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madhatterbri · 7 months ago

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Captain | J.W.

Summary: Y/N is the lover of a man that is indebted to him. Jay White agrees to take you to settle the debt. Historical AU.

Author's Note: Someone once posted that Jay reminds them of a pirate, and I can't stop thinking about it. Listen, I don't want any smoke with the Darby girlies. He is in the GIF and it was just easier that way.

@plentyoffandoms @99hook @theworldofotps Mentions of Jay White, Austin Gunn, Colten Gunn, Darby Allin

Pure Fiction

A cool ocean breeze blew onto the docks as five pirates had a stare-down. The dimly lit lanterns flickered, trying to outlast the harsh wind. Despite the dim lights, the scowl on Jay White's face could be seen. Captain Darby didn't have the money with him.

Y/N stood behind Captain Darby and watched Captain White closely. He wore a black vest and a gold chained necklace. A knife hung from the gold chain. Black pants with gold and white hashtags shielded him from the elements. A gold bat laid limply in his hands. The two other men at his sides appeared calm at the news, yet they could pounce on Darby at any second.

Captain "Switchblade" Jay White was one of the most feared pirates in the Americas and Caribbean. Men, women, and children feared to even speak his name for fear that he would magically appear. Very few lived to tell the tale after crossing his path. Rumor had it he only kept a few survivors to spread the word about his cruelty. His boys, Austin and Colten, who stood by his sides, were known to have the same love for cruelty.

"You see, sir, I haven't enough money. We barely escaped with our lives last week when we happened on a British ship. Their defenses," Darby stuttered and snaked his fingers through his hair. Jay shifted once he found out he wasn't getting his money again. He shuffled his boots and looked down at the ground. He grabbed his gold bat and twirled it in his hands. The bat was going to be tasting blood tonight.

"That is a shame, you know? You have a nice ship, hard-working crew," he complimented. Austin and Colten nodded in agreement to their deranged captain. Jay took a step towards the right, and his eyes locked on you. An idea suddenly popped into his head. "A beautiful woman at your side,"

"Captain White?" Darby questioned as Jay strode towards you. Out of the corner of your eyes, you could see Austin and Colten stand over Darby to keep him quiet. You looked down at your feet. There was no use in running especially being outnumbered like this. Jay moved the bat under your chin. He raised your head up so the two of you were staring face to face.

"Prettier than any treasure I have ever seen. Tell me your name, darling," Jay instructed you. You told him your name without hesitation. He tried to catch his surprise reaction, but you could see it in his eyes. You weren't afraid of him despite the stories. Call it madness or brilliance.

His right-hand men smiled at each other. He spoke it back to you. The way it rolled off his tongue made you practically swoon. Jay looked down and rubbed his bottom lip with his thumb in more thought.

"She isn't part of this deal, Captain White. She was here for, um,"

"Support? Trust me, mate, I wouldn't want to let this one go either. But you, my lucky friend, have an amazing opportunity at your hands. One that I don't just let any bloke have, you understand?" He asked. The cunning captain acted like this was a deal of the century. You knew better. Darby isn't going to like this one bit.

"She isn't for sale," Darby defended you. Despite the brief courtship, he had become fond of you. The tiny moment of courage squashed when he looked at the disdain of the three men around him.

"You give her to me, and all your debts with me will be squared away," Captain White offered and stood between Austin and Colten. Darby looked down in shame. He wanted his debts with the captain squared away more than anything.

"You promise that you won't hurt him if I go with you?" You questioned. The captain pointed his bat at you and then at Darby as he spoke.

"If you come with me, I swear on my life that I will not lay a single finger on your beloved. He will get to have his ship and crew and sail around free of any worries as a pirate should in one piece," Jay promised and looked at his boys out of the corner of his eyes. You turned to Darby, who didn't seem to be against this idea. The Switchblade reached out his hand for you to take it. "Our bargain?"

"Deal," you agreed and shook his hand. Jay smiled triumphantly.

"Welcome to the Bullet Club Gold, love. Why don't you make your way up there? I will be with you shortly for your first command," Jay assured you. He stepped out of the way so you could walk the gangway back up his ship.

While walking the gangway, you noticed his black sails with gold and white hashtags like his pants. The number five represented in them the five captains that betrayed him. Supposedly, they left him to die on some island, but he was able to come back stronger than ever. Rumor had it the men were currently running from him like dogs.

Once you made it up the ship, Jay reached his hand out to seal the deal with Darby. Darby went to take his hand, yet Jay pulled his away. Darby looked on in confusion until Jay raised his hand up in the form of a gun. His index finger pointed right at Darby's forehead while his thumb was straight towards the sky.

With little hesitation, Austin and Colten began their attack on Darby. One punch knocked him on his ass and the brothers ganged up on him. All you could see were the two men on top of him.

Jay made his way up the gangway, whistling a jolly tune. The sounds of grunting and yelping farther and farther behind him. He didn't worry too much. The boys knew to keep him alive and in one piece as promised. His bat rested comfortably on his shoulder. You watched the beating in shock.

"You lied to me," you accused him. "We had a deal,"

Jay stared at you and raised his hand up for you to see. "Afraid not, darling. I promised never to lay a hand on him, and he would be in one piece. I kept my word. My hands are clean,"

#fanfiction #aew fanfic #aew fanfiction #jay white fanfiction #jay white x you #jay white x reader #switchblade jay white x you #switchblade jay white #jay white

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corneille-but-not-the-author · 16 days ago

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Fire

(I challenge you to indentify every character here, there are a few hints in the notes)

I've never been scared of fire.

I know it's stupid. Mom would always tell me I should be more careful when handling the candles to light up the scene. She would tell me "Fire is dangerous, fire is destruction".

But I wouldn't believe her. Because fire is light, and fire is love.

Fire is the way I dance and smile.

Fire is light in darkness, fire is our beating hearts.

Fire is life, and that's why i wanted to reignite the flames in your heart. That's why I made you walk in flames, so that you can see they can be tamed. So that you can see there is no danger in taking risks. So that we could love each other completely without being haunted by phantoms of our pasts.

We are one, right now.

And I love you more than anything.

I've always been scared of fire.

Mom would put her hand on my shoulder, make me look at her subjects, my subjects. She would smile and the flames, in the braziers, would expand the shadows on her face, making it look like a deranged mask.

Flame is the truth, and I couldn't bear it.

It would always be the same room. Those four walls, those pillars of stone, the Kraken Coast only has one hall worthy of being called kingly. And my mother, the Queen, would sit in her throne and deliver justice.

How many peope died while I was looking at them ?

How many have I seen perish in the flames Mother held ?

That was her magic. Flames. And she would use it against anyone daring to conspire against her. Sometimes, she would wake me up, in the middle of the night, and bring me to isolated places. Then, she would smile, and command.

Dodge. Dodge. Dodge. Or burn.

"You shall be a weapon. And I shall forge you."

Fire means truth. But distinguishing my nightmares from the truth, all those memories, is so difficult, now that it's other.

Fire is a weapon. And only I can wield it properly.

I'm merely a man of the Church. A devotee under Flame and her guidance. My passion, my drive, those are not to doubt anymore.

I was scared of fire, a long time ago. Now, I am the torch. I choose who to purify. I choose who to blame. I am justice.

Because it's all it's ever been about, isn't it ? Justice is just another name for power. And now, as I'm about to be crowned King, I'm the most just man in the land.

One last detail to solve.

One last problem.

Use this weapon one last time. Unleash my goddess upon the world. Purify those ignorants, those savages. And make sure the word will never be the same.

A long time ago, a Prophet told me I would be a Key to open a new Era. And if it means dancing in a symphony of flames, I would gladly oblige.

Fire is my tomb and I need to run.

I got back to save a life.

I will save a life.

Sacrifice mine.

Is it so problematic ?

...

I'm thinking about the one I love.

It's weakening me.

I need to do it.

They need you too.

I need to save him.

He's a murderer. You're the paragon.

That's because I'm the paragon I won't. Ever. Give up.

...

I'm so sorry.

But I don't think I can take any more steps.

...

Think about them. Never surrender. You already fought the flames, multiple times. Why would those be any different ?

It's a life.

And I'm going to save it. No matter the cost.

Flames. Flames everywhere.

Why are we doing this ?

It's a fight to the death. Between Men and Beasts. One against the Horde. It's a fight to get rid, once and for all, of those who kill and devour our children.

I feel dirty.

"You're not a murderer, Kaspar"

And so I killed to prove them wrong.

"You can stop this !"

I can't. I can't. It's too late.

"You're not a bad person, Kaspar Schutz."

Shut up. Shut up. Shut. UP.

...

A melody.

A last ditch effort to save me.

You shouldn't save me.

I am the one who lit the forest on fire. I am the one who killed all those people. While trying to bring justice to the world, I ended up being a second Walpurgis.

I did start the fire. And I do not control any of it, now.

I'm so sorry.

"There is still fire in him ! It's not over !"

I have lost coun of my patients. I would say it's roughly the ninetyth pseudo-corpse I'm getting today. This one is in a particularly bad shape, though. I recognize the commander of one of those two armies which are rendering my whole body of work fucking useless, outside.

"Hey ! Do you hear me ?!"

I scream, so that he does not fade into unconsciousness. I do not care from which side he is, or who he is, I'm a doctor. Doctor never let their patients die.

Not while they still have fire in them.

"Breathe ! What is your name, my dumb fucker ?!"

"Jar...Jarghalsaikhan..."

"Good ! I'll call you Jar ! I'm Herbert, pleased to meet you !"

I crack a smile. By those who call themselves gods, we're going to loose him. I grab my scalpel. Look at all those injuries. I hear the cries of the other soldiers. I hear the plaints.

I hear the war, outside.

"Stay with me, son !"

Think of life as a bright, magnificent flame.

Think of doctors as flamekeepers, always on duty, never letting it go.

Think of my job as anything else than the blood, the organs, the guilt, the empty stares, the end.

Think.

"Think, Jar ! And whatever you do, do, not, fucking, fall asleep ! Or you're dead, you hear me ?!"

He heard me right.

My smile stays on. Good. I think we can save this one.

Fire is passion.

Fire is love.

Fire is our skins, so firmly put against one another. The warmth, the kisses, uninterrupted.

Fire is the way you move and the way I feel.

Fire is the last step before transcendance.

Fire is the seventh sky.

Fire is my love for you.

For you all.

I might be an empress. A phoenix. The fire burning inside me is nor for my ennemies, not my opponent. It's a gentle one. For loving, only. Never hurting.

There was a time I thought it was a liability.

The truth is, I do not care, now.

They may see me as weak. They may see me as feeble.

But don't they dare lay a single hand on you.

I feel so little.

I'm trapped.

A little soul in a big hunk of metal.

I'm alone.

I'm scared.

But I have difficulties to grasp what is "scared".

Should I even be able to breathe ?

I don't think i'm breathing.

My little flame is so weak.

A smile.

Another victim of my existence.

I'm very sorry.

But at the same time...

"What is a child, anyway ?"

#lysara #lpm #kaizarz's campaign #the fractured sky #color of madness #writing challenge #29th of october #i put all my soul into this one #hope you liked it #phandaline coast

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yakumtsaki · 2 years ago

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-S̷O̴ Y̷O̷U̴'̴R̵E R̷E̶A̵L̵L̴Y K̷N̴O̵C̴K̸E̵D U̵P A̷G̵A̸I̴N🧟 -I most certainly am! -A̵N̸D W̴H̵O̷'̶S G̸O̵N̵N̸A T̵A̵K̷E C̷A̶R̵E O̷F T̶H̸I̴S̸ O̸N̷E🧟 -Aw Sandy, I think you already know the answer to that question!

-I H̸A̴T̵E M̶Y "L̵I̶F̷E̵"🧟

Don’t worry Sands, I have just the thing to cheer you up-

-a new zombie friend! iVan hates Aiden so much he wasn’t satisfied with him dying horribly, so welcome back, Aiden!

-𝚈𝙴𝚂, 𝚆𝙴𝙻𝙲𝙾𝙼𝙴 𝚃𝙾 𝙴𝚃𝙴𝚁𝙽𝙰𝙻 𝚂𝚄𝙵𝙵𝙴𝚁𝙸𝙽𝙶. 𝙷𝙰 𝙷𝙰.

-Y̴O̵U R̵O̸B̸O̶T B̷A̶S̶T̶A̷R̴D, I̶’̵L̴L K̷I̸L̴L Y̵O̵U🧟

-I̴'̵L̴L K̵I̵L̴L Y̵O̷U T̷O̶O̴, M̴E̸T̶A̶L̷L̴I̵C A̴S̶S̶H̸O̷L̴E🧟‍♀️ -G̴E̴T H̷I̶M, S̸A̵N̴D̵Y🧟 -𝚁𝙾𝚃𝚃𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝙵𝙻𝙾𝙿𝚂, 𝙶𝙴𝚃 𝚈𝙾𝚄𝚁 𝙳𝙴𝙲𝙰𝚈𝙸𝙽𝙶 𝙷𝙰𝙽𝙳𝚂 𝙾𝙵𝙵 𝙼𝙴. -R̷I̷P H̷I̵S C̴O̷R̸D O̵F̴F🧟 -𝙵𝙰𝚃𝙰𝙻 𝙴𝚁𝚁𝙾𝚁. 𝙵𝙰𝚃𝙰𝙻 𝙴𝚁𝚁𝙾𝚁.

So it turns out Aiden is a romance sim, just like our girl, perfect match! Go on, Aiden, charm her!

-W̸A̸A̷A̶A̵H I HA̶T̶E B̴E̶I̴N̴G̸ ̵A Z̷O̶M̶B̸IE🧟 -W̵A̶A̴A̴A̶H ̸M̴E T̴O̶O̴🧟‍♀️

Ok Aiden, not what we were going for, buddy..

-M̷A̷Y̴B̶E W̶E C̸A̶N B̵E S̶A̷D Z̷O̸M̴B̶I̵E̸S..T̵O̸G̵E̷T̵H̸E̶R?🧟 -M̸A̵Y̷B̵E W̸E̸ C̷A̵N̴!🧟‍♀️

Awww he finally got his first kiss🧟💙🧟‍♀️

Boy did ACR get to work, I didn’t even have time to take off Sandy’s skilling helmet but whatever, I ship this, it’s so cute!

CYNESWITH WTF

-How dare you sleep with someone else after I banged you once and then refused to kiss you 11 times, huhu?!?!?!🌸

Wow Cyn if I was you I’d be more upset about all the corpse bodily fluids on my bed.

-That’s it, I’m taking over Felina’s upbringing! I can’t have that dead slut anywhere near my grandchild! Why is she stinky?💗

She needs a diaper change, Cyn.

-Oh wow nevermind🌸

Sophito fulfills his second LTW, topping the architecture caree aka the most useless job in this neighborhood since we literally have no buildings. Amazing choice, Soph!

-Congrats bro, we’re the most successful people ever! -And the best at avoiding interaction with our children! -Tell me about it, Spice literally thinks Wilfred is his dad! -Felina is about to become a toddler and I’ve never been in the same room as her!

I HATE YOU BOTH

And iVan tops the medical career, where I can only assume he worked as an eye laser. Congrats iVan, now that you’re permaplat it’s time to quit and go back to your actual job of being our butler because I don’t know how we’re gonna keep two kids alive otherwise.

-𝙵𝙰𝚃𝙰𝙻 𝙴𝚁𝚁𝙾𝚁. 𝙵𝙰𝚃𝙰𝙻 𝙴𝚁𝚁𝙾𝚁.

Nice try, get your ass to work.

Awww, very Iron Giant!

-Goo goo? -𝚂𝙷𝚄𝚃 𝚄𝙿.

Kitana gives birth to 3 beautiful Mortal Kombat kittens who I name Shinok, Sindel, and Shao-

-and all 3 of them have this completely deranged personality!

And Servilia gives birth to 3 puppies right after, who I name Valentino, Valeria, and Veronica and are thankfully not criminally insane. Welcome, babies!

It’s a nice calm night with a lot of elderly attic slow dancing and then I have.. an “””amazing””” idea. So because the lag was unreal with the new pets and I’m starting to feel unironically bad for Sandy, I decided now that she has found love it would be fun to get her and Aiden married and move them into the creepy Tricou house! Sounds good on paper, right? Right??

So I move them into the Tricou house and then I’m like man you know what would be even more fun?? Resurrecting the Tricous and making them vamps and then all the supernaturals can live in the big creepy house together! So I was googling how to resurrect them because I hadn’t done it in ages, and then I realize Don is literally a faux Tricou as one of Jon Smith’s lovechildren! So I’m like great, this is gonna be super easy!

So Sandy and Aiden are in the Tricou house, I move the graves that were in the cemetery to the house, I invite Don over and make him temporarily selectable, and he resurrects Jon! Then I send Don on his way back to our house and the rest of the Tricous resurrect each other and become vamps and I’m like great, we’re done here! So I return to our house where it’s time for Felina’s birthday-

-AND SEE THIS. WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU HERE

-You invited us🧛

I ABSOLUTELY DIDN’T

OH MY GOD FML

Because the lot wasn’t about-to-crash enough, it’s at this exact moment that Jojo and iVan decide to turn into werewolves..

..AND LIZ DECIDES TO GIVE BIRTH. ARE YOU KIDDING ME PEOPLE

It’s another ginger (HOW??) and this one’s a boy and his name is Bartholomew, but let me tell you this was the most overshadowed birth of all time, it’s a miracle I managed to take this pic. Welcome Bartholomew, sorry for your name but it was the only one I could think of in my panic!

Also completely overshadowed: Felina’s birthday because I was evicting the Tricous as it was happening. But here she is, she’s so cute!

-Say hi to grandma, Felina!💗

Cyn ENOUGH.

And here’s Felina’s personality, it’s actually pretty ok for our standards?? Good job, baby!

It’s a new day after the Tricou hordes have been repelled and it’s time to play ‘how many members of this household will interact with the kids before their parents do’. I mean even Don is stepping up, this is EMBARRASSING.

-It’s ok Bartholomew, grandpa Don is here for you!🖤

OH GOD NOT YOU TOO

#long post #gen 4 #ts2

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rwac96 · 2 years ago

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Thanks for answering most of my writing prompts, I really appreciate it!

My prompt for today; Batman/Dick Grayson(DC) vs Stain(MHA) or

Even though Stain was fast enough to cut Ingenium and use his quirk on him, he won’t get the chance to lick the blood off of any cuts he might inflict on Batman, let alone be able to actually cut through the Batsuit’s armor.

Dick would get fed up with Stain’s actions and decide to confront him during his time as Batman, especially if he severely injured Bruce while he was working with Batman Inc.

Stain would foolishly believe Dick to be Bruce and sprout out that he’s unworthy due to never taking a life and claim that he’ll just have to finish the job, only for Dick to avoid and block the attacks with his acrobatics and his gauntlets. He’d probably even throw Stain off guard by joking that he’s been dealing with Deathstroke since he was 15, leading Stain to realize that he’s fighting the former Nightwing.

Stain would then claim that the original Batman probably only took him in to brainwash him into being his perfect successor, a violent soldier.

Dick would then stop holding back and show why he’s the one out of his brothers to be considered, “the Heir to the Cowl”. While simultaneously listing of how most of the pros he killed for abusing their status for money did so to provide for their families, whether they were parents trying to give their children a better future, husbands/wives who needed to pay for their spouse’s treatment, or sons/daughters trying to help their parents. Families that Stain led to ruin by killing the people who provided for them.

Stain wouldn’t stand much of a chance against Bruce, but against Dick? He’s done for. Dick was considered to be a better Batman than Bruce, because he knows how to not lose himself to his emotions. He is capable of beating Bruce in a fight, can hold back the biting force of a Shark’s jaw, and regularly fights against Deathstroke, one of the greatest assassins in the DC Universe.

He also has no qualms against taking a life as a last resort. He killed the Joker at one point after he seemingly killed Tim while he was still starting out, only for Bruce to resuscitate him after Tim was revealed to have survived.

Dick has also dealt with fighting the Court of Owl’s legion of undead Talons, and was even meant to succeed his great-grandfather, William Cobb, as the next main Talon.

Compared to what Dick as faced during his time as Robin and Nightwing, this Batman would consider Stain a minor nuisance and if Stain were able to draw blood, Dick would most likely disarm him and not give him a chance to use his quirk.

I love Dick Grayson/Nightwing, and I’m one of the people who believe that he deserves to have remained as Batman alongside Bruce instead of becoming Nightwing again.

(A very loaded request, but I'm willing to do it because you always suggest interesting match-ups.)

Something wasn't right, the obvious thought that crossed the mind of Chizome Akaguro, known to the public at large as the Hero Killer: Stain. He had fought the infamous Batman of Gotham before, who was responsible for letting one of the 'fakes' he was after escape his grasp. Though, he managed to injure the Dark Knight greatly in retaliation, even using his Quirk on him before he fled into the night. But at this moment, the Caped Crusader seemed different; the most obvious was his demeanor. In their first fight, the Bat simply called him a homicidal lunatic, vowing to make him stand trial for his crimes and send him to Arkham. During this encounter, the vigilante seemed to have been making quips; calling him a 'deranged Ninja Turtle'.

"C'mon, Mikey," the man in black & grey said with a small smirk, "this can't be all ya got."

Chizome snarled in irritation, swinging his blades toward his opponent, only for Batman to flip backward, delivering an acrobatic kick to his face. Stain moved back, groaning in pain for a moment, and then charged toward him. Swinging his swords once more, only for the vigilante to block each strike. This brought confusion to the Hero Killer, as he remembered from their previous battle that Batman primarily used the shadows, but he never remembered him using acrobatics as if he did it all his life.

"Sheesh," The Dark Knight scoffed, "temper much, pal? You're getting sloppy."

"W-What is this!?" Stain barked, pushing back slightly. "Y-You're...you're mocking me! As if I'm some sort of joke!"

"Well, you're throwing a tantrum for one," Batman replied, "and I've fought against Deathstroke before, and he has more class than you."

"Wait," he squints, glaring his red eyes into the whites of his opponent's carefully. "Deathstroke? N-No!" The Hero Killer's eyes widened in realization, "Y-You're not the Bat! You're...you're his first Ward!"

"Seems like you caught on," the caped fighter said, pushing the madman back; knocking him down onto his rear.

Suddenly, the change in behavior made sense to the killer; he wasn't fighting Batman, he was fighting Nightwing. The First Robin, the leader of the Titans and the protector of Bludhaven. The acrobatics, the quips, and the sudden sense of humor; it certainly was the Bat's first sidekick. Sneering at the man, Stain slowly rises up, gripping the handles of his weapons tightly. Moving toward the man in black & grey, staring at the former Boy Wonder with murderous intent.

"Of course," Stain said, one of his eyes twitching. "The Batman's first indoctrinated soldier!" That one made the cowled man's smile disappear, "He took you in, teaching you his flawed dogma. Making you into his fitting successor. A violent foot soldier."

Dick Grayson stepped toward Stain, then sprints forward as his opponent charged. Once again, Chizome swung one of his blades at him; only for the caped man to deliver a jab to the side of his torso. The Hero Killer shouts, stepping back, leaving a perfect opening for him to deliver precise punches to the chest. Using his acrobatics as a circus kid and his years of training under Bruce, Dick performs a somersault and delivers a double-footed kick to Stain's face.

"That's hilarious coming from somebody so deluded," Dick replied to Stain's rhetoric, "those 'fakes' you murdered, they were men & women who were providing for their families. Those were husbands & wives helping their spouses, parents trying to take care of their kids, and sons & daughters doing their damnedest to take care of their parents. I would love to see you call the people you killed 'fakes' to their loved ones, Stain." Chizome attempted to jab one of his swords into his knee, only for Dick to kick it away.

"D-Damn you!!" Stain cursed him, swinging his remaining weapon toward him once more, only for the caped man to catch his wrist.

"You see yourself as a hero," The Former Boy Wonder said, "but you're nothing more than a deluded, homicidal nut." With those words, he twists Chizome's wrists and proceeds to knock him out with a swing kick to the cheek. The 'Happy Batman', as he's named by Wally, sighs in relief, kneeling down and placing handcuffs on the unconscious killer.

#answer #answered #answer posting #answer prompt #crossover #crossover au #dc comics #dc universe #dcmultiverse #boku no hero academia #my hero academia #batman #dick grayson #chizome akaguro #hero killer: stain

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zerogate · 2 years ago

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Other Christians who were deprived of execution turned instead to suicide. In fourth-century North Africa, locals watched in horror as faithful and ‘deranged men . . . because they love the name martyr and because they desire human praise more than divine charity, they kill themselves’. The methods of suicide varied but drowning, setting oneself on fire and jumping off cliffs were among the most popular. Whatever the method, the aim was always the same: martyrdom, eternal glory in heaven and eternal fame on earth – or so it was hoped.

The group most famous for practising this were known as circumcellions. As the academic Brent D. Shaw has argued, as itinerant farm workers, circumcellions were near the bottom of an extremely hierarchical empire. Their lives were difficult, precarious and grim. Commit suicide, however, and they would become not only a member of the most worshipped people on earth but be sped to a prize seat in heaven.

On the anniversaries of martyrs’ deaths, circumcellions celebrated the deceased with long riotous bouts of drinking and dancing. The celebrations on the day of an actual death were, allegedly, even greater and lurid rumours spread of the orgiastic celebrations and sex and hard drinking that went on after one of their number committed suicide. As Augustine wrote, these people lived ‘as bandits, die as circumcellions, and are honoured as martyrs’. ‘Drink up! Live long!’ declared the inscription put up to one martyr, apparently without irony. Others – Christians and non-Christians alike – watched such behaviour with revulsion.

The circumcellions ‘seduce others whom they can, of either sex, to join them in this mad behaviour’, wrote Augustine. To the alarm of many, this behaviour seemed to be contagious. The fanatical followers of one bishop barricaded themselves inside a basilica and threatened to commit mass suicide by setting themselves on fire. Augustine’s writings on these men (for they were mainly men) are scornful and belittling: he was engaged in as much a propaganda war as an ideological one, and he knew it. The circumcellions claimed suicide as a high calling; Augustine batted it away dismissively as a game. It was, he wrote, the ‘daily sport’ of these people ‘to kill themselves, by throwing themselves over precipices, or into the water, or into the fire’. They were, wrote another bishop in disgust, little more than a ‘death sect’.

[...]

In one tale a Roman prefect named Probus asks the Christian on trial before him no fewer than nine times to obey him and escape execution. The prefect begs the Christian to think of his weeping family, to spare himself pain, to go free. ‘Give up this madness of yours, yield to [your family’s] tears, think of your youth, and offer sacrifice,’ he says. ‘Spare yourself death.’ When the Christian refuses to budge, Probus tries one more time: ‘At least offer sacrifice for the sake of your children!’ When the Christian is unmoved, Probus issues a more explicit warning: ‘Take thought for yourself, young man. Offer sacrifice, so that I shall not put you to torture.’ The Christian refuses, and dies – but not for want of trying on Probus’s part.

In another story, when a young girl called Eulalia presents herself before a governor he struggles to dissuade her. Think of your future marriage, he begs. ‘Think of the great joys you are cutting off . . . The family you are bereaving follows you with tears . . . you are dying in the bloom of youth . . . your rash conduct is breaking their hearts.’ Eulalia too ignores him.

Some Roman officials in these tales tried – unsuccessfully – to jolly the would-be martyr out of it. ‘Cease this foolishness and be of good cheer with us,’ orders one. Another ‘minister of Satan’ asks what person with intelligence ‘would choose to relinquish this sweetest light and prefer death to it?’ It is a question that many a baffled Roman governor asks. ‘Don’t you see the beauty of this pleasant weather?’ exhorts another. ‘There will be no pleasure to come your way if you kill your own self. But listen to me and you will be saved.’ Perhaps, this governor suggested, the Christian before him needed a little more time, asking, dampeningly, if he wanted a few days to think about things. ‘I have been lenient with you,’ he tells the would-be martyr. ‘If you for your part will only be lenient with yourself . . . then I shall be all the more pleased.’

[...]

Martyr stories cannot, of course, be taken as fact. But they can be taken as an indication of what Christians would believe – or even what they wanted to believe. They show that early Christians could accept the idea that Roman officials might seem keen – desperate, even – to stop them dying. Officials in these tales go to extraordinary lengths to try to find a form of sacrifice that would be at once agreeable to the emperor and acceptable to the Christians. Realizing that Christians found full meat sacrifices repellent, officials also tried to tempt them with smaller acts of obedience. Just put out your fingers, Eulalia’s judge begs her, and just touch a little of that incense, and you will escape cruel suffering. They also struggled to find verbal formulae that Christians would agree to say. In one tale a prefect tells a Christian: ‘I will not tell you: “Sacrifice”. You need not do any such thing. Simply take a little incense, some wine, and a branch and say: “Zeus all highest, protect this people”.’

[...]

Non-Christians were alternately baffled and repelled by such excess. Pliny himself describes Christianity as nothing more than a ‘degenerate sort of cult carried to extravagant lengths’. For a long time, Romans struggled to understand why Christians couldn’t simply add the worship of this new Christian god to the old ones. It was known that Christianity had sprung from Judaism and that even the Jews had offered prayer and sacrifice to Augustus and later emperors in their temple. If they had done so – and theirs was the more ancient religion – then why couldn’t the Christians?

Monotheism in the rigid Christian sense was all but unthinkable to polytheists. ‘If you have recognized Christ,’ as one official put it, ‘then recognize our gods too.’ Not just unthinkable but, to many, unnecessary to the point of histrionic. As another prefect in another trial pithily put it: ‘What is so serious about offering some incense and going away?’ The emperor Marcus Aurelius disparaged martyrdom as mere ‘stage heroics’. Others saw it as simply deluded: Lucian scornfully described the Christians as those ‘poor wretches [who] have convinced themselves, first and foremost, that they are going to be immortal and live for all time, in consequence of which they despise death and even willingly give themselves into custody’.

[...]

Many Romans didn’t like the Christians. They found their reclusive behaviour offensive; their teachings foolish; their fervour irritating and their refusal to sacrifice to the emperor insulting. But for the first 250 years after the birth of Christ, the imperial policy towards them was first to ignore them and then to declare that they must not be hounded.

-- Catherine Nixey, The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World

#quotes

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liquid-clear · 3 months ago

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You know growing up it didn't seem so bad to ship Dipper and Bill. Because Dipper was my age. I was just shipping what I wanted. (My friend and I were talking recently about how shipping children as a child isn't actually problematic because you're just trying to self-insert into something you like by seeing yourself in a character that is the same age as you.)

But now, especially now that I am an adult employed by a high school, He's literally a baby. When I first watched gravity falls I thought Wendy was so grown up and so cool, she was literally a freshman. That's a BABY. Dipper was literally a baby leave him out of it entirely. This poor kid is had to deal with so much before high school even. Poor Dipper. I understand the importance of coming of age stories and so I'm not going to condemn the media as a whole (how could I condemn something I love so much and would give my heart and soul to) but because he was a child he should have been protected. Fought for, not doing the fighting.

Istfg I will beat this triangle with my bear fists if it will help. It die trying.

However

Just to be clear

This is probably the same phenomena that is happening with billford. BUT AT LEAST FORD WAS A GROWN ASS ADULT. A WHOLE GROWN MAN. WHEN HE DECIDED TO DATE THAT TRIANGLE. And like Dipper was a little weird yeah. But Ford was actually kinda deranged in some of his ideations (like Rudolph should have killed the other reindeer?) I think on some level bill was like "oh damn he's perfect" and on that same level ford was like "finally some one to match my freak" (Even though he got a little more bang for his buck than he bargained for)

(and just so that I can touch on McGucket. When I was a kid I did not appreciate his character at all. And now he's literally one of my favorite characters from the whole show He's amazing and my heart aches for him. he got fucked over and it sucks.)

Me in middle school: billford? Shipping an old man with a billion year old demon? That’s so gross and boring, besides it gets in the way of billdip; the 12 yo and the billion year old demon. Which isn’t gross at all 😌

Me now: ford and bill = toxic yaoi and trauma (a feature, not a flaw.) ford and Mcgucket = Two old men in love, healing said trauma. LEAVE DIPPER OUT OF IT HE’S TWELEVE

#book of bill #bill cipher #billford #gay #toxic yaoi #billdip

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manekinoodle · 1 year ago

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dumb romcom idea:

- there is a rich man with two bodyguards. one of them has been disappearing more and more lately, and generally not being in the game as much as they should be. think less negligence and more recklessness in protecting their boss.

- the rich guy discovers why this is: the bodyguard has been running an underground orphanage with their salary, because they have no other way of spending it and there's too many little homeless kids around who need protection where they are.

- all the staff are well paid and the children are well cared for. the rich guy catches the bodyguard red handed at the orphanage and has to make a choice.

- does he let the bodyguard be? but at that point his own safety will be in jeopardy if the bodyguard keeps being reckless with their own safety. does he fire the bodyguard? then they will have no salary to pay for this and he will be responsible for preventing the development of good and happy children. and he feels bad for the bodyguard who he has a soft spot for 👀 after so long working together and many close calls.

- in a spark of genius he fires the bodyguard... but then declares himself their sugar daddy as a means of throwing money at the (former) bodyguard and keeps paying them their salary as if nothing has happened. bodyguard 2 is pissed that now they have to work alone. our bodyguard was their bestie :(

- and in yet another spark of genius he adopts a couple of kids. just to show the (former) bodyguard how cool he is. it's not just a soft spot it's a tendency to showboat for the person he likes i guess lol.

- the kids really do look like him: so much so that the boy, who is shy and sweet, asks if he's their daddy. the girl, his twin sister, is a lot more sceptical and just holds her brother back. "i can be," answers the rich guy. kids can't be that hard, right?

- as they are leaving the dumbstruck (former) bodyguard, the rich guy asks the kids if they like them. they do and wish they were their parent rather than a benefactor. rich guy proposes they help him win the (former) bodyguard's heart because he wants to repay their devotion with his own or something. guy's a bit weird.

- romcom shit in between where guy and kids try to keep inserting themselves into (former) bodyguard's life while they are still dumbstruck by the fact their (former) boss is a little deranged.

- and of course we get bonding with the kids. rich guy becomes a responsible father over time with the help of (former) bodyguard and bodyguard 2. kids get used to having chaotic parents who love them.

- bodyguard 2 is a bit of a mediator character. they're besties with (former) bodyguard but likes their boss well enough too. they don't gossip but they let other characters talk themselves into corners.

- (former) bodyguard finds out that kids knew that rich guy wanted to genuinely win their heart and got them to help. bodyguard is furious at rich guy for bringing the children into this with the promise of another parent so irresponsibly. and tells him that he probably just took the kids to use them to have the person he wanted. that he wasn't qualified to be a parent.

- well our man is sad when he gets home. i don't want him to take it out on the kids so they come and comfort him and he gives them a big hug. not the first he's initiated but definitely the most loving. these are his kids. he asks them what if they never have another parent. the kids think it's ok because they have an amazing dad now.

- just as he's resolved to move on from (former) bodyguard eventually, bodyguard 2 comes in alerting rich guy to their kidnapping! after bodyguard 2 is left with the kids, rich guy trudges through the rainstorming city to go to where (former) bodyguard is being held.

- rich guy saves his one true love in a mirror of the way he was saved at the very start maybe. but he hadn't thought of an escape plan. whoops. at least (former) bodyguard is touched by his recklessness in their last moments...

- until bodyguard 2 shows up in a helicopter with the two kids because fuck yeah and everyone is saved and rich guy finally gets a kiss. kids go ew as they do.

- anyway (former) bodyguard upgrades themselves from sugar baby to partner after. and they all lived happily ever after :)

#neki talks #neki spitposts #could use massaging but it started from the negotiation with the kids to get the love interest

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cyprus-green · 2 years ago

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My Dearest Malfoy, You can shove that offer up your entitled pureblood...

My Dearest Malfoy,

You can shove that offer up your entitled pureblood arse.

Frankly, your 'letter' is hardly worthy of a response. However, your equally gaudy and obnoxious eagle owl will not stop pecking at my window with an expectant glare. Therefore I will spend no more than 15 minutes replying to your utterly outlandish, villainous excuse for a proposal.

Draco Lucius Malfoy. You are undoubtedly the most deranged, unhinged, entitled boy I've ever met. Wizard or Muggle. Even beyond the insanity of your Lord and Keeper, you seem to have lost the plot.

I once would have called you an intelligent peer with a sharp wit and competent skill. Not anymore. No, I fear that is all a facade aimed at fooling the populous into believing you have any ability to reason.

Have you been ill? Caught a chill. Eaten an undercooked potato? Perhaps taken a swim in the black lake and been exposed to a brain-eating protozoan. Have you fallen from some height? Or perhaps been injured during a game of Quidditch? Have you been subjected to some kind of charm or a mind-altering curse? Are you taking some kind of illicit substance, potion or otherwise?

It must be something to this effect. As I have no reason to believe that you were in your right mind while authoring that letter.

It's absurd. Disturbinly so.

Perhaps it was a joke. The deepest part of me hopes it so. Or perhaps someone posing as you. A charmed quill perhaps? Enchanted paper? Either way, all must perish.

If you for one moment think that I would ever consider such an offer, you are truly beyond help. We might as well ship you off to St. James Thickey Ward at St Mungos. Truly.

In the same stroke of your pen you laude my beauty and mind, the next you mock and degrade my blood.

I wish to make this clear. I would rather die than become yours. Your slut. Your pet. Your wife. Your mistress. I will have none of it. You are a foul man. I would never keep your bed. Never. You would have to kill me first.

Keep your appendages away from me. I will curse them to ash or bite them off if need be. It sounds crude. But again. I'm just a filthy mudblood whore who doesn't know better.

Waste my talent and blood Draco. I care not. I would sooner drink poision, lead, molten rock, than taste you.

You violated my mind. What you saw, was nothing more than hormonal daydreams. Perhaps you saw only what you wished to see. You are perverted and deranged.

I fear years of inbreeding have caused your lovely pureblood mind to turn. You must have some Inherited inbred illness. Silent and invisible mental infirmity that has now only sprung up.

I don't give two shits about your Dark Lord. Let him come. Let him try. We will fight. And fight.

I would slit my own wrists than bear your children. Rather see them wilt and die in my womb that bring our children into a world of pureblood supremacy.

Our children. Would be beautiful.

And tainted not my blood, but by your hate.

You know. I once dreamed of what it would be like to feel your hands on my skin. Or your lips upon mine. But all of that is but poison.

I pity your sincerity.

#Dramione #Draco x Hermione #Hermione x Draco #Dhr #hermione granger #epistolary #letters #dramione fanfiction

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sufjanoflove · 3 years ago

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Cinnamon Girl

Reiner Braun x Reader

Synopsis: A reunion between old lovers.

Warnings: Semi angst, romantic ending, toxic reader since all she could think about was Reiner, even in all of her previous relationships lol.

Giggling as we ran far behind the bushes and trees, avoiding the instructors from pushing us into more training. “Come on Reiner! You’re so slow!”

“Speeding up will only make me drag you”

“So you’re saying you’re going slow for me?” He nodded before wincing, as I punched him.

A thousand thoughts went before us, looks of admiration.

“You’re really handsome,” the moonlight illuminated his face, eyes, and soul, causing me, so young and pure, to fall even more in love, “If anything happens, I’ll always find myself going back to you, Reiner.”

He held my hand against his cheek, “Nothing will ever happen to us, we’ll grow old together, I promise.”

Those summer nights- seem so long ago. Four years, without him, four years of mixed emotion. The betrayal I had felt the day he showed me- the day he showed all of us who he really was, caused me to explode, I wanted to die. I’d have jumped off the wall, if I didn’t have my friends to depend on. He was such a careless man, and ruthless liar.

My small town friends, they still held me knowing the disgust I felt for loving someone like him. How could they ever comfort me knowing I loved a man like him, how would they ever comfort me knowing I still love that man?

“Where did you go?” Looking down at the shirt I kept of his, covered in years worth of tears, I always reimagined the scene that had played out before me that very day, “why’d you do it?”

Still, no matter the disgust and hatred I feel for him, my promise stayed the same. No matter if I’m engaged to Jean, I’d always run back to him, to Reiner.

Sent on a mission to Marley, Jean and I had to be undercover, and Jean took it as our own romantic getaway. I never intended to do this to him, to make him fall for me, to give him a chance, only for me to never catch the same feelings. I never intended to hurt him with my love for Reiner.

Covering his face, his actions still showed pure love and adoration for me, and my heart would shatter at every sign of affection.

Sat across from me, Jean finished his wine, setting the glass down before me. “Atleast try to cover up your act.”

We were sat outside of a cafe, eating lunch, trying to appear normal to the many people around us, yet I still looked for him. Wanting to grab his attention, faulting the plan just for him to come back to me.

“What?” I lift up my hood slightly, turning back to his face. I knew what Jean meant, he saw me looking around. He set his elbows on the table, and grabbed my hands.

“You don’t love me, Y/n. You have clear wishes, and none involve me.” He let go of my hands, longily staring at me. Discovering the act I put on for him was Oscar worthy, causing him to believe I had similar feelings. He saw my gaze shift every time a blonde man passed our table, he saw me not even try to attempt any small talk as we ate, he saw it all, and I knew he was done.

Before he stood, he said to me, “You’re a psychotic Y/n… but so was I; for loving you.”

He walked away, lowering his hat, nodding to different people crossing his path. Tears covered my cloth napkin on my lap, as shame covered me. Why would I ever hurt a man like that? He was just a replacement , somewhere to place my longing love, and it broke me to know I had used a real human the way I did Jean.

Picking up my belongings, I began to walk around, tears being wiped with my sleeve every once and a while as I stared longily at couples, children, and elders. All these people so happy, so lively, and in love, while my biggest worry’s are a deranged man planning to kill everyone, and Reiner who already did something similar.

“Braun, you’re all I think about and it’s killing me. I’m just a lost little girl trying to find my way to you, and it’s such a pain, a curse. I hate you, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you for making me keep this love for you.” All my thoughts, caged me, as I kept walking, tears softly hitting my cheek.

Humans are so complicated, so complicated one cannot understand even themself, but selfishly they still do whatever they choose to.

In my case, breaking a loving man’s heart for a man who left me, alone in those wretched walls. I dress up for him, even when he’s nowhere close, even when he’s an ocean away. Today I wore the very dress he always loved me to wear, because what if there were a slim chance I’d get him to see me. Pathetic.

A longing piece in my heart knowing in our small mission, I’d be able to glimpse into his life, into the world he lived in. The children, women, families he came across every day. Would he have found another? Or would he, even just a small chance, be thinking of me? Sometimes love is just not enough..

Undressed, in his big arms, we laid on the bed, staring at eachother, doing nothing. Just admiring the person before us. “You know, poets say we were placed on this earth with purpose. One of those purposes is to find our other half, we’re half of who we are, and the other is the missing piece. The world was built for two, and I think I found my piece.”

His heart raced as I finished whispering my thoughts, his breathing stopped, and his grip on my naked body tightened. “If the world was built for two, that half would be you, my reason to be living is you.”

“You really mean it?” Sitting up, I look down at him, grabbing at his hands to hold. The fingertips that trace every hip and dip on my body, every scar touched by his rough fingers, are held in my own palms.

“Yes, and in another life, I’ll find my way to you. All the roads will always lead to you, like blood to the heart, you are my heart. You are my soulmate, Y/n.” Squealing, I lean back into his chest, cuddling with him, as he laughed, kissing my head.

“Who knew.” I whispered, eyes becoming watery, as I left the floral shop with red roses in my hands.“You’re just a man who fooled me.”

“Excuse me,” a small child shouted, “you left this.” Turning around, I smiled lightly at the blonde boy holding my wallet up to my face, his own face distorted upon seeing my tears.

“Are you okay? Is it because you lost this, don’t worry I didn’t take any money, my vice chief gives me an allowance and it’s pretty good pay.”

“I’m okay now, thank you- um..”

“Falco Grice!”

“Well, thank you Falco Grice. Here, take this. Even if you’re vice chief pays you, you deserve some extra for helping a lady out.” Opening my wallet, he shakes his head, “You’re Chief forbid you from accepting money?”

“You’re happiness is just enough. He never forbid me, he just told me to always be kind. As a soldier, I’ve seen a lot of horrible things, helping you out makes up for them.”

He ran off, back to the shop, catching up to a young girl and tall older man. Such a nice boy, such a shame if the mission fails, he could be gone forever. He has to worry about the chances of a rumbling, a 12 year old boy worried about my people in the walls, as I worried over a man who left me behind.

Looking down at the boy, the man was surprised the boy had even left, was that his father? His chief? Falco spoke the man, pointing towards me, causing the man to turn- to turn towards me.

My smile faltered into agony, feeling like a child who sinned under the eyes of their parent. Yet, this sin wasn’t such a sin but a blessing, behind a devils eyes.

“ I did it” I found my way to him. All these paths lead me back to him. What I did to a achieve this urge and reunion, was terribly wrong but felt so so right.

“Y/n.” He walked to me, leaving a small gap between us, as I stared up at the grown version of the lover I used to know. A small frown growing on my face, “Why are you here?”

My thoughts began to mix around, all sorts of conversation gone, all my small talk vanished, he was on my brain. Yet through these millions of words, one seemed to come up a lot in my head.

Lucky. We were the lucky ones, finding each other here. Different areas, cities, worlds, yet here we were. Both alive, in Marley, face to face.

“For some reason, I thought this reunion was to be happier, more lively. Where I’d run to you, and I’d-”

“I’m so sorry, Y/n. I know this isn’t a fairytale, even though I wish it was. I apologize for everything, everything Y/n. With these years, you probably changed your mind, and you may not feel anything for me anymore, but please forgive me. My actions with the wall will always be unforgivable but what I did to you.. forgive me.”

I cupped his face, “God knows the only mistake that a woman could make is letting go of a man who loved them as much, maybe even more, as they loved them.” He stared, gently into my eyes, visibly letting all the weight of his shoulders disappear for a while, all his troubles went on a hiatus, he seemed so tranquil just by being near me.

Then he kissed me.

Letting all his pent up love into the kiss, never knowing if it’d be our final kiss. I knew he had troubles, especially since his time was nearing, maybe even my time was nearing, but feeling our youthful love again will rejuvenate him, me, us. And I loved him, I loved him, I loved him.

I thank every angel for letting the road in which we stood on be empty besides the salesmen, and the children. We let go, staring again, yet this time, I look off to the side, to see the children in conversation with the teenaged sales guy, and I smiled.

So young and pretty, we all were in that moment.

—

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space-ghost-with-the-most · 3 years ago

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i was reading your twins AU(WHICH IS AMZING BTW) and what if it was darker? Like their anger and rage and having to live inside the walls kind of overwhelms them and they go a tiny bit feral, like if canon camilo's description of bruno was accurate and it applied to all of them. Not to the point of like complete primal instincts but a tiny bit like, they'd actively try to show up in the casita at night when someone *might* see them and growls when someone does but then always get away before whoever it is actually identifies them and whisper-screech their resentments behind the walls when everyone's trying to sleep and it freaks everyone out. Idk i really like revenge stuff (˙◁˙)

Yall are absolutely deranged as hell... I'm here for it!

Okay but this is such a cool take on the au, I'm all for villain arcs. I'm legit a villain apologist on main because media make them so cool, so no surprise here that I am living for this!

At first they're the same, hiding behind the walls because they love this family and they can't bring themselves to leave or split up. The hunger they feel each night starts to get too much, and they don't know what to do. It only gets worse when Camilo and Mirabel get sick the third night in the walls. Bruno already feels a little bit of resentment after his fight with Alma, and how everyone reacted during Mirabel's ceremony, but it spirals into something deeper as he watches his mellizos get sick and go to sleep hungry.

Dolores is obviously there to help, she gives them Julieta's cooking and helps with their fevers. But she can't sneak food for them all the time, leaving Camilo to go get food for the family himself. I feel like his shifting would get a little warped here, he's a five-year-old stuck living in his family walls due to fear of what could happen to his sister. He's so angry all the time that anytime he shifts into anyone that isn't Bruno, Mirabel, or Dolores it always looks wrong. You can't tell at first, but if you look too closely a deeply unsettling feeling will worm into your gut and you feel like you need to run, right now. Everyone in the family learns to avoid the kitchen at night because you might run into a family member that gives you an off feeling and has the slightest glow to their eyes. He still steals things or rearranges things at night, so it becomes all the creepier of the years. (The family thinks Casita is cursed because Bruno and his children left, which does not help them since they can hear them.)

Mirabel is probably the angriest. You'd think it was Bruno, or Camilo but it's Mirabel. She's just such a caring and kind person, having to watch her Papa struggle with the thought of leaving for them or staying for the family, watching her Hermano grow thin because of his fast metabolism would piss her the hell off. She'd be mad on their behalf, and eventually on her own. Because she's in the walls, she can't get new glasses once she grows out of her old ones. Dolores can sneak them clothes, thread, and needles as much as she can but she can't explain why she'd go get glasses in town, everyone would know. So Mirabel has to grow up half-blind, parkouring the walls of her own damn home with her scorned family members. Isabela and Luisa swear up and down, something is glaring at them through the walls at night, catching squinting glowing eyes appearing one moment, gone the next.

If Bruno genuinely looked like Camilo's description, oh boy things are so worse for rat-man. A pale, 7ft seer, would scare the villagers so much more. He's obviously harmless, but once he got his growth spurt in his teens, they grew way warier. It only got worse when his visions "took a turn for the worse" (Bruno was kind of a 'gifted kid', and his vision were seen as a good thing for a while.) Luciana is still into him despite everything (bless my girl's heart) and of course here come the twins. Luciana's death is blamed directly on Bruno for being involved with her, which hurts. Luciana's parents don't believe that but the villager's words still hurt a lot. Most kids avoid the twins because their Bruno's kids and they don't understand why until their wall era. The villagers try to be nice to the twins but yeah they are still very wary of Bruno's kids, rumors will always be spreading.

When they end up disappearing after the gift ceremony they are in full support of never speaking of them again, not even for the Madrigal's sake, everyone in town was just creeped out by that branch. Villagers hear how the Madrigal Casita is haunted at night since their disappearance and the rumors only grow.

I don't know where else to go with this but damn did you give me horror ideas. I am a huge horror nerd, I will go crazy and write about them being horror icons if anyone wants me too tehee <3

I even drew about this the minute I got the ask, which is why it took me so long to reply.

(Camilo will always be a cursed menace in my heart. This is peak comedy.)

I gave them all animal familiars in the drawing, but they’d all probably have rats.

I initially just forgot to give Mirabel glasses but then I realized, she’d never have glasses if she went into the walls and damn that makes the good wall ending so sad </3

#encanto #encanto disney #disney encanto #disney #bruno madrigal #camilo madrigal #mirabel madrigal #alma madrigal #dolores madrigal #encanto au #papa of two au #papa with twins au #answered #evil bruno au #evil mirabel au #evil camilo au

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stxleslyds · 3 years ago

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Also, the writers' failure to understand, every crime Jason committed had a motive. Attack other criminals? Holy warrior destined to purify the world of evil. Attack Bruce? Joker's still alive. (Oh, Jason, it's much worse than that.) Attack Tim? A parody of what he once was. He wasn't just a "bad boy". He was dangerously insane.

Hi, Anon! Yup, there seems to be a lot of things that writers have gotten confused about Jason Todd/Red Hood and the biggest one is his motivations to kill certain criminals.

Let’s be honest, Judd Winick set a golden path for the upcoming Red Hood writers. But each and every writer that used Red Hood in their stories completely missed the point of Jason’s character. All of them. It’s so incredibly wild to me that every other writer read UtRH and came up with whichever version of Jason they came up with.

Let’s list the writers that completely missed the point.

Geoff Johns in Teen Titans vol.3 #29.

Geoff Johns was one of the first to completely mischaracterize Jason, why on earth would Jason go to the Titans Tower to beat up Tim? This is not me saying that Jason would never do that because Jason thinks of Tim as his brother or a friend or the person that he can trust the most from the Bat-Clan (can you believe Lobdell tried to sell us that one?), this is me saying that Jason wouldn’t have done that because he couldn’t have given less of a fuck about Tim’s existence.

When Jason found out that Bruce had another Robin he wasn’t bothered by his “replacement” he was mad at Bruce for having another child playing hero after he lost his life as a fifteen-year-old. Jason didn’t even think of Tim as his replacement as fandom likes to make us believe, Jason called Tim “pretender”. And that was that, but to go from minimal recognition to go out of his way to beat him up at Titans Tower is a massive mischaracterization.

Paul Dini in Countdown (to Final Crisis).

Paul Dini in Countdown did absolutely nothing with Jason, I am sorry but that’s all he did. Him writing Jason was like watching a dog trying to catch their own tail. He started with a pretty basic take on UtRH Jason, then he added a bit of Jason being an annoying man with Donna, then we had the jealousy arc because apparently, Jason had the hots for Donna but she didn’t want anything to do with him and he was all angsty when she paid attention to Kyle instead of him, and then, later on, he had that whole Red Robin bullshit (I am sorry about this, but I absolutely hated that, it was so dumb, I am so glad it didn’t last long because it was just too bad), and after all that mix of just not interesting stuff he went right back to the Jason that he had at the very start. It was a waste of time, but I guess that he had to be there because he was an anomaly and all that. I just think that was DC’s first try at making Jason Todd/Red Hood something more than just a street-level vigilante and they failed miserably.

Tony S. Daniel in Batman: Battle for the Cowl.

Even though the first two did make mistakes with Jason’s characterizations, this man was the first to just throw UtRH out of the window and make up his very own version of Jason Todd. And his version was horrendous, that Jason had no problem with attempting to kill children and innocent people, he also really wanted to be Batman because Gotham needed a Batman and he wanted to be the person to wear the Cowl and he was looking for a Robin for himself.

I know, the whole concept is the perfect opposite of what Jason Todd and Red Hood were in UtRH. Every aspect of BftC Jason is based on nothing.

Jason wanting to be Batman because Gotham needed Batman is just the beginning of what’s wrong in this book. Jason became the Red Hood (in part) because he believed that Batman and his ways weren’t what Gotham needed so he made a better version of Batman with Red Hood (according to him) because Red Hood did what Batman refused to do. Another thing that is just wrong is Jason wanting, Damian, Tim or Dick to be his Robin, there is just so much wrong with this, first of all, Jason wanted Batman to stop having Robin because child soldiers ran the risk of dying at a very young age and that’s exactly how he saw the whole thing because that was what had happened to him. Second, if Jason was mad at Bruce for getting another Robin why would he now want one of his own to team up with his Batman? Damian was a child, Tim was someone that apparently Jason hated (because Jason beating Tim was mentioned in this event), and then Jason actually asked Dick Grayson, Nightwing, to be his Robin? Listen, there is no way that was Jason, nothing about him makes sense, even taking into account that Jason had beaten Tim already in this event Jason actually tried to kill both Tim and Damian (it might have been just one of them but yeah, it still doesn’t make sense).

I just don’t think that Tony S. Daniel knew who Jason Todd was, maybe he got confused but the thing is, his “villainous” and deranged version of Jason Todd allowed a villainous and deranged version of Red Hood to happen with the next writer that I will be talking about.

Grant Morrison in Batman and Robin vol.1 #3-6.

This was the birth of the villainous, deranged and bloodthirsty Red Hood. There is absolutely no trace of UtRH Jason here, not even if we are looking at the opposite of things like we could do with Daniel’s Jason. Grant Morrison wanted Dick and Damian to have a villain to match their Batman and Robin and they decided to give us a red-haired-pill-headed-red hood. Everything from Morrison’s characterization of Jason is crazy, from the red hair (hello pre-crisis) to the awful Joker’s Red Hood looking suit, everything was just weird.

I still don’t believe that was Jason, to be honest, I would rather think that version of Jason was actually a rouge Skrull that came all the way from the Marvel Universe and lost his way in Gotham City. Maybe when he made the jump between universes, he got too much information and got confused and took the form of the wonkiest Jason Todd he could come up with.

This Jason was absolutely deranged, he knew exactly what he was doing and he didn’t care if innocents died. This Jason was the one that got locked up in Arkham. This is the Jason that Dick put in Arkham for Jason and everybody else’s safety.

Dick putting that Jason in Arkham wasn’t a bad thing or something that anyone can use to shit on Dick Grayson (not on this house). This Arkham was reformed and that Jason knew that if he stayed in that new Arkham he would stay away from trouble, but here is the thing, that Jason loved trouble, so he took all the tests to prove he wasn’t insane and asked to be transferred to Blackgate (where all the Red Hood’s enemies were). That Jason didn’t ask to be sent to Blackgate because the Joker was a cell away from his in Arkham, he did it so he could go on a killing spree in Blackgate (which he did when he got there).

Skrull Jason was just bloodthirsty and nothing like UtRH Jason, he had no motive other than just killing for fun or whatever. He didn’t want to protect Gotham and he couldn’t have cared less about the drug trade in Gotham. In Batman and Robin vol.1. Jason Todd was unrecognizable. And luckily, we never saw him again.

Scott Lobdell in Everything that he ever wrote about Red Hood.

This one is pretty self-explanatory. Lobdell was the king of overpowering Jason, he was the one that drove Red Hood farther and farther away from his street-level vigilante status. He continuously added more to him, he was a big deal because he was meant to take down Ra’s al Ghul, he was a big deal because he was the only human to train in the All-Castle and learned to summon the All-Blades.

This Red Hood’s morals and ideals were kind of gone, there just wasn’t any kind of interest in Jason to get rid of drugs or try to control its trade in Gotham, he just had no interest in street-level threats, everything was extraordinary in both New 52 and Rebirth. If he wasn’t in space he was in some mystical land. His friends and allies became even more and more powerful, his level of power was completely off compared to the others. His personality was ever-changing and quite honestly you could barely see the Jason that he once was.

This Jason also was very inconsistent in the way that he felt towards people (obviously because Lobdell is a shitty writer), he wanted to follow Batman’s rules and was shown as someone that still had fond memories of his life with Bruce before he died but was also willing to let those memories go, to move on? Maybe? I don’t know. But he changed his mind about Bruce and following his rules or not for a very long time. Jason was also a little bitch about Dick, and he was a little bitch because he (Lobdell) never gave the reader or anyone a concrete reason as to why he hated him so much and then in Rebirth he decided that Dick wasn’t that bad. Also, Jason went from “Willis Todd, abusive husband and father that deserved to die” to “Willis Todd abusive husband and father but he sent me letters when he was in prison and Penguin had him killed so now, I really want to avenge him”. Yeah, I don’t really know why that happened and like most of Lobdell’s arcs and stuff it was never really completed or well thought out.

Lobdell’s Jason characterization was a mess for ten years and that’s the prime reason why Jason is a character with no solid background, story or future.

James Tynion IV in Red Hood and the Outlaws.

Tynion’s Jason Todd was a hero, he was like a mini Tom King Batman. Everything he did was right and there was just no way that you could bamboozle him. This Jason was able to hold to Blades that drained his soul as well as hosting the Untitled in his body (that were able to drain his soul too) and on top of all that he completed his journey of the Chosen One by making those ancient martial arts moves that he learned before he was Robin even though Talia hadn’t been able to master it yet.

Scott Snyder, Tim Seeley in Batman Eternal and Batman and Robin Eternal.

A mess, this was pure New 52 levels of bullshit and they all just wanted to push the “Batfamily” and while Dick was gone, they were trying to make Jason fill the void that Dick left in Batman events. It didn’t work at all and all they did was mess around with Jason’s characterization more.

Geoff Johns in Three Jokers.

I have talked enough about Johns’ takes on Jason Todd and Red Hood, but let me tell you something real quick, if a writer thinks that the best they can do with a character is make them give up their morals/ideals for an unrequited love interest, then they can keep that idea for themselves. Geoff Johns wrote a book that was absolutely not needed and then proceeded to butcher every characterization that he could, Three Jokers was three issues long and he managed to add more trauma to Jason’s torture, push the narrative of Jason being at fault for his own murder and make Jason’s motivations to be the Red Hood weak enough to make him want to give up his work for a woman that he barely knows (and doesn’t like him at all).

Joshua Williamson in Future State: Red Hood and Robin #5.

Now, with Williamson I have issues only when he writes Jason, not because his stories are bad, don’t get me wrong, I would have completely enjoyed FS: Red Hood if it weren’t for the completely unnecessary Rose/Jason side plot he had going on. Jason was clearly working undercover for some people that he hated working with. He had to arrest or kill “masks” (vigilantes, just like he “used” to be) for the Magistrate.

His ideas were pretty solid, Jason did the job but he never killed the masks and actively didn’t trust the Magistrate but he was working there to tear them apart from within, and that’s amazing if Williamson had given us Jason Todd/Red Hood working undercover to dismantle an organization I would have been really happy.

But that’s not all he gave us, even if I just forget about his failed attempt at giving Jason a relationship, I can still see that Williamson is the kind of writer that wants (or is just following DC) to make the “Batfamily” happen no matter how dumb and out of place it looks in comics’ canon. So, I am a little bit weary, any writer that leans too much towards making Jason and Bruce work together and become a family makes me want to scream, but I do understand that is just me, many people want those two to be buddy-buddy, I, personally, would love to see Jason kick Bruce in the balls and tell him to lose his number.

Chip Zdarsky in Urban Legends: Cheer.

Ah, yes, I remember the days in which I thought that this could have been something good. Well, I was utterly wrong and I suffered all the way through this mini. I feel like now I can safely say that Zdarsky only wanted to write a Batman book but DC told him, “Hey you can write Batman but it has to be within a Red Hood story, but don’t worry, you don’t have to know much about the Hood guy, just come up with something and write Batman around that”.

I know that’s what happened because I read that story and all we got from it was horrible characterizations for pre-Robin Jason, Robin Jason, Jason Todd and Red Hood. I don’t know how he did it but yes, he managed to mess it all up.

From Jason not really wanting to be Robin and acting recklessly every step of the way, to secret desires of a perfect family with Bruce and so many other people that he couldn’t care about, Urban Legends: Cheer is the perfect book to avoid at all costs if you believe that the concept of “Batfamily” is the biggest lie, DC is trying to profit off this time around.

Zdarsky also nerfed Jason in ways that I thought DC only wanted to nerf Dick Grayson. But I was able to see that I was wrong. Zdarsky’s run also pushed some of the most disastrous narratives that DC really wants readers to believe like: Robin Jason wasn’t good at his job, he was too reckless and ultimately his death was his own fault. Yay! I want to cry!

I will give Zdarsky two points for at the very least showing that Red Hood wants to protect children and that he has a huge issue with how the drug trade is controlled and abused in Gotham City, it had been a while since we had seen that aspect of Jason’s Red Hood make an appearance.

It’s just too many writers completely missing the point of Red Hood’s character or simply writers agreeing to destroy Jason’s uniqueness in the DC Universe so DC (as the publisher) can further push the abomination that is the “Batfamily” in comics’ canon.

I do agree with you Anon when you say that Jason isn’t just a “bad boy” but I also don’t think that we can call UtRH Jason “dangerously insane”. Personally, I will only use that last description for BftC and Batman and Robin Jason, those two were dangerously insane indeed.

UtRH Jason was very meticulous in who he wanted dead and who got to live. He entered Gotham’s most dangerous world and he had to make a big entrance, he invited the eight most prosperous street dealers to a meeting, showed up with the decapitated heads of each of their right-hand men and an AK-47 and said:

“I am offering you a deal. I will be running the drug trade from now on. You will go about your business as usual. You will kick up forty percent to me. That is a much better deal than the Black Mask will give you. In return, you will have total protection from both the Black Mask and Batman. The catch? You stay away from kids and schoolyards. No dealing to children, got it? If you do, you’re dead.”

This was Red Hood! Red Hood wanted to control the drug trade in Gotham because he knew that Gotham is far too corrupt and filled with drug lords for him to just want to eradicate drugs from Gotham. If he had tried that he would have been a dumbass, but he wasn’t. He didn’t want to start a gang war and get innocent people killed because of it, he wanted to set the rules of his new Empire and he had to start with the street-level drug dealers, from there he grew until he became a major pain in Black Mask’s ass.

We went from Jason wanting to control the drug trade and take over Gotham’s underworld so people like Black mask couldn’t have people work for him (or being dependent on him) when they were still in high school or were in a vulnerable position, to Jason fighting a war for a mystic land because he was their “Chosen One”. DC really wanted to do something grand (yet boring) with Jason instead of sticking to a street-level vigilante that could have become a Drug Lord to control the drug trade of a city that is so filled with crime and corruption that it can’t be saved by anyone.

Batman doesn’t eradicate crime, he “controls” it, puts a blank it over it, lets it nap up until it wakes up once more to make more mess.

Red Hood had other plans, certain criminals didn’t get to nap, or, better said, they would get to nap forever.

So, no. I wouldn’t call that “dangerously insane”, I will call that “vigilante that believes himself judge, jury and executioner” of a city that is drowning in crime and corruption.

Anyway, I hope you have a really nice week Anon and thank you so much for sending me this ask!

#jason todd #red hood #under the red hood #red hood and the outlaws #dc comics #future state red hood #three jokers #bftc #asksss

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actualbird · 3 years ago

Note

What if mc was the dragon?👀

contents: cn server luke card spoilers, luke/mc, fantasy, angst, happy ending after the angst because im not CRUEL, inspired by the cn server pv of Luke SSR Nightmare of a Phantasmagorical Night but in no way indicative of the actual story of the card as that has not been released yet at all

wc: 949

(anon you chemically altered my brain and i was basically possessed by a deranged luke/mc ghost to write this. thank u, i loved this a lot! rbs, likes, n tag comments give me life 🥺)

chapter 1

once upon a time luke is a knight and she is his princess. or at least that's what they were supposed to be, in this story. all stories have a knight and a princess, afterall, and so they played their roles. but maybe if this weren't the story, we could be more candid with what they are.

once upon a time luke is a child and so is she. running around together on the castle grounds, they did what all children did. they laughed and cried and spilled their love to each other in the messy, clumsy way all children tended to do. their love spilled amidst their laughter into the sun drenched days of before, spilling into the ground and seeping into the very land itself. in her eyes, he sees nothing but light but then they did what all children did:

once upon a time luke is a knight and she is his princess and then they grew up

chapter 2

once upon a time on the edge of manhood, luke is sent away. he understands, of course, he was their best and brightest, the one most capable to find this legendary evil that lurks in the shadows, an evil that threatens to emerge from the darkness one day to engulf the kingdom whole. so he left in the dead of the night, to save her from the pain of goodbyes.

once upon a time there were evenings luke would stare up into the sky and feel his drive falter and stutter. inside of him, there was still a child that felt fear, yearning, and the want to go back home. but on those nights he would close his eyes and remember the light in her eyes. on one of those nights, he realizes---not suddenly, but as if it had washed upon the shores of his heart wave after wave until the sands washed away, revealing the truth---that his love for her had been forged into devotion. so he got up the next day, took on his sword, forged in steel, and kept going.

chapter 3

once upon a time eight years pass. for every danger he defeated, for every horrid monster he rid, for every night that he pushed into the daylight, the evil he looks for evades his grasp. unbeknownst to luke, the evil he looks for had spilled into the ground with every slash of his sword. the evil he looks for had seeped into the very land itself. the evil that evades his grasp found its way into the body of the kingdom and it sought out the kingdom's heart.

once upon a time, a rose of a princess---who had already been feeling such an emptiness in her heart because he left her, he left her---felt that absence seized by a cold and icey power. how foolish, to leave the heart empty. something terrible and unspeakable, something from the ground, from the very land itself, took that space and wrenched her apart.

once upon a time luke is called back to the kingdom.

once upon a time his nightmares come true.

chapter 4

once upon a time---

"i can't," the knight says. his grip on his sword is strong but his heart is being ripped apart. "i can't, please, i---"

she roars, her towering form inching closer and closer to him, cornering him against a ruined wall, against everything that matters to him and everything the story wants him to do. in her eyes, the light is smothered by something with bared teeth and snarls but---

once upon a time---

"you know me," the knight pleads. "please, i know you're in there, you have to come back because i can't---i won't---"

she sends her claws into him, merciless. the knight feels his tears fall, not in fear for his death, but in anguish for what is happening. what had they ever done to deserve this? they were just children who grew up and loved so clumsily and messily but honestly as well. in her eyes, unshed tears but---

once upon a time---

"i won't raise my sword against you," the knight says, defeated. "i've hurt you enough."

in her eyes, a forgiveness that wants to spill out.

once upon a time---

"i'm sorry," luke says. he is not a knight in this moment. he is just who he is; a boy trying to be a man rendered a child again in the face of who he loves. he wants to go back home. and his home has always been her. "i'm sorry."

in her eyes---

she is no longer a monster. she is no longer a princess either. she is just who she is; a girl trying to be a woman rendered a child again in the face of who she loves.

the love the both of them had spilled all those years ago thrums in the ground, in the very land in the very itself, gives itself back to her. it rushes back into her heart and

in her eyes

light

chapter 5

once upon a time, there is luke and there is her. amidst the debris of after, luke holds her and she holds him. between them---in the small space they could not bridge in their embrace, just a sliver, just a wonderful reminder that they were two different people coming together---there is nothing but light.

once upon a time, if only for a moment, they don't have to do anything, be anything, but this:

two lives intertwined, waiting for the next day and the one after that and the one after that, to give their love to each other, wholly and honest and true.

#tears of themis #luke pearce #tears of themis fanfic #xia yan #hc

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reinvent-and-believe · 3 years ago

Text

saying your names

Prompt: hallucination Relationships: Geralt & Visenna Rating: T Content Warnings: unintentional but constant misgendering by a parent; depiction of gender dysphoria in a small child; reference to child self-injury (scratching); abandonment issues; minor book spoilers Summary: Visenna's child is claimed by a witcher through the Law of Surprise. When she bears a daughter instead of the promised son, she thinks she's cheated Destiny. But Destiny rarely accepts such defeat. (Or - the trans Geralt mommy issues fic)

@witcher-rarepair-summer-bingo

i. The Brave Knight

There’s an old fairy tale from far-away Toussaint, one Visenna remembers her grandmother telling her when she was little more than a babe, of a cohort of the bravest knights who gathered at the behest of the first duke to slay monsters and defeat villains and protect the land from all manner of evil. They were five in total, but none rivalled the gallant Sir Geralt, who defended the innocent and the weak, who perfectly embodied the Virtues, who fearlessly and faithfully loved the beautiful maiden Liliana. It’s a story like no other, full of heroics and chivalry, grand quests and epic romance. Visenna remembers sighing as a little girl, of braiding flowers into her shining copper hair and pretending to be Lady Liliana, rescued by that most puissant and most chivalrous of knights.

She hopes that her own daughter will love the tales as much as she did, so she recounts them while Greta lies in bed, wide dark eyes barely blinking as she soaks in every detail. She’s two now and obsessed with stories, any silly rambling thing Visenna remembers from childhood or improvises about the forest creatures near the village, but none have captivated her quite like this tale.

The next day, Visenna hears her daughter whacking at the swaying cattails at the bank of the river with a stick. “I defeat you!” comes the tremulous cry. “I Sir Geralt! I brave knight!”

It’s a small thing, and silly, yet Visenna goes cold.

ii. The Babe

When she realizes she’s with child, Visenna knows it will be a boy, feels it as sure as she feels the wind on her face, the blood pounding in her veins. She’s happy for a time. She knows the horrors women face, has seen, has felt firsthand the cruelties the world inflicts on beautiful little girls. Better a boy, then. Better a boy with a chance at a good life, a boy she can teach and train, a boy who won’t beat or violate or torment.

A mere month before the babe is due, the man returns, and finds her with child, and tells her what he’s done. He blames Destiny and the Law of Surprise and Tradition as Visenna learns a new type of cruelty men can inflict.

And so she hardens herself, tells herself that she will not become attached to what’s growing within her, this life promised to pay a life debt. “Don’t be absurd,” her friends tell her, through nervous glances. “You always assume the worst. It may well be a girl. The witcher won’t have need of a girl.”

But Visenna knows it, feels it with every spark of chaos within her and every pulse she sends out. The babe will be a boy, and she will have to give him up to the witchers, to be trained and transmuted into something other, something more and something less than the child she’ll birth.

And so Visenna grows cold.

When the midwife puts the squalling red girl with dark hair and wide dark eyes in Visenna’s arms, she sobs for days, sobs until she has no tears left and her eyes are raw and swollen. She won’t let the tiny thing out of her sight, barely lets others hold the babe, even in her utter exhaustion. Destiny may have promised her child to the witchers, but Destiny made the folly of giving her a daughter instead of the promised son.

iii. Greta

Greta will not wear her clothes.

At first, it’s almost a game. Visenna dresses her in a frock while the three-year-old protests then glares in turn when she’s overridden. She moves stiffly in the garment, pulling at the sleeves and tugging at the skirt, but she complies. But the minute she’s out of her mother’s sight, the dress comes off, and Visenna finds her naked, regardless of the weather. And the process repeats.

The struggle over clothing is only the beginning. Generally obedient, respectful, intelligent, Greta is nonetheless not an easy child, prone to inconsolable fits of panic and distress, prone to disappearing if not constantly monitored. It’s as though Visenna has birthed two different children. There’s the sullen, timid girl who hates wearing clothing, who barely speaks, who flinches at the sound of her own name, who stiffens in panic sometimes when she’s called, who cries at the slightest provocation, who goes missing only to be found after a frantic hour of searching lying on the floor in the narrow space between her bed and the wall, staring blankly, hearing nothing, seeing nothing. Then there’s the other child, the one who cuts dark curls short with the pruning shears from the shed, who runs fearlessly through the woods, slaying invisible monsters all around, yelling and laughing and breathless.

When a young couple with a son not much older than Greta moves into a nearby cottage, Visenna hopes that companionship will stabilize her daughter’s volatile, inexplicable moods. Instead, it leads to an immediate altercation: on the first day Greta and the boy Marek play together, the boy’s father shows up on Visenna’s doorstep, furious, with a wide, bleeding gash in his hand. He’d found them wearing each other’s clothes, he tells her. Greta had refused to surrender Marek’s clothes, and when he moved to force her out of them, she’d bitten his hand. “Like a rabid beast,” he spits out as Visenna runs past him to the small shack where Greta makes herself as small as possible, shaking all over.

Visenna shoves a few coins at the man with a glare. “Buy your son another outfit,” she snaps, and when she kneels down to Greta’s level the terrified child’s arms wrap immediately around her neck. She takes her child home in the roughspun tunic and trousers.

(Maybe she should punish the child for biting, but Visenna knows the ways men can be cruel, had seen the terror in her child’s huge brown eyes. Even if he meant no harm in trying to retrieve his son’s clothes, she can’t help being glad the child bit him rather than permit his touch.)

Visenna has never listened to Greta’s thoughts before, rarely listens to anyone’s on purpose, hates the uneasy sense of violation the act stirs up in her. But as she carries the silent, shaking child home, the thoughts ring so loudly she can’t keep them out.

Not an idiot girl. Not an idiot girl. Not an idiot girl. Not an idiot girl.

Then:

Not a girl.

iv. The Child

The morning after the incident with the neighbor, Visenna lays two outfits side by side on the bed: the tunic and trousers nicked from the neighbor boy, or the dress most frequently tolerated, a plain shift of soft linen, comfortable and loose.

"Which would you rather wear today?" Visenna asks, making the beds as usual. She hears the sharp intake of breath, sees out of the corner of her eye the hesitation, and then the child grabs the boy's clothes and cradles them in trembling arms.

Visenna visits a tailor and trades in little frocks for breeches and shirts. She watches her child’s face light up when she presents them, watches the child run reverent fingers over each garment, little hands doing their best to neatly fold each piece.

She stops calling the child Greta; stops calling the child anything but child. The child doesn’t seem to mind this namelessness; on the contrary, the child thrives. The too-thin frame rounds out with healthy, nearly chubby development as the child begins to eat more than a few bites at each meal; weak, skinny arms and legs grow strong with constant running and playing in the woods near the house. Banished is the pale, terrified little girl; only the rambunctious, talkative, joyful child remains.

"When I'm a knight," the child tells her one day, coming in from the yard wearing a bucket as a helmet, "I'm going to ride a big horse."

"Oh, a big horse," Visenna echoes, ladling the soup into a wooden bowl and blowing gently to cool it. "What will you name the horse?"

The child considers this. "Does it have to have a name?"

"All creatures need a name."

The child doesn't speak for a long while. Then that piping, gentle voice rings out. "What if the horse hates its name? It won’t be able to tell me."

Visenna sets the bowl down on the table. She doesn't ask any of the questions pounding through her head as she looks at her nameless child, lost in thought. She doesn’t think about Destiny, how a witcher may well show up at her door at any moment looking for their payment, doesn’t think about taking the child there herself. "Helmet off," she says instead, running a hand through dark curls when the child obeys. "Come, eat your soup."

v. The Butcher

She first hears whispers of the Butcher of Blaviken when she’s traveling through Poviss, brought north by an outbreak of smallpox needing healers. She hears of the vile, deranged, white-haired witcher who slaughtered nearly an entire village unprovoked, even women and children. She thinks little of it. The child she left with the witchers over half a century ago had brown hair, and the years would not have turned it so quickly, not on a witcher.

If he’s even still alive.

She puts the thought away, carefully, as she has for decades.

She thinks of it a little more in Kovir. “You’re one of them!” shrieks a woman in the tavern, pointing at a bulky man sitting in the corner. “One of them witchers like that Butcher! I seen your wolf necklace!”

All eyes train onto this disfigured witcher who is not Visenna’s child. (Does her child bear scars like this? Do his shoulders stoop in such defeat?) He scrubs a square hand over his face, looking almost pained, before he shoves away from the table in silence and leaves.

School of the Wolf, then, just like the witcher she’d surrendered her child to with naught but a letter left at the inn where he was staying. Your Child Surprise will be at the crossroads by the river at midday. A few brief, stilted sentences explaining that the child was different from other boys but Destiny had chosen him nonetheless. A terse plea that the witcher treat the child with kindness, to protect him if he could. A postscript, written in a shakier hand than the rest of the letter. My son’s name is Geralt.

Vesemir. The child’s father had called him old, grey-haired even then. Is Vesemir this Butcher, the ruthless, barbarous old witcher who leaves a trail of fresh corpses in his wake? Had she entrusted the helpless child to a merciless brute all these years ago?

It’s not until the notice board outside of Tridam that she understands. It’s a fairly standard notice concerning some vague, nondescript monster that’s caused disappearances, pleading for help from any witcher, excepting the butcher Geralt. Show your face in Tridam and we’ll finish you off like they should have done in Blaviken.

Her child, the Butcher of Blaviken.

She doesn’t know what happened in Blaviken, can’t find a clear telling. Killed a woman, some say, killed an army, killed all but three people, killed everyone down to the dogs and cows and sheep in his rage. Tales grow in the telling, she knows, but she can’t dispute it. Perhaps he is evil incarnate, perhaps by sending him to the witchers she doomed the continent to bloodshed, perhaps he is the monster in these furious whispers.

But she can’t help remembering the tiny, terrified body, rocking in the corner of a shack, those wide eyes staring up at her in panic. “Like a rabid beast,” the man had said, but Visenna found only a petrified child shaking in the corner.

vi. The White Wolf

The young man swaggers towards Visenna. Between the bright turquoise doublet, the enormous feather swooping dramatically through the air on his jauntily tilted hat, and the self-assurance of his stride, he looks like a veritable peacock.

It’s her own fault. She knows she’d been staring, but the sound of that name on his lips…

“Lovely evening, isn’t it?” His smile is bright and surprisingly genuine, reaching all the way up to his eager blue eyes. He’s younger up close than she’d imagined from across the tavern, barely more than a boy. “Though not half so lovely as you, I daresay. Might I interest you in a drink?”

She nods, silent. Watches him charm a passing barmaid who blushes and quickly returns with the desired ale. He slips into the chair across from Visenna, resting his elbows on the table and lacing his long fingers together beneath his chin, fixing her with a wide-eyed, adoring smile.

Before he can speak, she asks, “Your song. About the witcher.” She pauses, unsure what she means to ask. “Did you write it?”

Somehow the boy looks even more delighted. “Indeed I did! By the gods, it’s wonderful to chat with a fan. It’s one of my most recent compositions. How did you like it?”

“Hmm.” The boy’s song had been so jarringly different from any reference to the child she bore than she’s ever heard. In the bard’s honeyed voice, he sounded almost heroic. She hesitates. “Do you know him?”

“Only a little,” he admits, but there’s a slight flush on his childish face that he attempts to cover with bravado. “The song is the true telling of our grand adventure. I accompanied the White Wolf on his quest to defeat the Devil of Posada, the most terrifying monster to ever...well, terrorize the good people of the Valley of the Flowers.”

“And he’s...he’s not what people say?” Those huge brown eyes staring up at her, tiny body trembling. “Not a butcher?”

“Oh my good lady, not at all!” The bard’s expression of dismay is guileless, earnest. “He saved me, put himself between me and harm’s way when we were captured by the elves, offered his own life for mine.”

A life debt. Just as the child’s father had promised the Law of Surprise to the old witcher, the vow that had set the course of Geralt’s life before he was even born. And now this strange boy owes Geralt a life debt of his own.

“So that’s why,” she confirms cautiously. “Why you write songs for him. Make him the hero when men would be more than happy to remember him as a monster.”

The boy hesitates, his charismatic blustering slipping as he bites at his bottom lip. He reaches distractedly into his pocket, finding some trinket he rolls about in his palm to occupy his busy, nervous hand before he slowly answers. “Even if he hadn’t saved my life I would have written about him. Well, not if I hadn’t survived that particular encounter, of course. But if I’d gotten away myself, or if I hadn’t followed him into the wild in the first place, I would still have written about him.”

“And why is that?”

“Because I…I don’t think he’s known very much kindness.” The bard doesn’t look at her, quite, as he speaks, slower and softer than before. “You ought to see the way he responds to a simple compliment, you’d think his head might explode, he twitches and looks bewildered and grunts angrily. It’d be amusing if it weren’t so very sad.” He’s quiet for a moment, tracing the wood grain in the table with his eyes as he gathers his thoughts. “But he’s kind, even if the world isn’t. He gave his reward for the contract to the…well, to someone who needed it more. And before that, he…” He glances down at the dull gold coin between his fingers, rubbing absently at worn, beveled edges, his face flushing prettily. “He liked my singing.”

She watches the bard, lost in thought and fiddling with a lone coin, for a long while.

vii. Geralt

A slip of a thing running through the woods. Frightened. Alone.

A fight. Gruesome, brutal, fast.

The stench of decay.

“And me? What did I do? I bandaged a wounded man who’d fainted away and put him on my cart and didn’t leave him to expire. It’s an ordinary matter.”

“It’s not so ordinary. I’ve been left...in similar situations...like a dog.”

Blood. Not running, red and healthy and clean; slow. Thick. Dark. Foul.

Infection.

Youths dancing in lusty delight on a warm spring night. A woman with raven curls, naked and wistful in his arms, the warmth of a bonfire lighting her face a beautiful gold. Children screaming, playing in a dried moat. A queen, formidable and sneering, full of contempt.

Hideous wounds, threatening the leg. Amputation may be necessary, without immediate intervention.

Resin in the air.

Ashen hair matted over the clumped, drying cake of blood deforming half of a pale face.

Black potion with a green seal. And then darkness.

Visenna awakes with a start.

The druids’ campsite is still, the last embers of the fire the only light in the darkness of the forest. She pulls the woolen cloak around her thin shoulders, grabs her medical bag, and goes to find the witcher that was once her child.

She finds him a pale and bloody mess on the back of a cart, eyes open and unseeing. He’s racked with feverish chills as his body desperately attempts to fight the infection poisoning him.

She helps the merchant move Geralt carefully onto blankets on the ground. She tends to him, as she’s tended to thousands of others. She cleans his wounds, scraping destroyed, decaying flesh away from healthy tissue, pulling the gentle pulses of chaos from the earth to purify his blood, draining infection and necrosis and narcotic alike from him.

She’d cleaned blood and dirt and debris from scraped knees, once, the too-fast beating of a little, huge heart pounding so loudly she could feel it. The wounds of childhood.

His pulse is slow, the drumbeat of a dirge.

She’s warm all over, suddenly, then cold. Her vision swims before her eyes.

A little more. The pulsing wanes, wavers as she begins to join him in the dark void beyond consciousness.

No.

She breathes, her eyes closed, then returns to her work.

She feels him stirring before he makes a movement, senses him swimming to the surface, coming to. He’s quiet, still, blank. When his eyes open, he’s staring at the treetops above them. His face is impassive. Lifeless.

The way she would find him, sometimes, after he went missing as a child. Staring at nothing. Trying not to be.

She can hear it in his voice. He knows.

His leg will heal, now. She’s done all she can.

She moves on to the bedsores, massaging ointment carefully into the open wounds. His body is stiff and unyielding beneath her touch.

She gives him what she can. “It’s my profession,” she says. Her voice is steady, cool. It’s no excuse, no answer, but it’s what she has. “The only thing I’ve ever been good at.” This much at least is true. This much she can give him.

She’s always known she would meet him again. She never sought him out, never avoided him. “People linked by destiny will always find each other.” She hears it, as though it’s someone else’s voice.

“I want you to look at me.” It’s a snarl. Not a sound she’s heard from those lips before. “How do you like my eyes? Do you know, Visenna, what they do to a witcher to improve his eyes?”

She knows enough. She meets his gaze.

Those eyes, the greatest marker of his difference, his inhumanity. They’re golden, now, instead of brown. His pupils are wide, round, black, pained. They aren’t so different. So monstrous.

Just the eyes of a terrified child lashing out in desperation.

“Do you know it doesn’t always work?” he demands.

“Stop it, Geralt.”

And something breaks.

“You don’t get to use that name!” There’s a frantic rage dripping off every syllable, hatred and agony, like a festering wound ripped open and left to bleed. He glares at her with a wild fury. “Vesemir gave me that name.”

And he’s a child, he’s three years old and screaming like he’s being tortured when she calls his given name. He’s five and distraught over the thought of a horse who hates its name and can’t tell anyone. He’s four and he’s a trembling mess with blood beneath his fingernails, shaking and unable to stop ripping at his own flesh.

“You trusted Destiny rather than trying to find me yourself,” he begs.

A child with nothing in the world running through the forest and into the arms of a witcher.

There’s a tear running down her face. It’s the only thing she can feel. “Don’t ask me any more questions,” Visenna says softly.

“Why?”

She’d known since before he was born that she wasn’t to keep him. That Destiny had other plans.

When she thought she had a daughter, there was hope.

“The answers will only hurt us both.” Carefully, Visenna presses him back into the makeshift sickbed.

“Yen was right.” His voice is low, barely audible, a broken murmur. “It’s not enough to be destined for each other.”

A child runs through the woods and finds a witcher waiting.

Brown curls become ashen locks. Eyes swirling brown and gold and green.

“Something more is needed.” He’s not speaking to her anymore. He’s staring up, at the treetops and through them to the stars above, his eyes losing and regaining focus. “I...I want…”

“No.” Her voice is soft, and she sees him relax into the smooth cadence in spite of himself. “Go to sleep, Geralt.” She hesitates as his eyes grow heavy, begin to drift shut, and she can’t help leaning toward him to gently whisper, “And just between us, Vesemir didn’t give you that name.” She lets herself reach out, carefully brushing white hair off his sweating brow. “It doesn’t change anything, but I’d like you to know that.”

“Visenna…”

“Sleep. I was just a dream.” She hesitates, watching silently as he fights the exhaustion, like a child fighting to stay awake past his bedtime, begging for one more story. “Sleep, Sir Geralt.”

He does.

viii. Sir Geralt

She does not see him again.

She travels to Sodden and heals the injured, soldier and mage alike.

She hears tales, as she has for years.

Geralt’s kidnapped a young Cintran princess for unspeakable, nefarious purposes.

Geralt died on Thanedd, caught up by chance in the mages’ bloody revolt.

Geralt led the forces of Lyria and Rivia against Nilfgaard, earning himself a knighthood and a position in Queen Meve’s army.

(She doesn’t believe any of them, doesn’t let herself care either way, but she hopes the latter is true. Hopes he lives out the rest of his days a brave knight, as he always dreamed of becoming.)

Visenna works. Cleans and stitches and bandages wounds, wanders from battleground to battleground. There’s no shortage of work for a healer.

So many tales of Geralt the witcher, Geralt the traitor, Geralt the butcher, the knight, the outlaw, the hero, the father. Of his victories and defeats, his loves and enemies, his transcendence, his demise.

Visenna listens to them all. Collects the stories, the lies, the praises, the calumnies. She draws them carefully within her. Carries them with her as she continues on the path.

For all the rumors and speculation and ballads, of all things, for all the different Geralts, there’s one that’s hers and hers alone. A skinny, adventurous child with brown curls and a bucket-helmet falling into his eyes who swings a gnarled oak stick as a sword. He’s ever vigilant, ever ready to defend the weak against the unrelenting onslaught of monsters only he can see.

#the witcher fic #the witcher #geralt of rivia #visenna #trans geralt #my fic #still don't really know how i feel about this but here it is #witcher-rarepair-summer-bingo

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