#I was quite impressed the whole way through :D The cast was great and the animation was beautiful and fluid and impressive

[sysig]

Anime good :) (Patreon)

[byakuyasdarling]

I do want to talk about this briefly. It’s pretty much universally agreed upon that Byakuya’s ENG voice sounds best in early THH and in his in-between lines (what’s voiced here) — he has his deeper pitch and more monotone articulation. His monotone articulation is actually excellent characterisation, and is held a lot more in the original JPN VA, more particularly when you compare his CH2/3 trial lines. Having him only emotionally articulate in big moments gives a sense of significance to them and how it’s playing off/ impacting his beliefs (CH4 — redefining the KG for him and dropping his veneer more; CH6 — realising whole family and what he’s based his life around are dead).

Byakuya is obviously not emotionless, but he’s practically been groomed to appear he is, which is why his monotone articulation is such important characterisation I wish held in the ENG dub more. Compared to the very emotional cast, he stands out BECAUSE he lacks it in his voice. It fulfils the intimidating image he projects earlier in the KG as he stands in juxtaposition to everyone. His threats of murder become so much more powerful because it’s more believable he is capable of cold-blooded murder without guilt. It’s also a “show don’t tell” thing — we don’t need to be told the fact he’s composed and controlled because we can hear it in his voice.

His monotone voice and marginally more simplistic design than the other “quirky” characters actually serve to differentiate him in a really important way. He’s not a character you can necessarily suspend in a moment of disbelief when he’s acting threatening (during CH2 before the murder) because he’s so much more grounded in reality at that point. He has no outlandish outfit or personality traits like other characters. He’s selfish in the KG, like any human would be in a hunger-games-esque situation (which is actually referenced in his achievement for completing his FTE events):

(I would also say this is a good reference with his backstory too)

The only way he actually gets away with some more “unbelievable” talk after his initial threats of death in CH2 is this build-up of his character. You didn’t need to know about his influence to know he’s a threat because he already demonstrated that just through design contrast and voice. If he didn’t, he’d just sound like a cringe serial-killer-wannabe for the most part.

Byakuya epitomised THH as a more believable cast in comparison to D//R2. Characters are too selfless and quirky to be taken seriously in that game and doesn’t reflect realistic human nature (obviously it doesn’t have to, but it does miles for the narrative and atmosphere if it was). Nagito is a far more beloved character and “antag” sure, but that’s probably because people could easily excuse him as he felt so fictional, so not real. I never felt threatened by him because he wasn’t grounded like Byakuya, just insane. Byakuya consciously makes decisions, consciously plays into the aggressive caricature of himself his family demands him to be — and that makes him a way more deliberate and scary “villain” at first glance than the initial unpredictable chaos surrounding Nagito (ON FIRST IMPRESSION).

Byakuya is a great character because he’s layered. He wants you to think he’s intimidating, he wants you to fear him and find him deplorable, he couldn’t care less. But when you see those outer layers of his caricature peel in later chapters and coming to a head in CH4-6, you see what he really is. Another victim of the game. He cracked like everyone else, it just wasn’t noticeable. He’s not inherently violent at all, quite the opposite, but the KG’s adversarial environment it fosters caused a relapse in his trauma (that paralleled the KG situation) and compelled him into “fight or flight” to survive — hence his actions. He’s human and had natural human reactions considering his past and circumstance. Narratively he lacks intimidation that now he’s shown weakness, but he doesn’t need to as he’s moulded into his correct role as an anti-hero that reflects his actual self a lot more.

He does have less empathy than others, yes — but he does clearly have it in his own way and can process emotions (D//R2 CH6). Outside of the KG situation, he is not even close to that extreme, so we can surmise his more problematic behaviour was circumstantial like Sayaka or Aoi.

I think his ENG voice actor is awesome (and just a great guy in general), but I think later on he gives Byakuya too much emotion in his voice, hence loosing a lot of significance his voice holds for his character and the narrative atmosphere as a whole without realising.

I have too many husband thoughts,, I must snuggle him

Also, haven’t heard his voice in so long <3 (I just don’t interact with the fandom at all) and aaaa, he is so handsome,,,

[pikapeppa]

Garrus Vakarian x f!Shepard: Crick

Hello friends and loved ones: I am dipping my toe into Shakarian fic. Haven’t quite decided yet how much to commit to writing this pairing in detail, so here’s a little oneshot set just after the Horizon mission in ME2. ~2400 words. (Tumblr only for now, but I’ll post on AO3 if I decide to write more.)

******************************

Garrus sighed as he made his way to the main battery room. There was a stiff feeling in the left side of his neck and shoulder when he tilted his head, and he was annoyed by it. It was his own fault, really; he’d fallen asleep at his weapons modification table again last night and woken with this crick in his neck that wouldn’t go away.

It was one of those times when he really wished he could get a proper hammer massage. There was that one place on the Citadel that did real Palavenese massage, the good kind that you really felt vibrating all the way through your carapace into your bones, but Garrus wasn’t sure if Shepard would be ordering them back to the Citadel anytime soon.

It’s just a crick, he reminded himself. It could be so much worse. The fight they’d just gone through on Horizon had been… a tough one, to say the least. Any fight with an unfamiliar new enemy could be unnerving, but seeing that Harbinger thing jumping from body to body during the fight had almost been enough to make Garrus pause.

Almost, but not quite. Archangel never hesitated or missed his shot. 

He stepped into the main battery room and took a deep breath, then released it in a satisfied sigh. The air in here smelled like clean plastic and a hint of metal, and he savoured the relaxing smell just as he did every time he stepped into this room after a hard fight. 

He flicked on the monitors and cracked the joints in his fingers, then started his usual routine of checking the gun settings – a routine that was more for comfort now than necessity, if he was being totally honest. Cerberus might be a pack of crazies doing their twisted human experiments, but they sure made a mighty fine canon. 

He finished up his calibrating routine, and he was just about to move on to studying the Collector particle rifle that Shepard had salvaged when he heard the distinct beep-and-shunk of the door unlocking. A second later, the doors slid open, and Shepard stepped through. 

She nodded briskly. “Garrus. Just checking in. You doing okay after that fight?”

“I’m just fine, Shepard,” he assured her. “I was about to start looking at your new toy here, actually.”

“That’s great,” she said. “It looks like a powerful little piece of tech. Something we can turn to our advantage, you think?”

“I don’t doubt it,” he said. “There’s nothing I find more satisfying than using the enemy’s own weapons against them.”

A small smile crossed her face, just as he’d hoped it would. He hadn’t seen a smile on her face all day, not since the Collectors had gotten away with the population of Horizon’s colony. Kaidan’s angry lecture probably hadn’t helped things, either. 

She huffed and leaned an elbow on the weapons mod table. “That’s pretty bloodthirsty of you, Garrus.” 

“Bloodthirsty? Me? Never,” he said. “Thirsty for justice, on the other hand…”

She laughed — a husky rolling sound that always reminded him, for some reason, of brandy-filled chocolates. “What a line. Did your time on Omega inspire you to dip your toe into writing noir mystery novels?”

“What if it did?” he said playfully.

“Then I’d tell you stick to your dayjob,” she replied.

It was Garrus’s turn to chuckle. Shepard smiled at him once more, then straightened up and nodded at the particle rifle. “I know you just got started here, but I’m interested to see what you find. Mind if I watch you working for a while?”

“No problem,” he said. “Might ask you to throw up a barrier for your own protection, though. This thing doesn’t use conventional heat sinks. I’m not sure yet if it can even be fully turned off.”

She nodded and cast herself a barrier with a quick clench of her fist, and Garrus got to work studying the Collector rifle. He scanned it to build a schematic and explained the exploded view to Shepard, and she frowned thoughtfully and asked questions about the weapon’s uses and disadvantages, and all the while, as he often did, he wondered what she was really thinking. 

By any objective standards, it had been a bad day. They’d just watched most of a human colony get taken away by the Collectors. Her former lieutenant had accused her of crimes against her race right after a really tough fight, and when they’d boarded the Normandy once more, the Illusive Man had told her that he’d actually incited the Collectors to target Horizon. 

If Garrus was in Shepard’s place, he’d be vibrating with anger by now. But here she was, watching him dismantle a gun with the calmest look on her face. 

A solid half hour later, when he’d finished thoroughly surveying the rifle, he tapped his visor from its analysis mode back into its resting mode and looked at her. “I think that’s about all I’m going to do with this rifle for today. You need me for anything else?”

“Nothing else for now,” she said. “Thanks for the demonstration. I’ll talk to you later.” She stepped back toward the door. 

On a sudden whim, he opened his mouth. “Shepard, hang on a second.”

She turned back to him. “What is it?”

He hesitated. Now he was wondering if the question at the tip of his tongue was too personal. He and Shepard were friends, sure, but his question might touch a bit of a sore spot, given what had happened today. If Garrus knew anything about Shepard, it was that she wasn’t much of one for talking about her feelings when missions didn’t go as expected. Not that Garrus was a talky-feely sort of guy, either, but still… 

She raised her eyebrows expectantly, and he shook himself. He’d called her to turn around; he had no choice but to ask now. “Are you doing okay?” 

Her eyebrows rose higher. “Sorry?”

“This whole Collector business on Horizon,” he clarified. “I know it didn’t go down the way we wanted, and then with the Illusive Man being, you know… illusive.” He lifted his shoulders. “It can’t have been easy.”

Her blue-black eyes crinkled at the corners. “You worrying about me, Vakarian?” 

“A little, maybe,” he said. “You’ve only taken a dig at me once today.”

Another smile flashed across her face, but it was gone a second later, smoothed back into her usual businesslike expression. “I’m all right,” she said. “It’s a hit to have lost the colony, but we’ll save the next one. I’ll make sure of it.”

He nodded. “Seeing Kaidan was a bit of a shock, huh?”

She huffed and folded her arms. “It wasn’t ideal, but that’s the way it is. He’s got his mission, and we’ve got ours. We can’t lose our focus over personal feelings.”

Garrus nodded again. Everything she was saying was reasonable and true, and her calm attitude was envious, really. If Garrus was able to keep his calm like Shepard did… well, he’d tried to channel Shepard’s calm while he was on Omega, but it had only gotten him so far. Garrus had never known anyone, human or otherwise, who kept their cool all the time quite the way Shepard did. 

And yet, for some reason, he just… he wasn’t sure. Her manner struck him as a little bit off, somehow, like the feeling of the crick in his neck.

She lifted her eyebrows. “Anything else?”

“How do you do it?” he said bluntly.

She blinked. “Do what?”

“Keep it together all the time,” he said. “You never seem uncertain. You always seem to know what you’re doing, even if you can’t possibly know. I have to admit, I envy you,” he admitted. “How is it that you always manage to keep it together?”

She didn’t reply right away. Instead, she just stared at him without speaking, and Garrus started to feel a little awkward. It was hard to tell from the look on her face, but he thought that maybe she was… was she angry? Surprised? Bored, maybe? He couldn’t quite tell. Human expressions were usually easy to interpret, with their fleshy lips stretching and pouting and their eyebrows leaping up and down. But when Shepard was in her ‘commander’ mode, she could be so damned hard to read. 

She glanced at the closed door. Then, to his surprise, she walked over to him and sat in his chair. 

She raked her long black bangs back from her face and looked up at him. “You want to know my secret?” she said.

“Secret?” he said blankly. “To what?”

“To staying calm all the time,” she said. “Can I tell you my secret?”

“Um, sure,” he said. 

She leaned toward him, and he instinctively stooped down a bit to hear her better — a good thing that he did, since her voice was low and conspiratorial when she spoke. 

“I cry in the shower,” she said.

His guts twisted in a funny way. “What?”

She leaned back in his chair. “I cry in the shower,” she said. “When something really fucked up happens, I get in the shower at the end of the day and I cry like hell.”

He stared at her wordlessly. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected her to say, but it wasn’t this. 

A little smile curled the corners of her lips. “What’s wrong? Not the answer you were hoping to hear?”

“It’s — it’s not that,” he said. “I’m just, uh, surprised. You cry in the shower?”

“Yep,” she said. “Not bullshitting you, I promise. This is not a bet with Joker or anything like that.”

He tried to gather his wits. “So… what, you cry in the shower, and then you just… get back to being Commander Malin Shepard, saviour of the Citadel and resident Reaper conspiracist?”

She chuckled. “Exactly. It’s like a purge. Works perfectly every time.”

He nodded slowly, feeling like he needed some time to process this, and Shepard huffed and punched his arm in a friendly manner.  “Not so impressed with me anymore, huh?”

That wasn’t the problem. It wasn’t that he was unimpressed. But now he was actually worried about her. In all the time Garrus had known her, he had never once imagined her crying about anything. If what she was telling him was true, though…

Hang on. How often did she cry in the shower, exactly? No, he couldn’t ask that — it would definitely be overstepping. 

He scrambled to find a clever reply. “It’s not that,” he said. “Actually, I’m jealous.”

She laughed. “Jealous? Why?” Then her eyebrows rose. “Wait, can turians cry?”

“Sure,” Garrus said. “But we don’t do it often.”

“Is it hard for you to cry?” she asked.

“Well, the turian military doesn’t exactly encourage you to curl up in the corner for a little weeping time,” he said dryly.

She snorted. “Not what I meant. I was more wondering if, uh, since you have deep eye sockets, maybe your tears collect in there somewhere…?”

He flared his mandibles in amusement. “Tears don’t collect in a little reservoir under our eyes or something, if that’s what you’re wondering,” he drawled. “But yeah, we can cry. It just doesn’t happen much. Which leads me to the jealousy,” he added. “You get to sit in your shower crying whenever you feel like it? Forget the private cabin: that’s the real luxury of being the commander.”

She laughed again, more heartily this time, and the husky warmth of her laughter was such that Garrus could almost taste the sweet bite of brandy and bittersweet chocolate. “Well, if you ever want to try it sometime, let me know.”

“Try what?” he said. “Crying in the shower?”

“Yep,” she said. “You can borrow my private shower instead of using the shared showers down here, if you want. The walls are soundproof, so nobody can hear you wailing.”

For a split second, an image flashed across his mind: Shepard’s private shower. No, not just Shepard’s private shower: Shepard’s private shower, with Shepard in it. Shepard naked in the shower — what did her body look like under those clothes, he wondered? — and he, Garrus, joining her in the shower —

Wait. Wait a second. Why was he thinking about that? He shouldn’t be thinking about that. It was Shepard, for crying out loud: his friend and his CO. Who did he think he was, to imagine his human female CO naked in the shower? 

He scrambled to get his thoughts back on track. “I’ll, uh, let you know,” he said. “Might have to train my eyes how to cry, it’s been so long.”

She smirked. “Nice try, Vakarian. Something tells me you’re not quite that heartless.”

He chuckled — a little weakly, to be truthful, but Shepard didn’t seem to notice; she was rising from his chair with a smile. “Well, I should go. I’ll see you later.”

“See you later,” he echoed, and he watched her surreptitiously as she left the room. Once she was gone, he sat in his chair and closed his eyes. 

Crying in the shower… he honestly wouldn’t have guessed it. He’d expected her to give him some kind of encouraging advice or bolstering words of wisdom, like the sorts of things she said to the team before they set off on a mission. But somehow, hearing her say she cried in the shower was… interesting. It made him think about her in a different way. He was worried for sure, but also… comforted, somehow, to know that even Shepard got overwhelmed enough to cry. It seemed that under all that heavy N7 armour, she really was a regular person, too. 

Under all that heavy N7 armour… A flash of a thought projected itself on his closed eyelids: Shepard stripping off her armour, her slender human fingers raking her sweat-dampened bangs back from her face, the small bare patch at the nape of her neck where her short spiky hair faded into light golden-brown skin… 

He snapped open his eyes. Was he drifting off? He must be more tired than he thought. No other reason that he’d keep thinking about Shepard like this. 

He rose from his chair and rolled his shoulders, then clicked in his mandibles in annoyance as the crick in his neck announced itself once more. “Really could use a damned massage,” he muttered. Well, he’d just have to suck it up and wait until they got back to the Citadel.

In the meantime, he’d just have to cope with the strange nagging feeling of the crick in his neck.

[charlie-rulerofhell]

For they know exactly what they do

Today there was a pretty long article published in the German newspaper FAZ, written by Julia Schaaf. Since there were quite a few interesting topics raised in it and Måneskin talked about some new aspects (or in more detail), I translated the whole thing (it might also have helped me to procrastinate).

Full interview in English under the cut.

For they know exactly what they do

June 22, 2021

Four young rock musicians from Rome are today's hottest band. Måneskin are enchanting Europe. Why? We met them for an interview.

Every romance needs its founding myth, an anecdote from the beginning, something you can tell later in more difficult times for self-assurance.

In the case of the band Måneskin, who first had Italy and now half of Europe wrapped around their fingers, and who are now trying to conquer the rest of the world with their rock music, there is the story of the shoe box. Rome, around five years ago: Four teenagers who are meeting every day after school in their rehearsal room to make music together, and sometimes they play their songs on the Via del Corso in the city centre in front of a changing audience. One day they want to record their own stuff. They find a studio that they can actually afford and as they go there they bring a shoe box, with the name of the band written on it, 'moonshine' in Danish, the bassist's mother is Danish. In the box: around seven kilogram of coins. The things you get from playing music on the streets. Everyone searching through Instagram for photos from that time can find four hippies with children's faces, three boys in batik, the girl is wearing a straw hat.

As they have to pay [for the recording], frontman Damiano David, 22, says that there was this guy, Angelo, and his bandmate Victoria De Angelis, 21, is interrupting: “No, Andrea, not Angelo”, and all of them have to laugh because a rigid studio manager with the Italian name 'angel' would be even funnier for a founding myth. David continues his story: “The guy was completely dumbfounded. 'We can't do that.' We went: 'Sure we can, that's worth the same even if it's just 20 cent coins, it's still 300 euros.” Thomas Raggi, 20, the guitarist of the band, is gasping for air as he laughs, while drummer Ethan Torchio, 20, is smiling dreamily. David finishes: “And then we snuck off before he was able to count it.” [the German text says 'verdrücken' here which is just a colloquial way of saying 'we left', but it entails some sort of a dramatic exit, so yeah, let your thoughts get creative how they left exactly :D].

Four young musicians on the verge of global fame are sitting on a white interview sofa in Berlin, completely styled, babbling across each other like overeager teenagers.

Ever since the Roman band first won the music festival Sanremo and then also the Eurovision Song Contest, carried by the enthusiasm of European viewers, you could say Måneskin has become a phenomenon. “Rock 'n' Roll never dies!”, Damiano David yelled fueled by the adrenaline of winning, and the insinuation that circulated on social media of the singer snorting during the counting of votes in front of a live camera – including their strict denial followed by a negative drug test result – might have given an additional boost to their public interest, their exploding album, ticket and merch sales, and their outstanding success on Spotify.

“We think it's a shit prejudice against rock music that there always have to be drugs involved. We fully threw ourselves into our participation with the utmost professionalism. We give everything for the music. So of course we don't want people to think that we can only do that because we take drugs.” – Victoria De Angelis

Prior to Eurovision, Måneskin was more of an insider's tip outside of Italy. Handmade rock music, not creating something entirely new but paying homage to the good old times with classic guitar riffs and cracking drum beats, being a lot of fun but also quite fragile and vulnerable at times and, first and foremost, conveying a captivating energy. Finally, on the stage of Rotterdam, live after so many months of isolation and renunciation, this wave of energy spilled straight over into European living rooms. It seemed easy to (mistakenly) interpret the winning song “Zitti e buoni” (Shut up and behave) as a declaration of frustration of our youth in times of a pandemic. In fact, singer Damiano David is singing about the favourite topic of the band: the unrelenting need to, against all odds, be yourself, despite or perhaps because you are different. The message fits their provocative sex appeal, which the band uses to demonstrate their independence of gender norms at any given time. But the core essence of rock music has always been the promise of unlimited freedom.

Thus at the first moment, the meeting with Måneskin is kind of startling. It's Wednesday, we are in the top floor of the new Sony head quarters in Berlin. The four Italians have just started their two-week long promotion tour through Europe. In the afternoon there will be a live concert in a queer club [the SchwuZ, but that's not mentioned here] in Neukölln, which will be streamed via TikTok. Around one million viewers will watch the show, some of them even from Brazil, so people at Sony are pretty excited [for Måneskin to come here]. But at first, these stunningly gorgeous creatures [yes, that's the exact wording :D] are standing surrounded by an entourage of people – their management, PR team, a stylist, a photographer, people who can hold a smartphone or a cigarette if needed [this paragraph is worded a little weirdly, especially taking into account that basically their whole team / 'entourage' is just friends of them, but it seems like the journalist didn't know that or maybe they just wanted to describe their first impression]. They seem like fictional / artificial characters out of a Hollywood movie. Transparent frill blouses with blazers and flared leather trousers, even the platform boots, everything brand-new, the makeup makes their faces look like a glossy magazine cover even in person. The smokey eyes of De Angelis and Raggi make them look smug and bored. Later, on the pictures it will probably look cool.

So of course your first impression might be: This band is under contract to industry giant Sony ever since their success on an Italian casting show [X Factor] in Winter 2017. The music industry must have its hand in the game when a band is photographed half-naked by Oliviero Toscani and styled by Etro. Also, one does not simply rent a villa with a pool in Rome to produce new music there, isolated from the rest of the world. And who else went to London for two whole months, shortly before the winter lockdown, just for inspiration? After the TikTok concert in Berlin – De Angelis and David are now wearing fishnet shirts that sparkle with every move, their bare nipples covered with an X of black tape – the band is posing with a few influencers. In the world of social media you would call that 'producing content'. But what does that mean for a band who are preaching their hosanna of authenticity? How authentic is Måneskin? And is their pointedly casual approach to sexuality and gender cliches in today's pop-cultural spirit more than a marketing strategy?

We're in the interview, the recording device is running for not even five minutes, when Victoria De Angelis says: “Actually, we just try to be ourselves and do what we really want to do.” And really: The more you listen to those four how they speak about the early days of the band in their slurred Roman dialect, about the shoe box and their own experiences with being different, but most importantly about their shared obsession [with music], the more you realise that [De Angelis] is  very serious. Ethan Torchio, who got his first drum kit at the age of six or seven from his father because he was beating everything he could reach, says: “For me, music is like food. I cannot live without it.” The bassist next to him laughs at his pathos. Singer Damiano David applauds the otherwise more reserved friend for his truthfulness [it says 'klarer Punkt', meaning 'for the point he makes', but it makes it seem like Damiano is agreeing with Ethan here, although it doesn't indicate whether he agrees that yes, music is everything for Ethan or that he understands and feels the same].

De Angelis and guitarist Raggi already knew each other from middle school and they were the ones who tried to form a band at the age of only 13, a band that actually took music seriously.

De Angelis: “It's just difficult at that age to find other people who really put everything into music and who truly commit themselves and are willing to invest a lot of their time.”

Raggi: “We set strict rules and scheduled fixed times for the rehearsals, for every day.”

David: “Fever, stomach ache, there was no excuse. Even if you were feeling sick in the rehearsal room. At least you were in the rehearsal room.”

The way the four of them talk across each other, completing each other's sentences, taking turns in talking and sometimes joking about each other, seems intimate and playful. Singer David remembers how at first bassist [De Angelis] was merciless towards him when it came to her first metal band project, as she told him that he wasn't committed enough [to the music]: “Back then I was still playing Basketball. I was one of the people that Vic absolutely didn't want [in her band].” Drummer Torchio was later discovered through Facebook, even though there had already been a drummer, a close friend, but he was not good enough. It seems as if even back then music was everything for them. Even if it meant that only Raggi managed to graduate.

And why rock, why rock music of all things? Because it's great, the four of them say in unison. David adds: “Actually, it's a genre that allows you to do everything you want to do.”

When they played on the street, they were laughed at by their classmates. But not only there. De Angelis explains that she never wanted to be a typical girl: “I was always deterred by those stupid boxes that people put you in, and that are just restricting and constraining you, because something is only regarded as male or female. I always rejected that. Instead, I just wanted to do the things I enjoyed doing, I went skating and played football.” Torchio says: “Friends who are not friends anymore were already telling me at the age of ten that those“ – he grabs his long, silky black hair – “were wrong. Because I'm a boy and boys are meant to have short hair, long hair is only for girls. I was bullied a lot for that.”

“Compared to the past, people in our age became much more open-minded. It gets better.” – Thomas Raggi

Frontman David on the other hand, for whom eye shadow, jingling earrings and nail polish as well as his bare torso with the tattoos have become trademarks by now, says: “I was actually more of the average boy.” De Angelis convinced him to try out some eyeliner, which he describes as a spiritual awakening: “I liked myself much more [with makeup]. I saw myself more as myself. As if it had been a suppressed desire of mine.” On a trip to Copenhagen with the others, when he realised that it really didn't matter what people were thinking about him, he got his first fake fur [coat? the article doesn't specify that] in a second-hand shop and let his clothing style be guided by his own love to experiment: “I realised that my whole life I was just going at half speed.” When it comes to diversity all four of them are becoming almost missionary.

At the same time, their success is not only opening doors for them. Back home in Rome they are barely able to go out on the street due to all the paparazzi. “[You need a] hoodie and huge sunglasses”, David says, “the mask is quite helpful, too.” And still, none of them is complaining, and Torchio explains why: “Even if those experiences right now may have sides that are not so pleasant, we still know that for us a dream is coming true. We experience something that we always had in our minds, so we are willing to face every consequence that this entails.”

So is the band facing difficult times, is Måneskin going to change with all the success? Again, all of them answer at the same time.

David: “I'm not worried about that.”

Raggi: “No way!”

De Angelis: “On the contrary. Everything that happened to us happened because we are who we are, so we want to continue the exact same way and stay ourselves.”

Just a few hours later, they are at the stage in Neukölln, bouncing around like pinballs, hammering at their instruments, flirting with each other. “We are out of our minds, but different from the others”, David sings their winning hymn against conformism, and: “The people talk, unfortunately they talk.” Here on stage, the four paradise birds [a German word describing someone with a flamboyant personality] with their half-nude-glittering outfits are radiating an incredible energy with the utmost sincerity, and you begin to wish there was a live audience instead of the TikTok cameras, absorbing and spreading this energy. Måneskin. A cry for a life after the pandemic, a cry for freedom and a better world.

“We do what we wished for all our lives.” – Ethan Torchio

[sidespart]

The Fall of King Romulus Part 9

Summary: Twin Princes Remus and Romulus are cursed at birth with Honesty and Obedience. When Romulus, who cannot disobey any order, is told to kill his brother the next time he lays eyes on him, he changes his name to Roman and runs away. Roman joins up with a misfit group of adventures and plans to never return to his homeland. But the fae have other plans for him… Warnings (for whole fic not necessarily individual chapters): Violence, mind whammying/memory altering, curse of obedience related consent issues, references to sex, references to war related injuries/PTSD, references to child abuse/neglect (YMMV on that one but just in case), antagonstic-but-not-exactly villian!Janus, Extremly-moraly-dubious-but-not-exacty-unsympathetic-Remus

Feedback appreciated.

NOW ON AO3 :D

Prologue Chapter 1   Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8

Roman kept his back straight and his gaze cold and aloof as he watched his proclamation sink in.

It was a simple thing, to be Romulus again.

Virgil and Patton had been sent to fight and die by their Kings. Roman had listened to Logan rant, many times, about his distain of the noble classes and their control over the common men. Whatever affection they had for Roman – it wouldn’t extend to Romulus.

They would leave.

“Well yes,” Logan said, sounding annoyed “I was getting to that.”

“What?!” Roman shrieked.

“Not require our services?” Virgil stared at him incredulously, “Didn’t we hire you?”

“Logan, you knew?” Patton said admiringly, “You’re so smart!”

“Oh, he did not.” Roman grumbled.

“Well.” Logan shuffled his feet, not looking directly at him, “The Marquis de Ornella called you Romulus. And you attempted to call him by his first name, so I assumed you knew each other- a noble connection was not out of the question.”

“Ha!” Roman pointed at him, vindicated “But you didn’t guess I was a prince, did you?”

“Well, no-” Logan looked on the verge of pouting.

“What services are we even providing? In this scenario?”

“-but If I had had time to do more research then- “

“You know what! That’s a great idea.” Patton smiled brightly, “I think we could all use a little cool down time – Logan why don’t you go back to the library and read up on Nothalevaele”.

“Notaleveale.” Logan corrected.

Patton frowned. “It’s not -aleveale? I swear that’s what he said.”

“It’s not Nothalevaele it’s Notaleveale”.

“Then what is it?”

Roman stuffed most of his good hand into his mouth to muffle a scream.

“Seriously.” Virgil smirked at him even as he leant over to adjust Roman’s pillow. “You just can’t get service like this anywhere else.”

Roman glared at him.

“He-” Virgil jerked his head at Logan, utterly unbothered by Roman’s glare – “shouldn’t go to the library alone.”

Patton nodded seriously and gave Vigil a wide smile.

Virgil glared back.

Patton raised both eyebrows.

Virgil folded his arms.

“No one needs to go anywhere – I told you I’m leaving.” Roman complained.

They ignored him.

Eventually whatever silent argument the two men were having ended with Virgil rolling his eyes and throwing his hands up in exasperation.

“Go find your bag.” He told Logan, who nodded jerkily and all but fled the room.

Roman flopped back against the pillows with a thump, too tired to maintain his princely posture any longer. “He can go by himself, can’t he,” he muttered sulkily, “we’re not actually kids.”

Virgil and Patton exchanged another glance before Virgil turned away to the bedside table, fussing with his pots and potions.

“We’re not sure how many guards got a look at our faces before we got out of the bathhouse.” Patton told him, “Better not to risk traveling alone.”

“Oh.” Roman replied, his voice small.

He remembered the bathhouse. The screams from above. Virgil’s panic-stricken face as he glanced between them and the stairs. Logan with a blade at his throat.

He swallowed hard and cast his eyes down, picked idly at a loose thread of the blanket.

“We should be back before the bandages needs changing, but if you smell anything or see any new pus there’s some ointment left in this one.” Virgil held up a blue-green jar for Patton to see, “Just wash it out first with boiled water.”

“Pus!” Roman squeaked, looking up.

“Your hand was pretty screwed up.” Virgil told him gruffly, “The infection’s what gave you the fever. You need to drink more willow tea, at least one cup every hour – we’ll have to pick up some more salve whilst we’re out.” This last part he directed at Patton, who dutifully rummaged in their stack of bags and handed over their coin purse.

It looked worryingly empty. Roman remembered the extra nights they had booked at the inn – nights which they clearly hadn’t even ended up using - and winced.

“We should look for some road food too, Virgil continued “and a map if we’re really going nor – Oh!” He looked at Roman, eyes wide “Er – about the tea, I mean, you need to drink it every hour but only If you -want to? I mean you definitely should but” he waved his hands as if trying to physically shape the instruction into something optional. “You get it.”

Roman bit down hard on the inside of his cheek and tried to ignore the fondness bubbling up inside him. He had hardly even noticed the order.

“How long was I asleep?” He asked.

“Nearly two days.” Patton said softly. “You really scared us for a minute there kiddo.”

“I’m sorry.” He mumbled, “And- thank you. For taking care of me.”

“Aw Roman! You don’t have to be sorry for anything!” Patton said, “Or thank us – that’s what family’s for.”

“You’re not my family.” Roman said quietly, thinking of his father’s cool detachment and a castle full of empty rooms.

Virgil snorted. “Yeah whatever. Listen you gotta – you should eat. And sleep some more. And we are going to have to talk about all this when we’re back, okay Ro – er, Romulus?”

He wrinkled his nose. “Jeez do we have to call you that now?”

“I think it’s a nice name.” Patton interjected “It’s very umm. Regal.”

“Surely ‘Princey’ still works as a nickname?" Logan asked, returning to the room. He threw a pale green coat at Virgil, who made a face but obediently shrugged it on, pulling an orange knit cap down over the pointed tips of his ears.

Almost as an afterthought, he licked is thumb and rubbed at the dark kohl under each eye. He smirked down at Roman. “You ran away from being a prince and called yourself ‘Princey’?

“You called me that.” Roman said sulkily, deciding not to tell Virgil that he’d only succeeded in smearing the make-up.

“Umm.” Logan stood at the head of the bed. Roman braced himself for another round of interrogation, twisting the blanket between his hands. “I suspect I should apologise for– I was just trying to test my hypothesis before started making outlandish accusations. Obviously, I didn’t realise how long you have been dealing with- I mean, it’s actually quite impressive you maintained your sanity for this long given that-”

“Okay! Less talking!” Virgil declared, as Romans knuckles started to turn white. The elf slung one arm around Logan’s shoulders, propelling him towards the door.

“I was only trying to-”

“Later.”

The door closed behind them with a resounding thud.

“So” Patton said after a moment, casually reaching out with one thumb to wipe away the tears collecting in the bard’s eyes, “Would you like food first or a nap?”

***

The library of Steveange was the crowning jewel of the city. A towering hexagonal building that sat upon the cities highest peak, directly across from the gates to the royal palace.

Which meant the journey was almost all uphill.

Typical.

Virgil huffed, breathing heavily as he stomped his way through the streets, Logan practically trotting to keep up with his long strides.

Prince Romulus of Notaleveale.

Honestly, what the fuck.

At least it explained the whole armed guards thing.

Except actually it explained nothing because if you found a runaway member of the royal family, why in the hell would you then tie them up in a bathhouse basement?

Unless they were traitors working against the royal family – but then why go after a runaway prince at all? Ransom? They hadn’t exactly looked strapped for cash….

And why a bathhouse? Why not one the extremely defensible manor houses that were scattered throughout the upper echelons of the city??

Virgil let out a growl of frustration and came to a stop.

Roman’s injuries had been too systematic to have come from a fight. The northerners had tortured him.

And now he wanted to go back there?

It didn’t make any sense…unless of course the kidnappers had ordered him to go back…

Virgil took a deep breath and dug the heels of his palms into his eyes, trying to banish that thought. If he started thinking about the curse again he was going to lose it; end up in a spiral of what had they done and what had they missed and HOW were they supposed to protect him if-

“Virgil? Do you need me to count for seven?”

He forced his eyes open to meet Logan’s worried face and let out the breath he’d been holding in a rush.

“I’m good.” He told the younger man unconvincingly.

“We could go back-” Logan started, but Virgil shook his head.

As much as he bristled at being managed, he didn’t think Patton had been wrong to split the group.

Roman – or whatever they were calling him now– was barley recovered. He’d looked so small, propped up against the pillows without a lute or sword or smile between himself and the world.

Small and scared. And puffing himself up like a songbird trying to look big for a cat.

The four of them yelling for answers at once was only going to freak him out more. Patton had a much better chance getting information out of him one on one.

Still…

“You think we’re going got get anything useful out of this trip?” he asked Logan bluntly.

“The library of Stevenage is one of the greatest collections of written knowledge on the entire continent and in times of uncertainty, knowledge is our greatest weapon... and our greatest defence.” Logan told him, a serious look in his eye.

“Right.” Virgil nodded absently, “Do you think they’ve got a copy of ‘curse breaking for idiots?”

***

Roman woke up for the second time that day with a throbbing headache on top of his other aches and pains. He spent a few minutes cursing himself for not taking up Patton’s offer of willow tea before he’d gone back to sleep and then swung his legs out of the bed.

He needed to get up. He needed to relieve himself and wash and eat and and-

And figure out what to do next.

He needed to know if Remus was safe. If he was on the throne or locked up somewhere or worse.

Which meant going home.

Which meant getting away from his friends.

No one else was going to get hurt because of him and his petty little problems.

Nodding decisively to himself he sprung to his feet. And then swiftly sat back down as the world tilted alarmingly around him.

“Roman?” There was a polite knock at the door and Patton stuck his head in.

“Hey kiddo!” the big man smiled at him, “Are you hungry?”

Roman felt his heart rate speed up and tried to summon some of Romulus’ cool detachment. Patton knew about his curse.  If anyone learned about his curse, they would try to exploit it. They would use it to hurt his family, to hurt-

Roman bit down hard on the inside of his cheek to stop the flow of anxiety. This was Patton.

Roman was more likely to be a burden to him then an opportunity.

Before he could manage to come up with a suitable greeting his stomach growled, loudly, making him blush and Patton laugh.

“Shall I bring something up? Or do you want to come sit at the table?”

“…Table.” Roman mumbled, keeping his eyes locked somewhere in the vicinity of Patton’s left ear. Even though he knew, in his head and in his heart, that Patton wasn’t going to hurt him - he still felt oddly vulnerable with his secret sitting between them. Attempting eye contact made something inside him twist uncomfortably.

His mother had always said Romulus was shy.

If Patton noticed his odd behaviour he didn’t mention it, nor did he insist on carrying Roman down the stairs or otherwise manhandling him.  Instead he hovered at his elbow as he made his way from the room, keeping up a running commentary of the house as they descended the stairs.

The room that Roman had been staying in was the attic. Immediately outside the door was a set of stairs so steep they may as well have been a ladder. Patton must have been perched out here, Roman thought guilty, giving him space but close enough to hear him get up. At the base of these stairs was a short landing where most of the items normally stored in the attic were now haphazardly stacked.

“That’s Mama’s room.” Patton nodded at a closed door, as he gingerly ducked under a rolled-up carpet which was wedged against the wall. “And that’s the store cupboard”. At the base of the next steep flight was a hallway Roman recognised: kitchen at one end, main door at the other. There was another door opposite the stairs that he hadn’t noticed on his first visit, with a moon and stars motif painted at eye level.

“That’s her work room.” Patton told him, seeing Romans curious glance, “She’s asked us to stay out of there- it’s where she sees customers.”

Customers. Roman filed that thought away. He had almost forgotten they were in a witch’s house.

Patton took him straight through the kitchen, where a back door led into a narrow garden. The herb bed was surprisingly neat, given the haphazard nature of the house, with small labels pinned neatly next to each plant. At the far end were two wooden structures. “Storage shed.” Patton pointed, “Outhouse. Do you need help using it?”

Roman shook his head vehemently - clung to Patton’s arm briefly when the movement made him dizzy – and stomped to the outhouse to relieve himself.

After a few steps though he stopped.

Patton knew about the curse. And Patton wouldn’t hurt him so-

He could ask.

“Pat?“

“Yeah?” Patton – or at least his ear – looked concerned.

“I. um. My arm is…”

Virgil had instructed him to keep his arm still in his sling until the herbs had done their work and clearly, they hadn’t happened yet. The thing was still pinned across his chest.

Not that he couldn’t navigate the outhouse one handed if he had too. But his balance wasn’t exactly great at the moment and tripping in there was one humiliation he would have liked to avoid.

But then again, it’s not like his hand was any use. He would really just be freeing up the use of his elbow and why was even bothering Patton with something so stupid and embarrassing an-

“Roman. Hold your… hold your whole body however you like.”

He nodded jerkily as his shoulder relaxed for the first time since waking up, letting his arm drop a little lower.

He didn’t look at Patton as he made his escape to the outhouse.

***

When he returned Patton had pulled a tin bathtub from who-knows-where onto the slab of paving stone by the kitchen door and was testing the water’s temperature with his elbow.

“Virgil left us some potions.” He told Roman as he approached – “This is another one to help healing and this-” he held up a red tinted bottle “-should give us bubbles!”

Roman stared at the bath almost hungrily. Hot water was a luxury under normal circumstances and between the travel, the bath house and the fever he knew he must reek of sweat and dirt. Surely, he deserved a little pampering before the journey North?

“It’s still too hot.” Patton warned him before he could launch himself into the water. Instead, the other man gestured to a pretty wrought iron table and two chairs set against the left side fence. He produced bread and jam alongside a mug of tea, advising him to eat slowly as went to grab another bucket of water from the cauldron simmering away in Tay’s kitchen.

Although Patton had been careful not to make an order, Roman still made sure he followed his instructions carefully. He had no desire to make himself sick. Or to make more work for the other man.

He pulled his bread apart into small bites and ate them one at a time, watching Patton critically as he limped his way back to the table.

“Did you get hurt…in the bathhouse?”

“…A few bruises.” Patton told him honestly, spreading a thick layer of jam on his own bread, “Nothing too bad”

“I’m sorry.” Roman said again, pulling his remaining bread into smaller and smaller pieces.

“Ro-man!” Patton said cheerfully – “you don’t need to apologise! It was those Ornelly guys that hit me not you!”

“Right. Yeah. Sorry.”

Roman hunched and cursed himself. Sorry sorry sorry. Couldn’t he say anything useful?

“Roman hey – can you look at me please?”

It took more effort than he would have liked, but Roman did. Patton’s eyes were big and blue and very, very kind. Roman jerked his gaze away immediately.

“None of us blame you for what happened. Okay?”

“You got hurt because of me.” Roman blurted. “Logan nearly died- “

“I told you, that was on the Ornellans, not you-“

“Who were there specifically because of me! That excuse doesn’t work Pat I-“

He cut himself off, eyes glued to the floor once more. Hadn’t he just decided he didn’t want to cause any more trouble?

“Sorry.”

He heard Patton sigh and tried not to flinch, but when the other man spoke his voice was still gentle. “How many bubbles do you want?”

***

Whenever Virgil got upset, he always wanted space. It was something Patton found difficult, as his instinct was to smother the other man with affection until he smiled again, but experience had given him the patience to wait until his friend was ready.

When Logan got upset, he always claimed he needed space – but what he really wanted was an audience. He needed to talk through the problem, often at length, and know that someone was listening, even if he didn’t always want their advice.

Roman though – Roman liked attention. Roman liked fuss and pampering and his favourite food and to know, demonstrably, that someone was worried about him.

It didn’t mean he was great at asking for it. Patton remembered vividly his insistence on hopping half a mile on a twisted ankle before Patton had all but begged him to accept a piggyback.

He also remembered a time after a poorly received show when Roman had spent the evening sulking, sighing loudly and dramatically and slumping against each of them in turn until Patton had laughingly pulled him into a hug. Oh my god Vigil had snarked were you not hugged enough as a child?

It had been funny. At the time. Sort of.

Not so much now.

Since lying back against the tub’s rim would aggravate the wounds on his back, Roman was hunched forward in the tub, his bandaged arm hanging over the edge.

“Did I ever tell you how Virgil and I met?” Patton asked, settling on his knees next to the tub.

Roman twitched. There was a tactic agreement amongst the four of them not to discuss their pasts. This was more than fine with Patton, who was much more concerned with making new, happy memories then revisiting old ones, but he didn’t blame Roman and Logan for being curious.

Whenever the pair were on watch together, conversation often turned to whispered debate over the southern pair’s origin. Whilst he felt a bit bad for pretending to be asleep, Patton quite enjoyed their speculation.

His favourite was the circus performer theory. Virgil would probably has made a good acrobat.

“It was in the war.” he continued, scooping up some of the water and wetting Roman’s hair.

“I um. I volunteered you know? All the boys in my town did. I think we thought- well I know I thought it was the right thing to do. Finaley’ed was the enemy after all, we had to keep our families safe.”

He chuckled sadly, focusing on making sure every strand of Roman’s hair was damp before gently capturing a handful of bubbles and placing them on the other man’s head.

“Made you a crown.” he giggled.

Roman turned just enough to peak at him incredulously through one eye and Patton winced.

“Right. Sorry.”

Roman turned away again but Patton though he saw him suppressing a smile. Score!

“Um anyway” – he poured a measure of oil from one of Virgil’s bottles and rubbed it between his fingers before leaning over to begin massaging Roman’s scalp – “It was okay at first. I was in a regiment with all my friends, it was a bit of an adventure honestly.”

“And then there was this Major. He came to inspect us before we got done training and he – he said I was good. That I should get a chance to really make a difference in the war.”

He dragged his fingers through Roman’s hair, gently detangling the strands.

“He put me in a new regiment. All big guys. Like me. And they- they gave us this – I’m not even sure what it was. My buddy Micha used to say it was ground up swamp frogs but I don’t know.”

He started scooping up water again, rinsing some of the bubbles and oil from Roman’s hair.

“It made us…strong. Angry. Scary. Berserk well– that was the point. I don’t. um.” Some of the water sloshed over his cupped palms and Patton realised he was shivering.

“I killed a lot of people…. I mean I definitely made a difference to them.” He finished bitterly.

“…s’not your fault.” Patton glanced up to see Roman had twisted to look at him, was doing his best to maintain eye contact despite Patton’s confession. Patton smiled at him. Roman really was a sweet kid.

“It’s what I signed up for kiddo. Just faster.”

He sighed, nudging Roman gently to turn around so that he could finish rinsing his hair. “I’m not. I’m not saying it’s the same as what you’ve gone through. I know it isn’t. Just – I get it. A little. What it’s like not having any control.”

For a moment they sat in silence, the only sound the trickle of water as Patton continued lifting handfuls to Roman’s scalp.

Then the bard let out a shuddering breath and said: “My major’s name was Julius.”

“Oh?” Patton whispered.

“He was my dad’s friend. He was supposed to find a way to break the curse, but he didn’t. Then he just…started helping me figure out how to live with it. He was helping me. He was supposed to be…”

Roman took a deep breath “He’s the reason I-ack.” He broke off, coughing. Patton reached forward to hold him up, alarmed.

“Ro?”

“I’m okay.” But he didn’t look it, red faced and scowling. “I-” he gripped Patton’s arm looking right into his eyes. “I can’t tell you.”

Patton nodded slowly, understanding. “You can’t – not because you don’t want to.”

Roman nodded.

Patton frowned. “Can I – could I order you too? I could undo what Virgil said about your arm right?”

Roman sighed shaking his head. “The curse is. It’s fickle. But words are important -if you don’t know what you’re contradicting it’s almost impossible and Julius he – he was very good at giving orders.”

“Right.” Patton frowned. “What if I guess? Like Logan figured out the curse?”

“You can try.” Roman laughed bitterly.

“Hmm okay – was he the reason you left home?”

Roman span around so quickly water splashed over the side of the tub. “Patton! How’d you know?”

“Well gee kiddo! The frog pills didn’t rattle too many cells loose!” Patton laughed tapping the side of his head. Then frowned. “Well, I hope not…”

Roman winced. “Patton I – I’m sorry about what happened to you.”

“Well.” Patton smiled sadly, “Likewise Ro-Romulus.”

The other man sighed, sinking low in the tub again. “I liked being Roman.” he blurted out suddenly, a look of abject misery on his face.

“Then – why stop?” Patton whispered.

“I-” He frowned. “I would like to not be naked for this conversation.”

“That’s fair.” Patton nodded and helped him to his feet.

***

By the time Roman was up, towelled off and dressed in one of Patton’s old shirts that he had long ago claimed as a sleep shirt, he looked about ready to pass out again. Patton left him sitting at the table to finish drying in the sunshine whilst he dashed upstairs to change the sheets on the attic bed. When he returned with the laundry pile, he found that Mittens had emerged and settled himself on the bard’s– the prince’s – lap.

Roman looked up at him guilty - “Your allergies.”

“It’s easier outside.” Patton waved him off. Mittens had been the key to them finding Roman, as far as Patton on was concerned, the cat’s comfort was worth a few sneezes.

He took a seat at the table and nudged the remaining bread towards Roman, who took it hungrily, eating with much more enthusiasm than before the bath.

“So you were saying...” Patton prompted.

Roman pouted at him, cheeks stuffed with bread.

“’u first.” he swallowed, “You never got to how you met Virgil. Was he in the berserkers – in the special regiment too?”

“Oh, no.” Patton shook his head vehemently. “Virgil wasn’t like me. He was a conscript – for the other side.”

An exceptionally fat bumble bee had found Tay’s herb garden and was repeatedly bouncing off the side of some chives. Patton focused on the bewildered looking insect rather than Roman’s face and his finished the story.

“A small group of us had got separated from the rest. It was quite deep in the forest, away from the main battle. We were meant to find their camp and pick them off there, but we couldn’t find them. And then we couldn’t find the way back.”

The bee, finally free of the chives, crashed headfirst into a Rosemary bush.

“It was like… like my blood was on fire. We hadn’t been so long without it before. And then...”

“And then?”

“We stumbled on a group of them. Of Finaley’ii soldiers. And there was a fight.” Patton closed his eyes. Screams and sobs and blood on his sword and in his eyes and Micha gasping uselessly around the arrow in his throat “I don’t remember it much. But when it was over it was like I…woke up.”

He smiled.

“And there he was. Virgil. Pointing s crossbow right at my face.”

“He what!” Roman yelped and Patton laughed.

“Well, we were on opposite sides kiddo and I had just…well. The thing was, it was only us left then. No one was ordering to kill each other and so we just…didn’t. Neither of us was in any big rush to find our armies again so….”

“Virgil asked me to help him find his mom, so we headed east. We couldn’t find her, so he said he’d help me find my town and we went west. That was gone too.”

“The whole town?” Roman as looking at him with sorrowful eyes.

“That’s the problems with wars kiddo – they don’t stay in one place.”

“What about your family?”

Patton shrugged. Mittens hopped down from Roman’s lap and began to stalk the errant bee.

“Maybe they got away. I hope so.” He glanced at Roman again. “Virgil was the one who suggested we keep going west. Get away entirely, see if we could find any refugees, look for our families.” He smiled fondly. “He’s always been the brave one, not me.”

“And – and did you?” Roman asked. He was bent forward, eyes fixed on Patton’s own.

“No.” Patton sighed. “I like to think they’re safe and sound somewhere. Set up a new house, found new people to care for. Like I did. But… “

He trailed off. But most likely they were dead. Like Patton should be.

“What if…if you knew where they were.” Roman said quietly, “Would you go see them- check on them?”

Patton rubbed his hand over his face, feeling the multitude of scars that littered the right side. “I don’t know.” He told Roman honestly. “I would like to know if they were okay but…I don’t know if they’d want to see me.”

Roman nodded.

On the other side of the garden, there was a sudden yowling from the rosemary bush. Mittens came charging towards them with his tail fluffed up and circled Roman’s chair twice before leaping onto the fence.

Patton giggled – “Well that’s what you get for trying to fight a bee you silly cat!”

“I think my brothers in danger.” Roman said in a rush.

Patton blinked.

“Your brother?”

He was back to staring down. Both fists clenched tightly together. “I left him. Back home. I thought I-” he coughed again. “I thought he would be safe but now I’m not sure.”

“In danger from what kiddo?”

“From Julius.” Roman breathed. “I saw him. Or. Or I think I did.”

Slowly, haltingly, Roman told him about meeting the Marquis. About the bathhouse basement and the northern soldiers and the figure he called the grey man who had slipped in and out of Julius’ face.

Patton did his best to keep his own face clam as Roman casually described being forced to hurt himself, even as his own knuckles turned white from his grip on the chairs’ arm.

“He said he had sent Lucius to the inn after some – some escaped prisoner? And he found me. But Lucius knew about the curse and he never did before so- “

“Roman?” Patton interrupted. “Sorry - can I give you a hug?”

“Oh!” Roman blinked at him, blushing slightly, “If you – if you want to?”

“I really do.” Patton scrambled to his feet, wrapping the younger man in his arms and feeling Roman sag against him. He resisted the urge to squeeze, mindful of his injuries. “You’re safe now.” He whispered. “I gottcha.”

Roman giggled wetly against his chest. “Julius. He said he’d assumed I’d died.” He mumbled.  “But now that he knows I’m around? He’ll try again Pat I know he will. I- “

He drew back, looking up at Patton with tear filled eyes. “I can’t risk you all getting hurt because of me.”

“That’s not your decision to make Roman.” Patton told him softly. “We think you’re worth the risk.”

“But I’m not Roman.” He whimpered. He hadn’t relinquished his grip on Patton, who began to run his hand soothingly up and down the prince’s back.

“Well, if we’re being technical, I’m not Patton.” Patton rested his head on top of Roman’s own. “Me and Vigil picked new names after we left the war and I – I like being Patton.”

There was a pause. Roman squeezed a little tighter.

“I like Patton too.”

Patton laughed; some tension he hadn’t realised he was holding draining away. When Roman drew back this time, he had a shaky smile on his face.

“So.” He stepped back, wiping his eyes with the back of his wrist. “I need to…go back north. Check on my brother. Avoid Julius and Lucius and anyone connected with Romulus. You sure that’s worth the risk?”

“Yep!” Patton said instantly. “And we need to break the curse!”

“I guess.” Roman shrugged. “I really do think it’s impossible Pat’.”

“Eh.” Patton waved a hand dismissively “That’s never stopped Logan before.”

When Roman laughed then, he almost sounded like himself.

If you enjoyed this chapter please hit ~ reblog ~

[sisterspooky1013]

Only One Choice, Chapter 5

Read it here on AO3 / Tagging @today-in-fic

They’re sitting in the car outside her mother’s house, and she’s stalling.

“Are we going inside?” Ethan asks with a confused smile, and she nods wearily.

She’s been dreading telling her family. Well, not her mother; Mom will be thrilled, as will Bill. Charlie will act appropriately happy but doesn’t actually care that much. But Missy….Missy will see right through her. She always does.

They exit the car and make their way to the front porch, her stomach twisting in her gut all the way. Ethan knocks, casting her concerned glances intermittently. She knows she’s not playing the part of “recently engaged” very well. She’s told Ethan that it’s just nerves, and that she hates making big announcements, which is true. She’s still trying to convince herself that’s all it is.

The door swings open and Charlie greets them with smiles and quick hugs, and they make their way to the kitchen where Mom is still finishing up dinner.

“Grab some wine and take a seat,” she directs them as they each kiss her on the cheek, “Missy should be here any minute.”

She pours herself a very full glass of wine after asking Ethan if he can drive home, then plants herself in an armchair that only seats one. She’s been craving personal space lately.

Ten minutes later, Missy breezes in the door, giving Dana a skeptical glance; leave it to Missy to immediately pick up on something being off. They better get this over with soon.

They all sit down and say grace. Missy holds her left hand and she can feel the moment her fingers make contact with the ring. Missy yanks on her arm and gives her wide eyes as everyone else at the table thanks the lord for their daily bread. Dana glances at her briefly and then looks away. It will all be out in the open momentarily.

“Before we dig into this lovely meal Mom has prepared for us,” Ethan begins, “Dana and I have some news to share.”

Oh god, here it comes. Maybe the huge glass of wine was a bad idea.

“Am I gonna be an uncle, D?!” Charlie says excitedly, and both she and Maggie shoot him an unamused glare.

“Not just yet, Charlie,” Ethan says with a cautious smile. “Dana and I got engaged. We’re getting married!”

Dana holds up her left hand with a thin smile, and Maggie and Charlie both provide appropriately big, happy reactions complete with hugs and congratulatory slaps on the back. Missy raises her eyebrows and looks at her baby sister with a bemused expression.

“Oh, this is such happy news, I wish your father could be here,” Maggie says, clutching her hand to her chest. “We’ll have to call Bill and Tara after dinner.”

Dana forces bites of pot roast down her throat and avoids her sister’s eye for the following twenty minutes, then leaves Ethan and her mother to share the news with Bill as she escapes to the back porch. Charlie, as usual, finds his way to the couch with a beer.

She’s sitting on the steps of the porch, working on her second glass of wine, when she hears the creak of the screen door behind her. She doesn't need to look to know that it’s Missy; she can hear the swish of her flowy skirt and the jangle of her stacked bracelets. Missy sits down beside her and they are quiet for a few minutes, the dark night illuminated by a waxing crescent moon.

“Is this really what you want, Sis?” Missy asks in a tone that’s soft and concerned.

“Of course, Missy. Ethan and I have been talking about getting married for years,” she says, hoping it sounds more convincing than it feels.

“I know. But…” she trails off and sighs.

“But what?” Dana prods her.

“Look, Sis, Ethan is great. I love him, and he’ll make a great husband. I’m just not sure he’s the right one for you.” Dana can feel her sister looking at her in the dim light, but keeps her eyes on the blooming hydrangea bush at the bottom of the stairs.

“He’s a great guy, Missy. He’s kind, and generous, and he has a stable job. He treats me really well. There’s no reason NOT to marry him,” she offers, taking a big gulp of her wine. “Dad loved him, he’d be so happy to know we got married,” she adds.

Missy scoffs. “Two years underground and you’re still trying to please Dad?”

“He was cremated, Missy,” she replies deadpan, avoiding the point.

“Okay, so two years underwater, then. Doesn’t change the fact that Dad liking him isn’t a reason to marry someone. Neither is them being great husband material. The only reason to marry someone is because you want to marry them. Do you want to marry Ethan?” She can feel Missy’s eyes on her face.

“Yes,” she says in a weak voice, unwilling to elaborate.

Missy sighs. “Okay, if this is what you want, I’ll be here to help you in whatever way you need. But if you change your mind-”

“-I’m not going to change my mind, Missy,” she cuts her off.

“Well,” Missy continues, “whatever happens, I’ll be here. Thick and thin, right?”

Dana looks at her sister then, and smiles as they clasp hands. “Thick and thin.”

&&

The following week, she takes herself out for Sunday afternoon coffee to one of her favorite places near the apartment. She likes to go out alone for coffee or lunch sometimes, just to have some space to think. Lately, she’s been needing a lot of it. The cafe is bustling with the after-church crowd, which makes her feel guilty for not going to mass with her mother. It’s difficult to talk to Mom right now; all she wants to do is talk about the wedding, and that’s the last thing Dana wants to discuss. Ethan wants to get married soon, this fall, and the whole thing is so overwhelming she shuts down every time they try to talk to her about it. She wishes she could pause life for a while, until she can sort out her feelings.

“Fancy meeting you here,” she hears a familiar voice call from beside her, and she looks up to see Mulder, dressed casually in jeans and a grey T-shirt.

She smiles reflexively, the first time she’s felt a real smile tug at her lips in a week or more.

“Mulder, hi,” she says, genuinely pleased to see him. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, this place is right near my dealer’s house,” he responds, and flashes her that boyish grin at her shocked expression. “I was actually just checking out a record store around the corner and decided to grab some coffee. How are you?” The question feels so real, like he actually wants to know how she is. She doesn’t want him to leave.

“I’m well, would you like to sit down?” she says as she gestures to the empty seat across from her, pulling her hand back when she realizes that he’ll likely notice her ring. She surreptitiously slips it off her finger and tucks it into her pants pocket.

He sits, and she can’t help but take in the way his shirt hugs his broad shoulders, and the hint of defined pectorals underneath. He is a seriously good-looking man.

“So, whatcha been up to?” He asks, taking a sip from his to-go cup.

She should tell him the happy news that she’s gotten engaged, but she very much doesn’t want to.

“Not much, just cutting up dead bodies and teaching others how to do the same,” she responds dryly.

“Slicin’ and dicin’,” he says with a nod, and she feels a sense of relief at being able to make such a crass joke to someone who understands the kind of work she does.

“Exactly. How about you, working on anything interesting?” she asks, and never has a social nicety been more genuine.

“That depends on your definition of interesting, I suppose,” he begins, “we’ve got the face mutilator, the acid thrower, and the super-stabber, who you’re familiar with.”

“Quite the line up,” she retorts.

“I realize I didn’t get the chance to ask how you ended up at the Academy,” he inquires.

“Oh, um I was actually recruited out of medical school,” she replies, taking a sip of her coffee.

His eyebrows jump and he leans forward a bit. “You’re a doctor, then?” he asks, and she gauges only that he’s impressed, not surprised, which is a nice change of pace. People don’t seem to realize that it’s not a compliment to express disbelief that she, of all people, would be a medical doctor.

“Mmhmm, all pathologists are trained medical doctors,” she confirms with a nod.

“Your parents must be very proud,” he offers, and she makes a face.

“Not exactly. My father actually passed away a couple years ago, but he was less than pleased with my decision not to pursue medicine as a career. My mom is moderately more supportive, thankfully.”

She catches his eye and is surprised by the intensity of the look he’s giving her.

“I’m sorry to hear about your father,” he says as though he knew the man, and it catches her off guard a bit. She changes the subject.

“What about the X files, anything interesting happening there?”

“Well, no, given that they don’t exist anymore. You wanna hear about an old one I investigated?”

She nods emphatically.

“There was this team of researchers up in Icy Cape, Alaska. They were geophysicists, drilling ice core samples. They’d been up there a few weeks when there was an odd video communication received from one of the research team members saying “we are not who we are” before he shot himself in the head, then all communication went dark.”

“What happened to them?” Scully asks, leaning towards him. She’s immediately drawn in.

“Well, that’s what we went up there to find out; myself a physician, toxicologist and a geologist. When we got there, the whole crew was dead, only a dog that belonged to one of them survived. He appeared to be rabid, and he attacked me and our pilot. When we examined the dog, he had these black nodules on his skin.”

“That sounds like a symptom of bubonic plague,” Scully offers.

“That’s what Dr. Hodge thought too. Anyway, the pilot ended up getting infected as well, and we had to restrain him and remove this worm-thing from his neck. He died immediately after we removed it.”

“A worm-thing?” Scully asks, “what was it?”

“I’m still not entirely sure. The geologist found an ice core sample that was probably over 250,000 years old, and I think the worm came from the ice. Some kind of prehistoric parasite that overtakes its host. We eventually figured out that to kill it, you have to introduce a second worm into the host, and they’ll destroy each other.”

“Why haven’t I ever heard about this? It seems like the kind of discovery that would make the news, at least in the science community,” her mind is reeling, now with excitement.

“Well, that’s the thing. After we were evacuated, they destroyed the drill site and all the evidence.”

“They?” she inquires. “Who is ‘they’?”

Mulder smiles knowingly and she has the overwhelming urge to touch him.

“That’s the million dollar question, Scully. That’s what the X files sought to answer. Who, or what, is behind the mass coverup of information that would prove the existence of extraterrestrial life?” He says it so casually, like it’s the most irrefutable fact in the world instead of some half-cocked conspiracy theory.

“Huh,” she sits back in her chair. “Are there a lot of cases like that one? In the X files?”

Mulder’s mouth quirks, and she can tell that he’s pleased by her interest in his old work.

“Hundreds, though I only have about fifty in my possession. I took the juiciest ones, of course.”

“What else is there? Tell me about another one,” she asks unabashedly. She’s fascinated.

Mulder looks at his watch and makes a face. “I wish I could, but I have a prior engagement. I have them stored at my apartment, I could show you sometime, if you’d like. Do you like cats?”

Her eyebrows lift. “Is there an X file about cats?” she asks, and he laughs.

“No. Well, actually yes, but I’m asking because I have a cat. You aren’t allergic, are you?”

“Oh, no,” she says as she feels her cheeks warm.

He reaches into his wallet and hands her his business card. “Give me a call, or shoot me an email. I’ll show you what the FBI doesn’t want you to see,” he punctuates this with a wag of his eyebrows as he stands. “It was really good to see you, Scully,” he says with an earnest look, those eyes seemingly seeing right through her.

She swallows hard. “You too, Mulder,” she replies, and watches him walk out the cafe door.

She looks down at the business card in her hands:

Fox W. Mulder

Criminal Behavioral Analyst

Behavioral Science Unit

She wonders what the W stands for. She wonders why she cares.

[aspenflower17]

Finding You (Part 16 of ??)

Hello metal husband and readers! Welcome to another update to Finding You! What’s on tap today you ask? Well, just keep reading and find out! New here and don’t want to spoil the story? Just hop on over to Part One through this link, and you can read through!

Word Count: 3,558

Tags for the Tagged: @simpingforsatan @naimena @hachimochi @wrathandgreed @magi-minminxiii @rensphilia @a-dream-at-night @chloelikesobeyme @getbehindme-satan @theuglypugling @oofthelazyweeb @solomonismyman (If you want to be added to my tags list, just say the word down below in a comment or a message, and I will get you added to the list :D)

Trigger warnings: One character’s a total douche, talk of war and death

Mc twirled the pencil she had been sketching with debating if she should ask the question she had been thinking about. Her and Michael were the only ones in the room and no one would be coming in for quite awhile. This was probably the best time she’d get to ask, "Hey, Michael. Can I ask you a question?"

He looked up from his book, "Yes? What is it?"

"Well, I was reading a book the other day, and I came across something odd. It… it was about the Avatar's Fall," Mc couldn't look at Michael, so she just continued, "Eyewitness accounts say there were eight angels that fell that day. So, I was wondering: Was there an eighth angel who fell that day?"

The silence was heavy, threatening to crush Mc. After a long moment, Michael's voice sounded lowly, "And just why were you reading about something like that?"

"Meeting them in person got me curious."

"And you would believe an eyewitness account over the teachings of the Celestial Realm?"

"Well, not necessarily. I just was curious since I'd never heard of there being another angel who Fell."

There was silence, and Mc still couldn't make herself look over, "I suppose just because some of them have paid attention to you makes you think you know all about demons.”

“No, it’s not that.”

“Then what is it then? If you haven’t forgotten, demons will lie about anything. Sinning comes naturally to them. In fact, the seven you keep coming into contact with are the embodiment of some of the most damaging sins. The lower demons are even worse.”

“I just want the most information possible. If there was another angel who fell that day, shouldn’t we tell everyone?”

“You forget your place, Mc. You may have luxuries other angels do not possess, but that does not raise your station.  Questioning Father’s teachings. To believe something a demon wrote about another demon-"

"I'm not really questioning. I was just confused because-"

"And now you interrupt me? Just who do you think you are? I am an archangel, and the only reason you've been allowed down here. You are a simple angel that we have allowed to express her talents throughout the three realms. Do not make me wonder if it was the right decision."

Mc flinched at the door closing. Though he hadn't slammed it, nor had he raised his voice, she had felt the waves of displeasure rolling off of him. The threat about sending her back to the Celestial Realm had her really nervous. Before she was aware of what she was doing, the message had been sent.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I could’ve come to the castle.”

“Hmmm… I don’t think that would be for the best right now.”

Satan cocked his head, “Did something happen?”

“Kind of. Anyway, thanks for meeting me here.”

“Of course. Is there anything in particular you’d like to do?”

“Well, I kinda thought, since I have an invitation and all, that you could show me around the House of Lamentation.”

“I… I mean, if you want to. I’m warning you now, it’s almost never calm there. My brothers are… a handful.”

“Sounds great!”

Satan looked over in shock, “Seriously?”

Mc nodded her head, “I grew up with calm. I want some excitement.”

“Well, be careful what you wish for.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

“GIVE ME BACK MY LIMITED DIAMOND EDITION SUCREY FRENZY SIGNED POSTER MAMMON! YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT’S WORTH!”

“Course I know what it’s worth! Why’d ya think I took it in the firs’ place?”

“SO YOU DID TAKE IT!!!”

“Oh. Whoops! Forget I said anythin’.”

“MAMMON!”

A blur of demon shot past Mc and Satan. All Mc could make out was white and brown, before Leviathan went past, considerably slower than Mammon, but still fast for a demon. At least, Mc thought it might be Leviathan. The shy purple haired demon was now in all black, with black horns and a snake-like tail. He also looked like he was going to rip apart his brother.

Satan sighed, continuing forward, hands in his pockets, “Welcome to the House of Lamentation.”

“Shouldn’t we do something?”

“Hmm? Oh, about them? I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Ah. I see…”

“We should probably get you out of the immediate vicinity though. There’s no telling what those two idiots might do.”

“Where should we go then?”

“Hmmm… Well, since we’re close, I guess we could start with the kitchen.”

“Sounds good to me!”

As they walked, Mc looked around her. Though the decorations were both a tad macabre and extremely grand, she found herself… comfortable. The candle light cast everything in an almost cheery glow, and the atmosphere, while a little daunting, made her feel like she was…

“... Home.”

Satan stopped dead in his tracks, and turned slowly towards her, “W-wait… Hwat did you say?”

“Oh, did I say that outloud? Sorry. That probably sounded really weird,” when Satan didn’t answer, Mc continued a bit awkwardly, “It’s just… This is the most comfortable I’ve been in a brand new place in a long time. I thought maybe my attraction to the Devildom was just because of how novel it all is to an angel. But… Being in this house, it just makes everything feel more like… Home,” Mc looked up to see Satan looking at her with a very tender but sad look, “Is everything alright?”

“Yeah. Let’s keep going.”

When they got to the kitchen, Belphegor and Beelzebub were there, former hiding his head in his arms and the latter consuming a concerning amount of food in a very short time. He stopped when Satan and Mc entered the room.

“Burfy! Wrok hus herr!”

“Hmmm? What? Who is it?”

“Ots Emm Fee!”

Belphegor lifted his head tiredly, but smiled when he saw Satan and Mc, “So, you took us up on the invitation?”

“Yup. Satan’s showing me around.”

“Do you guys want some food?” Beelzebub asked, mouth cleared for a second.

“Well, I-"

"Here. You can have this," Beel said, grabbing her hand and dropping what looked to be a kind of sweet bun in it. He gazed at it for a second then looked at her and grinned before walking back to his food pile. 

"You should eat it," Satan said quietly, " He doesn't share his food with just anybody."

"Oh. Okay," Mc said, looking at the sweet. She took a small bite and then her eyes grew wide before eating the whole thing.

"Thought you'd like it," the Avatar of Gluttony smiled.

"It was absolutely delicious! What was it?"

"An orange roll. It's a human word treat."

"I'm going to have to have Luke make it later."

"Did he come with you?" Beel's eyes were shining. 

"Ummm… Not this time."

"Oh."

"I'll make sure to let him know next time I'm coming."

"Please do," Beel said, smiling again. 

"Well, I'm going to continue our tour if that's alright."

"Yes, please do," Mc smiled, turning back to him.

"Have fun you two," Belphie said, dropping his head back onto his arm.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mc and Satan progressed through the house. The feeling of familiarity just kept growing as they went. There was a room off the kitchen that Mc felt very drawn to. Satan said it was just an unused bedroom, nothing of note, but it did nothing to curb her interest. In fact, it made her want to see what was inside even more.

When they got to the library, they had to stop because Mc was so excited. No matter how many library’s she saw, personal or otherwise, they never failed to excite her. The fact it was the personal library of the Fallen was not lost on her.

“Do you want to stop here for a bit?” Satan chuckled.

Mc turned to him with wide eyes, “Can we?”

“Of course. Spending time with books is always time well spent. Anything in particular you’d like to look for?”

“Ummm… Do you just want to give me a tour?”

“Of the library?... Hmm… I suppose I could do that. Lucifer does like it organized a certain way. And, of course, if there’s a book that catches your eye, all you have to do is say the word and we can stop to read.”

“Oh, that’s what you’re really after,” Mc teased.

“Well, can you blame me? Reading with someone in companionable silence is one of life’s greatest joys.”

“Well, I suppose it is nice to just sit and read with Sim, though he’s probably the only one I’ve read with.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Most other angels don’t just sit and read very often. Unless it’s scripture.”

“Sounds about right,” Satan said, rolling his eyes and starting to climb the stairs that lead to the second story of the library.

The “certain way” Lucifer liked the books to be organized was by genre, then alphabetically by author.If an author had multiple books, they were to be then sorted alphabetically by title, any series sorted by the first book’s title then in order. Many of the books were old though in impeccable condition. Mc was impressed by the breadth of selection available, and she could sense some spacial magic at work which housed more books than what was visible to the naked eye. While browsing, Mc found a book that looked interesting, and carried it until the tour was over. Satan happened to have a book in a hidden pocket in his jacket so they decided to sit and read awhile. Instead of the ground floor, Satan knew of a little nook on the second story which had a cushioned window seat and two plush reading chairs, so they went and sat there.

Though the story was interesting, she just couldn’t get into the book she’d grabbed. Her mind kept wandering back to her earlier conversation with Michael. She didn’t know how she could have brought up the subject in a way where he wouldn’t have gotten so upset with her. He’d reprimanded her before, but never had he been so dismissive and final about it.

“Are you alright?” Satan’s voice cut through her thoughts. She looked over to see him watching her.

She suddenly felt embarrassed, and averted her eyes, “It’s… Well, I got reprimanded by Michael.”

“Why?”

So Mc told him about her search for information, how Barbatos had told her to ask Michael and his rebuke. When she finished, Satan’s face was impossible to read. He was silent for long enough, she was concerned she had offended him somehow. Finally he spoke, “Lilith. Her name was Lilith. If you want some answers about what happened, I think Lucifer would be the best person to give them to you. I would suggest Beel, but he has enough trauma about what happened as it is. I don’t even know if he remembers, or if he’s blocked it…”

“Blocked what?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

Satan knocked on a bookshelf on the ground floor. A deep voice sounded from behind it, “Enter.” At the word, the bookshelf sung open to reveal a secret room. Despite wondering what was going on, Mc was both delighted and intrigued.

“You guys actually have a secret room behind a bookcase?!”

Satan shrugged, “Yeah. The house has a lot more secrets too. It would’ve been my room had I not lost a bet with Lucifer. Now it’s his office,” and with that, he walked in.

The whole room was a lot cozier than Mc would’ve expected. Austere and imposing yes, but there was a level of warmth and comfort to the room Mc would never have expected.

“Satan, what is it?” Lucifer sat at his desk, quill scratching across some paperwork. He hadn’t looked up.

“Mc has a question for you.”

This got him to look up, “Ah Mc. How can I help you?”

“Oh, if I’m interrupting something I can come back later.”

“I could use a break anyway. Please continue,” Lucifer sat there expectantly.

“Okay. Umm…” the memory of Michael flashed through Mc’s mind, and she winced a bit, but continued on with her story. Lucifer’s eyes darkened the further into the story she got. When she got to Michael’s chastisement, Lucifer got up from his chair abruptly, and went over to his window, back to Satan and Mc. Mc faltered in her story, watching as his clothes changed, horns pushing up and out from his head.

“I told her you’d be the one to ask,” Satan intervened, coming to stand behind Mc.

“Why? You know everything. You were there,” Lucifer asked, back still turned.

“You know the whole story,” Satan shrugged, eyes on the black clad figure.

Lucifer was silent and unmoving for quite awhile. Mc’s tension was on high alert for quite awhile, not seeing the horns retreating, until he finally spoke, “Before I begin, I feel I must warn you. You are going to hear things you probably won’t like or agree with. You are not to interrupt me. There will be a chance for me to answer your questions at the end, but only at the end. I will not explain my actions. The only person I answer to is Lord Diavolo. Whether you believe them correct or not, I am not embellishing the truth nor am I trying to hide from it. Knowing all of that, do you want me to continue?”

“... Yes. I would like to know the truth,” Mc answered confidently, though the fact he was still angry put her on edge. She knew he wasn’t angry at her at least.

The eldest, having calmed down enough to revert out of his demon form, came over and sat behind his desk. Satan came and sat next to her, earning a look from Lucifer, “You’re going to stay?”

“She is my guest.”

Lucifer raised his eyebrows, but said nothing, turning his attention back to Mc, “Have you heard about the Great Celestial War?” Mc nodded, and he continued, “No doubt you’ve heard their version of what happened. Probably talks about me and my brothers rampaging around the Celestial Realm until they finally cast us out?” Lucifer looked to her for confirmation.

“More or less,” Mc conceded.

“I am sure they make me out to be a villain in every way?”

“They say before you became angry, you were the model angel.”

“That is… interesting to know. Thank you for that. Now, where to begin?... Do you know anything about our sister?” Mc shook her head no, and Lucifer sighed angrily, “To think they just… Lilith came into my little makeshift family with Beel and Belphie. They were almost triplets in a sense of the word. Beel was the sun, Belphie the moon and Lilith the stars, though I would argue she shined the most brightly out of them. She was... angelic. They should really point to her as the model angel. She was everything an angel should and could be. Though they were all very close, once Beel made himself my bodyguard, Belphie and Lilith spent a lot of time together. Belphie had a habit of going off the the human realm whenever he could, which was not seen as a good thing, though he knew how to keep himself unattached to the humans he happened to meet, so no one could really do much more than grumble. That is, until Lilith started going down him.

Her heart was so pure and full of love, she ended up falling in love with one of the humans she met. Belphie tried to talk her out of it, but it was no use. When the rumors started, I asked both of them what was going on. From what they both said, it was love at first sight. Though I was furious, I went down myself to meet the man in question, and found myself unable to criticize her. He was everything I could have wanted for my sister. 

Unfortunately, he was mortal and he came down with a serious illness. Lilith was devastated. We all tried to tell her this was a good thing. He was a good enough person he would probably join us in the Celestial Realm. I even spoke with my father and got permission for her to lead him to the Celestial Realm when he passed. She wouldn’t listen however. He had told her all about his dreams for the future and she couldn’t let his life end. SO she concocted a plan. I wish she would’ve told me about it earlier, but I only found out about it after the deed had been done. She took a Tarel fruit and fed it to him,” Mc gasped despite herself. That fruit was precious. Michael himself wasn’t allowed any unless Father approved of it. Lucifer didn’t even acknowledge the outburst, “He recovered, obviously, but the damage was irreversible. As punishment for her sins, my father decided she would be put on trial, though we all knew the outcome, “ as did Mc. Either death or complete exile. They were essentially one-and-the-same.

“I had… many issues with the Celestial Realm and how it was run. How it probably still is. I was able to put those all aside however for the sake of my family and my position. This however,” and Mc could see the rage that still filled his eyes, “I could never forgive. Not if it meant the death of our dear baby sister. All my brothers felt the same way, especially Beel and Belphie. We all decided we were going to do something about it. Despite what anyone might say, I did try to go the “correct way” in the beginning. Supplications to my father. Speaking to others that might listen. I think we even tried a petition at one point. Very few would listen. I think there was a level of envy from most of the other angels. They saw in Lilith all their shortcomings, and so they had latched onto the one “bad” thing anyone could ever remember her doing.

“Tensions came to a head one day when I told my father and Michael I would do everything in my power to keep Lilith safe. Michael then looked me dead in the eyes and told me my sister was going to be punished, even if he had to do it himself. I left that meeting trembling with rage, and that’s when I knew I would wage war against anyone who tried to hurt my family, even if that meant fighting my father myself. I flew into the sky that day and sent my declaration of war over the entire Celestial Realm.

“Some came to our aid, but most sat on the opposing side. The war was long and bloody. Many that had flocked to our aid perished, low ranked angels who didn’t stand a chance against the likes of Michael and his bow. On what would come to be known as the last day of the war, we had so few left, my precious family had to be put near the front of the battle. Everything was going fine, and we were actually winning when I saw Michael emerge from the enemy forces. He had spotted Lilith, standing with Beel and Belphie, and I could see his intentions before anyone else. I tried my hardest to reach the three youngest, but a large crowd of angels came to attack me. Whether it was his plan all along to keep me tied up with so many, I don’t know. All I do know is that by the time I had fought off all my attackers it was too late. He had strung three arrows pointing them at my family. They all knew it was coming too, and I watched the panic set in to all three of them, with Beel in the middle. He chose to save Belphie. Lilith went down with an arrow to the wing, which was then followed by three more arrows shot by others, one to her other wing, one to the stomach, and then one to the chest. She looked over to me as she started falling and I…” Lucifer’s voice broke and he had to take a second to compose himself, “Well, let’s just say I will never forget it. After the shock had worn off, I flew after her as she fell. I tried to shoot down as fast as I could hoping to grab her, but it was no use. She crashed into the Devildom, wings singed body broken.

“I didn’t tell anyone about that day for a long time. Eventually I did tell Barbatos and Lord Diavolo who Lilith’s murderer was, which is why Barbatos knew who to send you to for answers. The fact Michael wouldn’t come clean about the whole thing, and that they’ve essentially erased her from history… It makes my blood boil. To see Diavolo acting so chummy with my sister’s murderer…” Mc could see, through the film of tears blocking her vision, Lucifer’s horns starting to emerge again.

Without thinking, she crossed over to him and hugged him, openly weeping. The thought was appalling. Whenever people spoke about the Great Celestial War, they always spoke of Michael’s brilliant  tactical genius. They spoke of how he’d helped crush the rebellion, though they had never gone into detail. She now knew why. Lucifer was taken aback for a second by the behavior, but eventually hugged her back.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, yeah. That happened.

Likes, shares and comments all vm appreciated. 

If y’all got the reference in the beginning, I applaud you and offer the chance to quote her magnificence in the comments or you could send me asks and I will reply with another quote (please take me up on this!)

Part Seventeen

[bergdg]

Strixhaven Students: Lorehold

In this five-part series, I’ll be creating a brand new Dungeons and Dragons character who would call one of the colleges of Strixhaven home. Each character will be built using content released in either published books or in Unearthed Arcana (UA) documents, such as the recently released Mages of Strixhaven UA.

Today, I’d like to introduce you to Rufus, Dedicated Retriever.

Art by Ralph Horsely

When Rufus was still fairly young, he was adopted by an upper year student from Quandrix College named Cairu, who had a theory about exponential optimism. As the student studied the effects of different stimuli on the puppy's emotional state, they decided that their experiment's results would be enhanced if Rufus could communicate his own thoughts. One sapience spell later, Rufus was gifted with enhanced deductive thinking and telepathic speech.

A few months of research later, Cairu's project had come to a close, with several interesting data points backing up their theory. Rufus had grown as well, having taken a liking to reading nightly from various books students left for him. So, with the support of the student researchers and a surprising endorsement from Lady Kasmina, Rufus applied, and later accepted, to be a Strixhaven student himself.

After taking some introductory courses in archeology, Rufus found he had a knack for hunting down history. There was a certain scent that centuries old metal and sun-bleached bone had; he could just smell it faintly on the wind when it blew just right. And so, the halls of Lorehold became his new home.

Starting Stats (using the Standard Array)

Strength: 10

Dexterity: 15

Constitution: 12

Intelligence: 8

Wisdom: 14

Charisma: 13

Rufus loves to run around. He loves to play and interact with others; his enthusiasm is often contagious. And, his senses of smell and hearing enhance his acute awareness of his surroundings.

Race: Custom Lineage

Rufus is a sapient dog, which doesn’t have a direct character race in D&D. However, in Tasha’s Cauldron of Everything, the Custom Lineage option was presented, which we will use here. Most of the traits will play into Rufus’s dog nature: his Small size, innate strength, and proficiency in perception. The selected feat of telepathy is a result of the sapience spell placed on Rufus by Cairu, the Quandrix researcher. For the feat, I picked to increase Rufus’s Intelligence score, to show how the spell increased his abilities to read and think critically.

Traits:

Size: Small

Ability Score Increases: Strength +2

Feat: Telepathic (Intelligence). This increases Rufus’s Intelligence score by 1, and allows him to convey his thoughts to another creature within 60 feet. This also allows him to cast Detect Thoughts once per long rest, an interesting side effect of the sapience spell that allows Rufus to understand someone’s true feelings.

Variable Trait: Proficiency - Perception. Like most dogs, Rufus has a keen sense of hearing and smell. For this build, we’ll flavor that as being proficient in Perception.

Background: Athlete

While not an athlete in the traditional sense (at least at the beginning of his story), Rufus’s love of running and play were what drew Cairu to select Rufus and the subject of his optimism optimization research. Later on in his time at Lorehold, Rufus’s skills and speed impress the college’s Mage Tower team captain, and Rufus earns a spot on the team, the first non-humanoid to do so in any college.

Skill Proficiencies: Athletics and Acrobatics

Level 1: Rogue (Level 1)

Rufus begins his adventures as a rogue, as this would be the time directly after Cairu’s research ended and Rufus’s educational journey began. His first few classes introduced him to the basic concepts of magic, which will eventually lead to his second level being a spellcaster (more on that later).

Starting Class Proficiencies: Insight, Intimidation, Investigation, Stealth

Expertise: Investigation, Perception

Starting Weapons: Because he is a dog, I would reskin Rufus’s weapons as bite and claw attacks, such as a dagger slash being a paw swipe and a shortsword jab being a vicious bite.

Level 2: Bard (Level 1)

Rufus’s general joyful demeanor and his interactions with fellow students are what drive his magical powers. As a Bard, he uses his magic primarily to help and encourage others, although he might use Mage Hand to grab a few snacks every once in a while. He also starts to learn more about archeology, which fascinates him: a whole career about digging up the past is more than enough reason for a couple of tail wags.

Proficiencies: History

Spells:

Cantrips: Friends, Mage Hand

Leveled Spells: Cure Wounds, Feather Fall, Heroism, Identify

Level 3: Bard (Level 2)

Rufus’s interest in history has cemented his desire to be involved with the college of Lorehold. He had remained in contact with Cairu as he had gone through the first year of school, and Cairu enthusiastically agreed that this would be the place that would be best for Rufus - “While mathematics is brilliant and precisely in my wheelhouse, I have loved seeing you learn an area you love. After all,” Cairu paused to give a little wink, “your continued happy optimism enhances the validity of my research.”

Within Lorehold, Rufus finds new friends and a new place of belonging. His impressive sense of smell helps him identify the origins of various artifacts and he soon becomes a mentor to other students.

Spells:

Leveled Spells: Thunderwave (an exceptionally loud bark)

Level 4: Rogue (Level 2)

One day, Rufus and a group of Lorehold students were playing a sport-like game that had once been played by an ancient civilization on Arcavios. Their activities were observed by Yovus, the captain of the Lorehold Mage Tower team. He was impressed by Rufus's Cunning Actions, easily dodging the other students as they ran around. There had recently been an opening in the team, as one of the team members had been selected to assist in an important archeological dig out in the Vastlands. After the game ended, Yovus approached Rufus, and offered him the chance to try out on the team. Of course, Rufus heartily accepted the invitation. The day came, and after some stiff competition between three other competitors and himself, he earned the spot on the team.

Level 5: Bard (Level 3)

After a year of lessons within the college, Rufus was prepared to enact the ritual that would summon an Ancient Companion. The day came, and even Rufus’s optimism couldn’t quite calm his nerves as he made his way to Effigy Row. After a moment of reflection, he sat back on his hind legs and drew out the sigils for “The Rousing” with his paws. The statue rumbled and cracked slightly, and then a golden light began to emanate from the stone. “Hello Rufus, I am she who is called Deianira. And you are by far the most precocious dog I have had the good fortune to meet.” She radiated warmth, and Rufus let out a yelp of excitement. “So tell me,” she continued as she stepped down from her pedestal, “What would you like to know? For my belief is that we shall discover great things together.”

Expertise: Athletics, History

Bard College: Mage of Lorehold

Ancient Companion. I’ll include a brief snippet from the UA. Whenever you finish a short or long rest, you can call forth and bond with one such spirit, who comes to inhabit a Medium, freestanding statue within 10 feet of you to serve as your ancient companion. See this creature’s game statistics in the Ancient Companion stat block, which uses your proficiency bonus (PB) in several places. When you bond with your ancient companion, choose the type of spirit you bond with: Healer, Sage, or Warrior. Your choice of spirit determines certain traits in its stat block. The statue determines the spirit’s appearance.

Spells:

Subclass Spells: Comprehend Languages, Knock, Locate Object

Leveled Spells: See Invisibility

Concept Art for Lorehold

Past level 5, I would continue to build up Rufus’s abilities as a Rogue. I could see him taking either the Inquisitive or the Scout subclass as his roguish archetype: Inquisitive would play into his nature as a budding archeologist, while Scout would play into his abilities as a Mage Tower athlete and traveler into the wilds of Archavios.

Now, I will turn it over to you. If you were to play a character from Lorehold College, what type of character would you build?

Next, we’ll be meeting a character from Witherbloom.

Creator tags: @flavoracle @kor-artificer @askkrenko @vorthosjay@wizardsmagic

[sondepoch]

Of Flying Spatulas and Cakes Unbaked (Solomon x Reader)

You're not the best at cooking, though you're willing to try. And then there's Solomon, who seems to be pretty decent on his own, though entirely unwilling to put in more effort than necessary. So when you two have to work together to produce some human dishes for Diavolo's retreat, it's feels fitting that you collide in what can only be described as a chaotic tale of flying spatulas and cakes unbaked.

~Oneshot

MASTERLIST

You made toast once.

And if burned coffee counts, that's another 'dish' you've 'cooked.'

But you have a feeling neither of those are answers that Barbatos is looking for, so when he asks you what meals you've prepared in the past, you simply respond: "Nothing, basically."

He flashes you an incredulous look, a disbelieving stare heavy with the implication that you're not telling him the truth to get out of work, but there's nothing else you can say.

It's true.

"Hey, it's not my fault," You grumble, crossing your arms. You don't miss Solomon's amused laughter next to you. "Lucifer never told me I'd be cooking a meal for you guys during this retreat."

Barbatos sighs, shaking his head. He instructs Solomon to watch over you very carefully before agreeing to leave the two of you alone. "I'll check in on both of you later. Try not to burn anything."

"What an ass," You tell Solomon when Barbatos is safely out of sight. He's a supernatural demon, so there's still a pretty good chance that he heard you anyway, but you can't really bring yourself to care right now.

"Aw, don't be upset just because he's better at cooking human food than you, a human, are." Solomon flashes you a knowing smirk, and it really takes every ounce of self-control for you to ignore him and begin flipping through a cookbook. There has to be something in here that you can make, right?

You flip to a page about pasta, figuring that it looks simple enough. Step one: Bring a pot of water to a boil. Step two: Add pasta. Step three: Add salt. Step four: Stir until the pasta has reached a state of—holdup, what the fuck does al dente mean?

You curse inwardly, wishing that Lucifer hadn't confiscated your phone when you entered the Devildom. Your D.D.D works fine when it comes to anything related to demons, but all information about the human world is encrypted with a special password that he never shared with you.

Tossing a glance back at Solomon, you bite your lip at the sight.

The sorcerer is leaning back, one leg propped up on the kitchen wall, scrolling through his phone, while his spare hand is held forward in a casting pose. It glows a light purple, and his magic brings the kitchen to life, pots flying around and knives chopping onions, all without the mage having to do a thing.

Stupid magic, you think. How is it fair that he's managed to tap into his magical strength when you can't even cast a spell? You think back to Asmodeus's words from yesterday. Asmo said that I have so much magical potential, too.

"Jealous?" Solomon asks with his usual aggravating smirk. You hadn't even noticed when he'd put his phone away.

"Of course not!" You cross your arms and glance at the page in your cookbook. You might not know what al dente means, but you can boil water.

"Well, good. Human food is meant to be prepared the human way, not the demon way." Solomon walks forward and glances at the page you're looking at. "Pasta? Well, those demon brothers will probably love what you cook regardless of how basic it is."

You flash an angry scowl his way and ignore him, pulling out a pot and filling it with water. You fiddle with the stove, not quite sure what heat setting to set it to. How long is this supposed to take? You furrow your eyebrows and try to remember something from your fifth-grade Home-Ec class, but your memory fails you. Ugh, guess I'll have to sit here and watch the whole time.

It's only while you're glaring at the lack of bubbles in the water that you recall Solomon's words.

"Wait, what do you mean?" You ask, turning to him. "Human food can only be prepared in the human way?"

"You mean you didn't notice?" Solomon puts down his phone, which he had taken back out after your initial reluctance to talk with him. He seems almost surprised that you're even asking him this question, but he opts not to comment on it. Good choice.

"Demons prepare their food differently from humans. Angels, too. For demons, the quality of their food comes from the quality of the ingredients. If you noticed, Barbatos took nearly two hours preparing the ingredients to their optimal stage...but when it came to the cooking, he just cast a spell and let that do the work."

You let out a small "oh" at Solomon's words. That makes sense, you suppose. "What about in the Celestial Realm, then?"

"Heh, for angels, it's all about the purity of your intentions. When Luke was cooking, he spent most of the time getting ready and stabilizing his mental state. Once he was spiritually balanced, his magic did the rest."

"And us?"

"Well, you know the drill. For humans—the normal ones, who don't know magic, that is—our only choice is to do it the hard way. A great chef will be able to produce excellent results even with average ingredients and a tainted soul. It's all about technique." The mage glances at you, giving you another amused smirk. "Something you clearly lack."

Yep. There it is.

There's the Solomon you know.

"Shut up," You grumble, taking out your frustration on the long strands of pasta as you shake them into a bowl. Your curiosity finally overrides your pride, though, and you turn to him with another question. "So then why are you using magic to do everything? Isn't that not the human way?"

"My food will taste like shit." Solomon smiles. "But that's their problem."

"Barbatos will be furious if he finds out," You warn with a smile, smacking him with a spatula that was flying around in the air. But you have to confess, the idea of pissing Barbatos off is pretty appealing. And if Solomon is the one doing the pissing off, that's even better!

But then the strangest thing happens.

The spatula smacks you back.

You flinch, mouth wide open in shock.

"D-d-did that actually just happen?" You murmur in disbelief, eyes locked on the plastic green-and-white utensil as it flies over to a pan to mix some vegetables.

"Yes. Yes, it did." Solomon stifles his laughter.

"Oh that's it, this spatula is going down." You stomp forward, reaching your arm out. You'll snap it in half, use another knife to chop it into tiny little bits, fry said tiny little bits into some god awful dish, and then you'll serve it to a demon with a flame specialty—so that the plastic in the spatula can spend the rest of its miserable life eternally locked in the fiery and churning depths of a demon's stomach.

Or at least, that's what you would do if not for Solomon holding you back.

"Let me go!" You screech, still reaching for the spatula. "I'm going to kill it! I'm going to make it regret its entire existence!"

Solomon sighs, lifting you up by the waist with both hands. In a single fluid motion, he has you facing your pot of water—now boiling—once more. "Geez, of course the spatula will respond like that. It's being controlled by magic. It has a mind of its own."

"Fine," You pout, tossing in handfuls of pasta. It's all a ruse though. The second Solomon leaves the kitchen, that spatula really will get to experience its own special circle of hell. You'll make sure of it. "So, what? If your food tastes inedible and my food is being prepared by me of all people, what will everyone eat tonight?"

Solomon put a finger to his chin, thinking for a second. "I doubt Barbatos will leave us to do everything. You saw that look on his face, he'll be back here any minute to take control. Knowing him, he'll probably be a better chef than you. Not that that's a particularly impressive feat."

"Shut up! At least I'm trying, unlike you. I'd like to see you make anything better with your bare hands, instead of relying on stupid magic spells."

"Is that a challenge?" Solomon asks with a grin. "If so, I accept." He strolls to the other end of the kitchen and begins preparing god knows what, and you can't help but remember that he's not just an all-powerful mage with 72 pacts; he'd also lived as a normal human. And despite his youthful appearance, he's probably been alive considerably longer than you.

Maybe challenging him isn't the best idea?

You bite your lip, staring at the pasta as it swirls around in the water. You poke it with a ladle, wondering if it's reached a state of al dente or not, before sighing and deciding to wing it. If the pasta is a little on the softer side, that won't hurt anyone, right? Yeah, you think. If anyone questions it, I'll just say that this is how we eat it in the human world.

From there on, you find that cooking is less difficult than you'd made it out to be in your head. The hardest part is when you work on the sauce, because you have to remember to keep mixing it so that the bottom doesn't curdle—whatever that means—but otherwise, making the dish goes by with fairly little problems. In fact, when the pasta and sauce are mixed together and placed on a big plate, the dish actually looks appetizing.

"I'm impressed," Solomon mutters when he sees you taking a picture of it for Devilgram. "But my cake will be better."

"Cake?" Your ears perk up at the word. It's been so long since you've had even a slice of human dessert. Lucifer had bought you a small poundcake for some demon holiday, but you'd offered a piece to Beelzebub and Mammon and before you knew it the entire thing was gone without you having taken a single bite.

"Yup," Solomon says, sprinkling flour into the batter. He mixes it slowly and thoroughly, but you can tell that the texture is still a little off. "Ugh, hand me that spoon, will you?"

You glance around and pick up the biggest spoon you can find, assuming that this is the one he's talking about. But when you go to hand it to Solomon, he gives you a strange look.

"MC, this is a measuring cup."

Oh.

The sorcerer sighs, stretching his arm out. You see the telltale purple light radiate off his arm as he quite literally summons the desired spoon to his side, only for you to yank it out of his hands. "Nope. Nu-uh. No can do, sir. This is a human cake we're preparing, so we are going to be doing this the human way."

You pinch a small clump of flour on your hand and spritz it in Solomon's face as a mock punishment for using magic, instantly reverting to helping him mix the batter. Or—again—that's what you would do if not for Solomon obstructing you.

"Hey!" You shriek in protest when he throws a handful of flour on your face in retaliation. "Oh, it's on."

You grab a tube of frosting that Solomon had filled, probably to decorate the cake with, and smear the pink on his chin, laughing when you realize how much it looks like a little beard.

"What's wrong?" You ask victoriously when he sees himself on the reflection of a metal bowl. "Don't like facial hair?"

"Oh, you don't know what you just got yourself into," Solomon mutters with a scowl, pinning both your arms at your side in a hug-like hold from behind while smearing chocolate fondue on your cheeks. As if that isn't enough, he sprinkles flour over your head, letting it fall and stick to the frosting, teasing you by saying it's "like snow."

"Snow, my ass." You struggle free of his grip and sprint to the small station you'd been working at to cook your pasta. Your eyes scan over the countertop before you find what you're looking for. Perfect! You grab the opened carton, turning around throwing the remnants of heavy cream on the boy following you. The look of sheer horror on Solomon's face as the droplets of white splatter over his black shirt makes it so worth it. "Now your shirt matches your hair!" You exclaim, clapping your hands optimistically.

But whatever eagerness you're feeling is squashed by Solomon's low growl as he uses his magic to transport the entire bag of flour into his hands. "No," You murmur, eyes wide with horror. "No, no, no. Solomon, don't—"

But he moves before you can get your next word out, dumping the whole thing on your head. That's right. The whole. Fucking. Bag.

For a second, you're paralyzed in shock. Even your vision seems a little whiter at the edges, particles of flour dusting your eyelashes delicately. Only Solomon's amused laughter is enough to stir you back into action, and once you start moving, nothing can stop you. "You. Asshole! I. Liked. This. Shirt!" You scramble to where he'd left a carton of eggs, throwing one at him in between every word. Most of them miss your target, but two land on him, the first making a satisfying smack as it breaks on his shoulder and the second one cracking right over his forehead, the yolk running into his hair. You'd been aiming for his face, but seeing the white locks twist into yellow is almost better.

"My hair!" Solomon exclaims in utter disbelief, shocked that you went that far. While he stands gaping, though, you've already found your next target: a plastic bottle full of whipped cream. You press down on the head experimentally, squealing in delight when a perfect swirl blossoms on your fingertips. You lick it, savoring the sweetness, before turning to Solomon. "No, MC." He puts up two hands protectively, as if you'll assault him at any given minute. "Don't do it. We can talk about this, nice and slow."

You pause for a second and give the sorcerer a moment of peace, to rejoice and maybe think that you're not going to rub whipped cream all over his face.

And then you pounce.

In a second, he's on the ground, under you, arms pinned to the floor by your legs as they straddle his upper body. He wriggles under your grasp, writhing desperately as the whipped cream approaches his face until the fluffy white substance has all but exploded over his face, hair, neck, and shirt.

You laugh.

But your mirth is short-lived. Solomon stares at you, jaw dropped in disbelief until you shake the bottle, upset to find that you've actually emptied its entire contents on him. And once shock is no longer holding the boy down, he taps into the demonlike strength he's developed in his many years in the Devildom, lurching forward in an instant.

"You—you—" Your words come out in stutters, forced into an unmoving stupor when you realize what Solomon just did. "You bastard!"

"Not so fun when you're on the bottom, is it?" Solomon smirks, no longer at your mercy. The jerk flipped you! "Unless you prefer it that way?" You force your gaze away from his at the innuendo, suddenly remembering that he spends as much time with Asmodeus as you do. Your cheeks burn, feeling hotter than hell itself, as you realize what a compromised position you're in.

"Aw, is little MC embarrassed?" Solomon continues his teasing, and you pick up a clump of flour remaining on the floor from when Solomon literally poured the entire bag's contents over your head, and throw it in his face. The mage temporarily flinches, but he doesn't give you any chance to escape, taking a moment to wipe his face clean of the everything you'd thrown at him over the course of this mini food-fight.

He glances at the ungodly clump of sweetness in his hands.

"No," You murmur when a devilish smile blooms on his face. You bring up your arms to push his chest away as he leans closer, but Solomon grabs the two hands troubling him and pins them above your head. "Stop! Solomon, don't do it!" But your pleas go unheard and in the end, it's your desperate thrashing that saves you, most of the sugary mix being smeared on your neck and jaw instead of your face.

"Asshole," You seethe when he's done.

"Aw, but you look so cute like this." Your eyes widen at the words, and you can instantly feel the heat on your cheeks intensifying. "So cute when you're all flustered."

"Sh-shut up! I'm not!" You turn your head away from Solomon. For the first time, you're thankful for the chocolate fondue that covers your cheeks. If he were to know just how abashed his actions are making you, there's not a single doubt in your mind that it would simply be used as further ammunition to tease you with.

"You're not?" Solomon mutters, that aggravating smirk still on his face. He leans forward, bowing his head down low until his white locks tickle your forehead. "How about now?"

"N-no," You mumble and look away. You're no Lucifer, but you want to keep at least a little of your pride. But it seems that Solomon takes your words as a challenge, and within seconds he's dipped his head even lower and his lips are on yours—sweet, covered in frosting, and soft.

You gasp at the contact, not expecting this of all things...but it's strangely pleasant. And a quiet voice at the back of your mind tells you not to pull away.

But then Solomon leans his head back up and his smile is even more exasperating, so before he can get a single teasing word out you pull your head off the ground and capture his lips once more, leaning back when his mouth curves into a smile. You can't suppress a small grin from forming on your own lips when Solomon's grip around your wrists loosens, still leaving a hand to cage over them but bringing another frosting-covered one to slide into your hair. It makes for a nice pillow between you and the ground.

Your smile widens when you feel Solomon's daring tongue dart at your lips, a flirtatious summon for more. More of the moment, more of this, more of you. And suddenly, it doesn't even matter that the two of you are covered in the ingredients of the cake that will now go unbaked. Because Solomon's lips are on yours and you're both breathless and it's hot and sweet and it feels invigorating.

There's not a doubt in your mind that the two of you would enjoy the moment far more—you eventually do, in the privacy of closed doors—if not for Barbatos's sudden appearance in the doorway.

Your breath catches in your throat.

The demon's gaze doesn't land on you immediately, much to your chagrin. His olive eyes first scan over the kitchen countertop, the ripped-open flour bag, the spilled carton of heavy cream, half-empty tubes of frosting, and the hideous mess of food that covers nearly every inch of the floor. He glances nervously at the oven, which is still on but thankfully devoid of any burning food that might ruin the dinner.

And it's only then that his stare fixates on the two of you: frozen mid-makeout, covered in frosting, whipped cream, and flour. You tense under Solomon, feeling his muscles stiffen in turn, both your eyes locked onto the demon in front of you.

"...I suppose you'll want me to believe that this is part of the cooking process?"

MASTERLIST

Word count: 3.3k

Notes: This was inspired by the fact that Solomon's smile in the game always looked more like a devilish smirk~ I feel like he'd be such a brat x3 one of my all-time favs tho

Comment & Like

I do not own the rights to Obey Me! or any of the characters within it.

[theirrationalzone]

Yakkin ‘bout Games: Wolfenstein: The New Order

Yakking ‘bout Games is a series where I talk about games that I’m currently playing or have just finished. It can be new or old, console or PC, good or bad, it really doesn’t matter. If it’s a game worth talking about, you’ll see it covered here.

I think it’s fair to say that the FPS genre has enjoyed a bit of a renaissance over the last decade and a bit. The modern military shooters that dominated the late 2000s and early 2010s have become less common. We have seen the return of classic franchises like Doom and Half-Life, and we have also witnessed the influx of “boomer shooters” like Dusk and Amid Evil. A lot of cool stuff indeed.

With that being said, let’s take a trip back a few years. 2014 to be exact.

This was the first year of the (then) brand spanking new PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The two consoles were not off to the best of starts though. Their early exclusives like Killzone Shadow Fall, InFamous Second Son, Forza Motorsport 5 and Dead Rising 3 had failed to impress. The only games picking up the slack were multi-platform releases like Assassin’s Creed IV Black Flag. The only FPS games available at the time (other than Killzone on PS4) were Call of Duty Ghosts (dull as dishwater) and Battlefield 4 (I enjoyed it but it was completely broken on release.)

Not exactly the most exciting of times for an FPS fan on console.

Wolfenstein: The New Order finally came along that May. It had been announced the year prior but it didn’t have much fanfare behind it. The initial E3 showing didn’t really impress anyone and there wasn’t really a great excitement for the game’s release. Perhaps it was because the previous Wolfenstein game was largely ignored by people or maybe because people were skeptical due to the game being MachineGames’ (the developer) first effort. People needn’t have worried though. The game turned out to be a massive surprise. It ended up being one of the best of that year.

Why am I covering this now? It’s because I recently got the urge to play it again after all these years. Plus I wanted to see how it would function in a post modern Doom world. So with that in mind, let’s get psyched and see how the game holds up.

Never has a smile brought terror to my heart so fast. Well this and my last dental appointment...

The New Order is set in an alternate universe where the Nazis won World War II due to their advanced technology being too much for the Allied forces. After an operation to try and assassinate the spearhead behind this growing technological evolution goes horribly wrong, Captain William “B.J.” Blazkowicz ends up taking a piece of shrapnel to the back of the head which puts him into a vegetative state. He ends up spending fourteen years in a Polish mental asylum before finally being awoken again due to witnessing a horrible atrocity committed by the Nazis. B.J. is now in the alien world of 1960 where the Nazis rule over the world with an iron fist. It’s up to B.J. to link up with the remnants of the Resistance and take the fight back to the Nazis once and for all.

The story was and still is one of the most surprising elements of The New Order. It paints a brutal picture of a world controlled by an evil and ruthless force who will stop at nothing to assert their dominance. The cast as well are very memorable. You have the plucky and likable Resistance fighters who you get to spend quite a bit of time with. You then have some memorable encounters with the evil figureheads of the Nazi regime at certain parts of the story. Anyone who has seen the train sequence in this game knows exactly what I’m taking about. I have to give MachineGames credit as well for the characterisation of B.J. himself. They managed to turn a character who was known for being a badass Nazi killer to a very sympathetic and likable Nazi killer. B.J. in this game is weary and tired after years of fighting evil and tyranny at every corner. The man wants nothing more than for the war to be over so he can hang up his guns and finally settle down. How could you hate the man after hearing something like that?

B.J. is such an upstanding guy that he would infiltrate a Nazi controlled train just to get you some coffee. Liberation and a Cappuccino, you can’t beat it. 

The real bread and butter of The New Order though is the gameplay. It has held up fantastically for the most part. Combat is a blast thanks to the very meaty arsenal at your disposal including assault rifles, shotguns, marksman rifle and a Laserkraftwerk which allows you to blast enemies to smithereens. You’ll have plenty of enemy types to cut through including rank and file soldiers, big mech suit soldiers with heavy weaponry and robots that have massive lasers. B.J. has a few abilities though to help turn the tide of battle. Leaning is one such ability and it’s implemented very well. How it works is that if you hold the L1 button, it locks B.J. in place and you can then use the left stick to lean at different angles. It’s super useful. Earning a well placed few shots at a Nazi from a very awkward angle never gets old. B.J. also has the ability to dual-wield certain weapons to deal even more hefty damage to his foes. Press up on the d-pad and prepare to bring the carnage. While this is a pretty fun feature, it does limit your movement speed and it can result in you burning through ammo quite quickly. It also is restricted to two types of the same weapon. You can also find upgrades for weapons which give them different ammo types and fire modes. The Laserkraftwerk, for example, can be used to cut through certain boxes and materials which is pretty nifty.

In terms of how health works, it’s a hybrid between classic pick-ups and regeneration. You can recover health by picking up health packs and food throughout the game. Armor can be found as well to allow you to take some extra damage. If you take health damage and managed to find cover, you’ll eventually get 10 health points back. You also have the ability to overcharge your health. How this works is that if you end up picking up a health item that takes you over your max health, you get higher health points for a brief period which is quite useful. You can increase your max health by finding hidden health upgrades throughout some of the levels.

AI is decent for the most part. They will attempt to find cover in the heat of a firefight and they do try to flank you. Some of the heavy soldiers will also attempt to rush your position. I certainly didn’t notice any unusual behaviour from them. Boss fights are a bit unremarkable for the most part. The game pretty much spells out how to take them out and they don’t really put up much of a fight. The main exception being the final boss but even then, it really isn’t that hard.

The secret painting boss fight was an interesting idea though. Definitely a canvas for them to work on in the future. (Apologies for the bad pun and joke.)

The game does have a basic stealth system and it works fine. When you enter most of the areas in the game, you will be informed that there are two commanders in the area. Take them out without being spotted and you can sneak through the area without having to worry about reinforcements if you get spotted by an enemy. You can take down enemies stealthily by using a silenced pistol, throwing knives or by sneaking up to them and performing a takedown. Stealth can feel a little overpowered during some of the early sections because the pistol is super accurate and it only takes one headshot to take some of these enemies down. The game does balance this a bit better later on as areas are populated with more elite enemies that harder to kill without being spotted.

Being a Wolfenstein game, you would expect exploration to be a big part of the gameplay and it does play a part for sure. There are hidden areas to be found with collectibles such as the Enigma codes which can unlock new difficulties and cheat codes. You can also find hidden max HP upgrades and other stuff as well. Maps can be found in each level which will indicate possible hidden secrets with a question mark. Levels are definitely more linear than some of the prior Wolfenstein games so don’t expect huge hidden areas or levels.

Key and item hunting still exists of course. You will find doors that require a key or a tool needed to progress which requires a bit of skulking around to find that key or item. You see this especially in the Resistance HQ sections which occur after most of the levels. In these sections, you will be tasked with finding a certain item for a character to progress to the next level. There are also side missions where you can do the same thing for other characters in the HQ and completing these unlocks extras such as artwork. I’m mixed on the Resistance HQ sections overall. On the one hand, they’re good from a lore perspective because you can overhear conversations from some of the characters and there are newspaper clippings and notes to find which do a good job of building up the world. On the other hand, they do feel a little bit like filler. Swings and roundabouts, I suppose...

I don’t really have many issues with the gameplay as a whole. My only real gripe is how the weapon wheel works. Weapon wheels are commonplace on console because a controller doesn’t have many buttons when compared to a keyboard. Makes perfect sense. The New Order’s one however can be such a temperamental thing to use. How it’s supposed to work is that you hit the R1 button to bring up the wheel and then you use the right stick to pick the weapon you want. Sounds simple enough. In reality what happens is that the game ends up giving you the wrong weapon time after time. I can’t even begin to count the amount of times that I tried to switch to the assault rifle and the game switched me to the dual-wield pistols instead. It can be a bloody nuisance. Part of this is down to how sensitive the stick is when using the wheel. It’s way too fast. Also why do the dual-wield options even need to be there? You can already hit up on the d-pad to dual-wield a particular weapon plus I didn’t really need to dual-wield all that much so it’s just clutter. They could have cleaned this up a lot better. I also had issues with swapping back to the previous weapon. It would sometimes default back to the Laserkraftwerk even though it wasn’t my previous weapon. Thankfully these issues didn’t get me killed but they certainly got on my nerves a little bit.

Textbook schadenfreude here from one of the villains. Shouldn’t be that shocked really...

From a graphics point of view, Wolfenstein: The New Order still holds up remarkably well. It runs on the same idTech engine that powered Rage before it and it certainly looks great. Character models are well detailed and they animate well. Cutscenes are well framed and the angles are perfectly done. Environments are beautifully crafted with amazing detail so whether you are in rainy soaked London or even the friggin’ Moon, you feel immersed in the world of the game.

I wasn’t kidding about the Moon. Look Ma, I’m in space! (In a video game...)

The game is quite aliased on the consoles. You definitely see sharp and jagged edges at times. Plus the textures look a bit low-res when viewed up close, but the game still looks great, and I imagine the PC version cleans up most of this stuff anyway so there’s that.

Tumblr’s image compression doesn’t do this environment justice. Oh well. C’est la vie, I suppose...

I can’t fault the game’s sound though. All voice performances are pitch-perfect with Brian Bloom (the voice of B.J.) being the standout. The music is incredible too with a great balance between atmospheric tracks and hard edged ones when the action really kicks off. It’s composed by a guy named Mick Gordon. Don’t think he’s done anything of note since though.

In terms of length, you’re looking at about roughly 8-10 hours for a first time playthrough. There is replay value with the collectibles and the Timeline system. To briefly explain, the Timeline system is related to a choice you make at the start of the game which changes some of the characters you encounter during the game. It doesn’t drastically change much. The events remain the same. You just get some unique dialog and a scene or two. Not much else.

So as you can see, I think that Wolfenstein: The New Order is still a bloody good time. The shooting still feels great with some really meaty weapons, the story and characters are super engaging, and the presentation and sound still kicks some ass. It has some minor issues here and there, but this game is well worth experiencing. You can pick it up pretty cheap nowadays on most of the platforms and it does go on sale quite often.

It’s nice to go back sometimes and revisit a classic, isn’t it? 

Check back here soon for Part 2 of this where I take a look at The Old Blood. Until then, stay safe, folks!

[tealin]

Basler to the Beardmore 2: Errands

As always, no matter what Tumblr does with it, this post is available in its intended presentation at twirlynoodle.com/blog along with the rest of my Antarctic travel diary.

On this flight to the heart of Antarctica, I was only a hanger-on.  We had two errands to run before entertaining me and my historical interests, the most important of which was restocking a fuel depot at the base of the Transantarctic Mountains.

There are many busy science teams in Antarctica, and while some renewable energy sources are starting to be used, the fact is that everything runs on a reliable supply of fossil fuels, mostly petrol.  The aircraft that keep people and their essentials moving around the continent have a network of fuel depots, both for relay stops and for emergencies.  Contrary to some conspiracy theories, anyone can fly to and around Antarctica if they have the money and resources to get there, and many do.  As the national science programmes have a very tight margin, and their fuel depots are expensive to maintain, they cannot afford jet-setters raiding their supplies, so the locations of these depots are kept secret.  Therefore I am not going to tell you where our first stop was.  The chances of a private pilot reading this blog are slim, but it may be possible to deduce from my photos where this particular cache is: if you are that outlier, I hereby ask you please to do the decent thing and leave the fuel alone – or if you absolutely must access it, then let the USAP know what you've taken and make good on it as soon as you can.  Everyone in Antarctica looks out for each other, and that includes you.  OK?  OK. 

So, we've taken off, and done our acrobatics to get the skis up, and are now facing a couple of hours' flight time before we reach our primary destination.  There is, quite frankly, nothing between Williams Field and the Transantarctic Mountains, besides hundreds of miles of the Ross Ice Shelf. This was known as 'The Barrier' to the early explorers, because when James Clark Ross sailed down to explore in 1840 it was a great while wall that prevented his ships from going any further. In later years it wasn't so much a barrier as a highway – clear and flat, and not much off sea level, it provided a route deep into the high latitudes without the perils of the high windy Polar Plateau.  Among people who frequently travel out there, it is sometimes referred to as 'the Flat White' – my impression is that this term came from the Kiwis, and the espresso drink of the same name is also antipodean in origin, so I wonder which came first.  It is undeniably Flat, and White (though the refraction of sunlight through ice crystals makes it look anything from peachy to periwinkle, depending on the angle), but none of its various names communicate just how big it is.

I have flown over the Canadian tundra many times, and over the Greenland ice cap, but the view from 35,000 feet is like looking at satellite view in Google Maps compared to flying at cloud level, where the parallax with the horizon gives you a much keener sense of distance.  The Barrier is BIG.  In fact, 'big' is too small a word to communicate it.  'Massive', 'mammoth', and 'gargantuan' are more melodramatic than descriptive.  Its vastness puts all of human consciousness, never mind vocabulary, in proper perspective.  For my money, it outdoes the night sky as a visual approximation of infinity. 

Getting a sense of its size, especially in a still photo, is difficult without an object for scale.  For your education and my good fortune, we happened to fly over the RAID convoy as they made their way from the Minna Bluff site to where the Ross Ice Shelf meets the Antarctic continent.  Rapid Access Ice Drilling has been supporting various scientific projects for a few years now, whether their interest is in the ice itself (its trapped air gives a record of Earth's atmosphere in millennia past) or what's underneath (marine environments far removed from the open sea; the bed of an accelerating glacier).  Their units are about the size of a shipping container, and are pulled by enormous tractors, so if they are this dwarfed by the Flat White, imagine how much more puny a sledge party would be. 

Before too much longer we were at the depot.  Landing at an Antarctic field airstrip is even more complicated than taking off: we circled once, to do a visual check, then skimmed it with the skis to make sure no hidden crevasses had opened up since the last time someone landed here, then finally touched down for real on the third go-round.  The plane crew rapidly got to work unloading the fuel drums; I offered to help but was assured I wasn't needed, so spent the time taking photographs and mucking around in the snow.

The first thing that struck me was how beautiful the mountains were in colour.  The best photos I've seen of them have been black and white, so the rich variety in shades was remarkable.  What you can't see in this small photo was how the lighter rock was banded with strata of blue-grey and orange-brown sandstone, giving it a luxurious marbled effect. 

I've read a lot about how conditions on the Barrier are so much different than on the coast.  This was far deeper into it than I was ever expecting to set foot, but I was surprised how tame it was.  Now, it was an idyllically calm and sunny day – had it been any different we would not have been there – so the only time I realised that it was actually much colder than McMurdo was when a slight breeze wafted past my bare hand and broke the warm spell that the sunshine had cast.

 What was different was the snow.  Around McMurdo, the snowbanks which did build up had been repeatedly blown over with volcanic dust which warmed up in the sun and made the snow gritty, icy, and rotten – if you live in a snowy city, think of the texture of snowbanks alongside busy roads.  Out here, there was nothing but snow, all the way down to where it became ice – powder blown off the mountains, maybe even off the Polar Plateau, deposited here to be compacted in the sun and polished by the wind.  The crust made by these processes was smooth and, in many places, thick enough to support my weight, so I hardly left a footprint – a 'good pulling surface' as sledgers would have it – but without warning there would be a thin spot where my foot would break through and sink in the sugar-like snow below.

Before long, the crew had finished their restock, and playtime was over.  After our exciting takeoff manoeuvres, we started climbing the mountains to the second of our tasks for the day. 

The Transantarctic Mountains, according to our pilot, are still something of a mystery.  They are a very high mountain range, but unlike the Rockies for example, they show little or no sign of buckling or other geological forces – they seem to have been lifted whole, keeping their layers of sandstone and coal and fossil-rich deposits mostly flat, with occasional intrusions of igneous rock. The range acts as a sort of massively oversized dyke, holding back the miles-deep polar ice cap from spilling over West Antarctica, the Ross Ice Shelf, and the Ross Sea, as the mountains cross the continent.

Ice appears to be solid, but it actually behaves more like a stiff jelly or fondant icing – if it finds a change in altitude it will flow, very slowly, downhill.  This is what a glacier is: snow gets deposited over many years without melting, turns to ice, and when its volume can no longer be held at elevation, starts to creep down the valley. The ice of the Polar Plateau finds gaps in the Transantarctic Mountains and pushes through them, forming glaciers which pour out onto the Ross Sea and, merging, form the Ross Ice Shelf.  The Beardmore Glacier is one of the largest of these, but there are hundreds of smaller ones, and many tributary glaciers that feed these.  In flying over the lower Transantarctic Mountains, there were plenty of opportunities to see ice dynamics at work: 

Our destination was up near the head of a narrow glacier, where it broadened out into a snowy plain called the Bowden Névé – névé being a term for young snow which has not yet compacted into glacial ice but is in a position to do so.  This was CTAM (pronounced see-tam), a geology camp established to be a hub for teams doing work in the Central TransAntarctic Mountains. The névé afforded an open, soft, flat place to land planes carrying supplies and people, who could then move on to less accessible places overland.  At least, it did, until a wind event a few years ago scoured deep furrows in the landing strip.

As we flew over, doing the visual check, I was astonished the site could be spotted at all, as it was only a small clutch of bamboo poles in the vast expanse. 

Having proven that the landing strip was landable, the next task was to see what condition the building was in.  What building, you ask?  Why, the one completely covered in snow, under the markers.  Once upon a time it was a couple of modules standing on the surface of the glacier, but Antarctica gradually swallowed them up, so now one has to dig down through the snow to reach the roof hatch, eight feet above the floor. 

On the way from the Basler to the camp site, I was treated to one signature snow effect I had missed out on, at the depot.  'The Barrier Hush' is frequently mentioned in journals: it was described as a 'whoosh' or a 'hush-shh-shhhh' that sighed out from underneath the walker as he broke through the top crust into a pocket of air underneath, where the loose snow had settled after the top crust was formed.  The pocket could sometimes extend quite a long way from where the crust was broken and the sound followed the exchange of air as far as it went.  It would startle the ponies and excite the dogs, until they learned there was nothing to chase and catch.    

I was walking some way behind the plane crew as they made for the camp with shovels, and suddenly heard what I thought was a small whirlwind – a sharp and intense, almost whistling sound that seemed to race across my path.  This being the sort of place one would expect to see dust devils (or snow devils, I suppose they would be) I looked around to see where it was, but the air was as still up here as it had been down on the ice shelf.  It was only after the second or third time it happened that I realised what it was – it was so completely not how I had imagined the Barrier Hush to sound.  If you make a little whirlwind sound by whisper-whistling whshwshywshwhwwsh with your lips really quickly, that's what it sounded like.  Having heard it, now, I can completely understand how the dogs would have thought there was a small creature scurrying around under the snow.  It sounded much more animate than it had been described.  I felt so lucky to be let into that secret. 

The crew got the hatch open and the first of them climbed down into the pitch darkness to report everything OK.  The rest followed, and invited me along, but I am not the most coordinated travelling artist, and couldn't see a way down for me that didn't end in a concussion.  So I stayed above while they explored the submerged camp, and enjoyed the view.  It was really spectacular – not just the stunning mountains but the thin, brittle blue of the sky and the hardness of the sunlight, as if the whole world were a taut drumskin. 

And, best of all, from here the horizon was the Polar Plateau – another Flat White stretching to the South Pole and beyond.

[bobbyshaddoe80]

Liberated Audio Reviews

Blake's 7 - The Liberator Chronicles Vol. 2

RELEASED AUGUST 2012

Recorded on: 18 October and 25 November 2011, and 15 March 2012

Recorded at: Moat Studios

Review By Robert L. Torres

The Magnificent Four by Simon Guerrier

'A mission to steal data from the planet Mogul goes badly wrong when Cally and Avon are outflanked and outgunned. And then they are teleported to safety – to an alien spaceship stolen from The System, which is crewed by Gilden Trent and his small team of rebels.

For Avon it’s the opportunity to start over again without Blake.

But can Trent be trusted?'

Chronological Placement:

Set during Series B between the episodes Countdown and Voice From the Past.

Magnificent. Defined in the dictionary as 'impressive, deserving of admiration, especially due to an unusual quality involving size'.

The word is often used when describing something vast in size and scope, but magnificence can also be attributed to the quality of something that involves a small group. A prime example would be the title characters of the classic Western The Magnificent Seven. Even the accomplishments made by the John Wick character could be described as magnificent despite them being done by one man.

Magnificent is an apt word to describe the impressive storytelling quality that Guerrier has pulled off with this Cally focused story.

Cally, as played by the exquisite Jan Chappell, was always one of my favorites from the original cast. She was someone that wasn't a hardened cynic like Avon (who provides much needed support for Cally in this story), nor was she cowardly like Vila. She was someone that genuinely believed in doing the right thing and saw fighting against the oppressive tyranny of the Federation to be a very serious responsibility.

I was also always fascinated by her stance as someone that, for all intents and purposes, was the alien of the group (due to her coming from a race of telepaths). I have my own thoughts and theories about the Auronar, but that can wait for another day. Despite having powers of the mind, I always felt that Cally was very much the heart of the team.

I love that this story has Cally and Avon meeting up with a group like Blake's, on a ship like the Liberator, only to learn that they are little more than highly skilled pirates.

I love that the events of the Series B episode 'Redemption' are brought up and how the crew of the Libertine are a result of the aftermath of the events from that story.

I love how the story showcases in the crew of the Libertine a distorted reflection (and perhaps a retroactive premonition) of what would happen to the crew of the Liberator should they lose their way by abandoning their morals and scruples and just give in to blind self interest... Which for the most part is exactly what started to happen during Series C and ultimately came to fruition in Series D.

A minor nitpick, but I always thought the planet Cally came from was called Auron and her people were called the Auronar. And yet in this story and others, they refer to her as being an Auron. Is it a case where one singular person is an Auron but the collective term for the species as a whole is Auronar? It is a minor thing, I know, but still something that stuck out.

Something else that is a bit of a minor flaw is that at one point in the story the voiceover narration switches from Cally to Avon. There is a specific reason why this happens in the narrative, but it still comes about rather unexpectedly.

Given the stories in these chronicles are events being recounted AFTER the fact, there is the inevitable problem of how to create tension and intrigue with life threatening peril for the characters when most fans know the show backwards and are fully aware of what the inevitable fates for many of the characters are.

Luckily for Guerrier and many other writers, they do create moments that make you wonder how such and such will be able to survive whatever life threatening peril is thrown at them, and manage to cleverly pay off how they survive without falling into 'Oh Come The Fuck On' Territory.

8 out of 10 Plasma Bolts

Anyway, this story is very well done and is the first of many plots that involve coming across potential allies for the Resistance movement, only to learn the would be allies are often a lot worse than their enemies in the Federation. Definitely give it a listen.

False Positive by Eddie Robson

'Dr. Lian has a mysterious new patient – a man who was found shot in the leg near Engel City, a man who is delirious and talking about the most extraordinary acts of rebellion.

She prescribes drugs and the use of the alleviator – a device that will dig deep into his memories – to unlock the truth about Carlin Guzan.

But the truth that she exposes is far more shocking than she bargained for...'

Chronological Placement:

Set during Series B after LC Vol. 10's Retribution, between the episodes Horizon and Pressure Point.

This story is definitely a step up in quality from volume 1's 'Counterfeit' and is an excellent Blake-centric story. The framing device for the recollection of the events is actually quite clever as it ties in with the adventure itself in a very naturalistic manner.

The dialogue scenes between Blake and Dr. Liam are excellent. Kudos to Beth Chalmers for giving the character of Dr. Liam the right balance of professional intrigue and personal curiosity as she learns more and more about her 'patient'. But this story belongs to the late Gareth Thomas through and through and it is great to hear him be afforded better material than during his first go round back in 'Counterfeit'.

I always rather liked Blake from the start, and a large part of that is down to the performance of the late Gareth Thomas. The character of Roj Blake was a passionate idealist fighting for a noble cause, someone who could be diplomatic but understood the need for action rather than simple civil disobedience. As someone that broke free from an oppressive government, he immediately gains our sympathies... even if his passions occasionally bordered on overzealous fanaticism. This is largely due to what the Federation did to him personally by trying to rewrite his mind, killing his family and even destroying his public image by falsifying accusations of paedophilia.

Since the Federation enact the same tactics on countless others without any hesitation, morals or scruples, it is no wonder why Blake is so overwhelmingly passionate about wiping out the corruptive and cancerous tumor that is the Federation. Not only to avenge family, but to ensure that people are given the freedom to choose for themselves and not simply be coerced into following the rules through propaganda, torture, drugs or mind control.

Speaking of drugs and mind control, that goes to the heart of the plot: Blake going undercover at a Federation research facility that is conducting a clinical drug trial for the development of a new pacifying sedative, which the Federation hopes to employ in order to ensure total compliance and obedience to Federation doctrine.

Ironically enough, that is exactly what would come to pass towards the tail end of Series D... But we already know that, don't we?

7 out of 10 Plasma Bolts

All things considered, it is a pretty good story. This story, like a few others in the Liberator Chronicles range, could work as a two-hander stage play with a couple of tweaks. It also could easily have worked on TV or even as a full cast audio. Give it a listen.

Wolf by Nigel Fairs

“I heard his death cry. I felt it. And there was a word. ‘Wolf’. You, Servalan. You were the “Wolf”. You killed him. I want to know why.”

'Some time ago, Blake and his crew were helped by a revered Auron scientist named Gustav Nyrron. He stayed aboard the Liberator for a time and then disappeared.

Cally wants to know what happened to Nyrron, and only Servalan knows the answers.'

Chronological Placement:

Set during Series B between the episodes Pressure Point and Trial.

This is a very intriguing Servalan focused story, featuring Cally and a return appearance by Gustav Nyrron from Volume 1's 'Solitary'.

They say that a protagonist is only as good as the antagonist created to provide drama/conflict. This is especially true when the character of Supreme Commander Servalan (along with the equally excellent Space Commander Travis) was introduced as the Liberator crew's primary antagonist in the Series A episode 'Seek-Locate-Destroy'.

A large part of why the Servalan character has left such a lasting impression on the minds of fans had to do with the casting of the late Jacqueline Pearce, and the way she played the role. Her grace, charm, beauty and seductive allure went hand in hand with a ruthless ambitious edge along with a keen strategic mind.

In many ways, Servalan, as played by Jacqueline Pearce, reminded me of Alexis Colby as played by Joan Collins. Although Servalan was a bit more reserved than Alexis.

As such, it makes perfect sense that the Liberator Chronicles would provide ample opportunities to explore the villains as well as the heroes. This story does well to explore Servalan's character along with her thoughts, beliefs and how she carries herself as she recounts events. The recollection is pretty interesting cuz it comes about in multiple ways.

We learn a little bit about Servalan's childhood in reference to a game she used to play with others. Its interesting how this story, along with the upcoming 'Kerr', 'President' and 'Three', provides more insight into the character than the show ever did. The aforementioned upcoming stories do provide some great insight into why Servalan is the way she is... But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

I love the scenes between Servalan and Cally, as I do not recall the two of them having much screentime during the series proper... If ever. But I could be wrong.

This story has some great twists and turns as it deals with exploring how Servalan used Nyrron as her personal plaything in her efforts to lure the Liberator into her clutches.

Although Nyrron will be featured again in the story 'Brother' off of Volume 11 (which I will talk about eventually), I think this is the story that features him the best. We learn the most about him as a character, and much kudos to Anthony Howell for bringing much pathos and nuance to the Auron scientist.

The story also lends itself quite well to philosophical debates regarding how each side views the other. Naturally, Blake's crew view Servalan and the Federation as an evil and oppressive tyranny, while Servalan and those within the Administration view Blake and his ilk as little more than terrorists wanting to bring down the only force for law and order in the galaxy.

It is that clash of ideals and personal morals that will be explored to great effect in future volumes as well as in the full cast audios.

9 out of 10 Plasma Bolts

Final score for Liberator Chronicles Vol. 2 in its entirety is 8 out of 10 Plasma Bolts. It is a profound step up in quality compared to Volume 1, and it demonstrates that things can only go up from here in terms of character exploration and engaging plots.

Special credit to Craig Brawley of the Big Finish Listeners Facebook Group for his tireless efforts in mapping out the chronology of the audios and determining his they fit in with the established TV continuity.

[notoriously-blonde]

Sugar, Spice and Everything Nice

This is my gift to @gryffindorcls for @mlsecretsanta! Took me a long time and a lot of brain smacking to get this to be good enough! Sorry it took so long and I hope you enjoy it! Read on AO3 here. Beta-d by @xthreeravensx

Summary:  After a talk with Ladybug, Chat's actions and the consequences are brought to light, Adrien vows to never be the type of person he was before. Hist first step: move on from Ladybug. In his journey to greatness, Marinette sneaks into his heart completely under the radar.

Sitting in class, Adrien has his head resting on his fist. It has been a few weeks since his talk with Ladybug. Since his actions were brought to light. Since how his actions were affecting Ladybug was brought to light. It was the day that Adrien decided to move on from Ladybug. He can’t be acting like that, especially with his partner, they are supposed to be in sync, and the way he was acting was hindering their synchronization.

And now...well, with Ladybug no longer controlling most of his thoughts, he’s found himself to be...bored. There just isn’t much to do anymore. Piano is plain and simple now, he doesn’t even have to think about how his fingers should move. Fencing is easy, too easy. Kagami isn’t even proving to be a challenge anymore.

The abilities his miraculous bestow upon him while transformed have been bleeding into his civilian life for a while now. He’s processing visual, auditory, smell, and physical stimulus much faster. His reaction time is faster. He’s stronger, not sure exactly how much stronger, but he knows he is. Plus, he already has so many trophies, a whole shelving unit of them.

So, with the reasoning that fencing is too easy and that he has proved himself many times over that he is more than proficient in that field, he decided to go to Father and tell him how he believes that studying another form of martial arts would be beneficial, more specifically, the bo staff. He spent a few hours analyzing how he fights as Chat Noir and came to conclude that he often times uses the baton like a sword/Sabre and not as a baton/bo staff. If he wants to maximize his fighting as Chat Noir, it might be beneficial to learn the bo staff.

It took a few days, but eventually he got Father to agree. Now he’s working with a trained professional to better use a bo staff. And, if Adrien’s being honest, it feels really, really good.

His training with the bo staff has proved useful in his superhero training and in fights. And he’s found it a bit easier to provide an easier defense using bo staff training rather than fencing. Maybe he should pick up karate, or judo? He’ll have to look into it.

And, with better training and a better defense, he’s found that he isn’t getting incapacitated in battles nearly as much. Not worrying about impressing Ladybug is a pretty big weight off his shoulders.

He remembers that fateful night vividly. Her words still ring through his head. Her tone. Her eyes, the hurt in them, the tears. He remembers the stabbing pain in his chest when she told him that she had almost been akumatized twice. Not particularly because of him, but his actions hadn’t helped much. From that moment, he vowed to stop at all costs. Vowed to help her in any way. And, with how his actions have been affecting her, the only solution he saw was to give up the ring. Let someone else, someone better, be the partner she needs. Someone who wouldn’t make it harder not to be akumatized.

He remembers the tears he tried to hide, trying to suppress Plagg’s faint voice in the back of his mind.

He remembers how her hands felt on his hand, cupping the ring.

He remembers how it felt when she used her hands to close his hand into a fist, moving her hands to cup his fist, enclose the ring in both their hands. ‘Chaton...’ her voice was wavering slightly, but there was pride in her tone. Determination burning in her eyes, from deep in her core. ‘I’ve already found the perfect match for Plagg. And that person is you.’ The way she had looked at him right then, the way she looked at the butterfly image of Hawkmoth that second day, the way she looks at him after she casts the restoring ladybugs, the love, admiration, gratitude; it baffled him.

He is unashamed to admit that he had broken down a second later, that they stayed in a tight embrace for quite a while longer; that all through this time, he was sniffling and sobbing.

Ladybug brought the errors of his ways to light, and then, when he was ready to give up being her partner because of how he had acted, she decided that he didn’t need to. That her perfect partner is just beneath the surface of a boy who needed help to understand.

And now...now he’s more of the partner she needs than ever before. In the few weeks since The Talk, Akuma battles have gone easier, they’ve been more in sync than ever. Ladybug discovered a way to cast the restoration swarm without using a Lucky Charm, which then reduced the need for Cataclysm and Lucky Charm. Which allowed them more time to comfort the victim, reassure the public that they are doing what they need to to take down Hawkmoth. It allows them more time to grow together, grow stronger. They haven’t called in any temporary heroes since The Talk, either.

Adrien turns the tablet to the side, and starts scribbling down ideas. Ladybug has... three powers, possibly four now? He understands why she needs them. The universe is on a constant fast track toward destruction and death, so it makes sense that Creation needs to be a little bit more powerful, no? It’s just...having a single power makes him feel more like a sidekick than her partner. Like...like he’s just a permanent type temp.

And, before The Talk, before his improvements, he was perfectly content to be that. But... now that he has become better, it feels...slightly out of balance. The Black Cat is one of the two most powerful miraculous to exist. It seems a bit weird to have Ladybug have three powers and he only has one? He’s still fine with it, mostly, he can just admit to himself now that maybe having another power wouldn’t be that bad, would it?

He starts drawing a black ball. A black hole. The product of such a destructive death that the gravity makes it impossible for even light to escape. Black holes are such beautiful things, forces of nature that instill fear among every living thing. Except Plagg. He says he accidentally created one with a yawn. Or maybe that black holes are extensions of his mouth and stomach. It might be the latter option. He’s a complete pig.

Black holes are often viewed as portals to a different dimension. So...what if there could be a way his powers could develop to create such portals? That would be awesome!

Suddenly, a yawn interrupts his thoughts. A yawn from directly behind him. A smile creeps onto his face.

Marinette. Such an amazing person, capable of amazing feats. Capable of so much kindness, selflessness, compassion, bravery, desire, determination. It’s amazing how such a tiny frame can hold such big attributes. But, it isn’t all that surprising. That’s just who Marinette is. An amazing, determined, kind, smart, and creative person.

Plus, her yawns are adorable!

For the past few weeks, Adrien has begun to notice how stressed she’s become. She has so much on her plate that he’s surprised she isn’t spontaneously combusting under pressure. Then again, diamonds are formed under intense heat and pressure, and Marinette Dupain-Cheng? She is one heck of a diamond.

He’s been trying to think of ways he can help her destress, somehow. But he hasn’t had much progress. Talking to her doesn’t seem to destress her, he’s tried many times, but the bruises she still has are a testament to how much he stresses her out. Those walls didn’t look comforting. Or the light poles. Or benches.

Maybe he should start walking with her to make sure she doesn’t concuss herself, if she isn’t already living in one continuous concussion. Maybe Ladybug can lend Marinette some luck, only the stars know how much she needs it.

Another yawn comes from behind, and the smile creeps onto Adrien’s face again. Looks like someone didn’t quite get enough sleep. Maybe the akuma attack early this morning was a bit too loud?

Suddenly, an idea strikes him, and he looks to his cup of untouched coffee. A shot of espresso in it. Father would get an aneurysm if he saw the espresso in the coffee. He’d probably get the aneurysm from the knowledge that he even drinks coffee.

His smile turns sly at that. Oh, how he wishes he could tell Father about the coffee, but he won’t because coffee just so happens to keep him alive some days.

He picks it up and swivels around to look at Marinette. Her eyes are droopy, and there are slight bags under her eyes. Not noticeable unless you were looking for them. He smiles a warm smile and sets the cup down in front of her, and his smile turns a little bit more genuine when Marinette squeaks a little bit, her cheeks dusting pink. She’s so adorable!

“For you. I couldn’t help but notice that you seemed tired. It’s untouched, but that also means that it’s colder than it should be. Hope it helps.” Then he turns back around, the elbow to Marinette from Alya as well as the suggestive look, and the look of confusion from Nino going unnoticed. Adrien did, however, notice the faint growl emanating from the back of the classroom.

Lila, he growls inwardly. Ever since he told her to get Marinette back in school, she’s had an eerily quiet growl in the back of her throat at all times. It’s like she can’t contain her rage in any capacity anymore.

He’s not sure why she’s so enraged at the prospect of him and Marinette being friends, or why she’s so set on lying, but Adrien knows this for sure: Lila will do whatever she can to stress Marinette out further.

So all Adrien needs to do to thank Marinette for everything she does for everyone is to help get her out of stressful situations.

He’ll do all that he can to do that.

So far, all Adrien’s been able to do without stressing her out much is to bring coffee every morning. Sometimes it doesn’t seem like she needs it, but there are a few days where it seems to help out a lot. This in turn has helped Marinette to loosen up around him a little bit. While she still squeaks and flails, she has stopped running into walls.

He still thinks she needs to go check for a concussion. If she doesn’t end up having one, well, it’ll be more surprising than Hawkmoth surrendering his miraculous.

And, if Marinette is starting to loosen up around him now... maybe he can deploy a few tricks to help.  

Hopefully she likes inspiration!

Judging by the slight wheezing he’s been hearing all day, Adrien’s assuming that she doesn’t quite like what he wrote on the cup. ‘Remember, the strongest, brightest gems are formed in intense heat and pressure. So far, you outshine the rest.’ Maybe he should tone down the Chat Noir?

Adrien slides into his seat, turns around and places his—Marinette’s—cup of coffee on her desk, right where she would see it and, hopefully, not knock it over, like the first time. With a smile, he turns back around and catches sight of Nino looking at him with that look again.

“What’s that for?” he asks, folding his arms over his chest and leaning back against the front of the desk behind him. Closer to Marinette. Maybe.

“Dude, what’s up with you?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” he says, furrowing his brows a bit. He only brought a cup of coffee for Marinette.

Nino cocks an eyebrow. “You’ve been bringing Mari a cup of coffee every day for the past week. Why?”

Adrien furrows his eyebrows in further confusion. “Is...it not acceptable to bring friends coffee?”

Nino looks confused and frustrated, then his eyes widen in understanding and he rests a hand on Adrien’s shoulder. “Dude, my man, that’s, uh, yeah it’s acceptable—”

“Then what’s the problem?” Adrien cuts in. “Why is it such a big deal?”

“Adrien, sure it’s acceptable, but normally, people buy coffee for the people they like.”

“I do like Marinette!” She is such an amazing person, his second friend, (Plagg is his actual first friend, but Plagg is an immortal god that represents all of destruction in the universe, he does not count toward his human friend count), she does so much for everyone. She’s kind and brave, and clumsy, and adorable, of course he likes her, they’re friends!

He regrets saying that so loud, he can hear how Alya’s heart rate is through the roof, it happens whenever she spots something she can get the scoop on. It’s been happening a lot this past week when he’s dropped off the coffee for Marinette.

...He doesn’t know why. It confuses him greatly. And, honestly, why hasn’t anyone else been bringing her coffee, she’s clearly in dire need of it!

Plus, Nino’s eyes widen even further. “Oh, do you now?” For a brief second, Nino’s eyes dart to the right. Right to Alya. He’s been doing that a lot too. What is going on?!

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I? She’s an amazing person. One of the best friends I could have! What’s so wrong about bringing my friend coffee?”

At this, Nino is confused again, then an exasperated look crosses his face and only gets more exasperated when he looks to Alya again. Seriously, why’s he doing that? Are they planning something for Marinette? Her birthday isn’t for another few months.

When Nino looks back, there is something in his gaze that Adrien can’t quite read. It’s... like he pities him? No, Nino isn’t like that. He’s... disappointed? It’s like when parents look at they’re naive children in those movies when they say something that is completely and utterly untrue. Like an all seeing eye, but he can’t say anything.

It confuses Adrien even more. What’s Nino looking at him like that for?

Then, Marinette comes running in, a minute before the bell, as usual, but she’s a bit early today. Maybe she got some good sleep! He jerks his head to her, jumping out of his conversation with Nino, and focusing solely on Marinette. He hopes she’s doing better.

But... no, one look at her eyes, her posture, it’s normal, maybe even worse? Her hair is not quite as shiny as usual, her skin is lacking a little bit of that natural shine, the joy, the happiness. The area under her eyes is slightly darker than it should be, she might have used concealer to cover up bags? One pant leg is rolled up a bit too high, and she’s wearing different length socks.

Her heartbeat is pretty high, and it isn’t going down. In fact, when he looks back to her eyes and they lock gazes for a moment, her heart skips a few beats, then kicks into overdrive and she hurriedly breaks eye contact and gets to her seat.

Hmm...she still isn’t comfortable around him. Maybe this will cheer her up a bit. ‘Marinate’, deserves it.

And, judging by how her heart rate slows down a bit, he thinks it’s working. And, as she inhales the coffee, her heart rate slows even more.

Maybe he might just get some progress with her?

At the end of the day, Nino hands him a note scrawled in neat, loopy, beautiful letters. He’ll recognize that writing anywhere, it’s on his signed Jagged Stone album. It’s Marinette’s.

‘Thank you for the coffee, but if you’re going to keep doing this, is it okay if you add in a bit more caffeine?

(And by that, I mean three more shots.)’

Adrien’s concern skyrockets, he already adds an absurd amount of espresso to the coffee, how bad it it really if she needs that?

Well, a friend’s gotta do what a friend’s gotta do.

The next morning, there is a warm cup of coffee with three shots of espresso in there, waiting for Marinette on her desk. ‘Hope this doesn’t kill you! You are crazy Manatee!’ written on the side.

The next morning, Marinette comes in, but as she passes Adrien and Nino’s desk, she slides him a slip of paper. ‘The coffee helps, but would it be okay if you just got 16fl oz of espresso? I get...really, really tired and anxious.)’

He can’t hide his surprise even if he wanted to, as he whips around to look at Marinette, already downing her coffee.

This girl, she’s going to transform her blood into pure caffeine if he keeps doing this. Maybe, once they’re closer, he can start to wean her off of it?

Another week later, and Marinette is at 16fl oz of caffeine with two shots of extra espresso. Everyone at the coffee shop is giving him extremely concerned looks.

But, it’s helping her, and so are his little messages.

Her heart rate hasn’t broken 180 in the classroom in a few days.

Two days later, the ‘Days without Marinette Stress’ counter is reset to zero.

They are in Mme. Bustier’s class, waiting for the term project.

Everyone was anticipating that it would be a solo project, so when M. Bustier announces that it will be a partner project, everyone’s excitement skyrockets. She’s even letting them choose their partners!

Nino goes to Alya, Ivan to Mylene, Rose to Juleka, Chloe goes to get to Adrien, but Sabrina gets to Chloé first, bullet dodged . Kim goes to Max, Alix goes to Nathaniel. This leaves Lila, Marinette and Adrien.

For some reason, a dark, deep hiss builds in his chest as the prospect of Marinette partnering with Lila. Might have something to do with the fact that Lila is actively trying to hurt Marinette in any way possible.

So, without thinking, he jumps in in an instant (he hadn’t planned on using his enhanced speed, but it was Lila ). He’d much rather be seen as weirdly agile than have Marinette withstand any more stress and threats from Lila.

Once the partners are chosen, Mme. Bustier excuses Lila from the project, since she already missed so much of the assignments that she has yet to get caught up on, she doesn’t want Lila’s grades to drop any further.

Once that’s taken care of, Mme. Bustier announces what they’re doing for the project. They are to write a short story about anything they want, it just has to include a bad relationship turned good.

And...after a few minutes of trying to brainstorm, Marinette starts to wheeze a bit and rushes off to the bathroom.

It doesn’t make Adrien feel very good. He thought they were making progress, but... well, jokes and silly things tend to help her anxiety, he should brainstorm a few silly ideas.

Like...a baby is born incredibly smart, and is competing with the father for the mother’s attention and keeps taunting the father.

An old man loses his friend due to an argument about gum, and the other guy has been holding this grudge for 25 years.

A cat is having some extreme trouble opening a jam jar, so he brings it around to his human slaves for assistance, the humans aren’t much help.

...this is why Ladybug is the brains of the operation. She’s much more creative.

Adrien glares down at the paper, his hands in fists.

Maybe...maybe if he glares hard enough an idea will pop into his head.

When Marinette comes back, he still hasn’t gotten any other ideas.

She slides into the seat next to him, a bit close, but far enough away to still allow him some personal space. She’s so considerate!

A small giggle breaks him from his angry glare and he looks to its source. Marinette has her hand over her mouth, clamped hard, her cheeks pink, looking at his list of ideas.

...is there a way for the ground to open up and swallow him whole (hole)? Plagg, he’d do that.

...maybe, depends on the amount of cheese he’d get. How much cheese does he have in storage? 5kg? 10? He has no clue, but maybe if he promises the little glutton all of it he’d do the deed.

“They’re not bad, a bit silly though.” Her words, soft but amused, break him from his thoughts.

“Huh?” he asks dumbly, shaking his head.

“I mean,” she says, darting her eyes to his, then back down at the paper, her checks tinting an adorable shade of pink, “I-I mean they aren’t bad ideas. They’re fun and silly! Definitely a good way to relieve some stress.” She looks up into his confused gaze. “N-not that I think you’re stressed! You could be stressed, but I have no way to know if you are or not, you’re so calm and kind and perfect—” She cuts herself off, her breath hitching, her eyes going wide and cheeks going even pinker.

She swallows. Opens her mouth, closes it again. Swallows one more time before squeaking out: “perfectly well mannered.” She hangs her head a bit, her eyes downcast.

Adrien tilts his head a bit. What was she going to say before? Was she going to reveal just how “perfect” she thinks he is? Does she still not trust him after the Gum Incident?

“Marinette…” He reaches out, longing to rest his hand on her shoulder, provide some level of comfort beyond words. But...if she’s uncomfortable around him, he’ll give her the space she needs. So, he drops his hand to the table. “Thank you, but I’m not all the well mannered all the time. Heh, you should see me at home when Father isn’t home.”

This makes Marinette look up at him with curiosity burning in her eyes. He leans in, expression guarded in mock reluctance and secrecy, but in reality, he’s hiding a huge grin. “When no one is home, I turn on Jagged Stone and belt out all the lyrics.” He looks to her face, and fights against that ever growing grin threatening to show. “Thing is, I cannot sing.”

This makes her smile a bit. Her eyes gaining a small glitter of amusement.

“ That , is you not having perfect manners?” Marinette scoffs, raising an eyebrow. “Bet you’ve never chugged an entire jug of milk.”

This shocks Adrien. Why would anyone drink milk straight from the jug?! Cups exist for a reason—

Oh, he gets it.

And, by the victorious look on her face, Marinette knows she’s got him on that.

He narrows his eyes.

“I sneak out of my room on a daily basis.”

“I do too, you aren’t special.”

Adrien huffs. “I escape the Gorilla as much as possible.”

“And how often is that?” Marinette asks, her eyebrows raised in challenge.

“Plenty of times!”

“Name one time that wasn’t that one time I was mistaken as your girlfriend.”

Yesterday, for the akuma , is his immediate thought, and he almost says it, but clamps his mouth shut and thinks about how often he escapes from his bodyguard.

“When I tried to go to school on the first day of school.”

“That eager, huh?”

“Well, when you’re homeschool you’re whole life, you tend to be excited for things that others aren’t as excited for.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re having fun! You did name one other time, so I’ll let it slide.”

They fall into a companionable silence, both with smiles on their faces. One could argue that Adrien’s was bigger, Marinette showed him a side of herself that’s he’s been wanting to get to know, longing to get to know. The timid side was the only one she showed around him, yet she was like this, bantering, arguing, having fun with everyone else. It feels like he’s getting to know the full her.

And it couldn’t be better.

After a second, Marinette looks to him, opens her mouth, then closes it as her eyes widen. This concerns Adrien a bit, what did he do? They were having fun!

Then, a glint lights up her eyes, and it calms Adrien. He knows that look. He’s seen it in her eyes many times. It’s a sign that she has a plan.

If he’s being honest, it reminds him of Ladybug. Marinette and Ladybug both get a similar glint in their eyes when a plan forms.

But Marinette isn’t Ladybug, he knows that for a fact. Marinette—Multimouse—and Ladybug were in the same place at the same time. There’s no way she could be Ladybug.

Marinette turns to her paper and starts writing.

Adrien leans back, out of her space (when had he invaded her personal space? They were just talking!), he knows better than to get in the way of a girl with a plan.

But he wants to know what this plan is.

But he shouldn’t interrupt her.

But he wants to know.

But she is writing furiously.

But he wants to know .

In the end, his curiosity wins out. He blames Plagg and the bleeding skill sets and abilities for the insatiable curiosity.

“What are you writing?” he asks, leaning over a little bit.

Marinette startles, and whips around to look at him, her eyes wide in that deer-in-headlights way, a way he knows all too well. Back to square one.

“O-oh, I was just...” Marinette trails off a bit as she looks back at the paper, her cheeks pinking. Then she takes a deep breath and looks back into his eyes, the fear is still there, but determination is burning behind it. “I was just thinking, maybe it could be a story about how a kid misunderstands something and almost jeopardizes a friendship, but because of the other’s kindness and determination, they cleared things up?”

Adrien raises his eyebrows, a smile slowly spreading across his lips. “Like how we became friends!”

“Yeah.” Marinette replies timidly, tone soft and admiring, averting her gaze.

Friends really are the best, aren’t they?

Yes, yes they are.

“Let’s do it!”

Marinette looks up to his eyes again, and the fear has mostly gone away, a happy sparkle replacing it. “Okay, let's do it.”

“Marinette~!” An overly sweet voice rings out, and Adrien immediately perks to attention. Lila , he almost growls. He whips around, just in time to see Lila coming toward Marinette. Oh no, oh, no she does not . He can see it in her eyes, the malice, the hate, the anger. She’s a manipulative liar, and she’s good at it, but Adrien has been in the modeling industry for a very long time, he knows how to see people’s true intentions, he knows how to see through a mask.

And Lila does not want to play nice.

So, he shoots from his chair, and leans on Marinette’s, capturing her attention immediately. “Hey, do you want to go work on our project? I should have time to get it fleshed out a bit more.”

By the look in her eyes, the slump of her shoulders, he’s guessing that she very much appreciates the distraction. “Yeah, I should be able to.”

“Awesome!”

As Marinette starts packing her things, Adrien slides his gaze over to Lila, half way to Marinette, her eyes narrowed slightly. He narrows his right back at her, channeling as much of his father as he can.

Judging by the shock in Lila’s eyes, he’s assuming he did it just right. So he smirks, and turns back around to pick up his bag, then turns back to look at Lila, sending her another icy glare. She will not touch Marinette. Not when he’s here. She’s hurt the people he cares about too much already.

He and Marinette walk out, and as they walk through the door frame, Adrien sends another warning glare at Lila.

“Bro, what’s up with you?”

The voice startles Adrien out of his glare at the back of Lila’s head, across the school yard, making him jump a few centimeters, and whips around to find the his best friend, looking at him with his arms crossed and eyebrows raised.

“What?” Adrien replies, calming a bit, and returning his gaze to the back of Lila’s head, surrounded by most of his classmates.

“Dude, you’ve been glaring at Lila all day.” Nino says.

“And?” Adrien prompts, not turning away from Lila.

“And you’ve been glaring at her for a week now.”

This makes Adrien furrows his brows, looking to Nino. A week? Surely it hasn’t been that long. “A week?”

“Yes, a week. It’s bugging the crap out of me.” Nino looks positively done with him.

“I... didn’t realize it was so long.” Adrien turns away from him, going right back to glaring at Lila.

“Dude, it’s freakin’ me out. It’s freakin’ everyone out. People are kinda scared of you.”

“Why are they scared of me?”

“You hissed at Lila two days ago.”

Adrien opens his mouth to reply, but no words are coming out. When he was with Marinette, working on the project, Lila had come by, and Marinette had tensed up considerably. So, he got Lila to leave and got back to the project. But Marinette was pale, her heart rate was moderately high, and she was starting to have some slight problems breathing.

So, he had set the project aside, and turned to her, tilting his head, and reached out to her.

She had flinched, and he hastily retracted his hand.

He learned many things that day. Like when she’s freaking out, people touching her doesn’t help out all that much, it actually makes it a bit worse. He also learned more about Lila.

“Okay, I admit, that was a bit freaky.” He’d hoped that the cat tendencies wouldn’t bleed through too, but he’s found that he hisses when mad, and purrs when content, happy, or in pain. When he hissed at Lila, he was incredibly freaked out, but he couldn’t let it show, not around Lila.

“’A bit freaky’? A bit freaky?! Dude, everyone is too scared to be around you when Lila’s in the same room!” Nino’s voice wavers a bit.

Adrien looks at Nino. He’s looking at Adrien with fear in his eyes, clutching his arms, and his legs are shaking ever so slightly.

Dang it Plagg, he scared his best friend due to the freaky cat tendencies bleeding through the miraculous!

Adrien breaths out a huff and stands up from his crouch, turning to fully face his friend. “Nino,” he starts, softening his tone. “I’m sorry. I learned something about Lila recently, and I just... I’m trying to look out for the people I care about. I’m sorry I scared you.”

The fear subsides a bit, but confusion takes its place. “What did you learn?”

Adrien sighs. “She’s a compulsive, manipulative liar.”

“Adrien...” Nino says, something in his tone that Adrien can’t discern. “She—”

“No, she is, I can’t tell you what she did to Marinette, but I know what she does.” Adrien cuts him off, ice creeping into his tone.

“How do you know?” Nino asks—no, challenges .

Adrien takes a deep breath. “When Lila first came to school, I found a book and was looking through it, it seemed like it had something to do with the miraculous. When Lila found me and saw the book, she immediately started telling me how she’s great friends with Ladybug and how she’s a miraculous wielder. When Ladybug called her out on it, Lila got pissed, and eventually got akumatized into Volpina.”

“She lied to Nathalie about my grades just so she could get into my house. She took the picture of her kissing my cheek against my will, then, without telling me, sent it to everyone but me.” Adrien looks into Nino’s eyes, his urge to protect Marinette manifesting into anger toward Lila, which was directed at his friend, making Nino duck his head to avoid the burning glare. “She lied about Marinette taking the test answers, then lied about Marinette stealing from her and planted the ‘stolen’ necklace in her locker, getting Marinette expelled . So forgive me, Nino, if I’m a bit pissed at Lila.”

Nino backs away from Adrien, his eyes wide, his arms half extended to Adrien, his body turned sideways. He opens and closes his mouth a few times, trying to get words out, but his breath keeps getting hitched.

It hits Adrien right then that Nino is scared of him, borderline terrified, and Adrien forces calming breaths. Nino isn’t Lila. He didn’t know she was lying. Nino isn’t Lila, He repeats the mantra until his anger ebbs. “Sorry Nino, that was uncalled for, I’m sorry I scared you. It’s just that...I’ve sat back and done nothing about what Lila was doing, and she ended up hurting Marinette a great deal. I shouldn’t have taken my anger at her and myself out on you, or the other classmates.” He offers his best friend a reassuring smile, hoping that Nino trusts him still.

“Okay...” Nino takes a shaky breath. “Okay, t-thanks for letting me know about Lila. I-I’ll keep what you said about her in mind.” Nino turns to leave, but Adrien reaches out to brush his hand against his shoulder. He doesn’t want him to leave with the fear.

“Nino, I’m sorry. I’m mad at Lila and myself. And while, yes, everyone could have done something to realize sooner, I don’t blame anyone but...but Lila and myself. I didn’t mean to snap.” Nino looks into his eyes, and the fear fades away slightly, replaced by compassion.

“Bro, you shouldn’t blame yourself.” Nino places his hands on Adrien’s shoulders, squeezing. “Yeah, maybe you advised her to do something that didn’t work out in the end, but you gave her that advice because of who you are. You are trusting, maybe a bit too trusting, and you always look for the best in people you meet. For you to be this angry at Lila... dude, I can’t believe for a single second that you’re lying about any of this. I believe what you said Lila did. I’ll stay with you ‘til the end. I just... gotta go process things. And... maybe think about how I can help Alya believe you too.” Nino’s eyes still hold some fear in them, but there is nothing that indicates that he was lying.

“Thank you, Nino, so much.”

Nino takes back his hands, and point finger guns at Adrien. “You know it!”

The final bell rings, and kids all around scramble to pack up their things, or are running to or through the door, the instructor giving those students the stink eye. Adrien turns to Nino, but he’s already walking with Alya, deep in conversation. Dang it, when Nino’s with Alya, nothing can distract him from her. Guess that leaves just one other person to ask to hang out with. He turns to Marinette, but pauses.

Marinette is staring at him, her eyes slightly glazed, cheeks pinked, and mouth open ever so slightly, the sun rays from the window reflect off her hair making it shine a deep, raven blue. The same rays come into contact with her skin, making it glow. Her lips look plump and soft, and yet, he can see that they’ve seen war with her teeth, and many a healing balm.

Adrien swallows the sudden lump in his throat. “Hey, Marinette?”

The girl in question squeaks and startles, her arms flailing and face flushing before she locks onto his face. Almost immediately, her seemingly soft lips curl into a bright smile, her eyes conveying warmth and affection, the redness receding.  “Adrien! Did you ask for me?”

This makes him smile. “Yeah, I did.”

“...Well, what did you want?” She quirks an eyebrow at him, putting her chin in her hand, leaning against the table.

“Oh, I was just wondering if you’d like to hang out? My schedule is free, and Father approved already.”

Marinette’s eyes brighten, and her smile turns seductive. “Oh, I want to do more than ‘hang out’ with you Adrien.” She slides forward, her eyebrows raising.

His brain malfunctions. “H-Huh?”

Marinette huffs and leans back. “Fine, I’ll just show you~” Her smile turns into something more than seductive, and it does something to Adrien’s insides. She crosses her arms across her abdomen, hands resting on the hem of her shirt, her biceps framing her-

“Ewwwwwwwwww!” A voice suddenly cuts through and everything suddenly goes black.

“Ewwwwwwwwww! Cover up, man!” A tiny paw slaps his cheek. Five tiny pinpricks of pain accompany it, snapping Adrien from his dream.

“What the hel—” Adrien gets slapped again, by another tiny paw, in the same place—what are the odds of that happening?— sans the claws.

“I’m a benevolent, ancient, immortal representation of Destruction and Death, I do not want to see your teenage ‘urges’!”

With confusion written across his face, Adrien stares at Plagg. A second later, it clicks and Adrien groans, flopping back down onto his pillow. He takes some small measure of joy in Plagg’s indignant Squawk and “That makes it worse! ”

Adriens dealt with this plenty of times, but it’s always been Ladybug before.

...now that he thinks about it, Marinette has been replacing Ladybug in his dreams as of late. But it never got to this level.

...crap, he’s screwed.

“Plagg...” he whispers to the ceiling.

The only response is an annoyed huff.

“Plagg, I’m so screwed...” he admits.

Plagg snorts.

“You remember Marinette, right?”

Another snort. “What’s pigtails gotta do with your...oh.”

“Yeah.” Adrien sighs.

“ Oh . Oh! ”

Then Plagg burst out laughing.

Adrien groans.

Plagg only laughs harder.

Plagg cackles for hours, the only things disrupting the maniacal laughter is: “‘She’s just a friend!’” in a mocking, overly macho tone.

Adrien doesn’t get anymore sleep that night. Nor can he get that last image of Marinette out of his head.

A week after his revelation, Adrien finds himself staring at the board in complete incomprehension. “Free period?” What the living god of cats is that?!

Nino side eyes him, quirking an eyebrow. “Dude, you don’t know what free period is?”

Sheepish, Adrien rubs the back of his neck, ducking his head. “Not really...”

Nino rolls his eyes a bit, but it doesn’t convey anger, just exasperation. “Well, free period gives the class time to do whatever they like. Homework, projects, goof off, anything.”

“I doubt they’d let you do anything , but okay, I think I get it. I do need to catch up on what I missed yesterday.” Because of course Father scheduled a photo shoot during his history class, on the day they did a review. One he needed, because Mothman—awk Moth—doesn’t want him to sleep .

Nino raises his eyebrows in question. “You, Adrien Agreste, perfect boy of Gabriel Agreste, straight-A student, needs to catch up? Dude, I thought you were ahead of us!”

“I was, but Nathalie has me focus on things that the school curriculum didn’t think was important, so I ended up wasting three weeks memorizing Ancient Greece, only to find that we had the most basic of quizzes on Ancient Greece and moved right on to Ancient Rome. I’ve been scrambling.”

Nino purses his lips, and looks behind him, to Alya, and then briefly to Marinette before he looks to Adrien again; a smile forming. “I think I know just who can help you.”

Adrien furrows his brows in confusion for a second before things click and Adrien flushes, trying to stop Nino from standing, but he’s already up and slipping around the desk behind them and talking to Marinette, who’s face morphs into shock, amusement, concern, confusion, and embarrassment. She looks from Nino to Adrien, her eyes wide, cheeks tinting pink slightly. Adrien haunches his shoulders and gives a small wave. Marinette tilts her head, a small smile playing on her lips. She waves back.

Oh holy cheese lord, he’s going to die.

He can’t help but watch as she packs up her stuff, her limbs moving with purpose and grace, her lips, those gosh darn lips, moving in a hushed conversation with Alya and Nino, then she’s slipping around the desk and right next to him.

“Okay, so, I heard you needed help?” Marinette says, her eyebrows quirking in amusement. Lips curling into a hidden smile that just makes them look even more appealing and kiss-

“Y-yeah, spent a bit too much time on Ancient Cheese—Greece, Greece, I meant Greece, and need a bit of help getting caught up on Rome.” He stumbles out, cheeks and ears flushed red in embarrassment.

Marinette’s smile only grows, making her face, no, her being glow. “Okay, let's start by marking the important bits, I’ll show you where they are.”

She turns around to take out her things, and Adrien breathe’s a silent sigh of relief, turning to grab a highlighter. ‘Mark the important bits.’ For some reason, those words won’t leave his head.

When he turns back around, he has to grip his knee so hard he hears a “creak”, because Marinette is hunched over her paper, and a stand of hair has fallen from her braid, of which he is only now realizing she doesn’t have her hair in the usual pigtail ensamble. It hangs just by her temple, looking so soft and smooth and it looks like it would be annoying, hanging just out of eyesight, teasing your attention until you snap. Surely it isn’t good for studying.

Without giving it a second thought, he reaches out and stifles a gasp at how soft and smooth her hair is. If Adrien’s hair is soft, her hair is made of the freaking clouds . He slowly, gently, tucks the strand of hair behind her ear, his heart thumping against his ribs so hard he’s certain everyone can hear it, nervous system spiking at every brush of his fingers against her check, her temple, her ear.

His hand lingers longer than it should, and suddenly, reality snaps back into motion and he realizes that the classroom is silent. He snaps his hand back, ignoring Marinette’s red cheeks and wide eyes and frozen posture.

“S-Sorry,” he stammers our, resolutely looking at his own paper. “I-I just thought that it- the hair- w-would be distracting a-and—” his breath hitches as she rests a hand on his hands, his cheeks aflame.

“Thank you.” She says, her voice wavering slightly, but it’s genuine.

“Okay...the important bits, right?” Smooth Agreste, smooth. He doesn’t look at her.

“Yeah, the important bits. Let’s start at—” The rest of her words are drowned out by his mind latching onto ‘the important bits’.

He looks to his highlighter. ‘Let's start by marking the important bits.’

Yes, let's do that.

He picks up the highlighter, uncaps it and turns to Marinette. Whatever she was saying trails off as she looks into his eyes.

He raises the highlighter, and marks her nose. In doing so, her eyes go, much to his joy, adorably cross-eyed. Even after he’s recapped the highlighter, she’s still staring at her nose.

“What? You said to highlight the important things.”

[donotexterminateupgradepudding]

Lucifer Morningstar is an introvert.  A very awkward and unusual introvert.

In an attempt to not create a bunch of random side-blogs, I’m just going to drop this here.  Sorry Doctor Who/Torchwood fans.

With the whole covid-19 thing, I’ve been trapped at home more than I had anticipated recently and I was looking for something a bit more fun and frivolous to watch so I finally gave Lucifer a go.

I honestly don’t know why it took me so long to get to this, my brother had watched it when it was on tv and had mentioned it in passing several times.  Suffice to say, once I finally gave into Netflix, I found it to be quite an enjoyable watch.

What really struck me in the serious is how it becomes obvious that Lucifer is an introverted character who is hurt.  Wait - what you are thinking?  He’s an introvert?  Oh man, he’s totally a huge introvert.

Let me walk you through why he’s clearly an introvert despite a quick glance at his outward actions.

1.) Hiding in plain sight. 

An interesting aspect to his personality is how he hides in plain sight.  When he moves to LA, he rents the building that houses Lux and his penthouse suite.  Lux is a place where he is surrounded by people, if he wants to partake in revelry all he needs to do is go downstairs and party with people in the club.  However, he can also retreat to his place easily which is surprisingly well stocked with books and another piano for him to play in private.  I doubt all of his books are for show, he frequently denies thinking deeply about things, but he always seems to be one step ahead of others which has always implied to me he plays the “I’m smarter than I look/act” card.  Early on in the show, he occasionally invited people up to his place to party but it wasn’t a common experience.  Think of the pizza delivery guy being invited to stay and party.

Despite his love of drinking, drug use and sex, he makes it quite clear that drinking and drug use rarely have an effect on him for long.  He is rarely hung over or wasted since his metabolism clears the alcohol too quickly for him to feel it and on multiple occasions he states he mainly drinks as he likes the taste.  One of the few times he was high was after he smoked a massive amount of pot at the teenage delinquent recovery farm as indicated by him sitting at the detective’s desk eating potato chips and dipping them in nutella realizing it was an amazing flavor combination.  For him, drugs seem to simply be something that is fun and a way to amuse himself and based on his drinking, it is mainly a way to meet and socialize with people.

As far as the sex, it is clear that he uses his casual hook-ups as a fun distraction.  To avoid any possible intimacy with others, he hides behind the fact that sex is a pleasurable act and by keeping his sex life 100% casual, no person in his or her right mind would even consider dating him.  He has made himself impossible to be seen as possible long term boyfriend in a steady relationship.  He likely struggles with his own angelic power to pull out people’s desires and his ability to seduce them.  Since his default is to have people literally throw themselves at him, he likely sees most of them acting in response to his powers and necessarily to him as a person.  As he wants people to follow their desires and free-will (as he simply removed the inhibitions that were present and did not create them) he gladly indulges them as well as himself.  If I were him, I’d be like “well why not?” an attractive person wants to sleep with me, sure do it, no harm, no foul.

I found it most telling based on how sensitive he is to his sexual reputation as well as his ability to meet his current sexual partner’s needs.  First off, when a random kid pretended to be him, he was incredibly upset that his imposter lacked his skills.  He’s Lucifer Morningstar, he has skills and a reputation associated with them.  Secondly, when the detective decided to interview his previous partners for the past 8 weeks (all 92 of them) two things were very obvious i.) he went to great lengths to make sure no matter what he did, that person had the most amazing sex of his or her life ii.) not a single person he slept with saw it as anything more than an amazing night of no strings attracted sex.  His actions did not inspire them to want more of a relationship from him.  How his facial expression become quite sad as all 92 of them stated it was just empty sex showed how alone he is. Another unusual trait is that he has been the most sexually responsible angel ever.  Granted, the vast majority of angels were never going to have sex in the first place, yet he has a much more responsible track record than Amenadiel.  It is clear that he has had sex with thousands upon thousands of humans over the years and he never once resulted in a human-angel pregnancy.  This may also be linked to the fact that Amenadiel by default, desires a ‘normal’ regular relationship while Lucifer has been avoiding having a “normal” relationship.  It would imply that if he found someone to have a kid with, he would be in a “normal” long term relationship with that person.

Overall, his first career on earth was to make sure he had an establishment that represented what he felt others perceived as his core personality, that as the devil, he would have to surround himself by partying and temptations.  Owning Lux is a way for him to keep up appearances and maintain his public persona as well as his persona that is seen by celestial beings.  Lucifer is a classic example of a character who is totally alone in a crowd.

2.) Few close friends

Another true introvert trait is to have a small tight knit group of friends.  Lucifer fits to this exactly.  He has excellent social skills, and again due to his former job and his nature, yet does many actions by smooth, polite and calculated actions - from a distance.  His job of granting favors is based on how he knows someone, who knows someone, forming a vast network he has to draw upon to make sure that the favors work out the way the person would like them to.  He doesn’t do the favors though because he cares for the person, more than he seems to do it to pass the time until he finds a job with more meaning.

It is starting his second job as a civilian consultant for the LAPD that his preference and need for a small friend group becomes obvious.  The most obvious one is his relationship with Chloe. 

Chloe Decker: He is first intrigued at why his powers do not work on her, his immediate physical attraction to her as well as seeing her as a kindred spirit also drew him to her. She is the outcast of the department and he knows all too well what it feels like to be the literal outcast.  As a result of their common situation and the fact he can’t sway her, the two of them can speak openly and honestly.  Granted, the biggest issue with his relationship with Chloe is the fact that she denies the obvious truth that he tells her even though she has seen enough evidence that he likely is not some random British guy living in LA running a high end nightclub.

As their relationship deepens he begins to find comfort in the fact that despite his inability to influence her, she still appreciates his company and values him as a friend and a work partner.  Even though he panics and holds her miracle status against her at first, he comes to realize she can’t be held responsible for something she has no control of and is unaware of.  Linda time and time again tries to get him to realize that he keeps her away due to his absolute fear that she would reject him.  Since she’s the only person who could accept him as is, it means her acceptance of him is the biggest risk to his own heart in regards to her. 

In part, his complicated relationship is tied to his fear that she would reject him, so him loving and caring for a single person as he does for her is too risky.  He’s a seriously hurt dude, he’s terrified of being hurt anymore by someone he cares for.  Chloe really takes a long time to realize how deeply he is hurt.  I get that she’s his opposite but I do felt out of all of the characters, she got short end of the stick in regards to character development.  Everyone else has had major changes and realizations yet she only sort of struggled with Lucifer’s identity in the first half of season 4 and she was off her “mark” when she was a bit preachy with him.  Thankfully, she stopped that bit and realized that he more needed her to listen to him and to support him.  It really got that concept that sometimes you need to just be there for someone and not try to fix it - since Chloe is a fixer. 

Mazikeen:  She is his right-hand woman.  The only demon to leave hell to follow him to earth, she first acted as his personal assistant, running the day to day operations of Lux and also working as a bartender.  Despite all of their conflicts, they care deeply for each other and have each other’s back.

The hardest part of growth in their relationship is when it went from master-servant/boss-assistant to more that of peers.  Even as he began to change in how he worked with humans, he keep their relationship as their default from hell.  He really hurt her feelings since she developed feelings and both of them are terrible at expressing them to others.  They have a relationship and work dynamic that they had for thousands and thousands of years - it is pretty impressive that they are learning and growing in a relatively short time period to respect each other and mature.

I found the most emotionally moving parts between them to be in season 3 when Chloe begins to get involved with Cain/Pierce and he expresses his worry that at least he has her and she’ll never leave him.  Maze interprets this as him being selfish and treating her as his number 2.  She lashes out at him and all he does is look back at her in return is hurt as he almost quivers.  Since she was his right hand woman in hell, she is the person with whom he has had the longest and most trusting relationship with since being cast into hell.  Did he phrase things in a way that helped in the situation - no.  But was he telling her his honest feelings that he really does feel like she is someone who is always there for him and supports him - yes.   When she goes behind his back to work with Cain/Pierce, he’s hurt and feels betrayed.  Sure, some of it is karmic payback for the times he’s hurt her, but after his failed experiment with Abel, he has every right to not just pop willy-nilly between earth and hell.

I have the vibe that they will eventually settle into a sibling like relationship treating each other the same way he interacts with his angel siblings like Amenadiel and Azrael.

Ella Lopez: So far Ella has been the only human friend that he has worked with with whom he hasn’t used his angelic charms on.  He was uncomfortable around her at first; she’s religious, she’s outwardly friendly and very much into giving hugs.  Ella “wastes” her time on what he would see as pointless pleasantries in the office.  Yes, Lucifer will lay on the pleasantries, but his always have a purpose - Ella’s are just her being nice.  He did like her opinion that the devil got a bad rap, but then she kept thinking he was a method actor in addition to being a nightclub owner.

Despite their obvious differences the two of them are both very straightforward people who have a strong sense of personal justice and are dedicated to solving the crimes.  He quickly begins to joke around with her and with her four older brothers, she finds no issue with dealing with his antics - it is more like par for the course. 

The fact that Azrael also couldn’t help but become friends with her seems to indicate she has some sort of personality that celestial beings really like, especially those who have the shittier jobs e.g. Lucifer running hell and punishing and Azrael being the angel of death dealing with, well, death.  The fact that she made sure Ella would become friends with Lucifer was really sweet and even though he was at first upset since he doesn’t like people trying to manipulate with him, he realized that Azrael’s action was in right place. She got her favorite brother and favorite human to become friends since she knew they would get along even if she couldn’t be with them - you know, having the whole angel of death as her day job.

His love of Ella as a friend though came out when her older brother Jay was in town and mixed up in the illegal diamond cleaning.  Yes, he brought his own feelings with his older brother into the mix, but he was correct.  Jay is not the absolutely perfect brother, he was involved in shady stuff.  I think when he confronted Jay was one of the best scenes in regards to him standing up for and protecting his friends.  He made it very clear that if Jay ever hurt Ella again he’d be in trouble as he knew how important it was to her to continue to see her brother in her own most positive light.

I really get the vibe that they feed off of each other being goofballs - Ella was a nerd and picked on as kid and had a lot of issues to deal with.  He’s the cast out son, they are both outcasts on the rebound and they like to have fun with each other.  This really comes to a head in season 4 when Lucifer, Chloe and Ella go to the nudist colony.   Chloe is a complete stick in the mud and by the time she turns around the two of them are naked and ready to go.  As adults on their own and away from their family and their former “teenage” issues they finally get to be who they want to be and I just think their dynamic duo antics are adorable.  She is the friend that will do silly things with him while Chloe remains too, well stoic. When Ella has her crisis of faith, Lucifer doesn’t fan the flames instead, he’s confused how to react so he doesn’t tell her what to think.

Trixie:   She immediately loved Lucifer from the moment she met him.  He is incredibly awkward with her.  He’s not sure to do with her little kid hugs, he tries to not hold her hand when they investigate the elite private school.  Yet, no matter how frequently he calls her a little urchin and doesn’t understand why she likes him, she grows on him.

I personally loved her bedroom sign in the first season - “Trixie’s room - no boys allowed - except for Lucifer.”

Trixie is a classic example of kid radar seeing people for who they are; she accepts Lucifer and Maze with no judgement, she just sees them as these rad adults whom she can play with. 

I really liked when he tried to buy her the new doll since she destroyed her old one - in a way he respected her kid logic - did it teach her a lesson - no.  But it was a logical extension as a means to an end.  He came from a background of illogical parenting so to speak.  He dealt with rules that didn’t always make sense it is clear he spent too much time pondering them thus leading to his current situation.

Does he like other children still? Not really, he still didn’t know what to do when he touched a kid’s head with a little pat as his backyard picnic with Cain as he wiped his hand on his sweater.   Yet, since he has gotten to know Trixie through his interactions with her it is clear that he likes her.

Dr. Linda Martin: Dr. Martin is my fav female character on the entire show as she is a compassionate, caring and intelligent individual and a secret badass.  Her relationship with Lucifer started how all of his interactions with people who desire him do - with her wanting to sleep with him.  Over time, she realizes that she can’t and shouldn’t be sleeping with him and he also begins to realize that he can work with her without having to pay her with his body and pay her the normal way - with money.  He learns to treat himself with more respect and not just give away himself to her.  Showing a bit of a shift in how he sees himself with those he actually knows.

I think she really was his first example of how to have a normal human transaction with well, a human.  She is incredibly patient with him and even when he reveals his true self to her, she is able to accept him with a little nudge from Maze.  Despite being overwhelmed due to his families odd demands on her and almost killed by his very upset and stressed out mother, she protects him as a client and as a friend. 

Sure, he always interprets her advice in interesting ways and she knows him well enough to realize that he avoids things and is in denial but she always still cares for him.  He also does frequently figure out what she wants him to realize - he just likes to make it more difficult for himself.  I wonder if the more that they got to know each other, his ability to influence her waned as she saw him as more than a playboy and he saw her as a doctor who could help him and later as a good and trusted friend.

Most importantly, she never gives up on him and truly believes in him despite all of his detours and distractions.  When he has his identity crisis in season 4, she is the first person he shows his devil wings to.  This comes from a place of deep trust in her and even though she can’t help him, she is there for him as a friend. 

I don’t think he’d ever admit it to her directly, but Lucifer likely understands that Linda’s friendship with Maze has helped Maze grow as a person - er demon - and her advice has helped him in how he interacts with her learning how to change his relationship with her from boss-assistant to more that of peers and friends.

Dan Espinoza: Oh yes, despite all of their stupid male ego headbutting, Lucifer is friends with Dan and he does care for the man.  When they first met, Dan was definitely a being a bit of a dick to Chloe; mainly by keeping his own secrets to protect her even though it drove her nuts.  If anything bothers Lucifer more it is people lying and hiding things from him.  Lucifer is almost pathological with telling the truth and not lying; and well Dan was not the most honest at the beginning.

So of course, he received full on Lucifer hazing; once the police admin punished him by demoting him for messing with evidence he slowly became more sympathetic to Dan.  He did use his skills to get Dan to admit that he wanted to correct his mistakes and when Dan started to lose it with Azrael’s blade, he saw that Dan was a stronger and more complicated man than he wanted him to be.  If Dan were a simple man, driven by simple desires and actions, Lucifer could write him off.  But Dan isn’t, his biggest change is when he realized he needed to stop calling him Detective Douche and actually call him Dan, in part due to Dan standing up to his teasing.  

Was it right for Lucifer to keep up his petty antics for so long?  Likely not, but Lucifer learned that some of Dan’s actions and personality traits are actually good things and his day shadowing Dan was annoying for poor Dan, but at least allowed him to realize that not everyone is the same.

Lucifer also has been more honest about his feelings in front of Dan than many others - when they went to get a favor from the Russian mob boss, he freely admitted his own hatred for himself and how he hurts everyone he cares about. If he said that in front of Chloe or Ella, both of them would rush to tell him it isn’t true and he’s being too hard on himself.  Instead, Dan kept his distance and realized that both of them think the grass is greener on their side of the fence.  Lucifer is secretly jealous of Dan’s more simple approach to things and Dan thinks Lucifer truly is careless and wishes he could be a flippant as he appears to be.

Dan really is a reminder how how Lucifer is unable to open up to others and make himself more vulnerable.  Unfortunately, this results in Dan frequently getting hurt and he makes epic bad decisions in season 4 out of grief over Charlotte’s death, blaming Lucifer for all of his pain.  But no matter what happens, it is clear that Lucifer would not wish for bad things to happen to Dan as he is a good guy and a capable detective.

Is their friendship a perfect one?  Far from it, but both of them really do try to care and support the other guy as long as they aren’t pissed off at each other.  It likely doesn’t help that Lucifer’s friendship with Dan is pretty much his only one with a normal human guy.  He’s got plenty of angelic brothers and Cain really isn’t normal by a long shot so it makes Dan even more important to have him in his circle of close friends.  As a 100% totally normal dude, Dan acts frequently as the ‘in’ to understanding (or really lack of understanding) what is happening.

Eve:  I just finished re-watching season 4.  I’m still not sure where I’d place Eve in all of this.  She’s only in season 4 so far and based on her actions, I’m not sure I’d call her one of his close friends. If anything she was pretty much an impediment to all of his relationships - albeit maybe not quite on purpose . . .  she’s a woman who still hasn’t figured out who she is despite realizing she needs to not define herself in the context of a relationship. 

Sorry for not having more thoughts on this, I need to ponder it more. 

What I will say is that their relationship issues stem from the fact that he is an introvert and she’s an extrovert.  He realized that Eve was a “bad” influence on him and he struggled to express his feelings to her.  The fact that it takes him shouting out at her that he “doesn’t like who he is when he’s with her” was painfully difficult for him to say.  It is clear that he cares about her deeply and he wants her to be happy.  Yet, he can’t and really doesn’t want to deliver on her actions or feelings.  The worst part is that it tears him up inside since in a way he saw her as a possible long term partner which was a big deal for him.

3.) Works either alone or in small groups. 

When it comes to his role with the LAPD, Lucifer’s modes of action are not that of a typical extrovert.  He is either working closely with his partner Chloe, or occasionally with Ella or Dan.  He is never part of a large group nor is he taking a typical leadership role.  Due to his need to protect others and his need to get answers as quickly and directly as possible, he frequently goes off on his own.  In part, this is so that he can take full advantage of his angelic powers and immortality, but also to protect those he cares about.  Sure, he walks into a Korean gang headquarters and tells them to come out, but he doesn’t try to chit chat or smooth things over with them.  He goes in, finds the head boss and pretty much strikes a deal with him that he can’t refuse.  When he wants an answer his methods are far too direct.  Find suspect/target/person and just question them or threaten them and then question them.  There is no charming and social games.  He can’t be bothered with banal pleasantries when he wants to know something.  If Lucifer were a true extrovert he would want to talk to others and feed off of the energy he gets from being with them - yet - he never has shown this.  He sees getting information as a task he needs to complete as quickly and efficiently as possible.

Even though he is hurt when Chloe and Cain become closer and begin to hang out or work cases without him, he still shows up and does work to help out with cases.  He also is good at working by himself and is able to work things out when he applies himself.

He also has an excellent sense of intuition when reading people.  Of course, one of the major aspects of the show is that he projects his own issues onto others.  This leads him off of what they are doing sometimes, so his read isn’t quite right.  But he is perceptive when he sees odd behaviors and is able to connect things without full information.  This is both what he did with Ella’s brother Jay and more importantly with Pierce/Cain.  He invites him for a drink and then stabs him with the knife.  He looks incredibly nervous after he kills him as he can’t kill a human as an angel - he keeps switching between trying to be calm and have a drink while he waits for him to wake up with a nervous sweat.  Did he know for sure Pierce was Cain?  No, hence the nervousness until his intuition was proven correct was his true feelings on his gamble.

Furthermore, when he does work with Chloe or others, he always has their back and will go to any length to work with them.  This to me indicates that he finds working with a select few people with whom he can trust is how he is most comfortable and he doesn’t need to be the center of attention and the one in charge like how he was in charge of hell. It is clear that by the end of season 4 even though he returned to hell it wasn’t because he enjoyed to or wanted to - it was because he had to protect everyone he cared about.  He also has a natural chemistry and ease working with Chloe where even in tough situations they instinctively know what to do and how to act.

4.) He expresses himself through actions. 

Lucifer is an incredibly hurt individual.  He was punished by having to take a job that he didn’t even want or even desire and most of his family abandoned him.  He’s terrified to open up and show his true feelings and pain to others as they would take advantage of it as a weakness to hurt him further. Honestly, I think he still doesn’t quite understand how his actions landed him in hell.  He was questioning the establishment and it is clear he thinks deeply about rules and how they influence others.  Anything he thinks is illogical he ignores as he can’t be bothered to care to follow those rules and conventions.  I think about how he made Chloe rethink the “swear jar” for Trixie - he pointed out rules without a clear basis don’t make sense.

Since he struggles to express his feelings in a way to help others. e.g. mainly in his denial/fear to tell Chloe he truth does two things; i.) he makes it about him or ii.) he tries to demonstrate through his actions.

The making it about him method, is a subtle way where he wants to know how to solve his own problem to help him understand or interact with others.  But since he doesn’t want to say for example “I need to figure out how Cain can die since I promised him and I am true to my word.” he instead hides behind the idea of “I need to find the author’s killer so I can read how she got over her writers block.”  By extension, since the manuscript is an instruction guide, he thinks he’ll learn something so that he can follow through on his promise.  It is a very obtuse way to act, but since he hides behind his narcissistic facade no one will understand he’s not doing it for himself.

As far as his actions, he really shows it when he reorganizes Chloe’s desk; he realizes that she deals with all the paperwork and since she is capable she gets even more paperwork piled on to her workload.  He cleans up her mess and anal retentively arranges her pencils and makes sure the right angles on the files are all lined up.  He also found a method of filing that makes more sense to him and it inadvertently helps her find the missing piece of evidence for their most recent case.  I liked how he color coded everything.  Did he need to add the picture of him in his underwear as her backdrop?  Hell no, but he figures out that since she likes him, what’s wrong with her seeing a part of him that she likely will never see.

This also gets him into trouble; again, buying the doll for Trixie, trying to out perform Cain in gifts for Chloe and always seeing things as a competition.  He wants to give people physical proof of his care for people without actually saying it.  Specifically he wants to express his care through a tangible amount of some sort of physical object.

5.) He hides behind his narcissistic behaviors. 

As Lucifer struggles to come to terms with himself and expressing his feelings he has hid behind his narcissism.  What is a great way to keep people away from you and keeping your distance from them?  Being completely self-absorbed with yourself that no one would ever want to be friends with you.  His narcissism is a HUGE turnoff for the vast majority of the population.

It is so clear that he wants to develop close relationships but he’s so afraid of hurting others and even more so hurting himself. He’s hid behind his hedonistic behaviors and his self-absorbed actions for thousands of years.  He really is a very particular person; he is constantly adjusting his sleeves under his suit coat, his shoes are always perfect, he moisturizes and his hair is styled elegantly.  He likes things arranged elegantly and it shows how important control is to him.  If he is 100% in control of everything, again he’s protected from being hurt.

As he works at the LAPD and forms his important friendships, his appearance changes.  In the first season, he wears black or dark grey suits, his shirts are white, black, dark purple, dark blue and grey, if I recall correctly.  He keeps his look simple and professional, almost cold.  His matching pocket squares are also basic and mainly a single solid color with few patterns.

Yet overtime, he becomes more adventurous in his appearance, he starts wearing more light blue shirts, he begins to add in more color with burgundy, forest green, and even a caramel colored suit.  His pocket squares become more interesting with patterns and more color combinations.  With the increase in color and variety he appears much more approachable and has more of an air of friendliness even though he still only cares for his small group of friends.

A case that was a real struggle for him was with the online dating app for “fabulous” people - Top Meet.  He wanted to continue to judge people based on superficial appearances, as it has been his own wall and it has served him well.  When they ultimately confront the killer, his own knowledge of nature and narcissists allows him to save the day by tossing the head sculpture at him and the detective can apprehend him.

His car serves as both another front and also shows how he longs for few intimate friendships or relationships.  He’s got that lovely little Corvette and it is a two-seater.  He doesn’t drive a giant, flashy car that can fit lots of people.  Instead, he has a small almost cute (I personally think it is cute) car that only another person can sit in.  He only wants to ride with one person at a time as he values his close relationships.  Yet, having a car that only can fit one other passenger shows a part of his narcissistic front - that only a person who he’d see as worthy would be able to ride with him.

Overall, by looking at how Lucifer chose to have a job on earth in a nightclub where he could simply hide was the first indication he’s an introverted character.  The longer he has been in LA, the more close friendships he has formed and they are very important to him as well as his oldest friendship with Maze.  When he realized that Maze was attracted to Eve, he noticed it, but hasn’t made mention of it yet (likely that will happen in season 5).  The fact that he noticed it meant he really has stopped seeing her as his right hand woman and more just as an individual with feelings.  His close friendships really show that he’s an introvert not an extrovert.  It is obvious that he gains meaning and connection from these close relationships in a way he never experienced before.  His preference for working either alone or in a small team also shows that he is much more comfortable as well as his preference to express himself through actions as opposed to using words since that is much harder and more uncomfortable.  Lastly, by hiding himself from all others behind a self-absorbed image he has been able to keep others away from him for thousands of years.

The major point about his character growth is learning that having a small support group of real friends and family he can find what he’s been looking for.  A place to belong and be accepted.

[thisnerdsadventures]

I, a campaign manager

so in addition to being a CTO, a CS major, and a dorm vice president, i was also a campaign manager for 2 weeks (the exact campaign that I was managing is not entirely difficult to figure out if you really want to know, especially if you click on the links BUT i will be trying to not mention it specifically here lol). You might be wondering - (1) why and (2) how did you end up becoming a campaign manager..... you're not even a poli sci/gov/humanities/literally anything vaguely related to this major??

You're correct, yes, how did this happen? Well that's a great place to start this story:

How in the world this happened

Friends drag you into stuff. This happens to be the same friend that dragged me to New York, and then was 20% of the reason I got dragged into the negotiation class, and then was maybe 15% of the reason i got dragged into nonprofit activities? In terms of providing unique opportunities in my life, she definitely takes the cake. So one day, she says "I'm running for this position," and me and the squad says "we gotchu." What does that mean? Clearly wasn't sure in the beginning, but we were texting campaign strategies and slogans and tiktok ideas in the chat for fun. None of us had any real responsibilities, especially since the actual candidates were still weighing the playing field and figuring out their platform.

I also was a course 6, so I guess there was some expectation that I would make the website, even though I didn't actually code the website from scratch.

but anyways, it was actual campaign time.

CAMPAIGN SZN

After they figured out the campaign platform, it was game on for the campaign materials. We spent a lot of time on artwork, we photoshopped pictures from a photo shoot, we came up with campaign motto ideas, we brainstormed strategies for officially announcing the campaign. We had an actual campaign meeting to talk over things in mid-April where I met like six different people, friends from both candidates on this ticket, who were supporting this effort. We had a google drive AND a Dropbox. Look at this:

Despite this seemingly organized effort, it was not that organized because this publicity team didn't actually actively do anything for like a week. Many reasons for this: one being it was actually the semester, and it was also CPW weekend. Unfortunately for me, that weekend was literally hell for me, because I was managing this site for our nonprofit, CPW events (so like five zoom calls on a Saturday), classes (because those are still happening), and then the campaign thing finally started, about a week before voting opened. In the form, of a website.

So the tl;dr is I developed an entire Squarespace website in one night. Yes, one night. I had to model it from I think the website from a Harvard campaign site, which took me like three or four hours on a Saturday night, which is a very fast time in my opinion to learn how to use Squarespace. I also bought a domain and figured out how to connect it to Squarespace at like 1 in the morning, which was the first domain I ever bought in my life!

(It expires in a month. I am absolutely going to let it die.)

Also, if anyone from squarespace is reading this for some reason, yall made a really solid product. I actually was very happy with my experience. You all should use it, I am 100% not sponsored by them at all, but honestly it was a very good experience. If you need to develop a website in four hours and don't have a lot of webdev experience, definitely consider it. You can even see website clicks and user analytics, it's actually really put together.

The next day we spend a lot of time going through website changes and artwork changes. It's bad. We had so many discussions about color palettes and the advantages of a 3 column vs 4 column layout. Yes. I'm serious. I'm starting to go crazy.

If anyone's interested, I would say that our website definitely was better than the other campaign's website. Like objectively. Like both campaigns were great, but the website? well. Here's the link (archived because I only paid for 1 month of squarespace :D) The amount of detail that went into it is actually incredible, the amount of spacing, i even had to custom CSS the header image so that mobile headers would show up correctly.

THE CAMPAIGN VIDEO

so sometime during this week, I had this thought about making a really good campaign video. I was very inspired by some of these Google ads that started with a Google search bar. (Yes, I am aware that I am that much of a Google simp.) To be honest, rewatching this ad, I really definitely just copied this entire ad lol, it's ok we don't have to talk about that.

That Wednesday, we coincidentally talked about what makes campaign videos successful. We talked about how Trump's incendiary imagery helped stoke the flames and how it was really effective in getting people to vote, and eventually helped him beat Clinton in the presidential election. So I went and took that and grabbed news clips and campus videos and overlayed that in the video, and it went from like a solid 6 to an 8 immediately, in my honest, unbiased opinion. You can see what I mean in the video itself: [link].

We also had to put together quite a few interviews about what they wanted from the school and were looking for in their candidates, which took a million years of coordination, but we somehow got it done in three days, and everything was put together in a flurry of a weekend, unending changes and small fixes for sixteen hours straight. I could not even tell you how much I learned about premiere pro and how to use layer masks and everything. I even composed the music for the first fifteen seconds of it. Literally, composed, it.

And so on a Sunday afternoon FINALLY right before voting, the video drops. I'm sitting in my backyard absorbing the sun because I hadn't left my computer for 48 hours straight.

It gets like 1000 views or impressions or something in like two days, which is incredible for me, since I'm not a professional by any standards, but I am considering being a professional campaign manager at this point. By the way, we're also managing an Instagram page, a Facebook page, a tiktok page, a website, our individual social media pages, and we're trying to synchronize this video drop and all of our publicity efforts across every single one of these channels. It's chaotic at best.

VOTING SZN

So it's voting week, where we give everyone an entire week to vote. Across the week, it's mostly a waiting game, we make a few more tiktoks and funny videos that we publicize to get out the vote more. The last day, we're thinking about it, and we know the final vote's gonna be close, so we message every. single. person. in our Facebook friends list. I think I singlehandedly convinced like twenty people to vote (and hopefully vote for our ticket).

There's a lot of drama about different stuff. I won't really talk about it because I think it got really messy, but this week and entire couple weeks was a lot to get through honestly. As a reminder, I'm also working on my senior thesis and my nonprofit website work is peaking at this point, so everything is very, very bad and none of us have slept in a while. Also it's the pandemic.

Finally, the results come out. We lost by like 20 votes or something, out of 1500 or so total votes casted or something like that. It's one of the highest voter turnouts in school history or something, I don't quite remember. After that, we're so emotionally drained from this whole thing that we just don't talk about it for a while and that's that.

If the ticket won, I wonder how it would've turned out. I feel like things would've continued to be busy, and maybe that's not a great thing. So maybe everything happened for a reason. I don't know, but those three weeks were quite interesting, quite fun, quite odd. I'm putting those videos in my personal portfolio and am putting Adobe Premiere Pro and Squarespace on my resume and moving on.

Anyways, thought I'd just share! i haven't posted in a while, and this was definitely one of my #weird #odd stories from my time at MIT, which is quite reminiscent of #weird #odd at MIT in general.

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

So 5x18...

...Well hot d*mn.

Man when Supergirl fires on all cylinders...HOO BOY.

Case in point: *gestures to all of 5x18*

To be clear: I liked this one.

A WHOLE LOT.

Not that I disliked 5x17, necessarily. It’s just that 5x18 was more... Entertaining? ...I dunno. I dunno how to explain it.

...Okay yes I do and that explanation is: Someone remarked on Kara’s use of language and Kara overcompensated on the ‘NOooOOooOO I’m totally 100% normal!’ AND there was a musical quote AND it was WHILE TEAMING UP WITH ALEX TO FOLLOW A LEAD.

But I’m getting ahead of myself let’s backtrack...

TO THE TOWER! WITH ALEX! NIA! KARA! AND M’GAAAAAANNNNN!!!!!!

June Foray voice: WOULD YOU LIKE TO STAY FOREVER?!?!?!

I know I’m not the first person to make that reference but it’s always fitting and, for real, recurring character status WHEN. (I mean. Obviously I would prefer series regular but that feels like a big ask considering that all future TV production is...uh. Ah. Erm....

...Up in the air. At the moment.)

And then we check in with the Luthors and Non Nocere isn’t working???

I am shocked! Shocked, I say!

And then we’ve got Obsidian doing something ill-advised which is basically the company’s MO at this point but KELLY AND WILLIAM ARE ON THE CASE REGARDLESS.

(So that’s kinda the one thing I’m sad about re: the Crisis reset; Andrea’s character development. But she’s sticking around for next season so I’m not too upset that she remains...kinda...one note for now.)

And THEN the library scene. 

It was so gooooood.

Then Leviathan and okay. Alright. Okay. Huge points in this episode’s favor: Rama Khan feels like a far more significant threat. And I feel like 80% of that is the fact that they just let him wear normal clothes. Thank you, show. Thank. You.

Also the rock effects were way better in this episode because they weren’t footing the bill for a giant crossover episode this time around

I am a little confused, though, by what has and has not happened with regards to Rama Khan on Earth Prime. Did the pre-Crisis stuff...happen? The dialogue...kinda made it hard to decide one way or the other. ‘He hasn’t been seen on this Earth for 100s of years’ but then also, ‘a chilly place you know quite well.’ So...he...did go to the Fortress. And fight Kara? But...all that stuff before Crisis...???

...Not gonna bother with that right now.

POINT IS...Leviathan is finally like...invested in killing Supergirl* and menacing in a very real way which both raises the stakes and makes it personal and that’s way more interesting than ‘nebulous evil organization that must be stopped.’

*I know they kinda sorta already did the whole, ‘let’s kill the Kryptonian!’ and invaded the Fortress but I don’t know what to tell ya, it was just lackluster.

J’ONN AND M’GAAAAAANNNNN

I am firmly in camp: I don’t care if they’re never green again I love seeing them in the super suits with their human faces IT’S GREAT.

Love that Nia’s snoring interrupts the moment.

Also love the deck of Rama Khan playing cards, that must’ve been a fun project for the graphic designers.

Then we’ve got William and Kara at CatCo and it’s baked goods! A hilarious line delivery by Staz! A ridiculous fabrication involving a shy, violent cat!

...Now I want Alex to actually own a shy, violent cat!

“Cats love me, for some reason.” “Of course they do.”

Side note: Love Kara’s blazer.

And then it’s ALIEEEEEENS TO THE RESCUE!

WHAT A TEAM UP, FOLKS.

We love to see it.

The interrogation scene is good n’ tense and ramps up to a very impressive showdown in the DEO (but BEFORE the sparks really start flying we get that rad shot of Kara leaping through the window and doing the superhero landing and it’s just

Perfection.)

Also perfect? Lex playing a game of transmatter pickle with the prisoners.

Then we jump back to the DEO where things are not going well!

Like, really really bad! 

But J’onn and M’gann save the day! If not the building!

RIP DEO. 2016-2020

Obituary: The DEO headquarters is survived by its elder sibling, the DEO desert base.

Look none of the favs work there anymore save for Kara and Brainy and they’re both gonna be better off working freelance for J’onn but I do expect Brainy to at least pick up some additional cash by working as a Lyft driver next season.

Me, watching the characters struggle to make it in the gig economy: I feel so seen.

The final portion of the episode is just ALL ACTING and I must say...good stuff.

Like. This cast, man. They take the plot points I’ve been ‘meh’ about all season and they turn in some stellar performances and suddenly I’m like STANDING OVATION, CAN’T WAIT TO SEE WHERE THIS GOES.

Also, reason #342 I love Jon Cryer’s Lex: that scene with Lena.

Terrifying.

Full disclosure: I went in to this episode fully prepared to be really annoyed with whatever was going to happen with Lena and I still don’t...love the trajectory of this season, being so tied up in her personal drama but. 

But.

Katie McGrath’s performance...went an awful long way here. In making this...not as bad as it could have been.

Like tearfully admitting she was hurt? And that hurt was the basis of all the nonsense she pulled? Finally owning up to the fact that this was never truly about the greater good but that it was all rooted in some personal issues and OUTRIGHT STATING SHE WAS BEHAVING LIKE A VILLAIN????

I am. Extremely impressed.

EVEN MORE IMPRESSIVE THOUGH: Kara remaining distant both physically and emotionally throughout that scene! Not in like, a cold uncaring way, but in a, ‘I have emotions and I have a right to feel them and set boundaries in regards to my trusting you right now given all that has transpired’ kind of way.

GOOD. YES. GOOD.

(Lex’s outburst has that kind of same Nice Guy undertone--albeit more pronounced and rage-y--as Lena’s in the Fortress. Like, ‘I supported you and you still rejected my plot to take over the world’ and ‘I was kind to you and you still messed up my mind control’ which...I dunno I might just be digging in too deep here in order to further justify the character turn but I think Cryer’s performance regardless is a really sobering wake up call for Lena, different than Lex stuff we’ve seen before. It’s close and intense and uncomfortable in a way that really sells the motivation.)

“You’re a monster...but that doesn’t mean I have to be one too.”

Wow. Might be...the first time I’ve liked Lena all season.

...whispers: might be the first time I’ve liked her ever at all

For real: credit where it’s due, that was an excellent line read.

*insert applause here*

CUT TO ADORABLE J’ONN AND M’GANN MOMENT 

D’aaaawwwwwwwwww

But, look, it’s a little undermined by the fact that they both gotta try and embrace in those bulky super suits, I’m sorry, it’s true

...Maybe it’s more endearing that way?

HEY remember how I foolishly assumed that the now-unemployed Alex would simply continue to work with J’onn in an investigative capacity and, ya know, NOT jump straight back into costumed badassery? 

HA. HAHA HAHAAAA.

Those leaked set photos make sense now.

OH NO, WILLIAM!

Real glad Staz confirmed he’s returning. Otherwise I would not be able to DEAL WITH THE STRESS.

I already talked a little bit about the loft scene but some additional points! Beautiful lighting. Wonderful score. Excellent performances all around.

A truly great end to a truly great episode.

Like, it makes me retroactively sad, that we’re only getting 5x19, as opposed to 5x19 and 5x20 because I wish that the crew/writers/actors had a little more space to let all of this good work they’ve done settle and breathe. 

(But also, it was good that they stopped production, from a safety standpoint, so. Can’t be too upset.)

And, regardless of how the next episode goes down (b/c I’m gonna be real, SG always does really great set-ups for their season finales and then kinda...rushes to the finish line and that can only be further exacerbated in this particular case) I’m just really impressed with this effort here.  

...but also LET’S TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE SOME WILD GUESSES. Specifically, what is Alex’s vigilante name gonna be??? 

...

Alright I generally try to avoid addressing specific fandom complaints in these things b/c I generally try to avoid the fandom itself but of course some stuff has already leaked through all of my blocks/muting so:

‘Lena didn’t apologize!’ The words ‘I’m sorry’ were not said, sure, but 1.) season’s not over and 2.) for Lena, admitting she was wrong is huge. HUUUUUUUGE. It’s solid character growth and I really wish various subsets of fandom would recognize that it’s not fun, when fans hold on to negative stuff from characters’ past and refuse to acknowledge that the characters have changed.

‘Brainy should have seen this coming!’ This one is kind of more down to personal preference I guess but I feel like they’ve established that Brainy’s got a bit of a blindspot due to his feelings about his friends, so I don’t take this as a knock against his intelligence so much as him being stretched fairly thin because he’s playing all sides, and worried about the people he loves. YMMV, though. 

All the ‘fix-it’ stuff re: the last scene, by making Kara immediately forgive Lena. Lose me with that nonsense, bleh.