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strawberry-milkbunny · 10 months

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Naruto is my Roman Empire and I’ve been reading MadaTobi fanfics so these r my Founders Thoughts that nobody asked for:

- Tobirama had a crush on Madara and it PISSED HIM OFF like they def had hate sex at one point LMAO

- they literally worked together ur rlly gonna tell me they didn’t have SOME moments of civility btwn them?? (lowkey that’s wild tho having to see ur brother’s murderer everyday at work-I like Tobi but I’m just sayin)

I WANT A WORKPLACE SITCOM WITH THE FOUNDERS SJSKKSKS:

- Tobi doing experiments and scaring the villagers

- Tobi teaming up with Madara to make Hashi do work

- Hashi making flowers w/government documents

- Mito sipping tea while encouraging Tobi to revive the dead

- everyone in the Tower side eying the sexual tension btwn Madara and Tobi and them never denying they’ve fucked before

- Toka cackling in the background

- Hikaku spraying water at Madara like a cat every time he throws a temper tantrum

- Kagami popping in to make sure his clan head doesn’t kill his teacher PERFECT SITCOM MATERIAL

- totally personal preference: Naruto should’ve had more BLOOD AND GORE. I wanna see the grittiness and horror the shinobi world actually is and how revolutionary Naruto as a character is by choosing peace over violence. The only time we get that is Obito vs Kiri nin, Uchiha Massacre, Wave Arc, Orochimaru…before it turns into DBZ fights

I’ve said this before: Sasuke was in a seinen Naruto was in a shounen

- the warring states is literally the perfect place for exhibiting the horrors of war and humanity. Bloodline thieves, child hunting squads, GIVE. IT. TO. ME. Madara and Hashirama experiencing all of this and wanting PEACE FOR THEIR YOUNGER BROTHERS UGHHH ROBBERY‼️‼️

SORRY TW IMPLIED SA !!:

I HC that bloodline thieves is prob why Madara wears gloves….being a YOUNG (he’s been on the battlefield since he was 8??) powerful, prodigy and future clan head of a famous kekkai genkai it makes sense why he doesn’t like skin-contact/sexual repression and repulsion. And why we don’t see female Uchiha shinobi (excluding misogyny) simply bc there’s such a high risk of SA in this era

Moving on:

- Tobi and Izuna were jealous of how their brothers were being taken away. It goes past the senju/uchiha rivalry like they were just kids and were plain jealous.

- Madara and hashirama def share 1 brain cell LOLLL. Like they’re besties for a reason, Madara acts likes he smarter but nah he’s as much of an idiot as Hashi is. They’re both dreamers let these boys live and skip rocks together!!! 😭😭

- let’s be honest: Tobi built the village. Mans was doing ALL the logistics and infrastructure

- tobirama is soooo second son/eldest daughter coded it’s not even funny. The SPARE, serious and emotionless bc he needed to always clean up after his siblings, DUTIFUL, prob has a praise kink etc.

- Madara is an eldest daughter who also prob has a praise kink and touch starved

- NONE of the founders r well adjusted like they went from spending everyday of their lives at war to tryin bring peace and start essentially a ninja-revolution (PLS GO TO THERAPY)

- madara was just the most open about it: being isolated and feared by his own clan BC he was powerful, trying advocate for the village and peace, all while grieving for his last brother…yeah it makes sense y he went crazy or at least wanted to leave (fuck Kishimoto for that Kaguya bs and fuck Zetsu)

- I don’t actually believe he was trying destroy the village idkkk. I think he was trying to do an SNS aka using fighting as a way to communicate with Hashirama and well…yIkEs

- tobirama is 1000% unadjusted: mans literally created a Justu to revive the dead. You cannot tell me that doesn’t REEK of desperation and loneliness. He’s lit rally the OG mad scientist

- hashirama rlly thought sealing the Bijuu and giving them to each village was a good idea….sir WHO TF GIVES NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO SHINOBI???!! 😳😳

- I think hashirama and naruto lowkey can be summed up as: a powerful idealist. Which is a very dangerous combination. Take that how you will especially considering how shinobi thrive off of violence….it kinda makes sense how we ended up with canon Naruto

- Madara has a god complex and knows it. Hashirama has a god-complex and doesn’t know it. (God of Shinobi title def got to him and understandable)

- the founders failed and they know it. But I also kinda love it?? They’re so flawed and human as leaders and you can see how their mistakes drag into Canon Naruto. It also makes me so sad knowing that Konoha was built to prevent child soldiers and give protection only for it to actually be WORSE (Kakashi ITACHI SANNIN ik for a fact it must’ve hurt Hashi to know ur own granddaughter left the village)

Uchiha are: love is the death of duty while the Senju are: duty is the death of love and neither of them will forgive each other for picking one over the other‼️‼️‼️

- proving this ^^ w/Hashirama’s weird af characterization: aka him being a loveable idiot but at the same time CONGRATULATING Itachi for killing his own clan for Konoha…. I feel like that rlly showed me how much of a war veteran/shinobi Hashirama actually is and how he will always pick duty

- we were ROBBED of baby Kagami/hokage Kagami 😤😤😤 I’m sorry Kagami should’ve been made Hokage it just makes sense personality wise and politically wise. The only way I could see him not take it is bc he needed to be a clan leader/placate the Uchiha/help Hikaku.

- I wanna see him process the loss of his clan leader, teacher, and eventually friends to a point where Danzo takes his eyes

- everyone on Team Tobirama had a crush on Kagami at one point

- one of my fav HC: Tobi and Madara co-parenting Kagami. There’s no way Madara didn’t check up on Kagami being taught by THE senju which makes his defection hit harder for Kagami 😭😭

- BABY SANNIN ‼️‼️‼️ Tsunade was old enough to meet and remember Hashirama it makes sense that Oro and Jiraiya meet the founders

- omg could u imagine being Edo Tensei Hashirama?? Ur granddaughter’s weird friend revives u using the Jutsu ur brother invented that you specifically FORBID 😭😭

- Hashi and Tobi staring at Orochimaru like “you look familiar???” IT HAS SO MUCH COMEDIC POTENTIAL

- Mito revolutionized female shinobi like she’s def the reason ppl realized that girls can fight (Senju Toka was an exception) STAN MITO 🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️

- Mito pulled a Tsunade and mentally yeeted out of Konoha after Hashi and Tobi died. Bc the way we NEVER hear about her and Hiruzen interacting except for Kushina, even tho she’s literally RELATED to the other 2 hokages….ROBBED 😵‍💫

- I HC: she was dealing w/grief (the fall of Uzushio made it worse) and she was lowkey pushed out of the council by Danzo FUCK DANZO

- I love the idea of Mito wooing for Hashirama’s hand/politically smart Mito!! It was a political marriage that grew into love. There’s no way she DIDNT suspect an attack on Uzushio lik it’s literally an island w/Kiri as it’s neighbours….Konoha gets recognition and stability while Uzushio importantly gets mainland allies

- Mito tops btw she’s def pegged Hashi before 🫢

- if Madara or Hashi had sisters/born women they would’ve def had a marriage to solidify their alliance. This makes Japanese homophobia not make sense esp in the shinobi world bc their clans trusted each other w/o backup like marriage?? Idk I’m just kinda confused y it was never even brought up for an alliance…

*cue MadaTobi arranged marriage au 100k, enemies to lovers, slowburn*

- also to dude bros homophobia has no place in the Naruto world (and IRL BTW) outside of making heirs. They’re literally MERCENARIES You telling me Kakashi has never fucked another man for information before??? Pls be serious I’m begging y’all 🙃🙃🙃

- there’s def family drama amongst the senju!! Idk I feel like Hashirama and Tobirama have the relationship of: “they love each other but don’t like each other” which makes Madara’s inclusion even worse for the brothers’ relationship. Like they def always had each other’s backs but never actually felt like they understood each other.

- I wish more fanfics/canon covered the shinobi-civilian politics more (I love politics lol give me world-building kishimoto 😤)

- Civilians hold power. THEY have all the MONEY to pay shinobi

- I’ve rlly only seen 1 fanfic that involves the Fire Daimyo during the Warring States Era (Into the Wide Blue Yonder it’s a KakaSasu Time travel fic that actually ✨works✨ 12/10 recommend) but it’s true.

Wtf is the Fire Daimyo doing during this era??? Why is he being so placate about Senju/Uchiha war unless he just sees it as entertainment?? How have shinobi NOT fought against rich civilian politicians before?? (Introducing Maoism to the naruto world lol 🤔🤔)

- Kishimoto curse ur goldfish brain….

- the uchiha and senju were def broke in this era, LMAO especially the Uchiha and I mean resource wise. War is EXPENSIVE the Uchiha don’t have Hashirama and Mokutan, they couldn’t just grow food whenever they wanted. It makes total sense that they would agree to a ceasefire just to prevent STARVATION

- once again…. robbed in terms of seeing the aftermath and devastation of war and learning how to live in a morally grey, politically unstable, resource limited world which could’ve brought in the ultimate themes of peace and the cycle of violence, and the question of if violence and war is ever justified, but…..no ❤️

#naruto #MadaTobi #hashirama senju #mito uzumaki #senju tobirama #madara uchiha #kagami uchiha #brainrot.txt #roman empire #silly little thoughts #warring states era #I think I’m a Madara stan now???#I blame ao3 for my MadaTobi brainrot phase #pls give me a founders sitcom #tw sa implied

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duhragonball · 1 year

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Dragon Ball Super 088

This one’s kind of a grab bag, like Episode 85 was, but the random stuff is better, so I guess it works out.

Let’s start with Piccolo training Gohan. They only have about a day to prepare, but Piccolo thinks he can get more out of Gohan. For one thing, he manages to get Gohan to use his “Ultimate/Mystic/Potential Unleashed” form that he used against Super Buu. Throughout this series, it’s been implied that Gohan just lost that ability, or forgot how to do it, but this time Piccolo just tells him to go ham and he does it on the first try.

Piccolo also tells Gohan he has two major weaknesses holding him back. First, Gohan uses his emotions to drive himself, which is fine to a certain point, but it can be dangerous to tie your power to your emotions. If he keeps thinking about his need to protect his family, it can make him afraid, or desperate, which can make him prone to mistakes, no matter how strong he gets.

Second, Gohan tends to get careless when he’s winning. Piccolo cites the Majin Buu fight, but I think we all know he’s only choosing that battle because the Cell Games are too painful an example. Of course, we’ve already seen a more recent instance of this when Gohan sparred with Krillin in episode 83. Krillin proved that he could outmanuever Gohan and score a ring-out, despite Gohan’s superior power.

This is best illustrated in the scene where Gohan manages to chop off Piccolo’s forearm, kind of like how Tagoma ripped it off back in Episode 22. That pretty much took Piccolo out of the fight back then, but Gohan doesn’t follow through with another attack the way Tagoma did. He just assumes he’s done, which gives Piccolo a chance to show off his new trick of firing ki blasts from severed limbs.

So Gohan is still making the same mistakes he did as a kid, while Piccolo is continuously adapting. He won’t be beaten the same way again.

Anyway, they plan to keep pushing to see if they can get Gohan to an even higher level before the Tournament, and Gohan suggests they work on some combo moves while they’re at it.

Meanwhile, in Universe 6, Cabba seeks out his old mentor from the Sadala Defense Force, Captain Renso. He asks him to join Team Universe 6, but Renso’s got a bum leg, and feels he would only slow the team down. Instead, he suggests that Cabba recruit his sister, Caulifla.

Cabba’s not too keen on that idea. While he’s confident in her fighting ability, they’ve never gotten along too well, mainly because Caulifla is the leader of a bunch of punks on the mean streets of Planet Sadala. Considering how shitty the U6 team was in the Destroyer Tournament, I’d say anything is an improvement. All I know is that Caulifla only makes a brief appearance in this episode, and she immediately became my favorite U6 character.

Meanwhile, Krillin and 18 are sparring in their backyard. 18 keeps whoopin’ his ass, and she’s already decided to claim his share of the nonexistent prize money.

Meanwhile, Trunks doesn’t know how to work a diaper.

But Vegeta does! Seriously, when did he get so good at this? I’m pretty sure he had Gohan give him lessons or something.

Beerus is annoyed that everyone is so care free about things, so he considers telling them about their universe possibly getting erased, if only so he won’t have to worry alone. But Whis warns him that Bulma will give him shit for it. And he’s right, she would. I mean, Beerus can blame Goku all he wants but Beerus could have stopped him if he gave a shit.

Meanwhile, Yamcha continues to fantasize about playing hard-to-get when Goku asks him to join the team. He’s starting to wonder why Goku hasn’t approached him already, but you kind of need to speak up if you want in this thing, man.

Anyway, fans complained about the terrible state of Yamcha’s apartment when this episode first aired, and I think the bigger issue is that the artists just blew off drawing his apartment. Like, this doesn’t look like there was any conscious decision to make it look fancy or crummy. There’s simply no aesthetic whatsoever. The furniture looks like it came from a motel, the chair looks like a child’s car seat, the bed looks like something out of a 1940′s cartoon, and there’s no door leading to the patio.

It’s the same problem we saw in Future Trunks’ bedroom at Capsule Corp. They just slapped some stuff together and called it done.

And yeah, that’s it.

#dragon ball #dragon ball super #2023dbapocryphaliveblog #gohan #piccolo #yamcha #goten #trunks #bulla #vegeta #bulma #beerus #whis #krillin #marron #android 18 #cabba #caulifla #renso

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demonslayedher · 2 years

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god, this is really the last time eh. I had so many questions, so many hypothetical scenarios but I must choose my question well and I have one that has been scratching my mind for a while now. In a hypothetical situation where a demon slayer with an amputated arm/hand decides to have as a substitute a demon arm (which he will have locked up). How possible do you think it would be? would the person have something like the alien hand syndrome? could he use the demon blood art?

Thank you so much for your kind words and appreciation. Maybe not every Ask gets an equal amount of thought or research put into it, but I do try to contemplate each one seriously, even if I don't think my imagination is the one most oriented to answer a lot of the hypotheticals I get--again, I feel like a lot of my Anons should go directly to other creators more suited for these ideas. With some of the Anons I wish I could get talking to each other, it would almost be as if my blog could serve as an AU matchmaking service!

So on that note, seeing all sorts of bizarre Blood Techniques and human abilities and medical capabilities in the world of KnY, I find this demon arm very plausible!

I think you've identified the key potential issue, that a human body may reject a demon arm--rather than simply rejecting donor tissue, it would be a matter of how well this human could remain a human while using something with demon cells. I feel like there would be a constant risk of spreading and bodily take-over, even if they adapt well to the new body part. As you implied with the necessity to lock it up, there's the question of how well they would be in control of it. This is especially the case if the witting or unwitting donor demon is still alive (as I assume would be the case, seeing how the whole body disappears after a single lethal cut at the neck). How much willpower they have over maneuvering the physical hand may impact their likelihood of being able to use Blood Techniques too--Genya managed to master the power from Kokushibo enough that he could make a Blood Technique, so it's believable that this person would be able to use whatever technique is already lurking in those cells.

Since Nezuko has broken free of the curse that might help prevent Muzan-cell related side effects. Since she can totally grow back her own limbs, so if she had the ability to help somebody, I'm sure she would. (Side note, if anybody could make this work, I'll be she and Tanjiro would be most compatible.)

The better indication of this possibility is Yushiro's existence--Tamayo made sure he was made without the dangerous influence of Muzan's cells, giving him a greater amount of freedom with which to use his own body and cells without hindrance--and, perhaps also important in this case, without much need of human blood. If the person in question had a medical intervention which resulted in the demon arm attachment (as opposed to a demon simply willing it there, in which case, I would expect more risks to the human of lack of control or risk of demon cell infection/takeover), then Tamayo's help may be essential.

As for alien hand syndrome or phantom limb syndrome, this may depend on how well they integrate with the demon arm--and again, how much willpower they can exercise over it. Depending on what relationship they had with the donor demon, they might always run the risk of the hand seeking revenge, or to use the human host.

On a final note, it's always gratifying when my passion is influential and contagious. I'm so happy to keep people as dragged into Gotouge-hell as I am. The flames may have cooled, but look at them still burn!

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missmeinyourbones · 2 years

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BIRDS OF A FEATHER (satoru gojo x reader)

a/n: (wc: 0.9k) gojo-centric, dad-to-be!gojo, implied pregnant!reader, angst to fluff, i literally don’t know what made me write this it just happened :/ it’s kind of different from what i normally write so i am kinda nervous but hope you guys enjoy it <3

Satoru Gojo always knew what would become of him, what was expected of his hand that wields a power like no other.

He was strong—the strongest, which came with a league of it’s own. The title had it’s glitter and gold; people fawned to him like bees to honey. He was it—the sight to see.

However, Gojo found that his reputation often preceded him.

Maybe he was a bit naive, a bit premature with his flashy conclusions, but he can now admit that he was wrong to assume that the top would be less lonely than the bottom. He thinks they're equals, that people choose to ignore how many similarities they truly have. While one may be flashier than the other, they isolate you all the same.

He vaguely recalls a memory—one from where he was young, barely nineteen years old, as Yaga stood before him and shook his hand with a forceful pride.

The Untouchable Satoru Gojo, he’d called him, eyes swimming with that oh-so-familiar glimmer of satisfaction with a tinge of insatiable jealousy.

Gojo remembers shaking his head at the comment, scoffing through gritted teeth about how that’s not necessarily a compliment.

Because what people tend to misunderstand, is that being untouchable also implies that Gojo’s unable to touch. Unable to let people in, let someone know him for who he is instead of what he can do, what he can be.

Gojo doesn't know what will become of him when he’s no longer the strongest. He doesn't know what he is, if not the very best. He doesn't think he has much more to offer if he can no longer provide the power and protection that all of those around him seek.

If a bird has no wings, will it still be asked to fly?

The more he thinks about it, Gojo’s not sure if the flightless life of an animal made to soar is one worth salvaging. Maybe it’d be better to end it’s suffering—the humane and moral thing to do. I mean, it has no purpose now, right?

The two of you sit in the chilly waiting room of a doctor’s office.

God, does he hate hospitals. He’s never had the privilege of associating them with anything good. To him, it’s not a place of miracle workers or second chance rehabilitation—it’s one of blood and pain and heartache. One where he’s dropped people off just to never see them again. One that takes a part of him with it every time he walks between its fluorescent and grim hallways.

However, today will be different. Satoru Gojo will leave a hospital with a reason of love and hope—because today, he will be seeing his baby (or rather, his soon to be baby) for the very first time.

A little clump of cells submerged in the warmth of your body, something that will grow into one of the greatest blessings Gojo is ever supposed to know. Today will be the first time he sees the creation on the tiny little ultrasound screen. The first time he’ll hear it’s rapid heartbeat, similar to that of a mockingbird’s.

He nervously fiddles with his hands—hands that have caused just as much destruction and damage as they have prevailed with grace. Hands that have carried thousands of corpses; some he knew, some he loved. Hands that can harm as easily as they can heal.

How on earth is he supposed to use these same hands to protect a child—his child? Something so small and pure and defenseless? When he can barely protect himself, when he can barely protect you?

His stomach gurgles and festers with bottomless fear as he begins to understand just how in over his head he truly is.

This was a mistake. A mistake that’s going to get innocent people hurt. A mistake that will let him get a taste of the sweetest love he’s ever known, just for it to be ripped from the hold of his palms and leave him barren and hollow.

Noticing his anxiety—his twitchy fingers and restless sighs—you casually slip your hand into his, intertwining the two of them as if they're puzzle pieces molded solely for one another’s fit.

Gojo looks over at you due to your sudden touch, and he see’s your reassuring smile—one that instantly fills him with a warmth indescribable to the past-him. He thinks about his nineteen year old self again, wondering if the teenager could have ever imagined a love burning this bright, feeling this safe.

He looks at his hands again, now holding your smaller ones. His hands, ones that gently brush away the stray hairs from your forehead. Hands that worship your ever-soft skin with tender touches and purposeful caressed. Hands that will hold your child—a gift, half him and half you—with all of the love he can muster from his shattered and poorly bandaged heart.

With a new perspective, Gojo thinks about the wingless bird once more. Maybe, it doesn't need to be pardoned, maybe it can find a new purpose.

No one is just one thing, right? Sure, we have things we’re known for—chickens lay eggs, hawks soar over their prey, and Satoru Gojo is the strongest. But that’s not all they are, nor is it all he is.

He knows that he loves you, weak or strong. That he craves your touch, no matter the state of his infinity. He aches for the taste of your cooking, no matter if his stomach is filled to the brim with sweet delicacies or is eating itself alive from the inside out. He knows he’ll always want to return to the warmth of your bed, whether he’s sleeping on the finest of mattresses or flat upon a concrete floor. He’ll want you all he same—always.

And for that grounding reason, Satoru Gojo knows that whatever may become of him, strongest or not, he will be a father—a great one, at that.

#gojo satoru #satoru gojo #gojo x reader #satoru x reader #gojo fic #satoru fic #gojo drabble #satoru drabble #dad!gojo #dad!satoru #gojo fluff #satoru fluff #gojo angst #satoru angst #gojo blurb #satoru blurb #jjk #jjk writing #jjk x reader

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robininthelabyrinth · 3 years

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A prompt for you (though honestly I'll read anything you write because it is always excellent): Wen Ning never dies, but somehow still ends up becoming Wei Wuxian's most feared subordinate...

ao3

Untamed

“Sect Leader Nie,” Jiang Cheng said, hurrying after the other man, who stopped and turned with a welcoming expression on his face even though Jiang Cheng knew he was in a hurry after everything they’d just planned. After Nie Mingjue had volunteered to go into the Nightless City himself, a reckless charge to try to kill Wen Ruohan, while the rest of them attacked directly - a final strike, if they could only manage it. “I just…”

He trailed off, unable to complete the sentence.

He didn’t even know what he was doing here.

Nie Mingjue didn’t call him out on it, though, only stepped forward and put a hand on his shoulder. “I appreciate your support,” he said, voice a little gentler than usual. Like he was trying to comfort Jiang Cheng or something.

Like he wasn’t the one volunteering to go die.

(Just like Jiang Cheng’s mother, and father, and - )

Oh. That’s why he came here.

“I’ll be there,” Jiang Cheng said suddenly, and Nie Mingjue blinked. “At – at the Nightless City. After you kill him, after we take the city…I’ll come find you, to make sure you’re all right.”

That was stupid, he thought to himself as soon as he said it. Nie Mingjue had an entire sect, and friends, and all that – he didn’t need Jiang Cheng hounding him with his insecurities, his worries, his fear that Nie Mingjue would die, too, die and leave him behind just like all the others. Why should he be the exception?

But Nie Mingjue smiled. “I look forward to seeing you then.”

Jiang Cheng swallowed and nodded. “It’s a deal, then,” he said, and watched as Nie Mingjue strode away.

He promised himself that he’d do as he said he would.

Even if all he found was Nie Mingjue’s corpse.

It ended up not being Nie Mingjue who killed Wen Ruohan, but rather a combination of Wei Wuxian’s new cultivation style and Meng Yao, who’d apparently been working as a double agent or – something.

Jiang Cheng wasn’t really clear on the details.

He rushed over to Wei Wuxian’s side at once, checking him over as best as he could, yelling at him over…he wasn’t even sure what, it wasn’t really important. Recklessness, probably. Wei Wuxian seemed to understand what he meant, though, grinning at him with bloodless lips.

“You worry too much,” he said cheerfully. “I’ll be fine. I just need to sleep for – a week. Maybe more. Let’s go back to camp, and I’ll do just that.”

Jiang Cheng was about to agree when he remembered his promise.

(Nie Mingjue hadn’t been there at the final fight, although Wen Ruohan hadn’t been at his full power, either. Had he sacrificed himself to wear down their enemy?)

“What is it?” Wei Wuxian asked, noticing.

“Chifeng-zun,” Jiang Cheng said. “I didn’t – see him.”

Wei Wuxian frowned. “You think…? Oh, poor Nie Huaisang..!”

Jiang Cheng wondered for a moment why Wei Wuxian’s first thought was of Nie Huaisang, then remembered that Wei Wuxian hadn’t been there for all those months of working as Nie Mingjue’s lieutenants, him and Lan Wangji and even Jin Zixuan. He wouldn’t have that personal connection with the man, beyond the brief meeting they’d had with him before the indoctrination camp - he wouldn’t have experience with his reliable competence and his talented leadership, his compassion or the gruff praise that he gave sparingly but sincerely and which made Jiang Cheng feel for once in his life like he was every bit as good as Wei Wuxian.

“I want to…” He was going to sound dumb. No, he was a sect leader, as Nie Mingjue often (gently) reminded him; he had to decide for himself what he was going to do, and have faith that his decisions were the right ones - and act accordingly. “We’re not leaving yet. We’re going to go further in, see if we can find him. Do you think you can hold up a little longer?”

“Yes,” Wei Wuxian said, straightening up. “I’ll be fine for a while yet. Let’s go.”

“You’ll tell me if you –”

“Yes, Jiang Cheng. Stop nagging. Now are we going or not?”

Unexpectedly, Nie Mingjue was alive.

Alive, and also extremely pissed off.

“I’ll take him back,” Jiang Cheng said to Lan Xichen, who looked relieved: he was protecting Meng Yao from Nie Mingjue for some reason. “Better to go separately.”

“Thank you, Sect Leader Jiang,” Lan Xichen said.

Jiang Cheng saluted and went over to Nie Mingjue, who was leaning on Wei Wuxian – a case of the injured helping the injured, in Jiang Cheng’s opinion, and he glared at his disciples until they ran over to assist them both.

Wei Wuxian was frowning, he noted. “What is it?” he asked, and Wei Wuxian shook his head, refusing to talk and inclining his head meaningfully down towards Nie Mingjue, who looked more tired than anything else. Exhausted, injured, even half-dead…“We should go.”

“No,” Nie Mingjue croaked. “There are probably – prisoners.”

“It can wait until we’re back at camp, surely?” Jiang Cheng asked. “We lost a lot of people in that battle. We could get reinforcements, then come back and do a full sweep when we’re less exhausted.”

“They might be injured, though,” Wei Wuxian put in, though he looked tired, too. “It’d be a pity for any person to die in Wen Ruohan’s custody right after we finally defeated him.”

It was a good point, Jiang Cheng thought, and although he was pretty exhausted himself, he forced himself to nod. “Okay,” he said. “I’ll go sweep the place, look for prisoners. But you two are going straight back to camp, okay? No exceptions, no heroism, nothing! If I get back and I hear that you two took a left turn and fell face-first off a cliff into a pile of magma because you thought there was a baby bird that needed rescuing, I will personally resurrect and stab you both!”

Both Nie Mingjue and Wei Wuxian were grinning at him in a suspiciously indulgent (and almost identical) sort of way, Jiang Cheng noticed, but they also agreed solemnly to make no detours, not even if it was the most heartrending of baby birds, and Jiang Cheng supposed he had to be happy with that.

They staggered off together as he turned to go further in, and as he did, he thought he heard Wei Wuxian say, “Tell me more about what Meng Yao said to you –”

“Sect Leader Jiang!” one of Jiang Cheng’s subordinates said, rushing over and saluting. “I found another cell!”

Jiang Cheng ran his hand over his eyes, wanting nothing more but to sleep. “Show me where,” he ordered instead.

He’d already dispatched one of his disciples to act as a runner to Lan Xichen, asking for him to send more disciples from his Lan sect and the Nie sect (which he’d been helping coordinate in Nie Mingjue’s absence) to help get all the prisoners out – there were so many of them, and many of them were, as predicted, in poor health. He would’ve preferred to ask someone else, since the Lan and Nie sects had suffered as many injuries as his Jiang sect, but the small sects were focused on themselves right now and the Jin sect…well, they’d done so little in the war up till now that he’d almost forgotten that they were an option until one of his subordinates had suggested them, and then he’d dismissed the suggestion, too.

If the Jin sect were here, he thought ungraciously, they were probably busy trying to find the treasury.

At least the Lan and Nie sects had managed to confiscate the Yin metal first.

At some point, they’d have to find a way to destroy it…

Distracted by thoughts of politics, Jiang Cheng followed his subordinate down a twisting hallway to yet another set of cells, dark and dank but not quite as close to the place where the Yin metal had been used to refine ghost puppets, and there were men and women chained to the wall here. Unrecognizable, most of them, beaten and starved. They were probably the scions of small cultivation clans…

“Wen Ning?” he blurted out, surprised to recognize the kind-looking face of one of them. To barely recognize: Wen Ning had circles under his eyes, bruises on his face, and his usually round cheeks were thin. “What are you doing here?”

“He’s been here for weeks and weeks,” one of the other prisoners said at once. “He’s not – one of those Wens.”

Wen Ning could still blush, Jiang Cheng noticed, and as much as he would have said he hated all those surnamed Wen – well, that wasn’t quite true, was it? Wen Ning had been there with Wen Qing, when they’d helped them. Jiang Cheng had rescued and released her, giving her that comb as a keepsake…it would be manifestly unjust to make the exception for one and not the other.

His disciples were looking at him.

“What are you waiting for?” Jiang Cheng snapped at them. “He’s a prisoner, he’s hurt. Treat him as you would any of the other prisoners we’ve rescued.”

That would be his story, he thought, if anyone later came knocking at his door to ask what he was thinking, letting a Wen go free.

Maybe it was his fault, Jiang Cheng reflected. He shouldn’t have thought ‘go free’.

Go free implied that Wen Ning would go somewhere else, rather than following him and Wei Wuxian around like an imprinted puppy. It only got worse when Wei Wuxian spontaneously declared that he would help him find Wen Qing to make sure she was safe – without asking Jiang Cheng first, which was unhelpful.

“We can’t be seen as being partial to the Wen sect,” he groaned, head in hands. “Not even the distant branches, but much less someone adopted by Sect Leader Wen himself…no offense meant, Wen Ning.”

“None taken,” Wen Ning said.

“But they helped us,” Wei Wuxian argued, clearly choosing to take the offense on Wen Ning’s part. “It would be unjust for us to turn on them now, when we have the power and they don’t, when they took risks on our behalf in the past.”

Jiang Cheng squinted at him. “Is this related to your weird thing about Lianfeng-zun?” he asked. Wei Wuxian had taken a firm stance against the man recently, and had spoken of it incessantly.

“No! Or, I mean – I would’ve done it anyway, okay? Listen, I really don’t like that guy.”

“No,” Jiang Cheng gasped dramatically. “You, Wei Wuxian, don’t like Lianfeng-zun? Wen Ning, did you hear that? Can you believe it?”

Wen Ning was hiding his face behind his sleeve – a Jiang sect outfit, one of Jiang Cheng’s own spares, since that was what they had, but the dark purple suited him rather well. Better than the red ever had.

His shoulders were shaking with laughter.

“Traitor,” Wei Wuxian told him.

“Sorry, Wei-gongzi!” Wen Ning giggled.

(Jiang Cheng did not think that Wen Ning was cute when he laughed, nor did he wish to see it happen again, to be the cause of it again. He was the leader of a sect, with an obligation to have heirs to carry on his parents’ legacy – he could think Wen Qing was pretty, even if she wasn’t exactly an advantageous match, but he was not allowed to think the same about Wen Ning.)

Wei Wuxian sighed and flopped down. “His conduct is questionable,” he grumbled. “Lan Zhan agrees with me…Anyway, why are we talking about Lianfeng-zun again? I thought we were talking about finding Wen Qing, and the rest of Wen Ning’s family?”

Jiang Cheng groaned again. “I can try to raise it at the meeting in Lanling,” he said, even though they’d all agreed that it made the most sense for the Jin sect to be the ones to resettle any prisoners of war, mostly on account of them having the money, the manpower, and the time, being the only sect that didn’t have significant work to do rebuilding after Wen sect aggression. “Provided you behave. Okay?”

Wei Wuxian, predictably, did not behave.

“Sect Leader Jiang?” Nie Mingjue unexpectedly said from the doorway to the room Jiang Cheng was staying in, and Jiang Cheng spun to stare at him in horror that someone was seeing him in this state. The other sect leader stepped inside, ignoring the mess of things on the floor from Jiang Cheng’s temper tantrum, and closed the door behind him. “Are you all right?”

Jiang Cheng opened his mouth to say something – something confident and self-assured, something that would help brush away Wei Wuxian’s atrocious behavior and his own as nothing to worry about, something befitting the sect leader of the Jiang sect – but the words stuck in his throat and, instead, to his absolute disgust, he burst into tears.

He expected Nie Mingjue to make a hasty exit at that point, appalled by the rampant display of emotionality, and that he’d have to apologize later for disgracing himself in such a fashion. That had been the way it had always gone with his parents, his father who hated sadness and his mother who hated weakness, and so he wasn’t expecting it at all when Nie Mingjue stepped forward and pulled him into his arms. Into a hug.

It was terrible: there was absolutely no way Jiang Cheng would be able to get ahold of himself now that he was feeling warm and protected and like someone gave one single damn about him.

Nie Mingjue didn’t let go of him, not even when he tearfully apologized for making a display – “It’s not wrong to have feelings, Jiang Wanyin, and it’s not harming me to be here while you let them out.” – or even when, in broken unfinished unpolitical sentences, Jiang Cheng started stuttering his way through…he wasn’t even sure what he was saying.

Possibly a rendition of all the bitterness and resentment he’d ever had in his life.

When it was done, after he’d wept all the tears he’d hidden inside of him, Nie Mingjue said only: “Feeling better?”

Jiang Cheng swiped at his eyes with his sleeve. “…yes,” he said, realizing that he did. “I’m sorry –”

“Do not apologize for having emotions like any other human being. Or for being a burden on me, which you are not.”

Jiang Cheng wished it didn’t feel so good when Nie Mingjue – stiff, stern, harsh Nie Mingjue, who rarely said kind words and never said anything just for the sake of saying it – said things like that. It would make it far easier to keep his dignity intact.

“Why did you come here?” he asked, instead. “It wasn’t to hear me talk about Wei Wuxian.”

At least, not the lifelong story of how Jiang Cheng had always been second to him even before he’d shown up – how his birthday was only a few days later, his skill a little bit less, his temperament inferior, his life inferior; how Jiang Cheng could ignore all of that if only Wei Wuxian were his brother the way he was his, the way he’d promised to be, and yet more and more nowadays it felt as if it were slipping out of reach.

“It was,” Nie Mingjue said. “He’s been coming around rather a lot to discuss Lianfeng-zun. It was his vehemence on the issue that reassured me that I wasn’t overreacting to the unnecessary death of my sect cultivators at Lianfeng-zun’s hands –”

The what?

Maybe Jiang Cheng should have listed a bit more when Wei Wuxian started ranting about how untrustworthy he thought Lianfeng-zun was.

“– and you have always had the strongest confidence in his sense of righteousness, even after he switched over to using demonic cultivation. Based on that, I thought there might be some reason behind his actions.”

Wei Wuxian’s actions: kidnapping an entire cohort of Wen sect cultivators from a Jin sect resettlement camp, assaulting several guards, running away, bringing shame on the Jiang sect by association…

“If I knew anything, I would tell you,” Jiang Cheng said bitterly. “But that would require Wei Wuxian telling me. Anything. At all.”

Nie Mingjue nodded thoughtfully. “Do you think he acted maliciously?”

“What? No,” Jiang Cheng said at once. “Of course not.”

“Do you think his thinking was affected by his demonic cultivation?”

“I almost wish it was, but no. He’s always been – like this. Reckless and over-confident, never thinking of consequences.”

“So you still have faith in him?”

“Of course!”

“That’s good enough for me,” Nie Mingjue said, as if Jiang Cheng hadn’t spent half a shichen crying on his shoulder about how all of his problems and how he couldn’t do anything right. “Let’s go ask him.”

“What, now?”

“Are you doing anything else?”

Fair was fair, but politics were politics: “If you’d gone about it the right way, perhaps the Jin sect wouldn’t have a claim,” Nie Mingjue said, pacing around the Burial Mounds with a scowl. “But as it stands now, it’s your word against theirs – and yours will be considered impaired on account of your demonic cultivation.”

“What about the testimony of the victims?” Wei Wuxian demanded.

“Wen sect,” Jiang Cheng put in, and shrugged when Wei Wuxian glared at him. “It’s true! Like it or not, their surname is Wen, and for Wen Qing and Wen Ning in particular, they were Sect Leader Wen’s wards.”

“It was not our choice,” Wen Qing said. Her voice was cold, and she’d tried to return the comb to him, earlier, though he’d refused – why he refused he didn’t know, since her decision to approach Wei Wuxian to seek help in rescuing the rest of her family rather than him had cut off any hope of anything between them. Even if she eventually understood his perspective, or even apologized for judging him unfit or unwilling to help her, he didn’t think he could live the rest of his life with a woman who had picked Wei Wuxian first.

“That isn’t what’s important, though,” Wen Ning said unexpectedly, and they all looked at him. He ducked his head, picking at his sleeve. “It isn’t. Sect Leader Jiang’s right: our surname is Wen. It’s reasonable for people to assume that we’re loyal to the Wen sect, and to treat us accordingly.”

“We never fought against anyone! We’ve never –”

“It doesn’t matter what we did, jiejie,” Wen Ning said. “Whether or not we fought for our sect, we would’ve benefited if they won, right? You rise when your clan rises, and fall when it falls. Why should we be an exception?”

“Well said,” Nie Mingjue said, and Wen Ning abruptly turned bright red – Jiang Cheng shot him a sympathetic look; he entirely understood the issue there. “Your testimony will be deemed self-interested, and even asking for it will only undercut Wei Wuxian’s position. Not to mention the Jiang sect’s.”

Jiang Cheng nodded, but Wei Wuxian crossed his arms. “Then just kick me out of the Jiang sect,” he said.

“What?” Jiang Cheng exclaimed, and even Nie Mingjue looked startled. “Absolutely not!”

“Why not? Isn’t the whole point that the Jiang sect is being dragged down by me and my new cultivation? Kick me out, and the problem’s solved.”

“I could cut off your head, and that of everyone else here,” Nie Mingjue said. “That would also solve the problem, but for some reason I’m not suggesting it. Can anyone tell me why?”

“…because it’s a bad idea?” Wen Ning volunteered.

“Because it’s a stupid idea,” Nie Mingjue agreed.

“It is a stupid idea,” Jiang Cheng growled. “Even putting aside that I don’t want to cast you out, do you really think people will stop blaming the Jiang sect for your actions just because you’re formally not aligned with us?”

“There isn’t another option,” Wei Wuxian said. “I’m not giving up the Wen sect, I’m not changing my cultivation style, I’m not giving up the Tiger Seal – and I’m not dragging the Jiang sect down with me, not if I can help it.”

“Are they really calling me ‘Ghost General’?” Wen Ning asked on one of his visits to the Lotus Pier to pick up supplies for the Yiling Burial Mounds.

Since Wei Wuxian had been so set on splitting from the Jiang sect, they’d eventually reached a compromise, of sorts. Wei Wuxian’s actions in rescuing the Wen sect remnants was – not endorsed, per se, as it was clearly wrongful, but Nie Mingjue announced that he had examined the Wen in question and found evidence suggestive of malnutrition and abuse, which indicated at minimum some negligence on the part of the Jin sect in not supervising the guards better. Accordingly, the Wen sect would be removed from the Jin sect’s custody and permitted to set up camp in Yiling under Wei Wuxian, but as punishment for his reckless and unsanctioned behavior, Wei Wuxian was to be expelled from the Jiang sect.

Since the expulsion was mandated by external forces, rather than being a result of his own decision, Jiang Cheng was able to give Wei Wuxian a sizeable settlement as a gift for his separation – the cultivation world gossiped about it, but most people seemed to think he was just trying to get his own back at Nie Mingjue for supposedly forcing the decision to expel Wei Wuxian down his throat – and to set up something of a trade agreement to send them more, although exactly what the Jiang sect was getting out of their side of the ‘trade’ was still up in the air.

Despite these outward signs of remaining support, several small sects had made attempts on the Burial Mounds, growing more reckless once they realized that Jiang Cheng really hadn’t left any forces behind to protect it – stupid of them, of course, since the reason he hadn’t left anyone behind was because he didn’t need to.

Wei Wuxian could handle himself perfectly well.

As could Wen Ning, apparently – he was a truly excellent archer, it turned out, and capable of waiting in all sorts of strange places with perfect patience, even if sometimes he had strange ideas about painting his face with mud to better blend in. It’d been one of those incidents that had given rise to the rumor that he was actually dead, having been resurrected by Wei Wuxian…

“Yes,” Jiang Cheng said. “Sorry about that. I tried to tell them to stop, but…”

“It made it worse?”

“It made it so much worse,” Jiang Cheng sighed. “Anyway, would you like to drink?”

“…do you mean tea?”

“No.”

“Yes please,” Wen Ning said. “I have been – so stressed. You wouldn’t…actually, you probably would believe it.”

“I grew up with Wei Wuxian,” Jiang Cheng said grimly. “I believe anything.”

“It would be good to bring a representative of Yiling Wei sect to the conference, even if it can’t be Wei Wuxian himself,” Nie Mingjue remarked, looking down at the plans Jiang Cheng had laid out for the first discussion conference to be held in the Lotus Pier since the war. “You’re on good terms with Wen Qionglin, aren’t you? Ask him –”

“No!” Jiang Cheng exclaimed, then realized he was being suspicious and cleared his throat. “Maybe someone else should invite them.”

Nie Mingjue looked at him over the table. “…has something happened?” he asked.

Jiang Cheng stared down at the plans and hoped he wasn’t blushing. “Nothing important,” he said, and his voice cracked on the last sound – embarrassing.

Still not as embarrassing as that time he cried into Nie Mingjue’s arms, no, but still…embarrassing.

“Oh,” Nie Mingjue said. “You slept with him.”

“How can you tell?” Jiang Cheng hissed, mortified beyond all belief. “Is it – written on my face –”

“According to Huaisang, it’s always a safe guess,” Nie Mingjue said, and shrugged when Jiang Cheng gaped at him. “Either they admit that that’s the case, as you just did, or they get all up in arms and explain what it really was while denying it.”

“That’s –” Really useful and Jiang Cheng will have to put it into effect immediately. “– terrible.”

“Works, though. Why the embarrassment? I didn’t think the Jiang sect cared about cut sleeves.”

“We don’t,” Jiang Cheng said, sitting down and putting his head in his hands. “But I’m sect leader –”

“You had sex, it’s not like you got married.”

“I used to have a thing for his sister.”

“Awkward, I suppose, but it never went anywhere, did it? One can hardly hold your past inclinations against you –”

“We were both thinking about you,” Jiang Cheng blurted out, and then promptly wanted to die. He could have just not said that. He could have said anything else but that. He could stab himself right now and maybe Nie Mingjue would be so distracted by the bleeding and screaming that he would just forget what Jiang Cheng had just said…

“You could always just ask,” Nie Mingjue said.

Jiang Cheng looked up through his fingers. “…are you serious?”

Nie Mingjue looked at him with arched eyebrows. “Are you asking me if I’d be flattered by being propositioned by two extremely beautiful and deadly cultivators?”

“I wouldn’t rank those two as equally desirable traits in a lover,” Jiang Cheng said, and it was almost not a lie, “but…yes?”

He thought for a moment.

“If I did invite Wen Ning to the Discussion Conference…”

“Well,” Wen Ning said. “This wasn’t how I was expecting to end up.”

“Me, either,” Jiang Cheng said. He was staring up at the ceiling and thinking about not moving again for – possibly ever.

“Same for me,” Nie Mingjue, on his other side, agreed. “But I have no objections to how it worked out. There aren’t two other cultivators I’d rather be with.”

“There’d better not be,” Jiang Cheng said on automatic, then considered bashing his head in – luckily both Wen Ning and Nie Mingjue reached over and put their hands under his head so he couldn’t, which made him feel warm and happy in a way subtly different from the way the sex had. “I mean, who else would it be? Zewu-jun and Lianfeng-zun?”

“Wei-gongzi still thinks Lianfeng-zun is trying to kill you, you know,” Wen Ning said to Nie Mingjue, who looked long-suffering. “He’s got this idea –”

“He can’t be trying to kill me,” Nie Mingjue argued. “He’s just offered to help Xichen play calming music for me –”

“Wei-gongzi said that maybe he’s trying to kill you through the music –”

“I’m going to sleep,” Jiang Cheng announced. “When I wake up, we can discuss the political implications of letting there be rumors about us sleeping together, which will make it both convenient for us to do this again and also maybe using the potential threat of a Yiling Wei-Yunmeng Jiang-Qinghe Nie alliance to force the Jin sect to take action so we can figure out once and for all if Lianfeng-zun is actually planning to do something. But for the moment, I am going to sleep.”

“…seems fair,” Nie Mingjue agreed. “Communication and straightforwardness is important in relationships like these.”

“Uh,” Wen Ning said, glancing at Jiang Cheng. “About that…if, theoretically, I were to know something about someone…”

#mdzs #jiang cheng #nie mingjue #wen ning #my fic #my fics #exception #lurkingcrow

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allegra-writes · 4 years

Text

“The Devil all the time”

Hunter!Tom x Demon!Reader

Supernatural AU

NSFW

Warnings: Smut

"Break the silence, damn the dark

Damn the light..."

The Chain - Fleetwood Mac

Forget everything you thought you knew, you had every reason to be afraid of the dark when you were a kid. In this world where monsters are real, the Holland brothers hunt them so normal people can continue to live in the bliss of ignorance.

But when something goes terribly wrong, Tom will do anything to save his brother's life, including selling his soul to the devil. Well... Not exactly the devil, but close enough.

You don't need to watch Supernatural to read this AU

MY MASTERLIST

He knew it was you, even before turning. He knew it as soon as he heard your deceptively delicate footsteps break the supernatural silence that had fallen over the forest the moment he had buried the little metal box in the old crossroad. Tom didn't want to think about what it meant, having such an intimate knowledge of you to be able to recognize you by the cadence of your steps, being so in sync with you that he could tell whenever you were in the vicinity.

So he used his favorite deflection technique whenever it came to you.

"Y/n? What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this? Sorry, did I say nice girl? I meant evil skank"

The insult didn't phase you. None ever did. It was hard to take them seriously when you knew how many nights he fell asleep with your name on his lips, after pathetically releasing himself into his own hand, or fucking his boring girl-next-door girlfriend, chasing orgasm over unsatisfactory orgasm that would never completely satiate him. Because it wasn't your face the one contorted in pleasure looking up at him from the mattress.

"You called. I came" You batted your lashes, sweetly. "I always come when you call…"

He gulped, the innuendo not lost to his ears. It threw him off guard, like it always did.

"I would have thought this would be… beneath you" Tom cleared his throat, looking away, trying to regain his footing, "collecting a deal, like a vulgar crossroad demon"

There was nothing vulgar about the soul of a Holland. But he didn't need to know that, so you just shrugged,

"Queen Rowena has an interest in you boys. She finds you entertaining. I'm just being a good subdit"

He scoffed,

"Funny. I would have never peg you for a sub"

You took a step closer to him.

"You don't have what it takes to make me submit, Holland" Your hot breath fanned over his skin, setting his skin on fire. Making his blood boil. You had a way of doing that, of bringing out the worst in him. Of making him lose control. And you thoroughly enjoyed it, poking at the bear until the claws came out, laughing at the carnage.

Another step, and you could physically feel it: The hate, radiating from his every pore, his mind screaming with it. He hated you. He hated your kind. He hated your beauty. He hated the pretty white dress you were wearing, so pure and innocent, glowing like a beacon in the dark. A lure, guiding uncountable men before him into perdition.

But above all else, he hated that, even then, he couldn't help but to want you. Fervently. Desperately. Irreversibly.

"I came here to make a deal" He croaked, cursing himself internally for showing weakness.

"Let's negotiate, then," you replied, stepping away, mercifully letting him breath.

"My brother-"

"I know" You interrupted, sounding bored already, "Reapers everywhere are going berserk. Who, oh who, will get to reap the soul of a Holland?"

The wind picked up, making your long dress billow around your legs. You twirled a little, admiring the way it moved. Tom's eyes were glued to you, almost hypnotized. Partly because you were too dangerous to be left unsupervised even for a second, partly because you looked beautiful like that. It had never been more obvious to him that you were an unearthly creature, you didn't belong to this world. There, surrounded by greenery, barefoot, swaying softly under the twilight light, he wondered how could anybody ever mistake you for a human.

"Of course" your apathetic voice took him out of his revery, "being reapers, watching them go wild is rather boring. I swear they are the most uninteresting beings of all creation"

That made him see red.

"Boring? Boring?!" He knew his voice was rising with every word but he just couldn't help it, "They're waiting for my little brother to die!!"

"Which could happen any minute now," You reminded him, all playfulness gone from your demeanor, "so if you wanna strike a deal, I suggest you start making me an offer worth my time"

He was taken aback by that.

"I- My soul in exchange of a wish, and you collect it in ten years" He tried and failed not to think about what that implied: vicious, invisible hounds of hell tearing apart his body and dragging his soul to hell, "Isn't that the usual deal?"

You scoffed,

"After all the things you did in your life, what makes you think your soul doesn't belong in hell already? And if your brother dies, that is one less Holland on earth to worry about. You and your brothers have managed to become a big pain in the ass for us…"

He pulled out a knife, a strange one, with runes in the blade. You arched a brow in recognition

"The Winchesters' knife. Are you threatening me, little hunter?"

Your lack of reaction was another blow. He had hoped you'd be more impressed than that. Nonetheless he turned it in his hands, offering you the handle.

"I'm throwing it into the deal"

To his surprise, you didn't immediately take it from his hands, choosing instead to pace the clearing, deep in thought.

The truth was you couldn't care less about the knife, it wasn't more dangerous to you than a toothpick. And while it was true it could certainly damage your queen, she had a far better weapon to protect herself: You.

But it did confirm your suspicions about the Hollands having access to the old Winchester arsenal, which meant they had access to something way more dangerous than that rustic weapon made of steel and bone. A book, made of ancient dark magic and human skin, written in blood. A book that was precious to queen Rowena and by extension to you: the Book of the Damned.

The Hollands were a family of extremely talented, yes, but old fashioned hunters. The stab first, ask questions later kind. They probably had no idea what they had in their hands… but you did.

"Very well then," you finally declared, "this is my offer: Your soul and that knife in exchange for sweet Harry's life and one year for you to get all your businesses in order"

Tom felt all the blood drain from his face. One year. Just 365 more days to live, before an eternity of torture in hell.

"O-one year?" He breathed.

"One year" You confirmed, "More than enough time to go see the Grand Canyon, eat the world's spiciest burger or whatever you have on your bucket list"

The disdain in your words only made him hate you harder.

"Not nearly enough to live" He replied through clenched teeth. You rolled your eyes,

"You're a hunter. You lead short, violent existences, charging head first towards what most humans run away from. Things faster, stronger, more powerful than you, surviving each encounter out of sheer luck. Killing one monster after another, until that luck runs out. Because the monsters? Unlike you who rely on it everyday, they just need. One. Single. Lucky. Strike." You punctuated every word with one step in his direction, until you were face to face again. Until, for the first time ever, you could see the fear, the desperating hopelessness he kept hidden inside, reflected on the warm coffee of his eyes. You knew a lesser man would be already crying and begging for Mercy.

Tom wasn't like other men though, that was the whole point.

"Or…" You soften your tone and your stance, letting your fingers ghost over the back of his hand, his whole skin erupting in goosebumps. That was the very first time you touched him. Ever.

And it was as if nobody had ever touched him before, the light caress enough to set every nerve ending, every single one of his cells, alight.

He was so distracted by the sensation and his body's response to it, he almost didn't hear your next words over the sound of his own pounding heart.

"Or you could keep your little pocket knife, and even have your ten years if…"

"If?" He struggled to focus.

"You let me borrow a book"

His brows furrowed in confusion,

"A book? What book?"

"Any book of my liking, for as long as I want" You shrugged it off, "Do we have a deal?"

There was a catch there, it was obvious. He knew he was going to regret it but, what choice did he have?

"Deal"

Your smile was blinding, luminous. If he didn't know any better, he would have called it angelical. Now, that was one ridiculous thought.

"What now? We seal it with a kiss?" His eyes fell to your lips, so soft looking and inviting. He wasn't eager to put his mouth on a filthy demon and doom himself. He wasn't.

You chuckled, but there was no humor behind it.

"Oh no, darling. This is big. This is special" You're special, "A simple kiss just won't cut it…"

No. You couldn't mean… could you? Was there no limits to your hatred for him? Did you really want him so defeated, so humiliated?

"What do you want?" He spat through gritted teeth.

"The same thing you want" You put your hands on his chest, rising to your tiptoes to whisper in his ear, "The same thing you have wanted ever since we first met . The thing that's obsessing you..."

"I don't know what you're talking about"

You smirked,

"You can lie to your family, you can even lie to yourself, little hunter... But you can't lie to me."

He couldn't hide, you could see every fantasy, hear every single one of his thoughts of you on repeat, like a prayer in your direction. Just like he couldn't hide the way his skin was burning now for you, the way his blood rushed south, the way all logical thought left his brain, his iron grip on his emotions finally breaking as he snapped.

Lightning fast, in just a blink, he twirled you around, your back hitting the rough bark of a tree, as he towered over you, demon blade to your throat, every inch of his body pressed against yours. His eyes were ablazed with rage, and passion, as he surged forward, striking you with his best hit.

He kissed you.

Lips vicious against yours, teeth biting and scraping only to soothe the offense seconds later with his tongue, until he was dizzy, light headed with the lack of oxygen and the taste of you. The hand not holding the knife to your neck fell to your breast, squeezing the pliant flesh with enough force to cause pain on a human woman, merely making you moan. He swallowed the sound, letting his fingers trace your waist, your hips, clawing at your dress until he finally, finally, felt skin under his fingertips.

It was better than anything his mind had conjured in his feverish fantasies in the dead of the night. The skin of your inner thighs velvety soft, as they parted under his touch, the sweetest sounds leaving your lips as his fingers found your naked core. You weren't wearing any underwear, probably never had. The realization that, in all your past encounters and fights you had been standing there, just feet away from him with nothing under that damn dress hit him like a truck, making his head swim.

He searched between your folds, and suddenly his fingers were inside you. He was inside you, a part of him was buried deep within you, within your silky heat, claiming you as his, if only for the night.

And you were so wet for him, and only getting wetter as he pumped his fingers in and out of you, scissoring them, opening you up until he was able to slip a third one in, fucking you with his hand in earnest. You were sobbing, clutching at his biceps, head thrown back in pleasure. He took advantage of that to suck bruises on your neck, only to see them fade before his eyes. Your skin tasted clean, smelled like wild flowers and rain. Ozone. Lightning. Like those coursing through his veins with every cry, every delicious gasp you made.

He found the perfect spot inside you, the one that sent sparks through your nerves with every stroke of his calloused fingers.

"This what you wanted?" To make him lose it? Lose his mind, himself, in you? "For me to make you come on just my fingers, like the little slut you are?"

The floor disappeared from under his feet as you sent him flying away from you, a searing pain exploding at the back of his head as he landed, sprawled at the feet of an old, dying oak. With blurry eyes, he saw you stalk towards him, all power and cold, controlled fury.

"Let's get one thing straight, Holland. I'm not one of your sluts" You sneered, "and I'm definitely not your basic bitch of a girlfriend. So you better start showing me a little respect, are we clear?"

He gulped, sitting up. He had to be seriously fucked up in the head, for his cock to be twitching inside his pants at your threatening tone.

"Crystal"

"Good" You declared, coming to a stop right in front of him, standing between his parted legs, "Now, let's put that mouth of yours to a better use"

He knew that image was going to be forever tattooed on his brain: You standing in front of him, holding the skirt of your dress up, waiting for him to put his mouth on you. Tom took a moment to admire you, before delving in, flattening his tongue over your slit, before drawing tight, precise circles on your clit with the tip. God, you tasted so divine it was messing with his head; something as dark and corrupted and twisted as you, feeling so exquisite, so perfect, so heavenly to his every sense.

He helped you hook your knee over his shoulder, his other arm snaking around your leg, pulling you even closer. You could feel his smirk against your cunt the moment he realized your legs were shaking, but you couldn't find it in yourself to care, not with his wicked talented mouth devouring you like a last meal, rocking your whole world, making you see stars behind your closed eyelids.

You always knew that man would make the stars fall.

Tom kept on, penetrating you with his tongue as far as it would go, his whole face moving against you. The slight burn of his scruff felt delicious against your delicate labia, as he used his fingers to open you up like a flower, separating your petals to get to the delectable nectar inside. You were close, he could feel it, the obscene sounds you were making, the waves of sweetness falling on his lips feeding his ego, filling him up with pride. By the time the night was over, you'd be unable to forget him. He would make sure of that. He would make you come, over and over, until the only thoughts left in your brain were of him, the only word your lips knew how to speak was his name. He would mark you, like a bloodstain, like you had done to him.

Almost there, he almost had you. Your muscles were locking, your walls starting to tremble, when a loud crack resonated over his head, and you stepped away on unstable legs, breathing hard. You didn't even need to breathe, it was just his effect on you. He made you feel human. And it was both exhilarating, and terrifying.

You took another step back, but he took hold of your ankle, tugging hard enough to make you fall on his lap, white skirt covering the place where his hands were fumbling with his zip, with his boxers, aligning himself with your entrance.

"Fuck!" He cursed, as you sank on his rock hard cock, not giving him any time to get used to the feeling of you around him, before starting to move.

"How does it feel" You taunted, "fucking a monster? Is it as good as you dreamed of?"

Better. You felt even better. Tom hadn't thought it was possible, but he loathed you even more for it.

"Shut up" He growled.

You leaned forwards, breath hot against his ear,

"Cause you feel amazing, Tom. Your cock feels like heaven"

His hand tangled in your hair, keeping you in place as he crashed his mouth to yours again, the other fumbling for the buttons at the back of your dress, tugging and pulling, tearing at the fabric, in his haste to feel more. More of your skin against his, more of the body that had been his hyper fixation for far too long.

You sat up, still grinding on his cock, letting the tattered dress fall to your waist, watching in satisfaction as his eyes went wide, zeroing on the way your breasts bounced in sync with your hips.

Reaching up, for a glorious second Tom could feel one perfect pebbled nipple against his palm, the roundness, the weight of your soft flesh on his fingers; before an invisible force pinned his hands to his sides.

You tsked.

"Still don't get it, do you little hunter? This?" You let yourself fall all the way down his thick cock, hard, tearing twin moans from his mouth and yours, "This isn't about you. This is about me."

Leaning back, you braced yourself on his strong thighs, changing the angle, changing your movements to a slower rocking against his pelvis. The friction against your clit was perfect, the feeling of his big, throbbing dick so deep inside you, stretching you like no one before, sending electrical pulses through your spine. It was decadent. It was ecstasy.

It was torture. Underneath you, Tom was sobbing, eyes bright with unshed tears, fighting in vain against his bonds. He needed it faster, harder, anything to help tilt him over the edge you were keeping him on, your sweet cunt too tight, too good around him to allow his cock to soften, your rhythm too leisured to let the tensed, strained coil inside him to snap. You were uncaring, using him remorselessly to get yourself off, your little moans getting higher in pitch the closer you came to your climax. Tom felt himself getting higher just by looking at your beautiful pleasure ridden face. You cried out, and suddenly it was happening, you were coming, pulsating around his cock, falling apart on top of him.

And the ground beneath him quaked. The sky above his head bled, the blue twilight torn open by lightning, and thunder, despite the fact that there wasn't a single cloud marring its diaphaneity. You fell forwards, hand braced on the tree, next to his face, ridding the aftershocks of your orgasm until the end.

"No!" Tom cried when, after a few seconds of catching your breath, you dismounted him, letting his dick slip out of you.

You arched a brow,

"Something you want, Tommy?"

He locked his mouth shut, gritting his teeth. You smiled, amused, knuckles stroking his still iron hard cock.

"Do you need more, little hunter?" You enveloped him in your hand, moving it up and down his member, watching the head disappear under his foreskin, "Do you need to come?"

He banged the back of his head against the bark.

"Yes!" He finally admitted, "So badly…"

"Then beg" You commanded, stilling your hand. He snapped open the eyes he hadn't realized he had closed. Oh, if looks could kill…

"Never" He hissed, livid.

"Very well, then" You picked up your pace, pumping him fast, your grip almost too rough. He gasped for air, feeling the telltale tightening of his balls, the coil inside just about to break under the tension. But you must have felt it too, cause your hand let go of him altogether. Too late, he understood what you were doing.

One beat. And then another, and he was coming all over his t-shirt, orgasm completely ruined.

He cursed, tears escaping through the corner of his eyes, fingers digging into the moist ground under his hands. You chuckled, cruelly, standing up and stepping out of your shredded dress. He could have ganked you with the demon blade in that moment, he really could have, except his hands were still pinned by an invisible force at his sides.

"Let me go, you bitch," Tom growled, tossing, fighting against his restraints to no avail, "aren't you done?!"

"Not quite." You smiled, mockingly sweet, "Just one more thing before I leave. Don't worry, it will only hurt for a minute…"

He renewed his efforts to escape, as you bended over, reaching for his chest, white hot pain burning through his ribs. He almost cried out, but what he saw stole the voice from his throat, turned his blood into ice inside his veins, leaving him shaking, jaw slack and mouth open in a soundless scream:

You, naked and gorgeous and terrible. Transfixed, eyes glowing with a supernatural indigo light, the shadow of two massive, bended, broken wings projected on the trees behind you.

Not a demon, he thought. You're not a demon.

You smiled, and it was terrifying.

"No. I'm the thing demons have nightmares about" You replied out loud to the words he had only said in his mind, "And now, little hunter, you belong to me. Mind, body and soul"

#peter parker #peter parker x reader #tom holland #tom holland x reader #tom holland imagine #tom holland smut #tom holland x reader smut #tom holland fanfic #tom holland fanfiction #tom holland x you #the devil all the time #supernatural #supernatural au #supernatural smut #demons #angels #demon!reader #hunter!tom holland

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beautifulterriblequeen · 3 years

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B2:S - Chapter 5

Much of this series will be about the differences and additions in the novel version, and how they contribute to my understanding of story canon. But there will be character appreciation, the odd theory and headcanon, and suchlike as well.

Here be lots of Viren deets, Best Boy Soren deets, some writing/continuity stuff, worldbuilding appreciation and half of a theory, Detective Rayla, Moon Temple geeking, Claudium and dark magic, and more!

Spoilers for Book Two: Sky below.

(I know for darn sure that I wrote up a post for chapter 4, but I can't find it anywhere so I guess Tumblr ate it and I'll have to redo it at some point, but today is not that day)

Viren, my evil dude, my bad guy, coming in clutch with the worldbuilding and backstory again! If you want to know decades of information, you gotta talk to Viren. Or read his scenes, at least. Here, he seems to not sleep much when he has a big problem to analyze his way through. Solutions trump pretty much everything else in this guy's life, and he's had a really hard week with a lot of new and complicated problems. Of course he's getting sleep-deprived trying to find his way through them all.

Harrow put so much trust in Viren when he made him High Mage! He just threw himself extra hard at that Lady Justice blindfold, didn't he? Didn't really want to see what Viren was doing in his magic study, so he left Viren to his devices. And Viren has a lot of devices.

Also, this is fascinating: Viren made the secret passage to his "less official study" in Katolis Castle! And he was inspired to do so by the way his own mentor kept the Puzzle House. What else could a Puzzle House be, except a place with secret passages? Yay! secret headcanon that "the Puzzle House" is just "Katolis Castle" from Kid Viren's perspective tho

So either Viren built all of those passageways, or at least the ones to his dungeon. Which means he has to have, or know where to get, a stash of those glowing blue Moonshadow crystals. Hmmm.

I can't wait to learn more about Kpp'Ar and young Viren, btw. From this description of Viren and all his literal secret ways, it feels like another parallel between Viren and Runaan, with the whole "secretive paths, members only, insider knowledge" type stuff. Only the really cool members of this cult club get to know the secrets, and guess what, kid, you're cool now but you can never tell anyone, okay? Our secret.

Yeahhh, that'll never backfire in any way for either of them.

Kpp'Ar calling puzzles and secrets "man-made magic," though. Yes sir, knowledge is indeed power.

This chapter mentions Runaan by name, from Viren's perspective. Generally that would imply that Viren knows his name, even though assassins do not share their names, and Runaan didn't seem to give his to Viren in the first book. However, there was a scene in book one where the last paragraph switched perspective from Viren to Runaan - a technique that's very common in visual media like movies and shows and gives you that "ohoho they left the room and didn't notice this, but you do!" vibe. Using Runaan's name there in book one, where Viren couldn't see it but readers could, helps them keep track of the assassin's story arc while maintaining Viren's racism.

So in book two, in which Runaan has no onscreen scenes (alas), using his name in a scene that calls back to the events in book one helps us remember what happened in that dungeon cell. It would be a bit muddier to recall the specifics if Viren kept thinking about Runaan as "Elf." So I'm cool with the perspective nudge because it serves a narrative purpose: clarity. But I'm also enjoying the angst of considering that, somehow, Viren learned Runaan's name either during or after the coining spell. Mwa ha ha haaa. (Obligatory "Keep my pretty name outta your mouth" goes here)

Okay, back to Viren's scheming! He took the mirror because it was human-sized in a dragon lair. He knew it didn't really fit there, and that made it interesting, so he stole it. But he realized it was really powerful when Runaan wouldn't tell him squat about it - the assassin's instinct to protect Xadian secrets from human hands meant that Viren was holding a very powerful Xadian secret. And that just made him want it all the more. Ah, Runaan, if only your relationship with lying was, like, the exact opposite of what it is. Nyx could've spun Viren a believable tale in 2 minutes flat.

Also of interest: Viren considers his cursed coins to be a final fate. He expects Runaan to remain in his coin forever. With the Chekhov's coins still extant in the storyline, we can assume that they'll come up again eventually, but Viren has no current plans to do anything with his elf money except carry it around.

It's worth noting that Viren admits that he got impatient when he trapped Runaan in the coin. Runaan's first fate in Katolis was supposed to be death at Soren's hands, but Claudia "saved" him from that. His next fate was to become spell components, but Viren's frustration with his stubbornness "saved" him from that fate, too. So now he's in a coin, where no one can chop him up at all. Yay? No, boo!

We get one last line about Runaan before Viren shifts gears: he makes a point of noting for us that Runaan's shackles are still locked shut. However much of Runaan made it into that coin - body, soul, hair care products - he was magicked there, pulled right out of his restraints.

The creepy black liquid that Viren pours right into his eyes is the last of a powerful potion he got from Kpp'Ar, and its recipe is ancient! Humans used it back in the age of Elarion to see through the illusions of the world. And we get a delightfully creepy bit of description about the preparation of this serum, which makes it abundantly clear that it's a Moon magic-based concoction, harvested from eyeless vipers on a moonless night, with the threat of irrevocable madness ("madness" by whose definition, though) if it's done wrong-

Hang on. Hold up. This is a Plato's Cave reference. OH MY GOD.

No no I'm fine, this is brilliant. Sorry, sorry, I couldn't figure why there was so much description for a potion prep that Viren didn't even have to perform himself. But now I get it. I see the light. HA. I should make a separate post for this, it's amazing.

Anyway, for reference, the humans who used this serum were called the Oracles of Ophidia, and Ophidia is a taxonomy group that includes all modern snakes. Can you say "creepy ancient snake rites"? I can! Woo!

Viren activates the serum with a spell, but apparently he's never done it before. He's not sure if it's supposed to be hot and bubbly, and he worries that it's been tainted by moonlight.

Oh, I do hope so.

The magic potion hurts, a lot. Viren will do just about anything, to himself or anyone, to do what he believes is necessary. He just risked madness and blindness to find out what this mirror does! Viren. Can you just. Take a nap or something. Have a Snickers.

This chapter gives us a fun clue that I don't remember from the show: when Viren's vision clears and he can see, his reflection has white pupils and the room reflected in the mirror has inverted colors. You know where else has inverted colors?

You know who else got white pupils for a hot second?

Okay, now it makes sense! Viren and Lujanne were both seeing into the realm beyond life and death. Him with his moon magic potion, and her with her moon powers on a full moon night at the Moon Nexus. Which is Very Interesting! Is it a direct hint about Aaravos's location, or just a separate cool detail? Orrr, does it look like a direct hint because Aaravos is actually trapped in the world beyond life and death, but it's actually separate and we'll see something about white pupils again later on?

Viren really does have self-esteem issues, we all picked up on it with his rant at his reflection. He throws a fit when he catches himself wondering if he's actually worthless. In the book version of his tantrum, he shoves the mirror and hurls a candelabra instead of flipping a table. He didn't need to shove the mirror to set the fire, but it's in here. Foreshadowing that perhaps, if push comes to shove, Viren will choose himself over Aaravos? Giving Aaravos time to peek through and see that the coast is clear?

Soren, my boyyyyy. He has a rough night at the Moon Nexus because two sides of him are fighting with each other. He struggles to understand Callum's friendship with Rayla, and he also fantasizes about chopping off Rayla's head. One of these is a pretty ordinary thing to do. The other is Soren's internalization of what he needs to do to gain his father's approval. If he brought his dad a chopped off elf head every week, he'd probably feel a lot more confident because Viren would praise him a lot more.

Okay, okay, omg, is it just me, or does the "Moonshadow Madness" story, as it's told in the book, seem like Soren just doesn't know what a monsterfucker is? He thinks an elf bite puts humans under a spell. But vampires are sexy, and some people want them to do more to them than just bite them. A passionate kiss under the moonlight could look very bitey, especially if one of the participants has horns and you're already culturally trained to hate them. No yeah, I'm already headcanoning an actual human-elf kiss that got misunderstood by an observer long ago.

it's Lujanne isn't it, we all know, because what is a love spell but a sweet soft illusion, I mean how else does she get supplies for her Caldera, I ask you, and also Corvus was totally sent to investigate once and he told Soren at camp what he saw

And then back to magefam angst: Soren pretending that his sister's nose-tapping is stupid, even though he actually thinks it's cool, just because their dad thinks it's stupid. Viren, istg. Let your kids like harmless things. It's so cute that Soren taps his nose back at her, though! Like they have their own sibling code. I hope we get to see the nose tap again, especially now that they've chosen different sides. It could mean so much, that they're not too far apart yet.

Rayla knows what buttery pancakes smell like. I love this. Do Moonshadow elves have butter and pancakes, does Rayla eat a stack of eight giant pancakes in the morning? Orrrr it is just illusion food? I don't care, let Rayla have pancakes! Everyone loves pancakes. Pancakes will save the world. this message brought to you by the fact that I can't eat pancakes rn, send help

I love that Rayla is both sus of the pancakes and hungry, and that combines into a very motivated "I will get to the bottom of this" attitude. She kind of goes into Poirot Mode when she inserts herself into Soren and Ellis's conversation about Ava, explaining about the wolf's illusion leg and segueing into her claim that the pancakes taste sus. Claudia confirms she used dark magic, and Rayla is furious. It's different than the show's version in that it puts Rayla in detective mode, as the only Moonshadow elf in the scene, and boy does she take that role seriously. Also, she doesn't actually swallow the dark magic pancake bite. It ends up on the ground just like Lujanne's grubs from that earlier meal. These poor kids are so nutrient-starved. You guys gotta eat!!

Rayla's determination and prejudices and the fact that she super knows Harrow is dead all dovetail to make her try repeatedly to persuade Callum that Soren and Claudia are Not To Be Trusted. It's nice that the book keeps taking the time to point out that Rayla is Well Intentioned But Flawed, just like Callum and pretty much every other character in the show. No one is Right All The Time, no one Knows More Than Everyone Else.

Callum loving the sound of Claudia's unique voice is so wholesome. When you like someone, it only makes sense that you like all the things about them that they can't change - like the sound of Claudia's voice. Her choices with dark magic, not so much!

Claudia seems to have the same concerns Soren does about Callum's relationship with Rayla, but she comes out and asks him. The inherent possession implied in "your elf" is interesting, though. Elves are not people to Claudia. They're enemies who can be disassembled for the magic inside them. So maybe more like robots than living beings, if she knew what a robot was. Maybe she heard Soren's "Moonshadow Madness" story and realized he totally missed the kissing implications - but she didn't, and now she's genuinely worried that Rayla could kiss Callum under a full moon and enchant him to do her will. Good thing it's only a half moon, then!

Okay, Callum nervously making a puppet hand and then not knowing what to do with his hands and freaking out about itching and moving and pointy elbows is such a ND mood. The sudden stress of knowing that someone else is noticing your existence and maybe you're Not Existing Right, amirite? Ugh, poor Callum.

The Moon Temple! Omg it's so pretty in the description! Made to be beautiful and useful, full of knowledge but also allowing light and life inside (butterflies and vines). Lujanne, when can I move in, please? Also, it's all the more angsty because Lujanne is the only one who gets to see this beautiful place, but it has lots of chairs and shelves and tables, and it was meant to be used by lots of people. :(((

Claudia knows some of the runes on the walls. She isn't in a hurry to copy the rest of them down or anything, either. Her spellwriting is very precise, and she's a skilled mage. Her father would have made sure she was aware of the dangers of drawing sloppy runes, as much as he made her aware of the dangers of doing dark magic wrong. And the whole point of dark magic is that it's easier to learn than primal magic. Claudia supports her dad and their shared knowledge and life path. She's not gonna go nuts over an elf library she can't translate.

Side note: Between Claudia knowing some Moon runes and Viren building a secret passageway and a dungeon and lighting it with the same blue crystals that Lujanne and Ethari use for light--and Claudia exclaiming that she loves ruins--I wonder once more if there are really Moonshadow ruins somewhere in Katolis, which Viren has found and looted. Father-daughter relic hunting trip, maybe while Soren is away at camp? Omgsh that would be so wild!

Callum out here having a Viren moment with his "I feel powerless unless I've got magic that lets me help" vibes. God. I love their complicated mirroring. One of the hard differences between them is that Callum is very sure dark magic is bad because you have to kill stuff and take its power to cast spells, and he doesn't want to be a person who kills and takes like that. The line he walks to be nice to Claudia on their tour of the Cursed Caldera because he likes her, while telling her that he doesn't want to do her magic, like, ever, is so fine that it might as well be a shifting shadow on the ground. It's a very fitting conversation to be having during the half moon, with its tricks and little white lies.

Callum being out of the castle and his comfort zone, having to deal with the fact that the Claudia he loves is not quite the Claudia who's chasing him down across the kingdom, but of the two of them, he's the only one with a problem with this.

They say that if you really want to get to know someone, you should spend time with them outside their comfort zone - in heavy traffic, with a small baby, taking care of a new pet, trying a new skill, following unfamiliar directions, etc. While the castle is familiar territory for them both, Callum's never really found his comfort zone yet, while Claudia is pretty comfortable with her growing skill set. The creepy part starts to kick in when Callum begins to realize that Claudia's comfort zone encompasses a whole bunch of stuff that seems like it should make her uncomfortable... but it doesn't. But that'll be for a future chapter!

#book two: sky spoilers #book two: sky #b2:s #tdp spoilers #viren #harrow #rayla #runaan #callum #claudia #soren #lujanne #moonshadow elves #aaravos

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thebigbadbatswife · 3 years

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The Witching Hour - Chapter 1 - All Hallows’ Eve

Summary - When her friends dragged her to Gotham’s old cemetery for some Halloween ghost hunting fun, Y/N really didn’t think her life would end up changing like this.

Chapter Warnings - referenced/implied character death

Word Count - 3.3k

The cell phone on your nightstand buzzed incessantly as your friends continued to spam your messages. They had been doing so for the past hour or so. You were surprised that the damn thing hadn’t vibrated off of the nightstand yet. When it finally stopped, when you finally thought they had given up, you returned your attention to the document you had open on your laptop. Just as you were about to start typing again, your phone resumed its buzzing.

Huffing, you shut your laptop’s lid, placed it on the bed next to you, reached over and grabbed your phone off the nightstand. Over eighty messages both from your friends individually and within the group chat, begging you to come along with them to the old cemetery that sat outside of town. They wanted to go because it was Halloween and that meant it was the best time to go ghost hunting! And they wanted you to go along because of how you were usually drawn to this type of stuff. As well as how this type of stuff was also usually drawn to you.

Come on! For old time’s sake? Plus we’re going to have a much better chance at actually catching something if you come along!

The message was from your friend John, the ringleader of your group. The reason you and your friends had always gotten into trouble at school. Now he was trying to work his magic once again.

Only because I’m a meta with an uncomfortably close relationship with death…

As far as you knew, your powers were genetic instead of being caused by that arc reactor explosion that had given a lot of metas their powers. You were able to look past the “Veil”, as it was called, and see and interact with spirits on the other side. Not that you did so often or even liked to do. It creeped you out and you sometimes saw things that would certainly traumatize most people if they saw them. Not to mention the strain on your body and mind each time you did it.

Why the obsession with the old cemetery now?

It had been years since John had mentioned ghost hunting, let alone the old cemetery. Back during your last year of high school, it had been all John could talk about. He was convinced that it was where the “cool” ghosts would be hanging out. None of you had ever actually gone because your last year had passed surprisingly quickly and before you all knew it, you were all moving to different parts of the country for college. In all that time it had never been mentioned again. Until now.

Ha! She finally replies! I knew you wouldn’t leave us to scream into the void forever!

The next message was from Tom, your oldest friend. Unlike the others, you two had known each other since kindergarten. If anyone was capable of talking you into going, it was probably him.

It’s been years since all of us were in the same place at the same time! Not to mention it’s Halloween and a full moon! I don’t think it could be more perfect!

Well, he wasn’t wrong about that.

You know you want to come! And don’t you dare lie!

He wasn’t wrong about that either. You were a little curious. The cemetery was on the outskirts of Gotham City. According to the internet, the cemetery had members of Gotham’s oldest families buried there. If you were to use your powers there to look past the Veil, there was a chance some of those people could still be hanging around. It would certainly be an unique opportunity to converse with them and, perhaps, attempt to help move on. Or maybe you would find inspiration for your next short ghost story. You certainly had been struggling with inspiration recently so maybe this was exactly what you needed.

Okay! Fine! I’ll come!

You scoffed as you hit ‘send’. Once again, Tom had talked you into joining them. A small part of you was convinced he was a meta with some sort of manipulation power.

That’s great! ‘Cause we’re already outside your house!

John replied, causing you to roll your eyes. Of course they were already outside. Why wouldn’t they be?

You locked your phone, got up from your bed and slipped your phone into your pocket. You grabbed your jacket from your wardrobe and made your way out of your bedroom and down the stairs. You grabbed your keys from the bowl on the table, near the front door.

“Y/N? Where are you going at this hour sweetheart?” your grandma called from the living room.

“I’m going to meet up with some old friends. I’ll be back soon!” you replied. You didn’t tell her where you guys were going since you knew she would most definitely disapprove.

“Stay safe!”

“Will do!”

After your parents’ death, your grandma had not only raised you, but helped you learn how to use your abilities so that, should you choose to, you’d be able to use them. Not that she would approve of you constantly using them. Looking through the Veil could sometimes draw the attention of extremely unwanted creatures that were looking for a route to the physical world. You knew how to defend yourself from them, but that didn’t mean you really wanted to get into that situation to begin with. If you were going to use your abilities tonight, you were going to have to be extremely careful.

The entire drive there, your friends excitedly talked about what they could potentially capture on either video or audio. John was driving, Tom sat in the passenger seat next to him and you were sitting in the back with Rebecca.

A couple of hours later and the car finally pulled up in front of the cemetery. John turned off the engine and you all got out. Since it was pretty much pitch black out here, you all got out your phones and turned on your flashlights.

Tall stone walls covered in moss and vines surrounded the cemetery and an old rusted iron gate stopped the car from going any further. Threaded through the bars of the gate was large rusted chain with an equally rusted padlock. Even if you guys had the key, you seriously doubted it would have worked anyway.

“Are you kidding me?” asked Tom, as he useless pulled against the chain. “This is so unfair!”

“Uh, maybe we could try to scale the walls or something?” Rebecca suggested as she walked over to where the vines seemed at their thickest. She gave them a gentle tug. “Looks like it might hold our weight, if we go up one by one.”

Tom shook his head. “And get covered in spiders? Yeah, no thanks!”

Rebecca frowned as she used her phone’s light to have a closer look at the vines. “I can’t see any spiders.”

“That’s because you’re not looking in the right spots,” he replied as he walked over to her. He shone his own light up at the vines.

While you walked over to them, to get a better look at what Tom was trying to show her, John shook his head and walked back toward the car.

“See all of those tiny turquoise dots shinning back at us?” he asked her as he pointed above where there were a lot of tiny turquoise dots sparkling in the light.

“Yeah, they’re like little drops of moisture right?”

“You would think, but they’re not! Those are the eyes of all those horrid little spiders!”

Rebecca squealed and immediately backed away from the wall. “Tom! Why the fuck would you tell me that! Fuck! There’s probably going to be so many of them inside the actual cemetery! And now I know how to spot them!”

“I don’t think that’s going to be much of an issue considering we can’t get in anyway,” you said as you gestured toward the very locked gate. This whole thing was starting to feel like a massive waste of time.

“Oh! But we can!” John announced as he strode on over to you three with a large pair of bolt cutters in hand. He also had a backpack slung over his shoulder. As he cut the chain, John explained how he had swung by here earlier to see if there was anything that would stop you lot from getting in. When he saw the chain, he had gone to the hardware store, that was located in the worst part of the city, and bought these. “Only place I could find that had bolt cutters big enough for a chain like this!”

“Aren’t we like breaking the law or something right now?” Rebecca asked just as the cutters snipped through the chain and it clanged against the gate.

“Probably,” John replied very nonchalantly. “But we’re pretty much committed at this point now. Besides, look at this place! No one’s been here in years! I seriously doubt we’re going to get caught.”

The iron gate creaked loudly as it was pushed open and you all headed inside. The others walked ahead while you trailed behind. The way they were talking, discussing who was buried here and therefor who they could potentially “contact”, made you feel like you had time-travelled back to high school.

When you all got to the centre of the cemetery, John took the backpack off and opened it. It was filled with all sorts of equipment that was used in modern day ghost hunting. Voice recorders, emf meters, even a couple of high end night vision cameras. Damn, he had really gone all out for this. After the gear had been handed out, John began to give everyone directions as to where they were off to investigate.

Tom and Rebecca were going to be investigating the southwest of the cemetery, which was the newest part, John was headed up to the north, where some mausoleums were shaded by an old willow tree and you:

“And Y/N, you get the oldest part of the cemetery which is toward the east!”

“Right, of course, send the meta to the creepiest part of this place,” you said, playfully rolling your eyes.

“Well, you said it, not me! Good luck and we’ll meet back here in a couple of hours,” John replied. With that, you all split up and went your separate ways.

The cemetery was vastly overgrown. Most of the headstones were buried beneath the long unruly grass, brambles and vines. Every now and then your flashlight would catch a glimpse of the grey stone underneath. You also caught more glimpses of those glowing spider eyes and were doing your best to ignore them. You really hated Tom sometimes.

Thanks to all of the plants, you could barely see the path. The only thing that indicated you were walking on one was every now and then you could feel a stone slab shift underneath your feet.

The further east you walked, the darker and darker the cemetery seemed to get. It also seemed to get creepier and creepier, which was strange to you because you never really found cemeteries creepy. Instead you had always found them peaceful. A lot of people found you weird for that. There was also the feeling that something was watching you. The uneasiness that came along with that feeling was enough to prevent you from using either your recorder or your abilities. If there really was something watching you, you got the feeling that the last thing you wanted to do was attract its attention. After all, who knew what truly lurked here? Especially on the other side.

You eventually reached a group of mausoleums. Much like the rest of the cemetery, they were covered in bramble, vines and other plantlife. They were tall and the parts of them you could see, you could tell were certainly made of far more expensive stone than the rest of the place. This wasn’t just the oldest part, this was also the richest part.

You approached a few of the mausoleums and managed to clear away some of the plants covering the name plates. The majority of the names had been erased due to the elements, but not all of them. The names that were still readable were also names you recognised. Kane, Elliot, Crowne. Three of the First Families of Gotham.

You were about to approach another when you saw something large and black move, out of the corner of your eye. You spun around and shone your flashlight in the direction of the shadow, but there was nothing there.

“Hello?” you called out, which was probably a terrible idea, but it was the only thing you could think of doing. “Who’s there?” You waited for a reply, but no reply came.

Was your nerves making you see things? It couldn’t be a spirit; you weren’t using your powers. Unless… Throughout your life you had heard of non metas who had “seen” things in their peripheral vision. Sometimes they were spirits that had briefly broken through the Veil, other times it really was just people imagining things. Until now you had never experienced it before and you hated how impossible it was to tell which one it was.

Turning on your phone’s screen, you looked at the time. You still had an hour before you had to head back to meet back up with the others. Turning the screen off again, you looked back in the direction you had seen the shadow move toward. Did you follow? It sounded like an awful idea, but the only other thing you could do was head back early and then wait around for everyone else, and that sounded incredibly boring.

‘ Okay, guess I’m doing this then,’ you thought as you began to head down the path, in the direction the shadow had gone.

You had previously thought that there was no way this cemetery could be anymore overgrown than it already was. This new part you were now walking through proved you wrong. Extremely wrong.

Branches hanging low off of trees and thorns from the brambles tugged at your clothing as you passed them. You had to keep an extra careful eye out on where you were stepping so that you didn’t trip over and injure yourself. There were more mausoleums, but you could barely make their shapes out through all of the greenery.

As you walked, that feeling that something was watching you increased tenfold and you found yourself constantly glancing back. Each time you looked you were met with the same result. There was nothing there.

‘ It’s just my overactive imagination ,’ you told yourself, but that did nothing to soothe your growing fear. What if the thing you had seen had been an actual person? And not a good person at that. This was Gotham after all and for some reason Halloween was when most, if not all, the psychopaths suddenly came out to play. Were you about to become another notch in some serial killer’s knife hilt? Oh, you really hoped not. That was not how you wanted to go.

Before your mind could lead you down a dark path of all the vivid ways you could be brutally murdered right now, the path came to an end. At the end of it sat a lone mausoleum. This one didn’t look nearly as old as the others nor was it as covered in plants like the rest. As you walked over to it you saw one of the large iron doors had fallen off its hinges and now laid on the ground.

Cautiously, you approached the entrance. When you were close enough, you shone your light on the name plate. The name ‘Wayne’ was engraved on to it. You got a feeling that that was somehow important, but you really didn’t know why. Nor why you were so drawn to it. Almost as if you were now on autopilot, you stepped inside the mausoleum.

The first two names you saw were Martha and Thomas Wayne. Even years after their deaths, you knew the names well. Before their untimely deaths they had been trying to use their fortune to help the city and its more vulnerable citizens.

The next name you saw, you didn’t recognise. Jason Peter Todd. You were shocked when you saw his death date. “Fuck, you were barely sixteen years old,” you whispered. That was... that was not fair at all.

The last name was Bruce Wayne. It stood out to you a lot more than the others had. Almost as if it was…. Glowing? What? That made no sense. Okay, you were definitely just seeing things now. To prove that to yourself, you turned your flashlight off. The name continued to glow, in fact now it was a hell of a lot brighter.

“What the fuck?”

You peered closer to see if there was any small lights or something similar causing it to glow, but there wasn’t anything. The name was actually glowing! Freaked out, you took a picture of it (without the flash of course), and sent it to Tom. A few agonising minutes passed before he finally replied.

Why are you sending me a completely black photo?

What? You checked the picture you had sent and, yeah, the name was definitely visible.

Can’t you see the glowing name?

If Tom couldn’t see it, then what did that mean?

What are you on about? There’s nothing there. Are you okay?

Was this somehow related to your powers? Is that why Tom wasn’t able to see it? If that was the case, and with each passing second it seemed to be, then he or the others couldn’t help.

Yeah, I’m fine. Nevermind.

Sighing, you checked the time before you shut off you phone and slipped it into your pocket. Thirty minutes before you had to head back. You were on your own. If this was related to your powers then what exactly did you do with it? Your grandma had never mentioned anything like this before, so you had no clue. You still felt uneasy and this new discovery had done nothing to help so you really didn’t want to peer through the Veil, unless it was absolutely necessary.

Would anything happen if you reached out and touched it? You sometimes got flashes of memories or feelings when you touched some items. Maybe this could be the same? You supposed the only way to find out would be to touch the stone. Cautiously you reached out and pressed the palm of your hand against the cold stone.

Images flashed through your mind. Movie tickets, a pearl necklace, a gun. There was the sound of the gun firing, a child’s blood chilling scream and the loud wailing of police sirens. Then it was over and you were brought back to reality, with far more questions than you had previously started with.

Before you were able to question or make sense of what you had seen, your phone vibrated. Taking it out, you saw a text from John, as well as several others.

Are you nearly here?

We were supposed to meet up fifteen minutes ago. Where are you?

Did your phone die?

It did, didn’t it. Unless you’re currently doing one of your meta things?

So what had simply been mere seconds for you in reality had been forty five minutes for everyone else. Which wasn’t all that unusual for you, but could certainly make people that didn’t deal with it daily worry. With that in mind, you fingers flew across your keyboard as you typed out your reply.

Yeah, meta thing, sorry. I’m on my way back now.

You turned your flashlight back on and walked back to the entrance. Before leaving, you looked back to where the glowing of Bruce Wayne’s name was now slowly fading away. Whoever he had been, he was asking for your help. You were sure of it and that’s exactly what you were going to do.

#batman x reader #bruce wayne x reader #batman #bruce wayne #batman x fem!reader #bruce wayne x fem!reader #metahuman!reader #the witching hour #my writing

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sillyrabbit81 · 3 years

Text

The Pull

Summary: Alternative Universe. Vampire Henry. Henry, Crown Prince of the Vampires is avoiding his responsibilities because of his mothers fate. When Henry finds his mate, the circumstances are eerily similar to his mother's. Rather than risking his mate's life, Henry chooses to run, but can he run from his fate?

Pairing: Henry x OFC

Word Count: approx 2.5k

Warnings: Implied smut, a little angsty in parts.

Authors note: Thanks to @henryobsessed for the support and Beta read!

Masterlist

Part 8 Part 10

Chapter Nine

Rowena

Henry pulled up at a beautiful lake house. I was rapidly discovering that nothing Lawrence owned was modest, and thus, to call it a house was an understatement. It was more of a large hunting lodge. It was very isolated, which I guess was the point, but it was a little unnerving that I couldn't see another house from this area of the lake.

I was surprised to find that the thought of being alone with Henry wasn't scary. The idea of it only a few hours ago terrified me, but now that Charlie was safe, I didn't feel like he would hurt me. He was being almost kind since we argued at the first town, he was doing what he could to make things easier for me. I even tried to assist Henry with my shopping and bag, he refused gently and said I should go inside.

The inside of the lodge was an interesting mix of modernity and antiquity. The kitchen was modern and more extensive than I expected, but much of the furnishing had an old homely feel. There was a grand fireplace, which I hoped we could use, and it gave the whole room a lovely cosy feel despite its size. The rest of the ground floor had a narrow staircase leading to bedrooms upstairs, a bathroom, laundry and a mudroom. I hoped there was more than one bedroom. I didn't think I was ready to share a bed with Henry just yet.

"Henry," I called when he came into the kitchen with my shopping. "Do you eat regular food?"

Henry put my shopping on the bench. He was close to me, much too close. It was like he had never before heard of personal space. It was strange that I didn't feel the all powerful Pull to him like I had. I wondered if maybe we weren't mates after all. I knew it wasn't true, though. The hunger in his swirling amber and blood-red eyes said he still felt something. His nostrils flared when he got closer to me. Henry was so close to me I could feel his warm breath on my ear as he exhaled. I shivered as goosebumps danced down my arms and spine.

"We do," he said in a thick voice.

"Oh," I said. Henry's voice, so close to my ear, rolled through my body as if I could feel his words in every cell. I swallowed hard. "I think I have enough for both of us. I should have thought to ask before I shopped," I struggled to say in a faint voice.

He tilted his head towards me when I spoke like he wanted to hear every subtlety of my speech. Henry smiled and said, "I'm not hungry for food at the moment." His tongue slipped tantalisingly between his teeth, and he licked lips. I turned away quickly, feeling heat rush to my cheeks. With or without the bond, he was attractive. Very attractive and very seductive.

I cleared my throat and started to put away the perishables. I felt him hovering, unwilling to move away from me. Was this how it would be until I decided to consummate the bond? Was I going to be tempted by his magnetic charisma and desirability constantly? Henry was frustrating me, not only sexually. I was frustrated because I didn't know if I was genuinely attracted to him or if it was our biologies forcing us together. If I was going to be with him, I wanted it to be because I wanted to, not because fate or his Goddess willed it.

Turning away from Henry, I bent over to put some vegetables in the crisper. I heard him swear under his breath. I looked over my shoulder at him and asked, "Are you ok?" Henry slowly nodded. He wasn't looking at my face, instead, he was staring at my ass. My cheeks felt like they had burst into flames, and I wanted to run away. I went down on my haunches instead of bending at the waist and quickly put everything away.

"I need to go to the bathroom," I said when I had finished putting the food away. Henry followed, and as I went to close the door behind me, I hit Henry in the shoulder with it. "Um, alone," I said.

He gave himself a shake and a slight look of embarrassment washed over his features. "Right," he said and went out. I closed the door.

I didn't need to go to the bathroom, I just needed some space to collect my thoughts. I didn't know how but I had to develop an idea of how to play this. My attraction to Henry was strong. If things kept going the way they were, I don't think I would be able to resist Henry for long. But even as I thought it, I wondered if I really needed to. Charlie was safe, and everyone assured me that after bonding, I would eventually become sane again. I felt clearheaded now compared to last night. The necklace chaffed at my neck, and I thought about taking it off. No, not yet. I won't take it off until I'm sure I want to go ahead with the mating.

Thinking I had avoided Henry for long enough, I washed up and went back into the lounge. He was sitting on the sizeable, brown leather, three-seater sofa staring at me. He sat casually, his arms over the back of the lounge, emphasising his broad chest. His long muscular legs rested wide apart, drawing my eyes to the bulge at their apex. Henry gave me a smirk as he noticed where I was looking. Dammit.

"Where is my bag?" I asked, saying the first thing that popped into my head.

"In our room Little Fawn," Henry replied in his baritone voice.

I shivered as he addressed me so. I liked his pet name for me, but I didn't think I had ever heard him say my name and I wondered why. I hesitated as I took in the meaning of what he had said. "Our room?" I questioned.

"Well, yes," Henry said, getting up leisurely and making his way to me. "Was that too presumptuous?" My breath hitched as he approached. He moved with the grace of a big cat stalking his prey. His footsteps gave the illusion of laziness, but every step he took was a deliberate action and a deliberate enticement. I couldn't decide if his seductive movements were calculated or natural. From what I had seen of Vampires, I think it was a little of both.

"Yes, it was," I uttered weakly.

He looked disappointed. "Come." He said simply and led me upstairs.

"Thank you," I said.

Henry looked dejected as he entered the master bedroom and returned with his bag. "You can have this room," he said. Turning his body to the side, he sidled past me down the hall, and he didn't look at me.

I felt terrible for him. Henry had waited years to be alone with me, and I was doing everything I could to avoid him. He could have taken me years ago, but he didn't. He only did so now because his Father had forced his hand and because of the political situation he found himself in. I could hardly blame him for his biological drive to be with me. I needed time though and I wasn't wrong to want that. Maybe there was a middle ground, a way to spend time together without it being sexual.

"Henry," I blurted out. He looked at me with a guarded expression. "Would you like to eat dinner with me? Maybe, we could talk? Get to know each other."

The corner of Henry's mouth twitched like he was going to smile. "I'd be delighted, Little Fawn."

There was that name again. "You can call me Rowena if you want."

"You don't like Little Fawn?" Henry leaned in his doorway with an arm lazily draped against the frame above his head, and he bit his bottom lip. My heart skipped a beat. At that moment, I saw why I was his Little Fawn. I was as helpless as a fawn would be in front of a lion. Henry was a lion. He exuded power, not just because he was a vampire, but because Henry executed every movement with predatory and dominant ease. He knew he was the strongest, most powerful creature, the king of the savannah, so to speak.

"I suppose it is apt for the situation," I said in a small voice.

Henry dropped his bag into his room and shepherded me against the hallway's wall until he had me cornered. Henry was close, but our bodies didn't touch. Henry's eyes searched my face as I struggled to control my panting breath. He put his hand on the side of my head and gently kissed my forehead. I heard him take a shuddering breath and was relieved I wasn't the only one dealing with breathing troubles. He rested his forehead against mine, and for a few moments, we tested our self-restraint.

He stepped back and said, "I'll meet you in the kitchen in 30 minutes."

I nodded my head, and we went to our rooms.

After putting my phone on charge and unpacking the few pieces of clothes I brought with me, I started pacing the room anxiously. There was still twenty minutes before Henry expected me downstairs. I tried to organise my thoughts, think about what questions I still had, what I wanted to know about mating and being a Vampire. Concentrating proved difficult, my heart still raced, and my breathing had not returned to normal.

I needed to calm down. My body cried out for relief from an ache I hadn't felt for years. I was so unused to feeling any sexual desire, it was like I didn't know how to deal with the feelings. Even with Alex, the desire had seemed like teenaged hormone running rampant. The desire I felt for Henry was different and it scared me.

Looking around the room, I spied the bathroom and decided a shower would help pass the time. I needed to have one anyway. I had been in too much of a rush to escape Lawrence and David that I hadn't had time for one. A shower would calm me down too. Ever since having Charlie, it had become a place of calming solace, a place where I could stay uninterrupted and centre myself.

Stripping off in the bathroom, I was grateful there were clean towels under the sink and that I had thought to purchase my preferred body wash. I took off the silver jewellery and got into the warm shower. The warm water reminded me of Henry's warm embrace last night. His steely arms had held me firmly but with a tenderness I would never have expected his body was capable of, and the memory stirred a passion within me. I felt heat bloom deep in my gut, and my body started to burn with an intense desire for my mate. I wanted to feel him inside me, feel his beautiful fangs penetrate me and take nourishment from my veins.

As if summoned by my thoughts, I heard Henry's voice on the other side of the door. Turning the shower off, I went to him.

My hand went to open the door, but Henry's voice urgently called out. "Don't open the door."

Breathless and ardent, I cried, "Why not?"

He didn't answer. Instead, he said, "Put the silver back on." Then his words were muffled, but it almost sounded like he said please.

My hand went to open the door again, and this time there was no doubt. Henry's words, though strained, were clear. "Please, Little Fawn. Don't open the door. Put your necklace back on."

I glanced at the necklace and other jewellery. Not understanding why I felt repulsed by the chain, I shook my head. I wanted to tell Henry no and run to him, throw myself at his mercy. But I also wanted to do what Henry asked. I fought with myself, unsure of what to do. I went to the counter where I left the antique necklace. Scrunching my nose up, I lifted the necklace and, opening the clasp, I looked in the mirror to place it on my neck.

"Fuck!" Henry shouted at the door. The door rattled in its hinges as something hit it. In a softer but urgent tone, he said, "Hurry."

I placed the silver jewellery on my neck, and I shook my head trying to clear my ardent thoughts. As the silver connected with my skin and I closed the clasp, the dreamlike state I had just been in vanished, and I felt my mind clear. Giving my head another shake, I asked Henry, "What the hell was that?" I pulled a towel around me and slumped down on the floor with my back against the door, and tried to get my fluttering heart under control.

Henry didn't reply for a while, I could hear him breathing on the other side of the door, so I knew he hadn't gone anywhere. "That, Little Fawn, was the mating Pull. Silver is not just poisonous to us. It also interrupts our magic."

"So, when I'm wearing it, what I feel is real?" I asked half to Henry and half to myself, trying to understand what he was saying.

"I don't know for sure, but I think so."

I sat on the cold tiles a few moments longer, processing what he said. I had been ready to allow Henry to take me. If he hadn't stopped me, I would have offered myself to him. How did Henry have the strength of mind to stop me? He must have felt as I did but still could say no. I was impressed by his control and touched that he respected me enough not to take advantage of the situation.

Standing up, I opened the door and found Henry sitting on the floor in the same position I had been. His eyes raked over my body, and I felt naked despite the towel. Ok, so opening the door probably wasn't the best idea. Henry stood up sluggishly as if exhausted. "Thank you," I said, not meeting his eyes.

Henry reached his hand out and touched my bare, still damp shoulder with the back of his finger and ran it down my arm. In a voice thick with desire, he said, "You should get dressed, my Little Fawn. I'll meet you downstairs." Then he fled. Literally, one second he was there, the next he was gone.

Still reeling, I dried off and got dressed in some yoga pants and a sweater. I replaced the wrist jewellery but left off the thigh bands, they were too uncomfortable. They also didn't seem necessary now that I could see Henry had some control when he was with me. I was glad for the silver, though. I felt so much better knowing that my feelings towards Henry weren't just based on the the Pull. And smiling, I realised that his feelings mustn't be either.

Part 10

Tag List

@henryobsessed @omgkatinka @legendarywizarddetective @posiemax @nostalgicb-txh

#henry cavill #fanfic #alternative universe #vampire!henry #Henry Cavill vampire #alexander skarsgard #werewolf #vampire #henry cavill x ofc

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lexosaurus · 3 years

Text

Everything Was White: Part 12

[see all chapters]

Read on: [ffn] / [ao3]

---

The alarm was blaring.

Danny recognized the noise immediately. But his eyes were still slow to open, his arms were slow to turn off the offending sound, and his brain was slow to recognize that the white ceiling above him was just his bedroom ceiling.

His body was numb. Nothing felt real.

He grabbed his phone off his nightstand and unlocked it. The screen was too bright, but he didn’t care. He’d been through worse. What was a little eye strain to him, really?

There were text messages, but Danny ignored them. The government likely already read them first, so if they were important, Danny would probably have woken up back in his cell rather than his cozy bed.

Ghosts like Danny didn’t get to have comfort. He was unpredictable. Dangerous.

“You’re a feral beast.” Operative O’s deep voice rained down on him. “You need to be trained.”

Danny opened the Twitter app only to be faced with a crushing amount of notifications and his name on the top of the trending list.

He should have felt nervous. Anxiety should have gripped his stomach. But...it didn’t.

He felt nothing.

Numb.

He clicked on his name and scrolled through the tweets. As he suspected, that damn video of him at the PHP littered his screen.

Protests have begun to break out near the health clinic Phantom is attending. [image]

I don’t understand, why doesn’t he just fly into the building or something? Can he not fly?

Is phantom over?

It’s so gross how people feel the need to harass a teenager trying to recover from trauma.

imagine being a teen trying to get emergency mental help and then THAT walks into ur class

What the fuck did the government do to him?

He was numb.

Nobody knew what really happened in there, and Danny wanted so badly to keep it that way. And the worst part was, he thought that if he just forgot about it, tried to move past it, then it would all go away. And no one would ever know.

Except Vlad did find out. Somehow, Vlad had managed to get a hold of classified government files about Danny, and if what he had implied was true, then he had learned everything.

And if Vlad knew, then…

No. He wasn’t going to think about it.

Danny knew from the moment he’d stupidly revealed himself that his life was not his own anymore. He knew that he was going to be nothing but a government possession from that moment till the day he died.

He didn’t deserve to get upset over this.

He pulled up a blank tweet and started typing. His movements were robotic. Stilted. But one slip-up, just one reason for the public to get suspicious, and Danny knew that some seedy corner of the internet would pounce on the opportunity to dig deeper into Danny’s life than he was comfortable with.

Danny Phantom @dannyphantom Thank you everyone for the support. I’m back home with my family and am healing.

Before he could question what he was doing, his finger was already pressing send on the tweet. He watched as almost immediately, notifications popped up in his inbox.

But he didn’t open his notifications, he didn’t look at the replies. Instead, he closed the app and shut his phone off.

He didn’t care anymore.

Maddie knocked on the door and asked him a question, and he responded with the right answer for her to leave. He got up and started his new morning routine of sitting in the shower for ten minutes, getting dressed, brushing his teeth, and heading downstairs for breakfast before leaving for six hours of mandatory therapy.

He stared out the window, watching the morning traffic pass by him. He couldn’t remember if he shampooed his hair or if he just sat under the scalding water. But it was fine. He was just a government-issued robot now. Whatever.

There were people lining the highway when Danny pulled into the PHP center. They were shouting different things, holding different signs, their cameras armed and ready as soon as the GAV came into view. The police were there, making sure no one escaped into the parking lot, and there were therapists waiting outside.

They didn’t know. They had no idea what Danny had gone through, why he was there.

And it didn’t matter. Not to them, not to Danny, not to the police or the news stations filming the scene or to the government or Vlad or anyone else.

Danny wasn’t in charge of his life anymore.

He was only here because the government had decided he could stay free.

For now.

The therapists escorted him into the building. Danny felt hollow. Sick.

No, he was fine.

Maddie hugged him, told him to have a good day, that she’d be back to bring him to more therapy after, and Danny nodded. At least, he thought he remembered to nod. He might not have, though.

There was a window in the lobby. A white van was parked along the street.

The APC news van.

Jazz was right. Danny was just being paranoid about the white van outside of their house before. He was so stupid.

Even if it wasn’t a news van, what would it matter? He didn’t control his life, what would he care if they finished him off in some back alley? What would it matter if they snuck him into their van and held him captive for the rest of his life in some damp containment cell?

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Danny spaced out for the morning meeting. He couldn’t remember if he managed to read off his paper for the other teens. His voice wasn’t working today. His head hurt. His chest hurt. Everything was numb.

They had art therapy today, run by a tall, lanky man with sandy hair and a clean-shaven face. He told the group to paint what they were feeling today, to channel their emotions onto their blank sheets of paper.

But Danny felt nothing. He had nothing to give.

He must have stared at his paper for too long, because the therapist tried to talk to him, ask him if he was alright, if he was having trouble with the exercise.

Danny didn’t respond, instead choosing to pick up the green paint and squeeze some of it directly onto his paper, rules be damned. It was too dark, so he grabbed the white paint and smeared it into the green. The color still wasn’t right, but Danny didn’t know enough about art to make it right, so he just kept spreading green across his paper. A dash of yellow, then some white, more green.

Time was up. His paper was green.

“Good job, Danny. What do you think?” the therapist asked.

Danny stared at the paper, studying the streaks of yellow within the brush strokes. “It’s not the right shade of ectoplasm.”

The day continued with more emotion-managing lessons and group activities but Danny didn’t care and nobody could understand that. He was done with this, he was tired, it didn’t matter.

It was lunchtime, and Danny had no appetite. It felt like he had just eaten breakfast. His stomach was still full, but he had a sandwich sitting in front of him that he needed to eat or else they would tell his parents.

Danny held the sandwich between his fingers. It looked like sandpaper.

He didn’t want to eat it.

The therapist was looking at him. She was probably talking to him too, asking him questions about his day. But Danny ignored her. After all, didn’t he need to eat this lunch? How could he possibly eat and talk at the same time?

The teens were talking around him, but Danny blocked them all out too.

They were noisy.

It was like they weren’t even there.

Danny wasn’t human. He didn’t care.

But you do care.

He didn’t.

He was numb.

Eat up like a good little dog.

I’m not a dog.

Something inside him snapped, and he yanked on his cold core, channeling all his energy to his fingertips. His fingers tingled out of the tangible field, and the sandwich fell to the table.

“Whoa!” The blonde girl jumped, her eyes trained on Danny’s transparent skin.

“Danny?”

There was an audience. Danny had forgotten about them. His core faltered, and the power faded from his fingertips.

He should have felt embarrassed by this emotional display. He should have felt horrified that he’d allowed himself to act so inhuman and disgusting in front of these innocent bystanders.

But he was still numb.

“Sorry,” he said. “I was bored.”

“That was sick!” the brunette boy chimed in. “You can do that on command?”

“Usually.” Danny’s gaze flickered over to the therapist, who was giving him a strange look. He turned his attention back to the fallen sandwich.

Maybe he would get kicked out of the program for this. For being too dangerous. That would probably be for the better. Then he could go free into the world. No more schedule, no more therapy, no more dissecting his emotions or talking about his trauma.

Who cared about his trauma, anyway? Certainly not him.

“So you still have your ghost powers, then?” the blonde girl asked. “People were saying online that you lost them. The government took them or whatever.”

Danny brought his hand up to his face, willing his fingers to fade to invisibility. “They’re locked. But...I...they’re there. I’ll get them back.”

He would get them back. He needed them.

Especially now.

Which was how he found himself sitting quietly outside his mother’s door. Waiting. He should have knocked probably, but he didn’t. Couldn’t. He didn’t know why, he knew he should just go back to his room, go to sleep, stop bothering his parents about this, but he needed his core back.

His mom would understand. She was a ghost biology expert, right? She would get why he needed his core back now.

He raised his fist to knock, but he must have already knocked before because the door opened, revealing his mother dressed in teal pajamas on the other side.

“Danny?” She frowned, her brows pulling cautiously above her eyes. “What are you doing up, sweetie? Everything alright?”

“I, uh—” His voice was scratchy. He broke eye contact, staring down at his lap. “My—my core.”

“Something wrong?”

He licked his lips, his mouth dry. “I need it back.”

“Sweetheart,” she said in a patient tone. “We talked about this.”

“No. you talked.”

She sighed. “Danny, it’s nearly eleven. Can’t this wait till morning?”

“No. No. I need it.”

“I told you, hun, your core and body need time to heal properly first before we make any drastic changes to your physiology. Just give it a few more weeks, alright?”

“Weeks?” Danny’s voice rose in alarm.

“I promise it’ll be all worth it.”

Static rang in his ears, and a steel claw clutched at his stomach.

His mom didn’t understand. Why would she? She was human. Humans would never get it. She didn’t understand.

“No, I can’t…”

“Danny, you need to trust me. Your body needs to rest.”

“You don’t understand.”

She regarded him for a moment before opening her door fully. “Why don’t you come in and we can talk, then. You can tell me why this is so important to you.”

Danny peered inside the door, at the surprisingly average-looking bedroom before him. He could go in, tell his mother just how wrong he felt cut off from his core, how he was being blackmailed by Vlad, how there was a distinct record of every detail of what the Guys in White had done to him, how he had never felt so defenseless, so vulnerable in his life.

But he wouldn’t, and he knew he couldn’t. There was no way he could put it all into words. He was a ghost, she was a human. He couldn’t explain this to her.

Skulker and Vlad may have forced his revelation, but they gave him more secrets than he could ever have dreamt of handling.

Danny turned away. “It’s fine. Good night.”

“Hun…”

“Night, Mom.”

There was a tense silence before Maddie finally relented. “I love you, Danny.”

“You too,” he said reflexively. The words tasted sour on his tongue.

She didn’t understand. If she truly loved him, she would give him his core back right now, but she didn’t.

No, he was just being paranoid. This was just his Obsession talking. He didn’t need his core, he was just as much human as he was ghost. So what if he had to be a little more human for the next few weeks? Isn’t that what he’d always wanted?

To just be a regular human?

Maybe that was what his mother wanted. Maybe that was why she was postponing removing the chip. Maybe she was too afraid to see her son as a monster. A ghost.

But that was crazy. She loved him.

She was telling the truth.

His parents accepted him.

---

“You seem quiet today.”

Danny leaned back against the sofa, his arms crossed and his eyes looking anywhere but at the blonde figure sitting before him. The stress ball sat untouched on the table next to him.

He didn’t feel like doing therapy today. He didn’t want to talk.

His mom was human, his therapist was human. No one was going to get it.

“What’s on your mind, Danny?”

“Nothing. I’m fine.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.”

He was fine. There was nothing to talk about. Even if there were things to talk about—and there weren’t, this was all just his Obsession going haywire—it wouldn’t matter anyway because he was defenseless and the government was going to kidnap him again. It was only a matter of time.

“You finished your first week with the PHP group today, right? How has that been going?”

“Fine.”

“Can you tell me about some of the activities you’ve been doing?”

“I don’t know.”

She sat there for a moment, as if giving him time to elaborate. But Danny wasn’t going to elaborate. He didn’t feel like talking today.

He looked out the window. The leaves had changed color, the ripe greens fading to yellows, oranges, and reds. In another few weeks, the ground would be littered with fallen leaves.

Summer had barely just begun when he was dragged from his house, drugged, and locked away. And yet, even though his entire world had come to a halt, time still moved on.

The clatter of the therapist’s clipboard falling on a side table jolted Danny out of his musing. He flinched, his eyes snapping over to see the therapist rising from her chair.

She stretched her arms behind her back and walked over to the closet. “You know what? It’s been a long day. Wanna play a game?”

“Um...are we allowed to do that?”

“I don’t see why not.” She grabbed a box out of the closet and placed it down in the center of the room.

Danny peered at it in confusion. “Jenga? Of—of all the games out there, you’re really gonna make me...make me get on the floor for Jenga?”

“Oh, come on, it’s fun.”

“You must throw some wild parties,” he remarked, rolling his eyes. Nonetheless, he slid off the couch and slowly scooched himself towards the middle of the room. As long as he didn’t have to explain why he was two seconds away from ripping his own core out of his chest, he would go along with whatever game she threw at him.

The therapist carefully tipped the box upside down, sliding the lid up to reveal a tower of multi-colored wooden tiles jigsawed together.

“So here’s our marvelous tower,” she said. “You can reach that alright?”

“Yeah.”

“So normal Jenga rules. We switch off trying to remove a piece without causing the tower to collapse. Except, for this game, after you remove a piece, you’re going to pick a card from this stack—” She pointed to a deck of large cards set up next to the Jenga tower. “—and then answer the question on the card that’s the same color. So if I take a purple tile out, I’ll answer the purple question on the card. Got it?”

Danny glanced between the cards and his therapist’s eager face. He was fairly certain Jenga never involved a set of cards before.

Maybe he’d forgotten the rules. It wouldn’t have been the first time his brain had betrayed him. “Am I being quizzed?”

“Don’t worry.” She pushed up the sleeves of her blue cardigan. “They’re just basic therapy questions. Nothing too bad.”

No. This was a trick, wasn’t it? To get him to talk?

He wasn’t going to fall for it. “I thought we weren’t—weren’t doing that...today.”

“The questions aren’t too deep. Honestly, I mostly just use this game as an icebreaker for new clients. But Jenga’s pretty fun all the same.”

He must have still looked too suspicious, because she threw him an easy smile and went, “Here, I’ll go first.” She carefully nudged a green tile out of the stack and drew a card. “Okay, so the green question on here says, ‘Describe yourself in three words.’ Well, I’d say I’m kind, I think I’m rather nerdy, and I’m a bit of a cat lady.”

That...wasn’t so bad. Maybe this would be an easy game.

He doubted any of the questions asked him about his core. Maybe he could loosen up a bit, go along with this icebreaker game, if only for an hour before sinking back into his internal panic.

“Cat lady?” he tried.

She chuckled. “I’m surprised that’s never come up! I have two at home.”

Right, his therapist had a life outside of therapy. Outside of his problems.

But it wasn’t like he knew her name. At this point, it was just too embarrassing to ask. Maybe she had told him that she had cats, and he just couldn’t remember. Maybe he would forget it again tomorrow.

Whatever. It was fine. He couldn’t care about things he didn’t remember. “Uh…” Danny pushed a purple tile out of the tower. “So I just pick up a—um, a card?”

“Yup, and read the purple question.”

Danny looked down at his card and rolled his eyes. “Oh, figures. ‘If you had superpowers, what would they be?’ Well, I’m dead. Does being dead count?”

She laughed, her voice light and airy. “Of all the questions, huh? Okay, let’s modify this a bit. If you could only keep one of your powers, which would you take?”

“Probably intangibility,” Danny said, his lack of hesitation surprising him.

“Oh? Why?”

“Well…” He rubbed the back of his neck. Where the chip was. “It’s the most useful, isn’t it? I can just...you know...I have no physical stuff in my way. I can just phase through any—anything I need. Or—no. Almost anything.”

Not shields. Those could still trap him.

Thankfully, she didn’t try to pry further, just offering him a kind nod and a “that makes sense” before pushing out another Jenga tile. “Blue! Alright, my question is, ‘What is your favorite feature about yourself?’ Hmm...that’s a bit tough, isn’t it? But I think my favorite thing about myself is my hair. When I was a teen, I used to straighten my hair, but then when I got to college, I stopped doing that and just let it be. Now I quite like my curly hair. Okay, your turn!”

“Okay.” Danny leaned over and pushed a red tile out of the tower. “Okay...my quest—question is…‘What is your biggest hope for your future?’ Oh...”

He did want to be an astronaut. But that was before, when he was still human. And then he was caught between thousands of volts of ecto-electricity and that future vanished right before his eyes.

What did he want to do with his life? What did he hope would happen?

He wanted his core back. He couldn’t let himself be so vulnerable for much longer. His chest felt like it was tearing itself apart, he needed to—

Breathe. And answer the question.

What did he hope for his future?

“I don’t know. My future’s kinda...ruined, isn’t it?”

“Try to think on a smaller scale.”

“I…” Danny ran a hand through his hair. He wanted his core back, he wanted to be Phantom, he wanted to protect Amity Park. But he couldn’t say that. It made him sound too ghostly. Too inhuman.

Humans didn’t have these kinds of otherworldly desires. She would think he was a freak if he told her. She wouldn’t know how to react.

“I want to finish PT.”

“That’s a good goal to have.”

“Your turn.”

Humming, she nudged a tile out of the Jenga tower and flipped over a card. “Okay, my question is, ‘What is something you were worried about when you were younger?’ Let me think…oh, here’s one. When I was young, my older sister moved out to live with her boyfriend. It was really scary because I had never lived without her, but we kept in touch and everything turned out okay.”

“I haven’t either. Lived away from Jazz I mean. Like—like for real. But she’s going to college next—next semester. I think she, uh...deferred a semester.”

“And you know, it’s common to feel worried about a sibling moving out. Periods of transition in life can be the most stressful for us, but it’s important to recognize that things will be okay.”

Danny looked down at the carpet. “I guess.”

Some days it felt like Jazz was the only one truly on his side. He was a lab rat, too well known and too hated to ever have a future, forever condemned to a vicious cycle of evading people like the Guys in White and Vlad for the rest of his life. Jazz was leaving him in a few months, his friends would follow in a few years, and in the end, Danny would be alone.

But he was fine with that. He’d accepted it. It was just his life now, there was nothing to say about it.

“It’s my turn, isn’t it?”

“Yup! Go right ahead.”

Danny removed another tile. “‘How do you think others view you and why?’” He paused, throwing the therapist a bitter look. “This is rigged.”

“Not rigged, that’s just a very lucky pick.”

“Lucky to who?” Danny groaned.

What was with the universe finding new ways to torment him?

“Humor me,” the therapist said patiently.

Danny glared at his card, tapping his fingers against the edge. It wasn’t like the public opinion of him was exactly a secret, but it still hurt. Constantly. Like some scab he kept telling himself to ignore, but ignoring it was impossible because the public would never leave him alone.

“Not good,” Danny muttered. “People hate me.”

“Being in the public eye is very stressful for anyone, but to be unique in your way adds on an entirely different layer. People are afraid of the things they don’t understand, and that makes them forget that at the end of the day, you’re still a person.”

“Yeah.” Danny’s eyes were trained on the colorful tower before him, which was starting to blur as the prickling behind his eyes increased. He ducked his head and blinked, hoping to save face before it was too late.

“That doesn’t mean everyone feels this way, though. But sometimes it can feel that way to you because the ones who are the most afraid, the most hateful, are the loudest voices in the crowd. But remember, Danny, you won that court case for a reason. You have more people on your side than you think.”

“I won it for now, you mean. I don’t...I don’t think…” His voice failed, and he pressed his fingernails into his palms. He took a few shaky breaths. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay, Danny. Why don’t we talk about the case for a minute?”

Tucker’s words echoed in his head, how it was televised. How millions of people all around the globe probably tuned in for it, or watched streams online, each person with their own opinion of him.

But he didn’t want to think about that right now.

“No,” he said. “Can we—can we just continue the game?”

“If you’re not ready to talk about it, then that’s okay. Thank you for letting me know.”

“It’s your turn.”

“Alright.” She pushed a block out of the tower. “So...alright, my question is, ‘What memory do you treasure the most?’ To that, I think fishing with my dad as a child. He was a big support for me when I was growing up, and I really valued our times fishing together as important bonding moments for us.”

Danny nodded politely, trying his best to not appear like he was counting down the seconds until therapy was over.

He could feel his emotions building inside him, threatening to topple the carefully constructed dam guarding his secrets. This was such a simple game, these were such simple questions, so why did he feel like he was failing?

He pushed out a Jenga tile—a red tile—from the tower and grabbed a card, scanning the questions until he found the red one.

What are you afraid of?

The words echoed back to him, and he pushed the card away. He didn’t want to look at it, he didn’t want to read those words or hear her voice because saying the question would mean he would have to talk and he only agreed to this stupid game to get out of talking.

There was so much he was afraid of that he had no right to be afraid of. Because he deserved this. Getting revealed was his fault, he was being reckless. He deserved all of it.

The experiments with the Guys in White. The pain, the way his skin was torn apart. How they threw him in a vat of ectoplasm the next day to heal, and how the ectoplasm entering his lungs made him feel like he was drowning because even though ghosts didn’t need to breathe, he still used those organs reflexively as Phantom. But he was in too much pain and his brain was too hazy to fight back. He could only sink into the darkness.

The red bag. The way it tasted, smelled, how it haunted him every day and how he revisited those moments every night in his dreams. How he would wake up each day and the drawer on his nightstand would be shimmering in the morning sun, as if tempting him to open it up, grab the bottle inside, let it help just for one day. It can take the edge off, he can be functional. Who cares if he’s cheating? It’s just for a day...

The public. The people. Their judgments, their words. How he was, on a molecular level, so vastly different from them. How he could never be the same. He would never have a normal life, he could never have a normal job, a normal family, normal friendships, ever again. There would always be something there, something alien between them.

Even between him and his best friends. There was just something... different ever since the portal accident. It had brought them closer together, sure, but in other ways it had also driven an invisible wedge between them. Because Danny would always have his powers, he would always be a half ghost, and there would always be things now that Sam and Tucker would never understand.

How much would change now? Now that he was in the public eye, now that he’d gone through government torture? Now that his brain didn’t work the same?

And his core. His humanity. Why were his parents so apprehensive about it?

What are you afraid of?

Why wouldn’t his parents let him down into the lab? What were they hiding? They said his core was damaged, but it had been months since he was ripped open. His surgical damage had healed, his broken bones were back to normal, and even though his nerve endings in his chest and spine were still fried, they had been slowly mending themselves too.

Ectoplasm healed faster than human physiology. His core should have been fine by now.

What was the truth?

“They accept me,” Danny said automatically.

“Who does?”

Who accepted him?

Sam and Tucker did.

His family…

Did they?

“I don’t know.”

“You have people in your corner, Danny. Your parents, your sister, your close friends. They all care about you. We’re all here for you, even if those loud voices in the public tell you otherwise.”

But if they cared...

“Then why won’t they let me have my core back?”

“Your core?”

“My powers. My ghostliness. Ectoplasm.” Danny let his eyes flair to emphasize his point.

If his therapist was scared of his otherworldly display, she didn’t show it. Instead, she continued to look at him with her neutral expression, free of the judgment he’d come to expect from people since the accident.

And for some reason he couldn’t explain, that irritated him.

“You mean the inhibitor chip?” she asked.

“Yes. They told me it was because my core...it was damaged but—but it doesn’t make sense! It doesn’t...”

“Have you talked to them about this?”

Of course he had. They kept repeating that his core was damaged. And they were probably right—for a time, at the very least. But that was months ago.

Why hadn’t they scanned his core recently? Shouldn’t they be happy to learn it was healed? Shouldn’t that make them relieved?

What were they afraid of?

What are you afraid of?

“Do you think it would be helpful if I talked to your mother about this?” asked the therapist. “As a way to introduce the topic? She likely doesn’t know how much it’s bothering you.”

But that didn’t make sense either because Danny brought his core up every day. His parents knew how much it was bothering him. They had to have known, right?

So why were they doing this to him?

What were they hiding?

What are you afraid of?

---

Danny tried to remember a time where walking from his living room to his kitchen didn’t require a list of steps to be taken beforehand—a time where he could just get up and walk. But those memories were far too distant now.

And besides, this was his reality now. A reality where something as simple as walking made his head spin.

He shouldn’t dwell on the memories of how easy it used to be for him, he shouldn’t have snapped at Jazz for getting a cup of water for him because he knew the glasses were too high to reach from his wheelchair, he shouldn’t allow this irrational anger to overtake him every time the creeping anxiety of his future as Amity Park’s ghost hero came into question.

He just needed to focus on where he was now. Curled up on his couch avoiding his parents.

Everything felt wrong this morning when he woke up. For a moment, he had managed to convince himself that he was just being paranoid. That it was just his damaged nerve endings freaking out as normal. That once he took his medication, his problems would go away.

But they didn’t. He still felt wrong. His chest still felt wrong.

It was manifesting in other ways too. He couldn’t walk as long today at PT. His physical therapist told him it was just a bad day and that his body was probably just tired from his busy week. But Danny knew that wasn’t right.

It had nothing to do with him being tired. He wasn’t sick. He wasn’t anxious.

His core was the problem. His parents were the problem.

He tried asking about his core again on the way home from PT, using conversation techniques he went over with his therapist at the end of their last appointment, but Maddie just brushed him off. Said they would talk about it later.

But then later came and...she didn’t.

Danny tried asking his father, but he brushed Danny off too. Said Danny needed to focus on healing first.

But how was he supposed to heal when he was missing half of himself?

He felt wrong. So wrong. His body was too bound by gravity, it was too empty, it wasn’t listening to him.

He pressed his palms into his forehead. His hands were clammy. Shaking. Speckles of cold touched them—or was that his tears? Was he crying?

No.

He pressed the heel of his hands into his eyes. What was wrong with him? Why was he acting this way?

The government had him in a cage. They tormented him in ways he would rather die than live through again. But then it ended, and he was freed. He was allowed to go home, he could live his life as a legal person again.

Except, he wasn’t free. Not at all. He was still trapped here in Amity, in his house, in his body. He had no control. Not over what he ate, when he slept, where he went, what he could say, what he could think.

Half of him was still locked up tight with no hope of escape.

His water glass was empty. It would have been too embarrassing to ask someone to help him, but he was so thirsty and dehydrated and he just really needed this to work. He needed his body to respond to him. For one moment, please, just let his body respond.

Gripping the water cup in one hand and his walker in the other, he tried to stand, to walk over to the kitchen sink. But balancing everything was so difficult, his body was still fatigued from PT, and he knew he wasn’t going to be able to do it but he just needed to try.

But he couldn’t do it in the end. The cup slipped out of his hand and tumbled onto the carpet, thankfully saved from shattering on impact by some last shred of luck the universe decided to pity him with.

And now Danny too was on the floor because he couldn’t bend down to pick the cup back up like a normal person, and he didn’t want to call for help, and he couldn’t use any of his powers, and he felt so trapped. So helpless. So vulnerable.

He tried to swallow the lump in his throat, but it was too stubborn and he was too useless.

A tear splattered against his hand, and he gripped the floor, his body trembling.

“Stop crying. Stop it.” he hissed.

He was weak.

Plasmius, once nearly his equal, had so severely overpowered him the other night. It was embarrassing. On the hierarchy of ghosts, where was he now? At the bottom with the blob ghosts?

But those ghosts could still fly. They could still turn intangible. Things that Danny couldn’t even do.

Hell, he was so weak that even the Box Ghost could defeat him now.

“Stop crying.”

He crawled back to the couch, the thought of getting water abandoned on the floor along with the last semblance of his dignity. Another tear fell from his cheek, and he desperately tried to ignore it, ignore his dry throat, ignore the pain in his chest, ignore his core and the Y-scar on his body and his new place in the ghost hierarchy as lower than dirt, ignore everything. Just focus on getting back to the couch. Shut down, go numb.

He was fine, he was okay.

He just needed to push through this. Just toughen up, quit whining. Life wasn’t fair. So what if he was now just a regular human? Hadn’t he been human for the first fourteen years of his life? He needed to suck it up.

Dragging himself back onto the safety of the couch cushions, he pulled one of Jazz’s throw blankets around his body and pressed a pillow into his face.

Never in his life had he been so tempted to scream, to curse, to finally let the last brick fall and allow hell to break loose. But his parents were in the basement, Jazz was upstairs, and he was fine.

He was fine.

---

Huge thank you to tumblr user and writer @imekitty for proofreading this chapter. She’s amazing and I owe her my life.

And as always, thanks for reading!

---

#danny phantom #everything was white #chapter 12 #my writing #fanfiction #phiccs #danny has A Bad Time

70 notes · View notes

demonslayedher · 3 years

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Hello! I decided to stop by ^^

I was wondering about Nezuko sleeping and how exactly it works. I mean, the idea is fairly straightforward. People get energy from sleeping and eating, but demons just need to eat. But Nezuko sleeps instead. Could sleeping work for other demons? Or is it that once they eat, sleeping won't do them any good?

They'd most likely fall into a coma for a while, I think. And that could be dangerous for them without a really secure location. So it's understandable why they'd choose not to.

'Suuup, thanks for stopping by the Ask Box while it was open and thanks for your patience! : D (And all your nice tags, they make me smile.) I think you nailed it that this is a pretty straightforward process, Gotouge has narrated it as such too or had characters point it out: Nezuko undergoes transformation and recovers her strength by sleeping. But what's worth looking a little more closely at is that other demons find it unusual. And, besides the act, it's unusual how Nezuko's transformations and strengthening are self-driven, and not reliant on outsides sources of strength.

That dual impact is important, for it's not simply a matter of how people rely on both eating and sleeping for survival as well as growth. Demons have a drive to eat, and it's an especially maddening hunger after the very physically stressful transformation from humanity to demonhood. We also know that this is how demons transform themselves into stronger and stronger beings, which is why many the demons with an eye for advancement will seek out more that what will satisfy a hunger (Enmu's train plan, Kyogai's marechi plan, the Upper Moon Six pair's boasting of how many Pillars they've eaten, Douma just... doing his Douma thing). Because of the importance people like Urokodaki have placed on it, we know that they precise number of people has a proportional impact, and while some demons simply have their own tastes (like the Swamp Demon liking the flesh of young girls at the height of their beauty and the Tongue Demon assuming Zenitsu and Shoichi would have nice tender flesh), there is a general understanding among demons that the stronger of a person you consume, the bigger will be the impact on your ensuing transformation and strengthening. But, I have to wonder, what happens when a demon stops eating humans?

Akaza may be an interesting case because he prefers to get stronger by training instead of by consuming humans. That's not to say he doesn't eat humans, but he's not motivated to it. He was already extremely powerful due to the amount of Muzan's blood he received and probably due to his own innate abilities. But he's found that training is just as good as eating people, implying that demon flesh still retains some human-like properties for relying on more than caloric intake. More interesting is Kyogai, who reached a point of difficulty in consuming humans. We don't know why, nor do we know if any other demons had this difficulty, though Muzan seemed unsurprised by a demon having a "limit" of how much human flesh they can intake. Whether it was a physical or emotional limitation is an interesting question to ponder, especially since Kyogai was already far more powerful than most demons ever had a prayer of becoming. When seeking out that Marechi blood, it was for the sake of becoming more powerful, not for self-sustenance.

And, since demons are essentially immortal for as long as they are safe from the sun, they don't need sleep either. But do they sleep?? I think you're right, it would make them very vulnerable. But wow, what else are they going to do while hiding out from the sun? That's got to be a little maddening not having that periodic respite from existence, and it might torment them a little like it did for Al from Fullmetal Alchemist. While sleeping may or may not be impossible for them, it's like very unusual, giving Rui's reaction to Nezuko sleeping in Chapter 39:

"Hm? Did she lose consciousness? Did she fall asleep? She's a demon with a very peculiar air about her... something different about her from the rest of us... interesting." He seems to find this behavior so unusual in the first place that he first suspects she's displayed a more typical human reaction to this situation, losing consciousness, which may be more likely a state for a demon to find themselves in. We also know from examples like the Temple Demon in Volume 1 getting temporarily knocked out when his body falls off a cliff that this isn't terribly unusual. Sleep may not being entirely out of the realm of possibility, but it sure would make that demon a weirdo. Rui, just like Tamayo, can tell something is simply off about Nezuko. So if we look back at Nezuko, I've dove before into why she's special, especially in regard to how she conquered the sun. I placed a lot of that emphasis on the Kamado bloodline's ties with the sun, but let's look specifically on Nezuko's sleep.

While most demons likely get that first meal they're desperately hungry for likely within hours of their transformation, Nezuko never got this. She denied herself this, and was so sapped of strength that she really could not summon enough power to even stay awake. The extreme exhaustion was probably something that allowed her to fall into a deep sleep in the first place. This is what provided the opportunity for her body to look for some other way to survive, like a starved human tapping into the fat cell reserves. It's just my assumption, but if consuming human flesh takes that caloric intake and uses it to become part of the demon's body and make it stronger, and if the early stages of being a demon mean that one is still somewhat unstable (i.e., Kaigaku not having good command of his powers and Tanjiro still being susceptible to a vaccine which Muzan's cells already partially recognized, despite both these demons being extremely powerful right away), then perhaps a demon will remain highly unstable until they've consumed human flesh. For instance, this might be what allows them to regain some sense of self they had before, which Tamayo notes that Nezuko lacks. If that's the case, then Nezuko's highly unstable state is what allowed the very, very unusual transformation to take place.

Muzan really should have paid more attention to her, for she was a mad success. Sleeping to gain strength is unusual and probably not something Muzan would have cared about, but Nezuko is so good at using this ability that she very quickly attains regenerative abilities that Lower Moons might had spent decades of eating people before they were able to attain that.

Furthermore, Nezuko's strange abilities to transform herself are not limited to sleep. Simply the emotional rush she gets being the presence of Upper Moons, demons with a high concentration of Muzan's cells, enables her to instantly transform to a much more powerful state. And that sun Muzan has been trying for a thousand years to find a demon that will master? Nezuko did it in less than three years from her transformation. While I think her bloodline was a necessary component of that, her starvation-induced Big Sleep was probably what unlocked Nezuko's self-transformative abilities. Is that to say it would be impossible for other demons, who thus far must rely on outsides sources for their transformation and strengthening, be it Muzan's blood or human flesh? Probably not impossible! Akaza and Tamayo show us the roots of this in their more limited reliance on human flesh, and in the self-mastering of physical training and controlled diet with alternative (albeit physically challenging) food sources. But neither of them endured the sort of state that Nezuko fell into, so they didn't have the opportunity to try to totally teach their flesh to find reliance on alternative sources of strength. So, highly unlikely that sleep would benefit most demons, if it's an activity they even engage in. But, with the right circumstances and physical disposition, it could be a possibility.

#I have... been neglecting my studies for the last few days and making art instead #eep #KnY fandom theories and meta #Kamado Nezuko #and a bunch of other demons #Kimetsu no Yaiba #Demon Slayer

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five-rivers · 4 years

Text

Long Night in the Valley chapter 12

The scene shifted the moment Tempest woke up. They were outside, on a street in the middle of the city. Storm clouds circled overhead.

Tempest stood in front of them, hands in her pockets, a bland expression on her face.

“So,” she drawled. “You’re Nine’s friends.”

“Uh,” said Ochako, taken aback. Right after Four had said she wouldn’t talk to them, this was disconcerting. “Yes?”

“I’m his teacher,” said Aizawa, stepping forward.

“Yeah? You think you’re doing a good job raising up little child soldiers?”

“Excuse me?” said Aizawa.

“You heard me.” She shifted her gaze to Ochako, then to Todoroki and Iida. “I bet Souma told you I wouldn’t be talking to you.”

“He did say something along those lines, yes,” said Iida, even as Ochako worked very hard to elbow him.

“I can follow why he’d think that,” Tempest said. “I spent most of my life fighting against the government. Lord knows I wouldn’t have approved of him choosing a ‘pro hero’ to follow after him.” She took her hands out of her pockets to make air quotes. She was wearing brass knuckles. “Whatever a pro hero is supposed to be. Government lackeys. Cops and war criminals with a different name. I’m shocked he pulled a halfway decent person from the muck.”

“We’re not war criminals!” protested Iida.

“Oh, yeah? I forgot, the Geneva convention was nixed, wasn’t it? They had this big meeting and decided none of it applied to metahumans, and then, bam! Everyone’s a metahuman, so it doesn’t apply at all, huh? Neat, right?”

“What we’re doing now might not be what you’re used to,” said Ochako, “but it’s the way society works, now.”

“And we’re not killing people, like you did,” said Iida. Ochako winced at his combative addition.

“I did what I had to, to get people out of the torture camps,” said Tempest. “People like my little sister. You know what they did to her? They thought her power was just controlled by her voice. So, they cut out her vocal cords.”

“They don’t do that anymore,” said Todoroki.

“You think a government like that is just going to stop doing things? Without people making them? Without being forced?” Tempest laughed and looked up at the swirling sky. “Maybe you do. You’re just kids, after all. But tell me this, do you think they didn’t know exactly what was happening to your family, Todoroki Shouto?”

Aizawa cleared his throat. “What’s your point, here?” he asked. “What do you want from us?”

Tempest looked back at Aizawa. The coldness in her brown eyes made Ochako shiver. “We could have kept you out,” she said. “That Suzuki idiot, too. Do you know why we didn’t?”

“Enlighten us,” said Aizawa.

“Because the way we do it would cause irreparable brain damage. We know, because we’ve done it before. I thought it was worth it, but the others didn’t want to hurt ‘Nine’s friends.’”

“Are you implying that we aren’t Midoriya’s friends?” asked Todoroki, frowning.

Tempest huffed and wind whipped down the road, making Ochako cover her face.

“No. To be honest, I’m not completely sold on Nine, either. He wanted to part of the system so bad, and that’s not to mention—” she huffed again. “At least he knows what it’s like to be on the other side of the equation. You four, though… I’m stuck with Nine. I don’t owe you anything and you’re causing all these problems. What I want from you—”

Behind her, lightning snapped down from the sky.

“—is to prove to me you’re worth it.”

“Vlad, the police were able to find your car,” said Powerloader, holding his hand over the receiver of the staff room telephone.

“Oh, thank goodness,” said Vlad. “I hate taking public transportation.” He paused. “I mean, uh, did they find Yagi? Is he alright?”

“No, they didn’t find Yagi.”

“Great,” said Vlad. “So, ask them when I can pick it up. Why are you making that face? Did Yagi total it? I bet he did. ‘Symbol of Peace,’ my—”

“No,” interrupted Powerloader. “Yagi didn’t total it. Or crash it. It was parked in an alley near the Musutafu entertainment district.”

“Where Midoriya had that fight with Hawks,” said Vlad, putting his head in his hands. “It got wrecked by one of them, didn’t it?”

“No,” said Powerloader. “It was parked in an alley. They found it on a security camera. It isn’t there anymore.”

“They took it again?”

“The League of Villains took it.”

“You’re joking.”

“I wish I was.”

The bus felt empty with half the class missing. The remaining 1-A students (plus Shinso) were all huddled together at the front, mooching off of the teachers mobile hotspots.

“Did my email go through yet, kero?” asked Tsuyu, leaning over her seat to look at Denki’s computer.

“Not yet,” said Denki. “I’ve got all the pictures you guys sent arranged, but I wish we had more video material. Ashido was the one with the most…” He sighed. “Ashido, gossip queen, when you wake up I will apologize for all my comments about your hobbies.”

“I have some videos of Midoriya.”

“Trust us, Mineta, no one want your videos,” said Yaoyorozu.

“Huh? Why not?”

“Tell us this. How many of your videos are actually of Midoriya and don’t just have him incidentally in the background while you try to film girls.”

“None of them,” said Mineta, obviously not seeing why this was wrong. “Why would I film Midoriya?”

“Mic,” said Midnight, “please remind me to sign up the walking lawsuit for some sensitivity classes. How did Eraser miss this?”

“Unfortunately, Shouta is about as sexual as the average rock, so…”

“Remind me to sign him up for some training, too, then.”

“Will do.”

“Walking lawsuit?” asked Mineta.

Everyone else sighed. Then Denki’s laptop pinged.

“Huh. I just got an email from Principal Nezu.”

The adults, including Green Light, the bus driver, blanched. Adults were bothered by the weirdest things. In the end, Nezu was just a guy with a quirk, right? A hero, even! Principal Nezu, the Education Hero!

Okay, he’d scared Denki (Mr. Terrible Grades) a lot in elementary and middle school, but really.

(Okay, the crane thing at the Final Exam had been high-key terrifying, but he was trying to get past that.)

“Huh,” repeated Denki, having read the email. “That’s interesting.”

“What is it, my electric friend?” asked Aoyama, drapping himself sideways across his seat.

“Aoyama-san,” said Midnight, “don’t put your feet on the windows.”

“Principal Nezu sent me a link to an ‘All Might adopt a kid’ fanfiction, and it’s by—”

“Midoriya writes fanfiction?” asked Shouji, evidently surprised into using his real mouth to speak.

“That’s cute, kero,” said Tsuyu. “It must have been before he met the real All Might, though.”

“No,” said Denki, “it was last updated just a couple of weeks ago, and, well… Midoriya didn’t write it.”

“So, who did?” asked Yaoyorozu.

“Not Nezu, right?” asked Jiro, winding her earphone jack around her finger.

“There’s no way, right, Kaminari-san?” asked Present Mic, nervously.

“Uh, no, no, it’s, uh, it’s All Might. According to Nezu.”

A beat of silence.

“What?”

Denki inserted his pinky into his right ear, trying to clear it. Man, if the Bakusquad had been here rather than the quiet half of the class…

“Yeah, it says here that this serves All Might right for working on this during school hours?”

More silence.

“Green Light, the road!”

“Oops, sorry!”

“Hey, guys, are we sure that All Might didn’t, you know, kidnap Midoriya rather than the other way around? Guys?”

Gran Torino, also known as Torino Sorahiko, was an active hero. That meant late nights and late mornings. He was also an old man. A very old man. Late mornings often turned into noons and afternoons.

Sometimes, during those noons and afternoons, he liked to ignore technology and the outside world for a good long while. Maybe read the paper a little bit. Or one of those terrible romance novels Nana had left him in her will.

Still, he was a hero, one wrapped up in something best described as a two-hundred-year-long shadow war, so eventually he did turn on the news.

Only to see Toshinori’s boy fighting Hawks on live television.

Not to mention Toshinori hanging out in the background with a shaved head.

And the ticker said UA student Midoriya Izuku kidnaps Symbol of Peace.

(Which was the dumbest thing he had ever heard, and under other circumstances, he would have been rolling on the floor laughing.)

Gran Torino was an old man, but, luckily, he only felt like he was simultaneously having a heart attack and a stroke. His body was more than functional enough to place a not-at-all panicked phone call to one Tsukauchi Naomasa.

Tsukauchi Naomasa was incredibly busy. That busy-ness was divided mostly evenly between desperately trying to find his best friend (who had evidently decided to make a hopefully brief foray into kidnapping teenagers) and trying to figure out what the commission was taking, because it had to be illegal. Oh, and putting together a complaint that the commission was infringing on police prerogatives.

Honestly, he wasn’t sure how much traction that last would get, since pro heroes had been steadily gaining more and more responsibilities even as the police were losing both them and the power that came with them. Not to mention Midoriya’s stunt with Hawks… Which… Naomasa just wanted to know why? What had the point of that been? On either side?

(Sometimes he wished he were friends with normal people. Like… he didn’t know… an accountant, maybe?)

(Not that he would give Toshinori up for the world. Just, some normalcy would be nice, too.)

He took a deep breath, remembered what he always told Toshinori about stress, and took a mouthful of room-temperature coffee.

In that thirty-second period, two more problems presented themselves to him.

One, his cell phone began to ring, displaying the contact information for Gran Torino.

Two, his email softly pinged, and a message from Principal Nezu asking for any images or videos Toshinori might have sent him slid into his inbox.

Briefly, Naomasa considered ignoring both of them, but that wasn’t a realistic option and was irresponsible besides. Contrary to his character.

He picked the lesser of two evils and answered Gran Torino’s call.

Garaki was going to have a mental breakdown. This was fitting because his car had broken down. Midoriya Inko was asking him if he thought that his ‘friend’ might come pick them up, if it was safe. If his ‘friend’ had a car.

This last had almost sent him into hysterics. Gigantomachia in a car oh-ho!

Except it wasn’t funny at all, as this was almost certainly going to result in his death at the hands of All for One. No matter that he considered the man his very dearest of friends, he was under no illusions about what All for One would do to him over this inexcusable error.

Perhaps he should just cut his losses and get one of the remote-activated noumu to come for them.

Then, inexorably and inevitably, things managed to get even worse.

“Stop the car!” shouted Tomura.

“But you said not to—”

“I know what I said! Stop the car!”

Tomura twisted to see out the rear passenger window. Everyone else turned to follow his gaze, effectively blocking his view.

“Get out of my way!” demanded Tomura.

There was some awkward, half-hearted shuffling.

“Does that look like anyone to you?” Tomura hissed.

“Yeah! Like the doctor!” said Toga.

“I’ve never seen him standing up, though,” said Spinner, dubiously. “It seems out of character.”

“I didn’t know he owned a car,” mused Compress, rubbing the bottom edge of his mask.

“Not him!” snapped Tomura. “The woman!” He pointed angrily at the rapidly approaching woman with green hair, narrowly avoiding dusting Mr. Compress’s top hat.

“Eh? What about her?” asked Spinner.

“Doesn’t she look familiar to you?”

“To be honest, everyone without mutation quirks looks kind of the same to me.”

“Someone without face blindness.”

“Oh! She looks like Izu-kun! Do you think that’s his mom?”

The woman knocked on the window of the car. Twice, unhelpfully rolled it down.

“Thank you so much for stopping, we—Oh!” She took a step back.

She apparently recognized them. Joy. He was going to unpack his feelings about this woman later.

“Hey, doc,” rasped Tomura, annoyed. “What the hell have you been doing?”

“Ahem,” said Garaki, finally stepping out from behind the car. “I didn’t expect to see you here, Shigaraki Tomura.”

“Because you blew us off and stranded us in the middle of Musutafu?”

“No,” said Garaki, in a way that absolutely meant ‘yes.’ “I knew you were resourceful enough to safely make it out of the city.”

“Oh, yeah? Really? You—”

Compress chose that moment to slam his face into the back of Tomura’s head. Tomura steadied himself automatically on one of the car’s uprights, which cracked dangerously under his hand. He pulled back as if burned.

When he looked up, the gremlin’s mother was halfway to the tree line with – What was that in her hand?

He looked back over his shoulder.

That was Twice’s goddamn mask.

Compress, for some reason, was also missing his stupid mask (and covering his face like the dramatic weirdo he was), and Toga basically had hearts in her eyes. Spinner was being Spinner, and therefore ninety percent useless. He was lucky he was fun to play games with.

How to make her stop?

“Hey!” he shouted. “We have your son!”

This was a lie, as far as he knew (unless Dabi had snatched him on his way back; it wasn’t impossible), but, he was a villain.

The green-haired woman stopped and turned back, allowing Tomura a full view of her expression.

He decided that he regretted everything.

“Okay,” said Izuku, multitasking by letting Two pick the lock on the League’s safe, “considering Gigantomachia’s ability to track by smell and the questionable running water, we can’t just sneak out. He’ll find us. So… I think our best play is getting him to attack Shigaraki, and then when they’re both distracted, we run for it.”

Toshinori nodded and sighed. “If only we had a giant jug of perfume. We could throw it at his face and disrupt his ability to smell us.”

“I mean, I found a whole bunch of garbage a way back. That isn’t perfume, but it does stink.”

“No, no, your plan is superior. We’d draw too much suspicion if we attacked him like that. Perfume could be written off.”

“Yeah, I can see that. Because perfume is a ‘nice’ thing.”

“Indeed.”

“It isn’t actually very nice to have it all over you, though,” said Izuku.

“No,” agreed Toshinori. “It isn’t.”

The safe popped open.

“I won’t ask if you don’t.”

“Deal.”

“But, anyway, assuming we do get away, what then? Where do we go? And—Wow. The League of Villains is broke. I almost feel bad.”

“I was going to say Deika, but that’s too far, now, and we don’t know if Gigantomachia will come after us,” said Toshinori. “Drawing him to a place full of civilians would be irresponsible.”

“Yeah,” said Izuku. He frowned, pulling his head from the safe, and glanced out the window. “What about the Wild Wild Pussycats?”

“What about them?” asked Toshinori.

“They’re near here, aren’t they? And they’ve got that whole complex, so, I mean… I don’t know how they feel about us right now, but it wouldn’t be a terrible place to hide. Would it?”

“I’d hate to bring all of this down on them as well,” said Toshinori. “But… That being said, I don’t believe they’re actually there. They were taking some time off because of what happened to Ragdoll.”

“That makes sense,” said Izuku. “Should we take the risk?”

“I’m unsure if we have a choice, my boy. We could try roughing it, but that puts us in a very vulnerable position.”

“And we can’t stay here, with the League.”

“No, we can’t.”

“Okay.” Izuku sighed and started to thumb through the League’s collection of fake IDs, looking for something he could use. “Wild Wild Pussycats it is. We’ve got to convince Machia to attack Shigaraki, and… then we sneak out the back while they’re fighting.” He shook his head. “It sounds really unheroic when I put it that way.”

“Under these circumstances, I think heroic is the set of actions where no one dies.”

His mentor was right. Izuku still felt weird about this, though. (The pettiness was completely different.)

Not to mention…

He put the last of the fake IDs away and massaged his temples. “They’re doing something weird in there,” he said. “I’m going to check on them. I might be out of it.”

“Don’t worry,” said Toshinori, patting Izuku on the shoulder. “I’ll keep an eye on things out here.”

(Perhaps all of this could have gone unsaid, what with their connection, but saying things out loud made them easier to organize.)

“Hey!” shouted Izuku over the roaring wind. “Stop that!”

“Are you going to fight me, Nine? All by yourself?”

“No,” said Izuku, somehow contriving to look down his nose at her despite the height difference and the fact that Tempest was floating several meters in the air. “I won’t have to. Because I have a secret weapon.”

Ochako could almost see Tempest roll her eyes.

“And,” shouted Izuku, “do you seriously think I just wanted to be part of the system? Are you serious? I wanted to help people. People the system failed. It isn’t like they’re responsible for the system either!” He waved his hand to indicate Ochako, Iida, Todoroki, and Aizawa.

“I’d argue about your hobo teacher. Is this your secret weapon?”

“No, this is, Great-Aunt Miranda.”

Tempest opened her mouth, then closed it again. The wind began to die down. “I’m – I don’t know what the point of that was—"

“Neither do I! What’s the point of this?”

“The point is determining whether or not you have people you can rely on, or a bunch of backstabbers who’ll hand you over to a government lab as soon as it’s convenient!” She stabbed a finger at Ochako. “She’s just in ‘heroics’ for the money!” She pointed at Iida. “He’s only here because it’s traditional for his family.” She gestured at Todoroki with her other hand. “He’s doing it mostly out of spite. And who knows what your hobo teacher is doing this for!”

“There’s nothing wrong with any of that!” protested Ochako. “You must have your own motivations, too!”

“She does!” shouted Izuku. “Considering what they are, you have no room to be criticizing Iida! Besides, you don’t even like me!”

“This isn’t about liking you or disliking! You’re the—” Tempest visibly cut herself off, then took a deep breath. She set herself down on the street. “Knowing what we do now about certain things, a fourteen-year-old would not have been my first choice.”

“Excuse me! We’re all sixteen!” said Iida.

“You’re sixteen now, it’s – The fact of the matter is that you’re children. Naïve children.”

“Oh my gosh, you were younger than I was when you—”

“I was kidnapped and tortured—”

“I know, but why are you taking it out on—”

“By the government that you are trying to lick the boot of—”

“Did you see what they did to Suzuki?”

Ochako felt like she was spectating a very passionate tennis match.

“If it means anything,” said Aizawa, dragging himself out of the pile of rubble he’d been thrown into by the wind, “I’m just trying to keep my kids alive as long as possible.”

“Then expel them! Stop them from becoming literal child soldiers!”

“I do,” said Aizawa.

“He does,” confirmed Ochako, who was well acquainted with Aizawa’s reputation.

“He really does,” seconded Todoroki.

“I used to see Tensei’s group chat, and every time he expelled someone…” Iida shivered.

“Huh,” said Todoroki. “Is that why you’re so… insistent about rules?”

“Of course not! Rules are important regardless of why so many students were expelled during the first month of school!”

“So, why didn’t you expel these ones?”

“If you honestly believe the problem child wouldn’t have flung himself at the first villain he saw after that and dove straight into vigilantism, you don’t know him very well.” He sighed, standing, and brushed dust and pebbles out of his tracksuit. “That goes for these three as well. They’re insane and it’s not my fault.”

“Isn’t saving others what heroes do?” asked Izuku, walking closer to Tempest. Ochako wanted to run out and grab him, but this whole ordeal had just shown how useless that would be. “No matter what?”

“Not no matter what. This is why I…” She shook her head, sighing. “Not no matter what.” She leaned forward, her hands on her hips. “Don’t die. You do realize what will happen if you die, right? I don’t have to spell it out for you?”

“N-no,” said Izuku.

“Besides which, I’m not a hero.”

“You saved people,” protested Izuku.

“And, as your friends pointed out, I’ve killed, too.”

“I know,” said Izuku. “But you aren’t a bad person.”

“Lots of people kill during wars,” said Ochako, going to stand by Izuku, “and that’s what you were fighting in, wasn’t it? I mean, I don’t know a lot about that time, but…”

“You wouldn’t. It’s been over a hundred years.”

Izuku nodded. “This fight isn’t doing anything, though. None of us want them here if the vault opens.”

“The what?” asked Iida. “The vault.”

“Hopefully,” said Izuku, “you won’t have to worry about it.”

“The fight did do something, though,” said Tempest.

“What?” asked Izuku.

“For one,” said Tempest, “it made you think. For the other…” Her eyes flicked over Ochako and the others. “Everyone you fight will have their own reasons. Remember that.”

As they walked down the street, storms still brewing overhead, Ochako kept catching glimpses of children in the alleyways and cross streets.

“Who are they?” she asked, unable to help herself.

“My sister and I,” answered Tempest, brusquely. Ochako, watching the back of the woman’s head, saw her twitch slightly towards one of the alleys. “About the time we were taken.”

“Taken by who?” asked Todoroki.

Tempest laughed. The sound was entirely humorless. “That government you’re so eager to serve. You’ve noticed, I hope, that my sister and I aren’t completely Japanese?”

“Yes?” said Todoroki. “I’m not blind, after all.”

“Todoroki,” said Aizawa in a warning tone.

“Good for you. Our mother was Japanese. Dad was American. We went back and forth to see the family. Problem was, everyone on Mom’s side quirks. We didn’t even realize it. The government tracked the weather disturbances to our movements and raided our family reunion. Never saw my parents again. Never saw anyone, for that matter, except my sister and my aunt – Dad’s side – who tried to smuggle us out and got shot for it. We spent four years in that hell before Ryuji rescued us.”

“You’re more open about this than I would have expected,” said Aizawa.

Tempest sneered. “Why wouldn’t I be? I’m a terrorist, and people only become terrorists if they want to make a statement. Which I did. Trust me when I say this, Nine, if the hero commission took you into ‘custody,’” she spat the word like it was dirty, “you’d be in the same boat. What do you children think they do to all those high-profile criminals in Tartarus? The ones that are held indefinitely in a private prison without even a show trial?”

“I know, Three,” said Izuku, far more calmly that Ochako would have been able to. “That’s one of the reasons I wanted to be a hero. It’s easier to change systems from the inside.”

“Not this system.”

“No,” said Izuku, “but then I had no idea this part of the system even existed. They do a lot to hide it, after all.”

“Hm,” grunted Tempest, skeptically.

The buildings began to thin out, interspersed with wilderness. The road rapidly graded narrowed into a one-lane road, then gravel.

“Is this normal?” asked Ochako.

“We have more control over our environments than the other ones. You’ve noticed that only Eight and Nine had multiple versions of themselves running around and being confusing.”

“I didn’t do that on purpose,” said Izuku.

“Exactly. Any of us could send an army of ourselves against you. Only those two don’t have a choice about it. Amateurs.”

“Shouldn’t they have had the same amount of time as—” started Ochako. She broke off as a series of concrete walls topped with barbed wire rose up in front of them, scraping at the surrounding trees, shedding clumps of dirt.

The trees fell away, leaving a clear, baren space between the walls and the trees. Slightly beyond the structure moonlight glinted off the surface of a lake.

“Well. Welcome to Jinoshi Lake Camp, kids.” Tempest turned, putting her hands on her hips. “This is where I met Ryuji. And…” She glanced up at the walls. “This is as far as I go.”

“You aren’t going to show us where to find this ‘Ryuji?’” asked Aizawa.

“I promised myself I’d never go back there.” She jerked her head over her shoulder. “I’m not revisiting it for you.” She started walking away. “Have fun.”

#bnha #boku no hero academia #fic #my fic #long night in the valley

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mittensmorgul · 4 years

Note

hey mittens! i know you’ve written off the finale at this point (and haven’t we all), but i was just wondering: do we know whose idea it was to have kripke co-write that ep? because like, in hindsight, that was...a choice, and i’ve been thinking that might explain SOME of the weirdness of that ep (emphasis on SOME because uh. i really do think that some of the cringiest details didn’t come from writers at all). anyway—thoughts?

I don’t think Kripke had anything to do with writing the final ep. It just... felt like a Kripke ep, and I’m starting to think that Dabb did that intentionally. He’s the most meta writer the show might’ve ever had, and in refusing to allow Sam and Dean to live out past their ultimate victory, in choosing to “force an ending” on the characters instead of leaving their world “open” with no concrete ending, he succeeded at the task that Chuck- as Kripke’s avatar in the original story of Supernatural-- had failed to do.

Dabb, in a very real sense, is the one who “ended the story of Supernatural.” He wanted to bring it full circle, to “close the universe” and make it “reboot-proof.” This is something he’s talked about going back as far as SDCC 2019, and many of us had hoped that would mean something “better” than what Chuck wanted for the Winchesters, and for Cas.

I was hoping, and watching the show for the last few years under the assumption that Dabb’s in-story avatar was more a combination of different characters. At first, Billie, who started as a reaper but was elevated to the role of Death (like Dabb himself started as a writer who became more important to the telling of the tale, and eventually became the final showrunner who would eventually reap the show in the end, as it were).

After Jack’s introduction, I wondered if he was going to “grow into the role” of the Authorial Avatar. After all, he served as a mirror for all three other characters, reflecting their stories back at them and allowing them to process their own emotional and psychological issues by helping Jack through them. I wrote long ago, back in s13, how this enabled TFW to sort of graduate from student to master, in the martial arts sense of the word, because one truly only completes learning a thing through the process of teaching others.

And then the Empty became involved as an actual being that manifested through the identities of others, and didn’t really have its own identity other than “I need to sleep, stop disturbing me!” which... felt like it might’ve become relevant when Jack’s power was able to break through into its realm.

Then these three beings began plotting the final overthrow of the Original Author. One laid claim to the lives of Sam and Dean (Billie), one laid claim to Castiel (the Empty). We watched Jack-- the incarnation of “balance” and the vehicle through which the show demonstrated what the human soul’s function is, what the function of angelic grace WITHOUT a human soul’s function is, and what Jack as a whole being with both actually is, as he fully came to his own understanding of what humanity, human love, and the responsibility and function of cosmic power and balance is within himself.

I never doubted (especially after he consumed Michael’s grace and made that power his own) that Jack’s function would be as the ultimate role that Chuck had been trying to force on Dean since s11-- “the firewall between light and darkness.” That Jack would be the crucible to fully unite the power embodied in Amara and Chuck. Chuck’s ending was about as poetic as it gets, and I 100% appreciate Jack’s “end” in the narrative that isn’t really an end for him, because the story also implied that Chuck’s original “problem” stemmed from his wanting to give himself an ego and play with his own creation like so many tinkertoys, to force his will on a universe he created to be ruled by the will of others.

The ultimate act of Team Free Will left Chuck fully human and an effectively blank book, with no power to force anyone else to play his games. Excellent, right? Poetic even!

But the story wasn’t really over, because in our world, there was one more episode, a coda fic if you will. And all of the characters I’d associated with Dabb-as-avatar were... rendered mute. Billie was dead or dying in the Empty, Jack came into his full power and had already healed the universe, implying that the Empty’s conditions were fulfilled and could finally go back to sleep.

Unfortunately, Chuck’s Book, while appearing blank, still contained all the words. Only Death could read them, and as far as we know, nobody in that universe had ascended to that role. But in our universe, we know that’s Dabb’s function in the narrative. What sort of ending could he write?

Most of us hoped that it would be a “once more, with feeling” sort of “you can finally lay down your arms and make a new life for yourself” ending. Many of us were baffled first off that Jack wouldn’t have brought Cas back from the Empty to Earth. We never really had a satisfactory explanation in canon of what happened there. Was Cas actually dead? What function does he have if he’s in Heaven? Has he been relegated to a role of duty and service as punishment for daring to yearn for human things? It just... it felt like the final stab from a story that had just told us that he truly has been the one disrupting for in Chuck’s story, that he was something that Chuck could never force out of the story or control, who demonstrated free will and learned to love humanity because of Dean, and yet doomed to never have that for himself. Most of us felt that line in 15.18 deserved subversion in the aftermath, and yet we never even get concrete confirmation that he’s even really alive in the same way he was before. It’s... what Chuck always wanted for Cas, to shunt him out of the story and render him powerless and plotless.

What did Chuck want for Sam and Dean? What story did he force them into over and over again? One of them tragically dead and the other miserable and mourning. He wrote billions of iterations of this exact story, over and over throughout billions of universes created for the sole purpose of doing exactly this to every incarnation of Sam and Dean he possibly could. Most of us hoped this might be the ONE universe where that was subverted, like it was the ONE universe where Castiel refused to fall in line with Heaven’s orders and plans. But nope, Dean died tragically (almost immediately after saying in canon that the only way they could honor Cas and Jack’s sacrifices for them was to keep living), and Sam lived a rather bleak and hollow life where the only thing we know he did was to raise a son named for his dead brother.

Chuck would’ve been freaking DELIGHTED!

Which... brings us to Heaven... where we get the vague hint that Cas “helped” Jack “knock down the walls” and make it a paradise that Dean would love and feel rewarded by. We never actually find out what role Cas played in that, or if he was also there in some capacity. But how I’ve always personally understood Heaven as it was in Chuck’s creation, was as a self-sustaining and ever expanding Destiny Generator, like a power generator or a giant battery where each Heaven Cubicle functioned as a cell. The show itself has been using the soul-as-power-source for ages (it was pretty much the running theme of s6-- it’s the souls!-- and this theme was returned in force in s11, culminating in the “soul bomb” plot of (gasp!) Andrew Dabb’s season finale.

Heaven was beginning to break down as a “machine” and a power generator not for lack of human souls, but for lack of angels to maintain the structure of heaven itself. In one of his first episodes, Cas even described the function of angels as being “agents of fate.” Their sole role was to literally “hold Chuck’s narrative together.” Metaphorically in the story-- in the original Apocalypse as the guides who tried to force Sam and Dean into the roles they were destined for-- as well as metaphorically in Heaven which was the “battery” that gave the angels their power in the first place. Remember what happened to Cas when he has been “cut off from Heaven” and began to lose his powers.

So the way I’d always understood the function of Heaven in Chuck’s story was exactly that. Without Chuck’s narrative, the walls would fall and the paradise Jack’s birth heralded would come to fruition THERE. Because as long as there is life, and free will, and more than one person on EARTH, that sort of paradise is an impossible dream. We’re seeing that exemplified now in real life, actually, with people claiming their rights and freedoms are being infringed upon by being asked to wear a mask and limit their social interactions to prevent the spread of a deadly virus. Does their “freedom” override the “freedom” of others who would prefer to remain alive and not infected by a virus that could kill them? It’s an impossible balance, because true freedom cannon exist in life without compromise and sacrifice.

Which brings us to Dean, and his essential humanity, which had been exemplified in his selfless love of humanity so strong that he became a cosmic disrupting force of his own by simply refusing to let Chuck’s story defeat him. He struggled with this throughout s15 as Chuck told him that his life had never truly been his own, and that he’d always been a character in a bigger story. He’d finally begun to feel at peace with who he was, with the family he’d made for himself, and everything and every experience he’d endured that had shaped him into the person he’d become, and Chuck’s revelation led him to doubt everything. In the end, he was finally able to see what truly DID matter, what really WAS real (thank you to 15.17 for confirming that Cas was one of those things that Chuck had also never intended to be part of his story, and that Cas truly had always chosen Dean freely, because his doubt of Cas was one of the main things hurting Dean in s15, epitomized in his crisis in 15.09 in Purgatory). So the fact that Cas was not “allowed” to come back to Dean afterward feels... punitive. The fact that Dean was not “allowed” to actually experience a real human life on the Earth he’d devoted his entire life to saving, the fact that Sam was never able to achieve peace and happiness in a life he’d struggled to find balance between a destiny he’d never wanted and a normalcy that had been merely performative for decades because shoving the majority of his life experience down to play at being “normal” was never truly possible, and required truly accepting all of himself to actually free himself from the half-life we saw him live after Dean’s death... all of that just... it’s exactly what Chuck would’ve wanted for all three of them.

And it’s depressing af, that when given the power to “end the story of Team Free Will,” Dabb chose to enact Chuck’s final draft, rather than handing blank books to these three to write their own lives. And it just looks like Kripke’s writing, because it kind of is his story. We just hoped it wasn’t, and that the final avatar of The Author in the story would be TFW themselves. But that was probably never meant to be. Because destiny is apparently still stronger than human free will, and isn’t that just depressing af.

#spn 15.20 #dabb vs cars #heaven hell purgatory and the empty #that's what free will is #or apparently is not... which is the main reason the finale is fucking with my head honestly #i just can't see even paradise heaven as a reward #it always felt like the final concept to be subverted by the narrative but the narrative loved itself more than life #and so it goes #skvwalkering

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Squid Game Ending Explained

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This SQUID GAME article contains MAJOR spoilers.

For a series with a relatively well-worn premise, Netflix’s Squid Game sure does manage to pack a lot of surprises into its conclusion. It does this in large part by recognizing that the series’ success hinges not so much on who wins the game, but on how they win it and what it all means. Like the show’s beginning, much of Squid Game‘s final hour is set outside the world of the arena—this time, a year following the events of the bulk of the show. Let’s break down what happens in the Squid Game ending…

Who Wins Squid Game?

While the meat of Squid Game‘s conclusion comes outside of the game, the final round—Round Six, the series’ original title—is effective. In a callback to the series’ opening scene, which shows kids playing the titular “squid game” as Gi-hun explains the rules, the final two contestants must face off in the children’s game. It’s especially fitting (and depressing) that the final two contestants are Gi-hun and Cho Sang-woo, as the two grew up in the same town and used to play squid game together as kids. More than that, Sang-woo has been deemed a success by society (well, up until that embezzlement part) and Gi-Hun, a failure. By pitting these two against one another in Squid Game’s final contest, and making it very clear who the more humane human is, the series is calling into question the metrics by which we measure status and worth in our world.

As Squid Game progresses, the competition has become more and more encouraging of inter-contestant violence. This is especially true for the final round, in which Gi-hun and Sang-woo are allowed to use force to beat the other person—even to their death. It’s about winning the squid game or making it so your opponent can’t win the squid game… or anything else. It’s barbaric and raw and, for a moment, it seems like Gi-hun may succumb to the kind of desperate brutality that has claimed so many in this game.

After an ugly fight, Gi-hun manages to beat Sang-woo to the ground and make his way to the circle drawn in the sand that, should he step inside, would mean his victory and Sang-woo’s death. He almost does it, too—he is so angry with Sang-woo whom, over the course of the game, he has realized is willing to kill in order to secure his victory—but, in the end, human life is worth more to Gi-hun than any sum of money. It’s what Kang Sae-byeok reminded him of right before she died (at Sang-woo’s hand). We all have the capacity to do both good and terrible things. Gi-hun may have a good heart, but, more impressively, he is able to act with it.

This is exactly what Gi-hun does, realizing that he doesn’t have to choose money over human life. One of the three rules in the game allows for the competition to be canceled should a majority agree to end it. The group enacted it after the first round before deciding to re-instate the game shortly after. To the surprise of the VIPs watching from their gilded booth, Gi-hun walks back over to Sang-woo and asks him to leave with him. To end the game. Sang-woo seems to consider it, reaching out for Gi-hun outstretched hand, before he instead takes the dagger buried in the ground next to him and plunges it into his own neck.

Why does Sang-woo do it? Perhaps he is too ashamed of what he has done, both in the arena and outside of it. Or maybe he can’t stand to face his mother and others without the money. Perhaps he does the math and realizes, at this point, the only way to get the money to his mother is to make sure Gi-hun wins it and helps out the woman he’s known since he was a kid. Maybe he’s just tired and traumatized. Probably, it’s all of the above. Whatever the reason, Sang-woo kills himself and Gi-hun wins the game. In the end, though, I think it’s clear that no one actually wins Squid Game.

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Who Dies in Squid Game?

It might be easier to list who doesn’t die. None of the game’s 456 contestants make it out, save for protagonist Gi-hun and old man contestant Oh Il-nam (more on that later). Ali is tricked by Sang-woo into giving all of his marbles in Round Four, and is killed by the soldiers. Han Mi-ryeo succeeds in her promise to kill gangster Jang Deok-su when she grabs onto him and throws them both off of the glass bridge in Round Five. Kang Sae-byeok, the North Korean woman looking to get back to her brother, is killed by Sang-woo in the lead up to the final round.

Notable deaths in the series conclusion that take place outside the arena include Hwang Joon-ho, the police officer who infiltrates Squid Game pretty damn effectively, only to be killed by the Front Man, aka his own brother. And also Gi-hun’s mother, whom Gi-hun finds dead upon returning to his apartment after winning the game. Presumably, she died from complications to her diabetes, which is shown to be very serious in the second episode.

Joon-ho’s Brother: Who is In-ho?

In the eighth episode of the season, “Front Man,” Hwang Joon-ho makes it off of the arena’s island with evidence of the game. He is hunted down by the game’s Front Man and his goons. Joon-ho tries to call for back-up and to send he evidence he has gathered to his police chief, but is unable to due to cell phone poor service. He is cornered on a high, rocky cliff and asked to surrender by the Front Man, who reveals himself to be Joon-ho’s own brother, In-ho.

In Episode 5, “A Fair World,” Joon-ho discovers that his brother was a previous winner of Squid Game—in 2015, five years prior. Somehow, In-ho went from being a winner to being a main controlling force—probably in no small part because, as we see from how Gi-hun responds to winning, it is not easy to get past the extreme trauma of Squid Game. In-ho is so committed to his role as the Front Man that he shoots his own brother, when Joon-ho refuses to surrender to him. Joon-ho, who spent the entire season gathering evidence of Squid Game, falls to the water below, presumably to his death and presumably with all of the evidence he has gathered.

cnx.cmd.push(function() { cnx({ playerId: "106e33c0-3911-473c-b599-b1426db57530", }).render("0270c398a82f44f49c23c16122516796"); });

Who Runs Squid Game?

This is a complicated question because we don’t truly understand the scope of Squid Game. When Joon-ho infiltrates the records vault underneath the Front Man’s rooms, he finds evidence of years and years of games like the one we have been watching play out. Discussion amongst the VIPs also suggests that the game is being played in different locations around the world—this could mean that multiple games are happening simultaneously or that they happen throughout the year in different locations. We know from the labels on the (honestly very well organized) records that there are multiple games every year.

Logistically, the Front Man runs the game with the help of the workers, soldiers, and managers—aka the dudes in red coveralls. In the final episode, Oh Il-nam, aka Contestant 001, is revealed to be the Host of the game, and implied to be if not the person who runs the entire gambit, then one of the people who is in charge. He gives more of the game’s backstory from his deathbed…

Why Did Oh Il-nam Play Squid Game?

We find out in Squid Game‘s final episode that Oh Il-nam, the older man Gi-hun befriended in the arena and whom we all thought died in the marbles round, actually survived the Squid Game. This is because he is one of its creators. He chose to play the game after years of watching it because he had been diagnosed with a brain tumor that caused him to reflect on his life. As he tells an understandably very angry Gi-hun from his death bed a year following their Squid Game, he wanted to feel like he did when he was a kid, playing with his friends and losing track of the hours.

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This is pretty fucked up. To Il-nam, the game truly was a game: something to pass the time and make him feel alive when regular life wasn’t doing it for him. Of course, Il-nam wasn’t like any other player. When he lost to Gi-hun, he wasn’t killed. The Front Man may espouse the equality of the game, but it isn’t a fair competition—it’s rigged for the uber elite, just like the outside world. Il-nam’s survival proved that, if it wasn’t already obvious. His desperation wasn’t like the other player’s because he knew exactly what was going on and had an out, not only from the game but from the kinds of desperate situations that the other contestants found themselves in outside the arena.

When Il-nam is dying on Christmas Eve in the corner of a mostly barren office-tower floor, he tells Gi-hun that the very poor and the very rich are the same in that living is no fun for either. Somehow, Gi-hun doesn’t strangle him then and there. He also doesn’t strangle him when Il-nam reveals how Squid Game started: basically, Il-nam and his rich friends were bored and joyless, and decided to create the games as a way to have some fun. This legacy continues with the Squid Games of today, as demonstrated by the VIPs, a group of (seemingly mostly American) rich men who sip whiskey and tell jokes as they watch desperate people die in the game they bet on. To them, human life has lost all meaning, and, because they have an exorbitant amount of wealth (which is to say power), these are the rules others must also play by.

Gi-hun is extraordinary because he refuses to play by those rules. Il-nam tells him that he deserves the money, because that is the logic he and his ilk have lived under—as if anyone deserves the kind of immense privilege that must always be built on others’ exploitation and suffering—but Gi-hun refuses to spend it. Il-nam tells him that no one will stop for the man passed out on the side of the frozen road, and Gi-hun takes that bet. And he wins. What sets Squid Game apart from so many of the stories in this genre is its ability to balance the ruthlessness and injustice inherent in the premise with a stolid belief in the capacity for goodness. The system is rigged for people like Il-nam, who suffers no consequences for his actions. but there will always be people, like Gi-hun and the person who went to get the cops to help the man on the street, who care and who act on that caring.

No doubt this plot twist will be a divisive part of Squid Game discourse. Personally, I could have done without it. Gi-hun’s relationship with Il-nam is one of the best dynamics in the entire show, and one that underscores the series’ central theme of how important it is to value humanity, even when the system you live in does not. Episode 6, “Gganbu,” is the best hour of the entire season in no small part because of how Il-nam and Gi-hun’s contest to the apparent death plays out. To backtrack on that for a final-episode plot twist that doesn’t add much thematically to the story feels like a mistake. That being said, there is enough that works about this scene and episode for Squid Game to remain an overall rewarding watch.

Gong Yoo’s Cameo: Why Does Gi-Hun Change His Mind?

Il-nam’s deathbed confession seems to kickstart Gi-hun’s life. He dyes his hair red like a K-pop idol. He finds Sae-byeok’s brother and leaves the boy (and half of his winnings) with Sang-woo’s mother. Though it seems like Gi-hun intends to return to them following a trip to visit his daughter, who has moved with her mother and stepfather to Los Angeles, this all changes when Gi-un sees something on the subway: the same man (played by Train to Busan‘s Gong Yoo) who recruited him for Squid Game is playing ddakji with a man. Gi-Hun abandons his luggage and dashes to the platform where Gong Yoo’s salesman character is working to recruit another desperate soul. Gong Yoo has already boarded a train by the time Gi-Hun makes it to him, smiling through the glass door. All Gi-hun can do is grab the Squid Game calling card from the latest recruit, and command him not to play the game.

Or is it all Gi-hun can do? When he is on the airbridge to board his plane to LA, he takes out the calling card and dials the number, telling the voice on the other side: “Listen carefully. I’m not a horse. I’m a person. That’s why I want to know who you people are, and how you can do these horrible things to people … It wasn’t a dream. I can’t forgive you for everything you’re doing.” Like the person who stopped to help the man on the street, Gi-hun refuses to accept the status quo, if there is anything at all he can do about it. He has wealth now and, rather than accepting complicity in a horrifying system as a condition of that power, he is risking it all. He is stopping for the man on the street.

The post Squid Game Ending Explained appeared first on Den of Geek.

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gremlin-writes-angst · 3 years

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The Three Kingdoms

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

TW: Homophobia, internalized homophobia, implied transphobia(very brief), religious trauma

If I missed a trigger or if you spot a spelling mistake, please let me know. Feedback is encouraged.

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There was so much going on and yet it wasn't overwhelming, it was almost perfect. There were sounds of people happily chatting, wedding bells, and songs slightly louder played in the distance. The colorful glass from the church window shined on the people in the church. The church was packed for a royal wedding and at the altar, there was prince Kaminari but instead of a beautiful bride opposite him, there was a handsome knight from the enemy kingdom. The priest started the ceremony, the two grooms said their vows and kissed. It was anything less than magical. The priest began to announce the kingdoms’ new rulers.

"Lady's and Gent’s I introduce to you, your new Kings. King Denki Kaminari and King Eijiro Kiris--"

Before the priest finished his announcement the large church doors were opened and the...priest who was previously standing next to the kings, had teleported to the church’s entrance.

" I will not follow the rule of sinners like you"

Suddenly all the happy wedding goers disappeared and reappeared behind the angry priest, joining him in ridiculing of the two kings

"We will not follow the devil"

"Our prince has been tainted by the devil"

The priest raises his hand and the crowd quiets down, Denki questions the priest

"What are you doing? You were just announcing us as the new kings and know you're over there protesting our marriage? YOU’RE THE MARRIAGE OFFICIANT?"

The priest ignored his King’s questions.

" Denki listen to me, the thing you married is the devil, he used his powers to make you believe you love him, but I know that you could never fall for another man. I can help you, just come to my side and I can exorcise that demon."

The priest offers his hand out, then the rest of the people behind him do the same.

" Denki, they're lying, you know that they are trying to get in your head. I do love and you love me."

Kirishima stood closer to Denki, also offering his hand to Denki. Denki looked between the two choices, he looks at the priest’s group, he sees his friends and family inside the crowd, telling him that the love of his life is the devil and he knows that they'll leave him if he stays with Kirishima. Could they be right? Did he love Kirishima, or was it just a trick? He meant every word of what he said in his vows, he spent days on his vows, he wanted to make sure Kirishima knew how much he loved him. So they were wrong, he did love Kirishima, their love for each other was no trick. But if he chooses Kirishima he’ll lose all his friends, family, and his whole kingdom. Denki stressed over who to choose, the mob became louder and more aggressive while he thought but before he could make a choice, Denki woke up.

A dream? A nightmare? Why was I getting married, to a man, to a knight from the enemy kingdom? Why was I married to Eijiro Kirishima? It was a stupid dream, I would never marry a man, the kingdom was right, Eijiro Kirishima was the devil, the dream must be a warning to avoid the knight in the cellar. It can't be that hard, he’s just in the cellar that's in the basement dungeon, the key to said dungeon door was on the wall and the guard was always asleep. Ok, this was going to be hard, it's just too easy not to visit the Red Riot.

The day goes by quickly, but then night falls and I remember how easy it is to get to the cellar, how my dream is just a dream. How handsome the knight is. How sweet his voice is. How he waits up for me. How he stopped me from hitting my head. Before I knew it I was in front of the dungeon door with the keys in hand, but the thought of losing everything I know stopped me from going down. I silently returned the keys and went back to my room and slept, the dream repeated that night, and yet the pressure to choose felt even more stressful.

It was dusk again, I don’t remember the hours before now, but I was back at the door with the keys. I stand there for a while until eventually, I think

“It was just a dream.”

So I unlock the door and descend down the stairs. Every step I take makes me more anxious, I repeat to myself that it was just a dream, my friends won’t leave me, I won’t be banished. I mean it doesn’t even make sense, I would never marry a guy, especially that brute in our dungeon, I barely even know him, and it's sinful.

“Then why are you going to see him?”

It’s a question in the back of my mind, and I don’t have an answer. It’s definitely not because he has a smooth husky voice or his muscular body, and it has nothing to do with his caring words that match his action. I am broken from my thoughts when said husky voice speaks

“If you keep walking you’ll end up hitting the wall”

I must have been so caught in thought because he was right, I walked right past him and was about to walk into the wall. I stay facing this wall, I wasn’t ready to face him, I mean I married him twice in my dreams, it is disgusting.

“Thanks, I guess”

“ No problem but are you going to turn around, I mean it’s kind of weird talking to the back of your head, especially when the front is so beautiful.”

I forget about the dream and why I was reluctant to turn around and l whip my body around and march towards his cell while accusing him of my dream.

“It’s your fault, you’re the reason, I’m not the evil one, it’s because you’re the devil. You sit there and you spew compliments at me, another man, from a rivaling kingdom, such words should be said to a woman!”

“ Sorry if I offended you, I was just telling the truth and if it makes you uncomfortable, I’ll stop but I thought it was mutual” “What in the hell gave you that idea”

“uh the lustful gaze you keep giving me”

“Lus-lustful gaze, I do no such thing, and especially not to you”

“So then what was that look on your face when you heard my voice, why did you constantly look at my arms like they were turkey legs”

“ it -it - it was ugggg”

“Because that’s the same look the women give me…which is unfortunate for them because I’ve only ever looked at men with such a gaze.”

“ But that’s sinful, you are tainted, I should leave and never return.”

I walk to the stairwell with the full intent of doing what I just said.

“That won’t stop the feelings you are having”

I turn back around, full of frustration, I reach through the bars and pull the hunk closer to me.

“Then take your stupid spell off, I can-cant be . . . I can’t be like you, I just can’t, you understand right. Even as the devil you have to understand what this will do to me, I don’t deserve that, I don’t want god to hate me or my family or friends. I deserve to love who I want without feeling like the worst human in existence!”

I pause and quickly whip the tears off my face. I look up at the knight, his face is full of sorrow, he looks sad . . . for me. I let go and fall to my knees, replay what I said, I try to find justification for it, I think of the dream. I was happy, I was loved and I was loving someone else. What if I am like the knight? The knight leans down

“ I can’t say I understand the mental fight that’s happening in your brain because I came from a palace where this wasn’t something I need to worry about but listen.”

The knight’s hand slowly reaches for my chin, his hands are calloused like most knights, yet his hands are still comfortable and somehow soft. I let him lift my chin up so I’m looking into his eyes, there like rubies, or sapphires

“Or like the pits of hell”

I ignore the thought and continue to stare into the knight’s eyes as he tries to comfort me.

“ The person you love isn’t a choice, it’s fate, and if God hates you for what you can’t control, then he isn’t manly nor does he deserve such a title. Hate is a choice, love isn’t.”

I get lost in his eyes for a little bit, but when I realize it I turn away, a little more aggressively than I wanted to. I move away and take a seat on the bench that is meant for the guards, I don’t want to leave but I can’t find it in me to talk, even though I hate the silence. I sit there staring at the ground feeling awkward, the knight must have felt the same way about silence because he started talking.

“ um back at my kingdom, the Toyomitsu kingdom, there real accepting of such things, like I’m our queen was born a prince”

I’ve heard of a man loving a man or woman loving a woman but this wasn’t something I had heard of. With my eyes still planted to the ground, I asked.

“ What does that mean?”

I could hear shifting from the cell but I refused to lookup

“Oh uh sorry, I forget that our kingdom is more progressive and more diverse. So basically our queen was born like us, she had our body parts, but she wasn’t.”

“I still don’t understand”

“Ugg this is hard, so she felt like her brain and body weren’t the same, like her brain said, ‘Your a girl’ but her body parts were male parts.”

“So she is a girl but had a body similar to ours”

“ Yeah exactly, but she’s better at explaining it because, well she lives through it.”

“ So she’s your queen, what about children, whos going to take over the throne”

“ Oh her and the king have a kid, he’s just adopted but he’s still their son and still the rightful prince, he's gonna be a great king. Oh, anyways I was gonna say that our kingdom is really accepting and if you need they’ll probably let you in if you ever wanted to leave here.”

In shock, I lift my head for the first time since I sat on this bench

“Even though I'm the prince of the rival kingdom?”

“ We don’t care that much about this rivalry. So yeah you would be fine”

“ If they don’t care why are you here?”

“ Well because our kingdom is so diverse and recently outside kingdoms have discovered that the queen is trans, which is the term for that situation, by the way, I think I forgot to mention that. Anyway, the King is worried about future attack’s so he sent out multiple knights to different kingdoms.”

“Oh so we’re not your only threat”

“Your not even a threat, your kingdom is crumbling”

“Oh wow thanks, I’ll remember that when I become king.”

“ You mean IF you become king”

“What is that suppose to mean ‘Red Riot’”

For the rest of the night, I joked and listened to Kirishima’s stories. I wish to see his home kingdom one day it sounds pretty cool. Before I knew it I was asleep and having another dream. It was different, there were no choices or stress. It was just Kirishima and me out on a hill having a picnic, eating food together, he fed me strawberries and the dream ended with a kiss, maybe falling for the knight wouldn’t be such a bad idea. Maybe my wedding dream was a warning about my kingdom and not Kirishima. I woke up and realized I was still in the dungeon, and that it was almost time for the guards check up on Kirishima, so I started to sneak back up to my room, I successfully avoided the guards on my way there, I acted as if nothing happened, I’m a pretty good actor if I do say so myself.

In the king’s throne room, a royal knight is kneeling before his king, he comes with important information.

“Lord Kaminari, I found the dungeon door unlocked and the keys on the guard bench this morning”

“ Well don’t leave them there”

“ I didn’t sir, I believe someone is sneaking into the dungeon at night.”

“ How would that be possible, we have Shinsou guarding the keys at night?”

“ I believe that he may have fallen asleep on duty.”

“ Well we can’t afford to get new guards or to switch any of the guard’s jobs, just move the keys to a new location along with Shinsou, Shinsou will continue to guard them. I want you to keep an eye out for anything suspicious.”

“Yes Sir”

“You are now dismissed Monoma.”

All characters belong to Horikoshi and his series Boku No Hero Academia

#mha #denki kaminari #bnha kaminari #eijiro kirishima #kirishima eijirou #kamikiri #kirikami #shinmono #shinsou hitoshi #hitoshi shinsou #monoma neito #the3kingdoms #fanfic #fatgum mha #taishiro toyomitsu

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