would end up happening to the emerald hybrid most often due to their veins’ colour reminding him of grass blocks.

All of the people on the list of people who had an affinity for a certain ore type; Phil, Techno, Foolish and Fundy, have on multiple occasions walked straight into something or tripped due to them staring at the reader. Primal brain go brrr when they see them, especially if it’s unexpected, and then they forget to watch where they are going. Phil is the prime offender and he gets so very easily distracted by a person sized shiny thing before crashing straight into something. Foolish’s brain goes “Shiny! Kin?” and ends up staring longer than he thought, it ending up with him walking straight into a tree with him laughing it off. Fundy’s thoughts go more on the lines of “Ooh, want! Take? Steal? Wait, no, no, no! They’re a person, bad brain, bad brain.” and while he is scolding his thoughts he ends up walking straight into a wall. And Technoblade, well uhhh, here’s the funny thing... if the reader is a gold hybrid he might just stare at them at first, but after few seconds if he didn’t end up walking into something or tripping, he’s barreling straight towards them. If the reader’s holding onto someone or the other way around they just get a bunch of jealous snorts coming the other person’s way. However if no one is in contact with the reader or they are alone he is going to pick them up and carry them until he either; snaps out of it or he has stored them safely in his home.

TW! Manipulation. Both Technoblade and Dream were very interested on if one could use the reader’s blood with molds to make resources out of them. This would be possible if the reader’s blood was the molten variety of their ore, but if the reader was a very human ore hybrid it would be less so. While both of them are interested in the prospects of it they have very different ways of going about it. Techno would ask the reader about it and if they were okay with trying it. If they said no to it he would sulk for a bit, but then accept it, only theorizing about it without experiments. While Dream would go down one of three routes; Route one being budding up to the reader and guilt tripping them if they said no when he asked, Route two being acquiring a favor from the reader and cashing it in to try it, and Route three being kidnapping them and doing it anyway (whether it would be him that did the kidnapping or someone he convinced to do it for him is up for debate). TW! Ends.

Once Quackity has gotten Las Nevadas set up enough he might hire them as “eye-candy” for the casinos. The reasons for that being; that he would have noticed that they get stared at by some of the other people on the server if they were any of the hybrids that a person had an affinity over, their hybridization being eye catching in general and of course the obvious connection people’s mind makes from seeing ore; wealth. The position reader would have as their actual job title would depend on what he think they would most likely accept whether that be; a dealer, the entertainment, a bartender, a server or a security guard. After all not that many people like to be hired for their looks.

#mcyt x reader #dream smp x reader #dsmp x reader #mcyt fanfiction #dream smp fanfiction #dsmp fanfic #Pans Writing Prompts #tw blood #tw panic attack #tw manipulation

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surrealsunday · 2 years

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Ok so I’m the anon who was yelling at you about not needing KinnPorsche to become my new Special Interest and damn you! I’m hooked! I meant to come bug you after each episode but I binged all the available 8 episodes yesterday and couldn’t stop lol! So thank you, I hate you 😂

I have so many thoughts but can we please talk about Tankhun and Porsche. I kind of love their relationship. Tankhun was annoying to me in the very beginning but I actually really love his character now. I totally related to him watching the same series over and over again because it gave him comfort. I’d rather do that than go out most of the time because I’m autistic and very introverted so I fully understood why he did some of the odd things he did or seemed to overreact in situations like when his beloved fish were killed. I have a kinship with his character and imo he’s sometimes a much needed comedic relief.

I feel he’s mostly misunderstood and pretty much just tolerated by most of the family and bodyguards/staff, but I feel like there’s so much to him. He’s more complex than I think anyone around him fully understands. I loved that during Kinn and Porsche’s wilderness heart to heart, when even Kinn was saying that maybe Tankhun was faking his mental instability to avoid the responsibility of becoming the head of the major family (which I do think may be part of it but for good reason), Porsche defended him and by doing so exposed his own trauma. I love that he made himself vulnerable in order to defend Tankhun because I think he sees past a lot of Tankhun’s dramatics. Even as out there as he seems, Porsche understood him and was able to get him to try new things and leave the safe space that Tankhun tends to isolate himself in. I also love that, as much as Porsche kind of messes with him, most of what I see is him laughing WITH Tankhun rather than putting him in situations to laugh AT him. He messes with him to try and get him to smile, to enjoy life and find happiness.

I think it’s just another thing that shows how gentle and loving Porsche is underneath his cornball outer layer. Sometimes Porsche has moments where he kind of annoys me but what I like about him and his brother is that they’re loving, honest, gentle, and genuine people deep down and that’s exactly what endears people towards him. This is exactly why Kinn was so drawn to him even after their first interaction and why he fell in love with Porsche before he even allowed himself to admit he liked him. He was screwed from the start.

On the surface this show seemed kind of like a corny Mafia drama but it’s filled with complex characters and amazing acting. I love the main couple, as usual, but I rarely get invested in the side characters and it kind of left me speechless. It was a very pleasant surprise. I personally really like shows that make me question my morals and even though some of the situations could be easily identified as harmful, the way the characters expressed their experience after taking time to process things made it easier for me to forgive right along with them.

Ugh! This was long and probably a little all over the place but I’m still just too excited to get my thoughts coherent. I cannot wait for the next episodes to see where this ride takes us!

Anon! You don't even know how happy I am you came back 🥳. I saw this message and cuddled under a blanket on the couch and read it like I was about to read a good book 😂.

Ok let's dive in... (you are so right for binging the eps btw - I did the same when I started watching)

I love that you want to talk about Kuhn and Porsche! I haven't really done that yet and I honestly adore that dynamic. The funny thing is that when Tankuhn first appeared I was exactly like you... I basically figured I needed to be on acid to watch his scenes... and then somehow he just weasles his way into your heart and becomes this truly fabulous character?! (Though without even having done acid, I still feel certain it would only enhance 98% of his scenes 😂) I seriously love that you found kinship in him. And also... I never even connected the rewatching series thing to myself because that is so normal to me omg. I'm the exact same too. Serious anxiety (and yes introversion as well) means I do the same 🥺💞. The show actually does such a great job of incorporating in humour (and agreed, Kuhn definitely helps serve that role) without it feeling shoehorned in. It very much feels like a natural part of the landscape and it does beautifully balance out the rest.

(This got super long so I better throw it under a read more...)

And your analysis of Tankuhn's layers??? Holy shit I loved. I agree there is more there than we know just yet. It may play an important plot point or it may just come into things when we get more into the brothers' dynamics (I loved Kuhn’s scene with Kim and I truly can’t wait for a scene with all three brothers). But either way I can't wait to see it. And this: "I also love that, as much as Porsche kind of messes with him, most of what I see is him laughing WITH Tankhun rather than putting him in situations to laugh AT him. He messes with him to try and get him to smile, to enjoy life and find happiness." God, so true. One of my fave moments is this one:

I just loved so much how it was like the two of them vs the interlopers of Kinn and his friends. I loved the whole vibe and dynamic - like, ‘Oh so you wanna hang with us??? 😏’. And, I mean, they're both huge goofballs. So finding commonality in their partying was honestly brilliant.

I also loved the hospital scene between them in the side story too. Because Tankuhn is just being his silly, dramatic-ass self and messing with Porsche. But it just so happens that Porsche is obviously in no mood as he's terrified for Kinn and so he snaps. And I really love that moment of Pete basically being like 'Dude, this is your boss' 😂. Porsche really just never recognized the authority of Kuhn OR Kinn - they're just guys to him - and I love that a lot.

I completely agree re: Porsche's loving, kindness. He's so unguarded and open with the love and affection he gives (to those who warrant it that is... we've seen him withhold it *cough*Vegas*cough*). I love that about his character. When you're in that circle, you're really gifted with the full breadth of Porsche's affection and I think anybody faced with that is doomed to love his dumbass forever (rip Kinn). And Kinn absolutely recognized Porsche's kindness and gentler qualities despite the badass exterior and genuinely worried about the way this life could damage or change that (see: when Porsche shoots that guy the very first time and Kinn is stuck on staring at Porsche's shocked face in the aftermath and then worrying enough later that he actually goes to check on him). What I enjoy in the growth we've seen in Porsche is that even though he has changed and he's really coming into the role of mafia bodyguard, he also hasn't changed and he's still the same gentle, loving, affectionate goofball.

And yeah, I expected corny mafia drama and would have been fine with that. Most BL's lean heavily into the cheese so I was ok with that being the expectation, but this show really took me by surprise. I agree there is far more complexity than you'd initially think. Like the symbolism and art direction alone has left me pretty staggered. There is a lot to unpack and a show I can dig my teeth into like that is one of my favourite things. And as you say, there are some really great and fascinating side characters. And like you, that will really round out a show for me and take it to the next level.

You were seriously completely coherent. I'm not sure my reply to you was but I tried lol. You were a lot more eloquent than me and I loved reading your thoughts so much. You must continue to let me know what you think when the new eps air (that is a demand 😌). And thank you so much for coming back and typing out all your thoughts like this - I so enjoyed!!!

#kinnporsche

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luckyspacerabbit · 3 years

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would you ever share the background you created for kai leng? i'd be so interested in hearing it!

Hehe, yes! Thank you for waiting anon. I wanted to really think this through and make sure I was working with all the possible details of his character.

Okay, so my goal with fleshing out Kai was not to excuse him as a villain or to necessarily redeem him, but to humanize him and hopefully incur sympathy because I find his depiction as a mysterious lackey boogeyman to be 🙄 one dimensional and playing on racist tropes like the yellow peril ✨ (also bioware making him predominantly chinese + a lil russian. extrapolate what u will lol)

So here is my background for Kai :) Lots of childhood headcanoning and then some general talk about his character/why I chose certain elements as I did (such as dumping that dumb phantom blade for butterfly swords AEORHIG)

Childhood: According to the wiki, Kai is Earthborn, and from his general heritage we can assume that he grew up in Northern China (omg that's where my ancestors are from). The most populous city there is Beijing, which, if there was a spaceport or alliance recruitment anywhere, it would be there.

I headcanon that he was born to a bit of an unsteady family, where it was likely there was estrangement and unsafe conditions between the mother and father that may have created a sense of helplessness and neglect from a young age.

In my canon, Dan Hyun's mom, Hannah Shepard was the head of an agricultural research facility on Trident, and was an old friend of Kai's mom (From University, possibly).

As conditions worsened throughout Kai's childhood, his mom decided to take a chance and flee with Kai (age 10 at the time) to Hannah Shepard's science facility on Trident (Sentinel Agricultural Research Facility), where she and Kai would stay for about two years as his mom worked to save enough money for their own place .

Since Dan Hyun was already being homeschooled, it was easy enough for Kai to join up alongside her.

Dan Hyun (12 at the time) was extremely happy to have a friend since life on the facility could be really lonely-- but with all these changes Kai was having a difficult time adjusting, especially when Dan Hyun felt put off by his competitive attitude. After so long feeling neglected and growing in a tumultuous home environment, he craved external validation: homeschool provided an avenue for that. They developed their own academic-based competitive rivalry that counted towards friendship, but grew distant when he moved out with his mom about two years later.

When Dan Hyun was 18 (Kai at 16), she managed to apply to an Alliance Research Training program and receive admission-- something that was considered highly prestigious, despite her parents' reluctance. Kai had already begun to build resentment towards her due to the way her parents treated her (very preciously, sheltered, and without exposing her to the difficult parts of life) in contrast with what he lacked in family and world kindness, creating a drive to supersede her and compete with her once again, if only to have tangible proof that just because he began in a lower place didn't mean he couldn't surpass the vision of success.

After this event, they would strike up a still somewhat friendly rivalry again that continued until Kai enlisted in the Alliance at the age of 18 (his attempts to join directly at 16 failed in my canon lol, but he sure tried )

Alliance Service:

Kai took the combat-driven route while Dan Hyun was receiving training for her eventual research establishment in Akuze, meaning that in their line of work, they never crossed paths-- Though they maintained occasional communication and met up here and there whenever Kai was back from his tours.

This is where I believe his decline truly began.

Some habits, like his desire for tangible proof of success and seeking external validation, manifested more heavily in this time. Collecting badges off of dead soldiers (To remember his skill first hand) is a notable one, but I speculate he relied heavily on the word of his commanding officers to counter his self-esteem. Titles were incredibly important because they were proof. When he began to feel a loss of control which led to emotional outbursts and breakdowns, he would fall back on these bits of evidence that he had done something, anything.

The weight and violence of service combined to break away his mental strength and conditioned him to that of a soldier.

Famously, he was discharged in 2186 after his N7 designation. In a bar fight on shore leave, he murdered a Krogan (OKAY. Listen. The wiki says "first-degree murder" but first degree requires premeditation and bar fight implies heat of the moment. So IDK I think the details around this one are a little fishy. He was on leave but he was a soldier, so ? he probably just had a weapon on him? Okay, I'm not excusing him but premeditation is a bit different from manslaughter so just something I've pondered. It separates intentional killers from accidental murders).

At this point, he is formally incarcerated and set to serve a twenty-year sentence.

Cerberus Contact:

The year is 2177, and Kai has lost everything he's ever worked for. His prestige is gone, he is at the worst place he has ever been, his mom won't talk to him, and he has no one. He had even stopped hearing from Dan Hyun, the only person he could have considered a friend once.

Through a small TV in the prison, he is able to hear about the attack on Akuze, and its one survivor: Alliance Scientist Dan Hyun Shepard. In the attack her biotic abilities (Which she had kept secret for many years) were revealed, prompting immediate recruitment into the N7 Program and a contract for ten years of service. This drove Kai into rock bottom-- while he had nothing, Dan Hyun was steadily on track to uprooting the only thing he had ever felt like he had accomplished.

This is when Cerberus intervened, promising him a home, freedom, belonging, and success.

So of course Kai agreed. Why wouldn't he? He had nothing left in his miserable life and there would never again be a place for him.

Cerberus Intervention:

It's my belief that Kai wasn't necessarily "alienphobic" in the beginning. Instead, I think The Illusive Man saw a very clear opportunity to recruit and nurture a broken man into a pawn of service. TIM is incredibly smart-- everyone who works for Cerberus is. He knew what Kai needed was validation, the promise of success held directly on the tip of his tongue to drive him into tenacity and action.

Organizations like Cerberus, even in real life, prey on people at weak points, fulfill their needs and drape their ideology on top like icing on a cake. That's not to say that Kai is completely innocent-- he ate the sweets and readily threw the world to the side in order to attain more-- but it does give some perspective.

Kai in Cerberus:

In ME2 we know there is some apprehension on Kai's part about the role Shepard will play. He is already starting to feel slighted from failures with Rasa and takes even the possibility of rejection from TIM extremely hard and with violent emotional outburst. This evidences how much TIM has whittled him away over the decade of service. Kai feels as though he owes everything to TIM, that TIM saw something in him-- failing him is disproving that and accepting what Kai has feared all along: that he truly is a worthless and incapable person.

Kai and Shepard:

Kai is best known for his direct antagonism towards Shepard in the events of ME3, directly killing their allies and potential love interests in a way that is extremely personal. Yes, it is part of the job, but at the same time, it's clear Shepard gets under his skin. It's because in the end, after all that setup, Shepard is the one person who can take it all away from him.

They can replace him as TIM's prodigy/ They can bring an end to the organization that gave him everything (From his cybernetic enhancements (uh indoctrination cough couch) ) to his purpose in life. Kai threw it all in with them because he didn't see another choice.

My Canon: The End

So how do things end for Kai in my canon?

As you're aware, you can unalive him, violently. But Dan Hyun is very emotional and due to their shared childhood, I like to believe that there was still a grand feeling of kinship between them, a recognition of the other due to shared insecurities. I don't think there was ever a time Dan Hyun looked at Kai and saw anything other than her slighted friend (which is very romanticized, but SHE is very romanticized), it was just about getting Kai to see that too.

She locked him down the best she could, yelled, cried, and beat the shit out of him, but ultimately, preserved his life. After the crucible had been fired and Thane (alive ofc) attended to, she sought to right things between her and Kai: whatever form that takes. Who knows if he'll ever be able to live comfortably in society again-- but at least here, he has the chance.

Random Tidbits:

Some notes! At his best, I like that Kai is portrayed as Loyal, Hard Working, Methodical, Clever, Tenacious, and Factual. I think sometimes he can be written off unfairly as wimpy or scared, but in truth, he's very sure of his abilities and able to calculate his chances extremely well. He's smarter than fandom gives him credit for.

He has an interesting conflict between arrogance based on title and humbleness. He knows he wants to be the best but he never airs it-- like when Rasa suggests that he wants to be the leader for Humanity but he grows quiet and says to just focus on where things are at right now.

His time as a soldier absolutely affected him in ways I think sharpened him to the killer he became. It instilled values that remained with him in Cerberus, such as when he berates Bates for abandoning his squad and calls him a traitor. Kai doesn't betray-- he's quite literally ride or die.

Also? The ninja sword is super dumb because Kai is Chinese and the swords and Phantom's themselves are designed to appear Japanese in aesthetic. Ninjas= Japanese, but China did have their own sect of Assassins which I believe gave birth to Wu Ching as a type of Martial Arts? Or was drawn from it hmm

To keep to accuracy, Kai would have trained more towards their martial art techniques which focuses on close combat and quick movements, as well as the use of dual blades called butterfly swords (You'd likely recognize them as a set of rogue daggers).

That's all for that meta! Phew. If anyone actually read to the end, hey wassup, hope you enjoyed, and take most of this with a grain of salt since it's my headcanons and background work :) Thank you again for reading!

#my meta #kai leng #anon #asks #PHEW #THAT TOOK A WHILE #HAHAH #dan hyun shepard #mass effect #meta

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still-a-morosexual-help · 3 years

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OBEY ME! LESSON 52 DETAILED SUMMARY + THEORIES

Two locked lessons :( hopefully telling where the fuck Mammon & Luke have been

Lucifer’s immediately suspicious of them, asking who they are and whose in charge of them. MC points at their obviously non-angelic clothes and says they’re angels while Satan says Simeon’s their guardian (weren’t Simeon & Lucifer really close back then? Wouldn’t he have told Lucifer if he got new angels?). He says it’s good luck then that he ran into a seraph’s assistants as he dumbs a load of books on them and says ‘I’m a seraph assist me’ or rather ‘carry these books to the library for me’ – Satan gets ready to protest but Lucifer cut him off saying that assuming they really are angels they’d know who he was (really didn’t like that ‘assuming you really are angels bit’) meaning his orders are not optional so get to work. Satan silently glares at him. Lucifer complains about how this is not even his job but Raphael’s who’s been picking on Lucifer to get back for how much shit his brother’s cause (I’ve so many HCs about Raphael and Michael. Raphael I always see as stoic and stiff who gets into those aggressively polite, passive-aggressive, thin lipped smile, voices hissed out and cutting, arguments with Lucifer about his brothers and punishing them adequately. Considering Michael is supposed to be somewhat childish personality wise and Raphael is serious I also see them having a relationship very similar to Diavolo and Lucifers’, With Raphael being Michael’s weary but fond handler). Satan says if his brothers are acting out then maybe Lucifer’s just bad at supervising them, MC sighs and sympathises with the tone of someone who has lived through the exact same experience which Lucifer immediately picks up and comments on. Beel’s been sneaking food, Belphie keeps escaping to the human world and even though they’re relatively minor things their frequency makes them add up and Raphael won’t stop being snide and sarcastic about it. Satan cuts off Lucifer’s ranting about how terrible Raphael is (given that outside of his brothers Simeon’s the only one Lucifer seems close with in the Celestial Realm and knowing Lucifer he’d never unload his troubles on to his brothers in fear of being seen as not being in control, and Beel mentioned Lucifer usually stuck to staying inside the Celestial Palace it makes sense that he desperately needs someone to rant to) saying that Lucifer complains too much and if he’s so happy here maybe he should just leave the celestial realm and head to – but he’s cut off by Lucifer saying “for an angel you really seem ready to start shit huh” and I’m pretty sure he knows :) Satan just silently glares back. Lucifer tries to tell them what the organising system in the library is but Satan cuts him off saying he can see what it is by just looking and then he diverts his attention to psychoanalysing Lucifer, asking if Lucifer’s pushing them around cause Raphael pushes him around. Lucifer ignores the last part saying no matter how much sully seems like he wants to tear Lucifer’s head off he’s skilful and knows his way around books, when Satan only glares back he asks if Satan likes books to which he replies that every book in this library is precious. Lucifer laments about how none of his brothers like books despite how much he tries to get them into reading and that there’s no one he knows who he can talk to about them since Michael “overcomplicates things and twists them into something they’re not” (do you think Michael has started his Lucifer shrine at this point or does that happen after the fall?) and Raphael “who’s snide and generally unpleasant” (God if they do introduce the angels I desperately want them to be dicks. Like give me one person who’s an asshole that’s not hiding a secret soft side, I want someone who looks at MC sneers and then continues to never fall in love with them) though there is Simeon who’s the most normal of them. He says his life would be easier if he had someone like Sully for a brother (poor Satan’s probably going through a crisis rn). Lucifer says that Satan can look around and pick any book he wants and even points him towards a section meant only for seraph. Satan hesitantly picks up one and asks for permission and Lucifer notes he’s a fan of art. After they’re done Lucifer calls Satan close to look at a particularly interesting book with a blank cover. There’s a flash of bright white light and chains burst from inside the book and wrap around Satan who gets immediately pissed off, demanding what’s happening (earning their trust just to flip on them like that!? Specially satan!? The years of progress that just undid!?) Does he already know Satan is a demon? I mean they’re both pretty suspicious either way but I’m pretty sure he won’t take them to the other higher ups considering how he spoke about them and I’m 100% sure if this was pre-Diavolo angel!Lucifer he would have killed Satan on the spot without bothering to trap him.

Satan yells at Lucifer to do something (I don’t know if it’s sweet or sad that no matter how much Satan pretends to hate Lucifer in the end he absolutely believes Lucifer would never do anything to hurt him and would help him if he was in trouble even when Satan’s usual logic should tell him that Lucifer intentionally gave him the book). Lucifer says it makes sense that Satan got caught and when MC tries to help him Satan tells them to stay back cause he doesn’t want them to get caught either. Lucifer says the book is alive and catches evil beings and the harder you struggle the tighter the chains get (don’t you think Evil has two meanings in the OM! World? The brothers and the demons in general are referred to as evil a lot but when it comes down to it they’re all good people – heavily flawed with pretty loose morals – but more or less good people certainly not bad enough to be called evil. Evil tm seems to be what all demons naturally are but that it seems to have nothing to do with the puppy kicking, baby eating, mass murder you’d usually associate with the term. So yeah two different meanings. I think technically inanimate objects like the book would react to the natural Evil tm in the brothers and actual people like the angels will associate that natural Evil tm with the normal evil we all know and thus believe all demons are puppy kicking, baby eating, mass murderers). Lucifer said he would have known if Simeon got two angels (BOOM!) and that he knew from the beginning they weren’t angels (just look at their freaky ass non-white coloured clothes!). Satan says Lucifer playing dirty is something that has never changed. Lucifer says he has no fucking clue what Satan’s talking about and then looks at MC and says “wtf are you anyway” when MC answers he says that Michael’s being interested in a human sorcerer recently but guesses that’s not MC, he says they’re obviously not a demon or angel but doesn’t seem to believe the human thing fully too because he again asks and emphasises, “Interesting…What are you, exactly…” (This is the second time OM!’s implied MC’s not fully human, demon or angel with the first being in a devilgram. In my first ever HC list I said I see MC as a hybrid of the three while still being mostly human – because when Lilith died she was no longer an angel but she wasn’t fully a demon either and that particular magic unique to only her travelled with her when she reincarnated and then travelled unnoticed through her descendants and was magnified after MC made pacts with the 7 brothers and started sharing their powers). Satan latches on to that, stating MC’s not a demon so Lucifer should only be interested in him but that piques Lucifer’s interest more and he moves closer to MC because why would a demon protect someone else. MC tells Lucifer to let Satan go (and it’s said in a way where it’s implied it’s an order not an option and MC’s a little insane right?) Satan says there’s no point trying to get Lucifer to listen before he transforms into his demon form saying Lucifer never listens, to which Lucifer is silent (Y’all really need to talk after all this is over), before he says there’s no need for Satan to lose his temper and that Lucifer would let them go which obviously shocks Satan. Lucifer releases Satan who asks what Lucifer’s new plot is. Lucifer’s like “wow you have zero trust in me” and Satan’s like “bitch, I have negative trust in you”. Lucifer says there’s no plots and Satan says he’s lying. Lucifer says that the old him would have drop kicked a demon on site and wouldn’t have released them just so they could talk. And what does Lucifer want to talk about? His new demon boo <3 ugh sorry “acquaintance”. He says he never would have imagined he’d have a demon as an acquaintance but here we are. Lucifer says he’s strange, that he doesn’t act like a demon and that the more they talk the less he understands him but that he likes talking to him and there’s a certain feeling he gets from talking to Diavolo similar to the one he gets when talking to Satan (familiarity? Belonging? Kinship? Affection?) and I can’t believe we went from Lucifer complaining about his co-workers to him asking advice about what sounds like his first crush. Lucifer says he also wants to know more about Satan and that he only used the book to make sure he actually was a demon and he asks Satan to forgive him, Satan is silent and contemplative. Lucifer says he’s answered Satan’s questions and isn’t there something that Satan should say to him, more specifically, “thank you for releasing me”. Satan mumbles under his breath “holy shit I can’t believe you made me believe you were nice! You’re as nasty as ever” but still flushes red and says thanks. Lucifer’s pleased by it and says that for his good manners he won’t report anything to Michael but in return they have to follow him again.

Lucifer leads them back to a rooftop? where the brothers are. Mammon says Lucifer’s late and that Beel ate the food they’d left aside for him, while Belphie complains about how after Lucifer told all of them not to be late he was. Lucifer smiles and tells Belphie to not get mad about it in exchange for Lucifer ignoring that Belphie slept on the job. Belphie says that’s playing dirty. Asmo & Levi say that considering all the work Lucifer has these days they shouldn’t be mad at him, they then ask why Satan left and that they were worried about him & MC. Belphie asks since when were they friends with Lucifer, A red faced Satan says they’re not. Beel happily points out that Satan’s face is progressively turning more red and Satan says that all the eggs Beel ate contained reddite and it was fucking up his eyesight and this exactly the sort of BS I’d say to my brother to get him off my back the om! Team writes sibling relationships so well???? Beel questions about reddite and Satan just goes balls deep with the lie, creating a new disorder, explaining how it works and what the permanent effects are to which Beel immediately starts panicking until Belphie says Satan’s just being a lil’ shit. Simeon congratulates MC on their therapy skills but MC says it’s Lucifer who did everything. Simeon says Lucifer shouldn’t get all the credit (because yeah honestly sometimes just having someone to sit with you and hold your hand even if you don’t talk goes a long way when you’re having a bad time). Mammon asks Lucifer why he called them all here. Lucifer uses magic and suddenly the sky daylit sky outside is replaced by the stars and moon and night sky. Lucifer says Michael made Raphael remodel the room (so they’re in the observatory?) to show the human sky as well and Lucifer wanted to check it out before Michael had the chance. All the brothers are in awe. MC asks if Michael will be pissed that Lucifer checked out what is clearly his room first and Lucifer says he doesn’t give a flying fuck about it. Belphie’s thrilled and asks if anyone knows any stories about the constellations, Satan says he knows about every single one. Asmo asks him to tell them and he starts pointing out stars first the three stars forming the triangle of Betelgeuse, then Cator and Pollux – gemini - who are incredibly close and are like peas in a pod which the twins instantly claim as their own, and then orion. Simeon is happy that Satan looks so happy.

Mc is later woken up by Satan, with the others already asleep around the room, he says the stupid faces they make when they sleep hasn’t changed over the years. MC notes that Simeon and Lucifer are missing and asks about it. He says he has no idea and that they must have gone off together, he then asks them to keep quiet about what they saw here when they got back home. MC’s not on board with that and says there’s nothing to be embarrassed about, Satan blushes says he’s not but that the brothers will tease him but in the end he’s happy they came here. He thanks MC and they say they’re just happy seeing him being so happy and he calls them mean for teasing him, the twins start moving around in bed and end up in weird positions – Satan fondly complains about that never changing and how they wouldn’t survive without him and goes to straighten them out. MC goes to find Lucifer and Simeon. They then eavesdrop on them talking in the forest. Lucifer says that Simeon looks really good as a human and Simeon says coming from Lucifer that’s a grand compliment. He then says he knows that none of this is real but that he’s truly happy he got to see Lucifer like this one more time. Lucifer asks what he’s talking about considering Simeon sees him so much every day that Lucifer figures Simeon would be sick of him and that nothing is going to change. “This is who we are. And who we’ll be forever” (and this whole thing is so fucking bittersweet and I forget that Simeon lost all his closest friends in the Celestial Realm in one fell sweep and then went through whatever unknown events got him demoted). Simeon looks sad for just a moment before he smiles and says, “Forever, huh…That’s such a wonderful word, but so very fragile.” (actual tears rn). Simeon says he knows Lucifer’s met Diavolo by now and that he’s felt lingering doubt crawl into his heart so when Lucifer says forever even he himself is not sure if he means it (this also explains one of the reasons why Simeon isn’t Diavolo’s biggest fan because while leaving was definitely the brothers’ decision he probably unconsciously or lowkey resents Diavolo for putting the thought into Lucifer’s head and showing him that leaving was an available option) Lucifer stutters and doesn’t know what to say to that. (Okay so ik that some of y’all see the “brothers no more” chat name and see Lucifer and Simeon brothers but I’ve always considered that to mean “brothers in arms”? Not actual siblings? One, because Lucifer would never have left one of his siblings behind, no matter how much they kicked and screamed and refused to leave he would have dragged them down to the Devildom with him. Two, Lucifer treats Simeon as an equal something he doesn’t do to his brothers. With his brothers he’s overprotective and condescending, controlling and overbearing. He’s basically helicopter-parenting and you can clearly see that he doesn’t treat them as equals unlike the way he treats Simeon. Third there’s a clear distance between Simeon and the brothers. I mean they’re all really close but the brothers don’t treat Simeon the same way they treat each other or even the way they treat Lucifer – there always seems to be an underlying layer of respect. I mean sure they respect Lucifer and each other (hard as it may be to see) but they can also call Lucifer and each other ‘dickheads’ to the face something I don’t see them doing with Simeon. The brothers’ relationship with Simeon, I see in the same way I’d treat the composed sweet close friend of a sibling who is much much much older than me. So yeah I see Simeon as being Lucifer’s childhood friend, where they grew up in each other’s pockets, went to war together and fought alongside each other and ended up working in the same place in similar positions).

MC wakes up to someone shaking them and calling their name (you can choose it to be either Luke or Mammon. Because I’m a sim: ) Mammon gives a short relieved laugh when they wake up, asking them what they’re doing sleeping in the middle of the forest and how no matter how much he shook them they didn’t wake up and how he was worried. Satan says they’re back in the real world and Mammon asks them wtf they’re talking about saying he doesn’t remember anything, MC asks where they were and says they were worried. Neither Luke nor Mammon remember anything and didn’t even remember disappearing, saying they walked in the HoL and the next minute they were back to standing in the forest. Mammon and Luke have a brief argument about how they might have actually been in danger and the word chihuahua is thrown and protested to until Mammon remembers and asks what the other two are doing here and MC explains how and why they came here. Luke says okay “but when you say you tripped balls and had a shared hallucination what exactly do you mean…” Satan shuts that down quickly. Luke asks what even happened. Simeon hands him a pamphlet where the whole section about the HoL is gone, in its place is a passage about rumours of fairies who lure people and tease and torment them. Satan says it’s a miracle they made it out alive. Simeon says it’s because of the hawthorn berry powder Satan is covered in because fairies are very fond of hawthorn berries and as a thank you to Satan for bringing it to them they showed him something he’d always wanted to experience. This line makes Mammon & Luke even more curious and Satan threatens Simeon not to say a word but he forgot MC’s a shithead so they begin, “So we found ourselves in the Celestial Realm –“ before Satan cuts them off, telling them to shut up and threatening them with him going to Lucifer and telling him a whole list of bad things Mammon did whether they’re true or not and azkcjbscjwzx I can’t believe Satan just called MC a simp like that right to their face in front of everyone what the fuuuuuuck!????? Mammon oblivious loveable idiot that he is doesn’t understand why he’s being threatened. Simeon reminds them of why they even came out here and MC remembers the fairies/fairy rings, Mammon laments not been able to get their treasure and Luke calls him evil for wanting to steal it. Mammon says treasure or fairy rings it’s still the same but Luke vehemently protests against that. Mammon does note that despite running into fairies there doesn’t seem to be any fairy rings around and Simeon says they may have to give up for now, Satan agrees saying after all the emotional upheaval he’s exhausted. Both Luke and Mammon are really disappointed. (So about the vision/hallucination/reality they saw it reminded me of that thing Dumbledore said in the last Harry Potter book when they were in Kings Cross station. Something about how just because it’s a dream doesn’t mean it’s not real.)

Back in the train station Mammon and Luke are still sulking and MC says at least they had fun together, mammon agrees minus the part at the end that turned into a scene from a horror movie. Satan asks Simeon why he’s smirking, Simeon says he’s remembering how adorable Satan had looked while he was teaching his brothers the constellations for the first time and how he wished real Lucifer was there to see it. Satan demands that none of this goes back to Lucifer. Simeon laughs evilly and MC says Lucifer would be so happy if he knew and Satan – red-faced – says that’s exactly why he doesn’t want Lucifer to know and sighs about how satan still can’t admit to how much he loves Lucifer. Simeon says that it’s a special opportunity considering this particular group don’t get to travel together that often but Mammon still sulks until he’s back on the train and fawning over how good the food is. Luke calls mammon a simpleton for how easily his moods flip-flop (hey???? I take offense to that) and mammon snaps back at him, Luke says since Mammon’s always talking about him like he’s a dog he doesn’t get to complain and Simeon laughs about how close they seem, Satan’s confused by Simeon’s definition of close and MC says you tend to fight more with people you’re closer to (which yeah it’s true for me at least. I’d always argue with someone I’m close to vs someone I just know and they’re never serious arguments either just stupid shit that you can trade friendly-rude barbs over). Luke says he’d never be close with a demon like Mammon and Mammon says for such a small kid Luke’s got a big mouth, Luke bites back and they continue. Simeon tells MC if they thought they could get rest on the train back they’re greatly mistaken cause Simeon was only able to book 4 rooms so two of them will have to share and that immediately stops Luke & Mammon’s argument. MC feels all of their eyes boring into them before they all start volunteering to share a room with MC. Luke suggests they draw straws or play rock-paper-scissors to decide, Mammon suggests cards but Satan says that he can see in Mammon’s eyes that he plans on cheating and an argument breaks out making the others on the train turn to stare at them and this time MC genuinely seems to consider jumping off a moving train instead they command the demons to stay. Simeon says that never stops being funny and Luke says it actually looks painful and ik MC only uses it when things are getting out of hand and they aren’t listening to reason and are causing a scene that can lead to a (usually) public brawl but the command to stay still feels icky to me.

In the corridor MC finds a silent sad looking Simeon and asks him what’s wrong. Simeon tries to deflect it, gets oddly scatter brained about where he put down his tea, says that even though rock-paper-scissors was a fair was to decide he’s disappointed but the look on Mammon & Luke’s faces when they found out they would be sharing was worth it. MC picking up on how all over the place he seems asks if something is bothering him. He says not really but sort of? He says Satan wasn’t the only one impacted by the whole Celestial Realm fever dream and that seeing the brothers as angels again brought back happy memories until he remembered that they aren’t there anymore and that the Celestial Realm is different now which made him depressed. MC hugs them and Simeon says they’re warm and smell comforting before he thanks them he then blushes and says he would like to kiss them and MC gets the chance to either tell him to go ahead or to gently say “No, Simeon…” he understands that there’s someone else and that whoever that is he’s very lucky. He then gives them the star of patience and tells them they’re gonna be an amazing sorcerer. Simeon says he wished he could’ve had MC as a guardian angel and MC goes “wait…do angels even have guardian angels!?” and Simeon says …no. He then wishes them goodnight.

On the way to bed MC hears voices from the roof and goes to check it out only to find the other 3. The three of them are arguing about constellations. Mammon points out Scorpius correctly and calls Orphiuchus next to it the scorpion bearer, Luke says it’s the goat bearer, Mammon says “what even is the difference between scorpions and goats, Satan says they’re both wrong and MC says it’s the serpent bearer. They pull MC down beside them and Luke says Satan was telling them about the seven sisters and asks if they know what it’s called. MC gets to answer. Mammon asks if there’s a seven brother’s constellation and Luke says there is one in the Celestial Realm, with everyone knowing about the legend behind the constellation being about the brothers’ fall. Mammon asks what they’re like and Luke says they’re seven bright stars with three others watching over them. Luke says he doesn’t know what the three stars are supposed to represent and Mammon suggests it might be Michael, Luke says that’d be weird cause Michael only has two eyes so what’s the third one, Mammon suggests it could be like Michael’s nostril or something and I’m in genuine tears over this, my chest hurts from how much I laughed, Luke says that’s stupid and MC who is actually just as stupid as Mammon but who is also much better at hiding it suggest two eyes and a mouth, Luke goes “…heeeeh?” finally realising one of his role models is a dumbass before he starts protesting asking why the two of them are so fixated on it being two eyes, Satan suggests that they might represent demons, angels and humans and luke says that feels right (personally I think they’re Michael, Raphael and Simeon) Mammon suggests the human star would be MC and Satan agrees. (okay so I think the seven brothers stars are completely BS. Why? Because Michael and the angels had no idea Satan existed. Hell even Lucifer didn’t know until Satan was born after they fell. Michael would have had no relationship with Satan, hell they’ve never even met, for him to be sentimental and it makes no sense that a place Satan has never really been to would have a star for him. They would have a star for Lilith though. That makes sense. But the story of Lilith’s death and probably even her existence seems to be very securely hidden away considering even Luke who’s so close with Michael doesn’t seem to know why the brothers fell. The angels wouldn’t have named stars after the brothers immediately after their fall and it would have taken time for them all to heal, reach a place of forgiveness and start to grieve and miss what they’d lost. So I bet by this time, the news that there was a seventh brother had come up and the angels in the know jumped at the chance to use him as a cover story for the seventh star rather than admit a girl was killed over falling in love and then using her powers to heal a human. So yeah. The seven brothers stars feel like utter BS. Seven siblings on the other hand…). Mammon tells Luke to hurry up and get on with it and Luke gives MC the star of generosity. Luke thanks them for everything, saying that though they didn’t find a fairy ring he had fun and made good memories, he then thanks them for always being there for them all.

#obey me spoilers #my posts #my theories #obey me!#obey me #swd obey me #shall we date? obey me!#obey me shall we date

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babygirl06301 · 4 years

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When Did Dean Fall In Love With Cas?

tl;dr: S11

I’ve wanted to talk about this since the show ended and the Spanish dub that broke Tumblr came out. So, when did Dean Winchester fall in love with Castiel?

This is entirely my opinion of course, and I know there are some people that will say it was right away or that it never happened at all, but I wanted to put my thoughts out there so other people could tell me their thoughts, too. I’ll probably get off on some tangents here and there, so feel free to send me any Destiel thoughts you’ve got.

Also, it’s worth noting that, to me, there’s a difference between falling in love and actually being in love. I mean, if you’ve fallen in love with someone, every point in your relationship has been a stepping stone to that point, so I guess it’s all abstract, but still. Hence, S11 being my answer to this question.

Keep in mind I’m doing this without the benefit of a recent rewatch, so I may miss some behaviors from Dean that would change a few things.

Warning: sappy stuff ahead; read at your own risk (also crappy images).

S4-5

I don’t think it’s that big of a secret that Dean attached himself to Cas, like, right away. I mean, the dude never talks about his emotions, and yet, it took eight episodes of Cas being around for Dean to break down in front of him and talk about his fears. It’s almost like you could say that’s because they were always meant to fall for each other.

However, I don’t really the think the process of falling in love with Cas had started yet. I do think that Dean cared about Cas, but I don’t think it was anything extremely special. Reason being: it was the literal end times and Dean didn’t have that type of time. That, and I think there’s something to be said for being raised a certain way and believing certain things about yourself that affects how long it takes for you to notice that something has changed. So, yeah. I don’t think Cas had been around long enough at this point for Dean to start feeling anything more than kinship with him.

That’s not to say, though, that Dean didn’t subconsciously find Cas hot or get the warm fuzzies sometimes because:

I mean, come on.

S6-7

So, this era is weird because I do think something had begun to change in how Dean saw Cas, but I don’t think he got to fully begin the process of falling in love with him because: a.) Cas betrayed them and b.) Sam’s head was broken.

I’m gonna say something rude now: I think a lot of the Destiel moments in the beginning of S6 were born of Dean needing Castiel’s abilities as an angel and not of needing Cas. For example, Dean calling on Cas to help with the Staff of Moses or with Soulless!Sam. He was usually pretty demanding and sometimes curt with Cas and got irritable when Cas couldn’t help.

However, I think that Cas always being there despite his battle in Heaven began to shift Dean’s feelings toward him. I do think this change was almost imperceptible, but you can see Dean showing more and more concern for Cas as S6 progresses. Like this:

This is the primary reason I think Dean got so defensive of Cas when Bobby and Sam started suggesting that Cas was working with Crowley. It’s also why he got so hurt when he found out that Bobby and Sam were right.

Here’s my super abstract and vague take on it: he’d started feeling romantic emotions for Cas, but as soon as Cas’s betrayal was revealed, it got replaced with pain. Basically, Dean almost started to fall for Cas in S6, and then the Purgatory storyline interrupted it.

And then Cas died. Which didn’t help.

Here we enter S7, which has fuck all for Destiel content beyond the first two episodes—until Cas comes back. I know some people are going to say not to gloss over the trench coat thing, and fair enough. I think the keeping of the trench coat was akin to Dean trying to hold onto what he did feel for Cas, obviously not consciously. Almost as though Dean could tell he’d lost something special when Cas died, and not just in losing Cas, but in losing part of himself, a part that he didn’t know existed yet. I don’t consider the trench coat to be a sign that Dean was falling in love with Cas but a sign that he was about to or that he could’ve. Is that weak? Whatever.

Now, I do think that some shit got shaken loose when Dean saw Cas again because, for all intents and purposes, he should’ve been pissed. But instead he was... whatever this is:

I still, more or less, think that he was too preoccupied with Sam to really begin falling in love with Cas. I think that’s clear to see in how he treated Cas after he came back into the story for the final battle with the Leviathan. He did give the whole “I’d rather have you” speech, but all the stuff before that was more along the lines of “Nobody cares that you’re broken, Cas! Clean up your mess!” So, yeah.

Okay, so this is where the Purgatory stuff comes in. In the words of the great John Mulaney, “we don’t have time to unpack all of that,” but this is where I believe Dean started falling in love with Cas.

Dean told Sam that Purgatory felt pure because he could only focus on the fight at all times... but he still had the emotional availability to worry about and search for Cas, so...

If I had to pick an exact moment, I’d say somewhere around here:

And thus, rather than just keeping a trench coat when he lost Cas, Dean literally rewired his own memories because he would rather think that he left Cas behind than think that Castiel chose to leave him.

From here, we can start seeing Dean paying attention to Cas more, noticing when he’s not being himself, and more than that, worrying about him in a more personal way. For instance, when Dean insists that Cas talk to him about what’s bothering him in “Hunteri Heroici.” Not to mention, Dean becomes a lot more emotionally vulnerable regarding his feelings for Cas. One example would be when he insists that he didn’t abandon Cas in Purgatory. Another would be, of course:

I would also mark this season as the season Dean’s prayers to Cas become more emotional and, at times, cathartic, as though he’s confiding in Cas. In “Remember the Titans,” for example, Dean prays to Cas to ask him to look out for Sam; the scene reads like Dean is asking for help but is, in equal measure, asking for Cas. This is also the first season an adversary pokes at Dean and Cas’s relationship in a way that specifically targets Dean and his feelings about Cas rather than Cas’s feelings about Dean as it had been before; this would be when Naomi says “You’re hoping Castiel will return to you.”

S9-S10

Well, these seasons are complicated to say the least because of Gadreel and the Mark of Cain. I don’t think, at this point, Dean ever stops feeling what he’s feeling for Cas. However, I do think that a lot of the hiccups throughout S9 and S10 made Dean step away from those feelings.

Of course, Dean is still stressing about Cas 24/7 in the beginning of S9 what with Cas being human, Cas being hunted, Cas dying, Cas working at a Gas-n-Sip—you know, drama. I think when Gadreel said that Cas needed to stay away if Dean wanted Sam to be healed, Dean had to let what he was feeling for Cas go—not that that means he stopped feeling it, mind you. No, I don’t think Dean consciously went, “Well, guess I’m done falling for this dude,” but I think he knew somewhere in his heart that it wasn’t the time.

Now, the Mark of Cain. The storyline that put the characters down on the page once and left them stagnant and unchanging until it was resolved. Now, as you might imagine, slowly turning into a demon that wants nothing but death would put a damper on any relationship. Finding Destiel in the B season for S9 and throughout S10 is hard. Especially on Dean’s end.

There are moments when you can tell that Dean’s feelings for Cas are still there, and I would say, developing slowly, like the cheeseburger date. Probably the biggest Destiel moment in the entire Mark of Cain stretch is when Dean nearly kills Cas but resists, despite the Mark’s hold on him.

That’s really it, though. No backwards movement, but barely anything trending the opposite way, either.

S11

This is the Big Season™, the one I believe Dean fell in love with Cas in. Now, obviously, it isn’t like Dean lost the Mark, and boom, fell in love with Cas. Plus, there’s the whole pull-to-Amara thing. However, I don’t think falling in love necessarily has to be a big moment; I think it can just happen, and I think that’s what happened with Dean. At some point between the start of this season and Cas being released from Lucifer’s possession, Dean fell in love with Cas.

That being said—if I was really reaching for a moment—I wouldn’t say it happened during a happy scene. I’d say Dean fell in love with Cas when he lost him.

I know that sounds weird, that Dean didn’t fall in love with Cas completely until he realized Cas had been possessed by Lucifer, but in my head, it fits. I think it’s because Dean is so emotionally closed off and tries not to let his emotions show if he can help it that it took knowing that Cas was gone for that last switch to flip in his heart.

So, now Dean is in love with Cas, but Cas is Lucifer. I’d say this has something to do with the fact that, even though Dean is supposed to be attached to Amara, he still calls out for Cas even though Amara is right in front of him.

Considering the fact that Cas comes back in the literal last episode—at least, that’s when Dean realizes he’s back—there isn’t a whole hell of a lot of time to see how being in love with Cas has changed Dean. We do get the “you’re our brother, Cas” scene, but seeing as how that’s pretty inconsistent with everything that comes afterward, let’s just chalk that one up to bad writing and/or Dean being dense.

S12

Alright, so my post should be done, yeah? I’ve answered the question I’ve set out to answer. However, there’s still more to talk about here. When did Dean first sense that what he felt for Cas was different? When did he have an inclination that it was romantic? When did he know for sure?

That’s why we’re here in S12. Now, S12 is the most Destiel-heavy season in the entire series. In my opinion, while it does have many of the best Destiel scenes, it doesn’t have the best Destiel scene. However, as far as number of moments, S12 takes it.

This is where we really get to see how being in love with Cas has changed Dean. Realistically, I think this has a lot to do with S12 being the beginning of the Dabb era because this era marked a change in tone for both Castiel’s character and his relationship with Dean. Dean began to worry about Cas a lot more frequently and, as a result, got mad at him a lot more, too. I see S12 as the season that Dean moved away from simply being worried about losing Cas to being terrified of losing Cas. And that translated into anger any time Castiel put himself in danger. For example, killing Billie. Any other time, the threat of losing Cas translated itself into fear, like when Cas nearly died from being stabbed with the Lance of Michael.

Of course, the mixtape is also in this season, which is another example of how being in love with Cas has affected Dean. I could probably make an entirely seperate and very long post regarding Destiel in S12, but the general idea is that Dean’s newly found love for Cas made a big difference in how he treated Cas.

S13

Alright, S13 stands outs to me because I believe this is when Dean first realized that Cas meant something more to him than a friend and that he felt differently about him than he did about his family. Again, I don’t think that Dean actually thought those exact words, but I think his heart knew them to be true even if he mind didn’t. Reason being: Cas had just died. Which is the first time Castiel has died since Dean fell in love with him. Dean knew he needed Cas, in a way he hadn’t really realized it before. Which is why he demands that Chuck bring him back.

Then Cas comes back, and it’s like Dean forgets what hopelessness and misery are because Cas is his “big win.” After this, honestly, there isn’t much else by way of emotional development for Dean regarding Cas, but I see that as a good thing. It’s a sign that, though Dean hasn’t realized it yet, being in love with Cas is comfortable for him. There are still expressions of concern for Cas’s wellbeing throughout the season, but mostly, we just get to see Dean be content with Cas.

S14

Alright, S14 a.) mostly saw Dean’s feelings much in the same place as they were in S13 and b.) just kidding because Dean tells Cas that he’s dead to him in this season.

To be fair, if we’re talking Destiel, there’s more of it on Castiel’s end this season than there is on Dean’s because Dean is dealing with Michael. There are a couple moments that stand out to me as moments where Dean’s love for Cas comes through: when Cas asks Dean if his plan to trap himself in the Ma’lak Box means that they’re supposed to say goodbye and when Dean confides in Cas about how he’s handling keeping Michael trapped. In the former scene especially, I think it’s clear to see how much the idea of saying goodbye to Cas affects Dean.

And then we get to “Absence,” which is the episode where Dean tells Cas that he’ll be dead to him if Jack killed Mary. Now, going off on a tangent here to explain how this ties into Dean being in love with Cas, let’s talk about when Dean gets mad at Cas.

When Dean gets mad at Castiel, it’s always out of pain. I think that’s a very unique effect that Cas has on Dean that no one else does, and I believe it’s because Dean gets so overwhelmed with the emotion of betrayal that all he can do is push Cas away. Why a feeling of betrayal? Well, in this case, it’s because Cas knew something was wrong with Jack and didn’t say anything. I think that, as Dean fell more and more in love with Cas, his expectations and feelings for him grew, and because of that, when he feels like he’s been let down by Cas, it turns into rage.

When Dean walks away from Sam, it’s usually because he’s either worried or angry. With Jack, he walked away because of anger, maybe even disgust. But with Cas, it’s always pain; it’s always because Dean feels like he’s been personally betrayed in a way that has nothing to do with worrying about Cas and everything to do with wanting to hurt Cas back. It’s almost a selfish sort of anger, which is actually a positive for Dean’s character since he rarely puts himself first.

To me, the way Dean gets mad at Cas—especially in S14—is so personal and unique that it serves as proof as to why Dean is in love with Cas. So, even though the “then you’re dead to me” line is so damaging, it’s still a result of Dean loving Cas.

S15

Last season. The hardest season by far, for a lot of reasons. I’m not going to get into the lack of closure the ending of this show gave us in terms of Dean and Castiel, and I’m not going to talk about this final season in conjunction with the Spanish dub—just what I, as an English speaker experienced in canon since that’s what was intended in the final cut—but I will talk about everything else. There’s three episodes/points I’m going to hit with this season, and I’m sure we all know them: “The Rupture,” “The Trap,” and “Despair.”

I’ve already discussed why Dean’s anger points to his being in love with Cas, but I think the important thing to note with “The Rupture” is that Dean still didn’t want to lose Cas, even in the moments when he was hurting Cas and pushing him away.

There’s still a couple questions I’ve asked that I haven’t answered yet, and one of them will be answered with “The Trap.” I think this episode—and really, the moment Cas told him he heard his prayer—marks the first time that Dean considered that his feelings might be romantic. I don’t know how clear those thoughts were or if Dean told himself he was wrong afterward, but I do think that that scene was the beginning of possibility for Dean and Cas. Had they had enough time, they would’ve decided to be together, and that scene is where they both really felt it for the first time—even if they didn’t believe the other felt the same way.

I’ll be honest: I really don’t want to talk about “Despair” because it’ll just make me sad. Alas, there is one question that still needs to be answered: When did Dean know that he was in love with Cas?

When it was already too late. Much like in S11, I think it took Dean losing Cas to realize how he felt about him. The difference here is: I think Dean would’ve realized it regardless; hearing how Cas felt about him and then losing Cas just forced it. Had Cas not died, I don’t believe it would’ve been too long before Dean realized it naturally, and that’s the most frustrating thing about this scene is that Dean didn’t have to learn how he felt through the trauma of losing Cas.

I’m not trying to diminish this scene because, had there been closure—and proper editing—I’d say this scene was the perfect avenue for Castiel’s character to go down because it would mean that, when he came back, he could be with Dean.

Again, I’m not getting into the semantics of the final couple episodes or how they handled Destiel because it’ll just make me mad, but I think Dean realizing he was in love with Cas was just as big of a factor in him seeing himself differently as Cas’s speech was. I think Dean wanted to honor Cas by being the person Castiel saw him as; I think Dean wanted to live as a man worthy of being loved by the man he fell in love with.

Anyway, that’s my take on when Dean Winchester fell in love with Castiel based on what canon gave us. As someone who had been very realistic about the possibility of Destiel over the years and had never truly hoped for it in canon because I knew better, I have never been more convinced that Dean is in love with Castiel as I am now, after the show has ended.

I don’t think I can say I believe he was in love with him all along, but I believe that his story, their story, of falling in love is real and true, however long it may have taken. I’ll never say goodbye to these two, but I’m happy that I can at least walk away from this show knowing that they found each other in the end, even if their ending didn’t do justice to their legacy.

Let me know when you think Dean fell in love Cas or vise versa. I’m curious to know what you see in their relationship. I don’t think I’ll be making a post like this for Castiel because, in my opinion, Cas fell in love with Dean rather quickly—his journey was just realizing what that meant. Anyway, thank you for reading this, and thank you for being a part of this twelve year long love story that is Destiel.

#destiel #casdean #cas x dean #dean x cas #dean winchester #castiel #spn #supernatural

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rein-ette · 3 years

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hahaha sorry I had to follow up because this is something that interests me so much. Do you distinguish their views on Arthur from his other siblings? For example, are there countries that feel more closely related to Wales and Scotland than to England? Also, where does Tonga fit into these categories (do they have their own since they were never formally colonized and instead signed a Treaty of Friendship?)? And what about the colonies that weren't populated by British citizens like Guyana, do they fall into the categories of the countries that populated them, in this case India?

Tough questions but fascinating ones! I had to do some sleuthing on Wikipedia to answer these with reference to the specific countries you mentioned, but hopefully this is what you’re looking for!

Do you distinguish their views on Arthur from his other siblings? For example, are there countries that feel more closely related to Wales and Scotland than to England?

I’m not sure there are countries that identify more with Scot and Wales than England speaking, since Welsh and Scottish immigration within the Empire was mostly in confined to certain enclaves of larger countries. Examples are the Maritimes of Canada (Nova Scotia, Labrador), various parts of the US, NZ and Australia (formerly New South Wales). But certainly there’s deep feelings of kinship there. Scot’s brusque personality and temper might have gotten in the way a bit of bonding at first, but he’s a softie on the inside and Wales is just, like, soft in general :,) Outside of the Anglosphere, however, I don’t think Scot and Wales developed much of a bond with the colonies. This is somewhat the result of their personalities -- Arthur is a very outward looking character, and his lonely and violent childhood and ongoing problems with Europe means he feels most comfortable on the seas and away, whereas I think Scot and Wales prefer to be with their land and their people, respectively. However, it’s probably also the result of deliberate planning on Arthur’s part: centralization of power is absolutely crucial to the survival of an Empire, as Arthur surely understood, so he would want colonies to feel loyalty only to him.

At the same time though, empires are hard work to maintain, so Scot and Wales probably still travelled frequently gathering intelligence, solving problems, signing agreements, and pruning officials abroad as necessary. That is to say, they held a position of power in the English household, probably second only to Arthur (and maybe Matthew later on, but that’s another thing). So they certainly would have interacted with much of the British empire. Still, I don’t think there was doubt in any colonies’ mind who really had the final say in the empire. Interestingly, there’s a not-insignificant population of Scots in Argentina, Chile, Brazil, parts of Britain’s “Informal Empire”, which makes me think Arthur might have often sent Scot there to manage business/trade while also keeping him away from delicate conflicts/issues he didn’t trust Scot with/just so they didn’t have to see each other :P

Also, where does Tonga fit into these categories (do they have their own since they were never formally colonized and instead signed a Treaty of Friendship?)?

I admit to not knowing much about Tongan history, though I did list it as a protectorate in Group 3 along with countries like Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan. In terms of “colonial” (if it can be called that) relations, these countries had minimal contact with England himself and basically just minded their own business. Tonga specifically is probably one of those with no particular strong feelings at all towards England -- they’re passing acquaintances at best. Countries like Afghanistan, however, probably have some opinions about British meddling and posturing (considering the contention there during the Great Game, a period of intense rivalry between the British Empire and Russia), and countries like Libya definitely have some opinions about European imperialism as a whole.

And what about the colonies that weren't populated by British citizens like Guyana, do they fall into the categories of the countries that populated them, in this case India?

Guyana I put under the “Taken In as Young Child” list because they were originally a Dutch colony that was formally ceded to Britain in 1814, but after your question I went back and looked into it a bit more. It is a bit of a complex case, because Guyana also retains significant indigenous and black populations as well. I would probably say Guyana was still began as the representation of first Dutch plantation colonies, but did not age very quickly and so was probably only a few years old when it came under British rule. As British Guiana, he was probably an entity similar in nature to the HRE; a half-state that encompassed many rival groups with their own semi-nation like representatives such as the newly freed slave population, the Indian migrants, and the remaining indigenous groups.

In the beginning of the new anime they actually mentioned off-hand that nations were “mysterious beings who might exist for a day, a week, or hundreds of years and then disappear” (i’m paraphrasing), which I think is a interesting concept and supports the idea of semi-immortal “nation” representatives. As for Guyana’s relationships, he probably has nothing nice to say about Arthur and certainly not the US, who has exerted more influence on Latin American than London has in the last century (and hardly any of it good influence). That sets Guyana apart from and probably even creates some resentment against the “heirs” or “princes” of the British Empire (the Anglosphere + some others), who Arthur truly loved as his own. But being taken in at a young age also makes Guyana different from Tonga or the others in Group 3--hating the only family you’ve ever known for not loving you is not the same as hating someone you met as an adult for telling you what to do.

TLDR: It really depends on the colony. Incidentally, this is why I found the categories so helpful in the first place: not because they generalize all the countries in each group but because they help me identify how each one didn’t fit the pattern in some ways, how each nation’s colonial experience was unique.

#hws england #aph scotland #aph wales #oc: tonga #oc: guyana #kinda they're not really fully fleshed out characters #fun times with the Commonwealth #that's what i'm calling this now #another long boi #my hcs #ask #needcake

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punkpoemprose · 4 years

Text

A Convenient Arrangement Part 8

Universe: Canonverse Arranged Marriage AU Rating:T Length: 5547 Words A/N: They talk about the Hans thing. Prepare yourselves for feelings!

My plans for the new year are to finish some fics so you can start expecting at least one chapter per week of one of my current WIPs. It might be a different fic each week, it may be the same fic for a while and then change, or what have you. I’m playing it by ear at this point! Hope you enjoy this chapter! Know there is fluff to come!

[Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6] [Part 7]

Dinner had been informative to say the least. Elsa had introduced herself in a more personal capacity, informing him that he may call her by just her first name so long as they were in private. After a short bout of questioning him about his life before the wedding, asking about how he’d come to be under the protection of the trolls, and what ice harvesting was like, she’d seemed content in the knowledge that he had no intentions of hurting Anna or anyone else for that matter.

For his honesty, he’d been rewarded with the assurance that while she couldn’t promise him an open-door policy, she had seen enough of his interactions with her sister to want to assist him in his acclimation to life in the castle if possible. She’d also commented on her own discomfort in her role, which was more comforting to Kristoff than anything else she could have said.

If the Queen isn’t comfortable being royal, I suppose I’m allowed a pass.

Anna had held his hand under the table throughout dinner, her fingers twined with his in a now familiar way. She’d encouraged him and her sister to share throughout the conversation with touch and looks and quiet comments despite still appearing quite pale. He knew that they’d need to speak about that later even when he’d been sitting at her side. He wouldn’t press her for details, but he had a feeling she needed to share them.

In the quieter moments as they dined, he’d found that there was a kinship he could find in the Queen. She was quiet, shy, content to listen to others speak before offering her own words. He could appreciate that.

Anna had spoken during the meal, tentatively, of her sister’s preference to be alone, and he could see the hurt in both women’s eyes when they spoke of it. That too, he could understand. He’d never been a people person, and he’d spent much of his life independently, just spending time with family from time to time and his fellow harvesters when he needed to do so for work.

Elsa seemed to him to be introverted, protective, and anxious.

I can deal with that.

They had the same goal after all.

They wanted Anna happy and safe.

The knock wasn’t a surprise to him, or at least it wasn’t as much as it might have been a few days before. On their wedding night he’d never imagined that they would continue to spend their evenings together. A friendship was something that they’d both wanted to build, but he already knew that the path they were on was going to lead to more than friendship.

He’d never wanted that before, but with Anna, his wife, he imagined a life and a true marriage beyond one in name alone. They’d been together for less than a week and he was already feeling comfortable at her side, and more surprising to him, he had the distinct impression that she was comfortable at his.

“You can come in.”

No sooner did he say the words than Anna entered the room in her nightgown. This one was different than the last he’d seen her in. It was a soft green color, and while it wasn’t as revealing as her chemise, there was something about it that had him flushing. Maybe it had less to do with the garment and more to do with the intentional way she was wearing her nightwear into his space, not out of necessity, but out of desire for his company.

“Hi.”

It was a quiet sound, an uncertain one, and he understood. They’d only slept separately once, but of the evenings they’d shared a bed, the first had been an accident he wasn’t even certain she knew of, and the other had been out of necessity. Her entering his room now, at the time they were both preparing to lay down for the night, showed an unwillingness to spend the night alone.

“Hey.”

He didn’t know what else to say. He was too busy staring at her, memorizing the way her wavy hair hung loose around her shoulders, the way her flush carried across her cheeks and how she was pressing her lips together in a sort of nervous smile. Her hands were at her side, clenching, opening, moving slightly, like she wasn’t sure what to do with them. He couldn’t help but grin when she let her shoulders relax and waved of all things.

So he waved back, and stepped back into the room a bit more, beckoning her in. It wasn’t a wholly organic thing for him, to invite her into the room like it truly was his space. It didn’t feel like it, not like his cabin had.

She stepped in, the trepidation evident in the slow way she stepped forward. He was simply glad that he’d already dressed in his night clothes, one of the few things that they’d managed to find in his size in the markets. He’d soon have to meet with a tailor, and while he wasn’t exactly looking forward to having a bunch of overly formal articles of clothing fitted and sewn for him, he had to admit that the clothes he’d brought back with him we’re exactly proper when compared to what Anna wore each day. Even her simplest clothes seemed to be ornately embroidered.

“I… I don’t know what I…”

She sighed, then started again, “Sorry to interrupt you. I just, I don’t know. I thought that you might?”

She gestured toward the bed, and then flushed. He thought that she looked a bit comical, holding back when it was obvious to him what she wanted.

“I mean, not like that. Not yet. I just thought… You know, we could talk, and then maybe I’d stay. Like at the cabin.”

“I’d like that.”

It was so simple to say, and it was the truth. He very much liked the idea of her staying the night with him. He’d been surprised how easy it was for him to sleep with her at his side before, how right it had felt to hold her in the night. He’d surprised himself by not wanting to leave the bed in the morning even after he was sure that she was awake, so that she wanted to stay with him again, sharing the space, was a comfort.

She feels it too.

***

Anna was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, laying a foot away from his side in his bed, their fingers interlaced and resting above the blankets between them. He’d welcomed her into his room, into his bed, and with no expectation beyond conversation and a good night’s sleep. She’d only wanted that as well of course, but when she was faced again with him without a shirt, she felt a bit warm all over.

Stop thinking about more. You’ll just hurt yourself.

“Thank you,” she said quietly, squeezing his hand lightly, “For not asking me any questions during dinner. I’m sure you have plenty.”

She stared up at the ceiling, doing her best not to look at him lest she let her eyes wander across his chest. He had the blanket rolled down to his waist, and it would be too easy for her to sit up a bit and let her gaze cross his chest, down to the soft but strong planes of his stomach, and to the waist of his night trousers. Their relationship was too young for her to allow herself what lay below. They’d only known each other briefly.

She also couldn’t look at him while she brought up Hans again, even subtly. She was terrified to see pity in his eyes, or worse, disgust. Now that her sister had given him a better sense of the reason for their marriage, she was terrified that he’d not want her.

You’re flighty. You’re ditzy. You want love so bad you’ll take the first man who looks at you. If only there was someone who loved you.

“I do,” he replied simply, “But I won’t ask anything of you. You’ll tell me in your own time.”

“And what if that time never comes?”

What man would want a woman who won’t tell him her history? What man would want a woman who wouldn’t sleep with him on their wedding night?

“Then I’ll have to be content with that. I think I am content with that. If you never tell me it’s more my fault than yours, because it would mean I hadn’t given you cause enough to trust me with it.”

She rolled to the side and found him looking at her. She’d felt his eyes on her, and she saw now that there was no pleading, no pity, in them, only interest and something like love. Warmth was what she’d been calling it. Maybe even “like” in her more optimistic moments because he couldn’t possibly love her yet.

Unless he is. Unless he’s falling in love.

“How can you be so…”

She wasn’t sure of the word for it. His innate trust of her, his faith that she’d answer his questions in due time, his ability to open himself to her because of her interest in him despite her own inability to do the same. There wasn’t a word for it. It was more than supportive, more than caring, more than trusting.

He gave her hand a squeeze and looked her in the eye.

“Because I respect you, and this… you and me… it’s making me start to believe my family’s right. It’s making me believe fate might be real.”

She couldn’t breathe.

Fate.

She wasn’t used to having hope. She wasn’t used to having her feelings returned or having anyone else believe in her. She wasn’t used to being wanted. She wasn’t used to Kristoff.

I want to be.

Laying at his side it was so easy to imagine a life. It was easy to imagine a day where they’d be intimate, a day where they’d have no secrets, maybe even a day where they’d have a little family together. It was easy to believe in it because he believed in her, even when she was too afraid to ever believe in anything again.

“It’s okay,” he said quietly, “I know it’s a lot to take in. The fate thing with my family, and Elsa telling me things you probably didn’t want me to know yet. It doesn’t change anything for me, just so you know. I liked you before, I wanted us to become friends. If there’s more now… I’d like that too, but Anna I don’t think anything would change the way I think about you.”

She didn’t even realize she was crying, until he started telling her that it was okay, until she felt his thumb rubbing across the top of her hand gently. It took her a moment to stop, to wipe the tears away with the side of the hand that wasn’t holding his. It felt foolish to cry, and she felt like she hadn’t shed so many tears since her parents died.

She’d been strong through everything since, through Hans and the lies and her almost death, through the wedding. But then, once she’d had him, it was like a switch was flipped, like it was okay to cry again. She wasn’t sure whether that was good or bad.

“I’ve been crying around you a lot,” she said quietly, focusing on getting the sound out as she took measured breaths, “I don’t want you to think this… that you… I’m still happy Kristoff. I’m so happy that it’s you. I just…”

She didn’t want to tell him everything. She didn’t want to tell him that Hans had been so easy to trust, that she was scared of letting Kristoff in totally because while she already knew he wouldn’t hurt her, there were parts of her that were less confident in any of her decisions. Even the ones that felt logical.

It’s not you, it’s me.

“You don’t have to explain anything to me Anna. Not tonight, not until you’re ready.”

“What if I were ready?”

“Then I would listen.”

She had a thought. A mad one that no one would possibly ever understand or consent to unless they truly thought that she was worth the strangeness.

“What if I wanted to pretend… just for a minute… that you already knew so it wouldn’t be so strange to talk about. What if we pretended that you knew before we were married and that it didn’t change anything? What if we had been married by choice instead of… instead of this?”

He gave her a soft look for a moment, like he was confused but didn’t want to tell her that he was. She could understand that, that she hadn’t explained it very well and that he wanted to be supportive. She thought that he might let her down gently or find a way to let her know he didn’t understand. But then he smiled.

“I don’t think that would be too difficult. You’ve already met my family. You’ve seen my home… that’s something I’d only do for someone I wanted in my life. I think if we’d planned this, if it had been something where we’d had a little more time, I would have introduced you to them before the wedding.”

That was a nice thought, that he would have wanted to introduce her to the trolls, that it might have all gone differently. She thought about what it might have been like if he’d warned her ahead, brought her there slowly and with more trust between them. She liked to think that she would have asked them more about him, how they came across him, what he was like as a child instead of focusing only on her own forgotten childhood memories. There would have been that too, of course, but then she would have been more prepared, they would have known more of her, the process might have been slower and more comfortable. She imagined the troll he called his mother telling her about Kristoff as a child, all the little stories of him playing and growing and learning.

She would have liked that.

Maybe I’ll get a chance.

“If you think so…then we could talk about it. We could talk about all of it, because you’d already know the story, and I wouldn’t have to be afraid you’d change your opinion of me, because you would have married me for…”

“Love.”

That he’d said it had her heart racing.

She had to look away from him, she had to breathe deeply and focus on slowing the pounding in her chest. It would be so easy to trust him with it all. It would be so easy to tell him.

“Can we?” she asked, her voice so small she could barely hear it, “Can we pretend?”

“I want to if you do Anna… but if we’re going to do that…” there was an edge to his voice, something vulnerable that did little to calm the racing of Anna’s heart, “Then I need you to know something.”

“Okay.”

She said it, but she felt anything but okay, even with his hand in hers. They’d been vulnerable with each other plenty in the past few days, but the idea of letting him into her recent past, letting him know her dirtiest laundry and having to hope that the odd game they were going to play would be enough to keep it from disgusting him, was something that made her feel like running.

“I know that you were pretending to be asleep this morning.”

She bit her lip, still not looking at him, trying again to focus on her breathing and the rate of her heart’s beating. She was hyper aware of the fact that she was in his bed, just a foot from his side, a distance that could be crossed in a moment. She could feel his warmth at his side and could remember how nice it had felt to wake in his arms. His hand tightened on hers, denoting a tension in him that worried her more than anything.

Maybe this is too much too soon for him. Maybe he doesn’t want to pretend to be more because I already crossed a line.

“I was.”

She wouldn’t lie. She wouldn’t lie to him if she could help it, and there was no point in trying. He already knew, as she suspected he did, that she’d faked being asleep just to stay in his arms a little longer.

“Anna… I’m choosing to believe that means something, because to me it did. So, I think you should know that before we start pretending to be more than we are right now, even if it’s just for a moment.”

She felt her chest go tight and then she relaxed. Something akin to euphoria flowed through her as she came to the realization that he wasn’t about to tell her that she’d overstepped but was, rather, letting her know that he’d felt something.

We’ve only known each other a few days.

She couldn’t deny the feelings she was developing for him. He was kind and well meaning and he believed that this, their relationship, might be fate.

She was starting to believe it too.

“It did. I… Kristoff I haven’t felt so safe in a very long time, and I didn’t want to wake up because that meant we had to leave and I didn’t know if we’d…”

She looked back at him and saw a softness in his expression, a knowing look in his eye. He understood because he felt the same.

“Do you… do you still want to pretend? I know it’s silly, but even with everything… we’re almost strangers and I want to tell you, but I don’t know if I can without knowing that you won’t push me away.”

“Anna… I can promise you I wouldn’t… but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that I want to know what it would be like to pretend… just for a little while that we’d known each other longer. So I want to if you do.”

“I do.”

It wasn’t the first time she’d said it in the week, but this time she was much more sure of it. This time it was a choice.

He didn’t respond in words, but pulled her close instead, his fingers unlacing from hers to slip under the sheets and tentatively span her waist.

She gasped at the contact, but then leaned into it, helping him reduce the space. She wanted this. She wanted so badly to pretend that they were more than just maybe, could-have-been, and someday.

You need to tell him now before you never do.

“He made it so easy to trust him…” she started, letting him lean down to look at her, closing the space until there was nary a paper’s width between their bodies and mere inches between their faces.

“And it wasn’t your fault that you did. I’ve heard what he was like Anna. Everyone trusted him.”

“But it was my fault because…”

“No,” he said quietly, interrupting her, the hand that wasn’t on her waist moving to push hair out of her face, “Being open and kind doesn’t give someone the right to manipulate you.”

He really does know. Already. He’s known.

She wasn’t sure how he could. Unless Elsa told him more than she thought he had. Unless Kai had. Or unless he’d just done his best to figure it out from the little pieces of information he’d been given, from the things she’d said, from the way she’d acted.

“I was just so lonely.” “So was I,” he said gently, “And I didn’t even know it until I met you.”

***

It felt strange to pretend, but mostly it felt strange to call it that when he wasn’t really pretending anything. He was acting like he knew the whole story with Hans, which he didn’t, but nothing else was fake. He’d been dying to hold her again since that morning. He knew that things between them were moving much too fast, he knew that he shouldn’t have been so forward with her under the guise of make-believe, but there was something about being with Anna that made him feel more like himself than he’d ever been.

The trolls believed that everything and everyone was just a half, that there was something or someone that they needed to make them whole. He’d thought for many years that it was his work that would complete him. He’d pretended then. He’d pretended for quite some time that he didn’t feel a jealousy and sadness when he looked at his parents working together hand in hand. He’d pretended that he didn’t need anyone.

Holding Anna, telling her that nothing that happened to her with Hans wasn’t her fault, that wasn’t pretend.

I’m not pretending to feel whole.

He let his hand shift a bit on her waist, feeling the curve of her side obscured only slightly by the light fabric of her nightgown. She was so small, so slight. He knew that he’d need to be gentle with her, and was reminded of this when the roughness of his fingertips caught on the fabric of her dress, prompting him to steady his hands and stop their path.

“Kristoff… you don’t understand… I was stupid and I just let him in… I didn’t think I just…”

Her voice was high, the pitch of each word escalating as she fought against the tears he could see collecting in her eyes. She’d apologized before for crying, but that too was something he’d wanted to tell her she never needed to be sorry for. He could feel her trembling under his hand, so he tightened his grip on her again, hoping that she would understand it as supportive.

She’s so strong. My wife has been through so much.

There was a conviction in the set of her jaw, in the way she was staring at him despite her tears. He understood just how much it meant to her that he understood what she was trying to tell him.

He didn’t interrupt her this time, didn’t tell her that she wasn’t at fault, because he would do it after. He knew that she needed to get this out, this secret that was in the way for her.

“He walked into the kingdom with a plan. He wanted the throne and he was going to go through Elsa first. But then he heard more about her, he knew she wouldn’t fall for him, so he went for me because I fell into his lap. He knew I would take any attention I could get and he knew I would be so dazzled by it that I wouldn’t hear anything other than wedding bells. And I didn’t. And because I didn’t, he nearly killed me… he nearly killed us both, and Elsa had to show her powers and it nearly destroyed everything. I almost levelled a kingdom with a bad decision and if I just opened my eyes none of this would have happened.”

She was crying openly now, the tears rolling down her cheeks unrestrained. He could feel her shaking and he could hear the panic in her voice.

“I almost threw everything away because I was lonely. And I got you dragged into it too. And I’m constantly terrified that I’m going to make a bad decision again and that you’re… How can you…”

She doesn’t trust herself. She doesn’t trust you.

That hurt. He was beginning to understand why she hadn’t wanted to tell him, and he was wondering if he shouldn’t have agreed to pretend. Especially now that she’d brought up their arrangement, signaling the fact that they weren’t really pretending anymore anyway.

He tensed. He couldn’t look away from her, he couldn’t move, because that would hurt her. It would show her that she’d thought right and that he would think differently of her.

He was frozen in place, his hand on her trembling waist, watching her cry.

What would the trolls say at a time like this?

He wasn’t quite sure when he’d started to realize that maybe his mother’s advice was more useful in this situation than it had ever been before, but he wished that he could recall more of it. He wished that he’d asked more about relationships, and women, and all the topics he’d always avoided with his family.

“I can’t promise you that things between us won’t go wrong,” he replied, “Like right now… I think maybe this is something we should have waited to talk about... until you trusted me more… until we didn’t have to pretend. But Anna, I can promise you that my only motivation for our arrangement right now is my interest in you. I’m not good with words. I wish I knew the words to say to make you feel like this is all okay, but I can tell you how I see everything you just told me.”

He took a deep breath and slid his hand back up her waist, to her back, bringing them even closer so that he could rest his forehead against hers. He could feel her untense a bit under him, and though her breaths came in and out in hiccupping and stuttering bursts, he felt that she was at least trying to calm herself down.

He wished he knew better how to help.

It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to feel so much that you feel like you’re falling apart.

His mother had been so good at calming him when he was young. He hadn’t cried in many years, but he could feel tears pricking at the corners of his eyes when he saw his wife hurting. What they had was so new that he could only reliably call what was between them friendship, but he already knew from the aching in his chest that he loved her.

“I don’t blame you for wanting someone to love you. I don’t blame you for everything that happened because you let someone in who hurt you. I only blame him for that. I don’t know how long it will take you to stop having reservations about our marriage… I have reservations of my own… not about you, but about palace life. I know that sometimes confidence comes and goes, and we are going to have our issues because I don’t think anyone doesn’t…”

He let himself think about his parents again for a moment. They bickered at times, they had different opinions and thoughts about how things should be handled, they got competitive and didn’t always agree, but they loved each other through it all. They talked about their problems, and they always made it through.

That’s what I want for us. Whether she ever loves me or not. I just want her to know that being my wife means that we’ll make it through.

“But you’re my wife Anna… and even if this wasn’t how we imagined our married lives… I want you to know that I’ll always be here for you. If you want me, I’ll be at your side.”

***

She hadn’t been able to keep up the ruse, not longer than a few moments.

She hadn’t had the mental strength to focus on pretending when she was thinking about every unique way Hans had broken her. She’d been fighting for so long to not allow her fears a voice, to keep them in, but as soon as she thought about how easily Hans had manipulated her, and how easy it was to let Kristoff into her life, she couldn’t hold it back.

You hurt him.

She let her eyes close as she cried out everything she was feeling. There was a headache twinging behind her eyes as she fell apart, but his soft reassurances and the feeling of his hand on her back and his forehead rested against hers lessened the ache. She’d just told him that she wasn’t ready to trust him entirely, she’d just told him how easy it was for her to fall in love with another man, and he was holding her through it.

This should be enough for you. This should erase any doubt.

It did, somewhat. She wasn’t really sure if she’d ever doubted him much at all, but she’d needed to give her fears a voice, even if she thought that in the end they were irrational.

“I’m so sorry,” she managed to choke out after a lengthy silence punctuated only by the sounds of her sobbing.

He just held her tighter.

“There’s nothing to be sorry for,” he said, his voice low, a hurt in his tone but a strength too.

You managed to marry a mountain man… of all the men in the kingdom… maybe fate is real… maybe someone or something out there knew you needed someone resilient.

She wrapped her arms around him as best as she could, melting into him, trying to match her breathing to his and finding it easier than she would have imagined.

“I wish I’d met you before,” she said, her voice low as she told him the thought as it came, “I wish that everything had been different and that I would have tripped and fell into you in the market.”

“I probably would have told you to watch where you were going,” he said, a hint of self-deprecation in his tone, “I’m not normally so good with strangers.”

She let herself feel a bit of amusement at that. She remembered the hardness in his eye at the wedding, the way he’d shut down a bit around the castle staff. He certainly wasn’t much of a people person at first glance, and yet he was holding her close, just days after they met.

“And I would have tried to apologize, and probably would have rambled for ten minutes straight about how clumsy I am.”

He let out a soft sound, an almost laugh, and she felt a warmth return to her that had been absent since they started talking about Hans. She let herself hold onto it, allowing her closeness to him to chase away the feelings of dread that were still lingering on the fringes of her consciousness.

“And I would have been charmed, whether I was willing to admit it or not. Because you’re beautiful and kind and so far, impossible to be upset with for any more than a moment.”

He thinks you’re beautiful.

She felt the flush rise to her cheeks, and she couldn’t help but feel a little giddy at the idea of her husband finding her attractive. He’d already demonstrated this before, and she had been told before that she was lovely, but there was something about hearing him say it so openly that made her beam. Also that he seemed to find her good company seemed a blessing.

“And I would have offered to buy you lunch in the market for inconveniencing you… and also because you’re not bad looking yourself.”

“I doubt I would have been able to catch the eye of a Princess if we didn’t already know each other.”

She very gently shook her head, her forehead shifting against his. She could feel his breath when he spoke, they were so close that she’d just need to shift a bit to press their lips together.

Not yet.

Soon.

That thought sent a tingle down her spine and made her cheeks go even hotter than they were. He was her husband. She could kiss him if she wanted. But they were still getting to know each other, and she knew that it was something that needed waiting.

She’d thought once before about the fact that she was falling in love with him, and how easy it was to do so. She knew that even if they’d met under other circumstances, she still would have found him attractive, that she would have found him loveable as soon as he opened up to her.

“You don’t give yourself enough credit,” she replied, “I think you’re incredibly attractive Kristoff.”

“Well, I’m glad my wife doesn’t find me difficult to look at.”

She almost balked at his words, but then she realized that he was joking.

My husband is teasing me.

She liked it once she realized. She liked it when he joked. No one ever teased her.

“And I’m glad my husband finds me beautiful,” she said, teasing back.

“Maybe I just have a thing for red hair?”

That had her laughing. Of course, he might really have a thing for red hair which was neither here nor there, but she liked that she could laugh with him after crying so much.

“I like this kind of pretending better,” she said quietly, “Thinking about the what-ifs in a nice way and not feeling bad that it didn’t go that way.”

It may have been simpler if it had of course.

But nothing had ever been simple for her.

“Me too Anna,” he said warmly, holding her close, making her feel safe again like nothing could go wrong so long as he was around, “Me too.”

#A Convenient Arrangement #kristanna #Arranged Marriage AU #Frozen Fanfiction

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bluerosesburnblue · 3 years

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I’ve been thinking about the Xehanort’s Apprentice AU recently and the really bizarre, but intricate relationships between Sanya, Ventus, and Sora. Particularly the way that subconscious familiarity effects all three of them throughout the events of the story

It starts off with Ven and Sanya, who knew each other from the events of KHUx but not before that. Since I’ve decided to expand the role of Player in the Union Leaders’ friend group for the purposes of this AU, that means that Sanya and Ven are actually a lot closer to each other before the end of KHUx than Player and Ven were in canon. I like to think that they already had a burgeoning “big sister/little brother” dynamic going on, even back then. The fact that Sanya wasn’t a Union Leader would make her seem more approachable and give her more time to spend with Ven than the other Union Leaders. It also puts her in a good position for Ven to go to her for extra training, since her status of being technically outside of the group would mean that Ven wouldn’t feel embarrassed to go to her for help because he wouldn’t feel like he was outing himself as the weakest Union Leader to the others. And then there’s the fact that Ven ended up with the prototype Missing Ache keychain, giving the two of them a connection through their weapons, as well

But then, of course, they both lose their memories of each other when they end up in the future. And I find it fascinating to think about the idea that their hearts subconsciously recognize each other, but they can’t consciously parse it. The bond between them is still there, and at least as strong as it always was. All of the time that they spend together feels so familiar and so right that both of them are certain that they must have known each other in the past, because what else could explain why they fell into such an easy friendship/surrogate siblinghood?

There’s a darker level to this, though, and quite literally, too. Because Ven and Sanya are both hosts of Darknesses. Darknesses that were once all part of the same entity, and could by all rights be considered “siblings.” So not only are Sanya and Ven tied together by the preexisting bond between their hearts, but they’re also tied together by the connection between the dark beings that their hearts have become hosts for, heightening that sense of kinship in a way that neither of them have any hope of being able to recognize. Ven’s Darkness could also easily see the four Darknesses in Sanya as “older” siblings, since Ven’s heart traveled forward in time (shorter relative time), while Sanya’s took the long way so the Darknesses in her heart would have experienced more time

So even when Sanya recovers her memories of Ven, she still has some sense of the Darknesses recognizing Ven’s Darkness to contend with, which are emotions that would come across the same as the subconscious familiarity she had with Ven before recovering her memories. Except, she should have all of her memories back so what is that? Where does she end and the Darknesses begin in terms of what she feels?

Then Sora comes into the mix in DDD and things get even more wild, because Sora has Ven’s heart. Sora can’t consciously know who Sanya is because he’s never met her, but when he sees one of her dreamed-up projections in the Sleeping Worlds, Ven’s heart has this immediate leap of “That’s her! That’s my big sister!” You could say that Sora, being the host of Ven’s heart, has inherited Ven’s feelings for Sanya (though probably to a lesser extent). Since he’s not consciously aware of Ven’s heart in him as of DDD, I think he would probably just interpret this as some subconscious “she’d probably make a good friend” sensor going off

Sanya, too, is in an interesting position. Her dreaming selves are all from a time before she ever met Ven, so consciously (if they can be said to truly have a consciousness) they have no clue who Ven is. And yet, they’re made up of fragments of Sanya’s heart which would still be connected to Ven’s because the Sanya of the present is connected to Ven. In much the same way that Sora is experiencing Ven’s feelings and drawing conclusions based on his lack of knowledge about Ven’s heart, the dream Sanyas are doing the same to Sora and assuming that it’s just a “little brother vibes” feeling they’re getting from him because they have no knowledge of the present Sanya’s consciousness. This gives Sora and the dreaming Sanyas this sense of natural chemistry with each other, making their friendship over the course of DDD feel easier than it should have been otherwise because neither of them are aware of the preexisting connections at play between them

And that’s not even getting into the fact that the Darknesses might still be affecting things at this time, deepening that illusion of an almost fated bond. I never see anyone talking about the fact that because Sora was a host to Ven’s heart for most of his life, that he was also probably a host to one of the Darknesses for all that time, too

Now, do I think that Sora and Sanya would have been friends with each other if Ven’s heart and the Darknesses weren’t involved at all? Yeah, probably. I don’t think there’s many people in the universe that Sora isn’t capable of befriending in some way. Which is probably why Sora will still think of Sanya as his friend even after he returns Ven’s heart to him in KH3; he forged a genuine bond between his heart and her broken heart shards anyway. That still doesn’t change the fact that throughout most of his interactions with Sanya, he would have some inflated sense of how much they meant to each other through their shared connection to Ven’s heart and the fact that Sora, as his host, is occasionally shown to respond to Ven’s strong feelings

Would Sora returning Ven’s heart have an effect on how Sanya feels about Sora? Possibly, but Sanya at some point does consciously become aware of Ven’s presence which allows her to start picking apart what about Sora draws her to him and what parts of that pull are Ven’s influence. And, like I said, they already had plenty of time to forge a genuine bond with each other in the Sleeping Worlds. Which is its own can of worms in regards to Sanya, since she can’t remember what her dream selves did at all, yet the connection between the shards and Sora would likely remain as yet another subconscious bond that she can’t make sense of. Between that and the Darknesses still pulling her towards Ven, it’s probably a wonder that she can make sense of anything going on in her own heart. The fact that her actual bond with Sora on his own is almost entirely subconscious is probably what makes it so easy to ignore in comparison to other characters that she’s consciously close to, yet there’s still this affection that she has for Sora with no actual way to get rid of it because she can’t identify the source

Is this just a bunch of rambling? Probably. Does this actually add anything to the AU? That’s probably up to the reader. These are just things that I’ve thought of that inform their interactions with each other in the AU, I’ve just never written them down before and figured that I should

#liz's shenanigans #xehanort's apprentice au #kingdom hearts #i also finally got around to editing the summary post #if you read it before then you're probably fine; i mostly just checked for spelling and grammar #but i did add some lines for clarity that bumped the word count up by about 300 so you may see some neat new tidbits in there #if anyone ever does feel the need to reread it #i think about sanya and ven's sibling relationship in this au A LOT

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lichbarry · 4 years

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A host’s perspective on Molly, Lucien, and approaching identity (spoilers for c2e117)

This is NOT going to be as eloquent as I want it to be and I can only speak for myself and my own opinions, but this is for @creativside and anyone else who wants to hear this particular perspective. Again, I’m speaking only for myself, not for every single system, especially not for Molly or Lucien fictives. I’m also referring only to DID systems here but OSDD systems, I see you.

I don’t really advertise it on this blog (or anywhere), but I’m the host of a DID system. My relationship with the system is not quite the same as other systems we’ve gotten to talk to but nevertheless communication has greatly improved since our diagnosis and I dare say that I feel “valid” enough to try to sludge through how I’m feeling about the whole situation with Molly/Lucien. Put under a cut b/c it’s long

For anyone who might not understand the connection I’m trying to draw: a situation where there is one body that has been inhabited by two different consciousnesses who are not otherwise aware of each other and who have different personalities, abilities, and ambitions is a situation that directly parallels the textbook DID experience. Having people call you by a different name, talk about things you supposedly did with them but have no recollection of, and having people ask or expect that they will be able to talk to this other person in your body whenever they want are all things that pretty much every system goes through. I’m not saying that Lucien has DID, but there are a lot of identical and/or incredibly similar terms and concepts being thrown around regarding him, so for the sake of this thinkpiece I’m essentially going to be acting like he does.

I’m going to make some bullet points and just try to give my two cents on how everyone is approaching this situation:

Molly was a real person, just as much as Lucien. This was discussed by some of the characters, but I’m just validating it. Lucien called Molly a “fragment” of himself-- fragment is a term systems use to describe a certain “type” of alter. DID fragments are alters who typically aren’t as “developed” as some of the others in the system, meaning that they may only exist to feel a particular emotion, store a certain memory, or carry out one very specific function. In my experience, fragments do have names just like any other system member, but likely don’t have much distinguishing personality beyond that. From what we know about Molly when he first “woke up”, calling him a fragment would be accurate. He was, originally, a consciousness who only knew a singular feeling-- emptiness. That’s all he was. But he was still his own consciousness, his own unique person, and as we all saw, he was able to grow beyond his emptiness and develop into a fully realized creation (to borrow a term). His being a fragment wouldn’t have invalidated him as being his own separate person in the first place, but the Molly we knew was no longer a fragment; he was just... a person! By the time we parted ways with him, he was just as complex and unique of an identity as Lucien is. He is not as simple as Lucien is making him out to be, we know this.

Lucien implied that Molly integrated into him and is not dormant. What do these terms mean? Dormancy (or becoming dormant) is experienced a little bit differently for each system, but generally an alter becoming dormant means they no longer appear in the headspace/inner world, cannot communicate or interact with any system members, and will not be able to front/switch out (take control of the body). In our system, becoming dormant is equivalent to becoming comatose. Due to the way our inner world is constructed, we do know where the “body” of our dormant alter is, but we cannot interact with her in any way, nor does she interact with us or appear anywhere else in the headspace. Integration, on the other hand, is better explained in the context of fusion from Steven Universe. A few years ago, I (the current host) integrated with our gatekeeper & primary protector (basically the one who managed the functioning of the system). Where once we were two separate consciousnesses who inhabited the same headspace, we are now joined together into someone who is a little bit of both of us, just like when two gems fuse in SU. I also happen to be the core (the consciousness who was in the body when we were born), so it could be seen as her simply “returning” to me, or fusing back with me after having broken off during her formation. Complete system integration is the end goal of some therapies, but there are some alters who view integration to be the same as dying, since the alter as a singular unique consciousness no longer exists but is instead “merged” into the consciousness of another system member. Lucien said something along the lines of his soul having been fragmented but now fused back together. He appears to believe that he is the only consciousness currently in his body. This means that Molly is not “trapped” inside somewhere waiting to be set free. It also implies that it would not be possible to “get Molly back” as we remember him without finding a way to fracture Lucien’s soul again. Depending on your view of integration, you can view this two ways:

Molly is Lucien, and/or Molly is dead. Matt’s slips of the tongue in continuously calling him Mollymauk further supports the idea that Molly is integrated, not dormant, and therefore is Lucien in one way or another. Molly was, after all, a part of Lucien all along, and despite having developed into his own personality in the wild 2 years he was fronting for, all that he was are now part of what Lucien is. That being said, it is clear that Lucien, just like Mollymauk, is his own person with his own goals, quirks, abilities, and personality traits. Aspects of Mollymauk do live in him, but being fused does not mean that we’re going to recognize all parts of who Molly was in who Lucien is now. Lucien (we’re assuming) is the core, the original consciousness of the body, and is thus far more developed than Molly ever had the chance to be. They’re the same person in the sense that Molly is no longer a separate entity, but not the same person in that Lucien has any of Molly’s memories or would suddenly feel compelled to start acting more like him just because they integrated.

Mollymauk is not back; Lucien is. The Mollymauk we knew is not there anymore, and it’s a good time to mourn him. I don’t know what kind of DND fuckery Matt or the cast might be able to do, but from my perspective of what’s going on, Molly isn’t going to suddenly pop out or break free or anything like that. Mollymauk as an individual died when we saw him die, and I think the Mighty Nein are at least starting to realize that. Lucien even genuinely offered his condolences. Again, it’s DND, there’s always some chance that they might find a way to talk to their friend again, but by this point the idea is making me uncomfortable. Trying to separate Molly from Lucien again at this point feels... unnatural and disrespectful. No one has ever sought to de-integrate the alter that I integrated with, but I would be very disturbed if they did, and the idea of doing that even in this context unsettles me. Find hope in the possibility if you want to, but I’m probably never going to support it. Molly is a part of Lucien now and I think both we and the Nein need to accept that. Lucien may be evil, but he has just as much right to be in control of his own body as Molly did (arguably more, but I’m not getting into that debate). Whether you like Lucien or not, it’s his body, now only his, and no one has any right to take that away from him. I know it’s not exactly the same and it’s probably not how people mean to come off, but I can’t help imagining me in this position. If someone was very close with the alter I integrated with and did everything in their power to try to make her split off again, even if it meant harming me or making me lose autonomy over my mind & body... you can see how that’s a very uncomfortable thought, at the least. Again, I’m not saying anyone is inherently bad for wanting Molly back or missing him, I’m just saying that the situation we’re being presented with is that it’s only Lucien now and we & the m9 should respect that. If you want to mourn Molly, now’s as good a time as any. You even have Lucien’s blessing. That being said...

Lucien doesn’t want to know about Molly, and that’s fine. As someone pointed out (I think Jester?), Molly didn’t want to know about Lucien either. As is the case with a lot of systems who don’t have well-developed communication, they’re practically strangers to each other. All they knew about each other is what was on their body when they woke up and what other people (also strangers) told them they supposedly did once. Again, parts of Molly exist in Lucien, and I’m sure aspects of Lucien existed in Molly, and even now there are some similarities to draw. But neither Lucien nor Molly have any obligation to feel kinship towards each other. In their eyes, they are two completely different people who have never interacted. Systems only start to feel like families after a long time of having good communication, of developing relationships, of working through trauma or the complications that come with having DID. From what we’ve been told, Molly and Lucien likely never even developed a headspace or been in a situation where they would’ve had the possibility of actually meeting. People are just talking to them about someone they didn’t know and honestly the typical response is to just nod along in the moment and decide if you really want to unpack that later. And not wanting to explore who this stranger who inhabited your body was is a completely valid response! Especially given that Lucien doesn’t explicitly have DID-- he doesn’t have the goal of trauma recovery, nor does he have any reason to find out more about who Molly was given that he’s now supposedly fully integrated. Again, it’s more a matter of autonomy. Lucien is his own person, and to him Molly might as well have been something he called himself when he spent 2 years blackout drunk (which, let’s be real, is a pretty accurate comparison). Sometimes it’s fun to hear accounts of what other system members got up to when they fronted, but that’s only after years of therapy and working through my own feelings about having DID. Before that, there were times when it felt like a frustrating invasion of privacy, or an unnerving sense of losing control of not only what I did, but what it meant to be me. I don’t really see Lucien struggling with these things, but I’m just saying that there’s only so much he can be expected to care about who Molly was given his circumstances.

This got super long and I’m never sure how to conclude these things, or if that’s even all my thoughts on the matter. Send me asks if you want to I guess, just please be respectful. I’m not trying to start any arguments, I’m just giving my perspective/how I feel about this situation as a system host.

tldr; Molly integrated with Lucien and it’s more respectful/probable to assume that he’s not coming back the way people wanted him to. Getting Molly back the way people expected is incredibly unsettling to me because it takes away Lucien’s autonomy and basically says that Molly is more important than Lucien’s control over his own body because we like Molly more. Their situation does resemble the experience of being part of a system in a lot of ways and I don’t know how to feel about it besides just kind of awkwardly going “ahaha” and looking around to see how singlets are approaching this.

Again, not saying there’s a right or wrong way to feel about this, nor am I “diagnosing” Lucien with DID. Just talking about connections I’ve made and the things that I relate to/make me uncomfortable. Whether Matt is aware of how much this situation resembles DID or not, I think that he’s handling it incredibly well and have no complaints about Lucien or Molly’s characterizations.

#cr spoilers #did #dissociative identity disorder #mollymauk tealeaf #lucien #the nonagon #cr c2e117 #c2e117 #spoilers #not sure how this post is gonna go over but here it is

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in-tua-deep · 4 years

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i love the unviable au an unhealthy amount, could you elaborate a little more on how they stop the apocalypse?

HMM. Well. They wake up, and Team Apocalypse is a go. Five absolutely insists that they get Vanya on the team, and he absolutely wants Vanya to know he’s alive. Well, present at least.

(Ben - Ben retreated from the world, after he died. He didn’t want the others to know. He wanted them to grieve and let him go. Besides. With how the rest of the family treated Klaus after - after everything

after Five. After Five vanishing and the drugs and Ben’s death and Klaus’s spiral that no one seemed to care enough to pull him out of. Klaus was the only sibling that could see Ben, and Klaus needed him. Needed him in a way that none of the rest of the family did.

Ben didn’t ask Klaus to tell them others about him. Klaus figured that no one would believe him anyway.)

Klaus in hemming and hawing but Five isn’t exactly Ben, is he? He can interact with the world, in his own limited way. He can write. He could do this with or without Klaus.

But no one else needs to know, probably.

(Five doesn’t think much about how Team Apocalypse is going to be comprised of mostly people who he didn’t find dead on the ground. The only one he saw dead is Klaus, and isn’t that funny? To Klaus, a solid half of the team is dead.

To Five, only Klaus is.)

So Klaus and Ben and Five get up in the morning, and Five says that they Have To Find Vanya. Except Vanya’s not in the house, she’s gone back to her own apartment because she has stuff to do and a life to live.

(Somewhere, the Commission is getting antsy. Klaus heads towards Vanya’s apartment, and that’s not supposed to happen. Vanya is supposed to be isolated. Something is changing the timeline, and they aren’t sure what.

So they send some investigators. Their best. Hazel and Cha-Cha are deployed.)

So they go to the apartment. Klaus awkwardly knocks on the door and it swings open and there’s Vanya blinking at him in the way she always does.

“Vanya!” Klaus cheers, and leans forward to wrap her in a hug, because he is a very touchy-feely person and he had to watch as Five and Ben got all the hugs last night.

“Klaus?” Vanya says, sounding confused, but she lets her brother in. She watches him with wary eyes, and Klaus feels his heart break a tiny bit but - he’s known to his siblings, as a thief and a magpie.

“Do you want... some tea?” Vanya asks awkwardly, shuffling towards her kitchen, “I have uh. I have a lesson soon, but I mean, uh...”

That’s about the time when Five loses patience from where he’s been telling Klaus to Say Something and starts picking up couch cushions and throwing them.

“Uh.” Klaus says, staring, from Vanya’s point of view, into space. In actuality he’s looking at Five who is behaving like an absolute gremlin.

(Klaus is reminded, all over again, of how young his brother looks. Is. How old Five was when he died.)

“Do you want to explain what’s going on, Klaus?” Vanya asks tightly.

“Five is really impatient.” Klaus blurts out, and then covers his mouth because oops.

“Five?” Vanya says loudly, and Five rattles a cabinet in confirmation.

“Uh.” Klaus looks at Ben. Ben shrugs, because lets be honest they weren’t able to control Five when they were younger either, they have no chance now.

“Wait,” Vanya says, pale as milk, “So yesterday, in the courtyard...”

“Yup!” Klaus says cheerfully, putting on his best grin, “Aw, you know, a broken calendar is right twice a year and all that!”

“That’s not the saying.” Five informs him, flopping dramatically onto the couch.

“It was almost the saying.” Ben says sympathetically.

Klaus valiantly ignores them.

“Five is... here?” Vanya asks, her eyes scanning the apartment.

“On the couch, like he owns the place the little shit.” Klaus tells her.

Vanya stares at the seemingly empty couch for a moment, and after a few beats of silence, she just says “I’m going to go ahead and cancel that lesson.”

(Somewhere, somewhen, the Commission’s hackles all go up in alarm as Harold Jenkins frowns down at his phone and wonders if he should try his luck and go to the apartment anyway.)

Later, when Ben has Five distracted trying to teach him to pick something up, Klaus talks quietly to Vanya.

“Van, he’s - he’s so little.” Klaus tells her, voice a little too thick, “He looks - he’s exactly the same as when he left. He’s so tiny, and he’s still in that fucking uniform. He’s so tiny and I can’t stand it.”

And Vanya wraps her arms around her brother. She and Klaus have never been close, not even when they were little, but they’re both outsiders. They’re both rejects. And there’s a certain sort of kinship in that.

“I wish I could see him, too. See them, too.” She whispers, because telling her about Five also means telling her about Ben.

And Klaus could say a million things to that. Could snarl and tell her to be careful what she wished for, because alongside Ben and Five came a hundred million nightmares that rattle around Klaus’s head every time he’s too sober to ignore them.

But he looks over as Five slaps at Ben’s shoulder to get his attention and then guide his hands over to the apple they have settled in between them as their test subject.

And then he looks at Vanya, and he says - “Yeah, me too.”

And then there’s a knock on the door.

“Shit.” Vanya says, swearing. “I left a message but - it’s probably my student. Just. Lay on the couch and look miserable or something.”

Klaus is very good at acting, sort of. So he immediately drapes himself across the couch and groans dramatically, adding in a cough for good measure.

Vanya rolls her eyes, and opens the door to apologize to whatever child was supposed to have a lesson and -

Oh. Not a child. An adult. She blinks, “Uh, hi. Can I help you?”

“Hi!” The man greets, smiling at her. Not too many people smile at her like that. “I’m here for the lesson? I know, I know. I’m a bit older than your usual clientele - ”

Klaus coughs loudly and Vanya winces, “I’m sorry.” She says, cutting the man off, “I tried to leave a message - I’ve had an emergency come up and I’m not able to do lessons today.”

“Oh, but - ” The man starts, and Vanya suddenly feels someone push on the door as if to close it. She manages to catch it, but considering there’s no one there, well.

“I’m very sorry.” She says firmly, using one hand to bat through the air behind the door to shoo who she assumes is Five away. “If you send me your availability, I’d be happy to reschedule.”

“That would be really great.” The man says, nodding. “Do you think you’d be free tomorrow? It’s just - I’d really like to get started, you know?”

The door rattles again and Vanya winces, “I’m not sure. If it’s urgent I can, uh, send you the information for another teacher. I really am sorry about this.”

“I’ll call later then.” The man says, “Sorry for bothering you.”

“Not a problem.” Vanya says automatically, “Have a good day.”

And then she closes the door, and turns around to frown at Klaus, “Tell Five to quit, I had that handled.”

“You know, I only have to translate his responses to you.” Klaus points out, sitting up and swiping a hand across the back of his mouth, “Like, he has ears.”

“Five, I had that handled. You didn’t need to be pushing on the door.” Vanya says to the room at large, her hands on her hips.

“Five!” Klaus says loudly, sounding very scandalized, “Why! We oughtta wash your mouth out with soap!”

Vanya gives him a critical look, “I’m not sure whether you’re saying that to get him into trouble or if he’s actually swearing. Either way, we should probably talk.”

“Five says to clear your schedule for the week.” Klaus says scooting over on the couch and giving it an inviting pat, “You’re officially recruited for team apocalypse.”

“Me?” Vanya asks, completely confused. And why shouldn’t she be? None of her siblings have willingly recruited her for anything before. Forget being the last kid picked for team sports, Vanya wasn’t even on the list.

Klaus’s eyes soften, because even if Vanya wasn’t on the list, Klaus was still the last picked kid. “Five insists. Loudly.”

And Vanya smiles. It’s wobbly, but it’s there, because she’s been leaving out peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches and leaving the lights on since she was a kid, grieving for the one sibling who was on her side. And here he is. Refusing to ignore her. Picking her for the team.

Of course the apocalypse can’t happen the same way, because Vanya isn’t isolated. She’s part of Team Apocalypse.

Instead of nagging at her about Leonard, Allison sighs and tells say that she loves Klaus as well but... he’s Klaus. He’s probably going to rob her the moment her back is turned and all that. He’s still their brother, and it’s nice that Vanya is hanging out with him but...

And Vanya bristles, because yeah Klaus is the family fuck up but he’s their brother. She’s the family wallflower, the odd man out, the freak. So she and Allison still fight, and Allison still insists that she’s just looking out for Vanya and Vanya insists that she’s never needed Allison to look out her before now -

An important thing of note.

Five doesn’t have the eyeball.

Five knows what it looks like, he probably had it in his apocalypse nest and poked at it when he was stuck on an equation. He knows that color it is. He probably memorized its serial number. He doesn’t have the physical eye.

Klaus is still chaotic as fuck, but Vanya adds a certain sense of... level headedness to the team. And despite everything, Klaus is actually fairly efficient... when he wants to be.

Vanya has the exhausted “I don’t want to be here any more than you do” look to her that inspires some measure of sympathy from overworked desk ladies so they probably get the info about the eye not existing yet without all the... extra drama.

Now. Hazel and Cha-Cha aren’t hunting someone down. They’re investigating. So they don’t burst in gun blazing, they’re basically stalking Vanya in an effort to figure out both What Changed and how to isolate her.

I know what you’re thinking. But what about Griddys? Do the squad not know about the commission agents trailing them?

Well, after the whole eye escapade, Klaus is hungry. He fondly recalls food an ex used to make with Vanya and she smiles and marvels at how different their lives are. And then, because she’s suddenly a little nostalgic, she offers to take him to the one restaurant they went to as kids.

Griddys.

So they go, and Ben and Five are there are well, and Klaus probably insists on getting them waffles as well (“it’s lunch time Klaus” “waffle time is ALL the time Vanya”) so they’re sitting there eating

and of course Cha-Cha and Hazel are stalking them. And why be careful and hide their faces. The Hargreeves don’t know them. They can just blend in as two ordinary people, eating lunch.

Except there’s the one little ghost who can. Five spots them, and immediately freaks out because those are ASSASSINS and he never did figure out what role Vanya played and What If They’re There To Kill Her

So he frantically informs Klaus, and Klaus whispers to Vanya, and Five tells them they need to get the hell out of dodge. ESPECIALLY Vanya.

And this is Vanya’s life now, so she sneakily tucks money under her plate (because she isn’t dining and dashing Klaus, jesus) and smiles at Klaus and goes to the backroom, where she shimmies out the window.

Klaus stuffs the remainder of his waffle in his mouth and grimaces at his hands and goes to the bathroom as well, except he diverts and goes out the back entrance where he meets Vanya in the alley and they both scarper.

“I can totally talk you through stealing a car.” Five says eagerly, “I saw like, loads of commission agents hotwire a care. I totally know what I’m doing.”

“Fucking sweet.” Klaus says, nodding. “Pick out a ride then, little man.”

“Absolutely not.” Vanya says, having gleaned enough from Klaus’s words to understand, “We are not stealing a car, jesus. If we need a ride, I can always... I don’t know. Call a cab.”

“The little dude has a point.” Klaus says, “Calling a cab isn’t exactly uh, you know. Conducive to a quick getaway.”

Vanya frowns.

“We could steal Diego’s car.” Ben offers, because secretly Ben is also very chaotic.

“Diego’s car.” Klaus agrees with wonder.

“We’re going to get stabbed, aren’t we.” Vanya sighs, putting her face in her hands. It’s not a question.

(And meanwhile in the diner, Cha-Cha realizes that the targets are gone and checks outside, and Hazel gets to chat with the lovely owner. Agnes. What a lovely name, huh?)

Honestly the whole au sort of ends up being like. The Klaus and Vanya show against the siblings while Five and Ben work together in the background and Five causes, you know, absolute chaos. And also gets lots of hugs. Ben and Five get lots of hugs in this au.

Klaus still gets kidnapped. Not because they want to get Five, but because they want to isolate Vanya. Well, not just that. They’d just kill him if that was it. They also want to know - what changed. What made Klaus seek Vanya out. What changed the timeline.

And Five can move things. Five can write on things. So he sees Klaus get kidnapped and follows him, figured out where he is, tells Ben to look after Klaus, and goes back to Vanya. He grabs a sharpie, and scrawls the address on the closest available surface, and hey if Vanya just happens to be fighting with Diego about the car...

“What the FUCK.” Diego demands.

“Fuck.” Vanya says, looking at the address. “Fuck. Okay. Okay, Diego, are you in?”

“In what?” Diego demands, scrubbing a finger over the sharpie that has popped up on the windows of his fucking car.

“Rescuing Klaus.” Vanya says, looking braver than she feels.

“Klaus can deal with his own shit.” Diego growls.

“Okay.” Vanya says, and of course she’s alone, she’s always been alone in this fucking family -

“Where are you going.” Diego asks, jogging up to her, “I don’t know what the fuck he’s gotten himself into, but you’re going to get yourself killed.”

“Then I guess I’ll get to see Klaus either way.” Vanya bites out, “And the family will have rid itself of another problem, huh? Win win all around.”

Diego swipes a hand over his face and swears, “Fuck just, fuck. Okay. Okay, fine. We’ll go drag Klaus’s ass out of the fire. And then you are going to explain exactly what the fuck happened to my car.”

“Deal.” Vanya says, already in the passenger seat and buckling in with determination.

Safety first, bitch.

So they go to the hotel. They bust in. They manage to get away. And Klaus manages to get his hands on the briefcase.

“Klaus, wait - no!” Five screams, and Klaus opens the suitcase and vanishes.

(But Five was touching Klaus, was trying to grab his arm to pull him away, terrified and incapable of helping because he’s intangible. Five gets to go with on this side trip to Vietnam.)

And then a light flashes, and there’s Klaus, and Five, and - some random dude.

“I thought you were joking.” Dave hollers, staggering backwards and staring at the suitcase like it’s going to jump up and bite him.

(Five is impatient, and irritable, and wants to get home to take care of things and stop the end of the world. Klaus falls head over heels for a soldier, but in the past few days... he’s gotten awfully fond of Vanya. He wants to help her.

By our powers combined, we have a Klaus who is motivated to go home, but also motivated to convince Dave to come with. We end up with... alive Dave.)

(Wow this is one of the few aus I have with alive Dave. Go me.)

“Vanya, Diego, Ben.” Klaus says, beaming, “Meet my boyfriend, Dave!”

“Klaus, I say this with the utmost sincerity.” Vanya deadpans. “But what the fuck.”

“Ben?” Diego demands.

Vanya and Klaus turn to Diego with contemplative looks.

“Oh yeah, forgot about that.” Vanya says.

“In my defense I’ve been gone for like, months.” Klaus says. And then pauses meaningfully. “Wait a second, does that mean - ”

A pebble flies and hits Klaus in the face. This does not stop him.

“I’m the oldest sibling!” Klaus yells, preening like a peacock, “Behold, infants! It is I, your eldest brother!”

“Absolutely not.” Diego growls, as Klaus points at thin air.

“Am so. Physically, I am older than everyone else. Yeah, it’s on technicality. Suck it, Casper.”

“Klaus, stop messing with Five.” Vanya sighs, sounding like this is something she has said before. “You know he can probably kill you.”

“Five?” Diego squawks.

“Is anyone going to tell me what’s going on?” Dave asks, already looking like he’s accepted his fate and life might as well be this weird.

“The world is ending in five days. Welcome to team apocalypse.” Vanya tells him sympathetically.

“The world is what.” Diego hollers.

“Oh yeah.” Klaus muses, “Forgot to mention that as well.”

“What is going on!” Diego howls.

“Don’t we all want to know.” Klaus flutters in sympathy.

After that, they decide to convene at Vanya’s apartment and go over what they know, and what they’ve learned.

Team apocalypse gains two (2) members! Welcome to the team, Diego and Dave.

(Diego didn’t complain to Patch about a missing sibling because he doesn’t know Five is around. Patch doesn’t find a ransom note, because Hazel and Cha-Cha didn’t leave one. Patch doesn’t die, and Diego has no reason to go tearing off in grief and anger and vengeance.)

And that’s more on team apocalypse trying to stop the apocalypse lmao

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aspoonofsugar · 4 years

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Hello! I was reading your hxh metas and they're amazing!! Thank you for such amazing content 💜 I wanna ask if you have any thoughts/opinions about Kikyo Zoldyck as indivual character and her role in the current/future narrative of hxh...?

Hello anon!

Thank you for the very nice words! And sorry for the long wait!

When it comes to Kikyo, I have talked about her briefly in these two metas:

When it comes to Kikyo I don’t think the text offers us any hint that her and Oito are related and I actually think Oito is Kikyo’s opposite.

Both are women of humble origins who improved their status through marriage.

However, Kikyo has completely accepted her husband’s ideology and traditions even if they bring harm to her children.

While Oito has stated she came to regret her marriage after having given birth to Wobble.

At the same time Kikyo is firstly introduced hitting a servant who (incidentally) was born in Meteor City like her, whereas Oito has shown interest and kindness towards her servant and has tried to build a personal relationship with her.

Moreover, the fact that it is implied that some servants come from Meteor City further highlights the difference between these two opposite realities. On one hand there are people who found their own identities on their profession i.e. on the role they have in society. On the other hand there are people who lack a sense of identity because they are not part of society. The educative mechanism of Kukkuro Mountain uses the lack of self of the latters to strengthen the formers’ sense of identity.

About this, Kykyo is an interesting example since she is both a person who comes from Meteor City, but also a member of the Zoldyck family.

However, if we consider several occurrences we can see how her authority is often put into discussion.

Who knows? Maybe she hasn’t been completely accepted as a person on equal footing with the other adults of the family and the servants deep down dislike her because of this. What’s more, her showing the most typical Zoldyck-like reactions to her children’s behaviors (like praising Killua for showing attributes of a perfect assassin) might be her way to try to fit in and at the same time an attempt to compensate her original lack of identity. Basically she used to be a person outside of society and now that she has been able to gain a status she completely identifies herself with the beliefs of the family she has been accepted in.

In short, as for now, Kikyo has been a very minor character and it is difficult to foresee if she will gain more importance in the future. However, I have highlighted above some traits which could be explored more either to better characterize her or to give her some development.

First of all, the most interesting piece of trivia about Kikyo is that she is from Meteor City, like the Spiders and even some butlers (see Canary). This is something, which has never been explicitly stated in the manga and which is mentioned in the databook. That said, it is a very interesting detail because we know that the people of Meteor City are extremely poor and are not even considered people by the rest of the world. At the same time, they are defined by a strong sense of kinship and comraderie to the point that they are ready to sacrifice for unknown countrymen. However, these traits are not present in Kikyo. As a matter of fact Kikyo makes her identity completely overlap with her role in the Zoldyck family. She is Silva’s wife and the mother of his children. What is more, she has shown zero sympathy for Canary who is supposedly from Meteor City as well. In a sense, Kikyo goes even further than other members of the family in celebrating the Zoldycks and their profession, to the point that her behaviour is almost parodic:

One reason of this, may be that she is partially staging her persona to try to compensate for having joined the family later on and for the clear lack of power that she has within her own family:

Among the adults, so far, Kikyo seems to be the one who has less authority to the point that Killua completely disreguards her:

These thoughts lead me to some considerations. I can see three possible outcomes for Kikyo’s character, structurally speaking.

a) She remains a minor character.

b) She receives some major characterization, but no development.

c) She receives some development either positive or negative.

In cases a) and b), her story-line will probably overlap with and be a satellite of Silva’s. In other words, she will probably share her husband’s outcome.

In case c), things might be different. As stated above, the development could be either negative or positive. I don’t see much appeal in a negative development. This is simply because Kikyo is a) already a negative character and b) not built up to be a very efficient antagonist. After all Killua has already wounded her before the beginning of the series and even later on she has never been very effective in stopping him. Killua ignored her attempt to stop him in the Zoldyck arc and it is clear the characters whose authority he respects are Illumi, Zeno and Silva. In short, I think a conflict between Killua and Illumi/Silva has been built up more than one between him and his mother. That said, it is still possible for a conflict to happen. Kikyo might prove to be a good antagonist on her own right and she might spiral as a result of the conflict with her son.

Finally, if she were to develop positively, I think that the focus should be on a choice between a superficial idea of family rooted in status, which is what both Kikyo and Silva are implementing, and a true family, which is what is born by the positive relationships among people. In a sense, this is a choice all members of the Zoldyck family will be forced to make in the end. As a matter of fact it is central to the themes explored by them.

As far as Kikyo is concerned, she has mostly shown negative traits when it comes to her motherhood. She is possessive towards Killua and neglectful towards her other kids. That said, I wonder if scenes like these:

Might be small hints to the fact there is more to her. That said, it could be very well nothing.

In short, Kikyo is a character we know too little about to make precise speculations, so take my above ramblings as pure hypothesis and read them with a grain of salt.

Other than this, I am curious about Kikyo’s relationships with her children. In particular, I am interested in her bonds with Killua and Kalluto. As a matter of fact Killua and Kalluto show to have different POVs when it comes to Kikyo’s relationship with her youngest kid:

On one hand Killua’s map (which is clearly wrong under certain aspects) describes Kalluto and Kikyo’s relationship as mutual love. On the other hand Kalluto’s thoughts and the family photo imply that they feel less loved than Killua. As you can see, we are in front of a contradiction. A possible way to solve this contradiction is to read it as Killua being oblivious of Kalluto’s real situation. Killua might have confused Kalluto’s attempts to be loved with authentic closeness.

At the same time, another element in Killua’s map might complicate things further. As a matter of fact Killua believes Kalluto to be jealous of Alluka. We don’t know the details of what Killua called “jealousy”. However, according to what we know of Kalluto so far, it is probable that Kalluto’s feelings for their sister stem from feeling unloved in comparison with her. What is more, since Killua is the one closest to Alluka, it seems coherent that Kalluto is jealous of Alluka because of her relationship with their brother.

In short, different elements might suggest that Kalluto has felt neglected both by their mother and by Killua. This is also coherent with the two different theories I saw around concerning Kalluto’s choice of clothes. On one hand Kalluto’s kimono resembles the way Kikyo is dressed in flashbacks:

What is more Kalluto uses a fan to fight and in the 2011 anime Kikyo does the same.

On the other hand Kalluto wearing a kimono might also be an attempt to look more like Alluka. Of course Kalluto’s clothes might also have nothing to do with neither Alluka nor their mother.

In short, it is clear that there is a conflict going on among the three youngest Zoldycks and I am expecting this conflict to be addressed in the future. What is more, it is possible that this conflict will highlight Kalluto and Killua’s relationship with their mother more.

As a matter of fact, the theory above might suggest Killua has more in common with Kikyo than what he would like to admit. Moreover, even if the situation with Kalluto were to be different than the one I theorized, this would not change some similarities will remain between mother and son:

Here Tsubone claims that Illumi and Milluka have taken after their mother the most. However, we know Killua himself shares some traits with Illumi. Finally @subdee has mentioned in this post that Palm resembles Kikyo to an extent. This is something I have never thought about. However, as I have highlighted here, Killua and Palm share multiple traits:

First of all let’s consider that Palm and Killua are very similar. Actually the tendencies Killua criticizes Palm for are present in him as well.

It’s not by chance that Killua who considers Palm a crazy stalker ends up stalkering her and Gon during their date. The truth is that Killua tends to be possessive just like Palm is and, just like her, he is both a person who has been objectified for all his life and a person who has the tendency to objectify others to an extent. As a matter of fact he has been objectified by his family to the point that his brother planted a needle in him to try and make Killua become what the family wants. However, he also comments this when he reveals that he called the being in his sister Nanika aka “something”.

Killua is Silva’s son because Silva’s education taught him to objectify others despite the fact this is probably one of the things Killua hates the most in the world.

Palm, as the section above explains, is a person others tend to objectify, but she too has the tendency to treat males figures who come into her life as romantic partners ignoring their circumstances and the kind of people they are (for example she doesn’t care that Gon is a child). In short others treat her superficially, but she does the same as well.

Even Palm’s other flaw i.e. the fact that she has mood swings is a flaw Killua has as well. He has shown several times througout the series that he can go in killer mode very quickly and especially in the beginning he has trouble controlling himself. This is very similar to Palm being scared she might hurt Biscuit and the boys.

And Killua changing his mind often and being whimsical is something his family has called him out for several times and is at the root of Killua’s major flaw i.e. the fact that he tends to run away and to back down from things he has decided to do.

So you can see how Palm and Killua are two people with similar flaws and this is probably why in the beginning they strongly disliked each other. This is also why them connecting is important for the both of them.

We can see how these attributes are possessed by Kikyo as well (she is overly possessive of Killua and has mood swings, as we were shown in her introduction). In short, it is possible Killua might resemble his mother even if he dislikes her and that he will have to face it through a conflict with her and with Kalluto.

Finally, this might be unrelated, but I find interesting that Killua has problems with female authority figures:

And I wonder if these problems are related to the kind of mother Kikyo was since he shows her no respect whatsoever.

These are my main thoughts on Kikyo so far. I am sorry for the long wait and I hope you enjoyed them! Thank you for the ask!

#hxh #kikyo zoldyck #killua zoldyck #kalluto zoldyck #hxh theory #asksfullofsugar #anonymous

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marawrder · 4 years

Text

in this post i will be laying out all information regarding sirius’ romantic orientation, experience with and general stance towards romance. i will also take position in regards to popular ship dynamics and general pointers on shipping with this muse.

too long; don’t wanna read: sirius is aromantic, wolfstar ehhh perhaps BUT!, and i don’t really plan on romantically shipping him with anyone. sorry!

romantic orientation sirius is grey aromantic, but on the furthest side of the spectrum. in his canon time-line, he wouldn’t and doesn’t fall in love. for him to do so, it’d require an incredibly close bond, and if there’s ever a person who reaches that the level of closeness and trust it needs to be up there with the bond he has with james. it doesn’t have to be as soulmate-y, james and sirius really are on the exact same wavelength, but just as open and codependent, sort of. the problem is: in his main verse, sirius would never ever have let anyone as close to him as james, because of the circumstances and because he doesn’t want to. that’s why james would be the only person he could theoretically develop feelings for. which he doesn’t because that is his brother. experience the only experience sirius has with romance is therefore from seeing it between others. he didn’t exactly grow up in a loving household, but that is not to claim that orion and walburga didn’t love each other. sirius just didn’t see it, and especially when he got to an age where falling in love is something more people think about, he was already getting estranged from his parents and, partially out of spite, thought of them to be unable to feel love in the first place. but sirius doesn’t get it, at least not in the way his friends talk about it. this is not just because of his orientation, but sirius, in general, is oftentimes very oblivious to other people’s feelings. he’s not very empathic, and if he cannot relate other people’s feelings to his own… well… then he just doesn’t understand at all. and sometimes that also means that he doesn’t accept them. what really makes him understand is seeing james and lily fall in love, and even that, for him, is a process. of course there probably instances around him of people feeling romantic, but it either — given the age — wasn’t too serious or fully-fledged, or it wasn’t too close to him for him to actually witness it. because sirius didn’t really care for it, at all, and he made sure to proclaim so several times, even when he didn’t know what he was talking about.

watching the person he was closest to fall in love, though, changed that. at first, he was highly skeptical. well, at the very first, he thought it was a joke, that the way they acted was somehow planned because he didn’t get how that just happened to someone. but when it became clear that they weren’t just acting like that because, stereotypically, people “ in love ” acted a certain way, he realized, and he didn’t like it. when james and lily started a relationship, he wasn’t entirely on board, because while lily is cool in theory and he does wish his mate all the best, it feels like james is trying to replace him. for sirius, what he feels for james is really as far as it goes when it comes to caring for someone, and he thought that that’s mutual. he doesn’t get how there’s suddenly “ more ” for lily. it takes him a while to come to terms with the fact that this is something different entirely, that james is still his family and, by extension, so is lily. it also shows him what romantic love looks like, and that it’s nothing he’s felt before or can imagine himself feeling. stance towards romance depending on when you ask sirius, his answers will of course differ, but for the longest time, he thought it was a hoax. not as in — nobody ever felt romantic love, he certainly knew it existed and thought it would even befall him someday, but the way it was portrayed by books and songs and all that? it sounded like it was too exaggerated for actual, real-life people to behave like that. this certainly is not due to his own orientation, but because in his immediate environment, love between a husband and a wife was not put on display and certainly not treated as a prerequisite for marriage. the whole idea of romanticism was treated like a dime novel concept, nothing practical or applicable.

sirius believes in love. he has seen and felt it, familial love, platonic love, close kinship with people he hasn’t even known for that long. but he has no reference, no connection to romantic love. he’s never experienced it, he’s never really wanted to experience it. but above all, he is not very empathetic at all. if he has no reference, he doesn’t understand it in others, and therefore he doesn’t take it seriously. this can and has lead to him offending and hurting his friends when he invalidates their feelings, especially in his phase of antagonizing lily when she and james clearly expressed romantic interest in each other. it’s something he has learned from and afterward isn‘t proud of, and thanks to them he learns to understand about true romantic love, but it’s something takes most of his normal life to process. later, he has more time to reflect, but it’s not a good time.

on wolfstar i want to note that i do not ship wolfstar, at least not off the bat. this has to do with the interpretation of fanon, in which sirius and remus fall in love at 15 and are inseparable ever since, they share chocolate and fight about who’s the bottom. as you may know, i hate fanon with a burning passion, and above all, i hate how one of the central points of sirius’ characterization has become his being in love with remus. secondly, my personal interpretation and prioritization of canon information is rather different from wolfstar interpretations, even the non-fanon ones i have seen. in his canon timeline, sirius and remus begin harbouring deep distrust towards each other, causing them to suspect each other to be the traitor. i also do not believe that the “ prank ” sirius played on snape, in which he purposefully led snape to find remus on a full moon, who might’ve killed him if it wasn’t for james’ intervention, is something they could just move past so easily. even if remus does forgive sirius, for sirius it’s still something that’ll stand between them. i do not believe that this is an atmosphere in which romantic feelings could arise for anyone, let alone someone like sirius.

that being said, just because i don’t support widespread ideas regarding sirius x remus, or do not ship them in a canon timeline, this doesn’t mean that i am completely opposed to the idea! i just personally believe that the circumstances have to be very, very different for them to be able to trust each other, and deeply enough for it to end in something romantic. i do not have a specific idea of how that should go, but i am always willing to explore a plot!

on other dynamics there are a few other popular ship dynamics in fanon that i don’t quite understand, specifically when they involve characters such as marlene, dorcas, or mary, who have been mentioned within perhaps two lines. obviously, i do not believe in lumping together all these different interpretations of one character, and i will not assume chemistry off the bat. in fact, i usually actually assume the opposite, because most of these characters are self-respecting women and sirius behaves, most of the time, like a full-on asshole — but that’s besides the point. as stated before, i really do not see a way in his canon timeline for him to get close enough to someone other than the marauders. and sirius doesn’t do crushes. that is not just because it takes a lot for him to develop romantic attraction, he’s also just an all or nothing kinda guy. therefore, the only thing that really applies to this type of dynamics is chemistry and lots and lots of plotting and development.

on james/sirius in my previous analysis, i might’ve suggested that james would be the one person sirius would fall in love with, but that… really isn’t it, either. quite frankly, things would have to go horribly wrong for them to end up together, or it might even be impossible, because james' trust and friendship are what shape sirius as a person and them being family is essential to his development. and no, despite being purebloods, you just don’t date family.

#⌞ ⋆ rp. ⏤ headcanon ⌝#( personals: under no circumstances interact with this post in any way shape or form thank you )#( anyway this one's for u my darling followers xx pls be kind to me )

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