#(also spoilers but like... she has a lot of younger brother 'issues' considering a party member looks like him and [REDACTED])

[karmicrespite]

Tales of Berseria sure is a game.

sorry, but I have not. Could you explain?

I think you should give it a try and meet the hardcore vore onee-san.

[radexchangeprogram]

This is a random one but can I request head cannons of the Brothers and Dateables reacting to an MC that’s actually a half demon but was really great at hiding her demon side since she grew up in the human world? They see a demon man just bounding towards MC before the boys could do anything MC’s like “DAD! 😃” before jumping in his arms like a child. Around her Dad she gains fangs and horns like him but she reverts back to normal when she wants to. The boys are like “Why didn’t you say anything?” And she’s like “I’m just used to my human side” or ��You never asked 🤷🏾‍♀️”

Of course! I love this idea. I didn’t get a chance to proof read this so I apologize for any grammatical mistakes.

Author’s notes at the end (marked by *s)

Spoiler warning for up to chapter 17 to be safe. Especially with Belphie.

Half Demon GN!MC Headcanons

General

Everyone noticed that you never seemed too bothered by the fact that you were surrounded by demons, but figured you were just rather good at adapting.

This theory was proven wrong at a party Lord Diavolo hosted.

As you chatted with the brothers, a large demon with griffon wings, a lion’s mane, and horns similar to a gazelle began to head in the direction of your group.

The demon, who the others instantly recognized as Duke Vapula, walked up to them with a cheeky grin.

The brothers were instantly on guard, Mammon even growling slightly, as it was extremely uncommon for anyone to approach them so casually.

Diavolo, Barbatos, Simeon, Luke, and Solomon all took notice and were prepared to intervine should something happen.

You turned around to see what the issue was and let out a loud gasp.

“DAD!”

Lucifer

Absolutely dumbfounded. How did he not know about this? He read your files to the point of practically memorizing them before you came here and he swears there was nothing about you being a half demon.

He was honestly a bit embarrassed that he didn’t know about something this major.

When confronting you, all you did was say that it wasn’t that big of a deal and that you figured they already knew.

You really give him a migraine sometimes.

He feels a bit relieved that he doesn’t have to worry as much about you dying, though.

If you wish, he may start teaching you demonic etiquette, such as having you shift form at formal events.

If you prefer your human heritage, he won’t pressure you to conform to your demonic ancestory.

Mammon

WHAT THE HELL DO YOU MEAN HIS HUMAN ISN’T ENTIRELY HUMAN?!?

The loudest about his displeasure about not knowing.

“I’m your first man! I’m supposed to know everything about you!”

When you explain to him that you’re more comfortable with your human half, he calms down a little.

Tries to call you ‘stupid half-demon’ but it doesn’t feel the same as ‘stupid human’ :(

You tell him he can just keep calling you ‘stupid human’ :D

Wonders if he can get your dad to pay him for ‘providing his child with such incredible protection’.

You immediately tell him no.

Leviathan

Holy shit this sounds like something straight out of an anime!!!

Very upset that you didn’t tell him, you’re his Henry! You’re supposed to tell him these kind of things!

When you shrug and simply say that no one asked, he gets even more pouty.

You make up with him quickly by offering to play games with him all night.

Extremely curious about your demonic form for the primary purpose of cosplay. Do you know how many more characters you can be if you have a tail or wings?!?

You might inspire some fanfiction. (half demon Henry x Lord of Shadows au slow burn 100k words, def not Leviathan projecting no not at all-)

Satan

He is extremely shocked. Not only did he have no idea, but half demons are extremely rare.

From what he’s read, most half-human half-demon offspring don’t survive past birth and all documented cases that have survived reside in the Devildom so that their powers can be better managed.

He asks you about this and you reply that you’re actually quite good at controlling your powers, but that you prefer living as a normal human.

He’s not upset that you didn’t tell him, but he has a billion questions.

How long is your lifespan? Do you take more after your demonic father or your human mother in terms of power?What are your weaknesses?

He really wants to learn more about human-demon hybrids and will ask you to help in his studies.

Also a bit excited as your father is well known for some for his knowledge and writing about the sciences. He wants to discuss some of it with you, assuming you’ve read what your father has written.*

Asmodeus

Oh he is so excited.

A bit relieved that his charm isn’t wearing off, it just doesn’t work because you’re the child of a demonic duke!

You know those boiling hot springs he talks about visiting? Well he’s happy to learn that you actually can join him without fear of your skin melting off!

He’s not upset that you didn’t tell him, getting mad over stuff like that can cause wrinkles.

He will absolutely want to help you groom your horns/wings/scales/tail.

He already has shown you a lot about demonic fashion trends, such as extra clothing that can be fitted around demonic extremities, but now he actually can actually have you try on some! Do you prefer gold tail bangles or jeweled horn cuffs?

Beelzebub

Relieved that Duke Vapula wasn’t looking for a fight.

He can’t help but smile a little when you hug your dad. It makes him happy that you love your family.

When you blush and tell him that it just slipped your mind to tell everyone about your heritage, he isn’t upset.

Happy that he doesn’t have to be so scared of accidentally hurting you with how strong he is.

If you’re able to safely eat some more demonic food, he will absolutely get you to try some of his favorite foods that normal humans would die upon eating.

Overall, you’re still the MC he has grown to love and doesn’t treat you too differently.

Belphegor

Is now more awake than he has been the entire evening.

Half demon? Nah this is just some dream.

Is understanding when you explain to him that you prefer being human and living as a human.

He’s happy he found out after making amends with you. He used to despise half-demons just as much as normal humans, seeing them as repulsive.

He still very much treats you the same, but is a bit annoyed with his brothers.

With knowledge of your demonic blood coming to light, they drag you out even more often and naps with you are becoming rarer.

If you get too overwhelmed with his brothers constantly wanting to try things they thought would previously kill you, he will be more than happy to lend you some of his hiding spots. He does charge the small fee of getting to take a nap with you though.

Diavolo

Similar to Lucifer, is shocked that he didn’t know before you came to the Devildom.

You aren’t the first half-demon he’s met, but he is surprised that a demon of Duke Vapula’s rank had a child with a human.

He’s actually very excited to learn that you’re a half-demon who is in more in touch with your human side. He feels a lot more relieved that you aren’t as defenseless as previously thought.

He does, however, make absolute sure that you have full control over your demonic powers. Every other half-demon lives in the Devildom for a reason and he can’t have someone who is technically one of his subjects accidentally cause mass destruction.

He invites you for tea more frequently, asking so many questions about how being raised in the human world as a half-demon was.

He likes to exchange stories with you about your younger years and the power fluxes you both struggled with as you grew.

Tells you that should you ever wish to live in the Devildom that he would be more than happy to make the needed arrangements.

Barbatos

He knew the whole time. When Diavolo asked him to look into the success of the program, he made note of your heritage right away.

However, he decided that keeping this information hidden when he saw that you were raised human and preferred to be seen as human.

When he explains this to everyone, you can’t help but feel thankful.

While some of the others make no effort to hide how annoyed this makes them, he doesn’t mind. He knows he made the right choice keeping this from everyone and doesn’t regret it at all.

Barbatos is actually a pretty good friend of your father’s and grew up with him. He actually met you when you were a baby because of this.*

Solomon

He has seen a lot in his years in the world of magic, but nothing like this.

Usually, half-demons were very easy to spot as they struggled to control their powers, but you practically had it down to an art!

You explain to him that you’re actually pretty good at keeping your powers under control. He’s rather impressed by this and will ask to see your spell work.

Thinks it’s a little funny that he has a pact with your dad.*

Like Satan, he wants to know all about you. Unlike Satan, he is going to actually conduct experiments instead of stick to interviews.

He has a new potion that he wants you to try almost every day now.

Can half-demons make pacts? If so, you have now been added to the list of demonic beings he wants to make a pact with.

Simeon

Very surprised considering he’s blessed you before.

Blessings aren’t supposed to work on anything of demonic nature so he’s baffled.

When you explain to him that you were raised human and prefer to live as human, he smiles.

He comes to the conclusion that you being a good person must be greater than the demonic blood in your veins.

He treats you the same overall, knowing that you’re still you no matter your heritage.

Luke

Absolute denial.

There is no way someone as nice as you is part demon! He refuses to believe it!

Gets upset and accuses you of trying to manipulate him, which you quickly deny.

When you explain to him that you prefer being human, he huffs.

Simeon gives him a bit of a talking to, about how you’re still the same MC who he sees as a big sibling.

He bakes you some apology cupcakes for being rude to you.

You sometimes shift form to mess around with him, it never fails to make him let out a shocked yelp before he snaps at you for picking on him.

Everyone (except Luke) thinks it’s funny tbh.

Author’s Notes:

*Duke Vapula is described as being able to bestow knowledge about all science contained in books.

*Barbatos is also a duke in The Goetia. I thought a fun nod to this would be to have them as friends.

*The Goetia talks about the 72 demons that King Solomon evoked. Vapula is one of the demons that he evoked. The game actually references this by talking about his 72 pacts. Asmodeus and Barbatos are both included in the 72 demons which is why he has pacts with both of them in the game :)

[awigglycultist]

Okay hatchetfield zombie apocalypse au bc why not ("but tgwdlm is a zombie apocalypse" shh no that's an alien musical apotheosis and also this is won't be the exact same as tgwdlm)

This ended up being way longer than I thought it would and also kinda ramblely (is that a word??) oops. So read the rest under the cut

Okay this takes place in 2019

Emma and Paul are together, emam ofc suggests they going to her cooky reclusive biology professor

This isn't the apocalypse Henry excepted and he doesn't like that, but hey he still prepped for an apocalypse so he's safe

Since this isn't a musical apocalypse and it'd probably be pretty hard to get money off of someone during a zombie apocalypse, so he's currently not trying to murder anyone

He let's Emma and Paul stay with him

But then Emma is like "hey you have room do you think my nephew, brother in law and his gf could stay with us? The gf's a nurse she could be helpful!!"

He eventually agrees

Then Paul's like "hey my coworkers are kid dumb asses there's know way they're surviving an apocalypse on their own can they stay with us? And also one of them has daughter and the other has a little brother (cough cough HCB) them too?"

And then Hidgens ends up agreeing to that, and then Alice and HCB are ofc both like "wait hold on our friends-" (ie: Deb, Ziggs, Grace Chasity (this would be HCB's friends not Alice's ofc), Cineplex kid (because I said so) Ethan (also Tony, my beloved) Lex and Hannah (once again, because I said so, do we seem them interact? No, but they're friends now)

And Hidgens at this point is like "well fucking fine I guess so! Bring em here we have a bunch of ppl already so why not!!"

All of these people, living under one roof (albeit a very big roof) is ofc chaos!

I'd imagine ppl kinda stay in groups a bit tho. Like the teens stay with each other for the most part. CCRP gang hangs out together most. Ect.

Still, very chaotic. The teens (really mostly Deb, Ethan and Lex) causing plenty of trouble. The adults all being dumb asses. Plenty of arguments between Bill and Ted ofc. And probably several arguments between the nerdy prudes (grace, hcb and cineplex) and the other teens. Probably one fight between Alice and Ziggs but it gets settled quickly and they figure everything out and clear the air and become good friends.

I mean you think this amount of ppl, particularly this certain group of ppl, are going to be well organized durning the apocalypse? Hell no!

Hidgens is the only one that actually understands shit about apocalypse, he's the one who prepared! (once again: although for the wrong one) so he's constantly having to be like "no we can't do that that's dangerous!!" Emma, Alice and Lex are the only other really competent ones.

Hidgens ofc spends his time trying to find a cure, Emma helps him. If life ever goes back to normal she has an automatic A in his class for the rest of college just for going through this shit and helping him.

Tom, Bill, and Tony are the dads. They're obviously dealing with the kids. But the do mainly try and focus on their own kid because... That their kid ofc they care about them the most. But they try to take care of the other kids too.

Bill has a rough time connecting with anyone besides Alice. But Grace was always nice to him church so there's that. And ofc Alice has gf, a gf he doesn't like a ton but now he's very much stuck with so he might as well try and get along with. They eventually do.

Tom ofc like I said cares most about Tim. But after him the next he cares most about are CaliforMIA gang. Lex and Ethan were his students (I know it's not confirmed that Ethan was one of students but he is now bc I want him to be), probably his favorite students, and that Lex's little sister who's only a few years older than Tim, ofc he's also gonna care a lot about them.

Tony also cares alot about Lex and Hannah, that's his son's gf and her little sister, once again, ofc he'll care about them alot too.

Becky absolutely cares about all the kids a ton!! She's a nurse who works with kids, she's very nurturing and mother like. She cares for and about them all fairly equally but Tim is her favorite because... Well that's her bf's son and she's known him the longest out of any of the kids ofc. Lex and Hannah end up loving Becky alot because she's so much kinder and sweet than their biological mother.

Before the apocalypse Ted took care of HCB, now he's still taking care of him ofc. Ted doesn't want to be taking care of any of the kids besides his brother. He wants to drink and party and stuff. I mean it's the apocalypse so why not? But he ends up taking care of Grace and Cineplex quite a bit too. This happens not bc others aren't taking care of them, they are being taken by the other plenty well (like I said the dads and Becky all care for all the kids they just have favorites) but because they see HCB going to Ted for almost everything and Ted doing stuff for/helping out HCB so they're like "well okay guess we'll go to him too" He's not happy about it. He already has to deal with his obnoxious little nerdy prude bother and now there's two more? But part of them reminds him a lot of himself when he was younger. Maybe that's why he doesn't like them, or also maybe that's why secretly likes them a ton?

Hidgens, Emma, Ted, Tom and Lex are the ones that go out most often because they're the only who are really able to fight off the zombies and stay safe a stuff (okay Ted not so much as the others but they bring him anwyay cause Henry's like "he looks like he can use gun or something" and Emma, Paul, Bill and Charlotte are all like "this is a horrible idea don't bring him" but they do anwyay. He doesn't kill any of the others so hey why not keep bringing him? Besides if something goes wrong they can use him as bait or throw him to the zombies to get them off the rest of the group /hj)

Other ppl in Hatchetfield exist of course and are out they're trying to survive. Sam and Pamela are some of the first to die that's karma bitch

Lex and Hannah were living with Pamela ofc when the apocalypse hit, the girls wanted to go somewhere safer but Pam wouldn't let them, then one day she went out and got turned into a Zombie, the girls quickly took that as their chance to escape and they went to Tony and Ethan and then ofc ended up at Hidgens'

Charlotte was with Sam before he turned into a Zombie and then when he did she ran to Ted & HCB and stayed with them before they ended up at Hidgens'

Gary and MIAH are together and trying to survive on they're own. Sylvia, Melissa, and Greenpeace Girl end up meeting each other and decide to gang up together and they're badasses. Dan and Donna are two focused on the news and finding out if Peanuts is surving (which yes, Peanuts, (as well as Papa Ed.. At least for a while) are doing fine) and they die pretty quickly. Holloway and Duke are doing great, Holloway's a witch so yeah she's good and ofc Duke is with her so he's good too.

Lucy is in Hatchetfield and she's already in the woods vibing with Chumby before the apocalypse hits (THAM doesn't happen in this universe and instead Lucy ends up finding Chumby own her own because uh??? Reasons??? Idk bc I said so) the two of them have no idea there's a zombie apocalypse. The Paul clones take this apocalypse as they're chance to escape, Paul23 leading the uprising ofc, they don't kill Paul and take his place tho, instead it's more like "there's a zombie apocalypse? Oh fuck yeah!" *escapes* "oh theres a zombie apocalypse oh no-" some try to stay in a group and live together, some try to go out their own. There's now a bunch of random Pauls and Paul zombies around town. The main gang do end up seeing the clones and they're all just kind like "uhhh wtf???" except Paul, he's absolutely freaking out, the clones kinda are just "uhh haha how do we explain this".

Spoiler alert: the world isn't destroyed. How? Not totally sure yet but probably through Hidgens managing to find a cure and time travel. Emdriod has traveled back in time to replace Emma, but oopsie she didn't travel back far enough so she can't kill Emma in Guatemala, so she goes to Hatchetfield in hopes she can kill Emma when no ones looking and just replace her then, but oh no there's apocalypse so thats a much bigger issue. She survives easily, she's strong af, doesn't need food, all that jazz. She and Emma do meet each other and it's another "wtf?" "how do I explain this?" situation. But Emdriod lies ofc and kinda explains what happened but said that she accidentally time travelled and leaves out the whole wanted to kill her part. Now the Emdriod has found Emma she does try to kill her, that's awfully hard to do tho considering Emma is literally always with a group of people, and Emdriod doesn't want to just kill Emma right in front of everyone bc then they'll all hate her and her goal isn't to just kill Emma it's too replace her. She end up giving up and she runs into Paul 23 and they bond of my doubles of someone and wanted to kill that somoen at first and then fall in love and kill zombies together :)

Ohh uhh other ships: Paulkins, Lexthan, Barneston, Potseed (Alice x Deb) ofc. Charted, Obnoxious Teens (HCB x Cineplex Kid) oh and ofc Holloduke. Uhh Bill x being okay for once, Ted x probably not dying for once (not too sure about that one yet) Hidgens x not actually trying to murder someone for once

Wait wait I just got idea: the zombie apocalypse occurs BECAUSE of Hidgens, he tries too bring back the working boys (remember his original backstory with accidentally killing them and stuff??)

Okay I think that's all I got for now

[tomyo]

A Vague Soul Eater Timeline Estimate:

TyI feel confused a lot when I see the characters listed as being 13 since a lot of elements don’t line up. Things like Soul riding a Harley (which are notoriously large and likely hard for a boy at the start of puberty to ride), Tsumugi (canonically 14) calling Maka senpai, and of course, the likelihood that the soul eater characters aren’t the same age. I saw a half finished draft pointing out some of these things but it began to become just a lengthy timeline. So as someone who’s obsessively documented this series for over 10 years, I thought I’d just explain the general time frames in Soul Eater. 

Warning: Long and full of spoilers.

First off, I always pictured the characters to start the series around 15 for various reasons I’ll get into later but in doing some extra fact checking, the wiki even cited Ohkubo saying Soul is 13-15. My viewing of their age is proto Maka and Soul in the pilot chapter look significantly younger than their standard design. While I doubt years passed between the Blair incident and Meeting Tsumugi on the stairs, I view their proto designs as 13 and their standard look as them at 15. Although admittedly there is a lot of information that can be contradictory as we will see.

Black Star is often headcanoned as the youngest but he is actually roughly a year older than Maka. He was brought to DWMA on the day she was born. The wiki says he was one year old but seeing as he was still unable to walk or talk, I’d guess it was closer between 6-10 months. 

Liz supposedly said in chapter 74 that she is two or three years older than BS making her around 17-19 at the beginning. I’m going to estimate low and put her at 17 for reasons. At some point I hope to find the original japanese text to see for myself just to verify if that’s what she said or if it was an embellished translation. Since Tsubaki has a similar figure to her, I would put her at the same age.

Patty is a little confusing. She’s called a Twin gun along with her sister and Japan still uses Onee/imouto even for twins based on who was born first, however Twin seems to more mean matching that literal twins in this use. Patty is probably anywhere between 14-16 but I’m going to stick with 16 because her doppleganger from B.ichi, Mana is 16 (Patty is also a bit taller than Maka which could suggest she is older.)

Death the Kidd has also been confirmed by Ohkubo to be 13-15 (which again I’m gonna place as 15).

So final thoughts before timeline listing, Soul Eater not is one of the most reliable pieces of info on the early Soul Eater timeline. Death City is in a monoseasonal climate which made it hard to identify how much time was passing but Tsumugi’s arrival fills in a LOT of details. She is 14 (a japanese middle schooler), arrives in Spring (Most likely April), Soul is still wearing a Gakuran(Boy’s middle school uniform) ONLY in the first episode (suggesting he was at the end of being middle school aged), Sid is still alive and Medusa is still around at the start but Stein shows up midway through the series, and her series ends on Halloween. I will push back the main kids’ ages back slightly for SEN. To also note, DWMA seems to most commonly take in students middle school aged an above unless there is a unique circumstance in cases like Black Star, PoT, PoF, and Angela. And finally, becoming a Death Weapon is rare and the info of Soul and Maka’s second time collecting 100 souls will suggest the minimum time progression from their first meeting to the Blair incident. 

So without further ado:

At 12/13 years old, Maka and Soul meet and pair up as a Meister Weapon pair. Both regularly wore a gakuran and the same sailor suit as tsumugi. Maka introduces Soul to Black Star who is a childhood friend and both meet his new partner Tsubaki.

Roughly one year before Tsumugi arrives, Spirit and Maka’s Mother (Who we will call Kami; her fan name from a misinterpretation) decide to get divorced. US divorces take about a year to go through and theirs finalized at the start of the first SE arc.

It was likely at this point Maka moved into an apartment with Soul since her mum left and the two seemed to have lived together for a while by SE not.

During the winter, Death offers Liz and Patty to become his weapons. Liz accepts wanting to provide Patty a better life.

Soul and Maka begin to to transition out of their middle school style uniforms as by a japanese standard, they would be considered high school aged now.

Soul Eater Not Starts

Age Estimates(Young-Oldest): SEN trio 14, Maka: 14 3/4, Soul 15, Dtk 15, BS 15.5, Patty 15.5, Liz 17, Tsubaki 17

Tsumugi discovers she is a weapon and moves to Death City in April. She meets her senpai Maka who is in the advanced class and who later gives a demonstration with Soul who is still wearing a Gakuran. Neither seem upset as they would have if they had recently encountered Blair. 

Between April and May, they loose the 100 souls they collected and Blair moves into their apartment. (SEN 4 references SE 4) A few days later, Black Star fights Mifune for the first time (Based on the Anime’s Prologues which better connect the stories).

Late April: Kim and Jackie become a Meister Weapon pair after Jackie learns Kim is a witch; they are possibly younger than the other main cast as they still wear sailor suits in the main series.

Mid-May: Eternal Feather is possessed by Shaula and is nearly killed but Stein stiches her back up. The main SE cast are likely not aware of Stein as Sid is still alive.

October: Shaula kills Sid.

October 31: Shaula attack Death City but SEN Trio kills her. 

Timeline Inconsistency: There is a timeskip at the end of SEN showing DtK, Liz and Patty becoming partners in Spring however they should already be a working team before the other’s remedial lesson. Specifically in the 2008 anime, Black Star and Soul notice someone (DTK) took a high level mission and ask a still alive Sid for information.

Kim and Jackie are moved up to EAT class.

Soul Eater Starts (Post prologues)

Age changes: Maka: 15; BS, Patty: 16. 6 months have elapsed since SEN.

November: Stein reanimates Stein. Soul, Maka, BS, and Tsubaki meet Stein during their remedial test who thereafter becomes their class teacher. BS and Soul attempt to fight DTK who is starting classes at DWMA. 

Maka and Soul fight Crona. Soul gets badly wounded and infected with Black Blood. Medusa who is unknowingly the witch creating black blood watches his progress in secret. While Soul is recovering Dtk and BS find Excalibur.

Winter: Tsubaki defeats her brother giving her a new power that BS needs to train to use leading to Maka wanting to also become stronger for Soul. Medusa briefly battles Eruka who becomes her unwilling servant. She sends Eruka to Free....Free. Maka, Soul, BS, and Tsubaki battle Free and defeat him after Maka and Soul overcome their issues and slightly awaken the black blood. Maka now is also infected with BB.

March: Year end exams more or less. Given the importance of the exam, it matches up with Japan’s placement exams.

Kid fights Crona while suspicion grows on Medusa.

March 31st: Shibusen founders party. Medusa ambushes them with only our 4 meister weapon pairs escaping. Crona is willingly captured after Maka befriends them and Medusa is ‘killed’, but the Kishin is ultimately revived and Stein is infected with Medusa??. Due to some confusing wording, a lot of people including myself mistake Shibusen’s foundation being around xmas. Realizing the actual date is the end of March, the timeline since Nov is a became a little more vague.

Age Changes: Soul, Dtk: 16; Liz Tsubaki; 18; 12mo since SEN; 6mo since SE

April: The death weapons convene in Death City. Crona starts school at DWMA.

Crona joins Maka and Soul on a mission to the Czech Republic where Arachne is reformed after 800 years. Giriko is also there and apparently just kept body stealing his kids for all that time.

Maka comes back temporarily paralyzed and BS fights Mifune a second time while seeking revenge. (We will diverge from the Anime now)

Joe comes to Death City for internal investigation.

A girl is possessed by Medusa. Crona becomes used to DWMA and Dtk puts on a part for them. Midway through the party, they are called on a mission. Kid is conflicted at finding Death’s name alongside the wizard Brew’s and Crona gets a visit from Medusa after leaving the party. Medusa tells Crona to spy and further worsen Stein’s condition. The Wiki points out that it’s May 21st based on a comment by Azusa. 

May 22nd: DtK fails to find the Book of Eibon.

May 23rd: Crona poisins Marie.

June: The 3 meister renaissance is formed.

The battle for Brew Occurs.

Maka finds out Crona is working with Medusa but doesn’t know what to do, Black Star fights Kid, and Justin Law, the shibusen traitor, kills Joe.

Stein and Marie leave to track Joe’s Killer, BS and Tsubaki take a break from shibusen to go to Tsubaki’s home, and Crona leave Death City for good.

Maka, Soul, DtK, Liz, Patty, and Blair fight some of the Kishin’s clown agents in Russia.

Medusa returns and bargains with Shibusen with her child host as hostage and giving the names of witches in Death City, including Kim who runs away to join Arachnaphobia. Arachnaphobia uses a brew tool to manipulate them.

An alliance between Medusa and Shibusen is formed to fight Arachnaphobia.

I want to make the guess that summer has passed and it is August/September by the Baba Yaga fight. 1. Because it seems like enough events have happened that 3months would have passed and 2. this would make the time skip start in spring which fits thematically (new arc, new team, etc).

The battle against Arachne occurs. Kim and Jackie are saved. BS kills Mifune in their final battle. Arachne is killed by Soul and Maka becoming their witch soul to make Soul a death scythe. Medusa transfers herself to her sister’s corpse and flees leaving behind a free Rachel. Death is captured by Noah.

Angela is taken in by Shibusen who plan to try and guide her away from the sway of destruction natural in witches.

 6 month timeskip, the main cast heals, Spartoi is formed, Justin is formally know as the traitor acquitting Stein of the murder, and Soul and Maka recollect 100 kishin souls thus officially turning Soul into a death scythe. 

Spartoi Arc Starts

Time Passed since SEN: 2 years; Since SE: 1year 5 months

Ages: Maka 16 3/4, Soul/DtK 17, BS/Patty 17 1/2, Liz/Tsubaki:19

Maka and Soul train with Kim and Jackie to utilize Maka’s grigori soul properties for flying. At the same time, Gopher, Noah’s devot peon, attacks intending to assassinate Maka. Maka ofc wins. 

Killik is sent to do reconnaissance on Medusa with Liz and Patty in addition to his Shamanic weapons. There he faces off against Medusa’s madness experimentations.

At the same time, BS and Tsubaki’s recon leads them to a memory erased Crona who they battle with. Eruka and Mizune come to retrieve Crona but Eruka is caught by BS in the end.

Also at the same time, Medusa who was overseeing both events through a crystal ball ends up in a three way battle with Justin and Tezca, the South American death scythe.

Maka and Soul who are still at school discuss how Soul has been getting even more partner requests lately. Only Maka seems aware that an underclassmen has been following them as well.

Soul and Maka witness Blair and the Chupa witches make their way to meet with Shinigami-sama about rescuing Kid followed by BS breaking in behind them to show off the captured Eruka.

Spartoi and Blair enter the book intending to save Kid. While I won’t go over it in its entirety, it’s worthwhile to point out that Giriko describes Maka as looking 15 or so (Something the fandom used often as Maka’s age). However, when he also believed she was new henchman, he said she was 7/10 years too young to be working there suggesting he perceives her as younger than she is. 

DtK gets consumed by madness and has a duel with BS. 

Crona starts spreading madness zones in Russia. Maka and Soul journey with Stein, Kim and Jackie but Soul is briefly taken over by madness.

Kid starts pursuing for answers on Eibon.

Crona kills Medusa.

Spartoi is given the order to kill Crona if found. Maka does a soul perception search but instead comes across the kishin on the moon.

Shibusen prepares for the battle on the moon while Maka and Soul continue to look for Crona. Very little time passes during the kid salvage arc and it seems to be summer when preparations are finished. I would presume since an airship was needed to be built, the final battle takes place around August. 

As Kid and the Death Scythes begin the battle on the moon, Spartoi joins Maka in finding Crona in Italy. Maka fails to talk Crona down who then heads to the moon with the intent to consume the Kishin.

Having no interest in killing Crona, the kids somewhat defect from Spartoi and head to the moon to aid in the fight. However, some of the fighters from the moon, including kid, return after struggling in their mission. Kid decides to gather allies with the witches in order to defeat Asura. 

Crona consumes the kishin and battles Maka while stripping her friends and partner. Maka uses Spirit instead and Crona becomes frustrated at being unable to disharmonize the two. Spirit explains their parent/child connection is too strong to be unsynced causes them to freak out and be overtaken by the kishin.

The meister weapon pair trio battles Asura, Kid reaches godhood, Maka and Soul go inside the Kishin to find Crona, work with them, and kill the Kishin as they rip through him. The witches protect the humans from the flood of madness that spills out and a new era of Shibusen/Witch alliance forms.

Chrona deadass infects the world with boob madness.

A funeral for Shinigami-sama is held the following week.

Kid’s coronation occurs where he announces the end to the war between Shibusen and Witches. We know enough time has passed that people became used to the black moon and BS has decently healed despite literally breaking every bone in his body but Marie hasn’t gotten her baby bump yet which comes in during the third month of pregnancy meaning probably only 2 months at most have passed. October makes sense for where the story ends.

Final main 7 ages (vague ideas): 

Maka: 17

Soul: 17.5

Black Star: 18

Tsubaki: 19-20

Death the Kid: 17.5

Liz:19-20

Patty:18

Total time since SEN started: 2.5 years

Total time since post prologue SE: ~2 years

Final thoughts:

Well, that took two long nights to write down. I tried not to give a tedious play by play and only put down the most essential of story details to help give an idea on time passage. It got progressively harder to detail time as sources started to dwindle from the manga timeline. I love the Spartoi arc so at some point I might go through that part again to reexamine some details. Japanese high school is only three years long so the idea of their story starting at Japan’s freshman age and ending around HS graduation seems fitting. One of the things that also occurred to me with the timeline write up was that Justin in concretely 17 when Crona briefly joins Shibusen, giving us someone to contrast against our cast. In this lovely breakdown we can see the growth spurt the main 3 guys go through but if you also look at their artwork in the later chapters, they also share similar slimmed features to Justin’s design. I will say, early on I was surprised how many time frame details I was able to pull out from the material. Soul Eater was always vague with the fine details but clearly some of us managed to pull out a lot from it. 

In terms of the soul collection, the second 100 souls required 2 years to get(1 soul/mission a week). Soul collection would theoretically get easier over time and experience but its hard to figure out with all the variables we saw like a major injury, an attack on the city, and the kishin revival. Then there’s also questioning how long it took Maka and Soul to sync up. While Tsumugi’s case is unusual, it took her 6 months to even partner up (though then they also flawlessly killed a witch sooo). Going by the middle + high school model for Shibusen, Maka’s efficiency and a less big world issues could possibly validate the idea they could get that far in 3 years. Applying that much time for the idea Maka/Soul are 13 would mean they started their partnership at around 9-10 years old which seems unlikely to me. Then again, Justin became a death scythe AT 13 so who knows. 

My last little thought is completely inconsequential but I see Maka as having an end of August birthday. The 23rd game to mind but I didn’t realize that was the switchover date from Leo to Virgo. Based on what google searches say about those signs, it feels fitting imo.

Well, congrats for making it all the way and thanks for hearing out my ramblings!

[gregorygrim]

Dragon Prince Hot Takes

!!! Full Spoiler For “The Dragon Prince” Seasons 1-3!!!

So I finally got around to watching The Dragon Prince. Timely, I know, but better late than never i guess. I’m not completely caught up yet as I only got as far as S3E7 “Hearts of Cinder” in this first sitting. Considering I haven’t binged any series in almost two years, I think that’s pretty respectable. This means I won’t discuss the last few episodes here, except for a couple of things I was unfortunately spoiled for already, hence full spoilers.

These are basically my first thoughts and opinions after the binge and a good night’s sleep. It’s gonna be a lot so if you don’t care or don’t want spoilers…

TL;DR: 7½/10. Generally enjoyable, there are some aspects I’m not exactly fan of, but no dealbreakers

Firstly to everyone who told me that this was the new ATLA: you all need to rewatch Avatar stat! Like seriously. There are definitely parallels and given the cast and crew I think that’s what they were going for too (which is why I think it’s fair to compare the two), but still, no.

Secondly I love most of the worldbuilding and love that the series at least tries to give it to us in a bit of a non-linear fashion, even if it is kind of clumsy at times. I know some people are put off by expository dialogue and flashbacks, but I’m an epic fantasy nerd, I need that sweet, sweet lore to live as much as you mortals need food.

I like that there was clearly an effort made to integrate the worldbuilding in more subtle ways. For example you may initially find it kind of weird that all these different human ethnicities are existing perfectly integrated in what looks like a medieval society, until you remember from the opening monologue that the Human Kingdoms are the result of a massive diaspora following the human exodus from Xadia, so obviously people got all mixed up everywhere. It’s representation with an excellent in-world reason and that just brings me joy.

I also love the magic system(s) even though we haven’t really gone into that just yet. it really feels like there was a genuine effort made to create underlying mechanics for the magic rather than just making each spell a vaguely elemental themed ability. I really hope we’ll dive deeper into that in coming seasons.

I also like the little nods to other works of fantasy: Ezran’s ability to talk with animals is a reference to Tolkien’s world where some royal bloodlines had the ability to speak with animals, specifically birds; Primal Magic and its spells being cast with Ancient Draconic runes and words might be reminiscent of the Ancient Language from the Inheritance Cycle etc.

Thirdly the main cast is great. Callum, Ezran and Rayla are all interesting and relatable characters in their own right and as a group. I’m not going into each of them individually here, but while I think the series as a whole falls short of ATLA, as protagonist parties go I dare say this one is nearly on nearly on par with the gAang.¹

And yes, I love Bait, which I really did not expect following the first few episodes. I love his weird pug-toad-chameleon design, I love that he works like a flashbang whenever somebody says a quote from Scarface (I wish they hadn’t dropped that later on) and I love how done he is with everything and everyone at all times. I’ve only had him for 25 episodes, but if anything happened to him I would kill all of my followers and then myself.

On top of that, and speaking as someone who god knows is really not into shipping, I love Rayla and Callum’s relationship. It’s believable, it’s refreshing and it brings out the best in both characters without changing basically anything about them. Just two good friends who fell in love. A++, maybe even S tier.

Unfortunately though I can’t sing the same kind of praises about the villains. None of them are terrible (as in terribly written, most of them are pretty awful people), but with one exception they just don’t stand up to the protagonists in quality.

I could simply not take Viren seriously. Even now that is probably the single most powerful magic user in the world, he just has such strong Karen energy, every time he finishes a speech I am overcome with the urge to say “Sir, this is a Wendy’s” and it does not help the mood. I’m not even sure why. It might’ve been the voice because the guy who did Viren (Jason Simpson) also does a lot of kinda slimy characters in various anime dubs, it might be that over-the-top walking stick, idk.

What I’m saying is that as a primary antagonist he simply did not work for me. Which is doubly a shame because this kind of tarnishes the real “Big Bad” of this story by proxy. Aaravos, even as an invisible ghost, with his voice coming out of a caterpillar and next to no info on his backstory, has more style and gravity than all the human antagonists combined. It helps that he is by far the best designed character and Erik Dellums has the voice of a young god, but I’d argue even without that unfair advantage he has the potential to be a top tier villain. While he is stuck as Viren’s “little bug-pal” though he is just being dragged down.

(I’m aware that as of the final episode the caterpillar familiar is undergoing metamorphosis, probably to create a new body for Aaravos’ spirit to inhabit outside of the magic mirror, so I’m definitely hyped for more of him in the coming seasons.)

As for Soren and Claudia, I’ve got mixed feelings. This was one more aspect of the show that a lot of people compared to Avatar and while I see the parallels to Zuko & Azula, they are still very different, at least where Claudia is concerned. I’d also just like to mention that a lot of people told me that they thought the direction in which their storylines went were really surprising and I can’t disagree more. I predicted that Soren would defect to the protagonists on episode 5 right after Viren told him to kill the princes and I knew Claudia was going to stick with her father from episode 12 onward. My point is, it didn’t feel like some kind of plot twist, the way some people made it out to be, and which I don’t think was the intent.

I definitely got the sense that Soren was at least a Zuko-type character, though still not a Zuko clone, and as with Zuko I was consistently able to empathise and sympathise with him and his predicaments. I also appreciated that his dilemma is the result of his convictions and not him being kind of dense, which would’ve been all to easy and probably would’ve ruined his character for me. As it stands he is extremely milktoast, but perfectly functional for his purpose in the story and I can definitely see him evolving further and getting more interesting as we go on.

Claudia is where it gets complicated. Again, I can see the Azula parallels. But unlike that character, who is her father’s animal 110%, Claudia doesn’t strike me as a victim of Viren’s manipulation the way Soren undoubtably is. The way she talks about and uses Dark Magic, how she talks down to Soren and how even Viren finds it difficult to communicate with her, tells me as an audience member that she is an independent person. Which tells me that the cruelty and enthusiasm for causing harm she regularly displays is her own will. And that was before she straight up leads Callum on to manipulate him.

On the other hand I can absolutely relate to her devotion to her family, her big sister role (even though she is younger than Soren) and the way both the separation of her parents before the story and Soren’s injury in episode 16 must’ve affected her because of this. I know that, if my brother had become paralysed from the neck down and I knew a way to heal him, I would not have hesitated to kill that fawn either. Then again her relationship with her father is very different from parental relationships I am familiar with, so I can’t really say I see why she is so devoted to him, other than she promised her mother to stay with him years ago? ¯\(o_Ō)/¯

So basically Claudia falls into an emotional grey space for me. I can’t really tell how to feel about her either way and I’ll just have to see where she goes from here, which, while fine, isn’t necessarily great for an end of season cliffhanger imo.

Seeing as I’ve already talked about some of the show’s shortcomings, I think it’s time to dive into some of the what I would consider flaws.

Firstly this show needed at least 12 episode seasons. I have never made a secret out of my dislike for the modern short seasons and while I recognise that in the current climate in the industry giving everything full 25 episode seasons isn’t really doable, the pacing of this show, especially for the first season is just outright bad at times. It works as of the second season, but the first season alternately feels like it’s either rushing through or crawling along the whole way through.

The believability of Rayla’s and the princes’ relationship really suffers from this the most. It comes a bit out of nowhere on the boat ride and is then taken for granted way to quickly. Like Callum, seriously, this girl tried to kill you and your brother not even a day ago and you are currently cut off from all allies you have ever had until now. A little skepticism isn’t misplaced here. I also wold’ve liked if we’d just gotten a bit more of a sense of movement with the characters. I get that this is not the kind of show where we can just make an entire episode about the characters travelling and camping, intercut with plots centred around a more expansive supporting cast, but still I really would’ve preferred if Xadia didn’t feel quite so around the corner.

Another issue is with setup and payoff, which I think is partially a consequence of the pacing as well. A lot of smaller plot points are set up within the same episode as the payoff just wreak havoc on the narrative structure. A good example is the episode where they ride down the river in a boat and Bait tires to go into the water, but is saved by Ezran, who then explains the story behind Glowtoads and how they are pefect bait for large water predators. Then Bait falls into the water and is attacked by a massive water monster. This happens within five minutes of one episode and never comes up again. To me that looks like sign of rushed editing, which is probably not entirely the crew’s fault, given that they are on a schedule from Netflix, but it’s still a point of critique.

It unfortunately also manifests in the occasional line of horribly forced dialogue, often for things we can literally see happening on screen. Again, this is mostly the case in the earlier episodes, but it never completely goes away.

Finally, and this is where i get into serious issues that made me want to write this, we gotta talk about representation in this show.

First: disabled representation, meaning Amaya. Why is Amaya deaf? Because it’s good to have disabled representation.

Why is Amaya deaf and a high-ranking military officer? Because they didn’t think it through.

I know this may be a contentious opinion, but it is my belief that the purpose of representation, particularly of disabilities characters may suffer from, in fiction is to, y’know, represent people as they are in life. That includes especially the struggles they face and have to overcome, sometimes their whole life. This is not just me talking out of my ass either. A couple years ago I discussed this with several people that are disabled, specifically blind or otherwise severely visually impaired, in a different context obviously, and the general consensus was that it’s better to have representation that shows their life and their abilities as they are, rather than how they might wish they could be.

A mute or deaf person cannot be a medieval fantasy army general, no matter how good they might be in melee combat or who’s sister they are, because at the end of the day, they’re not able to give commands while they are holding a sword and shield. That such a massive logical oversight, especially in comparison to the extremely well done example of representation I mentioned above, and has so little impact on the plot that it leads me to believe, this aspect of Amaya’s character was tacked on in the last minute without being given any thought for the sole reason of the story having a disabled person in it. All this does is necessitate the existence of two otherwise entirely unnecessary characters, Gren and Kazi, both of which achieve nothing, aside from sometimes being literal set dressing.

That is where representation ends and tokenism begins.

And unfortunately this generally lacklustre attitude also extends to the LGBT+ representation on the show.

As of S3E7 “Hearts of Cinder” we have had two onscreen gay couples on the show (onscreen in the sense that both partners were onscreen and they were somehow confirmed to be in a relationship on the show). One of these, the queens of Duren, literally die in the same flashback they are introduced in, which incidentally also features them invading a foreign nation to poach a rare animal and subsequently starting the conflict at the series’ core. Not a great look.

Aside from serving as a tragic backstory for their daughter, the most impact they had on my viewing experience was that they made wonder how the fuck royal succession works in Duren. (People who know me are rolling their eyes right now because I’m bringing anarchism into this Dragon Prince review, but I’m telling you, this why fantasy monarchies aren’t compatible with LGBT+ politics in the same setting. Dynastic governments are inherently bigoted, you can’t have it both ways.)

The other couple are Runaan and Ethari, Rayla’s caretakers, although if I’m being honest you wouldn’t be able tell based on Runaan’s treatment of Rayla in the first episode. By the time we actually meet Ethari and find out about their relationship with Rayla, Runaan is suffering “a fate worse than death” (direct quote from the show) trapped in a gold coin.

I mean come on. That’s about as “technically not ‘bury your gays’” as it gets.

I think I need to reiterate here that my point is not that this show or its creators are somehow malicious. As i stated in the TL;DR: I don’t think this is a dealbreaker for liking this show. But it does demonstrate that they are prone to slipping to some potentially harmful tropes and this needs to be criticised and pointed out to them.

In conclusion, I really love this show. It’s not ATLA, it never will be, nothing else will ever be ATLA no matter how badly (and terribly) Netflix tries. But it does and should not have to be.

What it has to do though is improve. A lot of the building blocks are already there, such as Aaravos or Claudia’s development, Callum’s father, the origin of Ezran’s ability, the purpose of the “Key of Aaravos”, the true fate of King Harrow (we all know his soul is in the bird, right?) etc. Some things like the treatment of Amaya’s disability unfortunately won’t be fixable as far as I can tell, but if they at least manage to fix the gay representation I can make my peace with that.

¹ I know I said I wouldn’t go into each of the characters individually, but a) you should never trust a stranger on the internet and b) I really want to talk a bit about Callum. Specifically the “mystery” of why the hell he is connected to the Sky Primal. I write “mystery” because I think it’s fairly obvious from whence this talent came: there is only one humanoid species we know of with innate access to the Sky Arcanum and one of Callum’s parent’s is unidentified, presumed dead. 2+2=4. Callum’s father was a Skywing Elf. That’s why he recognised Nyx’s boomerang weapon. He remembered one like it either from his very early childhood (remember that he has photographic memory) or Sarai kept one and he found it at some point.

On top of that the name “Callum” or at least the pronunciation is clearly derived from Latin “caelum” meaning “sky” or “weather” and I already mentioned that Ancient Draconic is just bad Latin. It’s not very subtle. Unless they pull a complete 180 concerning the lore about Primal Magic he’s definitely going to be a half-elf, which would also just so happen to make him the perfect mediator between the Human Kingdoms and Xadia. Hmm, it’s almost as if they are planning ahead.

My question: How the fuck did that happen? Or rather: how did that fuck happen? I don’t think even Harrow knew or he probably would’ve a) paid more attention when Sarai advised against poaching the Magma Titan, because obviously she’s gotten around Xadia more than him, if y’know what i’m sayin’ ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) or at least b) put it in his final letter to Callum. Unfortunately we know basically nothing about Sarai except that she was a soldier alongside Amaya and already had Callum before marrying Harrow. So does Amaya know? This is probably the most interesting plot thread in the whole story and as far as my friends told me it’s not going to be touched on anymore in the last two episodes than it already has thus far, which is basically not at all.

[violetsmoak]

Tabula Rasa [1/?]

AO3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20183281/chapters/47822500

Blanket Disclaimer

Summary: Tim and Jason have known they are soulmates for years, though neither has said anything about it. Tim thinks Jason doesn't know, and is just trying to live with it. Jason thinks Tim knows but doesn't care, which is fine with him, he thinks the soulmate thing is a crock anyway. But one night, a minor mishap forces them to confront the issue head-on, leading to a series of events no one could have predicted.

Rating: PG-13 (rating may change later)

JayTimBingo Prompts This Chapter: #a lie #bright vivid colours #danger #enemies to lovers #soulmate aversion #soulmark tattoo

Canon-Compliance: Follows the New Earth continuity, with elements of New 52 (ie the ones that don’t completely contradict everything that happened pre-Flashpoint). Ignores Rebirth completely. So, up to about 2016 in terms of publication dates? Robins War happened, but Red Hood hasn’t met Artemis or Bizarro, and nothing bad has happened to Roy ffs! 

Beta Reader: I'll get back to you on that.

________________________________________________________________

“Three cheers for the happy couple!”

The south wing ballroom of Wayne Manor erupts with the raucous shouts and applause of a hundred and twenty reception attendees. Tim’s congratulations get lost in the din, but he does catch Dick’s eye and flash him a thumbs up.

Seated at the high table, his older brother leans in and kisses his bride, which causes more cheering and catcalls from the guests, and makes the normally unflappable and newly named Barbara Gordon-Grayson blush.

Tim turns away and pastes a smile on his face as the Davenports, a senior couple and two of Wayne Enterprises' most influential shareholders, approach him.

Time to be ‘on’ again…

A generous mix of family friends (most of whom are vigilantes or heroes), and GCPD officers, fill the ballroom. These are interspersed with a few Haly’s Circus performers, and the requisite number of elite guests required by the Society pages of the Gotham Gazette.

Bride and bridegroom sit at the head table with their respective entourages, engaged in animated chatter. Babs and her maid of honor Alysia dissolve into laughter as Dick says something to Damian, who scowls and turns redder by the minute. The Gordon family is there, the Commissioner conversing in stiff politeness with his ex-wife Barbara, and Bruce is in full “Brucie” mode. In the background, Alfred directs the hired staff with his usual decorum and efficiency.

Across the room, Cassandra drags Stephanie over to the dance floor. At a smaller round table near the bride and groom, Duke just misses being speared with a fork by his girlfriend when he tries to sneak a piece of Izzy’s cake. Helena flirts with both Luke and Kate and Tim’s sure Selina is somewhere in the house stealing something to lure Bruce over to her place later.

It’s rare to have so many members of the family together in one room, and so Tim does his best to ignore the lingering dismay at the glaring absence in their numbers.

Dick and Babs look at each other now and again, like they’re the only ones in the world, and he makes an effort to find it adorable. He bolsters the jovial front he’s been wearing all night, reminding himself that his happiness for his brother and new sister-in-law isn’t something that needs faking. It took so long for them to sort everything out between them; it goes to show that being soulmates doesn’t equal an automatic perfect relationship.

I know that better than anyone.

It’s just getting more difficult with every passing hour to maintain the graceful Timothy Drake-Wayne façade.

“It will be your turn next,” Mrs. Davenport informs him, while her husband nods along. “Since Richard and dear Cassandra have found their matches, you’re the only one left.”

Tim’s smile becomes a little more forced. “Well, there is Damian.”

The demon brat looks as if he swallowed a mouthful of peppercorns as Brucie leans over and ruffles his hair, laughing his raucous fake laugh.

Now I’m glad Dick didn’t ask me to be his best man, or I’d be the chump stuck up there.

Not that he was that upset when he heard the news.

Tim’s distanced himself enough from the loss of Robin to accept Damian needs as much help as they can offer if he is ever to be a ‘real boy’. Little gestures like this from Dick are part of a larger plan. And it was endearing, in a way, to see the kid stomping around in the weeks leading up to the wedding, trying to check off a list of best man duties he’d printed off the internet.

And dissolving into teenaged fury when innocent things went wrong or when the groom teased him by flouting what Damian considered ‘according to convention’.

And then there was that bachelor party he organized…

It would seem extreme trampoline parks were a thing; also, getting banned from said parks within an hour for trampolining while drunk was a thing.

“Yes, but he’s still so…young,” Mrs. Davenport says, bringing him back to the present. Tim perceives how she hesitates on the best word to describe the youngest member of the Wayne family.

“It’s fine, you can call him a prepubescent terror. I always do.”

“Oh, Timothy!” Garish laughter as if he told the most hilarious joke of the season. “You are such a character. Why haven’t you found your someone yet?”

Tim catches sight of Steph once again, dancing with Cass and looking carefree and blissful and in love. And this time it’s a bit harder to experience only joy for his siblings, more of a struggle to fight the pang of hurt and jealousy that rears its head.

“You’re almost eighteen,” her husband remarks, interrupting his thoughts. “Most people find their matches much younger. Eleanor and I met when we were fourteen.”

“Oh, it was a beautiful summer in the Hamptons.”

“And it seems like youth today are finding each other earlier every year.”

“My sister and Stephanie didn’t,” Tim points out, only somewhat strained because that one still stings.

He and Steph had been together for most of their teenage years. She hadn’t possessed a soulmark, and Tim’s…would lead nowhere. He truly loved her, and if things were different, he knows they would have had a happy future. Lots of people whose marks don’t match are.

But then the day Spoiler and Black Bat met, they’d shaken hands, and everything fell into place. He’ll never forget either of their eyes—Steph bemused as her mark appeared for the first time and then exploded into color across her forearms; Cass puzzled until she realized what was happening. Then her face became an open book of joy rivaled only by how she looked when Bruce told her he intended to adopt her.

Faced with their happiness, it was only natural that Tim took a step back, much as it hurt to do.

“Perhaps your soulmate lives in another country,” Mr. Davenport suggests; it is clear he is not picking up on Tim’s reluctance.

“Oh!” his wife cries. “You should go on that television show they have now! You know, the one where they try to help you track down your match? I can’t remember the name, but it’s something like The Amazing Race or the Bachelorette.”

“Perhaps yours is younger than you. That happens sometimes.”

“Yes! May-December relationships aren’t that uncommon with your generation, I hear.”

“Or maybe they’re dead,” Tim suggests, and though his tone is light and friendly, his words shut them up in an instant.

Because if very well could be true.

Tim’s never shown off his mark in public, and he told Steph that exact story when she asked all those years ago. At the time, he wasn’t even lying.

Soulmarks develop around puberty and last the duration of the lifespan of the shorter-lived partner. Some people are born with several, the way Dick was, and some only share platonic or familial bonds, like Alfred and Bruce. Others have none at all. When a soulmate dies, the mark associated with them vanishes.

That’s because most don’t come back from the dead.

Still smiling at the now cringing couple, Tim takes his leave, letting them stew in their faux pas as he wanders toward the bride and groom’s table. He’s reached his limit.

Not wanting to crouch down in the middle of their group, he gestures until his brother sees him and makes an excuse to Babs. She’s following his gaze, offering Tim a worried look, but he smiles and shakes his head, trying to telegraph ‘It’s nothing. Go back to your celebration.’

Dick is red-faced and his eyes brighter than usual when he gets to Tim; people been plying him with generous amounts of alcohol all day. “Hey, Timmy, what’s up?”

“I think I‘ll make my way out,” he replies. “Do a bit of patrolling and then turn in.”

“Tim…”

Dick’s expression becomes concerned, and Tim shifts in discomfort.

“Someone has to be on the streets while you guys are slacking,” he jokes. “You know it took an Act of Alfred to get Bruce to take the night off, right?”

(It was also pointed out that if any of big players had planned anything tonight, probability and precedent suggested they would try it at the Gordon-Grayson reception.)

“You don’t have to do that! I’ve already got one brother missing.”

“Consider this my wedding present. You get to stay and enjoy your party with the rest of the family.”

“You’re just trying to worm your way of giving us a real gift,” Dick accuses, but the words lack malice. With a surreptitious glance around to ensure they aren’t being overheard, he lowers his voice and asks, “Are things getting bad again? Do you need to talk? Because Babs won’t mind if I duck out for a bit.”

And he’s always doing this, checking in with Tim, even years after it’s been an issue.

There’s a distinct possibility Dick has noticed how uncomfortable the atmosphere is making him, despite him doing his utmost to hide it, to keep from casting a dark cloud over the festivities.

And Tim should be okay.

Bruce is back from having lost his memories, Damian’s stopped his determined attempts to sabotage or kill him, his relationship with Dick is almost normal again, he has his team and place with the Titans, and there hasn’t been a major crisis in Gotham for about a month which is a record.

Yet he still feels raw and exposed, ill at ease in his skin.

Bruce has been questioning him a lot more, criticizing the way he handles not only cases but projects at WE. Tim worries there’s less time for him to recover between being Tim Wayne, CEO, and Red Robin. And the Titans are getting to the age where many of them want to strike out on their own or pursue more civilian interests—jobs and schools and a normal life. He respects that, even if he doesn’t understand it.

He has never had a normal life, and never will.

But he does have more and more days now where he looks at himself in the mirror and wonders how he’s supposed to keep doing this forever. Can’t figure out how Bruce has managed it for so long. Tim suspects he’s becoming little more than his daytime public persona and his nighttime alter ego.

Who exactly is Tim Drake?

Instead of voicing any of this, though, he musters up a comforting smile for his brother and assures him, “There’s nothing to talk about. It’s like every day. Just one step at a time, right?”

Dick’s expression clears then, and he nods, relieved. “Okay. If you’re sure.”

“And Dick?”

“Yeah?”

“Congrats.”

“Aw, thanks, Timmy.”

A bone-crushing hug later, and Tim’s car peels out of the estate parking garage, still ignoring the growing pit in his stomach.

He returns to his apartment in the Theater District, shedding his suit and tie in a pile that Alfred would have a coronary over if he were there to see it. Jumping in the shower, he scrubs himself of any traces of his cologne or other identifying scents he might have picked up at the reception and tries to get himself back into a clearer headspace.

He pauses for a moment at the sink, trying to shake off the lingering, bone-deep exhaustion. Several prescription bottles line the mirror—various sleeping aids, most of which don’t help anymore (but the rebound insomnia of stopping them isn’t worth the trouble). These days it’s only the heavy-duty sleep narcotics that work when he needs to turn his brain off for a few hours.

Among the personal pharmacy are several combinations of anti-depressants he tried in the past few months. Most of the time he powers through it, the way he’s done his whole life, but in recent weeks Tim’s noticed things getting hard again. The helpful alerts he sets on his phone don’t always convince him to leave his bed and even video games lack the usual draw. He sometimes gets lost in his head for hours; on bad nights, he hesitates a second longer before shooting a grapple line or dodging a knife. In rare moments, he considers his sleeping pills a little too much consideration, at which point he calls Dick or Connor. Talks to someone so he isn’t so alone.

As he dries off, Tim stares down at his right wrist, examining the complicated knotwork design emblazoned there. Swirls of crimson and gold loop in and out of each other, before cutting off along his forearm.

Everyone has a soulmark, an arrangement of swirling shapes across their skin; each is distinctive to the individuals bonded by them. They first appear when a person is in the general vicinity of their soulmate, manifesting as a colorless pattern of darker and lighter shades of melanin. Those patterns fill with bright, rich colors upon physical touching one’s mate. When pressed together, they interlock in only one way and retreat when contact stops.

Soulmates who have reciprocated bonds sport their marks in full and everlasting display. The sight is both beautiful and frustrating to see, even on his family, as he’ll never experience that himself.

His mark might be a stunning amalgamation of scarlet and gold, twisted into a mandala upon his wrist, but it will never be permanent. While it’s been a while since Jason’s made any energetic attempts to kill him, Tim’s resigned himself to living without a completed bond; tolerance is about the only thing he can hope for from his predecessor.

Finding Steph when they were younger had been a joy and a relief. Her not having a mark meant they both had a chance for a fulfilling connection. Until Cass.

Tim forces himself to stop dwelling on it and shoves the bleak thoughts down behind the wall he puts everything uncomfortable and not cohesive to whatever task he’s given himself. Instead, he busies himself with covering up his mark using the spray-on cover that doesn’t fade with water or perspiration, only coming off when scrubbed with a special soap. One of Bruce’s earliest and more practical inventions, since Brucie Wayne and Batman couldn’t have a soulmark in common.

Bruce covers his pretty much all the time, but Tim’s only been covering his when he suits up. He lives his life in disguise, he doesn’t want to hide such an important part of himself when he’s off the clock.

He heads down to the lower levels of his Nest, gets dressed while having the computer scan for trouble. The program calculates probabilities for where violence will crop up, where he should begin his patrol. He hopes for a busy night, something to distract him from his convoluted thoughts.

As usual, he intends to start his rounds off in Tricorner, and then go through Chinatown—which is when he notices movement on a camera that concerns him.

A familiar gleaming scarlet helmet.

Red Hood.

He debates with himself for several minutes.

On the one hand, it’s his regular patrol territory; on the other, seeing the other vigilante tonight, while his mood is already so low, isn’t something he wishes to contend with.

He clenches his fist.

He knew of Jason Todd for a year before discovering the second Robin was his soulmate. By the time he wanted to do anything about it, the older boy was dead, and Tim consigned to grieving in secret.

Then Jason came back, but it was almost worse than him being gone because he hated him. Without having ever met him.

Even now that he’s mellowed out (sort of), Jason appears to reserve more dislike for his successor than anyone else in the family, not counting Bruce and Dick for obvious reasons. Red Hood and Red Robin have run into each other enough in and out of costume that there have been ample opportunities for Jason’s soulmark to make itself known. That Tim has seen nothing close to resembling it means one of two things: either the other man hasn’t developed his mark yet, which is possible albeit rare, or he has, and like Batman, always keeps it covered.

Which says more than enough about his sentiments on the matter.

Between Jason refusing to acknowledge their connection, or just not being aware of it, Tim prefers to believe the latter, if only to make himself feel better. There’s no point in bringing up the soulmate thing at this juncture. He decided years ago to respect the status quo, for the simple reason it’s less painful than the alternative.

All that being said, he doesn’t enjoy watching Jason get in trouble, even more so when the situation is avoidable and he’s near enough to help. At the moment the big idiot is courting a potential gang war.

Sometimes protecting someone means protecting them from themselves and their bad choices, I guess.

Static crackles through the comm in his ear, and then he hears Batman’s low growl. “What’s going on in Chinatown?”

“Why am I not surprised you’re still listening to the comms at your son’s wedding,” Tim sighs. “Nothing. I’m handling it.”

“Are you sure?”

“B, I’ll help A drug you every day for a week,” he threatens. “And you know we both can and will find new and interesting ways of doing it.”

There’s a huff on the other side of the line. “…Noted. Reach out if you need backup.”

“You’ll be the first.”

“You’re lying.”

“Wow, you must be a detective or something,” he deadpans. “Red Robin out.”

Jason is the last person he wants to run into right now, but Tim’s also been cultivating a few informants there and he can’t have that jeopardized.

Looks like I’m going to Chinatown. Hope Lynx is in a good mood…

He wonders if tonight he’ll end up getting beaten up, or just insulted. He’s not even sure which would hurt more.

⁂

Jason goes flying out of the upper story of the restaurant, followed closely by a very tiny woman wielding a very big sword. She reminds him of Cheshire, with a shade less lethality.

Actually, if it were Jade, he would end up critically injured when she lands on him, using him as a cushion against the pavement. He manages to turn his body to land in a way that won’t break his back—though his right side will be a giant bruise tomorrow—and scrambles to his feet.

This is one of the reasons I avoid Chinatown.

Things never go well for him here, especially not since that thing with the Su family. It’s just better to avoid the place. But before that, he and the Ghost Dragons at least used to get along—professional courtesy and all that, along with an unspoken agreement not to step on each other’s toes. 

That’s over, apparently.

All he’d wanted to do was ask some questions. One of his stool pigeons passed him some information on a human trafficking ring; according to him, it was based on Chinatown. It would seem sex slavers were luring young women over to the United States with the premise of work and accommodations.  Then, upon arrival, the girls were hauled into a life of sexual servitude.

Jason didn’t even go in guns blazing this time or wearing the helmet. Just a domino and a hankering for some barbecue pork bun.

So, either someone tipped them off what I was coming around for, or this kid in the mask has something to prove.

There’s a slow curl of heat moving up the back of his left wrist and up his arm, and his first thought is he’s been cut. Except while the sensation is familiar, it isn’t the liquid warmth of blood.

The woman moves fast, and a beat later her sword is swinging downward. Jason’s hands fly to his holsters, thinking he’s going to have to break out the guns after all when there’s a clang.

Suddenly there’s a bō staff in front of his face, catching the sword inches before it slams into Jason’s nose.

Ah. And there’s the other reason I avoid Chinatown.

Because in the past year or so, it’s been part of the patrol route for a certain Timothy Drake.

A.k.a. his replacement.

A.k.a. Red Robin.

A.k.a. his soulmate.

No wonder that warmth in his hand was familiar; the soulmark must have reacted to the younger man’s approach.

After a brief tussle, there’s the sound of a grapple line firing, and then Tim flies upward, ridiculous cape fluttering, still holding the struggling woman.

Her sword stays on the ground.

“Oh, hell no,” Jason growls, because this is his business, damn it!

When he reaches the roof where Tim’s carried off Jason’s would-be-murderer, he notes they are standing close together, conversing in rapid Cantonese. Jason’s rustier at that than he’d like, but he gets the gist when the woman stalks right up to him and begins yelling and gesturing.

Then she shoves him and pushes away; a smoke bomb goes off, and then she’s gone.

Tim makes no move to go after her.

Which, seriously?

Jason stalks over, looming over the shorter man and touching his hand to the still holstered gun in his belt in an implicit (and mostly baseless) threat. He’s always amused at just how much of a height difference there is between him and his replacement, and tonight he makes a point of lording it over him.

“You guys looked awfully cozy there, Timbers.” Which shouldn’t bother him, but he can’t fight a twinge of irritation. “Care to share with the class what your little tête-à-tête was about?”

The cowl covers Tim’s face, but Jason can imagine the judgemental stare.

“She said your poking around her territory will jeopardize her investigation into the sex traffickers.”

“Her investigation? She’s the damn head of the Ghost Dragons!”

“Yeah, and she’s also an undercover operative sent by Hong Kong PD, which I’m only telling you, so you don’t decide to go and kill her for apparent crimes.”

And that was not what he was expecting.

“How do you know this?”

“She told me. She’s one of my CIs.”

“And you believed her?”

“Cass looked into her for me. She’s legit, even if she’s a little…unorthodox.” Tim’s head tilts to one side, considering; with the cowl it makes him look like his avian namesake. “You’d think you’d appreciate that.”

“On the list of things I don’t appreciate, you showin’ up while I’m chasin’ a lead is one of them,” Jason growls. “Don’t you have a party to be at?”

“I ducked out early.”

“Well, that’s lame.”

“Not as lame as someone who ignores the fifteen invitations he was sent.”

Ah, and now they’re back on familiar ground.

“Pfft, I’ve seen enough Brucie to last me several lifetimes.”

“Yeah, but it was for Dick. All you had to do was show up—” his mouth twitches here; Jason can’t tell if it’s amusement or irritation, “—in jeans, even.”

“I’ve been dead once; I don’t need Alfie murderin’ me for that big a faux pas. And somehow I doubt Barbie would appreciate if her wedding photos included Dickiebird sporting a swollen eye.”

Tim sighs. “What are you fighting about this time?”

“Other than the usual stuff? We’re not. But I’m sure he’d put his foot in it at some point and need a nice bit of cognitive recalibration.”

“And you, the perfectly innocent party in all this, would happily provide that?”

“Call it a civic duty.”

Tim shakes his head, but Jason thinks it’s done in amusement this time, instead of exasperation.

“I don’t know how she can settle for that birdbrain,” he continues. “How does she stand bein’ around him so often without wantin’ to punch him in the face every time he opens his mouth?”

“Maybe not every time.”

“Point still stands.”

“Well, they’re soulmates,” Tim says vaguely, distant like he’s not paying attention to what he’s saying. He fiddles with his wrist computer, giving no indication that he is aware of anything else.

Jason’s pretty sure that’s not the case.

After all, he’s practiced in the art of pretending not to feel how his soulmark warms the closer he stands to Tim. There’s no question Tim’s learned to do the same.

It might be hypocritical of him, but that makes him angry somehow.

“As if that explains it all,” Jason sneers. “Come on, Replacement, I thought out of all of them, your whole logical-scientific-question-everything-Klingon-mind wouldn’t go for that hokey soulmate crap.”

“Vulcan.”

That brings him up short. “What?”

“It’s Vulcan culture that’s more focussed on logicality and empirical data-gathering. Klingons are more combat-oriented and tend toward more aggressive means of…” He trails off when he realizes Jason staring at him. “What?”

“You complete nerd,” Jason tells him. “No wonder you left the wedding early. I bet socializin’ with normal people probably stressed you right the fuck out, didn’t it?”

Tim gives a noncommittal shrug.

“Havin’ a soulmate doesn’t mean people should be together,” Jason goes on, filled with the sudden need to hammer home this point. “Look at all the examples from history—Cleopatra and Antony, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, Bonnie and Clyde—” He ticks the couples off his finger. “They were all soulmates and they all either made each other miserable or got each other killed.”

“You can’t apply a few historical anomalies to every soulmate pair,” Tim counters. “Life circumstances skew the data.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that fate shouldn’t decide if people will magically work out!”

“That’s not…” Tim appears frustrated, at last, putting down his wrist computer and clenching his jaw. “It’s not supposed to work out magically. It’s about finding the person who completes you. You still need to work at it. It’s not all magically going to fall in place, and you’ll be happy forever right away. Even soulmates don’t get to live perfect lives.”

Ain’t that the truth, Jason muses, considering Tim.

“Sounds like you want a soulmate,” he points out, a little stiffly, and what the hell possessed him to say that?

He wonders what the kid is going to say now, or if this is the day their careful pretense, the lie of not knowing gets shattered.

Luckily, though, Tim avoids opening that can of worms.

He takes a step back from Jason, looks away and mutters, “It’s not relevant to the Mission.” Which is a total cop-out, but Jason will take it. “Anyway, if you’re done causing trouble here and riling up the gangs, I’ll take my leave.”

“Wish you would.”

Tim shoots him an unimpressed glare—or at least, that’s what it seems like to Jason. “Don’t make me come back here. And for god’s sake, at least call and congratulate the happy couple.”

He grapples away rather than allow a witty retort; Jason watches him go with a scowl. Once he’s sure the other vigilante is gone, he tugs the glove off his left hand, frowning at the whorls of crimson and yellow retreating down his forearm and back to his wrist.

His soulmark appeared one night a few evenings before the Garzonas incident. Jason vaguely remembers swinging through an alley to escape yet another argument with Bruce and knocking out a bunch of thugs threatening a kid. He’d been so buzzed on adrenaline and fury he hadn’t noticed the warmth in his wrist. He only caught sight of the mark itself when he returned to the Cave.

And then he spent the night wondering if one of the assholes he knocked around was his soulmate. It wasn’t a comforting idea, and he’d decided then and there to cover up the mark and forget about it. The disappointment about his potential soulmate had been a contributing factor in a long line of shit the universe decided to dump on him that sent him to Ethiopia. If he was linked to scum like that, he wanted to be as far as possible from Gotham.

It never even occurred to him to imagine the kid in the alley was his match. Hell, it didn’t even register when he discovered that Tim Drake had been following Batman and Robin around for years.

Only that day at the Tower, when Jason made his first move against Batman and attacked his replacement, did he finally make the connection.

His mark reacted the minute they were in the same room, spreading across his skin and swirling about seeking its partner. Jason had been so far gone with rage that the sight of it had made him angrier, made him hit harder—because if he didn’t meet Tim before, it meant their bond hadn’t been strong enough to keep him from making the biggest mistake of his life.

It meant he was supposed to meet him after being ripped apart and rebuilt as a weapon.

Luckily, or not, Tim was unconscious before the manifested completed, sneaking out from beneath the long green gauntlets of Jason’s fake Robin suit.

And if he did happen to notice before passing out, the kid hasn’t said anything about it.

Probably hates me and doesn’t want to acknowledge the universe’s idea of a shit joke.

Jason doesn’t blame him. Soulmates are a crock of shit anyway, and Tim’s better off without being tethered to him, and vice versa. They should keep pretending.

Because Jason doesn’t get to be happy.

And Tim deserves better than him because Tim—as much as he’s a pain in the ass—is good.

“And on that note,” Jason murmurs to himself, putting his gauntlet back on, “time to play the villain.”

The tip he received put him in the Ghost Dragons’ crosshairs—which means someone on his payroll is making a move, either against him or against someone else.

Time to find out for sure.

And no more moping over this soulmate crap.

Johnny Lino is the head of an investment company that’s just a front for his money laundering. He’s been passing the Red Hood information about his clients for the better part of a year now, ever since Jason put the fear of Hood in him. Quite a feat, considering the man’s a few inches taller and broader.

Jason finds him in a condo off the Diamond District, watching the Knights game and stuffing his face with pretzels.

Ponzi schemes don’t buy manners, I guess.

“Johnny,” he greets in a clear, would-be friendly manner that has the older man choking up his most recent handful. “Long time no see. Got a bone to pick with you.”

He expects there to be some mumbling and groveling, a few bald-faced lies that require the generous application of foot to face and the reassurance that everything in Jason’s sandbox is back to the way it should be.

So, it surprises him when Johnny scrambles for something that Jason notes too late is a panic button. All of a sudden, half a dozen masked men in combat gear and carrying assault rifles are busting through the door.

“That’s a bit of an overreaction to some conversation, don’t ya think?” Jason asks, throwing himself into action to deal with the interlopers. Bullets fly and knives slice toward him, but in five minutes he’s standing in the ruins of the room with six unconscious men.

And one dead one.

Johnny’s got a neat hole in the side of his head, from one of his hired muscle’s guns, Jason presumes.

“And doesn’t that say a lot about the quality of hired muscle in Gotham these days?” he grumbles, kicking at the body. “Can’t even trust your own people not to shoot you by accident.”

He can hear sirens, knows a neighbor or someone has called in the noise and heads for the fire exit before anyone can link him to the scene. That’s all he needs is the big Bat thinking he pulled the trigger in there.

And damn it, the giant bastard was one of my best sources. Now I’ve got to find someone else.

The encounter bothers him.

He’s had people on his payroll get shifty before, but it’s been his experience that there’s more of a prelude before the attempt to stab him in the back. They try to run or talk their way out of it; it seems Johnny went all out, trying to take out the Red Hood, all because of a bit of questionable information.

If he was so desperate to hire a kill squad rather than answer some well-deserved questions…

Maybe it’s not me that spooked him.

He thinks back to the shot that killed Johnny, remembers the angle it hit the head, and where the exit wound was. The opposite direction from where the thugs entered—from the window.

“There was another shooter,” he realizes.

A quick visit to the building opposite confirms his suspicion: the scrape where someone set up a tripod, bullet casing rolled to one side.

It wasn’t Johnny afraid to talk to the Red Hood—someone else feared he would.

Question is, were they worried he’d talk or worried he’d talk to me?

⁂⁂⁂ 

Next Chapter

This blog isn’t my primary, so my reblogs don’t show up very well. As such, please reblog the fic, otherwise not a lot of people are going to see it :)

<3 Violet

[mannatea]

Pokémon Shield: A Review

DISCLAIMER: THERE WILL BE SPOILERS HERE!

First, my credentials/gaming history, so you can see if my opinion is valuable to you or not. I would like to make it clear from the start that I do not consider myself a ‘gamer’ by any stretch of the imagination. I’m a filthy casual at best.

I’ve been playing video games since I was maybe eight or nine years old. I’ve always enjoyed dabbling in a variety of genres, and have a great appreciation for the work that goes into creating each and every game, no matter the intended audience. Some of my all-time favorite titles include Tales of Symphonia, Fire Emblem (7), Final Fantasy IX, Legend of Dragoon, Chrono Cross, Tetris, Bust-a-Move, Project Gotham Racing, Ecco the Dolphin (PC,DC), Roller Coaster Tycoon, Harvest Moon (N64/PS1), World of Warcraft, and of course our beloved Pokemon!

I started with Pokemon Red, and enjoyed it immensely, but Silver stole my heart and my imagination. My brother and I used to sit at the kitchen table with guide books open and notebooks at the ready to craft and create new, extremely cool teams. I sank an unbelievable amount of hours into that game, and into Pokemon Stadium (1 & 2), Hey You! Pikachu, Pokemon Puzzle League, and even Pokemon Pinball. Unfortunately after Silver, my interest waned. I was an adult by the time Emerald debuted, and while I was initially charmed by it, found my interest waning quickly. I bought and played Diamond, Pearl, Platinum, SoulSilver, and Black & White, but didn’t beat any of them. I felt like the magic had…disappeared somehow.

But when X and Y released in 2013, I binged on Pokemon X, beat it, and for the first time since childhood started breeding a competitive team just for the heck of it. I also found myself really enjoying Pokemon Sun a couple of years later (though the post-game of breeding didn’t really do it for me this time).

They lost me with Ultra Sun/Moon. I wanted to like them, really, but it was too much of a rehash, and too much handholding (like the originals were, and I could only stand going through that once).

Now here we are with Pokemon Sword and Shield. They released just a few days ago (15 November, 2019) and the controversy has been wild. It seems to me that everyone has some kind of very strong opinion, and a lot of people are very angry.

Pokemon has always been one of my favorite franchises, but my history with the games is far from spotless so I like to think I can manage a mostly unbiased review, though of course everything in this post is my personal opinion.

Here’s what I’ve done in the game:

40 hours played.

200 pokemon in the pokedex.

Main story and post-game story completed.

I played with no specific self-imposed rules and was not spoiled for hardly anything before I started playing.

The Game’s Introductory Sequence [8/10]

As is standard for the franchise these days, the game flings you into the world with little fanfare regarding customization. Rather than the intro being a dialogue of sorts between your character and a professor, you are now instructed to choose what you look like (from a sparse few options) after typing in your name.

The first ‘cinematic’ is pretty boring, but I think the attempt at immersion is genuine enough (the idea being that your character is watching Leon’s broadcasted fight on your new smart phone). My character has a better house in-game than I do in real life. I’d kill for all that storage in the kitchen!

My biggest gripe with the introduction is that it reminded me too much of Sun & Moon’s introduction—in the worst of ways. I wouldn’t say it’s slow-paced, but the constant interruption by other characters is about enough to make a person rage-quit. Luckily I’ve been blessed with a lot of patience; it makes tedious content easy to bear (so long as it’s not difficult), but even I was feeling antsy before the first hour of the game was up, just because Hop and Leon never shut up and I was chomping at the bit to Explore.

Considering this is the first thing a player experiences…I really feel it could have been improved, especially the dialogue, but there were a few really positive things about it, too. The outdoor BBQ was a nice touch (considering everyone knew we’d be going off on Adventures in the morning and all), the game does let you avoid having to learn how to catch a pokemon (your mom slips a few pokeballs into your bag at one point without telling you and if you use them to catch pokemon, Leon will not teach you how to do it later), and I feel like as far as introductions go, this one was fairly short when compared to Sun and Moon’s introductory period.

While I’m being positive, the game plops you down into an idyllic little English countryside and not only do you get to enjoy that aesthetic, but the Slumbering Weald is probably one of the prettiest/most charming places in the game, and you get a peek at it early on!

 The Starter Pokemon [5/10]

I’ve experienced worse? I wasn’t spoiled for any of the starter pokemon’s evolutions starting out, and while I didn’t exactly hate any of them, I sure didn’t love ‘em, either. I named my Scorbunny “Chad” on the assumption that he was likely to turn into a chad, though I’m not sure that accurately describes the pokemon I ended up with. Clearly modeled after soccer players, my Chad is a cocky all-star jock. They went all out on his Pyroball animation but Double Kick can see itself out of my house. No love in this club.

I just really wish I found any of these starters or their evolved forms to be charming, but they’re not. Rillaboom is basically George of the Jungle but 3% less of a himbo, and Inteleon is Greninja’s younger brother in accounting.

 Gyms, Gym Challenges, & Game Balance [6/10]

This is probably one of, if not the, most debated topic over at Reddit. Is the game balanced? Are the gyms too easy? Are they making this game for 5-year-olds suddenly?

Eh. I do think the game is, perhaps, Too Easy, but a game being easy isn’t a shortcoming in and of itself. Check out my section on the story and characters for more on this topic, but I’ll post the short of it here, because it’s relevant: if the gameplay is going to be easy, we either need an option to make it more difficult, or the characters, story, and world have to carry the game in such a way that the easy gameplay still feels fun.

Shield had, uh, none of that going for it, unfortunately. The plot is lackluster (more about this later), and the gameplay wasn’t able to pick up the slack. In other words, the gameplay didn’t make the game feel Substantial in any way.

Which is kind of bad, considering Dynamaxing is a new feature!

The biggest issue for most people was the Experience Share. It’s turned on by default and there seems to be no way to turn it off. You get insane amounts of XP for defeating and catching pokemon, and your whole team seems to level pretty evenly even if you only occasionally use some pokemon in the party.

I personally played the game with the default battle option (where it asks if you want to switch out to a new pokemon when the enemy is going to send out a new one) because I barely remember half the pokemon in the game’s typing. Knowing the name of what’s coming next doesn’t always help me. (How’s that for an embarrassing truth?)

I personally liked the experience share, though I feel having the ability to toggle it on/off (or even on for certain pokemon and off for others) would have been ideal. The idea with having it on all the time is that your team will level fairly evenly so you’ll be able to switch in any of your six pokemon to battle without having to struggle through leveling some of the weaker ‘mons up individually. Additionally, it enables you to easily replace a pokemon on your team mid-game if you so desire. And I did (I replaced my shiny Orbeetle with regular cotton candy Rapidash).

My team at end-game was as follows:

Cinderace (Chad)

Greedent (Moriah)

Thievul (Penelope)

Liepard (My)

Corviknight (Octavia)

Rapidash (Calliope)

As you can see, I have no grass pokemon, no water pokemon, and no electric pokemon. I have two dark types. My move coverage mostly sucked throughout the game, because Thievul had 3 dark moves, and My had 3 normal moves. I’m an official idiot, thanks for coming to my TED talk. Usually I can struggle through no matter how garbage-tier my team is, and this game was…no exception.

I steamrolled the first few gyms and their challenges even though I wasn’t vastly overleveled for any of the content. After the ghost gym (which was easy for me with my dark types) I’d say the difficulty level went up slightly, mostly because my brain has refused to hold type advantages/weaknesses that came after Gen1. I feel like most original type weaknesses made some kind of sense to me and I was never able to incorporate dark and steel into that mix, let alone fairy.

At any rate, once you fight a pokemon once, the game will tell you if your moves are super effective against them or not. I remember people complaining about this feature when it was added (in Sun/Moon I think), but I like it. It doesn’t actually help a lot if you don’t know what the moves do/aren’t looking at move power/effects, but it’s useful for my sieve of a brain in a pinch.

Hop as a rival was almost never challenging. He always starts with the same pokemon, and his team is fairly easy to sweep. That might be kind of the point, but I wish you could have encouraged him to take the starter that’s strong against yours for a bit more of a challenge. Yeah, it’s not much, but it would have been something. Marnie is a better rival than Hop in the sense that she’s actually a better battler, but I swept her team pretty easily too, every single time we fought.

The only real challenges in the game were fighting Raihan (I only had one very weak fairy move and no ice to counter his dragons) and Leon (he definitely outleveled me). On Leon I had to use revives and potions!

The gym challenges started off as pretty cute (herding Wooloo, pipe puzzle maze) but quickly grew into lazy boring doldrums (basically gauntlet fighting of one kind or another). I guess I’d say ‘nice try’ for these and say I don’t really care if I see them again or not unless they’re going to actually give it a real go.

Overall, the story part of the game felt balanced enough for me personally but if I’m being completely unbiased: it was too easy to get levels. I could have wandered around less/caught fewer pokemon as I journeyed and enjoyed more of a challenge, but I just…gotta catch ‘em all, y’know? Most people do! GameFreak should have known this and designed accordingly.

The big issue with game balance feels like it comes…after the game, and I don’t mean the post-game so much as the Max Raid Battles that require other people, but the NPC trainers you can battle with are legit trash at what they do, which kind of forces you to find other trainers, but…

 Online Compatibility & Features [3/10]

So I think the rating speaks for itself, here. The interface is confusing, the stamps are annoying, and the ability to see other players but not interact with them in any meaningful way is rage-inducing (and not just because of the FPS drops).

X/Y had a better online system!

Sun and Moon was better!

I don’t know why we regressed. I’m glad they kept the “wonder trade” (renamed to random trade, I think), because I always did enjoy doing that, but the GTS was the best idea they ever had and they abandoned it for random trading? I don’t want to trade with randoms? If I wanted to do that, I’d just do a random trade in the first place!!! The inability to put what you’re looking for into the stamp that people see? Oversight. Or just bad design. Probably both!

I’ve never hated a pokemon online experience more than this. I’m just astounded by how bad it is. I tried to join max raid battles last night and kept being told the event was over, but the stamps just…didn’t refresh? For HOW LONG? I can’t even tell you because I don’t know, and I couldn’t find a way to manually force them to refresh. It’s like they update every 15 minutes instead of every 15-30 seconds (which they should if I’m browsing for trades to make or battles to join). There are ways around this (according to Reddit) but the interface should be intuitive and easy to use by default.

C’mon, guys, you can do better. This is legitimately embarrassing in the year 2019.

 Music [5/10]

There are some really magical tracks in this game, and there are some really terrible tracks. It doesn’t feel at all cohesive or thematic. I absolutely hated the gym battle remix; it was worse than the regular gym battle music. I feel like the gym battle theme would have really caught on if they didn’t have any other synth sounding tracks in the game, but they kind of do, so it blends in instead of sticking out as a bop.

Notable nice tracks were Hulbury, Glimwood Tangle, Slumbering Weald, and the desert route (which I can’t remember offhand). Some of the better music reminded me of the soundtrack for Tales of Symphonia, which is high praise coming from me. Unfortunately for every good track there were probably 3 forgettable ones.

There wasn’t anything particularly engaging when it comes to the music here, but it’s at least passable.

 Graphics, Design, and Animation [6/10]

I should clarify that this is 6/10 for a pokemon game, not in general. I don’t expect flashy realism in a pokemon game and neither should you. The graphics are adequate most of the time, but the animation leaves a lot to desire when you look away from the pokemon that feel like they were Chosen Ones (and received a lot more attention).

Rapidash, for example, is using the same base model and animations it’s been using since it’s been in 3D. I’m not going to claim since Stadium, but holy cow the animations are for sure the same as they’ve been since at least X/Y for all the older moves. I’m not impressed.

The characters all have dopey expressions on their faces always. The models just use one talking animation loop and it almost never changes. The main character still looks on like a smiley face emoji when turmoil occurs, and though this isn’t as bad as it was in Sun/Moon, it’s still…kind of jarring?

The Wild Area looks kind of bad sometimes, and some areas in the actual game were lackluster compared to what they should have been. Ballonlea is the town you step into after walking through the (honestly) magical Glimwood Tangle, and it’s this charming fairy wonderland…with two houses and a stadium the size of two billion football fields. Uh. Okay? You’re telling me they destroyed how much natural habitat to make this gym? It just doesn’t jive with the scenery/theme out there, especially considering Opal’s theatre is tiny. And it’s not just that I think the game is lacking thematically (though it clearly is), but there’s this…laziness to the design when it comes to places like Ballonlea. It could have been SUCH an enchanting town to explore, but it was two houses with nothing important in them and a sports arena that feels completely at odds with its surroundings. (In this town you do learn that an NPC you spoke to earlier was a ghost, but it’s not as if this is very important information/goes anywhere, really.)

Spikemuth, for all its flaws, was at least memorable. I can’t say the same for most of the towns in this game. I really enjoyed the music in Hulbury but you best bet I had to look it up to remember the name of the town! Time is partly to blame. We don’t spend a lot of time in each town, and we have no real reason to go back to them aside from visiting the nearest Pokemon Center to heal and rest up. But I would argue that, beyond that, the individual designs just…don’t feel memorable because they’re not memorable. The names are mostly meh (every time I see Ballonlea I think of Bologna for some reason), but without anything else to connect to the place as more than just a place…there’s no reason to remember any of it.

Like the music, these are all passable, graphics more than animation, animation more than design, but that’s all there is to it.

Camping and Cooking, Feathers and Fetch! [4/10]

I don’t actually have a lot to say about this. It’s a cute idea, and it’s fun maybe the first ten times that you do it, but then it’s just really boring. The game is terrible at explaining how to create different curry dishes, but it’s almost idiot-proof. I’ve yet to fail at it.

But I’m not sure I care about it, either?

You get like 1/100th of the amount of berries you need to cook while you journey along, so it feels disproportionate. I dunno. Just not a fan.

Playing with your pokemon is the only real joy that comes from camping, but its fun is limited. When you’ve tossed the ball a few times, or watched Liepard smack the feather toy a while, it has that, “Okay, I’ve seen it!” kind of feeling to it. That doing well at cooking can heal your party/cure status conditions is incentive to do it, but it’s faster to just fly to a pokemon center and run back on your bike most of the time than to pitch a tent with your ‘mons.

I feel like there should just be…more you can do when you’re camping together. I’m glad Pokemon Amie is dead (it was cringey), but it felt more personal than this.

I wish I had more to say about this feature, but it felt tacked on and lackluster after I camped a few times.

 Dynamaxing, Gigantamaxing, and Max Raid Battles [4/10]

The urge to give this a zero was high, but I am making an effort to be balanced.

That said, I hate dynamaxing. Gigantamaxing is almost the same thing, it’s just Worse Somehow. Until yesterday I thought they were basically the same thing (and that some pokemon just got extra cool dynamax forms). As it turns out, they’re not the same thing at all! Or rather, they are, but they’re also not?

Dynamaxing makes your pokemon grow large and gives it these generic MAX moves that it can use in combat (Max Knuckle, Max Flare, Max Strike). It lasts for three turns and then your pokemon reverts back to its regular ‘ol self.

Gigantamaxing is when your pokemon grows a little larger than large, gets a special Look, and gets the same generic MAX moves (but with special effects added to them). Oh, and better stats.

At least, that’s how I understand it.

Both are great for Max Raid Battles, where you team up with NPCs or other players and take down huge dynamaxed pokemon that are out in the wild.

Neither is a fun feature as part of the actual gameplay. I guess as a gimmick it works all right, but just like Z-moves it has a long annoying animation sequence, and like Mega Evolutions only some pokemon get to gigantamax (everyone else is just a pleb, I guess). I dunno. I just didn’t find the concept very engaging…maybe because it seems evil and wasteful in-universe, and this is more or less stated in the game itself, but what-the-hell-ever, we’re just going to keep doing it ‘cause it looks cool!

It’s just too goofy a concept for me. Maybe if Dynamaxing doubled or tripled their size, I’d find it more understandable and more aesthetically pleasing? I hate seeing my pokemon, or the opposing pokemon, grow 50+ feet tall and scream at three billion decibels.

(For the record I never liked Mega Evolutions or Z-moves as a concept, so it’s not like I’m nostalgic for a different gimmick. That said, at least I’d accepted Megas as a thing, and Z-moves were overall not too groundbreaking or gamebreaking.)

The design of dyna/gigamaxing is to connect it with specific places so that you can’t just max your pokemon in every battle and sweep every team you fight against, but it still feels like it gets used too much. I’m currently at a point where I find having to dynamax feels like a chore.

Considering this is what the game tried to sell itself on in the initial trailer…? Yikes? I don’t know. I think some people are more ‘okay’ with the concept of dyna/gigantimaxing than others, and I think I’d be fine with it if we only had dynamaxing. Introducing both just feels like overcomplicating things for no real reason, and maybe also poking a little hard at the hornets’ nest that is the competitive community.

Because now you have to go out and grind gigantamax pokemon to catch one, so it forces you to do the thing you might not like to get a pokemon that can do the thing you don’t like, because it’s objectively better in combat? But really, who knows? Maybe these overpowered phenomena will end up banned, anyway.

Despite my disdain for this release’s gimmick, I do think Max Raid Battles are pretty fun, at least…when I’m not getting my ass completely kicked while some NPC trainer’s Eevee is using Helping Hand… It’s actually pretty enjoyable when you can somehow find other people using the y-comm and take on a gigantamaxed pokemon with the help of actual human players. But y’know…good luck using that…lol.

Overall I think the biggest downfall of Dynamaxing/Gigantamaxing is that it doesn’t really add anything of substance to the game. I don’t think it makes it more fun. It’s also not necessary for max raid battles (this could be a phenomena we don’t understand yet that randomly seems to affect wild pokemon, just like with the UBs—hell, Anabel and Looker could return and claim this is all related to that stuff and I’d probably find that believable enough). So what does it add? Flavor? Culture? Nah. It’s just kind of there.

 Post-Game: Is That All? [3/10]

Post-game in Sun and Moon was the Alola version of the Battle Maison, breeding, and a somewhat lengthy (for a post-game) story where you assist Interpol agents Anabel and Looker in hunting down and capturing Ultra Beasts. The plot was somewhat woven into not only Sun and Moon’s storyline (Lusamine’s shenanigans), but also borrowed from the Sapphire/Ruby reboots and X/Y. If you didn’t already know Looker from Ruby/Sapphire/X/Y, or Anabel from Pokemon Emerald, you’ll still probably find them somewhat compelling/interesting as characters. Also, they did a really good job in Sun of making circumstances seem dire—of showing instead of telling you how dangerous the UBs were and how important it was to protect the people of the towns and villages you’d visited throughout your adventure.

Shield has… Max raid battles, a battle tower, and…breeding. Oh, and a storyline about the legendary dogs that barely makes any sense and is plagued by really irritating new characters.

The terrible truth is that the post-game of Sword/Shield is embarrassingly bad. You’d think they’d want to outdo themselves with every release. Sun and Moon hit it out of the park with their post-game content. Most people enjoyed the hunt for UBs, or at least the characters of Anabel and Looker. Sword and Shield have…. Sordward and Shielbert. DID I STUTTER?

They’re terribly designed characters, and so insulting as to not really be any fun at all. The Pokeball Guy mascot is Actually Fun; these dudes aren’t. They’re barely even villains? It was an excuse to try and pull what Sun and Moon pulled, but it didn’t work. I never felt like anyone was in danger at any point, probably because magically everyone was evacuated before I even arrived on the scene to stop Sordward and Shielbert’s vile schemes. :U Oh, and because I felt little or no connection to any of the towns I visited along the way, let alone the gym leaders. Maybe if these guys had showed up partway through the game and we sort of knew who they were already, this wouldn’t seem so out-of-nowhere, but it was, and that made it even worse than it had to be.

When it’s all over, you get your legendary dog (I named mine Goodest Boy), but it wasn’t a fun storyline at all. Who are these guys? Why should I care about them? I cared about Looker and Anabel because they came onto the scene and showed that they cared about each other as people (and showed it, multiple times). These guys? They wreaked havoc and didn’t even go to jail. At least Rose went to jail!

I don’t think the post-game is terrible so much as I think it’s underwhelming, especially considering what it came on the heels of. I don’t expect More More More from every game, but I do expect improvements to be made. A decent post-game storyline is all I was asking for, and I didn’t even get that.

But there’s the tower and you can breed pokemon and train EVs and all that stuff more easily now, so…

 Characters, Story, and Worldbuilding [4/10]

Let me put this as delicately as I can: I’m not a fan.

I could easily rant about bad character writing, bad stories, and weak worldbuilding for hours, but I’ll limit myself because 1) this is a pokemon game, and 2) nobody really looks for exceptional characters here.

As I said earlier, I feel like Sun and Moon did it Better. Most of the main characters in Su/Mo were likable, interesting, had a fun design, or were amusing. Not so in Shield.

Hop has a terrible name (literally a million names to choose from and they picked this?), but the biggest crime he commits is that he doesn’t get a satisfying story arc at all. When he got down about himself I had hope there would be some cool development, but there wasn’t. He ended up getting his crap together and making a Team and Picked a Strategy (which still involves sending the sheep out first I guess). And then randomly in the post-game decided he was going to be a professor…lol.

I felt like 20 different people wrote that plot, because it was terribly cobbled together and didn’t flow at all. Natural progression would have been nice.

Marnie barely has a story and barely develops. Piers seems to kind of have more ‘meat’ to his character but not a lot is done with it.

The gym leaders are otherwise really meh. Okay, so Nessa and Sonia are pals. Gal pals. Pals that are gals. Gals that are pals. Great. I don’t think we ever see them talk so it doesn’t matter. Melony has a son…and it’s just a nod to the other game where her son is the gym leader instead? Boring.

Bede is an asshole with a sob story who doesn’t really get redeemed but gets the redemption option anyway. They could have REALLY done something amazing with this guy but chose not to. His backstory is actually pretty interesting! But they didn’t utilize it worth a damn. And also he was right about the mural soooo…

Sonia was maybe the best character in the game, and that’s just from a technical standpoint. She had development, she developed, she grew as a character. Emotionally, though, I felt detached from her. Maybe it was being called a child all the time that did that? I’m not sure. I get that the protag is a child but I’m living independently and doing well for myself so maybe have a little respect idk… Especially when the first 2/3 of the game you’re told the adults will handle things, and then randomly you’re interrupted every fifty seconds to take care of other people’s nonsense. :|

In fact, I felt emotionally disconnected from pretty much every character. I didn’t really like or feel for anyone. Hop came the closest (feeling guilty about losing a battle cause it might make his brother look bad), but the bad dialogue options and inability to actually cheer him up was frustrating more than anything.

There are zones that are breathtakingly lovely (Slumbering Weald! Ballonlea! Glimwood Tangle!) but all the rest are more or less forgettable. The characters are connected to the world…sorta, but there are times it feels like they force-connected them through dynamaxing and dialogue accents instead of trying to make characters who naturally fit into the world. Like I talked about before, Opal’s gym felt completely disconnected from the reality of her environment. She lives there for a reason. Doesn’t the stadium’s presence jar her? How many fairy pokemon lost their homes when that thing took away tens of acres of forest? What’s the story here? Or anywhere for that matter?

Spikemuth was a waste of space but at least it felt like an attempt to show us a poverty-stricken area… Unfortunately it all fell flat the second they used two models for Team Yell! Team Yell could have been really cool, especially if they’d had different models with their names (challenged by Team Yell Grunt Sierra/Troy/Nellie/whatever), and the same team yell outfit/clothes/paint on. Then we could see these are just regular guys and gals from this poor area who want to cheer on their hometown girl!!!

But that was a weakness throughout the game, because Team Yell were all gym trainers, and all shared models…just like all the other gyms. It felt lazy to me. The outfits can be the same, but way to go making all the models literal clones. That’s just laziness.

The villains are all meh. Rose? Of course he was a villain. The problem is that he’s not a villain for being a capitalist pig or anything. He’s a villain for wanting to fix a power issue that’s 1,000 years from happening. Meh motivation. If it was 50 years away then we have a compelling villain! But no, not 50. A thousand years from happening. And he can’t wait five fucking minutes.

Oleana was boring.

Leon was exactly the person he was the entire game…

The taxi service is a cute idea, and a nice gameplay addition, but it doesn’t really add anything to the world because they didn’t make the effort to integrate it.

Anyway, I’ve rambled enough.

The short of it is this: I walked away from this game not really caring about the world or any of the characters. I don’t even have a favorite character. I can’t remember the last time that happened to me. YIKES.

The Wild Area [8/10]

I don’t want to cover this for too long, because I feel it’s been done to death, but the Wild Area is what the whole game should have been. Or at least, more of the game. I don’t expect we’ll ever get a fully open-world pokemon game EVER, but this foray into the true 3D tells me that it could be a lot of fun, actually, even in somewhat constrained environments. (Oh, and with a good map.)

I enjoy the idea of the Wild Area, but I think its usefulness is limited without the appeal of having more pokemon patched into the game later. Until I get sick of it, though, it’s a pretty neat concept, and it makes hunting for new pokemon to catch a little more fun than it usually is. I like that they kept the overworld pokemon in this area as well as on the routes you have to travel; it feels like more of an adventure to dodge a huge Steelix and scoot closer to see what that yellow thing is in the grass you can’t quite make out. :)

Basically: fun concept that is enjoyable for now but has limited enjoyment. As far as negativity goes, I don’t have much to complain about here that I didn’t complain about in the Online Compatibility section above.

The Pokemon Themselves [6/10]

I was challenged by @hijauindah to list my top five favorite new pokemon from the game, so here we go!

Nickit (cute design!)

Boltund (smooth, well designed—not too cluttered)

Ponyta/Rapidash (MY LITTLE PONY… I think Rapidash could look better, but I’m just glad they cared enough to try something new with them…)

Frosmoth (Super pretty pokemon design.)

Dragapult (Nifty design.)

Most of the new designs are just…okay. There are a lot I don’t actually care for. But I’m biased; I just want more creature-based pokemon that look like they could exist and function in the world they live in. Some of these designs they come up with look like they’d have died out ten thousand years ago due to being Poorly Evolved lol.

 Final Thoughts [6/10]

The worst part of the game for me personally was probably feeling like I was getting interrupted constantly by other characters. JUST LET ME PLAY. But the best part was definitely exploring the new areas, catching a shiny 2 hours into the game, and getting to the end more or less with the team I started with.

The individual scores don’t add up to a 6/10 (they actually add up to a 5.16/10) but I think it’s worth noting that I did have a fun time playing through the game, I intend to hop into the breeding stuff, and even though I don’t have to keep max raid battling and stuff, I probably will.

It’s far from the 9s that it was getting by certain people from certain places that won’t be named here, but it’s not as if it’s a dumpster fire game. I don’t regret the money I spent on it, and I hope to keep enjoying the game for a few more months (albeit more casually than I did over the weekend), but I hope GameFreak has learned from its follies and puts its best foot forward with the next game, because I will not manage to be this forgiving again.

[write-havoc]

Of Sons and Daughters Ch 12

Summary: Arthur is tasked by Dutch to watch over a young woman who had just lost the last member of her family she had left. That young woman just so happens to be the daughter that Dutch told no one else about.

This is a non canon AU with no major spoilers

Fandom: Red Dead Redemption 2

Pairing: Arthur Morgan/Original Female Character

Status: Ongoing

Contains: swearing, PG 13 smut

Intended for readers 18+ of age only

Masterlist in my bio

After Arthur dresses, he heads out the back door of the manor house to meet Dutch and John in one of the outbuildings. The muggy swamp air hangs thick around him, but it doesn’t hinder him from trudging through the soft earth toward the dilapidated former slave quarters. The distinct sound of someone being beaten allows him to pinpoint exactly which building they have the O’Driscoll held captive, so he heads that way.

“Arthur!” Sadie’s raspy voice calls out as she rushes up to him from behind. “Hang on!”

He pauses, but continues on his way without looking at her. “Now, Sadie, why don’t you head on back inside-“

“No,” she insists as she catches up to walk beside him. “There’s no way I’m not getting my hands on that O’Driscoll. I promised I’d make every single one of them pay for what they did to me and my Jake and I aim to keep that promise.”

Arthur stops begrudgingly and turns to her with a sigh, knowing she won’t drop the issue. “We need to get some information from him first, okay? I promise it ain’t gonna be good for him; he’s gonna suffer. But we need to get out of him where Colm is before we let ‘im die. If I let you in there, can you promise me you won’t go blowing his head off before we get what we want?”

She looks him dead in the eye as she answers. “Yeah. I promise I’ll let you torture Colm’s location out of him before I kill him.”

Arthur’s not convinced. Especially with the way she looked during the battle against the O’Driscolls that ended not even an hour ago. The sight of her firing off rounds into the enemy and screaming the whole while like a banshee made her look like a woman possessed. And that rage doesn’t just go away.

“Leave your guns out here,” he finally says, pointing to the ground.

She lets out a huff, knowing that he has a point. With the blind rage she feels every time she even hears the name O’Driscoll, she can’t trust herself not to kill the man the second she sees him.

“Fine.” She drops her pistols on the ground and follows Arthur the rest of the way to the broken down shack at the edge of the property.

Once the pair enters the building, they see the young O’Driscoll, his arms and legs both strapped down to a chair. Considering the two black eyes and fat lip he’s sporting, Dutch and John must have already worked him over.

“Arthur,” Dutch greets him as if he’s walked into a party. “And Mrs. Adler,” he adds, though his voice drops slightly.

The woman in question stares daggers at the O’Driscoll before her, but she restrains herself from pouncing on him. Rather, she moves back to lean against the wall as she crosses her arms over her chest in a wordless gesture saying that she’ll be hands off on this. At least right now.

Dutch takes notice then continues. “John and I were just asking our new friend here about his boss, but he’s been less than forthcoming. Perhaps you could try your hand, Arthur. You always were very persuasive .”

Arthur knows what that means; he’s to beat the information out of him. To make sure the O’Driscoll is good and intimidated, Arthur makes a show of rolling up his sleeves slowly and taking his hat off before leaning down to the young man’s face.

“Where’s Colm?” he growls, hoping the man will make this easy by cracking immediately. But of course, he doesn’t.

“Fuck you,” the O’Driscoll spits out in his Irish accent, though it’s muffled from the blood pooling in his mouth from the blows he’s already suffered.

Arthur’s only response is a swift punch to the guy’s gut, knocking the wind from him. As he coughs and sputters to try to get the air that had been punched out of him back into his lungs, Dutch lights up a cigar and casually saunters closer.

“It’s only going to get harder, O’Driscoll,” Dutch calls out in a sing song way. “Best bet is to talk now.”

The man flicks his gaze around all the faces in the room, to the younger dark haired man with the scars to his right, then to the two men standing in front of him and finally to the woman leaning on the back wall with murder in her eyes. “Colm told me about all ‘a yous.” He fixes his gaze on the oldest man that he’s recognized as Dutch. “You especially. You can’t just murder a man’s kin, his brother , and expect not to pay.”

“I did pay!” Dutch yells as he trades position with Arthur to stand directly in front of their captive. “Colm murdered someone dear to me and I loved her more than Colm ever cared about his good for nothing brother, I assure you of that. He still owes me .” To punctuate the point, Dutch stubs out his lit cigar on the back of the man’s hand, eliciting a growl of pain from him.

Arthur moves to the man’s side and grabs him by the hair, wrenching his head up to look at him. “Where’s Colm?” he growls as he rears back like he’s going to punch him again.

“Y-You can’t do nothin’ about it,” the O’Driscoll answers in a moment of weakness, his resolve to remain loyal to his leader momentarily waning with the prospect of another blow.

“Do about what?” John asks as he steps closer.

The young man steels himself, mustering the courage to hold out. “Don’t matter. You ain’t gettin’ nothin’ more from me!”

Before anyone else can react, Sadie flies out of nowhere brandishing her hunting knife with both her hands. She swings the blade above her head and down, burying it deeply in the man’s left thigh.

“Where’s Colm?!” she screams. “Answer us!”

The O’Driscoll squeals in pain at the sudden shock of being stabbed. “You crazy bitch!”

Arthur pulls Sadie back by the shoulder before she can do any more damage, cursing himself for not noticing that she had kept her knife on her. He decides to make the best out of the situation and wraps his hand around the blade still stuck in the O’Driscoll’s leg. He wiggles it a little to produce more pain, hoping that he will finally break. “Last chance, O’Driscoll. Answer or I’ll pull this knife out and watch you bleed to death. Slowly. And painfully.”

He looks up to Arthur, barely able to catch his breath out of pain and fear. His resolve crumbles quickly at the prospect that the man in front of him is telling the truth. For as much as Colm O’Driscoll has spouted that the gang always comes first, the decision to actually try to save his own life comes easy for the young man staring death in the face.

“Saint Denis,” he finally whispers. “Colm’s in Saint Denis. Pinkertons picked him up right after you didn’t show up to the meet. Said he weren’t no use to them no more.”

Dutch steps forward. It’s certainly good to have that information, but something else has been bothering him. “How did you know we were here at Shady Belle?” Depending on the answer, they may have to move camp yet again.

“W-We saw two of your men in a wagon in Valentine,” he starts to explain. “Followed ‘em here.”

Arthur figures that’s possible. When it became clear that Emmeline had permanently relocated from her home, he had sent out Sean and Lenny to pick up Emmeline’s chickens and coop to bring back to Shady Belle. Neither of the two young men have a whole lot of experience and may not have realized they were being followed all the way back to camp.

“Did you tell the Pinkertons?” Arthur asks instantly. That’s the real question. If they know where they are, they could already be on their way here.

“We’re on the run from them now just like you are!” the O’Driscoll bites back. “We ain’t talked to those lyin’ bastards since they took Colm!”

It seems to everyone that the man is probably telling the truth, so their camp is safe for now. But there’s still the issue of Colm.

“Where exactly in Saint Denis are they keeping him?” Dutch asks.

“How the hell should I know!” When Arthur winds up to punch him, the O’Driscoll backs off. “No, no, no! Wait!” he calls out anxiously. “Theys gonna hang him today. I swear! That’s why we went after yous.” His eyes flit around the room, knowing that he’s said too much. “S-So you’ll get your revenge anyway. Even if you do nothin’,” he tries, hoping they don’t put it together.

Dutch shares a look with Arthur, the two of them instantly picking up the real reason behind the O’Driscolls’ quick attack.

“As much as I hate that man,” Dutch starts, “I have to admit that Colm’s smart enough that he’s managed to slip the noose many times before. I also know that he’s smart enough to realize that if he’s going to be strung up anywhere near where I am, I’d make sure he gets properly hung. So this little skirmish we just engaged in tells me for certain that Colm has a plan in place to escape his execution today. And that he doesn’t want me to ruin it. So thank you for confirming that.” Dutch gives Arthur a nod, wordlessly conveying his orders to the younger man.

Without a second’s notice, Arthur pulls the large knife from the O’Driscoll’s leg, making sure to twist it on the way out. As the man screams in pain, Arthur hands the blade back to Sadie and gestures back to the man, making it clear that she’s to dispatch of him.

“Hey, wait!” the man yells. “I told ya what ya wanted!”

His plea doesn’t stop Sadie as she walks forward to him. “You O’Driscolls ruined my life!” She suddenly stabs him in the gut with a punch. “Killed my husband!” She stabs him again. “Forced yourselves on me!” Her hand starts to slip on the hilt as it’s covered with blood, but she continues. “ You ruined my life! ” Using all the power she can muster, she forces the blade up and under his rib cage, puncturing his heart and killing him instantly. His head lolls to the side as the life leaves his body.

Despite the fact that he’s long gone, Sadie keeps stabbing him repeatedly anywhere she can. Once his torso starts to lose it’s shape from the repeated wounds, Arthur gently puts his hand on her shoulder, drawing her out of her rage.

“He’s dead, Sadie,” he says softly. “That’s enough.”

Breathing roughly, she pulls back from the man slumped in the chair and looks down at her bloodstained hands. She wonders just what kind of person she’s become through all of this. Is she even recognizable as herself anymore?

John jumps in, unaware of the battle raging in Sadie’s mind. “You really think after how many O’Driscolls we just killed today that they can still rescue Colm from Saint Denis?”

“I reckon there’s more than enough of those bastards left to save Colm from the gallows,” Dutch answers. “We need to make sure they don’t succeed.”

“We better get goin’ then,” Arthur comments. “If we wanna get there in time to stop them.”

Dutch nods in agreement. “John, you take care of him,” he gestures to the dead man in the chair then looks up to Sadie and Arthur. “We need to see Hosea about a change of clothing.”

Arthur recognizes the look in Dutch’s eye; he already has a plan cooked up in his head. Once they find Hosea and tell him everything as quickly as possible, the older man is immediately on board.

“I have a couple of Saint Denis police uniforms that should fit you fellas. They’ll get you close without raising suspicion,” he explains as he pulls the outfits from a trunk in the back of one of the wagons. “As for you, Mrs. Adler,” he roots around more, finding a fancy yellow dress with a frilly lace front, “I think a high society lady traversing the streets of the city will go unnoticed by anyone looking for outlaws.”

She takes the frock into her freshly cleaned hands, then the large feathered hat he produces as well. “Ain’t exactly worn nothin’ like this. And I sure as hell ain’t a high society lady.”

“Well, you are today, my dear,” Dutch comments.

After they change into their costumes, they all mount up and leave. During the ride, they strategize what they’re going to do. If they’ve made it in time and Colm’s not long gone yet, they’ll patrol the crowd to see if any of Colm’s men are around fixing to make a daring rescue of their leader. If they are in the crowd, they’ll make damn sure to keep them occupied so that Colm gets seen through on his execution.

As they finally approach Guiteau Square, the high noon sun beats down on them. That doesn’t deter the rapidly gathering crowd from congregating in front of the gallows hoping to get a good view of the show about to come. They all look on expectantly as the hangman trudges up the steps to check the noose already hanging on the crossbar on preparation.

“Good,” Dutch says quietly to his companions. “We didn’t miss it.” When he looks over all the people standing in the square, he thinks he recognizes a few of them. He leans in closer to Arthur to whisper, “Those two idiots look familiar?” He gestures to two men talking with another man in the crowd.

“Yeah,” Arthur answers. “They definitely run with Colm.”

“Guess it’s a good idea we decided to show up, then,” Dutch comments with a smirk.

As they watch the O’Driscolls, they notice them periodically turn and look across the street.

“What are they looking at?” Dutch asks almost to himself as he turns to see.

“One of ‘em’s comin’ this way,” Arthur warns and the three Van Der Lindes look away as to not raise suspicion. They discreetly watch the man cross the street and head away from them in the direction they had been looking.

“Better see where he’s going,” Dutch says to Arthur. “Me and Mrs. Adler will keep our eyes on those two.” He gestures to the two O’Driscolls still standing in the crowd.

Arthur nods and starts to follow the man away from the square. Keeping a safe distance, he meanders the alleyways behind the man until he sees him ascend a latter onto a fire escape. He continues on, hopping up onto a nearby rooftop and crossing over to another building, the building that happens to be directly across the street from where Colm will be hanged.

Luckily for Arthur, the O’Driscoll isn’t the most observant, so instead of checking his surroundings first, he goes straight to the sniper rifle that must have been stashed there earlier. He takes up his position to get a good look at Guiteau Square. And most likely the noose he’s set to shoot down to save Colm from hanging.

As quietly as he can, Arthur pulls his knife from its sheath and sneaks up behind the distracted O’Driscoll. It takes just a moment for Arthur to bury his knife in the back of the man’s neck, severing his spinal cord and killing him almost instantly.

Movement on the raised platform of the gallows below catches Arthur’s eye after he unceremoniously drops the dead man’s body to the ground. He picks up the O’Driscoll’s discarded sniper rifle and raises the scope to his eye to get a better look. Colm had been brought out while Arthur was killing the sniper and the noose now rests around his neck. The bright sunlight of this cloudless day makes it easy for Arthur to see the smug smile on Colm’s face through the scope. It’s the smile of a man expecting to walk away from this unscathed, confident that the plan he has in place will go off without a hitch. Arthur sees that expression fall slightly as the man casts his eyes down to the crowd. Arthur follows his gaze to see that Sadie and Dutch are now holding onto the two O’Driscolls in the crowd, guns to their heads to keep them from doing anything stupid. Once Colm raises is gaze to see Arthur in the sniper’s nest, pure fear washes over his face as the realization hits that his plan has been thwarted. This will be his last day on earth and there’s nothing he can do about it now.

Arthur sends an obnoxious wave over to him to hit the point home. “You’re gon’ hang, Colm,” he says under his breath. “Once and for all.”

The hangman wastes no time in shouting out Colm’s charges, but Arthur can barely hear them over the distance. He’s focused on looking through the scope right at Colm’s face, anyway, not wanting to miss a single second of the man’s fear as his execution approaches. Just a moment later, the hangman pulls the lever and Colm finally falls through the drop door to his long overdo death.

Arthur’s seen men die before, many times. He’s even witnessed hangings and it’s never much affected him. This one does, though, not for what it is but what it will mean from now on. The air leaves Arthur’s lungs as if a weight has been lifted from him. Dutch’s rivalry with Colm that’s lasted for almost as many years as Arthur’s been in the gang is now over. He only gets a second to really feel the weight of that before a shot rings out (as well as a scream that sounds suspiciously like Sadie’s angry voice) and then everyone in the square is scattering.

“Arthur! O’Driscolls!” Dutch’s loud voice reaches Arthur’s ears and he jumps into action.

There aren’t many O’Driscolls left, but there are enough rushing into the square to keep Dutch and Sadie pinned down in their positions ducked down behind the low wall surrounding the square. Arthur quickly pinpoints the men battling to avenge their fallen leader and dispatches them with utmost efficiency. Soon enough, the din of the gunshots is punctuated by a cacophony of police whistles as the local law enforcement descends on the scene, adding to the anarchy. Fortunately, Dutch’s cop costume keeps the heat from the actual cops away from him and Sadie as they try to take out the last of the O’Driscolls.

Their anonymity doesn’t last forever, though. One observant officer ends up rushing to take cover right beside Dutch. As soon as he gets a good look at Dutch’s face, his eyes widen in recognition. Dutch sees the look of familiarity sweep through the man’s eyes and knows the tide will surely turn if this young man is allowed to call attention to the outlaw in his midst. Without an extra second’s thought, Dutch silences the cop with a well placed bullet through the top of his head before he can alert anyone.

“We need to get outta here!” Dutch shouts to Sadie.

Arthur can see the moment things start to change. With the law finally outnumbering the O’Driscolls, they start to look around for the cause of the battle. More and more of their eyes are focusing on Dutch and Sadie, which is decidedly a bad thing. It’s one thing to fight O’Driscolls in the streets, but having the entire police force of Saint Denis coming for you is quite another.

The two Van Der Lindes on the ground have no choice but to rush away from the police and toward one of the alleys that the leftover O’Driscolls are holed up in. It would certainly be a death trap on any other occasion, but Dutch knows that Arthur has line of sight on this particular alley. As if on cue, every O’Driscoll that peeks his head out to get a shot on Dutch and Sadie ends up with a fresh bullet hole between the eyes, courtesy of the sniper rifle they so generously provided in the fight in the first place.

Dutch gives a little wave, signaling to Arthur that all the O’Driscolls in the immediate area are gone. When Dutch and Sadie start to strip off their costumes in favor of putting on their normal outfits, Arthur follows suit, pulling his extra clothes from his satchel. Abandoning the uniform and the rifle on the roof, Arthur makes his way down to street level and across the few blocks to where their horses are hitched.

“Come on, Arthur. Hurry up,” Dutch spurs the younger man to move faster down the street as he hops up into his saddle. “We need to get outta here before the police really catch onto us.”

As Arthur mounts Sparrow and turns to follow Dutch, he looks to his right to Sadie. “You alright?”

She tears her eyes away from the road ahead to look his way. “We got ‘em, Arthur,” she chokes out, though no tears come to her eyes; they never do anymore. “Who we didn’t kill, the law finished off. There ain’t no more O’Driscolls thanks to us, so I feel...” She thinks a moment. Happy’s not the word; the grief of losing her husband is still too great to allow for that. “I feel... relieved,” she settles on. “Those monsters won’t ever hurt anyone else. And I’m more than okay with that.”

Meanwhile back at camp, from the moment the trio leaves Shady Belle, everyone else in the gang has been a little on edge. Not only are they wondering if the small group would be successful in making sure Colm finally gets his due, but they have the mess around the property to deal with, too. It’s all hands on deck to try to dispose of the dead O’Driscolls lying around. Fortunately, the swamp around them (and the alligators in it) provides the perfect place to do just that, but all those bodies still need to make their way there.

The thought of having to touch dead corpses horrifies Emmeline, but she doesn’t want to let anyone down. She is a part of this group, so she’s determined to pitch in as much as she can.

“You can do this,” she whispers to herself before she pushes through the front door of the main house and walks out onto the porch. A wave of nausea passes over her as she steps closer to one of the bodies off by the gazebo, knowing what she has to do. “He was a bad man,” she mutters to reassure herself as she rolls the sleeves of her blouse to her elbows. Tossing a glance back to the wagon being laden with dead bodies, she bends down and wraps her fingers around the dead O’Driscoll’s ankles, fixing to drag him in that direction. After only a few feet, she’s interrupted by Hosea’s voice.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa there,” he calls out as he rushes toward her. “You should be inside, Emmeline.”

She gently drops the O’Driscoll’s feet, as if she could still hurt him if she was too rough. “It’s okay. I want to help out.”

He doesn’t take that for an answer. Instead, he wraps his arm around her shoulders and turns her back toward the house. “I’m sure Jack would be pleased with your company upstairs. Besides, it’s too hot out here. You shouldn’t overexert yourself in your condition.”

“C-Condition?” she asks, playing dumb in case he doesn’t actually know her secret and means something else.

He chuckles, leading her back up the porch steps and through the door. “Yes. Your condition .” He stops them in the sitting room, knowing that everyone else is too busy to hear their conversation. “I admit that I should have seen it sooner. Age really is creeping up on me. Dulling the senses.” He holds his hand out, gesturing for her to sit onto the couch. He follows after, planting himself down with a groan and creaking joints.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve lived my whole life as a conman, dear girl. I’ve learned to read people, pick up on little cues, little traits that tell me everything I need to know about them. I wasn’t too sure about your... situation at first. Not until I saw the way John’s been looking at you like he’s terrified. The same way he looked at Abigail when she was with child, though not quite as bad. I reckon ‘cause he knows he’s not the father in this case.” He shakes his head. “That boy still ain’t comfortable with children, despite having one of his own.”

“Abigail figured it out pretty quick,” Emmeline explains. “And she told John the second she was sure. He hasn’t really said much to me about it since then.”

Hosea nods. “Abigail’s smarter than people give her credit for. And John,” he laughs, “finesse ain’t exactly his strong suit. We’ve had to fight our way out of more situations than I care to think about because he blew our cover.”

“Really?” she says with a giggle. “I guess Arthur and I will have to start telling people soon, anyway. People are bound to notice when I start showing through my dress.”

“You and Arthur have time yet, I’m betting.” He pats her on the knee gently. “I’m so happy for Arthur to become a father. I know he always wanted to have children.”

“He did?” she asks, confused. Arthur hadn’t really told her that in so many words.

He nods. “He may not admit it, maybe not even to himself, but I know deep down he’s wanted a family. All you have to do is look at how he treats Jack. He’s been more of a father to that boy than Marston‘s been, really. Did everything for him in the beginning. If Abigail hadn’t’ve loved John so much, I reckon Arthur woulda married her just to give the boy a proper family when John left.”

“Arthur wants to leave,” she admits quietly. “Leave the gang with me and the Marstons. So we can raise the children away from this.”

He lets out a heavy breath. “He’s smart to want that. We all know this isn’t gonna end well, deep down. We just try to prolong it, day by day, however we can.” He grasps her hand in his and gives her a poignant look. “You tell him it’s alright to leave all this, Emmeline. Even if he’s said he wants to leave, he’ll wrestle with getting away from this life, leaving us. You tell him he can go. He doesn’t owe us nothing more.”

The vehemence with which he says it has Emmeline nodding automatically. She had a feeling that Arthur would have a hard time with following through on leaving. Especially given how much he sees the gang as his family.

It takes a while, but the property finally gets completely cleaned up. It isn’t much longer after that when Dutch, Arthur, and Sadie get back to the camp. Once everyone sees the three riders galloping down the trail toward the house, they hold their breath in anticipation. The second Dutch hitches The Count and looks up with a bright smiling face and outstretched arms, everyone breaks out in cheers knowing that the trio was successful in their mission. The Van Der Linde’s oldest rival has been taken down. And now it’s time to celebrate.

Liquor flows. Songs are sung. Stories are told. The mood around camp is light and jovial as everyone enjoys the party, some around the fire, some at Pearson’s tent, and some dancing in the middle to the music from Dutch’s phonograph.

From her seat on the log by the fire, Emmeline watches Karen and Sean swaying to and fro together arrhythmically to the music, both of them already three sheets to the wind. It doesn’t stop them from looking like they’re anything but happy together, though.

“You doin’ alright?” Arthur’s voice draws her attention away from the couple.

She turns back to him beside her and gives him a smile. “Yeah. I’m fine, Arthur.”

“What you went through today...” he lets out a heavy breath, thinking about how she was held at gunpoint earlier, “I don’t want you to ever go through that again. Don’t ever want you in danger.”

“I don’t want either of us in danger.” Remembering the conversation she had earlier with Hosea, she scoots closer to Arthur to speak with him more quietly. “I know it’s gonna be hard,” she whispers and takes her hand in his, “but I think we should-“ She’s interrupted by Dutch coming up from behind and clapping Arthur on the shoulder.

“What’s with the long face, Arthur?” he asks with a huge smile as he walks around to stand before them. “We’re celebrating, in case you haven’t noticed.”

Arthur looks up to him. “I know, Dutch. I’ve been waitin’ to see Colm hang for a long time.” He shakes his head a little and scratches at the back of his neck not wanting to tell Dutch about the way his insides twist thinking about how Emmeline and their baby had been in danger today. “Guess I’m just tired. Long day.”

“That it’s been.” Dutch plants himself down next to Emmeline, unaware he’s interrupted the conversation she wanted to have with Arthur. “Things are gonna change for us,” he says wistfully as he looks to the darkening evening sky. “I can feel it. Our luck is gonna change.”

“I sure hope so,” Arthur quips.

“Come on, Arthur,” Dutch replies, though his happy tone doesn’t fall much. He bumps Emmeline with his shoulder. “If you keep spending time with him, you’ll end up just as morose as he is.”

She laughs at his joke. “He’s not morose most of the time. He actually makes me laugh.”

Dutch looks overly shocked. “Arthur? Funny? Pfft!”

It makes Emmeline laugh more. It’s nice to see this side of Dutch. Since she’s met him, she actually hasn’t spent much time with him. And with Micah, the Pinkertons, and the move, Dutch hadn’t exactly been up to socializing lately. But now, it seems like he’s back to the man that Arthur had described to her. She thinks it would be nice to actually get to know the man that’s her only living kin.

Having heard the exchange as he grabbed a beer from the box by Pearson’s wagon, Hosea walks up to take a seat across from the small group. “Arthur’s a regular comedian, don’t you know?” he jokes.

“Yeah, yeah. Alright,” Arthur grumbles. “Don’t need you comin’ in here and teasin’ me, too.”

Hosea chuckles a bit. “No need to be so serious, Arthur. This is a party, after all.”

“That’s what I was saying.” Dutch rises from his seat and turns back to hold his hand out to Emmeline. “Since your fella is too busy brooding, would you care to dance with me?”

“I ain’t brooding ,” Arthur responds, a smile finally tugging his lips upward once he sees Emmeline trying to hold back a giggle. “Go on then.” He shoos her off with a gesture of his hand.

Emmeline takes Dutch’s hand and allows him to lead her to the open area that had occupied Karen and Sean just a moment ago, the couple having vacated, most likely to their tent. Dutch keeps ahold of her left hand in his right as he turns to face her.

“You know how to dance?” He places his left hand gently around her back while he raises his other arm with hers into position.

“Not really,” she admits, placing her free hand on his shoulder. “My father tried to teach me when I was little, but I think I ended up just jumping around.” She laughs at the memories.

As he starts to sway with her, he asks her quietly, “He was good to you?”

She realizes then what she had said. She had called Joseph, the man that raised her, her father. But the man standing before her technically holds that title. It doesn’t make the former feel any less like a parent to her, though. Despite the fact that he was never blood, he will always be her papa.

“He was a very good... father. I loved him.”

Dutch nods his head, then puts a smile on his face. “I’m glad. I could tell he was a good man.” He steps back and lifts her arm up, prompting her to twirl.

When she comes back to him, she lets out a little laugh. “I don’t think I got the hang of spinning when I was eight years old,” she says, trying to bring the conversation to lighter fare.

Dutch isn’t ready to end the conversation that he’s thought about having for years, though. “I did think of you often,” he asserts, his eyes soft as he looks to the young woman in front of him. “I always wanted the best for you. I tried to help out after Joseph died, left money for you and your mother.”

She looks away a moment as they continue to sway to the music. “I know. Arthur told me.”

“So many times I thought about knocking on your door. Introducing myself to you. Making up for lost time.”

“But you didn’t.”

He shakes his head. “No. It wasn’t because I didn’t care about you; I want to make that clear. I always cared about you, Emmeline. And that’s precisely why I never knocked on your door. Your mother was right. It would’ve been dangerous for you.”

“I understand, Dutch,” she reassures him. “I didn’t at first. I wasn’t too happy knowing I was lied to, but... I do understand why you and my parents did what you did. But I’m happy to get to know you now.” She gives him a smile, which he returns easily.

In the meantime, since Arthur is left by himself, he looks over to Hosea. “Sorry about havin’ to leave those costumes of yours back in Saint Denis.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m just glad they did their job and you all made it back safe.”

Arthur nods. “Yeah. Ain’t no more O’Driscolls left after all that.”

“One less thing on our plates.”

“That’s what we need. Things to be more simple. Like they they were before the Pinkertons.” Arthur takes a cigarette out of his satchel and lights it, taking a drag and exhaling the smoke.

“Maybe we should just be tying up loose ends.”

Arthur looks over to the older man in confusion. “Whatchu mean?”

“We’re the last of a dying breed, my boy. And it’s only gonna end one of two ways, accept it and finally become a member of civilization or fight it and go out on the cooling board.” Hosea stands with a groan, his stiff joints protesting momentarily, and walks over to Arthur, placing his hand on his shoulder and leaning down to speak more quietly. “Don’t you make that girl a widow. And don’t you make that child fatherless.”

Arthur looks up to the older man, ready to ask how he knew. But he thinks better of it. Of course Hosea knew; he always does.

As Arthur follows Hosea’s exit, his eyes wander over to Molly as she stands on the front porch. She’s leaning on the railing with her arms crossed over her chest and staring daggers at Dutch and Emmeline as they continue to dance and laugh with one another.

“Shit,” Arthur mutters to himself. He knows exactly what’s going through the fiery redhead’s mind.

Molly has made her jealous streak well known. Just about every woman that Dutch has so much as talked to has gotten the third degree from her. And it’s all only gotten worse as Dutch closed himself off more. It seems that Molly has been coping with that by drinking more which has only made her more volatile.

Before Arthur can do anything about it, Molly stomps over to Emmeline and roughly pulls her back by the arm.

“Arthur ain’t enough for ya, huh, ya trollop,” Molly slurs out, her Irish accent sounding a little bit stronger than normal. She shoves her finger right into Emmeline’s face and yells, “Ya gotta go after Dutch Van Der Linde himself, too!”

Molly’s loud voice draws attention and everyone looks her way, interested at the turn of events. That intrigue only deepens once Arthur jumps up from his seat and rushes over.

“What the hell are you doin’, Molly?” he calls out and quickly puts himself between the woman and Emmeline to prevent a skirmish.

“Yes,” Dutch concurs as he puts his hands on his hips, “what are you doing?”

“Oh, don’t you act innocent, Dutch,” Molly seethes, refocusing her rage on him. “She bats her pretty eyes at you and you eat it up.”

“I wasn’t-“ Emmeline starts, but Molly isn’t hearing it.

“You shut up, you hussy! It’s obvious you’re throwing yourself at him!”

Emmeline has never been talked to like this in her whole life and it has her flustered. Flustered enough that she blurts out, “I don’t want Dutch! He’s my father !” loud enough that everyone hears.

Audible gasps ring out around the camp at the shock. No one had even an inkling that their newest member was related to Dutch and now it comes out that she’s his daughter .

Molly takes a step back and looks to Dutch as she tries to make sense of all of this. “Is that true?”

Dutch lets out a sigh and puts his hand on the shoulder of his formerly secret daughter. “Yes. Emmeline is my daughter,” he says loud enough for all the straining ears around them to hear. “I suppose it’s time to tell you all everything.” He takes his hand off of her and steps forward to address everyone. “Let me explain. I did send Arthur to check on Emmeline, but it wasn’t just because I knew her mother. I knew all along she was my daughter and wanted to make sure she was alright. She and Arthur did get sweet on each other, but the reason he brought her here was because the Pinkertons knew about her. And they wanted to use her to get to me. Why I decided to keep all this quiet was to protect her. But since we now know that Micah ,” he hisses the man’s name, “was the one working with the police and he’s no longer here, there’s no reason to keep it a secret anymore.”

Everyone processes the information at their own rate. Some people are stood there shocked while others nod softly their assent. John is firmly in the former category, his gaze flicking quickly between Dutch, Emmeline, and Arthur.

“Emmeline’s your daughter?” he asks aloud, though he’s not exactly looking for a response from the man. “And she and Arthur-“

He’s cut off by a swift elbow to the ribs courtesy of Abigail next to him. “Emmeline and Arthur are together and it don’t rightly matter that Dutch is her father,” she finishes the sentence for him to stop him from saying anything he shouldn’t. “I think it’s good fortune. She’s part of the family no matter what.”

Emmeline smiles to the other raven haired woman. “Thank you, Abigail. That means a lot.”

“Indeed,” Dutch’s booming voice brings attention back to him. “We are all a family here. Now, I know we’ve had some tough times, but they are behind us. Tonight, we celebrate our long overdue victory over the O’Driscolls and tomorrow...” he pauses to make sure all eyes are on him, “we make our plans to free ourselves from the bond of the slavery that this ‘ society ’ is forcing on us. Stick with me and I promise that you will be able to live free.”

His words sound good, especially to the mostly inebriated ears that hear them. But they make a weight settle in Arthur’s chest. Dutch seems to be back to his old self... but is that really a good thing?

[cassandraclare]

gotsm/sotd q&A: Raphael, Lily, a little Alec

some spoilers

carolbaneherondale said:hi Cassie Queen, it was clear that Lily was in love with Raphael, but he is more reserved with his feelings. Did Raphael ever respond to Lily's feelings?

Lily is and has been in love with Raphael, which was hinted at in earlier stories — Lily is actually pansexual, but Raphael is asexual and aromantic. It isn't that he doesn't love Lily, it's as he says "For your information, I do not have any interest in romance of any kind and never will." He cares about Lily very much as a friend, and Lily knows that Raphael is aromantic (even though she'd be unlikely to be familiar with the word) so she'd never pressure him for a specific kind of love he isn't comfortable with. Lily's happy to flirt with Jem, who she genuinely thinks is a mega fox, but she doesn't flirt with Raphael: she talks about them as a team. In TftSA, Lily said "I thought Raphael would always be there." They've known each other almost 50 years at this point, and have a very well established relationship dynamic, based above all on respect. In the story, we see Lily reach out to touch Raphael, but she doesn't do it. She doesn't care if Jem sees her, she only cares about not bothering or burdening Raphael.

Raphael has a traumatic past and issues with intimacy that are entirely apart from being ace and aro, as Jem observes and as we've seen elsewhere—his relationship to Magnus is definitely not romantic or sexual on either side, but he consistently refuses to show closeness to Magnus, and Magnus has no idea Raphael thinks of him as highly as Raphael does. Lily is hurt by some of Raphael's distancing behavior, as when he refers to her as a colleague and not a friend; she's unsure of his regard for her in that moment, but later she can see his protective actions towards her and is clearly touched by them. By and large, though, they are much more often on the same page than not.

havisha1212 said: Hey! So I noticed that Lily is clearly in love with Raphael and Raphael harbors nothing back. But he knows about it. Does he consider Lily a friend? Does he feel uncomfortable? Can you give us a little more insight into their relationship. Also doesn't he look fourteen and her nineteen?

Raphael does look younger than Lily, and in fact he is younger than Lily by several decades at least (though we don't have a specific age for Lily... yet). But how people look isn't that significant in a world of immortals — Tessa looked a lot younger than Will, for a lot of their relationship, and presumably Magnus is going to look a lot younger than Alec for much of theirs. And when both people never age, how they look becomes even less important; it’s how old they actually are. In the end, Lily and Raphael aren't romantically involved, not because of what age each of them look, but because Raphael isn't interested in being sexually or romantically involved with anyone, ever.

Raphael and Lily, as City of Heavenly Fire says, were “always thick as thieves.” He chose to bring her with him to the Shadow Market, trusting her, and chooses to hang around with her often (Lily, Raphael and their friend Elliott were off to Taki's on a social outing when they run into Alec and Magnus in TBC, and you will see Lily and Elliott drag Raphael to a party in Italy in The Red Scrolls of Magic). He gets wounded defending her, and in a battle you can't guarantee you won't get killed: he was putting his life at risk. Had it been Camille in the line of fire, Raphael would've been found filing his nails in a mysterious other location. 

It's always fun to write a relationship with a bit of a dichotomy to it, in that Lily's always been older and Raphael always acted older--he was a big brother, the oldest of a large family, and as we saw in TBC, he tried to boss Lily around from the moment he met her. (And she responded with, “LOL, cute.”) Lily's always been pretty dedicated to the party lifestyle--it was how she came to join up with Camille--and she's prone to acting somewhat heedlessly and immaturely, while Raphael has always tried to be mature and responsible. Which doesn't mean Lily's immature--as soon as she has to, she reaches out to Maia, cooperates with Alec and Magnus, leads the clan as best she can. She just didn't care what happened with the clan or the city, before Raphael, and she didn't have to step up, while Raphael was there. She figured they were for always, and she'd never have to know what she'd do, if something happened to him... but Raphael says he hopes she'd do something practical. She did. Raphael has faith sometimes, too: Raphael had faith in her, and we know faith was important to him, and we know his faith was more than justified.

priomort said: Hey Cassie I really enjoyed reading Son of the Dawn! I was just wondering whether Magnus ever found out that 11 year old Alec was totally crushing on Raphael and what his reaction would have been. 

Magnus would be amused. He might be a bit incredulous as well (”Raphael?! Really?!”) but everyone has crushes as a kid, like when you find out what awful popstar your significant other liked when they were 12. Probably it's a good thing that Magnus had an uneasy relationship with the Lightwoods and seldom saw them, since I'm sure a younger Alec would've got a huge crush on Magnus, and had terrible trouble getting Magnus to take him seriously later.

[howterrifying]

+sherlolly because...mycroft is love

I think it's no surprise now to those of you who know me that I love Mycroft. This story is basically 90% Mycroft, or what I like to call 'Mycroft-centric', but set to a background of blossoming Sherlolly. It ended up Mycroft-centric because I've always had an issue with the way Mycroft was always made fun of regarding his weight and this rumoured love for cake. I got so fed up that I decided to write this to subvert all the things that had been said about him. I love Mycroft but I also particularly love writing Molly and Mycroft having a sort of real kindred affection for one another and a deep understanding between them. What can I say, they're my ultimate brOTP. :) Still has nice Sherlolly moments tho. So if you've come to read this, thank you so much! xx

:: CONTAINS SERIES FOUR SPOILERS ::

Hunger  ( also on FF.net and AO3 ) The cake place, as Sherlock had called it, was a simple cafe that Molly had picked for its low human traffic and of course, its delicious cake. The three of them, Molly, Sherlock and John, were halfway through their little birthday-do for the detective when John received a call from Mrs Hudson regarding little Rosie.

“It seems she’s running a fever,” said John, returning his phone to his pocket, “Sorry guys but I’d better dash.” After settling his share of the bill with Molly, John rushed out of the cafe and hopped into the first cab he could find. At this hour, the cafe really was quiet. Now that John had left, the number of patrons reduced from three to two. “So, how do you find this…cake place?” asked Molly, smirking slightly at him. “I appreciate the lack of humans,” answered the detective, “So you’ve chosen well again, Molly.” “Are you saying I’m not human, Sherlock?” Molly remarked in mock indignation. “No— No, no, I just meant—” “Relax, Sherlock,” said Molly with a laugh, “I know what you meant.” Sherlock smiled. Of course she would know what he meant. Sometimes, Sherlock was sure she knew him better than he did. He wanted to tell her he particularly appreciated the lack of humans because it meant there was nothing to disrupt his concentration on his time with her. Perhaps he would tell her another time. “I considered inviting Mycroft,” said Molly, taking a bite of cake. “It’s a good thing you didn’t,” Sherlock remarked swiftly. “Why? Would he spoil the mood of this invigorating party?” she said with a laugh. “In a way. For starters, there’d be no cake left,” said Sherlock, smirking as he sipped his coffee. “Food has always been my brother’s weakness. Molly stopped to ponder what Sherlock had said and something did not sit right with her. “Hang on.” Molly said, putting her fork down, “Are you implying Mycroft was greedy as a child?” “Well, obviously. I never imply.” said Sherlock. “You should’ve seen him then.” “I have, actually. He’s shown me pictures.” “Since when?” asked Sherlock, frowning slightly. “Your brother and I have a good friendship, Sherlock,” remarked Molly with a smile. “It’s what saved you that afternoon of your fall, you know?” “As you both never cease to remind me,” said Sherlock, rolling his eyes. “You never cease to forget,” Molly shot back. A tricky silence fell between them for a moment. Sherlock, sensing that he had been callous again with what was clearly a very serious subject matter, poured Molly a fresh cup of tea, intending it as a peace offering. He pushed it gingerly across the table to her, softening his expressions slightly to convey his apologies, causing Molly to laugh. “It’s fine,” she said, accepting the tea gratefully, “I am genuinely curious though, why would you say that about him? I cannot see Mycroft ever having been that way.” “Are you sure you saw the right photos? Because if you had, you would definitely see why,” explained Sherlock, “He was always eating, for as long as I can remember, guzzling everything like his life depended on it. I don’t even think he was hungry when he ate sometimes—” “Ah.” “What?” “You’re absolutely right there,” Molly remarked thoughtfully. “Sorry?” “That he wasn’t always hungry. And certainly not greedy,” continued Molly. “Do you know why he was, as you say, guzzling all the time, Sherlock?” Sherlock paused to look at her, trying to see where she was going with this question. He started thinking back on all his memories of Mycroft polishing food off his plate and constantly reaching for food. “What did your mummy always use to scold you about?” Molly asked quietly, as though coaxing the memory out of Sherlock. Sherlock blinked hard at the question that certainly was not hard at all. There were many answers to that, but what was Molly driving at? “The usual, I suppose. Not wiping my muddy wellies from when I would play pirates at the beach… Or dissecting any dead rats I’d find in the traps using her steak knives…” “You don’t remember, do you?” asked Molly, leaning forward with a curious gleam in her eyes. “Remember what?” “You see, Mycroft did such an excellent job you never got chided for it ever again.” This was a puzzling statement and the detective frowned in response. Knowing Molly was going to continue, Sherlock stayed quiet, knowing that now was not the time to act smart or make possibly inaccurate deductions. Clearly, there was something she knew, and he did not. “Look down at your plate. How many bites of cake have you had?” The detective followed her instructions and stared down at his plate. Depending on the angle one took to look at it, no one would have suspected the slice of cake had had a bite taken out of it. “I ate the cherry. And I had a corner of cake. I might have another bite, seeing as sugar is the only high I can afford now—” “And what would your mother say,” Molly interjected, “if she could see your plate now?”

Memories were a funny thing. Sometimes, they remained buried with no chance of recollection whatsoever. Yet, in some cases, they sprang back to the forefront of the mind once the right switch was turned on. The memory played in Sherlock’s head like a perfect piece of cinematography. All the sights and sounds and smells came rushing to him as he suddenly recalled one particular night at the family dinner table. He could not have been more than four years old, but Sherlock was brilliant after all and had a vast store of memories from a very early age. Dinner had been served and while he had been hungry after a full afternoon playing outside in the garden, he had refused to eat a single morsel of his food. Sherlock’s brilliance had a setback, and that was the frequent and immense sensory overloads he would experience. The great speed at which he processed things was directly proportional to the tremendous sensitivity he felt towards his environment. Suddenly, Sherlock was acutely aware of how repulsed he had felt that one evening at dinner; how the creamed spinach felt too wet; how the boiled potatoes were too yellow; and how the carrots and gravy seemed to merge into the same colour and it just did not feel right. In his attempt to make his food palatable and not disturb him so much, Sherlock had tried prodding at it, rearranging it, mixing the colours or mixing the textures to find a combination that did not send his hairs standing. Then, a huge sharp pain had interrupted his rearrangement of his dinner when Mummy tapped the edge of a wooden spoon against his tiny knuckles. In an equally sharp voice, she had asked him sternly why he had not taken a bite of his food and chided him for being fussy and for playing with his food. The rude shock of her harsh voice and the slight throb in his knuckles had caused tears to well up in the eyes of young Sherlock. He remembered the tears and the frustration behind them because he had truly been hungry at the time but simply could not bring himself to eat the food before him. Such a struggle was something Mycroft had also been all too familiar with. After all, were they not of the same make? An infinitely more brilliant mind like Mycroft’s had dealt with the same battle of his senses and how they affected his experience of life. Everything that had plagued Sherlock as a young genius had also affected him before, except now, with seven years ahead of his younger brother, Mycroft had learned to manage. Whether it was the noise, the people, the food, the scents - Mycroft had learnt to manage. As tears had continued to spill from Sherlock’s eyes, he did his best to obey his mother, not wanting to risk hearing her terribly hard voice or another rap to his knuckles. Reluctantly, Sherlock had begun lowering his fork into what he perceived as neon yellow flesh of the cut potatoes on his plate. However, just as the silver prongs were about to poke through the powdery cube of potato, Sherlock remembered seeing Mycroft deftly reaching over, switching plates with him. Sherlock had stared in shock at the empty plate in place of his, while Mycroft had begun quickly devouring what Sherlock could not.   “He couldn’t have been hungry…” Sherlock murmured as the memories continued playing in his head. Molly merely lowered her heard and smiled. She could tell he had ventured somewhere obscure in his Mind Palace and did not want to disrupt this particular trip down memory lane. Once dinner time had been over, Sherlock was starving but relieved that his brother had saved him. Mummy had seemed pleased that all her children had finished their meals and had cheerfully cleared their plates. Mycroft, knowing that his brother would have been absolutely ravenous by now, had stolen into the kitchen and nicked a few ginger nuts from Mummy’s cupboard. There you are, Sherlock, Mycroft had said to his little brother. Nice and dry, these. And I picked the least lumpy ones of the lot, just the way you like them.You mustn’t go to bed hungry. It seemed this first memory then triggered a whole deluge of similar incidents. All of a sudden, Sherlock remembered not wanting to eat the honey on toast at tea time one afternoon because the honey had not felt ‘ready’ and its colour was all wrong and so had refused to touch it. His piece of toast had gotten so cold that the honey spread on top of it had almost turned to glass. Again, Mycroft had swept in and grabbed the toast off his brother’s plate, leaving it empty before Mummy could return to the dining room, sparing Sherlock another shelling from her. In these memories, Mycroft was still always eating, always stealing biscuits and cake  and stuffing his face with tremendous speed and almost with a sense of desperation. Except, it was neither hunger nor greed which motivated those responses. “You’ve spoilt my appetite now, Molly…” muttered the detective, as his recollection of his childhood slowly began to clarify. “Because now you remember how much Mycroft loves you?” teased Molly. There came coughing and choking sounds as Sherlock reached for his coffee and took a big dramatic sip, as though it could wash the thought away. Molly suppressed a chuckle but continued to speak.

“I know it’s hard for you, but I just— could not sit idly by and have you think he was some greedy, food-obsessed child,” Molly began. “He merely wanted to protect you. And still does.” Sherlock raised a cynical eyebrow before taking another slow sip of his coffee. “Are you about to suggest I do something about this?” he asked, eyeing Molly suspiciously. “I know that look in your eyes.” “Well, you could just call him, tell him you love him,” joked Molly. “Are you trying to kill me?” asked Sherlock with a smirk. “Would it?” Molly asked swiftly in return. “Would it actually kill you?” Her question was a weighted one, and it made Sherlock sigh quietly. He picked his fork up and took another bite of cake, chewing it slowly and thoughtfully.

“Maybe you should practice,” said Molly with a gleam in her eyes. “Practice?” he asked. “Hello, Sherlock,” she began, smiling at him. “Uh, hello…Molly,” answered Sherlock instinctively but a little unsure. “I would do anything to protect you,” she declared, “Because I love you. Now, what would you say in return?” He glared at her incredulously, amazed at how she was able to say such words so easily. How did she make something so heavy appear so light and effortless? Sherlock shook his head and chuckled softly. “He would never say that to me, you do know that right?” said Sherlock with a laugh. “It’d kill him.” “That is true,” Molly replied, “But you never know, Sherlock. One day, you or Mycroft might find yourselves literally at gunpoint and you’ll wish you’d done something.” Sherlock paused to reflect on her words. He certainly could not deny that his memory of Mycroft had been incomplete, resulting in the present-day misjudgement of his brother. Mycroft had never been greedy, had never enjoyed the taste of honey, and would have never taken more than he was allowed to. It frightened Sherlock that he had gotten something so fundamentally wrong about his brother, about his own history. He shook away the even more terrifying thought that there might be more he could have missed about their childhood. Sherlock made a note not to delete things from his memory too impulsively anymore. “I think you’re right, Molly,” said Sherlock at last, looking up at her. Molly smiled and gestured to his plate. “You going to finish your cake then?” she asked. “Yes, I think I will,” Sherlock replied, smiling as he picked his fork up. — The air was cold and daylight had yet to break. Sherlock stood outside the large mahogany doors and waited. Right on schedule, the doors opened and out stepped Mycroft, decked head to toe in his black running gear and wearing a look of surprise on his face. “What are you doing here?” asked Mycroft, “Has something happened? And why are you in running clothes?” “Same reason you’re wearing them,” answered Sherlock. “What, you’re here for a jog? At five in the morning?” Mycroft exclaimed, still somewhat in shock at seeing his brother, “Aren’t you usually at the morgue trying to show off to Molly Hooper or something?” “She does the day shifts now,” Sherlock answered without missing a beat. “And then you take her out to dinner in the evenings?” joked Mycroft. “On occasion, yes,” Sherlock replied unflinchingly, secretly relishing the look of surprise in his brother’s eyes. “Well, good for you…and good luck to her,” said Mycroft, “Now, if you’ll excuse me—” “Mycroft.” “Yes, Sherlock, what?” Suddenly, Sherlock could not articulate why he had come to see his brother. Perhaps it had not been clear to him either, but after everything Molly had made him realise, he knew he had to do something. “Mind if I joined you?” he asked. “We won’t have to chat, will we?” said Mycroft, raising an eyebrow. “These grounds are quite large and I should like to concentrate on conserving energy for my run, if you don’t mind.” “No chatting, just running,” said Sherlock with a nod. “Then I don’t see why you can’t,” Mycroft replied, nodding in return. It had been a quiet run, the two brothers side by side as they made their way around Mycroft’s entire estate. They returned, panting slightly as they stepped into Mycroft’s equally palatial kitchen. The older Holmes brother opened his refrigerator where its only contents was a single glass decanter of freshly squeezed juice. He poured himself a glass, knowing his brother would not be interested in any. To his surprise, his brother came to join him, pouring himself a glass too. “I brought you something,” said Sherlock, after he had downed half the glass of juice thirstily. “Whatever for?” asked Mycroft with a laugh. “Here,” said Sherlock, tossing a dark brown packet to his brother. “What’s this?” asked Mycroft. “Breakfast,” said Sherlock. “They’re ginger nuts,” said Mycroft. “Exactly,” Sherlock said with a quick smile. “I used to have them for breakfast, remember?” Mycroft paused to look up at his brother carefully. His puzzled frown soon softened into a small, warm smile. Mycroft looked away and stared out of his kitchen window into the green of his estate. “The bacon looked like twigs, you’d said. And the eggs were like ‘monster eyes’,” Mycroft recalled wistfully, “You were so small and frail.” “And you were the opposite.” “Yes, I was,” said Mycroft. “Mycroft.” “Yes?” “Thank you.” “You’re welcome.” Both brothers turned away, both unaccustomed to any such displays of emotion, but were smiling secretly in the knowledge that the other was not looking. Their silence was interrupted by the crackling sound of a plastic packet being opened. “Fancy a ginger nut?” asked Mycroft, holding one out in his hand. “For old times’ sake.” “Seeing as I haven’t had any breakfast…” answered Sherlock, taking the biscuit from his brother. “Yes, I will have one.” Mycroft reached into the packet and took one for himself too. The two brothers stood where they were in the kitchen, quietly crunching on their biscuits. “Remind me, will you, Sherlock?” Mycroft said, suddenly. “To do what?” he asked, gesturing for his brother to pass him another biscuit. “To thank Molly Hooper,” answered Mycroft, hunting for a ginger nut with a texture agreeable to his younger brother. “Of course.” “Maybe I’ll take her out to dinner,” joked Mycroft, eyeing his brother. Sherlock stared back icily at Mycroft, inciting a laugh from him.   “I jest,” said Mycroft, offering his brother another carefully selected biscuit. “I certainly hope you are.” “Well, I wouldn’t want to undo what’s she's managed to accomplish.” “Hmm. Yes.” Mycroft smiled as he put the packet of biscuits down and walked casually to the sink to wash his hands. As the sound of running water filled the quiet kitchen, Mycroft thought about everything that had transpired that morning and could not help but smirk to himself. When he was finished, he turned the tap off and the kitchen went quiet again. “That said, brother mine,” Mycroft remarked, sauntering over to dry his hands on a small towel, “While it’s taken you about thirty years to offer me biscuits, I don’t recommend you take the same amount of time regarding Molly Hooper.” “What, to offer her biscuits?” said Sherlock, scoffing slightly. Mycroft laughed. Sherlock really was the idiot. “I believe it is words you have to offer her,” Mycroft said with a knowing half-smile. “Say them while they still mean something to her.” “Are both of you trying to kill me?” Sherlock exclaimed. “Believe me when I say, Sherlock, that if you didn’t,” Mycroft explained, “That might kill you first.” “Are you speaking from experience?” asked Sherlock, scoffing. “Perhaps,” Mycroft answered coolly. Sherlock stared at his brother, perplexed at his words. What frame of reference did his brother have that he did not? Was there more that he had missed from their childhood? Their adolescence? “It was from my time at MI6,” said Mycroft, answering the question in his brother’s head, “I’ll tell you another time when you feel like we need another…breakfast.” “Hmm, yes.” “Now, please, just take my word for it and go,” said Mycroft, waving his little brother away. With a smirk, Sherlock stole one more ginger nut and turned to leave his brother’s colossal home. With his free hand, he took his mobile phone out and began to text. To his surprise, she had texted him first. How did it go? - M It was fine. - SH Oh, that’s wonderful then. - M Where are you now? - SH On my way to the Bart’s refectory, why? - M Mind if I joined you there? - SH What? For lunch? - M Yes. Lunch. - SH But you never eat. - M It seems I have to once in a while. - SH What made you change your mind? - M My brother said it might kill me if I didn’t. - SH He’s right, there. - M So, the refectory? - SH Yes. See you soon then. - M See you. x - SH !!!!! - M :) - SH

[icehot-addiction]

I see that you're in the Voltron fandom! I want to watch it but I'm really afraid of all the discourse and hate... Can I ask your opinion on this? Do you think I should give it a shot? I hope you're doing fine, Lulu-chan!

Hey dear! I’m so sorry this reply is probably really late?? I’ve been trying to tag my older stuff before posting new stuff so I haven’t really been checking my askbox and all!! 

About Voltron, I’m barely halfway through the first season so I kinda feel like I’m only just dipping my toes into the fandom haha (I haven’t even settled on a favourite character which is REALLY surprising considering I’m a love-at-first-sight kinda fangirl) but I don’t think you should let any form of dis//course/ha//te discourage you from any source material!! So far Voltron has been cute and wonderful (esp. if you like western cartoons and you’re okay with the pacing? and the art style and the dialogues? b/c the biggest difference I feel there is between cartoons and anime is the….. Dialogues?? Idk how to explain it, it’s like the banter and the way messages/feelings are conveyed is so different and sometimes it’s a bit of a leap to get used to but if you’ve been watching Avatar/Korra and SU and stuff like that you should be fine! AND THE PACING is a nice surprise because I kinda always have the impression that cartoons like to wrap up small story plots within 1 or 2 episodes at max but so far Voltron has been quite a continuous story between episodes and I really like that!) so if you’re looking for some cute bonding between space pilots with p. cool backstories and a show with strong female characters you should definitely give Voltron a try!

(Also is the ha//te for Voltron like… Really bad?? Is it just because of the ships or are people actually ha//ting on the show?? I haven’t really been actively seeking out the negative comments and no one on my dash really reblogs ha//te so……. I’m actually quite oblivious to the discourse haha.) EDIT: oh welp nvm I just went into the dis//course tags HAHA and wow that is not pretty. No wonder you’re nervous about entering the fandom. I’m gonna….. Post my opinions under the cut if anyone’s interested??

Thanks for dropping by with the question!! I sincerely hope you’ll enjoy Voltron!!

Well tbh the main argument against sh//aladin ships is because people think it’s/ define it as pe//dophilia? I could cry laughing because I’m not sure if the problem is people are actually not aware of the definition of pe//dophilia, or they’re just purposely trying to bend logic to justify their opinions? I mean yes, some people get upset seeing nsfw sexual stuff depicting minors (the proper definition of this is people younger than 18 in most countries). That’s understandable. That’s why you blacklist tags like ‘nsfw’, don’t follow blogs posting nsfw content, so you don’t see the sexual stuff on your dash. 

But seriously, degrading sh//aladin ships to pe//dophilia? That’s really mean and wrong? Other than Shiro, the rest of the Paladins are teenages?? Quoted in interviews with the voice actors as “around 16 years old”? which means that calling any relationship between Shiro and any of the other Paladins “pe//dophilia” is already out of the question because, and I quote wikipedia and other websites for this, ″Pe//dophilia or pae//dophilia is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children″ and the ″criteria for pe//dophilia extend the cut-off point for prepubescence to age 13″. Do the Paladins look like prepubescent children? Prreeeeetty sure they don’t. They’re teenagers. So any ha//ters basing their arguments around pe//dophilia really ought to check themselves because that’s really kinda embarrassing, guys.

So people don’t like pe//dophiles, well neither do I. But Shiro isn’t a pe//dophile because the rest of the Paladins aren’t prepubescent children, last I checked. And Shiro’s like, 26-30 at most? So the only issues here against sh//aladin ships are 1. Relationship with a Minor and 2. Age Gap, all the NSFW stuff aside. Relationships with a Minor is icky because it’s in the grey area and not punishable by law if the relationship is strictly not sexual? Sure, it’s definitely not everyone’s cup of tea, but it’s not morally wrong either. A lot of things could go wrong in a relationship with a minor esp. in real life, to be fair. It’s not a thing you should encourage like ever because most mistakes people can make WILL COST THEM. But this is fiction, not real life? The portrayal of the characters are derived solely from the creators, be in canon or fanfiction? So if you feel something is wrong with the portrayal, it’s not a problem with the characters themselves but the creators who portray them that way?

In the case of Voltron- The story’s setting/development is one where the Paladins (Shiro included) are given time to figure out why they’re in this, why they want to stay here, what they want to do with their lives, where they want to go from where they’ve been tossed into, and how they want to achieve that?? And that includes if they want to be in love with the people they spend almost all their time together with? Their entire Galaxy (or Galaxies idk) are threatened by this evil space race that’s destroying everyone and everything in their path to absolute power, and these Paladins are growing and learning new things about themselves and each other every day with every fight? And people wanna bicker with other people about “Shiro is 26-30 and the Paladins are minors so they shouldn’t be dating”? wow guys. Seriously. It almost sounds like these particular group of people have never had any sort of significant interaction with another person before, no offence. The characters themselves are not at fault here?

Idk about you, but back in my teenage years (I’m 24 now) people get into relationships as young as 12, 13? (People probably get into relationships at younger age now.) My first love was at 13 years old, man. It’s normal? The process, the experiences is how you broaden your perspective, figure things out, stuff like what you’re looking for and what you need from your partner, what you like and what you don’t. I’m not saying it’s all roses and butterflies, because you get hurt along the way. But you learn, you make mistakes and you remember not to make them again because they hurt, and no one likes to get hurt. But falling down and learning to pick yourself up brings you further? Not all of us are lucky enough to find “The One™” right at the start and live happily ever after. And people suffer from bad judgement and terrible decisions because of lack of experience and narrow viewpoints. I have friends who barely date, gets into relationships and feeling like “this is the one” and end up getting terribly hurt because they don’t know themselves well enough and don’t know better and that sucks, man. I’m digressing. Point is? Young love is good. I’m all for young love and learning about yourself and learning about other people and about interacting with someone else and all. About developing, growing up with love. The most important thing is discipline and control and not falling for temptations and making mistakes you know are BAD and you shouldn’t make, but that applies to everything you do in life, not just in relationships. And in the realm of fiction you can literally control the characters to do things so what’s the big issue? People are okay with a 16 y/o falling in love with a 16 y/o even though they’re both First-timers™ with no experience who will probably make a lot of mistakes and hurt each other a fair bit along the way, but they’re not okay with an older adult dating a minor even though the older adult probably might have better experience and control/discipline not to make mistakes and the relationship could have a more wholesome and lasting development? Isn’t that a bit contradictory? I can’t wrap my head around this?? All love is good and age doesn’t matter as long as both parties consent and are willing to work towards keeping themselves and the other party safe? That’s really how relationships are supposed to work isn’t it? It really really sounds like some people have 0 knowledge about how relationships are? I could cry?

And then there’s the whole *spoiler alert* for season 2!!!!!!!!!!! Keith: “Shiro, you’re like a brother to me.” I shall just direct you to this very sweet and concise post by niduss which I feel sums up everything I feel about the line in terms of Keith’s development. On the side of shipping: this line neither supports nor debunks Sheith as a relationship? So please stop?? 

And in case people wanna start dropping ha//te to me saying stuff like “this bitch probably doesn’t have brothers so she ships incest” or “never been a victim of pe//dophilic abuse before” so I shouldn’t be saying stuff like this, 1. I have 2 brothers and we’ve had ups and downs but I’m close to my brothers now and I love my brothers so ha, shame on you HA, and 2. I don’t need to prove to you that I’ve been through my fair share of traumatic shit™ to make my opinions valid? I’m not proud of the fact that I’ve gotten abused as a child, but it made me who I am now and that’s the part I’m proud of? Yes.

tldr; shipping sh//aladin is fine as long as they’re handled appropriately? It’s not pe//dophilic at all?? Shiro isn’t a pe//dophile?? If a person’s portrayal of characters art/writing/etc is wrong/immoral/inappropriate, then it’s just a reflection of the person themselves? Love isn’t wrong and the characters have done nothing wrong? Don’t shove your opinions down other people’s throats and then distort 1001 things just to try and defend your opinion? Thanks.

[lexxikitty-blog1]

The One That Got Away by Stephanie Motes and Grace Moskola Series: Chris & Liz: #1 Read: April 2016 Rating: 2.5 Stars

‘The One That Got Away’ is the first book that I’ve read by both Stephanie Motes and Grace Moskola. Though it is the third work I’ve read with Motes name on it. There was an odd kind of vibe to this book. Two immediate issues: the book really felt as if two 17 year olds were having something like a summer fling (though both used words indicating that they didn’t wish to have just a summer fling) in between college semesters (based on how the two acted, how the parents acted, at the time, and then later when they talked back about that summer). There is a huge deal made about how this was a great summer, a summer to have lived for, romance was in the air, etc. etc. But . . . it really felt like, instead of say three months, all the action seemed to have taken place over an extended weekend. That or, we went from, say, June to August in a flash, indicated by ‘summer is over now’ – I do recall that phrase used unexpectedly at one point. Seemed to be ‘summer’s here . . . *three seconds later* summer is over now.’ Tackling the first of the two ‘immediate’ issues – Christina Williams (heh, I didn’t recognize the name when I was looking at the book descriptions to make sure I got the names right – I didn’t recognize because she went mostly by Chris throughout the book) isn’t some 17 year old between college semesters. She’s a college graduate. It is true that she might be one of those people who graduated early, or something, but let’s just assume, for the sake of it, that she is between the ages of 21 and 22. I’m not actually sure how old Elizabeth Baker was supposed to be during that summer, though I guess she was supposed to be about the same age? Though her interactions with Chris seemed to make her seem younger than Chris somehow. Now granted 21/22 isn’t exactly a huge difference between it and 17/18; but one is considered fully adult, while the other isn’t even considered capable of being allowed to drink (depending on the legal jurisdiction). Now the first ‘issue’ probably is my own fault for seeing them acting younger than I’d expect them to act. The second one . . . maybe I accidentally missed a section or something? I’m fairly sure I read everything, though, so I can’t pin this one on me. This ‘great summer’ fling appears to have occurred over a longish weekend, at least going by the activities that occurred. Which makes their abrupt and somewhat random decision to run away together seem even more bizarre. Bah. I kind of distracted myself there. I’m not really sure what I’m attempting to write up above so let’s just skip ahead. The book involves Christina “Chris” Williams and Elizabeth “Liz” Baker. Chris is the daughter of a Senator, comes from a family with a lot of money, and has money of her own from a trust set up for her. When the book opens, Chris hasn’t really fully grasped the fact that others might have money issues. This comes up here or there. She’s a college graduate, but while there are aspects of her own independence attempting to shine through, she is still mostly under the thumb of her parents – at least at the start of the summer. Chris, her brother, her parents, and the siblings girlfriends are vacationing in a town in Florida. I say that the brother’s girlfriend is there as well, because comments are made about both of them having their girlfriends there. At some point, though, the brother leaves to go to training camp to prepare for the NFL draft, and presumably the girlfriend left as well – though the reader never got to meet that specific girlfriend (unless she is the same one that pops up when the brother returns for some party or other; though that woman isn’t the woman Chris spots going into the brothers room). Leslie, though, is seen. She’s the long time girlfriend of Chris. There are even some POV scenes from her perspective. She comes from a well-to-do family, and is acceptable to Chris parents. She’s also in love with Chris, while Chris seems to have either never been in love or fallen out of love with Leslie. At some point she is sent packing by Chris. But that’s after Chris fools around with Liz. That’s right – Chris cheated on Leslie with Liz. Chris seems to feel bad about how everything went down, but also that she had the right to do it (though she did weepily explain things after the fact; or was it just Leslie who was weepy?). Numerous times Chris makes comments about what a jerk the brother is turning out to be now-a-days; wonder if Chris happened to ever look in a mirror, eh? Liz Baker works as a waitress for a horrible horrible man who steals her tips in a somewhat run-down seafood restaurant in the town in Florida that the Williams family is vacationing in. She is a townie, and knows that vacationers look down on her kind. So she normally attempts to avoid vacationers. By vigorously throwing the Frisbee on resort beaches, but whatever. She at least says she normally tries to avoid vacationers. Oh, and to get back to that horrible boss? That’s Liz’s step-dad. Buster. While Chris is experimenting with the concept of not always obeying every order her parents sent her way, by not going to the brunch, she is literally run into by a presumably bikini clad girl. Hell, for all I know she’s naked. Was her clothing described? Bah, it probably was and I just don’t recall now. No matter – the woman that ran into Chris is Liz. They start to hang out together. Candace, Chris’ mom, attempts to ‘make trouble’ for the pair, since Liz isn’t from a ‘respectable’ family, but the two still date. Then . . . stuff happens and it’s something like ten years later and neither has seen the other, directly, since then. Several issues, I have, with how they meet again – beyond the concept that neither went out of their way to push further to try to get to each other after the ‘incident’ occurred, neither were to blame for their separation. Yet, when they get back together, something happens that seems to happen too often in books like this. One’s pissed off, angry, unable to ever again trust the other; the other is apologetic and gives every indication that they were to blame – without ever noting that they also had some issues ((view spoiler)) Right. So. I don’t like any of the people connected to Liz except for Buddy the gay friend. I mean from the summer part of the story. Joel and Terry from the second half of the story are good enough side characters. I don’t like anyone from Chris side of the story, except possibly Leslie. I’m not 100% sure I like either of the two leads. They appear a little too immature, even at 32 in the second half of the story. April 15 2016