#I don’t think she’ll ever learn to manipulate her own in plasticity but she also like

[mixelation]

Reborn!au Kushina trying to gossip with other jounin sensei and she’s like “yeah i taught my genin tree walking in like half an hour. No just the one the other two already knew. yeah my team is SO smart and my influence on them is amazing. Get on my level” meanwhile it takes the average genin weeks to be able to do this*

*manga implies it took roughly this amount of time for Naruto and Sasuke to get it, while this was their only priority. I assume they both learn faster than normal, and also the regular training method would schedule this around other missions/tasks

[villainever]

Touch Them, Talk to Them: Villaneve & Nuance in Villanelle's Psychopathy (2x07)

okay there is SO much to say about 2x07, but none of you want to read 10k words of analysis, so im going to pick one topic and stick to it (for now). in this post, im going to talk about how this episode is – I believe – a response to: a) villanelle’s season 1 claim that what she wants is, among other things, “someone to watch movies with”, b) eve’s question, “you really don’t feel anything?”, and c) martin’s assertion that to psychopaths, there are only ��i / it” relationships. i think aaron is a fantastic opposite/parallel to villanelle, because i believe that a great antagonist doesn’t just provide practical obstacles in the plot-path of the protagonist, but removes obstacles in their character-path. an example of what i meant by this is that in season 1, villanelle killed bill, killed frank, ruined evidence, impeded the investigation, and messed eve around (obstructing her plot-path). but she also drove eve to confront the (sociopathic) personality traits that she’d been repressing, and helped eve find her sense of purpose, confidence and power (smoothing her character-path). in season 2, however, villanelle has been shifted from an ~antagonist~ (ostensibly, as she doesn’t fully conform to this reductive role) to a protagonist, and aaron replaces her as the mysterious Other. just as we had with eve/villanelle, he is both Like and Not-Like villanelle. it’s the likeness that makes him an interesting (and dangerous) opponent for her, but it’s the not-likeness that’s so significant.

in 2x06, villanelle has her iconic “boredom” speech, and monologues about how nothing makes her feel anything. so at the start of 2x07, eve asks her if that’s all true – although it seemed authentic, it’s fair enough of eve to ask, considering how often and easily villanelle lies while playing her characters, and that villanelle prompts her (“you’ll feel better if you talk about it”). villanelle’s reply is that she doesn’t actually KNOW if she’s telling the truth or not. i don’t think she’s deflecting here; she appears subtly, but genuinely, torn. she DOESN’T know. 

she wants to give eve a real answer, but she can’t. this is probably the result of a whole lot of mixed information: she’s obviously been told she’s a psychopath (by lawyers and therapists and fellow prisoners and konstantin, then eve), and she knows she enjoys killing people, controlling them, and she is often bored, too, like she said, but none of those things feels like enough. so she offers eve the most she can give: “i feel things when i’m with you.” and while she definitely means this – we could’ve guessed it, considering the lengths she’ll go to to even end up in the same country as eve – she’s still conflicted.

so then, in the last quarter of 2x07, we get this scene between villanelle and aaron:

he describes them as “voids”, and villanelle doesn’t hesitate before agreeing. she’s a psychopath, right? she must be a void. she’s not “nice and normal”. she doesn’t mind stabbing or suffocating or toying with other people. between her and aaron, there’s this heartbeat of dissonant kinship. she’s already joked that they might be “soulmates”, so here, she’s just chatting with him. she’s certain they’re fundamentally the same, and there’s not much to be learned from this, so she’s mostly humouring him. so she asks something out of mild interest, but she thinks she already knows the answer.

“do you ever get lonely?” villanelle does. she finds being cooped up by herself to be tedious, and uses the time to prepare her next interactions – elaborately faking her death for konstantin; planning new presents or tricks or reminders for eve. importantly, in defiance of the “incapable of ‘i / you’ relationships” idea, she is able to apply this notion of isolation to eve. in 2x06, she tells konstantin she’s texting eve “because [eve] might be lonely”. sure, villanelle primarily wants to know how much of an impact she had by killing someone right in front of eve, but she’s not really lying; she can follow and understand the emotional process of “niko left - today’s been a high-stakes day - eve is alone - eve might want somebody to decompress with”. and she feels compelled to offer eve that, to make things better for her. but:

like i said, villanelle has been trying to reach out on the common ground she percieves them as having. she expects to relate to aaron in every way, because he’s a psychopath, too. except aaron goes on about how he knows so much about people, how he observes them. villanelle often does this as well – stalking eve in clothing stores back in season 1, googling her, watching through her windows, etc. but that’s not even near to enough of eve for villanelle, so her reaction is one of confusion. “you don’t want to talk to them? touch them? sleep with them?" 

"god, no.” aaron’s inflection is almost one of disgust, and definitely one of superiority. it’s like she’s asked him if he’s interested in hanging out with rocks. he can’t imagine having any involvement behind mild amusement at the opportunity to manipulate people, like toys. “do you?” he asks.

“yeah! i do. all the time.” it’s an immediate knee-jerk response, and though it’s soft, it’s emphatic. villanelle doesn’t doubt her answer. as the shot pans out, she gives a slight gasp, and almost smiles (mirroring that slight smile through her sobs in amsterdam). aaron remains impassive.

i believe that this exchange is maybe the MOST important of the episode, second only to eve/villanelle’s semi-sex scene. i also believe that it’s this conversation with aaron that leads villanelle to breaching that last unspoken barrier between her and eve. to be clear, i’m not trying to say villanelle isn’t a psychopath. one revelation does not fifty people un-kill. just a handful of hours before this moment, she murdered gemma with a plastic bag. so i’m not suggesting villanelle is just like any of us. she’s not, eve’s not, and we don’t want them to be. my point is that this moment clarifies a lot for villanelle. she’s been trying to figure out her own capacity for emotion and connection. one thing that she’s considered a fact about herself since before the pilot is that she “wants someone to watch movies with”. she expresses this desire to eve and konstantin with no hesitation; she’s sure, and this becomes a tacit premise in a lot of her reasoning over the whole show. i suspect villanelle doesn’t have any long-term understanding of what that really means, but she wants it anyway. she also plans most of her life around being able to get closer to eve, whether by teasing her or helping her or steering those in eve’s life to create the required conditions for a confrontation.

which is why aaron telling her he has NO need for human contact is such a big deal. because villanelle obviously DOES. she needs it, she wants it, she always has. anna, eve; villanelle develops romances that run deep – even though she’s no longer obsessed with anna by season 1, she still clearly feels a connection to her, and i don’t think she’d have killed her if anna hadn’t killed herself. then there’s konstantin, and she’s a little shit to him, but she definitely missed him, if the way she ran into his arms in 2x03 after being forced to put up with raymond for ten minutes is any indication. villanelle and konstantin have a rapport, and they trust each other (in that they both know each other well enough to guess when they might betray each other, and can account for it accordingly). essentially, until now, villanelle has been running with the equation “aaron = psychopath; me = psychopath; thus, aaron = me”. she’d assumed that part of psychopathy was just the level of human interest she has – which is why she doesn’t have an issue telling eve “like us, you mean”, even though eve has a long-term relationship and friends: that amount of involvement is still realistic for them, right? but aaron doesn’t have this need for people. so now, “aaron =/= me” for villanelle.

crucially, this interaction gives villanelle CONTEXT. rather than dealing in absolutes, she now has a spectrum of psychopathy: “aaron –> me –> eve –> carolyn –> konstantin –> etc.” aaron has inadvertently told her that what she feels is real. maybe she’d almost believed that, seeing as psychopaths can’t feel anything, can only have the “i / it”, that what she experienced was an infatuation or illusion (although this was shaken by eve stabbing her and by crying in amsterdam); but here’s aaron confirming that the idea of fascination with/caring for people has never even occurred to him. and it does NOTHING BUT occur to villanelle. eve runs circles around her head.

let’s look at that in practice. aaron’s most significant relationship is with his sister, who he treats like crap. he’s got her babysat, won’t listen to her opinions (“the grownups are talking, amber”), disrespects a friend she likes, calls her a “thickie”. then villanelle, the closest thing he has to a friend – he watches her without her consent, plays dress-up and stay-still like she’s a doll, tells her what she’s going to do (“spit it out”) and instructs her on how she should feel (“you’ll be bored”). but villanelle? her most important relationship is with eve. and sure, she makes really fucked up choices, but she also makes an effort to consider how eve might feel, what eve might want, what might appeal to her. AND, she’s IMPROVED at that. for example, in 1x03, she kills bill to get eve’s attention, but it’s at the price of hurting her. by 2x07, though, villanelle won’t kill niko. it’s mostly selfish – she doesn’t want eve to be mad at her – but if it were aaron, he’d try and force eve to be un-mad somehow, with money or threats, etc. (not that aaron would bother; he wouldn’t mind if she hated him) villanelle, though, she wants eve to ACTUALLY love her, not to HAVE to love her. villanelle is manipulative, obviously (e.g. telling niko that eve stabbed her to cause a rift between them), but she sees these indirect manipulations as a way to arrange things how she wants (it doesn’t really occur that there might be an alternative), and attempts to course-correct when eve sometimes gets upset. this is huge for villanelle. aaron gives her something NOBODY else can, by being like her, but less like her than she’d believed. the distinction between them might seem minute to viewers who have the full range of emotions/empathy, but for villanelle, that small difference means the world. it means her and eve are REAL, or real enough. martin said, “don’t add, take away”. but aaron proves that that can be true by degrees; villanelle is dotted with minuses, but fewer minuses than aaron. this is set up throughout the episode, kicked off thematically by eve’s question, but compounded by aaron’s consistent use of villanelle like a thing. THIS is an “i / it” dynamic. “stay there, exactly like that”. “wear this”. “these are your clothes now”. “we’re leaving”. “you’ll get ice-cream, and i’ll watch you eat it”. to him, villanelle is a totally disposable puppet. but over and over and over we’ve been shown that this ISN’T how villanelle perceives eve, and that’s definitely cemented in amsterdam, when villanelle breaks down over eve “forgetting” her. 

aaron, like villanelle, has up until this point mistaken them for exactly alike, but they’ve been miscommunicating all along. at lunch, villanelle said, “i dont like rich men” – meaning, i like women, specifically eve, and i have my own resources. aaron counters, “but you like money”. he’s misinterpreted, and thinks villanelle means, like him, that she never wants to have sex or talk with other humans. instead, he concludes that she likes the material object of money, and the subsequent ability to aquire items which might spark some kind of response – and this lines up with villanelle’s later remark about liking to buy and own things, which aaron recognises in himself. they’re replying to each other, but really, they’re having slightly different conversations. so what does this mean, overall? we’ve known forever that villanelle wants eve to be the person she “watches movies with”, but this conversation tells villanelle she could maybe be that person to eve, too. villanelle can “love” in her own unique way, can be present. and because eve’s stepping off the ledge and meeting her in the middle, neither of them will have to be anything other than who they actually are. and they can be who they actually are, together. this analysis got a lot more muddled than i wanted it to, because im a lil wine drunk after haning out with some friends, but i had Thoughts. i have many more Thoughts about the villaneve hookup, hugo, gemma’s death, why aaron is such a creepy villain, carolyn’s plans, etc. but i’ll leave it here for now. i hope this made some sense lmfao.

[hope-for-olicity]

Fabulous Olicity Fanfic Friday - March 29th, 2019

Happy Friday! So this is my attempt to both thank awesome fanfic writers for their amazing work and offer my recommendations to anyone who is interested. Here are the fantastic fanfic stories I read this week! They are posted in the order I read them. This and all previous Fabulous Olicity Fanfic posts can be found on my blog.

Run to the Water multi-chapter Complete by @someonesaidcake - The year is 1912, Oliver was 9 and far too old to be babysitting that nonsensical girl Felicity whose parents owned the cattle ranch where his parents worked and lived, but she won him over with oat and raisin biscuits and soon became his little blonde sidekick...with a completely unrequited crush on him. Years later she returns from boarding school and more than bush fires ignite in the changing times.... https://archiveofourown.org/works/7455738/chapters/16942293

Re-Airrow 2x23 by @lostolicityscenes - Holy Smoaks! Here we are at the finale. This was another fast paced and tightly plotted episode with so many epic Olicity moments. But, one thing I still wonder about is how much Felicity knew going into the mansion. She seems genuinely shocked when Oliver says I love you, yet later in the episode Oliver replies “we both did” when she says “you really sold it.” So I wrote this sort of AU that casts that first scene in a different light. I think he meant to say it, but realized how much he MEANT IT in the moment. Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed Season 2 of Re-Airrow. https://lostolicityscenes.tumblr.com/post/183631815031/re-airrow-2x23

Will Fate Allow? multi-chapter WIP by @mindramblingsfics - Seeing her parent's marriage dissolve at a young age made Felicity yearn for a healthy marriage of her own. She thought she'd finally found what she was looking for when Billy Malone showed up offering her what her heart desired. She thought she was happy and had everything she could want, but things began to unravel. Slowly she turned to someone who had become an unparalleled constant in her life...Oliver Queen. Oliver and Felicity are the definition of polar opposites. He is the mob boss that strikes fear in the hearts many, while she is seen as the sweet girl next door, but there is more to both of them underneath the surface. Along the way, they become connected to one another leading to their lives being intertwined forever. https://archiveofourown.org/works/16521596/chapters/38699951

Not My Dog by @sentence-fragments - Oliver lost his dog. https://archiveofourown.org/works/8298470

Hey Baby, I Think I Wanna Marry You by @felicityollies - prompt: impaired judgement - After a night of drinking and laced brownies, Oliver and Felicity find themselves fooling around. What they didn’t expect was for one of them to propose marriage. https://archiveofourown.org/works/11034534/chapters/26572173

It Takes Two by @mogirl97 - When Oliver Queen finds himself short of a partner for his upcoming Crossfit competition, he resigns himself to having to drop out... until he walks in on a blonde stranger in the gym and has a change of heart (in more ways than one) https://archiveofourown.org/works/11788236

Forgotten Treasures by @muslimsmoak - Oliver and William are trying to find their way with each other and it doesn’t help Oliver when he finds will’s green arrow action figure thrown in the garbage. https://archiveofourown.org/works/11806263

Impaired Judgement by @wetsuiton - Felicity takes a bullet for Dinah and gets super cute and loopy on the pain meds https://archiveofourown.org/works/11084547/chapters/26651937

The One Where Drunk Felicity Checks an Item Off Her Bucket List by @wrldtravler - With the help of a little liquid courage, Felicity finally attempts to check off the most unthinkable item on her bucket list with a little help from the Hood. https://archiveofourown.org/works/11819325

The Fan multi-chapter WIP by @leuska - For the past couple of months, Felicity Smoak, previous child star known to the world through her alter ego Lisy the Tech Whiz, who ended her career and her growing popularity at the age of thirteen rather abruptly, has sporadically received disturbing notes and gifts in her mail. Police believe the notes to be just little tokens of appreciation by a former fan. Despite having left the spotlight over a decade ago and living in anonymity since, the fan mail keeps coming, increasing in frequency as well as intensity. The last drop is when Felicity receives another letter with a love note. A scary, ominous note. A note written in human blood.FBI director Amanda Waller tasks her best Agent to the case. Oliver Queen, a criminal profiler, is currently working on a special task force formed between SCPD and FBI to catch a man dubbed the Start City Slasher, who has murdered at least three young women in the past nine months. Agent Queen is not thrilled with the prospect of holding a former princess’ hand through her problem with a simple stalker while a serial killer is still at large. However, once meeting her, Oliver finds there is nothing easy or simple about Felicity Smoak as their worlds start to intertwine. https://archiveofourown.org/works/17726573/chapters/41820368

Do You Remember multi-chapter WIP by @smkkbert - Eight years after Oliver and Felicity became teenage parents, they have everything they could have ever hoped for and more. They have a good life in a nice house. Their marriage is happy, and a second baby is on its way. The calm they have settled in is interrupted abruptly when a stalker starts terrorizing Felicity. https://archiveofourown.org/works/17409059/chapters/40978307

Impaired Judgement by @cruzrogue - John Diggle is out of it by an aphrodisiac truth drug and its awkward field mission. He tells Felicity how he appreciated her and then it leads to how he thinks she is very beautiful and sexy and how he tried to control himself in the beginning before Oliver got a clue and they were just friends. When Oliver shows up Diggle needs his help too. John has no clue what was said. Oliver and Felicity promise to never tell him. https://archiveofourown.org/works/11806272

What's Yours is Mine by @laxit21 - This is some pure, unapologetic fluff. I’m not sorry. https://laxit21.tumblr.com/post/183633727946/whats-yours-is-mine

PrepPy GoThic LoVe multi-chapter WIP by @cruzrogue - New Freshman at MIT, Felicity wants to party and she meets another drunken party guest Oliver and they hit it off. Not really thinking of consequences have a wonderful time together. Oliver been to two different schools and this one he finally wants to do better because of a beacon of hope that rubbed off on him with just one night a passionate gothic girl changes him for the better. https://archiveofourown.org/works/11805543/chapters/26631204

From Somewhere Within multi-chapter WIP by @smoaking-greenarrow - Their connection has always felt natural to them, safe and secure. But others tend to fear what they don’t understand, and as far as their enemies are concerned, the world isn’t ready to accept two people who can know each other the way that Oliver and Felicity do. https://archiveofourown.org/works/16009244/chapters/37356257

To Sacrifice the Sun multi-chapter WIP by @emmilynestill - Oliver and Felicity are ARGUS agents working on a mission in Mexico, the two share some very important history. http://archiveofourown.org/works/7510744/chapters/22505918

One Night multi-chapter WIP by @suttons-brady - Felicity paces back and forth in her bathroom, fingers playing with each other in front of her stomach and her bottom lip pulled between her teeth. How the hell did she get here? She prides herself on being smart -- on being a genius, actually. Hell, she skipped eighth grade! So how in the hell had she ended up here, burning a hole in the floor of her bathroom, waiting for a flimsy plastic stick to tell her if her life is over? http://archiveofourown.org/works/11076792/chapters/24706029

Providence multi-chapter WIP by @so-caffeinated - Will Queen has struggled in silence in the year since he was shot. But when a shadowy crime lord known as Domino targets the only woman Will’s ever truly loved, fate forces him to confront his demons in ways he never could have imagined… Whether he wants to or not. Amelia Prescott has fought to take control of her life since learning two years ago that her personal and professional worlds were manipulated by others. But nothing can prepare her for just how hard she'll have to fight to set her own course, especially when her heart belongs to a damaged man and a crime lord threatens her every professional move... And her life. Destiny brings them together, but as chaos reigns and personal demons haunt Will and Amelia both, it may also threaten to tear them apart. https://archiveofourown.org/works/17919056/chapters/42308753

Love and Little Cupcakes multi-chapter WIP by @christinabeggs - Felicity loved sweets so much that she paid no attention to her lovelife. Until Thea Queen came into her store wanting fabulous cupcakes for her sixteenth birthday. SO ADORABLE! http://archiveofourown.org/works/12400539/chapters/28216053

I Regret Nothing by somewhereelse Season 2 Missing Scene/AU. Drunk! Oliver is sassy. Sober! Felicity is over it. https://archiveofourown.org/works/11823810

Wait, Did I Already Do That? by @laureningall - Thea is a woman on a mission. She wants to take Felicity out for a ‘belated bachelorette party’. Needless to say, a busy day leads to impaired judgment and some unintended consequences for Felicity during her night out on the town with the girls. https://archiveofourown.org/works/11837235

seemingly impossible (but not untrue) multi-chapter WIP by @alexiablackbriar13 - Young genius historian Dr Felicity Smoak unknowingly and accidentally calls up a bewitched alchemical manuscript within the Oxford Bodleian Libraries - a book that has been lost for centuries. Descended from an old and distinguished line of witches, Felicity wants nothing to do with magic, despite her unruly and powerful abilities. But her discovery of Ashmole 782 sets the world of creatures stirring; with a mystery afoot and new, dangerous magical abilities manifesting for her to navigate, she is approached by the enigmatic vampire biochemist Professor Oliver Queen, who seems to have a deep interest in both the manuscript… and her. Based on A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. https://archiveofourown.org/works/16224353/chapters/37923743  

2 + 2 Equals a Family multi-chapter Complete by @mogirl97 - When Oliver Queen and Felicity Smoak both reach for the last Lego Batman set on the shelf at the same time one December night while holiday present shopping for their kids, they have no idea that their chance encounter is going to change their lives. https://archiveofourown.org/works/11853030/chapters/26760468

With the Speed of an Arrow multi-chapter WIP by @academyofshipping - Oliver Queen’s elite and silver-spoon life has taken some blows in the past few years, but he is still the carefree billionaire everyone knows of and loves. When his role in the family business is in jeopardy and he is introduced to a motley of new people, his status quo is threatened. With a changed perspective, Oliver realizes his feeling for his best friend and anchor-in-life, Felicity Smoak, may be more than just platonic. OR A modern adaption of Jane Austen’s Emma with a gender swap* and no island. *Knowing that gender is not binary https://archiveofourown.org/works/16559846/chapters/38799857

The Proposal multi-chapter WIP by @spaztronautwriter - When Felicity Smoak finds herself in a bind, she enlists the help of her assistant Oliver Dearden to help keep her from being deported and losing her job. The problem is, in order to do so, they kind of have to get married... http://archiveofourown.org/works/13727445/chapters/31538406

Overwatch multi-chapter WIP by @it-was-a-red-heeler - A burglary attempt convinces the Mayor of Starling City to hire Smoak Technologies to strengthen his security. But between the sassy AI watching him 24/7 and the personal trainer with his own reasons to kill him, Oliver may wish he’d stuck with his baseball bat for protection. https://archiveofourown.org/works/17500640/chapters/41221793

// @emmaamelia95 // @mel-loves-all // @oliverfel4 // @green-arrows-of-karamel // @coal000 // @miriam1779 // @memcjo// @captainolicitysbedroom // @tdgal1 // @spaztronautwriter // @lalawo1// @quiveringbunny // @wrongshipper // @thebookjumper // @vaelisamaza // @myhauntedblacksoul // @lovelycssefan // @laurabelle2930 // 

[creationsincarnate]

ok I'm usually not this lazy but that's a long ass post so count by fives and give me what comes out of that

You’re asking for a novel missy.

Gif slightly applies as I attempt this challenge. Also gives me a chance to test out Elfo as a mun FC (as I have learned I am very much like Elfo clueless wise.)

005. Are they in good health?

Generally, yes. Specifics depend on the verse. ex. In verse 2 she’s still recovering from slashes to her back made by a beast god and it can hurt from time to time because she never gave herself enough time to heal, but in the 1st that hasn’t happened yet and she doesn’t have any injuries.

10. Do they believe in love at first sight?

No she doesn’t. This is partially because she doesn’t look for it, and also partially because she’s read enough stories (especially Shakespeare) where love at first sight ended horribly but love developed from conversation worked out far better. 

015. Are they most likely to fight with their fists or their tongue?

Most likely to win with her tongue and use it in the first verse, but in the 2nd and 3rd if she’s very upset she’s likely to throw hands as well.

I’m actually going to write a letter from Snow to her mother for my creative writing class that focuses on this, where she’s wound up in the past, she’s confused, she’s angry, and one of the few things she’s damn sure about is Thor is at fault somewhere and she will punch him in the face. She knows he’s not someone to piss off and could demolish her, but this is a case where her anger is winning out and patience is too thin to care, and she is determined to find Thor somewhere and sucker punch him.

The following letter will be how she finally managed it, and how now she’s in hiding with a teenage Loki cause teenage Thor is pissed and Loki is finding the fact that she slugged Thor in the jaw and near broke her hand upon FIRST MEETING too hilarious to let her die before he can convince Thor to talk to Frigga for the reason. She relates to her mother that it was a very bad idea. She feels better now though.

020. What are their hobbies?

Her dogs really, or at least researching ways to better care for them and finding fun DIY things that are safe and could turn out well, like making peanut butter filled chew toys and such or comfy beds. Same with Mythology, she loves researching in general, but mythology is a big draw for her. She usually leans on singing though since she has more access to being able to hum when bored or thinking in most cases rather than researching stuff.

025. What do they consider beautiful in others personality-wise?

Patience and Forgiveness. In her first verse she works really hard to live up to these values, but she finds it almost impossibly difficult. This is due to anger with the gods and being hesitant to forgive or hold patience with them and instead regulates her patience to being strictly for Huanglong. The baby dragon gets into antics.  She admires people who can still retain their patience or display forgiveness to others, especially those who wronged them. When she can practice it less she especially admires it.

030. Do they believe in the afterlife?

She‘s visited the immortal realm which holds all afterlives, so yes she knows she’s going somewhere after everything.

035. What is the most important rule your character lives by?

Protect her loved ones above all else. If it ever comes down to a stranger, the world, or her parents/Huanglong/her friends, she’d choose the last every time. It’s the only reason she’s still putting up with the gods, because she knows her family and friends are at stake otherwise.

040. What is their obsession?

She’s obsessed with the show Galavant. She will pick and choose songs from it that somewhat fit her situations if she needs stress relief and just start singing. Not sure if I wanna place the book as just after the 1st season finishes or the 2nd.

045. Does your character have any chronic medical conditions?

Not in the first verse, or really in the 2nd. She does develop anxiety during her journey though. This is usually tied to magic in general, despite her developing a dependency on it as well.

050. How does your character feel about their own mortality?

She knows it’s coming and she knows where she’ll be going afterwards, despite the fact that she doesn’t like it. She’s not thrilled about it and would prefer to have control over it, but she’s not terrified of it either.

055. Is your character an introvert or an extrovert?

Snow is an introvert, Huanglong is an extrovert. He is a very tiring little dragon to raise, especially since people don’t realize dragons ever really existed/technically still exist. And he wants everyone’s non-plastic jewelry and to talk them into letting him have it. Snow needs to intervene often.

060. What is your character’s attitude toward education and learning?

She advocates for it and even planned to become a teacher. She was one for a few years, but she eventually decided to open a bookstore instead since her dependents increased and renting and selling books made it easier for her to watch people she needed to and teach people about books at the same time/give them access to learning.

065. Is your character better at leading or following? Which do they prefer?

Following is preferred and Snow doesn’t really like leading. In the 3rd verse she starts getting better at it though as she is realizing she needs to lead herself rather than follow the whims of the gods and force them to help her take action to fix their mistakes.

070. What about your character is cowardly?

Probably her inability to let people go. If it puts her loved ones at risk she is very unlikely to let them do it, to the point where a death is planned in the book (occurs between 1st verse and 2nd verse here) that forces her to face this fear and learn to deal with it. Her response is to double down and further hide Huanglong for fear of losing him, which to others makes her look strong and protective to others but can also appear cowardly because she’s actively avoiding her duties because she’s afraid to entrust Huan’s safety to anyone else but also to scared to put him in danger with her. Her progress actually slows until she can manage to face this fear and realize she can protect Huan while also doing the dangerous job of tracking Loki that the gods sent her on in the first place.

075. Is your character ticklish?

She’ll deny it, but her feet are ticklish. Enough so you might get kicked if you try to tickle them cause it causes a pretty big physical reaction.

080. How easy is it for others to read your character’s emotions?

Easy in the first verse, but not very easy in the 2nd and 3rd as she becomes incredibly guarded. She has some acting training and that training was made into a mask in those verses to avoid people trying to manipulate her. If people aren’t sure how you’re actually responding, its more difficult for them to play you for a fool.

085. Describe your character in three words.

Disgruntled Dragon Mom.

090. How bodily expressive is your character?

Depends on where she is emotionally. The higher the emotion, the more she moves. Her default is not much though, maybe a hand wave, weight shift, or small arm movement but nothing exaggerated.

095. Name three things most would not expect your character to be able to do.

Shoot a gun. Snow hates loud noises, almost as much as a dog or cat (she’s not a fan of fourth of july fireworks), so most people wouldn’t expect her to be willing to put something that makes a loud noise anywhere near her own ears. They’d be right, she is generally unwilling, but she has had firearm training courtesy of her grandpa. While she prefers throwing knives like her grandma taught her, she is completely capable of grabbing someones gun and shooting someone down as well. “An Aruson never misses” is her matrilineal family motto, and Snow covered all her bases.

Ride a horse. She’s not an expert, but she was raised riding horses so she developed this skill since childhood (guns were when she was a teen). Most people don’t peg her as a horse person because she lives in an apartment in a rural area, dresses in more of a biker chic manner, and likes combat boots rather than horse riding ones. Most are surprised when they learn she actually owns a horse of her own and knows how to ride her in the western style or race barrels with her mare. 

Speak Norwegian, if only conversationally and mostly with slang. She’s not an expert, and any Norwegian native would realize it’s not her first language and be able to talk circles around her, but she could survive for a while with only minimal help from locals if dropped in the country. This is again because of her grandparents, as they’re Norwegian immigrants and spoke their native language around her fairly often from an early age. Her mother is bilingual (spoke Norwegian at home, English everywhere else) but her father only speaks English, so her mother usually regulated speaking Norwegian to muttering, exasperation, when grandparents visited, or not directly talking to Snow or her father. This didn’t let Snow be surrounded by the language like her mother was, so she didn’t pick up on it as completely as her mother. She has the Northern Norwegian accent down though.

100. Does your character dream? If so, what do they dream about?

Sometimes. Mostly about very mundane things, like running late for school, going through a day, etc. before waking up. Recently she’s had a lot of hiking dreams or dreams about trying to sort Huan’s growing horde and the baby dragon just keeps throwing new stuff at her at random with no regard for her attempt at organization.

[mazecraft]

Rachel in the Dark Room Ep 4

Warning:

Spoilers for Life is Strange and Life is Strange: Before the Storm.

Trigger Warning:

This fanfic will have disturbing images, including scenes of kidnapping, date rape, drug use, violence, sexual content and adult language. Recommended for mature audiences and viewer discretion is advised.

∞

“Nice Chloe we’re having,” Rachel murmured, her head resting on Chloe’s chest.

Chloe groaned. “Oh god, I’m never gonna live that down, am I?”

“Nope. It was the moment I knew I would fall in love with you.” She snuggled in closer to Chloe. “It makes me smile every time I think of it, so you’re just going to have to bear my reminiscing.” Chloe was quiet long enough that Rachel lifted her head from Chloe’s chest to look at her. Their eyes locked and moments later, so did their lips.

“I love you, lion-crab” Chloe whispered as they dozed off to sleep.

∞

“Heeey…where is my lioness?” Frank asked. Something…wasn’t right. Rachel watched herself walk through a wooden door. She entered a room that looked like the set from when she played Nora in Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, but it was all wrong. A gray couch with a glass top coffee table sat in the middle of the room. The raven perched on the edge of the coffee table preoccupied with grooming its feathers. A window with a view of a brick wall was covered over with plastic strips like the ones used in industrial refrigerators or walk-in freezers instead of curtains. On one wall was a painting of a cartoonish girl with pigtails ripping open her own throat, viscera and entrails spilling out. Another wall had a picture of Frank’s dog, Pompidou. But every time she saw it out of the corner of her eye, it looked like the dog was in the process of decaying, like in a time-lapse film. Frank was wearing a suit one size too big, with the tie loosened, and drinking bourbon from a green triangle shaped glass. His hair was disheveled, but that was the only thing that seemed right about him.

“I’m right here, my love!” Rachel found herself saying. What the fuck? That wasn’t what she was going to say at all. “What do you need, my dear?” Frank reached out and hugged her around her waist, touching her nose with a light tap of his finger.

��You mean other than you?” he asked. “You are the light of my life!”

“Oh, Frankie B!” Rachel felt herself blushing. She looked over at the fourth wall, where the audience of the play should have been. But instead there was just a blurry gray wall. Movement in the wall looked like swirling and eddying smoke behind glass. Frank moved her over to the couch and sat her down. Then he kneeled in front of her with his hands in hers.

“There is one thing though, that you could help me with.” Frank said hesitantly. “But no, I couldn’t ask it of you…”

“Oh, do tell me what it is! I want to help. I just know I could do it for you!” Rachel wanted to vomit.

“Well, I wanted it to be a surprise. I know how you like surprises.” He winked at her. “But I’ve been setting aside a little nest egg for years now and I am really close to finally buying a house. I’ve got a great property already picked out at Pan Estates.” Rachel looked at him dumbfounded.

“That’s wonderful! We can stay in Arcadia Bay forever!” Rachel’s stomach heaved. “But what can I do?”

“Well I’m closer now than ever, and business is booming! I’m moving a new product that brings in a lot more money. But I need more distributors.” He hesitated. “It wouldn’t take much effort, and you already know the buyers. All you have to do is take it with you to Blackwell and give it to them.”

“You would trust me to do that for you?” Rachel asked. Please make this stop. “I thought it was going to be something complicated. You know how confused I sometimes get. But of course, I will!”

Frank smiled but was interrupted by a buzzing sound.

“Who could that be at this hour?” Rachel started.

“Just a work acquaintance.” Frank said. “Now, mind you don’t say anything out of place. And don’t be surprised. He is a friend of yours, I think, but don’t tell him that you are going to work for me, also. He’s terribly insecure about his position in my company. You do know how to be discreet don’t you, my lioness?” He walked over to the door and opened it to let Nathan in. He was wearing his red jacket and a button up shirt half undone. For some reason he had Kelly with him. She looked half unconscious with an arm draped across his shoulders and held up by his other arm around her waist.

“You gotta help me quick, Frank!” Nathan was saying. “She’s about to wake up!”

“Calm yourself!” Frank said. “Just set her on the couch there. I’ll get you a fresh vial right now.” He walked through a door on the opposite side from where she and Nathan had come in.

“Is she going to be alright?” Rachel wanted to fucking scream. “She really doesn’t look well.”

“Oh, she’ll be alright.” Nathan sneered. “She’s going on a trip to Baltimore to see her family. But she needs to stay well rested so that her pictures come out ok. Can’t have her fucking up the shots!” Frank returned from the other room with a small glass vial and a syringe.

“Here.” Frank said. “You know I don’t do this part.” Nathan grabbed the vial and needle and deftly filled the syringe. He brushed back Kelly’s hair and put the needle to the side of her neck and squeezed the plunger. Kelly’s eyes opened and she looked right at Rachel. Her eyes were flat and lifeless, and a maggot crawled out of her tear duct and into her nostril.

“Thanks Frank.” Nathan said picking up Kelly again. “You’re a life saver.” He walked over to the door and leaned Kelly against the wall so he could open the door and shove her through it. When they were gone, Frank sat down on the couch and sighed heavily.

“You see. Business is so busy I am taking house calls.” Frank shook his head. “With Blackwell covered by you and Nathan, and Arcadia High School covered by Chloe…well anyway, I’ll be able to buy the house near the end of the year!”

Rachel suddenly felt like the floor dropped out from beneath her feet. She knew yet another mindless vapid response was on the tip of her tongue but she forced it away violently. “Wait a minute…What did you just say?”

“I said I could buy the house by the end of the year.”

“No. What did you say about Chloe?” Her voice was anything but sweet, and she knew it, and she didn’t care.

“Oh. Now don’t you worry your pretty head over any of that. I didn’t mean to say anything about it. You just help me get where I wanna be and I’ll help you. You want to be a model, right? Here, let me take your picture. Wouldn’t you love to dance for me again?”

“No. Actually. I fucking wouldn’t. Now explain what you said about Chloe. Now.”

“Who do you think you are talking to like this.” Frank said getting up angrily. “After all the petting and spoiling I’ve done for you. You gotta lot of nerve!”

“Chloe.” Rachel said matter-of-fact. “Is she peddling for you, too?”

“You know, I would have thought you’d learned your lesson a long time ago about asking me about my business. Let’s just relax here a minute, alright. Why are you being so cold suddenly? I really don’t understand where you’re coming from.”

“Yeah, no shit Frank!” Rachel said. “You’ve never understood me. You are no better than my father. You’re both more than happy with me so long as I play the role you imagine me to be, never really bothering to learn who the fuck I really am. ‘I have been performing tricks for you, Frank. That’s how I’ve survived. You wanted it like that. It’s because of you I’ve made nothing of my life.’”

“How in the fuck can you say that? I took a blood oath for you. You ungrateful bitch!” Frank grabbed her by the arm and shoved her toward the room he had gone into earlier to get Nathan’s drugs. The door opened up into his RV bedroom. The bed was disheveled and the room was cramped and cluttered. Frank was back in his normal street clothes. He had a knife in his hand and held it up against the side of her throat.

“Go ahead.” Rachel dared him. She exposed more of her neck and glared at him. “Cut my throat. But tell me the truth! Is Chloe slinging drugs for you?” Frank held the knife with white knuckles, seeming to struggle with himself. Pompidou growled and whined from the corner of the room in the silence that stretched out as they glared at each other. Finally, he lowered the knife and seemed to deflate.

“Fine. Whatever. You wanna know the truth. Chloe needed money to fix up that piece of shit truck of hers. So, she’s selling pot and molly at Arcadia High. Big fucking deal. But she came to me. I didn’t ask her, she asked me.” Frank tossed the knife on a small side table. “But let me tell you something. If you think I wanted you to be something other than real with me all this time than you didn’t know me either. I would never want anything for you that you wouldn’t want for yourself.”

“Really?” Rachel asked incredulously. He had loved her spirit and feistiness so long as it wasn’t directed at him. But every time she had so much as said a word he didn’t like, he came down on her like an avalanche. This was never going to work. Plus, he had hated how she prioritized Chloe over him, and took it out on both of them. He had even used the threat of telling Chloe and about him and Rachel in order to manipulate her. The only reason he hadn’t ever done it was because he knew it would end their fling.

Wait, Chloe was selling for Frank, to make money to fix her truck, so she could take Rachel to Los Angeles? Rachel had gone to Frank for the same reason behind Chloe’s back, because she didn’t want Chloe to have to do what they both ended up doing anyway! Only it had backfired when Rachel realized she was momentarily infatuated with him. She had lied to Chloe about everything, at first because she wanted to surprise her with the money, and then again when things went too far with Frank. She’d kept it all hidden, even when it was over. The irony was bitter.

“Didn’t I say I wouldn’t look back? Tell me this, Frank. Where am I right now?”

“I wish I knew. Fuck. I really wish I knew.”

“That makes the two of us”

∞

Rachel was sitting in the junkyard hideout she and Chloe had decorated. Even in the pitch black of night, she felt safe here. They had spent so much time in this place. It really was a home away from home. Now that she had a dorm room at Blackwell instead of living with her piece of shit dad, it seemed more like home than anywhere else really. The candles on the makeshift table in the center of the small brick building were flickering wildly sending shadows dancing along the walls and making it hard for her to write. She didn’t really want to write the letter anyway, but she had been putting it off for too long, and she needed to come clean and take whatever consequences came with it. What would Chloe say when she read it? God. Are you seriously writing this on graph paper? You don’t even have the decency to rip someone’s heart out on finer stationary?

A flicker of blue light out of the corner of her eye startled her as a butterfly fluttered into the room through the open doorway. Shimmering and bright with a light of its own, it was beautiful! But what was it doing roaming around in the dark? It moved around the perimeter of the shack’s brick walls and then danced around Rachel’s head before landing on the letter she was writing.

“What sort of magic has brought you to me?” Rachel laughed. “I’ve always felt like anything was possible this time of night. Maybe you are the reason why…” The butterfly slowly flapped its wings in response.  

Remember me, always.

The voice in her head felt strange, yet familiar. Like the raven, but quieter and buzzing like a bee. Ash began to fall from the sky through the gaping hole in the roof. Rachel felt a stirring from deep within herself. A memory of another magical night walking with Chloe after performing in the Tempest. Back when everything seemed so much simpler. Back when she still felt more like herself. A time when she hadn’t yet made terrible mistakes, and all the world was set out before her with infinite possibilities.

“How can I ever get back to that place again?” she asked. The Butterfly fluttered up into the air and wrapped its wings around itself. Silver threads seemed to weave themselves into a circle around the butterfly until it was completely covered in a cocoon hovering in the middle of the room. The cocoon became more condensed and smaller until it was finally as small as a mote of dust and then was gone. The ashes stopped falling. Rachel stared at the space where it had disappeared, more confused than ever.

She looked back to the letter she was writing. Rereading it to pick up where she left off, the whole thing felt utterly wrong. The words and tone didn’t even feel like her own. Her confession sounded trivial and callous. What’s worse, the last few lines revealed she had no intention of even giving Chloe the letter. She was obviously just writing it for herself, just like everything else she had ever done. She’d written “I don’t want you to hate me.” All about Rachel. Her description of her newest lover sounded idiotic now that she read them back.

Hindsight is a bitch, eh?

The raven was looking down at her from its perch on the edge of the gaping hole in the ceiling.

Rachel looked up at it and shook her head in dismay. “Why can’t I ever just tell the fucking truth?”

You can’t tell a truth if you don’t already know what it is.

The ever-present invisible knife in Rachel’s heart twisted again. “I don’t know what to do! Can’t you help me?” she asked with tears in her eyes.

Truth isn’t in what you think. It is in what you feel.

The words hit Rachel like a bucket of icy water. How long had she wandered in a stupor mistaking her thoughts of how things ought to be, or how she wished they were, confusing those thoughts for feelings. She had talked herself into feelings that weren’t even true time and time again. Even her desire to leave Arcadia Bay was based on the thought that she didn’t want to be there, long before her family ever left Long Beach. She never really gave it a chance, even after meeting Chloe. Hell, she focused on their shared desire to leave instead of on what really connected them. A strange and inexplicable connection she had never known before or since. Real, actual love.

“Who pays any attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you; wholly, to be a fool.” Rachel quoted, tears streaming down her face. The raven leapt up into the air and flew away. The sound of a car engine approaching snapped Rachel out of her reverie. The engine shut off and rusted squeaky hinges of a car door opening and slamming shut were followed by boots on gravel approaching. Rachel grabbed the letter and crumpled it into a ball, tossing it into a corner trash basket. She turned toward the door just as Chloe appeared in it.

Chloe was wearing a black denim jacket over a white tank top with a buffalo skull on it. Her necklace of 3 bullets hung heavily on her chest. Her short blue-dyed hair was tucked up under a beanie and her ripped up jeans were tucked into dark cowboy boots. She looked at Rachel in a mixture of surprise and delight. The candlelight was flickering orange on her face, lighting up her gorgeous eyes.

“What the hell, Rach? Did you stub your toe or something?” Chloe broke out in a grin. Rachel laughed through her tears and leapt at Chloe wrapping her arms around her neck and her legs around her waist. The only thing that saved them from tumbling to the ground was the door jamb that banged into Rachel’s shins painfully. But she couldn’t care less. Rachel let her legs slide back to the floor as they kissed, holding Chloe’s head in her hands as if it were the most precious thing that ever existed.

Sometime later, they were sitting on top of the cabin of an old dilapidated fishing boat in the junkyard looking up at the stars. They were sharing a blanket Chloe had brought out from the cab of her truck and smoking a cigarette. Rachel was reveling in the feel of her hip pressed up against Chloe’s under the blanket, and her head resting on her shoulder.

“Chloe,” she said. Chloe looked down at her and met her eyes. “I am sorry I haven’t been around much lately. I-I just want you to know…”

“I do know, jerk.” Chloe smirked at her.

“No. Seriously. I need to say it.” Rachel sat up straight and looked into Chloe’s eyes getting lost in their soulful depth. Chloe seemed to be feeling the same way because she stared right back in wonder and smiled. “I love you, Chloe Price. Never forget that.”

“I love you, too,” Chloe replied simply. “I miss you. I wish I could just stay here with you forever. The shitty thing is I can’t really remember my dreams anymore. Its been over a year. I don’t remember nightmares anymore either but…”

“I need you to find me. Do you think you can remember that?”

“I will find you Rachel. Not even a fucking Balrog and Cthulhu combined could stop me!”

“What about a ‘motherfucking dragon on a leash’?” Rachel laughed. Before Chloe could reply a light upon the horizon suddenly rose like the sun in fast forward bleaching out the night and the junkyard with it. Rachel heard Chloe’s voice echoing “I’ll find you” before the bright light was replaced by darkness.

∞

Crickets are chirping in the darkness. Giant evergreens are swaying in the breeze above her against stars diffused by mist that dampened other sounds. Off to her left, Rachel can make out the jumbled mess of the junkyard. Rachel walked among the trees, a shadow among shadows. A stray dog walking along the perimeter of the junkyard stopped to sniff the air. Rachel knelt down to call him over but the dog raised its hackles and growled before whimpering at her and running away in fright. Why am I in this place, she wondered. As if in answer a bright golden light on the horizon cast the shadows of the trees toward her. She watched in wonder as the light grew brighter and came closer, until it formed into a doe that bounded over the bushes growing on the other side of a small clearing. It approached her slowly and bowed its head toward her just out of reach.

Rachel sat down in front of the creature that cast an eerie glow all around them. The doe folded its legs underneath it and rested her head in Rachel’s lap. Day dawned suddenly upon them, the grass was soft and fragrant flowers bloomed all around them. Rachel laid her hand on the doe’s head and it looked up at her gently. Are you going to tell me who you are, or like the raven, just going to remain a mystery to me? The doe looked around the clearing and then stared back at her, as if the answer were obvious. Rachel felt content, and at ease with the doe. She thought back to the weeks prior and saw herself from an outsider’s point of view. It was distant. She saw her actions as the flailing and fumbling clumsiness of a child still learning to walk. Such a silly thing she was, full of her own self-importance and blind to the dangers she stumbled into with the pompous confidence of a drunk walking a tightrope. She didn’t feel judgment or reproach, just sober evaluation. The sun moved across the sky like a drop of honey slipping toward the horizon. The flowers retreated with the light, and in the gloomy dusk, a car approached and parked outside the gate of the junkyard.

She knew that car. It was Mark Jefferson. And he wasn’t alone.

(to be continued…)

Thank you for reading! Link to Episode 5 in the comments

Mazecrafted 2018©

[jvdyy]

— ✧SYDNEY PARK? NO, THAT’S JUST JUDITH 'JUDY' RICHARDS ! THEY’RE THE TWENTY-ONE YEAR OLD DAUGHTER OF REED RICHARDS & SUSAN STORM. I HEAR THEY’RE EFFULGENT & SAGE BUT TEND TO BE NAIVE & HASTY. HER FILE SAYS THAT HER POWER IS UNDISCOVERED (INK MANIPULATION). { kylo, est, 19, they/them }

hey, hey, hey! it’s kylo here and if you don’t know me then it’s probably because it’s my first time in this group. you guys looked all cool and i’ve never had the guts to join till now because i had this idea for a muse that i’m honored i get to play here. she’s pretty cool and i am still fleshing her out so it’ll take a bit to get all the coolness set up, but i guarentee you i’ll add it here when i find out more information. speaking of info, there’s some bullets below this along with some wanted connections and IF YOU’D LIKE TO PLOT PLEASE LIKE THIS OR HIT ME UP IN THOSE PRIVATE/INSTANT MESSAGES!

IMPORTANT PAGES

connections

statistics

ABOUT THE DORK

(pregnancy, violence tw)

so let’s bring it all the way back to when she was born since that’s a good place to start. now she’s not a spin on valeria or franklin in any shape or form, but to honor the o.g. marvel family i decided to base the birth on the comics a bit (subject to change if sue or reed is brought in and they’d prefer not to). so in the comics, it was hard for sue to give birth because her “cosmic-irradiated physiology” but she still managed to give birth to her first child (judy’s older sibling) through an adventure to the negative zone to borrow some sort of control rod. when it turned out sue was pregnant again there was a growing fear in the parents. the first pregnancy had been really challenging and going through it again would be worse.

in a way it was because this pregnancy led to some issues to the baby and mother alike. judith had many scares while in the womb, but luckily none were permanent enough to truly bother judy once she was born in some underground facility with technology even she has yet to grasp.

once judy had finally gotten home, things were a bit odd. her uncle caught on fire, her mother went invisible, and her father could cook and keep an eye on her in her crib at the same time. not to mention her own sibling had been tested and would be on the way to join them. she, as it would turn out, would not ever get on her way there and that was what was so strange. her whole family could do these amazing things, but growing up all she could do was watch from the tv or the spaceship or wherever they were keeping her safe. even her sibling got to go with them.

when judy was nine and watching her parents fight somebody she knew was trouble on the news, an ad popped up on the screen for comics of her very own parents. her eyes flicked over those and she snuck out of the house to buy an issue, changing her life forever.

she started teaching herself how to draw in ink and make it look like the books she was reading and soon enough started writing random ones based off of what her family and their friends would tell her. they started off really rough (ask uncle ben), but when she got old enough to start really working on them, she would be able to publish them.

but that’s getting ahead of myself a bit. back to when she was still in her preteens. one day when she was supposed to be following the routine, she had decided to go with her family off earth. it wasn’t fair that her sibling got to go so she decided to stow away on board the ship. it was fairly easy, she had her pen and sketch pad to keep her busy along with various snacks, but when the ship stopped she started to hear cries from her family and decided to spring into action. she ran out from the supply closet and ran outside without thinking of grabbing anything. when she did it was chaos. different species of beings all fighting eachother, guns going off, civilians running away- she didn’t know where any “good” guys were. that was until one of them were waving for her to run before everything went dark.

the next thing she remembers from that chunk of days was being told she wouldn’t be able to walk again, but she’d be alive.

since then she’d still dream of fighting the badguys with the FF or somehow being a mutant to, but she realized that just wasn’t in the cards for her.

she lived a pretty normal life from there, minus her family traveling a lot and the constant business trips she couldn’t attend. she graduated highschool at sixteen and started traveling the world and learning more about heroes. she’d learn as much as she could and basically write biographies for the stories she’d find most significant for the world to know.

in the past few months, her job had been getting a lot harder. things are more tense than before and that was when her father called her and suggested she move to paragon in case something bad happens with the changes. she hesitated, but after learning of the school and who all lives there already, she rented herself a nice apartment and moved in on may 7, 2018.

now she’s kind of chilling in town and lowkey writing what she sees, there’s plenty of drafts in her apartment but nobody can see them.

now onto the stuff that isn’t backstory! so in the future she’s going to find out she can manipulate ink and if you don’t quite get what that’d be about, superhero wiki defines it as the power where the “user can create, shape and manipulate ink, including moving ink, change the color, consistency/viscosity between solid and liquid, etc., even if the ink is printed/written/tattooed. they can write/scribe/tattoo without tools by manipulating ink.” she’ll be limited to what’s around her, but as she comes into her powers she’ll find some ways to make it more than a gimick because i’m sure the moment she does something with it, she’s going to be trying to fight crime or something since that’d still be the first thing she’d like to do. i think maybe down the line it could lead to her more broadly figuring out how to control carbon black on things like wires (engineering made easier) and such and even go broader with things with carbon since carbon black is an ink made out of it. this could be things like plants, wood, plastics. it’d take her honing the skills but practically everything can come from things ink is from and i can make it all sciencey. also i’d like to say another issue is that she wouldn’t quite mess with tattoo ink from the start since it’s iron oxides/metal salts/plastics (though the later she'd try) and it’s not necessarily very ordinary ink. that could lead to sciency stuff too. maybe she’ll be able to delve into that and then also animal ink? i don’t think i’d go that far but like squids have ink made of melanin so can she lift non-inked mammals too? i’m not sure, i think i’ll stick to natural things and skip the biological ones unless i feel silly so we’ll see.

personality wise? judy is a very bright young lady with a longing to protect people. she wants to be the hero but she has been content just admiring them from afar. she’s probably overly hyped and incessantly talking, but she is an easily excitable person. she does things without thinking them through all the way and while she is book smart, she’ll eat out of your palm when it comes to lying to her or teasing her. she believes it all because, to be honest, she’s almost seen it all. she believes in the good of people and thinks villians aren’t just villians (she has arguments in defense for the wicked witch, scar, and at least half of the supervillians she’s attempted to learn about).

oh yeah, she identifies as lesbian (though has had feelings for men once in a blue moon, kind of biromantic but she doesn’t identify with it) both romantically and sexually. she hasn’t really come out yet, but she doesn’t hide it. she just hasn’t really dated more than a person or two to give herself a reason to.

more to be added

WANTED CONNECTIONS

someone she tutors

maybe a superhero she’s highkey a fan of

a human who works with her

definitely a best friend/someone she’s known her whole life, this person would either be a kid of a family friend or someone who lived in new york and happened to go to the same elementary school

bad influence

more to be added

[xxprincessjewelsxx]

A Dangerous Game (Suho Mafia!au fic) Chapter 11 - Torture

Warnings: None

Ch. 1, Ch. 2, Ch. 3, Ch. 4, Ch. 5, Ch. 6, Ch. 7, Ch. 8, Ch. 9, Ch. 10, Ch. 11, Ch. 12, Ch. 13, Ch. 14, Ch. 15(M), Ch. 16, Ch. 17(M), Ch. 18, Ch. 19, Ch. 20, Ch. 21, Ch. 22, Bonus Chapter

When I woke the next morning Junmyeon, to my surprise was still sound asleep on the couch. Shaking my head I went to the kitchen and proceeded to make breakfast. After awhile of being in the kitchen I heard thud and groan followed by a few unsavory words about a headache.

Reaching into the cupboard I pulled out the bottle of asprin and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and as Junmyeon entered the kitchen handed them to him.

“Thanks,” he mumbled before taking a seat at the island.

“Mmhmm,” I replied.

Silence fell over the kitchen as I continued to cook and he only spoke again when a plate of food got set in front of him. “You made me breakfast?”

“Yes...”

“Why?”

“Because I’m already cooking...”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Would you like me to take it back?” I questioned, reaching for it only to have him move it just out of my reach.

“No, I’ll eat it...” he replied, grabbing a fork, “How was your date?”

“It...wasn’t a date...” I said, thinking about to how the day ended. He had been right; I could tell myself that it wasn’t a date, but Taekwoon didn’t see it that way...especially not after he kissed me.

“You don’t sound sure about that...” he said.

“What do you want me to say, Junmyeon?” I questioned, “He took me to the amusement park, he won me a stuffed animal, he took me to dinner, and he kissed me but I still don’t-.”

“He kissed you?” Junmyeon questioned.

“Yeah...and it didn’t feel right...god, what is wrong with me?” I questioned more to myself then to him, “You piss me off so much because you don’t even treat me like a human being, but I can’t stay mad at you and then I kissed you and it felt right but you aren’t even attracted to me, but a man that is so sweet to me and actually likes me kisses me and it feels wrong? I’m so screwed up in the head!” Grabbing my plate of food I left the kitchen and headed to my room, not even bothering to look back at him. 

In my room I sat on my bed eating my breakfast, staring at the blackened TV screen. Out of the corner of my eye, the stuffed puppy from the day before sat on the corner of my bed...

Staring...

Watching....

Judging...

Maybe not that dramatic, but at the time it seemed like those big plastic eyes were boring holes into my soul. “I should’ve been happy when Taekwoon kissed me, right?” I said, looking at the puppy, “You were there....later...he treated me good...why am I talking to a stuffed animal?”

Pushing the stuffed animal off the end of my bed I tried to continue eating but without the stuffed animal suddenly felt lonely. Pushing my food aside I reached down and picked the stuffed animal up and leaned back against my pillows.

“When Taekwoon went to kiss me, I was nervous...like a good nervous. I guess I was a little happy that he wanted to, but when he did and I kissed back it felt...weird, wrong...like his lips weren’t meant for mine...I don’t know,” I sighed looking up at the ceiling of my canopy bed. It was odd for me, a 25 year old to be talking to a stuffed animal, but at the same time...I had no one else to talk to...so why the hell not. “When Junmyeon kissed me...” I stopped for a moment and thought back to the scene at the spa. His bare skin touching mine, him holding me with strong arms, the way his lips moved against mine, seeing the entirety of the body that he hides behind high priced suits most days. “For some reason...kissing Junmyeon felt right...his hands on me felt right, being that close to him felt so right. But for him it was so wrong.”

I sighed looking back at the stuffed animal, running a hand through the soft faux fur. “I wish I would’ve just been born into a regular family...or even if my mother had just dumped me in an orphanage. That would be better than what I’m going through....”

~Junmyeon~

Junmyeon listened through the door and Y/N talked to the stuffed animal, guilt shooting through his chest as she talked about the night at the spa, but also interest at the look on her face as she thought about that kiss. He could deny it all he wanted, but every once and a while...when he saw her, he thought about that kiss. He thought about how hard it was not to take her right then and there in that room. 

He had lied that night, a lie that he was still trying to hold on to, but it was slowly slipping out of his grip. He was sexually attracted to her...and when he thought back to that night in the spa, having her naked body pressed up against his, lips connected to hers, it made him twitch. There were times where if he could he would do it all over again. But time after time he continued to distance himself, continued to act like an ass, continued to make her feel like he didn’t care. 

Thing was, he did...but he had to distance himself. He didn’t want to have any attachments that could be used against him or that could get hurt because of him. After everything was said and done with requiring her father’s territory she would be free to go; free to do what she wants, go where she wants, live how she wants, and...love who she wants.

~Y/N~

It wasn’t until later in the day that I finally reemerged from my room, finding that the rest of EXO had graced the penthouse with their presence. As usual they were huddled in the loving room looking over papers and talking in hushed voices. The only word I was able to catch being “detective” an officer, every now and again.

The only one not deep in the conversation was Yixing would was sitting off to the side drinking coffee, wearing a...lab coat? Walking over to him I look him in disbelief. “Are you an actual doctor?”

“Who went to actual med school and has actual patients,” he replied.

“Then why are you hanging out this these guys?” I questioned, pointing over my shoulder.

He laughed at my bluntness. “I have actual patients, but I’m a doctor for the underground society,” he said.

“Couldn’t you open your own practice?”

“I have one...”

“One that doesn’t involve the mafia?”

“If certain circumstances hadn’t cost me my license...yes...”

“Oh...” I said, not really sure if he would want to tell me what happened.

“A patient died on the operating table, family members didn’t think that me and the rest of the medical team did enough to try and save him...normally something like this might be able to be fought by the hospital lawyers, but the family also knew some important people...so me and my medical license and the axe,” he said.

“So now you work for EXO?” I questioned, “How-”

“I don’t work for just EXO...Junmyeon gave me a place to practice and gets me the pharmaceuticals, supplies, and machines that I need and I pay him for that,” he said, “It is my practice...but Junmyeon makes some money too.”

Sitting down next to him I looked at the other eight men. “Do I even want to know what they’re talking about?”

“They’re talking about the detectives that have been watching us...the ones that crashed the poker game and the ones who would’ve probably kidnapped you at the spa,” he replied, “An undercover thought he was being sneaky at the strip club that Jongdae oversees but he wasn’t as good at his job as he thought he was and Chanyeol was able to grab him and they got some answers out of him...”

“They got some answers out of him?” I questioned.

“He’s alive...Chan did a number of the guy’s face though,” he said.

Wide-eyed I looked over towards Chanyeol; around me he was a tol puppy of a man who while at the penthouse and not working you would never think that he was a member of a mob. Sometimes that made me forget that he was the muscle of the group and probably had gotten a lot of information out of a lot of people. “Does anyone else...you know...get information out of people?”

He was silent for a moment. “Everyone has had a time when they have stepped in and gotten their hands dirty...that’s how it works. Even I have...”

“Why-”

“That’s enough Yixing...” Junmyeon said, “I know you have questions, but there are some you don’t need answered.”

“No no...if she wants to know she should,” Yixing said.

“Yixing...” Junmyeon warned.

“The right mix of medications will make any mind easy enough to manipulate, and a tongue loose enough to get all the information you could ever need,” he said.

“So you use the skills you learned to heal people, to do harm?” I questioned.

“I never give a dose large enough to kill...just enough to get information,” he said, “Sometimes they don’t even remember what they’ve done afterwards.”

I sighed and went to say something, but Junmyeon spoke up again. “Y/N....that’s enough questions for today, go get some clothes on. Something casual, we’re going out.”

Not really wanting to go anywhere with Junmyeon, but not wanting to argue either I headed to my room to get dressed. It wasn’t hard to forget that Junmyeon was a mafia boss with the way he acted...but the others sometimes it was easier to forget. Now, maybe not so much...

~Junmyeon~

“Yixing...when I tell you to stop, you listen to what I’m saying,” Junmyeon said after Y/N left the room.

“You can’t coddle her, especially not if you’re going to marry her,” Yixing said, “Unless...you don’t plan on actually marrying her?”

Junmyeon looked down at him hands as eight sets of eyes were now staring at him. “She will stay here for as long as she needs too, then-”

“Then what? You’ll throw her out in the streets and make her fend for herself?” Baekhyun questioned now on his feet, “She’s not something that you can toss away once you’re done with her.”

“She will be taken care of, where she’ll go will be none of my concern,” he said, trying to lie to himself, “If by then you are still worried, you are more than welcome to take her in yourself.” Junmyeon stood up and tried to walk away when Baekhyun spoke up again.

“I would and I will because she’s my friend and unlike you, I try and treat her with respect!” 

Junmyeon bit his lip but didn’t turn around to look at Baekhyun. If Baekhyun had any idea the push and pull that he was going through internally in that moment he would understand, but he didn’t. So ignoring the outburst he went to wait by the elevator for Y/N.

~Y/N~

After changing I went back to the living room. As I entered the atmosphere in the room felt different and Baekhyun was on his feet, a sour look on his face whilst Junmyeon was gone from the room.

“Is everything okay?” I questioned.

“It’s fine,” Baekhyun said sharply before sitting down.

With an unamused look on his face, Minseok looked over at me. “Junmyeon’s waiting for you by the elevator.”

Nodding I left to go find Junmyeon who had an expression on his face that wasn’t any better that Baek’s. “Did something happen?”

“Nope...let’s go...”

Shopping...we were going shopping...

“So...what we doing here, exactly?” I asked.

“I need to find an outfit for a meeting and I need your opinion,” he stated.

“You’ve been picking out your outfits fine before...why do you need my help now?” I questioned.

“It’s a meeting that I can’t afford to miss the chance at getting what I want out of it, and I need a woman’s opinion on the outfit because the person I am meeting with is a woman,” he said.

“Oh...” I said, a knot forming in the pit of my stomach, “I’m not sure how much help I’ll be.” ‘Or how much I want to be....’ I thought, wondering if he did this as a way to torture me.

“All you have to do is tell me what you think,” he said, “I called ahead of time and the store picked some stuff out.” He led me to the dressing rooms. “Sit there...I’ll be out in a minute.

As I sat there, giving my honest opinion on the suits I didn’t know whether I wanted to scream or cry. He had heard what I said this morning, I know he did, was this some sort of way to torture me with the fact that I could be attracted to him and he would never be attracted to me. Or was this just his way of showing that he just didn’t give a shit.

“I like that one,” I said, “Looks better than the others.”

He looked at himself in the mirror and straightened out the suit before agreeing with me. “I like this one too.”

After changing back into the clothes he started in I followed him back out into the main part of the store. As he stood in line to pay, I wandered around looking at the women’s clothing. I picked up a black and blue dress and held it against myself in front of the mirror that was nearby; it was a nice dress, knee length, not too fancy, but not too plain...

“It looks good...if you want it I can get it,” Junmyeon said, walking over shopping bag in hand.

“You don’t lie,” I said, hanging the dress back up on the rack, “You ready to go?”

“I wasn’t lying,” he said.

“Well I don’t want the dress, I was just looking...” I said, head towards the door, “It’s just a dress...I have enough of them.”

Once again, as usual, silence filled the car. We were stuck in traffic too which didn’t help anything.

“Um...thank you...for today,” Suho said, clearing his throat.

“Mmhmm,” I replied.

“Do you want to know what the meeting is about?” he questioned.

The knot in my stomach tightened again as I thought about why he could possibly want to impress some woman so badly. “No...no...that’s your business,” I managed to get out.

“Hmm,” he hummed, finally able to turn down a cross street, “Well I’m going to tell you anyway, the woman that I’m going to go meet with is-Y/N LOOK OUT!!!!”

He suddenly grabbed me as headlights came barreling at us, hitting the car on his side, causing us to flip at least one time. The lamborgini came to rest on its wheels at though the impact was jarring and terrifying we were both okay,

“Y/N? You alright?” Junmyeon questioned.

“Yeah...Yeah I think so,” I said, “Are you?” 

“I’m fine,” he replied, “If you can get your door open, I need you to run...I need you to run and not look back.”

“Why? Whats....” I stopped and looked out his window to see two men with guns heading towards the vehicle, “If I can get my door open you can slide out my door.”

“My foot is stuck...now check your door,” he said. Shaking I carefully checked my  door and it popped open.

“We can try and get your foot out, the door it open and-” I started but I stopped when he started loading his gun.

“On the count of three, you will open that door and start running and fast, hard, and far as you can,” he said,

“What about you?” I questioned.

“I’ll be fine...let’s just worry about you, hmm?” he replied, “Now one...”

“Junmyeon wait I-”

“Two.”

“Can’t you just-”

“Three!”

On the count of three he pushed me backwards making me tumble out of the car and onto the ground. After that I could hear guns going off as I ran as fast as I could from the scene. Not far away was a dumpster that I hid myself behind. He told me to run, but I was scared, and I couldn’t leave him.

After what seems like forever everything went silent...eerily silent. Peaking out from around the dumpster all I could see were the two bodies of the men that hit us on the ground and the two destroyed cars.

Throwing caution aside I ran back to the now bullet ridden Lamborghini....

To be continued...

[somedumbmotherfucker]

Realization (that sinking feeling that something is wrong and you can't quite put your finger on it...)

This is going to be super long and rambly but I need to say this for my own sake. Also this will probably be the only post of this kind I make. If I need to make more, it's going on a side blog. This is also completely different from anything else I have put on this blog so feel free to not read it if you want. Mentions of child abuse, suicide, depression, and self destruction I have shitty parents. It's not something I realized over night (it's something that I'm still having trouble accepting for some reason) or the realization I came to today. The realization I came to today is the fact that I push people away. I instinctively and unknownly push people away from me. Life long friends, family members, and therapists. I push them all away because I have learned time and time again that opening up to people and letting people get to know me will inevitably lead to them shunning me and/or hating me. The two people that taught me this lesson over and over until it was drilled into my head were my mother and father. My dad wasn't absent, but he was rarely home until late at night and although my mom was always there, she never had the time to pay attention to my emotional needs with all the housework and the seven other kids to take care of. She was and still is deeply religious and tried to instill those beliefs into us. I remember very distinctly one time my mom caught me lying about something insignificant and her forcing me to hold this rancid tasting liquid in my mouth for a minute to "wash my mouth." I think she wanted me to stop lying but in truth it made scared of her catching me doing anything she didn't like. She also use to spank us when we were younger. I remember her going out of her way to pick things that hurt more. A thin stick, a plastic paddle with holes in it that she claimed made have less wind resistance, and a large wooden paddle. I was really extroverted as a kid, but I don't feel comfortable around people in general now. My mom use to say that parents love their children unconditionally, but that was never the case for her. The most recent and honestly almost all consuming example of her love for me being very conditional was when I came out. She told me in quite a few words that I don't konw anything and that because I'm a kid, I can't understand how I feel. At one point she even straight up told me that she wishes she could put me in conversion therapy. She never tries to understand anything I tell her about how I'm felling or what I'm thinking and when my siblings and I have a legitimate problem with her she deflects and plays the victim. If things don't fit into her neat little worldview than it's perverse or wrong and she either tries to manipulate you into siding with her/making you question yourself or she ignores it and acts like it's not there. Both options make me want to scream and tear my hair out, but I also just don't care anymore. My dad was something too. the two of the work together a lot in the manipulation bullshit. My dad would come home and if my mom didn't want to deal with whatever one of us did to bother her she would get my dad to deal with it. He would use his belt to spank us. I remember it hurting so much worse than anything my mom did. He didn't care if I was actually hurt afterwards. Nowadays, they can't pull that shit so they manipulate. My mom will be told something she doesn't like by my siblings or I, she'll whine to my dad, he'll get mad at us while my mom plays the victim. Rinse and repeat. I remember as a kid, going out of my way to make friends. I could be fast friends with almost anyone and if they needed me I would be there. I'm still there for my friends if they need me but I can't walk up to someone and strike up conversation. I feel scared that they will know what I'm thinking and hate me for it. That's the thing that hurts me the most. I know why I don't try to make friends. If my own parents don't care about me than who will? Since the age nine, I was suicidal. I'm not anymore, but since my seventeenth birthday I've been reflecting back and that why I've been realizing all these things. I never understood why I wanted to die when I was that age, but I knew that at least part if the reason was because I felt unloved by my parents. I remember me at nine sitting alone in my room in a little cubby hole very calmly contemplating the best and quickest way to die. I had an image of myself hanging by a noose in my head. A dot I never connected until I was older was that the bulk of my suicidal thoughts and depression were closely intertwined with me learning about puberty. I had tried to articulate my emotions to my mom a few times during that period of my life to her explaining that I felt unloved and abandoned, but of course, my mom deflected. She didn't even consider the notion that maybe she was doing something wrong. I ended up being sent to a therapist because my mom didn't want to try and deal with my issues. I stopped going to that therapist after a few months and went back to dealing with my problems the only way I know how. Completely and utterly alone. It took me five years of depression and a couple of suicide attempts before I realized I am trans. I made the mistake of coming out only a few months after. As I mentioned above, my mom didn't try to listen or understand as usual. Her reaction and my dad's reaction sent me spiraling even deeper into depression than before. to this day I feel like an idiot or like a while little kid when ever I try to come out. My heart races and my throat constricts. I am not proud of who I am because of her and as much as I want to not give her so much credit, it's so fucking hard to separate her from everything. After I came out she decided to put me into therapy again so she wouldn't have to deal with it. So she wouldn't have to deal with me. I had stopped caring about anything after that. I was in an incredibly distructive mood. I didn't care out my health. I didn't shower or brush my teeth. I eat either way too much or not enough. I ate foods that I know I shouldn't because I felt that it was pointless to care. I hated my body so much I tried to destroy it from the inside. It was after a doctor appointment that I realized that. I try again with my mom. I tried to explain and it went worse in terms of her listening to me, but I gained something so much more valuable. I gained self respect. and while I still have problems coming out and the things they did still leave a mark on me and will for the rest of my life most likely, I realized that I don't need my mom's validation and that I just need to love myself. Before now, I had never opened up to anyone fully, but I'm taking a leap. I need to prove to myself that opening up isn't a negative thing and that it can be healing and positive. It will help crumble the bs and lies my parents forced into me. Even if no one reads this, I need to do this for myself.

[worryinglyinnocent]

Fic: Extraction (15/16)

Summary: Intelligence Agent Belle French has been given her most challenging assignment yet – one that will provide her agency with absolutely vital information on a practically untouchable arms dealer.

In addition to all the usual dangers any assignment carries, Belle also faces the edifying task of convincing Rum Gold to return to help the agency one last time. Agent Gold left the world of international espionage years ago, after an assignment went terribly wrong and ended in his imprisonment and torture, and he vowed never to return, but the agency cannot complete their mission without him…

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Read the previous chapters here on AO3.

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Fifteen

Belle couldn’t quite believe that it was over. She was still having trouble processing the fact that not only was she still alive, but that everyone else involved in the case was still alive, and that she was back home a free woman and not rotting somewhere underground in an Avalon prison. Even more astonishing was the fact that Regina was safe and sound as well. Graham was recovering well from his injuries and was back in the safehouse, and although Mal’s message about Daniel had been guarded, Belle got the impression that he was well on the way to making a full recovery as well. They had snatched victory from the jaws of defeat; so much had happened in so few seconds to turn the tables, and now here they were.

Blue, needless to say, was absolutely furious.

“Honestly,” Emma moaned from her desk in the bullpen, laying down her pen and paperwork and resting her head on the desk with a groan. “You’d think that she’d be happy that none of us are dead, at least.”

“Emma, you’ve read the Foresight file,” Belle pointed out. “You know how little respect for human life Blue has. It’s all about the intelligence. Now that Cora’s dead, there’s nothing to be gained. The entire assignment was a huge waste of time and resources in her eyes, and Cora’s now unable to answer for her crimes or stand trial.”

“But she’ll never cause any more trouble again!” Emma exclaimed. “I don’t understand how she can’t think that this is a good thing. If everything had gone off without a hitch and we’d extracted Regina as we’d planned and got all the information out of her during debrief, then it could still have taken years for us actually to bring down Cora, even with the inside source.” She paused, finally lifting her head off her paperwork and detaching the post-it note that had become adhered to her cheek. “I mean, I understand that it’s always bad when lives are lost during an assignment, be they our own people or the other side. I know that we strive to do everything with the minimum of bloodshed, but really, sometimes these things are the only way. Even with Regina’s evidence I don’t think that we could have broken Cora. I think that killing her was the only way to do it.”

“I think it’s more that the decision was taken out of Blue’s hands that’s making her so angry.” Belle leaned back in her chair, chewing on the end of her pen as she pondered. It was not unheard of for the agency to order assassinations of marks, but there was a separate team dedicated to those kinds of assignments, the ‘cleaners’ who got all the messy jobs. As it was, the agency had not made that decision. It had been made for them, by a terrified young woman in fear of both her own life and the lives of people she cared about. “And I think that she wanted to get Zelena grilled on some of her torture and interrogation methods so that we can get the human rights lawyers involved. Or use them ourselves, that’s possible.”

Emma glanced over to Blue’s office, the other woman was talking on the phone and looking her usual calm, unruffled self. “More likely, if you ask me,” she muttered darkly. “We completed our objective. We extracted Regina. Why we have to go through so much debrief for an assignment that succeeded…” She threw her squashy duck stress reliever at the wall; it bounced off and hit Blue’s office window, and their superior gave Emma a filthy look. Emma, for her part, merely rolled her eyes and went to retrieve the duck, whilst David Nolan tried and failed to stop himself from bursting out laughing.

“Shut up,” Emma snapped. “Or I’ll throw Floyd at you.”

David did not stop laughing, and he soon found himself under attack from a small duck. It was at that point that Blue finished her phone call and came out of her office.

“Swan! Nolan! You’re in the middle of a complex debrief and I need those reports before the end of the day! There’s no time for you to be acting like children!”

Emma just glowered, going back to her desk and making a show of spreading out all her papers in front of her. Blue’s nostrils flared and she turned to go back into her office.

“French!”

Belle rolled her eyes, suppressed a sigh and gathered up the operation file, following Blue into the claustrophobic room that served as her office. The door had barely swung shut when there came an almighty commotion from outside the bullpen, and the entire team turned in the direction of the door as the raised voices came ever closer.

“Sir, really, you can’t go…” someone was saying frantically, to which a wonderfully familiar Scottish brogue replied.

“Until they lockdown my security access I can go wherever I damn well please.”

Blue went rather pale. “Why does Gold still have security access?” she asked faintly of no-one in particular.

“Because we’re still in debrief,” Belle replied sweetly. “He’s still got access whilst you’re still asking him for reports.”

Blue gave a long-suffering sigh and pinched the bridge of her nose, going to sit back behind her desk. Belle saw her pop a couple of aspirin, and she smiled. The bitch deserved whatever was coming her way, headache included.

There was the electronic clunk of the bullpen door unlocking, and it slammed open with ferocious force. Gold was standing in the frame, sharp suited, cane in one hand, plastic wallet of paperwork clenched almost beyond recognition in the other, and the sight he presented was one of beautifully incandescent rage. It was like the moment in a film where the presumed-dead hero picks himself up and comes striding in to save the day. The junior officer hovering in the door behind him decided it was best to cut her losses and she scampered away. If Gold had clearance to be in this bullpen then she wasn’t going to stop him using it, and she wasn’t going to cross Blue if at all possible.

“Fae!” Gold growled. “Fae, you’d bloody better be in here!”

He strode into the room, a larger than life figure despite his small stature, the healing wounds on his face and neck just lending ever more gravitas and strength to his appearance, and Belle side-stepped to allow him into Blue’s office, closing the door behind them to give the illusion of privacy, although knowing Gold as she did, she was certain that in the confrontation to come, the others outside would be able to hear exactly what was going on.

He slammed the wallet down on the desk and pushed it towards Blue, looming over her across the polished wood. Blue’s hand inched across her desk towards her phone and Gold swept the receiver off his desk with the handle of his cane. For a moment, Belle’s hand twitched, almost going to her service weapon. Gold was fuming, a state that she hadn’t seen him in before, and in that moment, he looked downright dangerous. When he spoke at last, his voice was a sharp whisper, hissed through his teeth.

“You told me she was mine.”

Blue looked from the plastic wallet to Gold, her cool, emotionless eyes meeting his impassioned ones.

“Yes,” she said coldly. “I did.”

Gold took a step back, not sitting down but no longer the looming, predatory figure that he had been before, and Belle’s hand relaxed. He leaned heavily on his cane, as if that initial burst of anger had taken it out of him and he no longer had the will to fight furiously in the face of Blue’s immoveable steel.

“You told me that she was mine because you knew that I would drop everything and go to her,” he growled. “You knew that after what you did to my son, I would jump at the chance to make sure that nothing happened to my daughter. You used me, Blue. You used my son against me before and you used him against me again now!”

“I did what I had to do to make you accept the assignment,” Blue replied. “And nothing you can bluster and shout and threaten me with will make me regret what I did. Although the assignment could have been completed a lot more cleanly,” here she looked at Belle, “it achieved its aim, one that would not have been achieved without your co-operation. Of course I manipulated you. I had a job to do, and in a line of work such as ours, we cannot afford to let emotions get in the way of that. I would have thought that was a lesson you would have learned well after your last assignment in Avalon. Wasn’t it your tender feelings for Cora Mills that got you into this entire mess in the first place?”

“Don’t try to pretend that wasn’t your idea, Blue,” Gold snarled, and he smacked his fist against the plastic wallet again. “You told me that she was mine, you sent me out there to what was almost my death on false pretences. You knew.”

Belle came closer to the table and saw the top sheet of the paperwork in the crumpled wallet. It was Regina’s medical notes from the House, including DNA. It was there in damning black and white; Regina and Gold were not related by blood.

Gold gave a harsh bark of laughter. “You’re a first class bitch, Fae, but then you always were. As long as you get what you want, it doesn’t matter who you screw over.”

“We’re in international intelligence,” Blue replied levelly. “Screwing people over is our job.”

“We don’t screw over our own,” Gold snapped. “We don’t leave our own agents in the hands of sadistic psychopaths for two fucking years because it’s not convenient for us to have them back. We don’t take away everything that one of our own has left and then use that loss to make them do the one thing they promised they would never do again, to send them back to the place that took so much away from them, to send them out to die under false pretences. We don’t do that to our own people.”

Blue’s hard expression was unwavering in the face of Gold’s ire. “We do what we have to in the name of national security,” she said. “Anything that we have to.”

“You and your godforsaken greater good.” Gold picked his security access card out of his jacket pocket and tossed it onto the desk; it skittered across and fell into Blue’s lap. “Since you’ll have my access revoked as soon as I’m out of the building after this little stunt, you might as well have it. I’m done, Fae. Done with your lies, done with you trying to rip me and my family apart in the name of international security. But you’re going to do one thing for me. One last little favour after everything that I’ve done for you.”

“What might that be?” Blue asked.

“Bae. You’re going to give me Bae’s files.”

“They’re locked down, Gold. You can’t just walk out of here with them.”

“I’m not intending to. But I’ll keep reminding you, until you give me what I want. As I’m sure you’ll remember from those good old days, I can be very persuasive.”

He turned on his heel, and gave Belle a polite nod. “Agent French, perhaps you would care to escort me from the building.”

“I would be glad to, Agent Gold.”

“French, get back here!” Blue snapped as Belle left her office, gathering up her coat and handbag from her desk and locking up her workstation.

“I’m cashing in my overtime,” Belle called over her shoulder as she swiped Gold out of the bullpen.

Once they were in the elevator going down to the entrance, Gold sagged, leaning heavily on his cane and the lift wall, flexing his bad ankle. The beating he’d taken in Avalon had aggravated old wounds best left unopened, and Belle could tell that the display of force in Blue’s office had really taken it out of him.

“She’s going to make your life hell for this,” he said, looking up at Belle from his slumped position. “Nobody walks out on Fae Blue.”

“It was worth whatever she throws at me,” Belle said.

“I don’t really know what it’s achieved,” Gold said. “Other than the determination to get Bae’s files by any means necessary. It’s information that should have been released to me before, so there’s no reason why I can’t have it now. She’ll try and fudge it in some way, but she’ll have to give up in the end. Patience is a virtue.”

They reached reception and Belle swiped him out of the building entirely, stepping out into the November afternoon after him.

“So what happens now?” she asked him.

“Now I go back to Scotland, and try to forget that all this ever happened.” Gold sighed. “But before then, I have a package to collect, and I was wondering if you would care to accompany me.”

Belle raised an eyebrow. “What kind of package?”

“Regina’s debrief is complete,” Gold replied. “I’m going to collect her from the House and take her home.”

Belle smiled. “In that case, I would love to come.”

They made the drive to the House in silence for the most part, but as they were pulling up to the gates and Belle was showing her credentials to the security guard, she felt that she had to ask the question that had been burning at the back of her mind throughout the journey, ever since the revelation of Regina’s true parentage.

“Did you suspect that Regina wasn’t yours at any point?” she asked as they continued up the driveway towards the complex.

Gold shook his head. “No. Not even when Cora was taunting me. I knew that she just wanted to get under my skin and rile me, and I thought that she was just saying it for my reaction. To be honest, I think it would have been quite hard for her to tell whose child Regina was; I don’t think she knew herself unless she’d got her hands on DNA results. It was only after we got back here that the slight doubt started to creep into my mind. I know what Blue’s like, and I know that this information would have been gold dust to her, no pun intended. All of a sudden, once I was back here, it struck me just how convenient it was that she’d got her hands on this intel just at the time when she needed it. I hadn’t questioned it at the time because I’d always suspected Regina was mine. She just played all the right cards and I played right into her hands, like I always do.” Gold sighed, flexing his fingers on the steering wheel as they crept up the drive. “There’s something about Blue that’s always been able to get under my skin, even before everything happened twenty years ago. Maybe it’s because she doesn’t have anyone of her own that she cares about like we care about our loved ones. She doesn’t understand the ferocity of the bonds that we share. She’s married to the service and always has been. It’s not a choice that I can criticise; that’s what she wants to do. But I do think that it affects the way she views other people’s relationships, as if love and companionship is somehow beneath her.”

Belle nodded, she could understand exactly where he was coming from. They reached the House carpark and Gold looked up at the magnificent building with a sigh.

“With any luck, this will be the last time that I see the place. It’s a shame. There are some good memories here in among all the bad ones.”

“Granny said that you and Mal were quite the team when it came to making trouble whilst you were training,” Belle said.

“Oh, we ran her absolutely ragged.” Gold chuckled. “Sometimes she couldn’t believe that we were grown adults rather than teenagers. You’d never think it to look at us now, of course, both the picture of respectability.”

It wasn’t respectability as such, more just the fact that life had caught up with them. After everything that had happened over the past twenty years, neither Mal nor Gold looked like they had been pranksters in their younger days, but sometimes, when Gold smiled, Belle could see the traces of the man that he had once been fight their way through to the surface. He smiled more readily now, she noticed as they moved around the House building to the entrance. Handing in his security clearance and cutting his ties with Blue and the service seemed to have done him the world of good and taken a weight off his mind.

Ruby greeted them as they entered the House. When they had first arrived back with Regina, bruised and battered and barely having made it, the other woman had been unable to let go of Belle for about five minutes, so glad to see her alive and well after everything that had happened.

“It’s all quiet on the western front,” she said. “Mal’s been sending us regular direct updates in addition to the reports she’s sending to Blue. She says that everything’s normal, the police bought the story of Cora’s death and are sweeping the whole thing under the rug. Although everyone over there knew that she was involved in some very suspect activities, they don’t exactly want to advertise it. They’ve got some people sniffing around about Regina’s absence, but nothing they can’t handle. The inquisitors have finished, she was perfectly co-operative and they don’t think that there’s anything more to be gained from mining her for more information now that Cora is out of the picture; her network will have gone underground, but the Avalon office will be ready to pounce on them when they do emerge. Considering what happened, I’d say that it was a very successful assignment, but no doubt Blue feels differently. I’m amazed she let you out of the office, to be honest.”

Belle snorted. She knew that she’d get so much flack when she returned later, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. Some things were more important.

“She’s through here.”

Ruby led them out into the quad, a central courtyard that the sprawling house complex was built around, with the main stately home as its front façade and other more modern extensions covering the other three sides. The space was made into a small garden so that those who were under lockdown in the house and not able to leave the building could still enjoy the sunshine and fresh air. Regina was sitting on a bench, her rucksack at her feet. The dye had long since washed out of her hair and it curled around her face where Belle had cut it. She smiled when she saw the two agents coming towards her.

“Ruby says I’m free,” she said. “I guess you’re my escort out of here.”

“That we are.” Gold crossed the quad and sat down beside her. “How’ve they been treating you?”

“Good. I’m not going to lie, I was half-expecting thumbscrews and waterboarding, but we just talked. It’ll be nice to get out of here though, it’s a lovely building but I’m used to the open air. Stupid really, the thing I miss most about home is my horse.” She grinned and turned to Gold. “Mal sent me a message this morning, Daniel’s doing well and they’re going to get him moved over here at the end of next week.”

“I’m glad to hear it.”

There was a long pause then, and Belle felt a little awkward, like a third wheel hovering by the doors, and she feigned interest in her phone. This was a moment between two people who had built such a close bond over so few days without really knowing each other, and who had just had the rug pulled out from under their feet.

“Regina,” Gold began presently, his voice gentle, “I’m not quite sure of the most delicate way to put this, but you’ve got to know that I’m not your father.”

Regina nodded. “I know. I’ve always known. Ever since Mama told me about you and I started suspecting that you were, she set the record straight.”

“If you knew, why did you want me to be the one to come and get you?” Gold asked. There was a little edge in his voice now, a hint of steel at the idea that Regina had used his feelings for her in the same way that Blue had.

“Because you were the only person I knew who’d gone up against Cora.”

“I lost,” Gold pointed out. “If you were looking for a stellar example of intelligence operations, that wasn’t one.”

“I don’t mean it like that. I don’t really know what I mean. I mean, she’d screwed you over just like she kept screwing me over. I kind of felt like we were kindred spirits, in a way. And I know it’s stupid but I’d always thought of you more as a father figure than my actual father. I never met either of you, but you were always the one I had in mind when I imagined someone coming to rescue me from the nightmare I was living. My real father was dead, I knew that there was nothing he could do. But you were still out there, you still had the same kind of feelings towards Cora as I did… I felt certain that if anyone would help and want to get some kind of revenge on her, you would.”

There was a long pause, and Gold’s hand closed over Regina’s on the bench beside him.

“The blood of the covenant runs thicker than the water of the womb,” he said. “I don’t regret coming to get you, Regina. I never will. And I promise that I will continue to keep you safe. And Daniel when he gets here, although I’m sure he can do a better job of protecting you than I can. Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

Regina picked up her bag and they both got to their feet, coming back towards Belle.

“I’ll stay here a while,” she said, conscious of the fact that she really needed to leave the two of them alone together to get themselves sorted out and work out where their strange little friendship was going. “Ruby can give me a lift back to HQ later.”

This was it, the parting of the ways. She shook hands with Regina, who took a pointed look between the two of them and ducked inside the house to give them some time alone.

“Thank you for everything, Belle,” Gold said. “I could not have hoped for a better, more resilient or more caring partner than you.”

He shook her hand, pressing his lips against her cheek in a gesture of farewell. For a long moment, looking into his eyes as they broke apart, Belle wondered what he was thinking, if he wanted to kiss her as badly as she wanted to kiss him.

“You’re very welcome,” she said eventually.

There was another moment of silence screaming with unsaid words, and then Gold gave her a wan smile and moved into the house. Belle remained standing in the doorway, her fingers pressed against her cheek, feeling the memory of his lips there.