#I was willing to look past conveniences and plot holes for way too long and for someone like cr its not worth it. he wont do the same for u | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

salemwritesxx · 4 years ago

Text

↳ bottom bakugou x top m. reader

request: Hii! Could I request a subby Bakugo getting fucked into a mating press with some breeding and feminization kink (like calling his ass a pussy and his pecs as tits), please? Maybe with some dacryphilia too? <3

w.count: 2.2k

content warning: smut, porn without plot, feminization (words like pussy, tits), virgin killer sweater, mating press, dacryphilia, breeding kink

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“You better come home quickly or I’ll start without you🍑💗”, with a big grin on his lips, he wrote the little message before sending you a very raunchy picture – Katsuki in a virgin killer sweater and a very exposed position, showing off his back.

You hadn’t even been out for 10 minutes – a quick nightly errand to the convenient store for some snacks – but you didn’t think it would turn into this. As you were about to walk up to the register, your phone vibrated, hence you looked at the snap he had sent, not thinking much of it, only to hastily walk and pay the cashier before rushing outside.

Bakugou was only waiting for his chance, thus why he ask you if you could go to the convenient store and buy some snacks, he simply needed a little bit of time to prepare. And now, he was ready, sitting on the bed, legs crossed and waiting for his dear boyfriend to arrive again.

Thankfully, he definitely didn’t need to wait long as he heard the front door opening and closing in just a few minutes, before the thumping as you ran up the stairs got him all excited.

“Katsuki!”, you gasped for breath as you basically ran home as quickly as you could.

Bakugou couldn’t even really react in time had you already jumped onto the bed and hugged him from behind, his back immediately slightly arching to push out his chest more, just to whisper, “Welcome home, Y/n. You were really qui- Ahn!”

Interrupting himself with his moans, your hands snuck underneath his virgin killer sweater to cup his pecs, your “You are such… a tease, Baby. How dare… you.” still quite breathless. As you tried calming your heart and breathing you started massaging his chest, earning his cute little whine and also raspy laugh at the same time as he threw his head back against your shoulder.

“I-I… I don’t know what you… mean…”, though once you tweaked his nipples and rolled them between your fingers, he was already melting and moaning softly.

“Oh really? Of course not, you are so innocent.”, you sighed in a playful way, before leaning in and pressing your lips against his ears to purr, “At least your body is honest. Just look at your huge tits filling out that sweater. So lewd. And your nips are so hard, aren’t you embarrassed? Just look how much they show through the fabric.”

“Ahnh, d-don’t… fucking… say that- ah!”, he bit his bottom lip at last, trying to suppress his sounds, a little bit embarrassed that he moaned so blissfully just because you massaged his chest a little, but he simply was so sensitive it was hard to resist.

“Why? Isn’t it the truth? Your tits are so huge and sensitive, you cry just when I fondle them a bit, it’s so cute.”, the low voice so close to his ear truly made Bakugou violently shiver as he pressed his chest more against your massaging hands.

“I-I don’t cry- AHHnhHn!”, ironically, he interrupted himself just that moment with a desperate cry as you pulled on his erect, juicy nipples, basically confuting his argument the moment he uttered it out loud.

And then, as your hands slowly wandered down over his muscles and the bulge in the virgin killer sweater, you lowly whispered, “I wonder what your pussy has to say, hm? You are probably so wet and aching just from me playing with your tits, huh?”, to which he could only whine and approvingly nod, defeated and just willing to be loved, even though he was so smug just mere seconds ago.

Resting his head against your shoulder, Katsuki buried his hand inside your hair to pull you down, smacking his lips on yours and moaning into your mouth the moment you went ahead and pushed your tongue between his lips, igniting a lustful and sloppy kiss.

Hips jerking against your hand as you reached his cock, you, however, didn’t pay too much attention to it – yet – as you reached past it to his ass, being pleasantly surprised that he had already used lube, thus, you started circling his hole a little with your fingertip, rubbing the sensitive spot to hear him whine against your lips.

“Hmm, you really want to be bred so badly, hm? Your pussy is all ready to be taken. Want me to re-arrange your insides, huh?”, you purred against his lips while pecking them over and over again, Katsuki getting high just from your words as he nodded so vigorously and moaned a “Yes, yes ah! Fuck me, Y/n. Breed my pussy until I’m full with your cum!”

“Ah!”, a surprised gasp paired with a moan, you flipped him so effortlessly, which sadly meant your hands were away from his hot, aching body. Though, it didn’t take long for him to writhe in pleasure underneath your hot touches once you basically ripped the virgin killer sweater from his body, leaving him naked and willing as he spread his legs almost immediately, showing off his ass and twitching hole, before reaching out his hands.

“Come on…”, he looked so desperate, so cute – nothing left from that potty-mouthed alpha he tried to be in public, he was only your cute Baby Boy now. Wanting nothing more but to be fucked into submission and bred properly.

“My, my, my your pussy really is desperate for my cock, isn’t it?”, you chuckled, your fingers back to rubbing against his slick ass, before you reached into the drawer with your other hand to get more lube, ignoring Bakugou’s pleading arms and hands, even when he whined and made grabby hand gestures, you still didn’t comply yet.

“Y/n! NghGHG!”, Bakugou started with an indignant gasp, before whining loudly and throwing his head back against the pillow when you drizzled more lube between his cheeks and started massaging it in, only for your digits to spread him open with ease as you thrusted them inside.

“Ahhnaah! Please… you are so… fucking ahh-“, interrupting himself once more as you started accurately stimulating his prostate, you simply laughed again and fuck… he knew you loved seeing him so desperate.

“Shhh, Baby Boy, take it easy, no?”

“Noooo…I can’t- Nghgh! P-Please…”, his ruby eyes were basically begging you, tears trickling down his cheeks and seeping into the pillow as he sobbed, “Please… fuck me silly already... I need you to… destroy my pussy…”

And that was the last thing he needed to say, your string of patience snapped as you pulled out your fingers and down your loose pants and underwear, just to climb over him and pin his arms above his head; smashing your lips together, almost bruising them a little while you deeply kissed him, Bakugou merely moaning into your mouth lewdly.

Slinging his legs around your hips immediately, he pressed you against him, grinding his cock against your own in a desperate attempt to get more friction, whining and moaning against your lips while trying to keep up with your hot little dance, tongues entwining and drool trickling from the corner of his mouth.

The deep purr and groans that escaped your own throat made his heart jump, knowing both of you enjoyed this so very much, hence rubbing himself a little harder against you, smearing his precum against your cock to get more slip.

“Pah!”, gasping for air once you pulled back, Katsuki was panting, his swollen, red lips glistening and those beautiful ruby eyes shimmering with tears – he looked so incredibly ravishing, you just wanted to devour him right then and there.

And so, he watched as you sat back. For a second, you gently caressed his legs, from his ankle to his knee, feeling the blonde hairs underneath your palm, before he hiccupped in delightful surprise when you grabbed him eventually, just to press his knees against his chest into a mating press.

“Come on, Baby, help me out a little, hm? Spread your tight pussy for me.”, you seductively purred and grinned while rubbing your cockhead against his hole.

Gulping a bit, he nodded as he reached out his shaking hands, one wrapped around your cock to give you a few strokes and earning your delightful hiss as you thrusted into his palm, the other spreading his ass. With his help, you then easily slipped in, listening to his lewd cry and sob as he threw his head back as you spread him, his “Ahhnh y-yes ahhnh~” only riling you up more – making you shove the last inches of your cock into him just to make him hiccup and cry in pleasure.

“Fuck! Oh shit. Baby… Fuck you feel so good.”, you moaned as well as you leaned in, Katsuki’s legs hanging in mid-air as you started ramming into him, breeding him properly and deeply, your boyfriend instantly almost screaming your name as you penetrated his prostate so mercilessly.

“Ahnh Yaahh B-Breed me ahh! Baby p-plea- ahh!”, Bakugou sobbed and hiccupped, nails digging into your arm, only to throw his head back once more when you leaned down to mark him, biting him roughly, yet he moaned even louder.

“I will, Kacchan.”, you pressed out between moaning, your hands grabbing his chest and squeezing his pecs as you said, “Your tits will be even bigger once you’re pregnant. You will be leaking all over the place.”

Hearing those words, Katsuki was embarrassed and so turned on at the same time, pushing his chest more against your massaging hands and crying your name when you roughly tweaked his buds and pulled on them, just how he liked it.

Both of you were panting and moaning, Bakugou desperately holding on to you while you shoved your big cock into his little hole effortlessly, making sure he was only seeing blinking little stars.

“Y/n! Y/n! AhHHn!”, he didn’t care about anything anymore, his mind was blank, Katsuki only knew pleasure and your name, taking everything you gave him like the good boy he was.

“Tell me… does your pussy feel good, huh?”, you moaned, your voice shaking and your hips slapping against his skin.

“Y-Yeeshh ahh my- my pussy… feels shooo good!”, he slurred and cried, sobbing your name in the end as well.

His chest and cock were bouncing due to the vigorous movements, his nipples bright red from being overstimulated by you, the way you twisted them sending pleasurable jolts through his body – he was so close at this point.

“I-I’m gon- Ahhhnn Y/n! Gonna!”, Bakugou tried to tell you how close to the edge he was, though you didn’t listen.

For a moment, you got slower, barely grinding as you regained your own strength, Katsuki’s ass pulsating and sucking you in so greedily as you rubbed against his sweet spot, his tear-stained, red face looking so delighted.

“You’re gonna cum, Baby, hm?”

“Y-Yes- ah! Please…”, he begged and pushed his ass against your cock, swallowing it balls-deep. The chuckle that escaped your lips made him shiver and whine.

“Then cum, Kacchan. Don’t hold back. Cum with just your pussy!”, and then, you pulled out almost completely, earning his indignant gasp, just to shove your cock back inside, his ear-piercing pleasurable cry spurring you on even more.

It only took a few more thrusts and your hands fondling his tits for Bakugou to completely lose himself in the pleasure, crying so pitifully, his usually raspy voice so high-pitched and cute as it broke due to his loud sounds.

“Ahhn breed me! Breed me! Y/n!”, were his last desperate moans before his whole body spasmed when he reached his orgasm, cum squirting all over his belly, his cock bouncing so pitifully, though you didn’t stop. Fucking him through his orgasm, he was so overstimulated and overwhelmed, eyes slightly rolled back and his nails almost drawing blood with how hard he clawed at your arm as you breed him properly.

In the end, you rammed your cock in wholly one last time, your own body shaking as you wrapped your arms around him while pumping your seed into his ass, Bakugou moaning and slurring an “Ahh Yesh fi-fill myy pusshy… Nhh!” as his toe curled and his teeth sinking in his bottom lip due to feeling your hot cum stuffing him full.

His ass was overflowing with your seed when you pulled out and started lightly thrusting again, both of you moaning almost in synch due to the overstimulating friction as you softly grinded for a few more moments, letting your seed drip between Bakugou’s ass and into the sheets.

“Y/n…”, he barely breathed when you eventually sat back and softly placed his quivering legs onto the sheets to slowly pull out eventually, more cum dripping out of his used hole the moment his ass released your cock with a quiet plop.

“Hmhmh, that’s what I call a nicely bred pussy.”, you smirked and Katsuki grunted.

“Come here… I’m cold.”, reaching out his hands, he gestured you to come closer again, hence you immediately crawled on top of him to flop down, hugging him tightly and kissing all over his pretty face.

“Let’s do reverse cowgirl next.”, he barely croaked, thus clearing his throat to try and get his voice back.

Katsuki knew how much you liked his back view and watching him bounce on top of you and your purred “Hmmm a nice view awaits me.” only confirmed it.

Though for now, as you both recovered a bit of your strengths, he pulled you down to meet his lips, making himself hum delightfully as they melted into each other, tongues softly entwining – no rush this time as you had the whole night for yourselves after all.

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@salemwritesxx || do not repost, edit, modify or translate my works

writer’s note: that was one nice story to write (¬‿¬) after finally having my tooth pulled last week, I finally feel better and it’s not hurting anymore! the last 14 days were hell on earth, but I am back, I am not high on pain meds anymore and well.. my teeth are trash so know I have 4 new appointments to get them all drilled and filled and idk what else – with 19… l o v e my life lmfao one more thing to be self-conscious about, having a missing tooth with 19 YAY great👌🏼 and even tho I brush and floss and rinse every day… like why? what did I do to deserve trash teeth even tho I take good care of them? anyways, if you’ve read until here, I hope you have a good day! And know you are amazing and bomb!💕

#salemswriting.#bakugou katsuki #bakugou x male reader #bnha x male reader #bottom bakugou #bakugou smut #bakugou x you

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lizacstuff · 4 years ago

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i'd love (if you'd like ofc) to hear your thoughts on episode 20 as a whole! i personally really really enjoyed it.. it had some very good moments not only between edser but between serkan and his dad and selin. and of course were serving that angsty, but flirty, UST that we all love! it felt like a weight was lifted off serkan and he just became even more open with her, if that makes sense? what he says to her about leaving in the latest fragman kinda shows that too.

Are you sure you want my full thoughts? Because I'm about to get long winded, like novel long winded, lol. To start off, on a superficial note, can I say that casually dressed, brooding Serkan was pretty hot? Hello, Sailor! Can we see you in pullovers and hoodies and T-shirts more often? But just happier? He was soooo sad in the opening scenes, and honestly, when you think about it, it's pretty dark that he was so messed up that he didn't leave the house or attend to any business matters for those couple of days. Very unlike him, but he's probably never been at this depth of despair before. Now, since pretty much everyone knows he wasn't leaving the house while Eda was gone, I hope someone (cough Melo cough) tells Eda, she should know that. On a similar note, Eda's friendship with the girls is so lovely. They're indeed her family. Interesting juxtaposition that she took refuge with her friends, while Serkan holed up and stayed away from everyone who cares about him.

I agree that once we got past the dark brooding and he had the talk with his mom about how if Eda was punishing him there was still hope, he was a lot lighter. I think finally being out from under the secret did him a world of good. He can finally stop pretending to be indifferent and can just be honest about how he feels. What the “Gitme” line in the fragman tells me, is that he’s ready to put it all out there. He’s not going to risk miscommunications or hurt feelings anymore. Which is amazing and should lead to great things in the next couple of episodes.

More under the cut (a lot more):

I absolutely agree about the scenes between Serkan and his dad and Serkan and Selin. The writing was really terrific and Kerem just knocked both of those scenes out of the park. Serkan's suppressed fury was palpable, and it was extremely cathartic to finally watch him let loose on both of them. The scene with his father went deeper in the family trauma and it was so interesting to hear Serkan say outright to both of them that the reason he moved onto the property was because Aydan couldn't leave and his dad was never there, and was never there for him as a father at all. Which we saw from the beginning when Alpteken was actually at the house but refused to attend his son's engagement party. Regardless of the fact that Serkan sprung Eda on them, not walking 50 feet to make an appearance at your son's engagement party is an asshole move. I wonder how long he's been cheating on Aydan? Years? It's interesting how she foreshadowed that revelation to Ayfer, like she knew.

Also I can't believe he was just cavorting around a luxury hotel in Istanbul. The whole Bolat family are obviously figures in the upscale social scene, anyone who knew Aydan or Serkan could have easily spotted him with that woman and gleefully spread the gossip back. Did he want to get caught? Jerkoff.

As for Selin, we been waitin' for that explosion since she sold her shares without telling Serkan! I like that Serkan was kind to her after Ferit left her at the altar, it spoke to him taking responsibility for the part he played in trying to manipulate her out of that relationship. However, she took advantage of the new, kinder Serkan (the one that exists courtesy of Eda) and went way too far into unstable territory. I, and many other people, were so confused about why Selin was so angry about uncovering the truth of the accident, like what right did she have to be that angry over it, to stomp over to his house, barge in uninvited and accuse him of being a liar at top decibel levels? Thank goodness the writing acknowledged that it was not her place, and that was the thing that enraged Serkan. They actually allowed him to say, "How dare you come to my house, and I don't owe you any explanations." Also, I'm glad he laid out his feelings for Eda, and his lack of feelings for her. Look... that is rough. Hearing from an ex that they never loved you. But how she could have been in any doubt, after seeing the changes in him since Eda is beyond my comprehension. She even said early on, It's like there's two Serkans, the one before you met Eda, and the one after. For whatever reason it's like she thought Eda could come in and affect him, and then she could step in and get the Serkan who was in love with Eda, not the rigid, cold one who was in a relationship of convenience with her. DELUSIONAL.

There was so much more about this episode I loved. It was nice to see Ayfer blossoming in her new business and getting a glimpse of Fifi's past. She comes from a society family, does she? I liked that Ferit helped them. I do agree that impressing Ceren was probably on his mind, but I like to think he's also just a nice man and he likes Ayfer and wanted to genuinely help as well. Interesting that we found out that Ferit's mom never liked Selin. Curious since you'd think she'd look great on paper, perhaps it was because of the speed at which they were moving, and I think she also stood them up, right? That made me like Ferit's mom a bit more than I otherwise would have.

Aydan was in her element getting back to her charity work, I loved the way she plotted to put her name forward for the leadership position. She's just so savvy. That's why I'm glad she's now TeamEda! Imagine what a formidable duo Eda and Adyan will make in this world, we saw a glimpse of it last week, but they'll be unstoppable!

The contract was a neat device. I really appreciate how it was used. One of the things that Eda feels like she can't trust is the way Serkan has tried to control her. As I've said before, I think he's really trying to control the situation. And while that doesn't really make a difference to Eda in this instance, it does make a difference to me as a viewer. If he were being controlling in the sense of trying to dictate what she says or who she is, that would be upsetting. But that's not it, he really loves her for who she is already and he's not trying to change that, he's just, as I said, trying to control the situation. We know that he likes to think everything through and always has a plan and in this instance he was just trying to protect her, but she's right that he can't do that in a relationship. Proving to her that he can cede control is important and that's exactly what the contract did. We saw him do it willingly and blindly and it was actually really beautiful. Obviously, the Serkan apology to Erdem was hilarious, but more than how much I enjoyed how funny it was, I enjoyed how delighted Eda was by it. She loved every minute of it and it was so nice to see her relax a minute and genuinely laugh both at and with Serkan. Additionally, I think she was pretty surprised that he'd followed through with it. Lots of layers to that scene.

The charity meeting he engineered was also pretty fun to watch. I loved how he calls Engin in to join them with no prep and then just expects Engin to reel off a bunch of good ideas for the girls education initiative. Good times. And Leyla rushing in to let him know that Melo had quit was hilarious, I love that Serkan was like "the whole situation is right here" meaning that Eda was in the room so whatever Leyla had to tell him could not possibly be important. Only Eda is important! LOL. Then Serkan doesn't even think before looping Engin in to go immediately hire Melo. You know what I hope this means!? That my crackship Mengin might actually sail!!!! LET'S DO THIS MENGIN!!!! Oh... I know, the show seems really committed to the mismatched duo of Engin/Peril, but I really think Engin and Melo are better suited to one another. And now maybe they'll get scenes together. Piril can dump him for being too... him, and Melo can help him pick up the pieces. They would be Serkan and Eda's big-hearted, teddybear couple friends!

Watching Eda blossom creatively and professionally while working with Serkan has been a joy. She doesn't stand in awe of him at all as a person, but she does a little professionally, and it's wonderful to see how no matter how angry she is with him or where they are in their relationship she always craves his feedback, takes in his critiques and suggestions, and basks in his praise. While she didn't want his help with her schoolwork, I can't help but wonder if he ever comes up at school. I mean she's in the tabloids with him, and since he's extremely relevant to the field of study, and specifically to that school since he built the library, do her classmates ask her about him? Or does she mention something she did or learned working at ArtLife while in class? Inquiring minds want to know.

As for Eda's resolve to keep things professional, that pretty much was DOA. She definitely challenged him to break the contract there in that room, and I think she actually wanted him to do it, though I’m not sure how she would have reacted. she wants him, but she wasn’t there yet. She knows resistance is futile, deep down she recognizes her own feelings and his and knows they'll never stay away from one another and it's only a matter-of-time, but I think she needs this. She needs for him to understand what it means to be in a relationship, she needs him to know that he can't make decisions without her, and she needs to be sure he's ready to be a partner. Thankfully, he made a lot of headway in demonstrating all of those things in this episode. He signed without reading, he was willing to do anything and everything she asked, and while he's still him (asking Leyla for intel) he respected her wishes while still being there for her in a real way throughout the episode.

Poor Eda fainting, but it's really romantic that he's always there to catch her. I assume this narcolepsy or whatever it is, like her claustrophobia, is related to the trauma around the retaining wall collapse and her parents' death. It was sweet the way he convinced her to let him be there when she met the contractor, and then during the confrontation he didn't intervene, he let Eda say what she needed to say and was there to move the guy along when it was time. He was pretty much perfect. I know we all NEEDED him to hug her, both Eda and Serkan NEEDED it as well, but she wasn't ready to ask for him yet and he was smart enough not to push it. But the loooooooooonging.

It's a small detail that she asked him to deal with the paps and he went home and set about doing just that. Hopefully whatever he was doing will lead to the revelation that Selin is the one who planted the story in the first place. I need that, we all need that. And just when you think it's too late at night, he does their "thing" and shows up at her place with Sirius. So dang sweet. I like that he was respecting her pretense about colleagues while at the same time just outright saying, "I'm worried about you. Are you okay?"

The next day's car ride left me in a puddle. Serkan just out there telling her that he would do anything for her. But he didn't push it on her, he waited until she asked. He did a great job of pacing himself through the episode. I find it so romantic that she told him that he couldn't watch her speech. If they were together and settled and happy, I'd think she'd want him front row, center, but in their current state he just affects her too much. She'd be focused on him, worried about what he thought, distracted by him, he just sends her mind whiring and her pulse racing.

Though, it's pretty telling and super sweet that the first thing she wants to know when he approaches her afterward is what he thought of the speech. Oh, Eda, you're not fooling anyone. His opinion is most important to you, pretty much in all things. This scene gives us something that rarely happens, Engin being tone deaf and not reading the room!! WTF was wrong with him? Interrupting like that? Dude knows that Serkan is in a situation here, you don't interrupt for really no reason like that! Get your head in the game, son! Your his wingman, you help, not hinder!

The way Eda blushed and looked pleased every time he complimented her this episode was something else. She's trying to keep emotional distance, and he's breaking the rules when he does it, but still it makes her day. She's never portrayed as a vain character, at all, so it's just so sweet how his words and his compliments affect her. No one else can make her feel like that.

Serkan was pretty sly in making his case as well. He gets her a bit mushy telling her she lights up the room and then brings up her speech and how it might apply to him. He was right in that she probably hasn't considered things from his perspective. How devastating it must have been for him to learn the truth. I want her to go back and piece together the timeline. She knew something wasn't right with him at the mall when she gave him the robot. Maybe it will help her deal with this if she realizes he had just learned the secret. She knew there was more to the story with the cut on his hand. Knowing he was so upset he put his hand through a coffee table might give her some perspective on his state of mind and why he acted the way he did. But mostly I want him to tell her he overheard her conversation with Ceren. I think it's important for them both to confront how things unraveled if only to help prevent future miscommunications.

Poor Eda having a good time using her powers of persuasion to tease Serkan into helping his mother only to find out that she had convinced him to auction himself off for a dinner date! I enjoyed her momentary discomfort at that. Welcome back, jealousy. Strictly work colleagues do not get jealous when one goes out to dinner with someone else, just saying, Eda. And that smooth bastard bid on himself so he could go out with her only. We should have known!

The conversation prior to the runway show was priceless, Eda's animosity and reserve sort of disappear and she's just unsure enough of what she's about to do that his reassurances are exactly what she needs. And how Kerem Bursin can blush on demand, I don't know, but Serkan be red during that conversation, lol.

I really loved all of Serkan's reactions as the ladies walked the runway. For Selin he was stone-faced and bored looking, for Fifi he gave a sly smirk as she passed as an acknowledgement of how different, and nice, she looked all cleaned up, Melo got the huge grin, we didn't really see Ceren since the camera was stuck on Ferit, but for Piril he gave her the fond, encouraging smile like he was proud of his friend. And then Eda. I don't even know what word to use for it. Enraptured? Dumsquizzled? Fuckstruck? Yes, let's go with fuckstruck. I'm not sure he remembered to breathe while she was walking, he was so affected by her. This boy has it bad for this girl, ya'll.

After that, the end was a punch in the gut. Our poor babies have been through so much, they really deserved to have that nice dinner. Damn you, Selin! Obviously this was a delaying tactic, because once they sat down to dinner, you know they would have worked it out, so we wait. But the reconciliation is coming, don't you worry. I'm feeling it within the next 2 episodes for sure.

#Sen Çal Kapımı #sen cal kapimi #edser #sck 1x20 #edser discussion #sck episode discussion #sckask #asklizac #anonymous #serkan bolat #eda yildiz

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ciceroisthefamilycat · 3 years ago

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The conclusion to the VA/BL reread with Silver Shadows and Ruby Circle (here’s the post on FH, here’s the post on the VA closers SB and LS)

I think I forgot to emphasize this in the last post: it is bullshit that Adrian still had the Alchemist-paid-for apartment after the events of “TFH” and only becomes more unbelievable that Trey has it still in “SS”... I do not get it

Like with SB and LS, I would make a lot of plot changes in the adaptation.

Silver Shadows

Fun fact: her golden lily on this book cover actually flashes a little gold in the right lighting, and I love that

This one, especially the majority of Sydney’s stuff in the first half or so of the book, was much better than I remembered.

Adrian’s stuff had me far less forgiving. I realize he’s struggling with a fictionalized elevated form of bipolar disorder and he developed addictions in trying to self-medicate over most of his adolescence/early adulthood so far, but as far as his actions go... the part where he blackouts for something like three weeks while in Sydney’s chapters she’s so certain he’s going to rescue her... it really frustrates me. Especially because Richelle writes him as self-flagellating over it, but Sydney immediately reassures him “oh, no, I just got the gas turned off, you couldn’t have really done anything...” as if those three or so days weren’t a big deal with the way the time crunch worked out later... it’s one of those heavy-handed things where I don’t feel like Richelle ever actually makes Adrian own up to his errors in the same way the rest of the main characters have to. Including: Wesley Drozdov and his motley crew show up again, and Adrian plays big hero and outs their dabbling attempt on Sydney, and then with Keith later on thinks to himself “at least I’d taken no for an answer from girls” as if he hadn’t insistently pursued both Rose and Sydney (including the scene at Alicia’s Victorian inn in IS) and been revealed to have dabbled at least once. Like, good that he’s trying to make up for past behavior, but again and again it comes off to me as glib or insincere (in the way it’s written- that he’s some model that is exempt from causing harm). This especially pisses me off in the way he treats his mom for sticking in a loveless marriage to his dad (did Adrian forget about his mom’s affair with Ambrose btw?) for financial security, and even with the hypocrisy being pointed out to him and him begrudgingly admitting it in his mind, or he drags Nina to Sonya’s to try and get her compensated for her work and she’s all googly eyes at him, but his acts of chivalry feel empty. And this extends to Marcus, too, to a lesser extent. Look, I love Carly (all the Sage sisters mean the world to me) and I’m glad that she became an advocate for fellow survivors and I get what Richelle was trying to do in empowering survivors with Carly’s character, but Marcus’ star-struck admiration of her (being made speechless by her strength) felt weird and make me uncomfortable.

On to Sydney’s stuff, holy hell her side of the story is dark. And this conversion therapy nonsense in it is part of why I desperately want canon queer leads in the adaptation (preferably Sydney herself, which would yes mean Adrian and probably Rose... that’s my prerogative). Is that potentially triggering? YES. But Richelle took that step when she laid it on so thick with the allegory. In the meantime, I love the supporting characters that Richelle drew up to be in the center with Sydney. Emma, Duncan, and the rest (the fellow detainees- not Sheridan... she can burn) and I want more of them (seriously, Richelle made some great underexplored groups with the Unpromised, the Keepers, the Merry Men, and then these additional Rebelchemists). There is a weird mention of Sydney having arranged some supply closets on one of the floors, despite whatever scene she did that in seemingly having been cut (there was also a line Rose ascribed to Victor at the end of Last Sacrifice about sending Jill away, so it’s not unheard of). When I first read the book (with a long break before), the degree to which Sydney was using magic in there felt illogical, but rereading directly from the other books, it is more justifiable. I think the Detainment, and Sydney’s struggles there, is some of the best writing Richelle managed in the books, and I don’t have any changes to that part.

But the escape... is actively worse than I remember it. There are glimmers of some great stuff in there- I mentioned in the last post how much I love when Sydney wakes up Hopper and sobs over him, and that still is powerful. But omfg Sydney (and Adrian) hold up the stupid stick so many times in these chapters. To be clear, first-off: Adrian should have gotten blood before they ever went into the desert. In the worst case, he and Eddie (the night before the infiltration) should have gone off to the side and done a feeding (doesn’t have to be Eddie, since I imagine he actually has a bad reaction to them since FB, but it does have to be someone willing). Eddie would have enough time to recover, especially with adequate food. Setting that aside, the actual events of the escape work for me. So I guess it’s more the after. Sydney and Adrian should have driven straight to Las Vegas (if they wanted to stop in the other town and change clothes and switch cars that’s fine with me- I even like the senior citizen tour they were on; p.s. we never learn if the Ivashkinator was shipped back to Palm Springs or anything, which is very surprising to me). Their decision to stay in a hotel overnight, even as much as Sydney did deserve that kind of relaxation, was stupid beyond belief. I would have preferred they got to Vegas, were spotted by Alchemists but made it to the Witching Hour without issue, and then Adrian got them a room, and that was the point where Sydney relaxed and slept. Consolidate some of that. Let Sydney have her luxury bath, and a haircut from Adrian, and other stuff there. Let her mention to him that the first photo she saw of him was taken near there, and hey, did he know Rose had bought a car in Russia that Sydney loved. And when Adrian goes down to make some money to further their escape, that’s when he realizes they’re being watched- there are too many yellow and orange auras. Let them have a less exorbitant wedding than in the book- no ridiculous mermaid dress that Sydney can’t expect to move in and that is ridiculously expensive (she can still have a beautiful stunning white dress). Let her start with the blue sneakers. Let Adrian find a place to get the ring made, if that’s necessary (or just use the dang cufflinks as are for the time being and pin them to the fancy attire). And Jill sends the chopper directly to the Firenze for an “Italian” wedding. They can still have the showdown with Sheridan on the roof- just simplify everything.

And then when they get to Court- let Sydney do more of the talking. Let her (righteously) call out the conditions in the reconditioning- the torture because she showed empathy to Renee who couldn’t even eat on her own, the torture they inflicted on Emma to break her- she didn’t betray her own kind, the Alchemists are repeatedly betraying their own kind, pushing them into the darkness of an empty hole. Oh, and this necklace around her neck, that Sheridan took for her own before Sydney reclaimed it, the morning glories were painted by the man she loves. And she rejects the Alcehmists having any authority on her. She’s a witch of the Stelle coven; she’s Sydney Sage Ivaskhov damnit. And when her dad tells her that if she doesn’t come with them, these will be the last words she ever gets to say to him? She gets to ask him if he knew what happened to Carly, if he let it happen under his own roof because he wanted a son like Keith more than the daughters he was blessed with. I want Sydney arguing her case, having her real communion. I said the same for Rose and Spirit Bound, and Sydney deserves the same here.

p.s. there are a lot of structural parallels between this book and BP/early SB- Sydney’s reeducation being like Rose’s time in Novosibirsk, the Tasarov escape from SB (which Eddie directly mentions) immediately followed up with a Vegas trip

Ruby Circle

Dang it. Look, I no longer hate the idea of Sydney and Adrian raising a kid. Their ending in RC was a lot better built-up (and a lot less bitter for Sydney) than I thought the first time. But the road to get there...

I hate the Jill being kidnapped by Alicia part (and I don’t buy the Warriors working with her). Honestly, just let them deal with Alicia during the events of Fiery Heart (when next to nothing else is going on). Like, Adrian and Sydney come off really badly in my head for “causing” her kidnapping because of a personal vendetta against them, when they came there to protect her in the first place (I realize the actual fault was with Alicia, but the feeling stands). Also the pointless scavenger hunt leading them from Pennsylvania (so conveniently, even though Alicia would have had to go there to set her traps after abducting Jill in the first place?) a month after the fact to whatever castle (then to Michigan) then to Palm Springs and the infiltrating the Warriors mission... it’s all too much (also I refuse to believe Sydney cast those stinging demons... that’s so dangerous I can’t even). Given the introduction of the Stelle in FH, and the unnecessary Malachi stuff, it works better to do that all then anyways. (I still want Jackie involved somehow of course) Instead of sidelining Angeline at Amberwood, she should get to be involved in the hunt for Jill (same as Eddie was for Sydney).

In other parts... Wesley Drozdov was never a good character. I really didn’t need even a mention of him in this book. I also... don’t buy how stigmatized Adrian was for marrying Sydney. I can see it being a scandal, or a laughingstock, the source of snarky asides and derision, but Richelle never built it in VA or the earlier BL books to being as heinous as she then tried to make it (so that Adrian could feel suffocated by Court, just like Sydney). I would have been much more interested in trying to see Sydney blend in, and take a stand in the Moroi world (and seeing her try to ally with nonroyal Moroi, but that also still not going super smoothly because they don’t like being on the same level as a human), and maybe her trying out her magic with the Moroi fighters that Mia and Christian had formed (that beautiful, blessed little moment), and then if it integrating there didn’t work admitting that it just... wasn’t going to. Rather than not even trying.

I understand that Richelle was building up with Adrian’s fears of completely losing it with Nina, but she just got screwed over in both of these books. (We’re acknowledging that it was wrong of her to kiss him in SS when he wasn’t even conscious, and moving on). And then Olive got screwed. And Neil got screwed. I said before that I don’t mind Sydney and Adrian raising a kid. But I mind a whole heck of a lot that Richelle killed (essentially) Nina and Olive both (in bullshit, tragic ways) and then wrote Neil off so that Sydney and Adrian would have to raise a baby. Let Sydney be pregnant. Let her be recovering from the most traumatic event of her life, she and Adrian forewent protection on their hectic honeymoon/escape, she’s going to be a mom to a Dhamphir and wow that’s going to be weird for her... and meanwhile this allows her to get through to Olive. To promise Olive and Neil that Sonya and everyone else will not use their baby as a test tube. Nina can still go up to the brink (maybe she passes it and the spirit trio of Lissa, Sonya, and Adrian have to heal her), there can still be a Strigoi attack at the Refuge in northern Michigan, but ffs cut the crap treatment of those three to pass on a readymade kid to Sydrian. It is a trope that I loathe. I also dislike the “ohmigod” fangirl characterization of Mallory, and while the Rand stuff was better than I remembered (that is to say, he is terrible and everyone acknowledges that and no one makes light of it the way I misremembered), I could do without it (especially since I’d prefer that if they keep Dimitri and Adrian cousins, they addres it much earlier).

Honestly, I would do the following:

the start of the season for RC (which doesn’t match its name??) has Sydney and Adrian locked down at Court and they can’t help like they want to, so they try to adapt and do what they can there, including Adrian trying to get Nina to calm down; their friends from Palm Springs and Marcus team up altogether and get an infiltration squad with the Warriors of Light; Eddie gets to participate; they rescue Jill, and get some of the data on the Alchemist/ Warrior collaboration

the Moroi Court finally gets into action on the age and family laws in earnest; meanwhile, Sydney is helping carve out a niche for the rebel Alchemists to work with the Moroi, especially for Strigoi hunting groups like what Mia and Christian wanted to organize; Jill and Sydney are helping each other emotionally recover from their respective hostage ordeals; Sydney realizes she’s pregnant, which helps Adrian realize in a dream with Olive that she’s pregnant, and finally sees her location marker

it’s “rescuing” Olive time; Neil gets to go too- with his presence, things don’t all go to shit; there is a Strigoi attack in retaliation for the new hunting groups, but heroes persevere and protect the commune; the data on the Alchemist/Warrior collaboration, and the Rebelchemists work with the Moroi, gives the perfect leverage now to get the Rebelchemists their freedom and establish Sydrian’s future together

SO, after rereading Bloodlines

I dislike Sydrian less than I did, though I still think Adrian could be vastly improved if adapted as a woman

the second half gave Eddie more to do, but still not enough emotional focus on him

man Amberwood and its supporting characters disappeared; I get that Adrian isn’t likely to settle in California long term, but can I please get more resolution to those characters, whether it comes from more focus in IS, or a graduation ceremony or something?

Abe also disappeared which is strange

man, Sydrian have a lot of daddy issues. because their dads are both abusive jerks. but why oh why did Jared end up collaborating with the Warriors for tattoos? was it because of anger over ‘losing’ Sydney or just greed? I’m glad that Zoe and Sydney at least started to heal things, and that Zoe is ok where she is

we still never got answers on who restored Lee... Clarence only showed up for deus ex machina money and shelter and I guess blood (did Marcus ever get to speak to him again?)

minor grievance: Richelle described the Warrior recruits as being almost evenly distributed between men and women, with a slide toward men, before two pages later saying there were 30 potential guys and 13 potential ladies, and remembering that, oh, yeah, the Warriors didn’t really use women on the front line; I don’t want any of that subplot adapted I just... editing?

#DoBetterByOliveAndNinaAndNeil2030 (who gets to name their kid Declan?), #LetSydneyUseHerBeautifulBrain

#I'm a VA girl #long beneath the cut

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phantomphangphucker · 5 years ago

Text

The Whole Ass Fic A.K.A ClockWork Is Paying At Least One Person Hush Money

Vlad’s dumbest plot yet leads to a grade A gravy bowl of a dumb reveal. Danny’s class feels left out, Wes is literally left out, and ClockWork is forcing me to not leave them out at gunpoint.

Now that y’all have voted, I present to you, the Whole Ass Fic

Danny was having a nice day, he honest to the Core was. But then a blue portal half fucking blinded him, a startled Mr. Lancer accidentally threw a whiteboard marker into his eye, and Dash finally succeeded in hitting him -in the eye of all places, ugh- with a spitball. All of this followed by a -probably not quiet- mutter of, “ClockWork end me”. In short, he had already filled his quota for ocular trauma today.

But looking to the front as a -very not cheesetastic- certain someone stops monologuing, he’s experiencing a-whole-ass-nother kind of ocular trauma.

Danny gets up from his desk and slowly walks up to the front, eyes filled with disappointment and the residual energy of his three breakfast Red Bulls, “okay, so you’re telling me-”, Danny gestures erratically to Vlad, who's tied up on the floor and in ghost form, “-that you overshadowed ClockWork-”, gesturing even more erratically at ClockWork -who’s just sitting on a desk and inspecting their nails- but Danny maintains wide-eyed eye-contact with Vlad instead of attempting down the rabbit hole of why ClockWork is still here. Glaring at floor Vlad harder, somehow, “-so you could travel to the future, to team up with your future self and bring him back here-”, Danny points both hands at the floor a bit aggressively, “-so you could tag-team pulverise a teenager-”.

While Vlad rolls his eyes, not even slightly apologetic or willing to admit that throwing fists with teens being his number one past time was arguably pathetic. Danny gestures at the future Vlad, who’s glaring bloody murder at normal timeline floor Vlad, “-but said future you instead assaulted ClockWork”, facepalming and muttering into his hand, “least I know this future you really is you, being enough up his own ass to even consider attempting to do that”, looking back to floor Vlad, “so you used ClockWork’s powers at random and just came back to this timeline?”.

Kwan adds in, “through the ceiling”.

ClockWork smirks, “he got quite lucky in that regard. Not quite luck though”, Danny sighs exasperatedly at ClockWork when they wink with a smirk. Anything involving ClockWork required a lack of luck, not a wealth of it; that, or making a collection of the stupidest decisions you’ve ever made. Considering floor Vlad’s state of looking like an extra for a truly terrible Vampire BDSM film, Danny’s going with the latter.

Floor Vlad manages to spit out his gag, “well they somehow tossed me out of their body immediately after! I mean the audacity! And this Cheesehead-”, jerkily attempting to nod or point at the scruffy-looking future Vlad, “-gets more pissed and assaults me, ME! Instead of you”.

Future Vlad kicks him and snarls, “it’s been two years in this timeline! TWO! I stopped with the stupid fiddlediddling after six months!”, turning his head to the side and mumbling, “sure everyone close to him had to die first, but that’s a moot point”.

Dash snorts, “why would a ghost even want to assault Fentit. And wait, what? People died?”.

Danny meanwhile, throws his hands out to the side, “of course that happened!”, then gesturing towards ClockWork, “you can’t overshadow ClockWork, that’s not even possible! They literally had to have allowed you to”, actually turning to glare slightly at ClockWork, “why, I haven’t a shot-glass of pennies close to a clue”. Danny then blinks and slowly looks at the future Vlad, his words finally registering; while Danny also simultaneously massacres his last brain cell, “wait....you’re that Vlad? As in the one that technically murdered me? The one that sort of caused the near extinction of humanity and ghosts? The one that basically saw the big red ‘DO NOT PUSH, THIS IS A STUPID IDEA’ button, slammed your fist on it, and activated the apocalypse? The one that stabbed past me when I tried to fix the future? Sure I requested it, but ya still did it”.

Mr. Lancer, who had been progressively going more wide-eyed, “Crime and Punishment?!?!?! I mean, go off I guess”.

While Danny scratches his head nonchalantly, muttering more to himself, “also the one that gave me any faith in past you ever being capable of being good”.

Floor Vlad sputters, wiggling in his bindings like a worm, “how is murdering you what it takes to make you have even an ounce of faith in me?!?”, floor Vlad looks to future Vlad, “you can’t judge me, you fudge-bucket of a hypocrite”.

Danny rolls his eyes and snorts, “that’s not even pot calling kettle black, that’s a wad of chewed gum calling a fork an unchewed stick of gum, and actually expecting that insult to stick”. Danny then squints and turns to ClockWork, “wait”, pointing emphatically at future Vlad, “how does he even exist?!?!? That future was literally destroyed?!?”.

Future Vlad squints at him, looking affronted, “you mean you destroyed my existence too?!?”.

Danny turns to him and waves his hands around wildly, “THAT’S WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU UNRAVEL TEN YEARS OF TIME! THOSE THINGS AND PEOPLE GO POOF!”.

ClockWork sticks up a finger, “that’s not how time works”.

Danny and both Vlads’ turn to them, both Danny and future Vlad pointing aggressively, “YOU STAY OUT OF THIS! THIS DOESN'T CONCERN YOU!”.

Nathan mutters, “or the rest of the class apparently”.

ClockWork smirks, “pretty sure the author disagrees on that one”. Everyone squints at them but goes back to bickering. Future Vlad points a little aggressively at Danny, “you were just supposed to fix the past! Not obliterate me!”.

Danny throws his hands up, “sacrifices had to be made! That’s what good guys do!”, gesturing at floor Vlad, “plus! You’re still here! And still A CRAZED UP FRUITLOOPY DICK!”.

Floor Vlad, looking a bit insulted, “language my boy”. Danny just looks down at him and knocks one of the desks on him; some kids water bottle -who the heck uses glass water bottles? Seriously?- smashing apart all over his face.

Future Vlad pinches his nose and gestures at floor Vlad, looking at Danny, “that’s because he hasn’t been horribly traumatised....yet”.

Floor Vlad sputters, “yet?”, before scrunching up his face and licking his cheek, “is this vodka?”.

Future Vlad glares down at him, “you don’t know suffering”, getting into floor Vlad’s face a little and shaking his finger violently, “you don’t know the meaning of the word”, while Danny mutters, “neither do you, by the way”, future Vlad keeps talking, “and you really think you can collect all these stupid cheese curd plots and not turn yourself into curdled milk?”.

Floor Vlad rolls his eyes, “says the murderer”.

Danny rolls his eyes almost in sync with floor Vlad’s eye-roll, “oh like you haven’t killed anyone”.

Mr. Lancer coughs, “um? There are other people here you know. And some of us don’t appreciate casually talking about murder at-”, glancing at his watch, “-nine a.m. in the morning”.

Floor Vlad glances at him, “no one but us and dear Maddie qualify as people”.

Danny sputters incredulously while ClockWork points at floor Vlad, “and that is not how classifications of species and words work”. No one so much as acknowledges the arguably most power-being ever this time.

Floor Vlad looks back to future Vlad, “and Daniel’s the one that messes everything up. Not me!”, glaring at Danny and muttering, “I would have had a perfectly viable clone otherwise”.

Future Vlad shakes his head and gestures aggressively, “you cloned him?!?!?!”, throwing his hands up and walking around, “this me’s insane! Wonderful!”.

Valerie snickers into her hand, “I want to get involved but...”, before gaping and sputtering incoherently to herself about Dani.

Danny snorts, “you hadn’t already figured that out when he decided to abduct and control the body of the dude who controls time itself and oversees everyone’s futures. A literal living legend and basically a god?”, shrugging and sounding nonchalant, “and yeah, technically we have a kid now. My genetics, but Vlad made her. So technically, we’re both her parents”, kicking floor Vlad, “I should sue you for child support”.

ClockWork nods, “and you would win actually”.

Danny looks tickled green, while floor Vlad shouts dramatically, “WHAT!?!?!?”. Future Vlad is just walking in a circle throwing his hands out randomly and making faces.

Dash mutters, “I can’t believe I’m saying this but, the damn twinks life would make a great soap opera”. ClockWork smirks ever so slightly at this.

Floor Vlad screws up his face and wiggles in the bindings some before squinting at Danny, “wait a biscuit buttering second, how do you even know about the ghost from the clocktower?”, sputtering and squirming, “how do you know their name?!? Even I didn’t! And you know their powers! Daniel what in the name of Gouda?!?”.

Danny deadpans, “oh don’t you use that tone with me, mister. You’re not my father”. While ClockWork smirks, “my name was actually the first thing he said, you just conveniently ignored that for plot purposes”.

Danny just speaks right over them and gestures at ClockWork, “and of course I do! They’re my Time Daddy!”.

Everyone goes silent immediately and you could hear a pin drop. Instead, a different voice breaks the silence, “wow! Didn’t know you had another dad, son!”.

Both halfas and the ex-halfa turn slowly and look at the doorway, where one Jack Fenton is standing and munching on fudge like he’s engrossed in an intense tv show.

Danny blinks and sputters, “how long have you been there?”.

ClockWork smirks, “since almost the beginning of this fic”. Danny glances at them, “that doesn’t make sense”. ClockWork shrugs, “well the audience might appreciate knowing, and I aim to please”.

Danny speaks thick with enough sarcasm to kill a lesser being twice over, and as if to prove this point floor Vlad starts hacking like someone force-fed him nails, “oH yEaH tHiS hAs BeEn A rEeEeEaAaAaLlLlL pLeAsUrE”, before squinting, “...what audience?”.

Star slams her face into her desk, “oh my Zone, seriously?”.

While Jack pipes up, “since Danno repeated vampire Vlad’s story back to everyone with so much disbelief I really couldn’t bring myself to interrupt”, standing and practically throwing the plate of fudge -having forgotten he even had it- when he throws his hands out to the side.

Mr. Lancer sighs and speaks as the fudge slowly smears down the classroom wall, “this was not in my job description, but thanks for the reminder why I don’t moonlight as a babysitter anymore”.

Jack, sounding way too happy for this situation and oddly not looking angry or even bothered, “and I’ve never heard my boy so passionate before!”, tapping his chin and looking at the two Vlads’, “though I do have to say. What the fuck is wrong with you V-man”.

Danny grumbles, “welcome to the life of having a half-ghost, who’s three nuts short of a fruitcake, that wants to aggressively be your uncle and/or father”, before sputtering incoherently over his dad swearing.

Jack tilts his head, looking like a confused puppy, “but, I’m your dad?”, quirking an eyebrow at ClockWork, “one of your dads?”. ClockWork looks like they just got blessed by a god... a god other than themselves anyway.

While Danny stares down at the floor unsure if he should feel deep horror or boyish wonder. Muttering, “did I just result in ClockWork getting adopted into my family through arguably convoluted and highly illogical means?”.

ClockWork makes a face that is the closest thing to insulted Danny’s actually seen on their face, “it was my belief we were already kin”.

Danny sputters and waves his hands around erratically, trying desperately to back-pedal, “what, I, er, no, I mean yes! Yes! Totally fam!”.

Valerie can’t help but let out her inner gossip rich girl mode, “ooooooooooo, someone’s in trooooouuuubbbbllllleeee”.

Floor Vlad sputters in utter disbelief, it was he that was supposed to be gaining new family members here! Not that oversized puff pastry! “This, that, THIS IS NOT HOW ANY OF THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO GO!”.

Future Vlad blinks at Jack, “why are you not freaking out over the ghosts?”.

Star sighs, “are they really just ignoring that none of us have been freaking out?”.

Jack shrugs, “one’s tied up and the other gave me fudge”. Floor Vlad just shrieks in frustration and disbelief. While Danny gives a dramatic thumbs up to ClockWork, even going so far as to use a little ecto-energy to make his thumb sparkle like some anime bullshit.

Future Vlad kicks floor Vlad but speaks to Jack, “well if it’s anything, I’m not a ghost or half of one”.

Multiple people mutter, “half ghosts are a thing?”, while Valerie grins like a loon.

Floor Vlad shrieking, “WHAT?!?!?!”.

Future Vlad looks down at him but points at Danny, “he ripped out and ate Plasmius”.

Mr. Lancer grimaces and has to physically restrain himself from assaulting Kwan when he actually sticks his hand up and asks, “what’d that taste like? You know, for reasons”. No one’s honestly surprised at this point, when the bickering guys’ just act like the entire class are just extras added in after the main plot was established and without the main casts knowledge.

Danny blinks and gestures wildly at his dad, “are we just ignoring the uniformed third partly?!?”.

Mr. Lancer glares, “the class has been here the entire time”.

ClockWork smirks, “Vlad’s the authors' bitch right now so...yes”.

While floor Vlad gapes at Danny, “YOU DID WHAT NOW?!?!?”.

Danny throws his hands up exaggeratedly, “NOT IN THIS TIMELINE!”. While Vlad just quietly sputters about how Daniel could and even would, apparently, eat him. Danny has to severely resist spewing out a list of vore jokes at this. While ClockWork mutters with a smirk, about how the only reasons Danny’s not doing that is because the author’s tired of their phone crashing every time they try to write them.

Future Vlad points aggressively at floor Vlad, “we were the ones who thought ripping out his humanity would be a good idea!”.

Jack adds in some side commentary, “yeah, please don’t do that to my son”.

Floor Vlad mutters at the floor, “I need some bloody scotch”, before looking up at future Vlad and shouting, “WHY WOULD I DO THAT!”.

ClockWork points at floor Vlad, “the vodka hasn’t totally evaporated off your face yet, so you’ve got options. I have no pity for you”.

Floor Vlad glares at them, “I have standards”.

Half the class saying, “you sure about that?”.

Danny and future Vlad respond to floor Vlad in unison, with matching deadpan tones and judgmental facial expressions, “because, for all accounts and purposes, you are a sociopath”.

ClockWork sticks a finger up, “this is not how psychological diagnosis works”, gesturing at the class, “for one, patient confidentiality is a basic prerequisite, not an option”.

Nathan makes a mocked delighted gasp, “did we just get acknowledged?”. While Danny and future Vlad share a look tm.

Floor Vlad sneers, “rather that over an overgrown oaf, a self-sacrificial fool, a weak old man, or whatever is up with the time ghost”.

Danny glares while future Vlad socks floor Vlad in the face for that. Danny off-handed commenting, “‘Observant puppet’ is really the only insult that applies”, looking at ClockWork, “why aren’t the eyeballs up in a tissy about this anyway?”.

ClockWork smirks, “the author has decided they no longer exist”.

Danny blinks, “what kind of power does this ‘author’ have????”.

ClockWork mutters ominously, “the ability to outrun writers' block...for now”.

Danny ignores ClockWork out of slight horror and feeling like someone’s threatening him with another? dissection fic if he doesn’t stop encouraging ClockWork to derail the plot. Turning his attention to the two Vlads’ just in time to catch Valerie getting up and smacking both Vlads’ over the head, which just turns into an all-out fistfight. Well okay, floor Vlad is just squirming in his bindings and kicking like a feral rabbit, but still.

Valerie steps back and nudges Danny with a wily smirk, “who you wanna bet on to win?”.

Danny snorts, “future Vlad, based on sheer tenacity”.

ClockWork smirks and points a finger at the ceiling, “that’s my bet”, another portal opening up and yet another Vlad falling through and landing on the two others in a heap; knocking all three out, floor Vlad finally transforming back human. Danny looks to them, “the fuck is wrong with you?”.

While Maddie’s voice mutters from the doorway, “oh my Zone, Vlad?!?!”. Standing next to her is yet another interviewer from Genius Magazine: For Women Geniuses, By Women Geniuses; who slowly lifts up her phone and snaps a photo, while patting the pocket where her recorder is.

The next day Danny inexplicably gets pelted in the face -which, coming full circle, predictably stabs him in the eye in the process- by a magazine as soon as he steps through Mr. Lancer’s classroom doorway. Danny just lets it flop onto the floor unceremoniously, due to his veins being clean out of the consciousness juice that was Red Bull and thus incapable of caring about those pesky things called reflexes.

Danny sighs down at the abused magazine while slowly and dramatically covering his right eye. Sighing even louder at the cover somehow making everyone but the Vlads’ look kinda hot and ClockWork just being a black hole with a wicked grin -how they still seemed visually attractive is beyond Danny’s comprehension. The title reading ‘[REDACTED] Ghosts, Time Travel, And Illegal Cloning. Oh My!’, with the wonderful subtitle of ‘What Happens When Science Grows Fangs!’, and the sub-subtitle of ‘See Some Scientific Sin!’.

Danny’s sure the ‘[REDACTED]’ has something to do with ClockWork and them messing with an entire companies autocorrect function, but he decidedly doesn’t want to know.

Wes kicking in the classroom door seconds later only to pelt Danny with yet another copy of the magazine and shriek, “WHY!?!?!?! WHY DO YOU DO THIS TO ME!?!?!?!”.

Danny looks down at the magazine, which magically opened up to the page with the article when it landed, and snorts. It looked like someone had applied ‘[REDACTED]’ on the paper very liberally and with a pepper grinder. Danny then slowly turns and points at Wes with a massive shit-eating grin, “that’s what you get for being weak enough to fall victim to flu season. Sleepy sniffling sleuths earn no secrets”.

At this, the whole class laughs like they’re just a laugh track and an edited in fake audience.

END.

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mittensmorgul · 5 years ago

Note

I know this is a weird question, but with his waning powers, how do you think Cas got out of hell?

Hellevator?

I have a companion question for you. When Cas shoved Belphegor through the rift, of everywhere they could’ve potentially landed in Hell (we know it’s a huge place that holds billions of souls and demons, and we’ve seen a number of different regions of it over the years), how did they land right exactly where they needed to be?

They landed just a few steps away from the vault containing the horn they were looking for. At this point, I’d like to introduce you to some of my other anons who’ve been sitting in my inbox waiting for replies for a while...

[Contents of anon message: hold on how did cas get out of that pit. did he wall up the side like a mountain climber. did he bring bungee cords and slingshot himself out??? im confused]

and these two that I think go together (apologies if I’m mistaken, but they seem a continuation of one another, and I wanna address both of them here anyway):

[contents of two anon messages: Hi Mittens! Quick question. If the Lilith’s horn thing was capable of sucking up souls and demons, why didn’t Cas use it in season 6 for his whole god plan? Crowley had to know about it, right? (He was Lilith’s lover, wasn’t he? If Bel knew about, Crowley had to too) Idk... Retcon makes me dizzy. what was the point of looking for Purgatory if there was a simpler solution that Crowley could have very easily accessed?

For that matter, why didn’t Lucifer use the horn to suck up all the souls to defeat Amara? Would that have been a possibility?]

This... is gonna get long here... There’s actually two ways to approach all these questions, which I think all have the exact same very simple answer. But first, I need to lay out why these questions are all so interesting in the first place, and demonstrate that attempting to give separate answers to each of them using canon to justify all the answers is an exercise in futility.

Let’s begin with the first two questions, which are functionally identical. How did Cas get out of Hell so quickly? And the companion question I posed above... How did he and Belphegor get IN to Hell so quickly, or at least to their specific destination. Because that was... indescribably convenient, yes?

They could’ve fallen ANYWHERE in Hell. Why would the bottom of a magical hole into Hell drop them in the exact destination they were searching for? Do portals to Hell have something to do with intent? I mean, we use the symbolic visual of “falling into a hole” for going to Hell (like Sam diving into the Cage in 5.22), but Hell is no more “underground” than Heaven is “in the sky,” you know? They’re not physical places in the human world, any more than the Alternate Universes we’ve visited over the years are. Without going into a physics lecture, I’ve been thinking of the wound in the ground in the graveyard as metaphysically the same as the Sandbox Portal to Heaven, or the glowy space vagina portal into an alternate universe. Walk up to it, walk through it, and ZAP you’re on the other side, in another dimension of reality.

They don’t step into the Heaven Sandbox and physically ride up into the sky like an elevator, you know? They step, it glows, it spits them out in Heaven, no climbing required. I think the Hell Portal/Big-ass Hole is the same sort of thing. But with the added drama of getting to watch them fall into a big-ass hole. So... we didn’t get to see it, but reversing the process, I think it would’ve just... booped Cas back out and deposited him on the grass where he’d jumped through in the first place.

More interesting to me is the fact that Belphegor presented them with this solution (bearing in mind he’d been gradually manipulating them all along into agreeing to Bigger and Bigger Spells, and each time TFW being desperate enough to agree to give his spells a try, and each time they proved moderately successful. But this was The Big One, you know? This was the one he wasn’t performing to continue earning the trust and assistance of TFW, this was the one he engineered SPECIFICALLY to enact all along-- earning Dean’s trust, getting Cas to the point where he not only could look at him, but actively work with him (even grudgingly). He NEEDED Cas in that room to unlock the box with the horn, much like Cas needed Dean to unlock the box that contained the Angel Tablet in 8.17. Much like Lucifer needed Crowley to “escape” so he could follow him to the storage locker where he’d hidden the Staff of Aaron in 11.15. Much like Zachariah plotted out everything that happened in s4 to get Sam where he was needed to release Lucifer in 4.22 (and manipulated into it so that he’d be willing to do the series of Terrible Things required of him by “prophecy.”)

Which is all a little suspicious when you start looking at past canon to explain it all, you know? All this “prophecy” and “destiny” stuff starts to look a bit contrived, right?

Belphegor and Cas somehow miraculously landed in the Dramatic Entrance Hall to the exact room they needed to find. Where a demon Bel was friends with happened to be looting the place (discovering a ring that received a weird amount of focus for something we’ve never heard of before nor the powers it holds described in any way, and yet ALSO featured in the SPPT promo video, despite being entirely irrelevant to their current situation... which is weird in itself... and something that could come up again later... or not, but it could).

So, did Belphegor’s intent lead them to fall directly to that spot, or is something else at play here?

That brings us to the next question: Lilith’s Crook, which wasn’t a crook at all, but a Horn. First off, why was it called a “crook” when it was plainly a “horn?” A Crook is a specific tool used to catch wayward sheep around the neck like a lasso, but also can be used as a walking stick or a weapon. Wolves come after your flock, you can whallop them with your big stick.

But like all the “horns” introduced in canon, this one has... other powers. We had the Horn of Gabriel introduced as a concept in 6.06 but demonstrated in “reality” only in s9... which wasn’t a horn at all, but a spell. But it did summon angels the same way Lilith’s Crook sucked in demons and souls. Even the shape of the sigil in the spell had a “crook.”

Bringing in the flock, as it were.

We also saw the Horn of Joshua, where the original purpose of the “weapon” was rendered irrelevant by being of interest to TFW as a “Hand of God” potentially imbued with God’s powers they hoped to use to defeat Amara back in s11. All this previous “horn fuckery” in canon has left me inherently suspicious of ANY sort of horn now. But I’ll get to that in a minute... Let’s focus on the rest of the horn-related questions first, since this one is so big that I think the only way to truly justify it is with my final answer...

The next question is, “why didn’t Cas use THIS horn back in s6?” combined with “didn’t Crowley know about this horn back then too? Why did he never mention it when he was searching for power?”

Well... even if Crowley DID know about this horn, it wouldn’t have actually done what he was trying to do back then. Crowley already HAD the throne of Hell, you know? All of that power was already his. He LOANED Cas 50,000 souls to smack down Raphael, which Cas presumably returned to Hell after that. But Crowley had been looking for ADDITIONAL power for himself. The horn... only brought in the souls of Hell-- which were already in Crowley’s possession. Hoovering up all the souls that already made up his current power base would’ve been... power cannibalism, you know? It wouldn’t have given him anything he didn’t already have. He was looking for MORE power. The horn would’ve been worse than useless to him. And he DEFINITELY wouldn’t have given it to Cas back then, because Cas would’ve used it to soak up all the power Crowley DID have and steal it for his own, you know?

So, what would the purpose of the horn have been to Lilith? I’ve been considering the possibility that it was actually an Apocalypse Failsafe, if Sam had failed to kill her to release Lucifer. I mean, as a last-ditch effort to bring about the Apocalypse, she could’ve called all the power of every soul and demon in Hell to her and theoretically have the power to smash open the cage, or otherwise bring Apocalypse-Level Drama of some sort. Evil Vengeful God Powered Demon does seem to make for a formidable foe for Michael to defeat.

Or... maybe something along those lines? But that brings us to the next question: Why wouldn’t Lucifer have used it himself to suck up all the souls to defeat Amara in s11? Or even further, why wouldn’t Lucifer have used it to suck up some souls to defeat AU Michael when we literally saw him eating other Angels for power in s13? He’d been desperate for additional power in both of those circumstances. He even spent time in s11 specifically looking for Hands of God weapons and other power enhancing weapons, and the contents of his crypts was brought to him at one point in 11.15. He was disappointed that whatever he’d been looking for was not among the meager selection of weapons from his apparently looted crypts. But if anyone HAD known of this apparently incredibly powerful weapon, why would nobody have even mentioned its existence before?

Which makes me wonder if Lucifer DID know of its existence, you know? Maintaining the belief that the horn had existed all along, locked away in a box that only angels (or someone able to read and sing Enochian) could even access, Lucifer at least could’ve had reason enough to use it if he thought it would help him replenish his own power either in s11 or in s13. Yet he never even mentioned it. Could it have been something Lilith made for herself after Lucifer had been locked away? Weird, right? WHY?!

Why ANY of this? Why even make something like this, only to have it mentioned NOW, at the very end of the line?

Because every answer I’ve attempted to give here eventually breaks down and fails to satisfy the original question, only leaving us with more questions. So I’d like to present my thesis. While the canon-related questions are a bit of personal fun for me, because I love attempting to reconcile canon like this, I think the show has already told us exactly what’s happening here. I think it’s both DEEPLY rooted in past canon, but also hanging a lampshade on a lot of specific events of past canon.

I think Chuck is basically pantsing his way through writing yet another Dramatic Cosmic Plot that TFW doesn’t even realize they’re still part of yet. And that this “weapon” was invented on the spot by Chuck to force TFW into enacting a hastily scrawled rewrite of some of his favorite scenes from his own Grand Story. Just enough to give him time to figure out what he actually wants to DO with the story, since he’s effectively trapped himself in this iteration of it by one of his own hastily created plot devices... kinda “backfiring” on him-- The Equalizer gun.

Chuck has been repeatedly characterized as kind of a hack writer, not a Great Storyteller, you know? He’s really... not very good at this. He’s like Anne Rice after she fired her editor. He’s got no direction, no original ideas, only “cool plot twists” that entertain nobody but himself. He makes up rules on the fly to try to solve narrative problems of his own making. And he’s been doing that for years.

And he’s been getting worse at it, and more desperate about it, since Amara showed up to confront him from a perspective that began this entire “unmasking the creator for what he really is” process we’ve been seeing unfold since 11.20.

Which is closer to what I think the *actual* mytharc plot of s15 is.

Right now, TFW is caught up on the details-- these magical things they believe are manifestations of a Post-Chuck-Involvement universe. When in reality, it’s STILL Chuck interfering directly in all of their lives. I think right now Dean is the only one even remotely on the right track with that one, even if he’s emotionally reeling to the point where he doesn’t actually *know* he’s realized the extent to which Chuck has fucked with all their lives.

Sam is reeling from the things he had to do because of “prophecy,” the fact he believed he had no other choice. This was one level of remove from his resignation about needing to say yes to Lucifer in 5.22 to personally drag him into the Cage. Emotionally, I’m not sure if he sees it any differently than all the suffering his actions back then brought about. This time, it wasn’t *him* making that sacrifice, but someone he truly cared about making it for him. Sam is having to deal with this from the other side this time around. He’s not seeing the bigger picture, that Chuck was responsible for ALL of this. He’s convinced that this was the price they needed to pay in order to “fix the universe once and for all,” which... we know as viewers isn’t true at all. Chuck is still out there, and magically hooked directly into Sam via that equalizer wound. Is Sam even CAPABLE of seeing outside of his current apparent situation, or is Chuck somehow directly influencing his choices and thoughts? That remains to be seen, but it is a primary concern-- how is that wound affecting both Sam and Chuck, and what part did it have to play in Rowena’s apparent sacrifice?

(and potentially, will Sam be able to eventually wrest control of what that connection is doing once he becomes fully aware of what the consequences of that wound really are? I mean this also goes directly back to the sorts of visions he was manipulated into believing in s11, only to learn when it was too late that they were all a manipulation from Lucifer. This feels thematically similar, but potentially giving Sam power over the situation that he hasn’t realized yet...)

Cas is stuck on his own guilt, he believes now validated by Dean’s rejection of him. He’s not seeing Dean’s perspective here, that it’s not just Jack’s death or even Mary’s death that Dean is angry about. Cas had invested HIS ENTIRE SENSE OF SELF and his entire sense of family and belonging into Jack directly. Jack had been the symbol of Cas’s lifeline to the people he loves and chose to stand with and the symbol of what someday losing those people to mortality would leave Cas with... another immortal being to endure by his side for eternity. The immediacy of Cas’s anger is all tied up in that singular act of Chuck’s, in killing Jack. And seemingly not understanding that Dean is angry about... all of it. About an entire lifetime of direct manipulation and loss and tragedy.

Dean’s big fear, in pushing Cas away, was that Cas himself had been just another one of Chuck’s plot devices written specifically to force his choices or disrupt his life. Dean can’t see the forest for the trees, and he has NO IDEA (or had no idea until Cas chose to walk out of his life) that Cas has repeatedly chosen HIM, DIRECTLY, for A DECADE. Dean has no idea, because right now he’s so blinded by his own hurt, his own disillusionment, and his own anger to see Cas clearly. He trusts nothing and no one, because everyone and everything might just be one more plot device.

He’s having a hard time seeing Cas as anything other than on a par with the Equalizer gun-- hastily invented on the spot to solve a problem of Chuck’s own devising. And I think it’s gonna take a while for Dean’s mental state to settle out enough to be able to accept the truth that *we* know.

I mean, Cas has defied every supposed law of the universe, coming back to him over and over again, inexplicably, from death and the Empty and situations that never should’ve been possible to come back from. I believe he’s questioning if any of that was even real now, you know? but we’ve now got the long haul of emotional coming-to-terms, and narrative progress into Chuck’s story but also Chuck’s storytelling. I think we’re finally gonna come to understand not only his writing process, but also expose all his storytelling weaknesses and failed drafts and eternal rewrites. And his intended ending that TFW will now have to plot their own way out of.

And to me, in s15, that’s the story I’m actually interested in dissecting, because that’s the real story of Faith vs Free Will, and I think that’s what must become the final showdown of the season.

And all of these narrative WTF moments, like these questions have raised above, will go to serve as Red Herrings or Chekhov’s Guns, or both. Because Chuck’s panic writing without an editor, and his head’s so far up his own ass and is more interested in narrative vengeance on his rebellious characters that he’s losing touch with what the reality of the universe he’s created actually *is.* Or what his theoretical audience would actually want for these characters as an emotionally satisfying ending after 15 years of them becoming “real” in his story.

I think this will be the main point of 15.04 (and possibly 15.05, based on the very little I actually know about that episode yet). So as painful as it is for us right now, try not to lose sight of this larger picture. And don’t let yourself become too obsessed with Chuck’s increasingly improbable plot devices, because they’re a narrative distraction (for TFW and us-the-audience alike, like an incompetent stage magician pointing over the audience’s head and yelling OMG IS THAT BIGFOOT?! and hoping the audience will all turn around long enough to shove a rabbit in his hat...)

#spn 15.03 #spn s15 spoilers #spn s15 speculation #spn cosmology #supernatural weapons #heaven hell purgatory and the empty #chuck is a hack #and it's supposed to be obvious that he's a hack... :'D #Anonymous

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mutantsrisingrpg · 5 years ago

Photo

Congratulations DEAN! You’ve been accepted as ARIEL.

Dean, you don’t know how overjoyed I am to have you and your take on Lenox back in my life! Lenox is one of my favorite skeletons and you just capture him so perfectly. For Lenox, the devil is literally in the details, since he has the ability to control how they’re perceived. I love everything about him, especially when I view him through the lens you crafted (or is it the lens he crafted, and I’m actually under the spell of his powers right now? my brain hurts)! I can’t wait to see the havoc you and Lenox unleash on this dash.

Welcome to Mutants Rising! Please read the checklist and submit your account within 24 hours.

its britney bitch

NAME/ALIAS: Dean

PRONOUNS: She/her

AGE: 22

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: GMT, i’m fairly active bean and am always here to plot

In Character Information:

DESIRED ROLE: Lenox Syed

GENDER/PRONOUNS: Cismale, he/him

DETAILS & ANALYSIS: This is where you show us who the character is to you! The format of this doesn’t matter, whether it’s in bullet points or in para form, and can be as long as you’d like it to be. Feel free to get creative!

Lenox as a boy’s name is of Scottish and Gaelic origin, and the meaning of Lenox is “with many elm trees”.

Syed or Sayyid or Sayed (Arabic and Urdu: سيدعلی) is a family of Syeds in South Asia, notably India and Pakistan. Syeds are the direct descendants of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad.

Lenox is lost in his own fantasy world. Creating so many illusions for people each day that he has become lost in one of his own. With a lack of attention through his childhood, he craves the limelight and approval of everyone around him and will do pretty much anything to get it, even if it’s false or trickery.

He’s so painstakingly constructed, he’s his own work of art. Each detail of his personality and appearance delicately manipulated into something strikingly beautiful. Someone you can look at with awe just by the way they talk or move. It’s almost hard to realise there’s another man beneath the mask, someone raw and damaged. Like a bird with a broken wing.

BIO:

Tw: Drug mention

His mother is just fifteen when she gives birth to him, swaddled in a blue blanket and passed immediately to the arms of a doctor; she never held him, never looked at his freshly reddened face as his cries wailed down the corridors. It’s not because of his mutation, not because his birth family couldn’t bare to raise a being burdened with powers. She was a child herself, naivety leaving adoption as the only logical decision.

A foster home decides to take him in, raising him from infancy without any awareness of any abnormality. It’s where he stays for the first nine years of his life, a cosy house in Oregon that housed five other children. But the dormancy of his powers didn’t stay concealed forever. It started with his foster siblings sleepwalking, Lenox’s dreams imprinting on them accidentally as they’d trample through the house enthralled by the vivid illusions of his fantasy worlds. Then it began intertwining into everyday life, emotional outbursts of temper alluding unsafe situations like fire or monsters that hid under the bed. Games became near impossible to differentiate between make believe and reality from the second he joined in.

“You’re unsafe,” it’s a comment he’d gladly wear as a badge of honour once he’d matured. But to the little boy being dragged away from his foster family, betrayed by his caregivers and turned in for research, the words grazed his skin like stinging nettles.

The four plain walls of the room only further ignite an overly active imagination, a tool that was dangerous to have with a power like his own. The eleven years he spends there does the opposite of what society would have hoped, boredom allows for focus and practice, it sharpens his talents and he’s able to put them to good use. By the end of his stay the doctors had favoured him among the rest, because he wills it so. They go easy on him, carefully placed illusions write false notes on his reports. Detailed and intricate enough so that he doesn’t get caught out, handwriting remarkably identical to each nurse or scientist that take their turn testing on him. He starts to admire the way it feels, too chaotic to be part of society and embedded with more potential than anyone could have known.

It’s when that potential reaches a point where imagination can no longer be imprisoned by those four walls that he decided enough was enough. The process of discharging himself was a meticulous operation. Theatrically staged and miraculously timed with an annual cell collecting test. Before he can be sedated he’s enticed the nurses into an imaginary induced coma, deep enough into his intoxication that he can use the poisoned needle on them. The theater only has the two women on the floor when the doctor enters, sly projections manipulating each person he’d bumped into on his way to the exit into that same sleep, a psychedelic world of kaleidoscope landscapes and stained glass colours, once awakening they would never see this boy again.

“You’re unsafe,” the same words, just a different context. An ally ushers him to leave Oregon and head to Chicago. A place where policies were loosened and his own kind somewhat tolerated.

The new city put Lenox’s own fresh start in full swing.

Fragile reality was a vehicle for his reinvention, so easily malleable that to change it was simpler and more natural to him than breathing. He’s masterful in the way it’s applied, diminishing a past life of shame and grit in place of high strung worth and superiority. He’d created himself with utter royalty, his own nobility evident by the way in which he moved, regally eloquent and unmistakably ethereal to anyone who crossed his path.

He builds his career on the sins he knows other’s desire. Selling crushed up aspirin as a party drug in the underbelly of the city’s night clubbing scene, using his power to make it seem as if it were the legitimate stuff and not something that cost him a couple bucks from the convenience store across the street. Lenox could make them see whatever he wanted, turn their evenings into a production of his own design and leave with none of the being any wiser. It’s how Benjamin Granger catches word of him, a supposed mutant that was living life as if he were a king. He’s the first person to ever acknowledge his capability, strikes him up an offer he couldn’t refuse. Drawn like a moth to a flame after the slightest suggestion of power and the infatuation that he was finally wanted by someone and to belong to something.

EXPANDED CONNECTIONS:

Chance Matthews: He’s the face he can’t erase from his mind, the curve of his lips engraved in deep fixations when he couldn’t fall asleep on a Sunday night. Perhaps it’s the fact that he shouldn’t do it that makes it more enticing, a lust to ignite underlying passion to unearth exactly what they had both been burying.

Jordan Rojas: Jordan is somewhat of a curiosity for Lenox to unpick. A closed book that is intriguing because of their close association together. Always keen to show his worth, to prove himself to those around him, perhaps it’s a dangerous combination should Jordan utalise the other’s naivety in combination of his powers in the way that Benjamin does.

Jack Mizuno: He likes that he can get so deep into their head, that he can have full control of a world that wasn’t Jack’s domain. It’s all to do with power and annoyance, a deep craving to see exactly how far he can push people before they hit their breaking point. Even then, it’s fun to flip that breaking point into a place of pure bliss and drop it again just when his subject is at ease. He’s like a lab rat, someone he tries his tricks on before taking them to the main show.

EXTRA:

https://www.pinterest.co.uk/dean_ie/ariel/

Lenox spends a lot of his spare time writing and doodling. It’s all extremely sketchy, there’s never any sort of final draft. It helps his imagination, which is a much exercised tool in his life.

He is probably more invested in mental health than most. Meditation and yoga being a crucial part of his daily routine after a bowl full of sugar packed cereal.

He’s naive and eager to please anyone that might create a bond with him, he craves companionship after never really understanding it due to the absence of it in his life.

Lenox works as a part-time artist and painter, he’s guilty of using illusions to get clients to buy his art by playing into their preferences .

He also works as a drug dealer, never selling legitimate stuff but using over the counter medicines with the combination of his powers to masquerade as the real stuff.

He has an unruly sweet tooth. He keeps lollipops in his back pocket and will order dessert off a menu at a restaurant instead of a main meal. His favourite thing on the planet is warm cookie dough and ice cream.

He listens exclusively to Grunge music. Celebrity Skin by Hole is his absolute jam and he only ever sings Are You Gonna Be My Girl by Jet is his go to karaoke song.

Lenox is openly proud of his sexuality as a homosexual, though he’ll flirt with anyone and anything for the fun of it.

He prefers tea over coffee.

He’s a bit of a poetry dork, he collects first edition poetry books and his most prized possession is a first edition of Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg.

He’s very judgemental of how others present themselves and will tell you if your new shirt is ugly.

Lenox lives in a small apartment, anyone that enters he’s carefully to make them see it as 3 times bigger than it actually is with far more light.

He has a fear of heights.

#accepted #accepted: ariel #dean is giving the people what they WANT

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artificialqueens · 5 years ago

Text

Royals 8/9: Is It Safe To Just Be Who We Are (Branjie)-athena2

A/N: Sorry for the delay in posting on AQ, my submission didn’t go through the first time. Thank you all so much for your amazing comments. Each one really does mean a lot to me and keeps me going during rough writing patches. Please leave some feedback on this one, I really do appreciate it. Writ is the best beta I could ask for, and also they were ready to fight me after this one so I apologize in advance. Chapter title from Love song by Lana Del Rey.

*There is mild violence and blood*

—

All Vanessa sees when she closes her eyes is Brooke’s scared face running away from her.

Brooke had locked herself in her room after they danced and didn’t come out until dinner, and no matter how well she composed herself, Vanessa knew she had been crying. She talked to Vanessa at dinner like nothing happened, and Vanessa went along with it.

Her heart is breaking, not because Brooke doesn’t love her, but because Vanessa knows she does but can’t admit it. She knows from the way Brooke looks at her, the smiles no one but Vanessa sees, how Brooke lets herself be vulnerable around her. There’s a small patch of guilt in Vanessa’s mind for (almost) throwing her confession of love at Brooke when she knows damn well Brooke isn’t in a position to say it back, no matter how much Vanessa wishes Brooke could. She’s angry, not at Brooke, but at the world, at the circumstances, forcing them apart. Some wishes just can’t come true.

But Brooke fills her with the hope and joy of long, hot summers, and Vanessa dreams something can blossom. Brooke is a flower she wants to turn toward the sun and protect from the storm while she marvels at the beauty as she blooms and grows. She can’t tear her eyes away from Brooke when they’re together, can’t touch her hand or see her smile without feeling like she’s been struck by lightning.

She can’t even think about returning home and going back to a life without Brooke, and as the time until the wedding gets smaller, the hole in her chest gets bigger.

She buries the I love you she longs to say deep inside, having breakfast and lunch with Brooke and talking about anything she can think of to avoid the wedding, which takes its toll on Brooke as the days go by. There’s a grayish tinge to her skin and deep circles under her eyes. She stops smiling and only manages a few words while she picks at her food. She stares blankly into space during their conversations and sheepishly asks Vanessa to repeat herself. She’s losing more of Brooke each day, but there’s nothing she can do.

—-

“My parents said I probably have to start thinking of an engagement when we get home,” Vanessa admits over breakfast one morning, unable to keep the horror inside anymore and seeking the one person who can understand.

“I’m so sorry.” Brooke reaches her hand out and Vanessa takes it to keep herself together.

“I know there isn’t much I can do, but I’m going to try to get out of it.” She bites her lip, forcing the tears to stay in.

The sheer intensity of her relationship with Brooke slams into her as she confesses this. In just a few weeks, she has given Brooke more of herself than she’s let anyone see in over a year, and she suspects the same is true of Brooke. But with Beatrice, where the more Vanessa gave, the smaller she became, Vanessa only feels stronger the more she shares with Brooke.

“You should try,” Brooke agrees. “Don’t…” she pauses, and for a second she thinks Brooke is going to warn Vanessa not to be like her, but the words Brooke does say break her heart even more.

“Don’t let yourself have anything less than the happiness and love you deserve,” Brooke states.

Vanessa can’t hold back the tears anymore, because it’s all so unfair. Brooke is telling Vanessa that she deserves more when Brooke deserves more too and won’t let herself believe it because it would only make everything hurt worse. Brooke just places a soft hand on her shoulder and lets her cry.

—-

Despite all her fantasies that it wouldn’t arrive, it’s the day before the wedding, and Vanessa’s trying not to think of how this is her last breakfast with Brooke when she leaves her room.

But the thought flies out of her mind when she sees two tall figures going down the stairs. The hoods of their cloaks are up, and she can’t identify their voices. There shouldn’t be anyone here; her and Brooke are the only ones in their wing of the castle (her heart lifts every time she calls it theirs), and Vanessa can’t resist the curiosity. She sneaks after them, holding her breath a few stairs behind.

“I hear he’s the best marksman in the country,” the first man says.

Marksman? What are they talking about? She creeps down a few more steps, unable to stop now.

“That’s what I heard,” agrees the second. “I’m not sure how much I trust his word, of course, to be bragging about it in public.”

Bragging about what? They’re almost at the bottom of the stairs, and she won’t be able to follow much longer. But they’re talking about a marksman, and why would they talk about that if something dangerous isn’t involved?

“Not really bragging,” the first man corrects. “Just been telling some of us pub regulars about his plans for the Ice Princess.”

Brooke. A shiver runs down her spine and blood pounds in her ears. Something is going to happen to Brooke, and from this discussion, it can’t be good. Can she believe them, though? She’s learned to be suspicious over the past year, to question everything she hears and sees. But can she take that chance if–her heart clenches–something might happen to Brooke?

“I’m afraid I’m not privy to pub secrets. Care to enlighten me?” the second man asks.

“Well,” the first man whispers, “He’s been saying he’s got an arrow with the Ice Princess’ name on it as a wedding gift.”

A cold wave washes over Vanessa, her heart racing so fast it might pop out of her chest, as the men head into the hallway. Her hand slams against the wall to steady herself. Someone is going to kill Brooke.

But she has to consider the facts first, with a wariness now ingrained in her. She doesn’t have any idea who these men are, or if they can be believed. And surely someone planning a murder wouldn’t tell people about it.

But.

It’s Brooke.

Her Brooke, who gets her candy everyday and watches eagerly to see if she likes it. Who asks every morning if Vanessa is warm enough and lets Vanessa borrow her scarf. Who allows Vanessa to see underneath the layers of polish and perfection she wears to protect herself against her parents’ expectations. Who makes Vanessa feel the first honest love she’s experienced.

Even if this is fake, it has to be better to be cautious. Vanessa knows the king and queen aren’t overly affectionate toward Brooke–or even kind to her–but they wouldn’t really take a chance on their daughter’s safety, would they? She has to tell them. She’s not willing to stay silent on the chance this is fake, not when Brooke–her entire heart–is at risk.

She sprints to her parents’ room. “Get the king and queen. We need to have a meeting now.”

—-

“Now, let me see if I’m hearing this correctly,” the king states with deep annoyance. “You’re claiming you overheard two people–people you cannot identify–stating that they heard a person make a threat towards Brooke at the wedding? And they said the person made this threat in a public place?” He looks at her with such scorn, poking holes in her story so effortlessly, that Vanessa finds herself doubting it for a second. But she knows what she heard.

“I realize there’s not a lot of evidence,” she concedes, “But I believe it’s true. I think someone is going to go after Brooke tomorrow.”

Brooke sits next to Thomas. She hasn’t said a word, her mask firmly in place, so seamless not even Vanessa can tell what she’s feeling.

Thomas speaks up with a smirk, “Rather convenient of you to hear such a story the day before the wedding. Jealous of all the attention Brooke’s receiving, perhaps? Not to mention it’s quite a poorly-conceived story at that. One might wonder if you were planning something yourself.”

The blood rushes to her face. “What are you–”

“That’s quite an accusation,” Vanessa’s mother interjects. “Surely you’re not insinuating my daughter is planning to attack Brooke tomorrow?”

“That is a serious allegation,” King Richard agrees. “Do you have evidence for this claim, Thomas?”

Thomas smiles charmingly, waving his hands in innocence. Vanessa has to grab the table to keep from throwing herself at him.

“Please don’t think I’m insinuating anything,” he begins. “I’m not accusing Vanessa by any means. I was merely stating that bringing up a murder plot is an excellent way to cover one’s own.”

“It sounds like you’re accusing me of murder!” Vanessa delights in the slam of her fist on the table, consequences not even a thought now.

The king pipes up again, “I think–”

“Father, I-I believe her.” The small voice silences the yelling.

Everyone turns to the source, Brooke’s cheeks flaming red.

“Brooke–”

“Please, I think you should listen to her.” Brooke says, a bit louder this time.

Vanessa can’t even imagine what it’s costing Brooke to stand up to her father like this, how much courage she has within her. I’m not getting in trouble for you, Brooke had said their first day, and here she is risking trouble and more to defend Vanessa. Even though Brooke can’t say the words, this is the greatest declaration of love she could offer, and Vanessa would cry if it wouldn’t make Thomas paint her as hysterical.

King Richard stands as he opens his mouth, and Vanessa knows whatever comes out will be bad. “You will listen to me, Brooke. I know you had your reservations about the wedding, but supporting this fake murder plot…I won’t stand for this.” He motions to his guards. “Take the princess to her room and stand guard outside. I’d like her kept there until tomorrow for her safety.”

He sighs, and Vanessa understands that this is less about Brooke’s safety and more about locking her away so she doesn’t cause any trouble, the whole command tingling with implications that he wants Brooke away from her. How could Vanessa have thought the king would believe her? He’s more concerned about them questioning his authority than he is about something happening to his own daughter.

The two head guards appear on either side of Brooke, who is unnaturally small next to their hulking armor. She glances over at Vanessa with such sorrow and regret that her heart shatters into pieces as Brooke is led out of the room without a sound.

“I think that’s best for her safety,” Thomas agrees. “Resting for the day will be good for her too. She hasn’t been sleeping well lately. Too much excitement for her, if you ask me. I’d hate for her to get ill right before the wedding.”

She hasn’t been sleeping well because of you! Vanessa clamps down on her lip to hold in the scream.

The meeting is dismissed, and she follows numbly after her parents, her heart already having left the room.

—-

“You believe me, don’t you?” Vanessa asks her parents as soon as she’s inside their room. She doesn’t know if she can possibly take this if even her own parents think she’s making it up.

“Of course we do. We know you wouldn’t lie about something like that.” her mother soothes her worries, brushing her hair off her face.

“But this isn’t our kingdom, and we can’t do anything here,” her father adds. “The decisions are with the king and queen.”

“But something’s going to happen to Brooke and no one even cares! She’s going to get hurt, or-or…” the rest is too terrible to speak.

“Vanessa, what’s bringing this on? Why are you so upset? I know she’s your friend, but…” her mother trails off in concern and Vanessa discovers that she’s crying, thick tears rolling down her face.

Some of her tears are fueled by anger, because this whole day lies in ruins at her feet. She was supposed to have breakfast with Brooke, and Vanessa was going to give Brooke her flowered bracelet so Brooke had something to remember her by, but now the king thinks Vanessa’s making false threats and Brooke is locked away and Vanessa will be lucky if she gets to say goodbye.

“Because I love her,” she breathes. That wasn’t supposed to happen like this, either; she certainly wasn’t going to tell her parents here, if she ever mustered up the courage to tell them at all. But the whole day is an avalanche, and she’s stuck in its path as all her plans are dismantled and every emotion in her swirls around helplessly.

“I love her,” she repeats. “And I don’t want to marry some prince, because I’ll never love anyone but her.”

Their eyes stare straight through her and she shivers in the silence. Is this how Brooke feels all the time when people look at her? “Please say something,” she begs.

“You’ve been so happy lately, and I had a feeling that was why.” Her mother smiles and Vanessa’s knees buckle from relief, dropping her into a plush chair. “If you love her, that’s who you love,” her mother states. “You don’t have to marry anyone you don’t want to.”

She lets herself be pulled into her mother’s arms and cries until there’s nothing left in her but the burning desire to see Brooke.

—-

Her first stop is the kitchen, in desperate hope that Nina can help somehow.

“Did you hear?” she asks without greeting. “Brooke is locked in her room until tomorrow.”

“I heard.” Nina nods seriously.

“It’s so unfair. I’m the one that told him and he took it out on her. And now everyone thinks I’m lying.”

“The king hasn’t always made the best decisions when it comes to Brooke,” Nina admits, voice hushed.

“That’s an understatement.”

Nina purses her lips. “Take this.” A warm package tumbles into Vanessa’s hand. “It’s a honey cake. They’re Brooke’s favorite.” Nina’s expression is soft and tender, radiating real compassion for Brooke, and Vanessa recalls Brooke saying that Nina was more of a parent to her than the king and queen.

“What about the guards?” Vanessa asks.

“Just tell them I sent you. They won’t question me,” Nina says confidently.

“Thank you.”

“Vanessa,” Nina begins, tone serious, “This gets you to Brooke’s door. If there’s something you’d like to say to her, now might be your best chance.”

Vanessa looks into Nina’s eyes, deep with knowing. Nina’s watched over Brooke her whole life, after all, and Vanessa isn’t surprised she’s figured it out.

“Thank you, Nina. Really.”

Nina nods, and Vanessa can tell she has more to say.

“Vanessa?”

“Yes?”

Nina steps closer. “Brooke was such a happy child. Always very quiet, but happy. She loved watching the birds and rabbits and helping me in the kitchen. Then her princess duties and lessons hit hard, and it’s like the joy just left her, bit by bit. Vanessa, the way Brooke is with you…I haven’t seen her smile so much in years. It’s like you brought some joy back to her.” She sighs. “I wish things could be different.”

Nina doesn’t elaborate any further, but Vanessa knows exactly what she means.

“You and me both, Nina.”

—-

Nina’s name is enough to get Vanessa past the guards, but then it’s just her and the door and she wants to throw up. What is she going to say? What if Brooke didn’t want to talk to Vanessa after her outburst got Brooke locked in her room?

“Brooke?” She knocks softly. “Brooke, it’s me.”

A few seconds later, long, pale fingers peek out from under the door, a hoarse voice greeting her.

Has Brooke been crying? Is she scared of what might happen tomorrow? Vanessa wants to bust the door apart and pull Brooke into a hug, tell her everything will be fine even if she can’t believe it herself.

“Are you all right?” Vanessa asks. She touches the tips of her fingers to Brooke’s to prove that she’s there, the act calming her despite what she’s about to do. She presses her cheek against the cool door and pictures Brooke doing the same on the other side, long legs folded up, their love leaving imprints on both sides of the wooden barrier. Mere inches of polished oak separate them but it might as well be a whole country.

“Yes. I’m sorry about earlier, with my father. I should’ve done more, I–”

“Don’t worry about it. There was nothing you could have done.” Vanessa tucks her bracelet inside the wrapping on the cake in case she doesn’t get another chance. She positions the package under the door and pushes it through. “The cake is from Nina, if you get hungry. The other thing is from me,” she explains, and she hopes Brooke is smiling on the other side.

“Thank you.”

Vanessa takes a breath and fixes her hair, grateful at least Brooke can’t see how red her face is. “I need to tell you something. You don’t have to say anything, I just want you to hear it. Brooke, I…after everything, I gave up on thinking I would ever love someone again. But you proved me wrong. I love you, and I know we’ll be apart, but I won’t ever stop loving you, and I’m going to do everything I can to keep seeing you because I won’t–I can’t–lose you, Brooke.”

Her eyes are damp when she’s done, and the silence on the other side of the door is deafening.

“Vanessa?” Brooke asks just when Vanessa is ready to give up.

“Yes?”

“I-I love you too. I–”

“That’s enough time with the princess. Thomas says she needs her rest,” a gruff voice says, one of the guards forcing her up off the floor. She can hear Brooke calling for her, voice building with worry, fists pounding on the door, as the guard leads her to her room.

Vanessa slams her door shut, and the day passes from morning to night as she lays in bed, a cloud hanging over her like she’s waiting for the end of the world. She doesn’t move, doesn’t think she could if she wanted to. She lies and says she’s ill to avoid going to dinner, to avoid having to put on a smile and talk politely when she wants to shove Thomas out the window and run him over with a horse for good measure. It isn’t even a lie, because her stomach churns like the sea in a storm and her limbs are leaden and everything hurts the way it does during an illness.

At some point the night blurs into sleep, only to be haunted by dreams where an arrow flies into Brooke’s heart, the point bursting through her pale skin and blood trickling from the wound as she mouths I love you.

But no matter how many times it loops through Vanessa’s mind, tearing cries from her throat, she can’t see who’s wielding the bow.

—-

Vanessa is awake when A’keria and Silky pound on her door early the next morning, having refused to go back to sleep when she woke up crying after one of the endless dreams. Staying awake was the only way she could keep Brooke alive in her mind.

She’s in a daze as her hair is twisted into ornate braids and her limbs are pushed through the red fabric of her dress, the jewels and fabrics stitching her back up after yesterday tore her heart out, holding her together after she fell apart as Brooke’s blood stained her dreams last night.

“Hurry up!” A’keria urges, handing Vanessa her shoes.

“What’s the rush? The wedding’s still two hours away.” If only there was some way she could stop time and live out an entire life with Brooke before those two hours are up.

“We talked to Plastique and got you five minutes with Brooke. Face-to-face.” Silky brags.

Vanessa almost tumbles over her own feet as she runs to the hall. Plastique is outside Brooke’s room, motioning for her to hurry inside. She slips past Plastique with a grateful nod and then it’s just her and Brooke and she can’t breathe.

Brooke is staring out the window, cats on the seat beside her. A white dress flows down her tall frame, snowflakes embroidered into the top half and tiny pearls stitched all over the bottom half, reflecting the sunlight. Her blonde hair waves loosely around her shoulders, small strands pulled back and braided.

“Brooke?” Vanessa chokes out.

Brooke turns around and Vanessa is overtaken by her, heart skipping a beat before resuming its rhythm. Plastique did an excellent job with the concealer, but Vanessa takes one look into Brooke’s eyes and knows she didn’t get a second of sleep last night. Her gaze drops to Brooke’s hands and she almost melts at her bracelet resting there, bright against Brooke’s skin.

“Are you really here?” Brooke asks, voice cracking. “I don’t think even my mind is cruel enough to dream you up.”

“I’m here. It’s really me, I promise.”

Brooke throws her arms around Vanessa with a bone-crushing grip Vanessa suspects is to keep herself upright.

“I’m not going to pretend this is anything other than terrible,” Vanessa says quietly, “But for what it’s worth, you do look beautiful. This whole thing, it’s just–”

“It could be worse.” She can tell Brooke is trying to convince herself of it, repeating it over and over to keep from falling into a despair that she can’t pull herself out of.

“I know, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still terrible. There’s a lot of terrible things that could be worse, but they’re still terrible.”

“I know,” Brooke says softly.

It’s quiet and Vanessa burns with regret for dismantling the one thing keeping Brooke together. She wishes, more than anything, so fiercely her body aches with it, that she could give Brooke the love she deserves.

“I need to tell you something.” Brooke pulls away from the hug but keeps her hands on Vanessa’s forearms. “Vanessa, I didn’t think I would ever feel the kind of happiness I feel with you. And I’m so grateful I got to know you, and become your friend, and-and love you. I love you, Vanessa. I’ve known for a while, but I was too scared to admit it, to let myself love you. That’s why I ran away, and I’m sorry. But I’ll do my best to stay in contact with you, and I’ll visit, I promise. I will always love you and be there with you. Please don’t forget me.”

“Never. I could never forget you,” Vanessa sniffles. “I love you, and I always will, whatever happens. Just look at the sun and think of me, and I’m with you.”

“Oh, that reminds me.” Brooke crosses over to her desk and pulls out a box. “I hope you like this. I know it can’t replace yours, but I thought you might like to have one again.”

Vanessa opens the box and gasps as her eyes well up with tears. A sun necklace smiles up at her, twinkling in the light. It’s not the exact one she had, but it’s even more special because this one is from Brooke, the only person who knows the truth, the only person who has seen all the parts she’s hidden and still loves her for them.

“It’s beautiful,” she breathes, unable to say anything else. How could she possibly have the words to say that it gives her hope and makes her think she and Brooke will get their happy ending?

“May I?” Brooke asks, gesturing to the necklace.

Vanessa nods, and Brooke’s hands are fastening the clasp, and Vanessa feels like part of her old self is back. Brooke is still behind her, breath tickling her skin, and then cool lips press against the back of her neck and a shiver travels through Vanessa’s body.

Vanessa spins around and looks up into Brooke’s eyes, the green reminding her of the fields back home. Maybe one day, Brooke can be her home, too.

“Would it be all right if I kissed you?” Brooke’s voice quirks up with hope.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

She leans up as Brooke leans down and an explosion hits her body when they meet in the middle. She presses against Brooke’s lips and grabs her waist, desperation pouring out of her as they continue to embrace, trying to get an entire lifetime of love and kisses into this one moment.

Pounding on the door tears them apart.

“Hurry up, V!” Silky hisses. “It’s been way more than five minutes.”

It feels like no time at all has passed, but even five hours wouldn’t have been enough for Vanessa.

“I guess I have to go.”

“Right,” Brooke agrees. “Oh, one more thing. I meant to ask you yesterday, but do you think you could take Henry and Apollo back with you? T-Thomas found out about them, and he doesn’t like cats, and my father says I have to learn to compromise. I know they’d be happy with you, and have a nice home with someone who loves them.”

There’s defeat and hurt in the slump of Brooke’s shoulders, her voice seconds away from tears that Vanessa might echo. Brooke has played with those cats every day since she found them, burying her fingers in their fur at breakfast. She told Vanessa they even slept curled against her legs at night, and Vanessa was comforted that Brooke would at least have the cats when she got lonely. She hates to be the one to take them from her, but she vows to give those cats every ounce of love Brooke did, and then some.

“Of course I will. I’ll take good care of them, I promise.”

“Thank you.”

Another knock rings out. “Vanessa, we need to go now.” A’keria’s urgency seeps into the room.

“I love you,” Vanessa says again, praying it won’t be the last time.

“I love you too,” Brooke says, and Vanessa can tell she’s offering up the same prayer.

—-

Vanessa’s next to her parents in an uncomfortable chapel pew in the second row, eyes darting around. There’s guards stationed at each corner and at the door, but what if they aren’t enough? Everything does seem calm, bright blue and white flowers arranged through the chapel, chatter ringing around her, but there’s a deep unease in her bones and she can’t relax.

The men she saw said something about an arrow. She has to believe what she heard is true because she knows no one else does. Where would someone planning to shoot an arrow hide? They’d have to be somewhere high, somewhere unseen, somewhere unguarded–the music loft.

No one will see us up here, I promise, Brooke’s words echo in her mind. The music loft Brooke had taken her to, a place she could tell was special to Brooke, a place she could tell Brooke felt safe in. Now that safety is going to be ripped away from her.

But when would they strike? Who hired them? And why at the wedding? Surely there were other times, other ways, the assassin could have killed Brooke. They could have slipped her poison, or chosen someplace more open than this, where it would be easy to vanish into a crowd. There has to be something important about doing it during the wedding, then. But what?

The music starts as Brooke walks down the aisle and Vanessa can’t bear to watch her princess face arranged blankly the way everyone wants it, eyes downcast as she approaches Thomas. Instead, she fills her head with how Brooke would shine and glow if she were walking down the aisle to marry Vanessa instead of that controlling, cat-hating, social-climbing, pretend king.

Pretend king…

Something snaps within her, and it all comes whirring into focus.

Who met with people in the pub? Thomas.

Who made sure no one believed her when she told them of the threat? Thomas.

Her heart pounds. Could she have it wrong? Could she still be seeing suspicions where there aren’t any, missing the real danger somewhere else?

But one last question passes through her mind, and the answer chills her like ice.

If Brooke dies, who is heir to the throne?

Thomas.

Everything falls into place, pieces she hadn’t even known were in play coming to complete the picture. That’s why they had to wait for the wedding. If Brooke dies after their marriage is sealed, all Thomas has to do is get the king and queen out of the way, and the throne is his. He had probably made the fake threat that day. He made sure Vanessa would hear, knowing she would tell the king, and then twisted it around to make it seem like she was going to attack Brooke.

Pushed hard for the alliance…wanted to have you and your family here…Thomas had wanted them here early all along, had wanted to make it plausible that Vanessa had enough time to plot against Brooke, so he could pin the blame on her.

He’s going to kill Brooke, and Vanessa is going to be the main suspect for Brooke’s murder. He had probably been so rude toward her family, arguing over the alliance, so it looked like she had a motive. Jealous of all the attention Brooke’s receiving… another false motive he planted. And no one will ever believe her. Not against him. She had played right into his hands. Someone’s toy, once again.

Vanessa is steaming with anger, smoke threatening to rise out of her head, but there’s no time for rage now. She has to find a way to save Brooke.

But what is she going to do?

The helplessness rises above her and she’s drowning. Her parents don’t have any authority here. If she interrupts the wedding, no one will listen, and things will only get worse for her and Brooke. The only person that would support her is saying her vows to the very man plotting to kill her.

Another trap with no escape.

Everyone applauds around her as the marriage is official, but Vanessa is numb. The organ is a faint buzzing in her ear, colors dull around her, and it’s only when things go silent that she notices the music has stopped.

Because the assassin killed the organist…

There’s no time. If he’s up there, the arrow is going to fly soon, and Vanessa can see Brooke’s life and everything she’s dreamed of ending in the time it takes the arrow to complete its path. Vanessa runs, everything disappearing as she rushes toward Brooke in the center of the altar, probably placed there by Thomas.

Time slows down, and it feels like she’s moving through quicksand. Shouts erupt as she runs, but she can’t take her eyes off Brooke, whose eyes widen in fear as Vanessa gets closer.

Pain shoots through her arm and her dress rips as something whizzes by her, but the pain can’t slow her as she tackles Brooke, landing on top of her white dress as they slam against the floor.

Vanessa’s arm is burning, blood running down her sleeve and dripping onto Brooke’s dress like a field of tiny roses, but Vanessa doesn’t care. She needs to see if Brooke is all right, if she made it in time.

“Brooke?”

The floor is shifting beneath Vanessa, her vision blurring and making her dizzy, the burning in her arm sharper. Something is very wrong, but Brooke…Brooke looks up at her, and her smile turns to a cough, face twisting with pain.

And then she sees the arrow sticking out of Brooke’s chest, a thin line of blood trickling from it as Brooke mouths I love you.

Except this time isn’t a dream.

#rpdr fanfiction #brooke lynn hytes #vanessa vanjie mateo #nina west #lesbian au #princess au #royals by athena2 #royalty au #tw unhealthy relationship #tw mild violence #tw mild blood #concrit welcome #submission

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rutilation · 5 years ago

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Let’s talk about chapter 81

I have a fondness for anticlimax humor, so I found this chapter to be pretty hilarious, alongside all the heartbreak and intrigue. This woman threatens to dump the ending of Eva on us, keeps us in suspense for a month, only for Phos to be too much of a klutz to bring about third impact. It reminds me a bit of the bait and switch with Shiro. I love it. This bit was great too. After keeping his duplicity in the realm of subtext for nearly thirty chapters, Aechmea just comes right out and says, with a flummoxed expression, that he has more terrible secrets than he could possibly explain within twenty minutes. Ichikawa went right for my jugular.

Many others have already written at length about how Rutile’s attempt to find purpose in repairing Padparadscha has completely ruined their relationship and made Rutile a worse person in the process, so I won’t retread that old ground. But, I would like to reiterate that this attitude is a reoccurring and prominent thread of the story. Bort found purpose in protecting their beloved Dia, but in their zeal, they drove Dia away by making them feel like a useless burden, by expecting them to be content with existing as a mere object of protection. While Aechmea doesn’t seem to find purpose in Cairngorm, he does act entitled and possessive towards them, would greatly prefer it if Cairn acted like a passive trophy wife 100% of the time instead of just 85% of the time, and generally pushes back whenever they try to do anything remotely proactive. And who can forget that time he pitched a fit when Cairn actually went against his wishes.

Phos is one of the few to buck this trend. Their reaction to the debacle with Cairn was pretty even-keeled, especially considering that they don’t know what went down in chapter 67. They’re clearly bitter and hurt, but they still took Cairn’s advice to heart, and also asked if they were okay before leaving for earth. And in this chapter, we got some insight into how they feel about their other failed relationship. At first, they reached toward the clipboard with a look of desperation. But, in the moment that they realize Cinnabar has left both them and the promise that gave them purpose behind, there is no desperation or rage—only resignation. The typically implacable Phos admits defeat without a fight. It’s a deeply sad moment, but the way Phos refuses to let their feelings curdle into spiteful entitlement is downright refreshing. This could be considered another parallel they share with Kongou, who is also very accepting of other’s choices and desires, even to his own detriment.

Anyway, hopefully this is a turning point for Rutile so that they’ll snap out of their terrible attitude and rethink their life, or something.

In chapter 72, Cairn offhandedly mentions they have no idea what Aechmea is talking about most of the time, and that they prefer to keep it that way. This was the first of several hints indicating that they’re kind of terrified of finding out what Aechmea’s deal is. In particular, this line from chapter 75 seems to have really rattled them—they’ve brought it up several times now, and it’s been on their mind even after the long time skip. When Cairn thinks they’re about to die without learning the truth, they confront Aechmea directly, but the second that Phos messes up, they back down and return to more trivial topics of conversation. (This is also the moment the moe eyes return after being largely absent for a chapter and a half.)

Their line here is a callback to what Aechmea said in chapter 78, and probably a deliberate one on their part. If I were to read between the lines, I think what they’re really saying is something this: “I know I’m not getting anything out of you at this point, so I’m not even going to try. Also, I’m going to pretend everything is fine and that this debacle never happened. Secrets? What secrets?!” As per usual, they’ve taken one step forward and two steps back. But, as much as Cairn might wish they could, they can’t un-open Pandora’s Box. I will say, though, that I’m a little nervous about what lengths they might go to in order to keep things as they are, so that they don’t have to face those potentially awful truths.

(Y’know, I can’t help but see some parallels in my own emotional reaction to this series. On one hand, I really want to know what happens next, and where Ichikawa is going with all this, but at the same time, I kind of want to remain ignorant of all the strife to come, and instead escape to some 500k slowburn cinnaphos coffeeshop AU. It would be so much less stressful if Phos were breaking the espresso machine* instead of my heart.)

Anyway whatever this secret is, I suspect it might re-contextualize chapter 67. Ichikawa seems to value the agency of her characters a lot, and the plot tends to progress because of choices instead of contrivance or coincidence (more on that in a moment,) even if it means that those choices make a previously popular character less sympathetic. With that in mind, I doubt Ichikawa intends for Cairn to get away with abdicating responsibility for every choice they made before chapter 68.

For the past handful of chapters, Phos has seemed pretty suicidal. So, it’s interesting that even after saying they’ve lost the will to go on, they nonetheless ran for their life when the others started chasing them, instead of throwing in the towel and simply letting themselves be shattered. It seems like they still have some fight left in them, even if only subconsciously.

Speaking of Phos’s subconscious, I’ve saved the aspect of this chapter I found most fascinating for last—the way in which the apocalypse is averted by Phos, uh, knocking over a table and making too much noise with their spider-limbs. This is pure speculation, so take it with a grain of salt, but I think it’s possible that Phos alerted the gems on purpose. According to what Aechmea said last chapter, they’ve been looming over Kongou for two whole hours, so it seems a little odd that they’d lose their balance now, at the last possible moment. While it is, as I’ve stated earlier, totally hilarious, this turn of events is a little too convenient, especially for a story that’s so aggressively character driven. As I wrote in my last essay, it’s most fitting that this moment comes down to Phos or Kongou’s choice, so I’m inclined to believe that is, in fact, what happened. I also think it’s quite possible that this act of self-sabotage was subconscious, like some events earlier in the story such as Phos’s out-of-control legs, or the cage made of their arms.

Furthermore, remember how Phos came to earth this time around with the hope that Euclase would be willing to hear them out? Well, if this blunder was, in actuality, a veiled cry for help, then their original plan has actually come to pass, just not in the way they were expecting—which is kind of the story of Phos’s life. (Man, it feels weird to try and adjust my brain to Euclase-stan-mode.)

Regarding the framing of the scene, we only see the moment Phos trips from Aechmea and Cairn’s perspective, and we don’t get a clear look at the action until the table has already tipped over. That Ichikawa chose to compose the scene in this manner leads me to believe there’s some sleight of hand going on here. Not to mention the fact that we’re not privy to Phos’s thoughts for the entire chapter, and it’s a little hard to parse their expressions when their face has been pureed.

Assuming my interpretation is correct, if I were to take a stab at why Phos backed out, it would be this:

A. They can’t stand looking at a snail in pain for five seconds, so watching Kongou stare up at them for two hours with the expression of a ewe watching its lamb ride off to the slaughter house might have been more than they could bear.

B. It’s been established that they already suspect Aechmea of withholding information, so perhaps they’re hesitant to give him what he wants without knowing the consequences.

Like I said, this is merely a possibility…but if it is the case, I would like Phos to know that I am very proud of them.

And finally, a few little observations that don’t fit in anywhere else

Judging from context clues, it seems that after Padparadscha was cured of their mercury poisoning, Aechmea removed their replacements, hid them away, and told the others that they were dead, or something. What a dick. The question is, why did he do that? They have shown themselves to be much more canny and goal-oriented than the other gems on the moon, so maybe Aechmea didn’t want someone like that around, and used the opportunity to get rid of them. But, who knows?

In chapter 79, it seemed like there was a huge hole in Phos’s torso, but in this chapter, what pieces are missing seems to change from drawing to drawing, so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Regardless, there are consistently huge chunks of their head and legs missing, and the earth gems are unlikely to just give them back, so it’s likely they’ll be replaced. Their replacements are just as much a part of the Phos we’ve come to know as their original material, so the prospect of losing even a part of those replacements is rather sad. Those legs were gifted with love, dammit!

My boy cicada came to save Phos :,). IIRC, Cicada and Ventri are the only characters who have given Phos a hug over the course of the story, and are thus the only valid members of the supporting cast. Padparadscha is also allowed into this exclusive club for giving Phos a very comforting head pat.

Bort has started wearing powder on their left leg again.

Amethyst(?) brought a rope along. Like this is some sort of Phos-rodeo. Hilarious.

*bonus points if the espresso machine is nicknamed “sensei”

#houseki no kuni #land of the lustrous

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chrismerle · 6 years ago

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ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST

yeah I finished the game

and for all of my mockery, I did like it! a bit railroad-y for an RPG, but eh, that’s not necessarily a bad thing

what I mean by that is, you could make your own choices (within reason) when it came to who lived or died, but that was basically it. for plot-related decisions, you could ask all the questions in the world but there was only one option to actually proceed. even your Mesmerize level only went up at specific points, to make sure you couldn’t mesmerize and ~embrace~ a plot-critical character too soon. but that’s all okay! none of that is actually a complaint.

it’s a very talky game. which is also not a complaint. I liked the characters, I liked the hint system, I liked the fact that Jonny Boy could just barge up to people and they’d think nothing of it, and I liked the fact that you had to talk to people in order to have the broadest amount of options. however, cinematically, it sort of...lacked. most cutscenes in this game are just Jonny Boy standing and talking to someone. cutscenes feel almost entirely static. no one walks around. no one really talks with their hands. no one fidgets. even in plot-related cutscenes, it still usually just the camera focusing on someone from just behind Jonny Boy’s ear. it’s a very talky game, and no one moves when they’re talking.

the map’s a little ‘eh.’ the markers on it were huge, which made it a little hard to tell where you were, and instead of a proper minimap there was a little compass thing that was bloody fucking awful.

gameplay itself was actually pretty good, though. moving around was easy, combat was pretty intuitive, and you could pick and choose your blood abilities (personally, I had spring, claws, shadow veil, autophagy, and blood cauldron). it’s also pretty adaptable. if you want to brute force your way through, you can do that. if you want to dance in circles around your enemies and paper cut them to death, you can do that, too.

while I loved the teleportation in concept, in practice it was a little, um...overly convenient? or overly inconvenient, I guess. Jonathan Reid, powerful vampire of a near ageless lineage, is frequently stopped by locked doors, locked gates, and three foot high barriers. like, I get it, it’s not actual teleportation, he’s just moving really fast, but if Jonny Boy had bodychecked a gate at that speed, I’m willing to bet it would open. but whatever, that’s just standard invisible wall stuff. a little eye roll-worthy and a little annoying, but pretty standard.

I liked the...for lack of a better phrase, day/night cycle. nights could go one for as long as you wanted so you never had to break off halfway through a quest to avoid dawn, but you were still encouraged to actually proceed to the next night because that’s how you level up.

the writing is...clumsy. except for the really important ones, boss fights come out of nowhere with no warning, no build up, no excitement, and no real conclusion; you just walk into a room, and whoops, that’s a boss. vulkods exist just to exist, and have no purpose in the story, unlike the skals and ekons. there are werewolves wandering around and no one ever says a word about them. no one acknowledges when your appearance changes after you kill people. King Arthur was an ekon and drinking an ekon’s blood makes another vampire, but McCullum spends his boss fight drinking King Arthur’s blood and he’s fine. nothing really has an consequences after you make a decision. most important information is just dumped on you in conversations that can sometimes go on for too long. the dialogue wheel is pretty inelegant and it’s generally apparent your stitching a conversation together from other pieces. while I thought it was cute because I liked both characters, the romance was still pretty hamfisted. and even as the credits were rolling, I had no real clue what the Morrigan, Myrrdin, and the blood of hate were.

don’t get me wrong, part of it is probably my fault because I got almost none of the collectibles, but if your lore isn’t at least intelligible without dozens of side articles, then you need to do some pruning.

and let’s just acknowledge it: Mary’s plot detour is straight up a plot hole. when she first showed up after the funeral, I assumed she was a chatty skal, like Sean or Old Bridget, but then she was explicitly stated to be an ekon. and then I kinda figured ‘well, okay, maybe she was only mostly dead and another vampire conveniently found her,’ but then she was explicitly stated to be Reid’s progeny. and it was also explicitly stated that the way to make an ekon is to drink another ekon’s blood. you cannot accidentally make an ekon. Jonny Boy drained her dry in a ravening delirium and then fled. he did not her give her any blood. I’m calling bullshit on that one.

(and this is more just a ‘personal preference’ sort of gripe, but there was sort of a to-do about how it was cruel that Jonny Boy’s maker fucked off without teaching him how to be a proper vampire, but you’re free to up and fuck off into the aether on two progeny, if that’s how you play your cards, like two days after you make them. [not counting Dawson because Redgrave can deal with him.])

but it was still fun to play, which is arguably the most important thing, and you know what? I’m perfectly willing to look past the writing stumbles just for Jonny Boy. he’s a genuinely likable character and I kind of adore him. equal parts exasperated and resignedly morbidly amused, like he can’t quite decide if he’d rather go ‘fuck my life’ or ‘this may as well be my life,’ so he took both options. blunt as a sledgehammer and actively annoyed by people talking in circles. generally pretty clever and quick on the uptake. and yet, somehow, still kind of lovably blockheaded.

(and his voice is very soothing. like, I didn’t have a ‘I’m gay but I’d make an exception’ moment, but I had a ‘I’d listen to him read the phone book as ASMR’ moment.)

the rest of the cast is nothing to sneeze at either. they’re all a little stock (you have the vampire hunter, you have the nightmare fetishist, you have the noblewoman, you have dracula lite...), but they serve the plot well and none of them grated on my nerves unless they were supposed to.

and this is like eight pages long now, so I’m gonna assume I’ve made my point pretty well and be done with this.

like my nonsense here? Support Me on Ko-fi!

#elsa liveblogs nonsense #vampyr

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shipcestuous · 7 years ago

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(Submission)

My Thundermans asks got a bit out of hand, so I decided to switch to a submission. Less copying and pasting for you, maaaaybe more coherence. No promises. Also, my previous ask was rude and I’m sorry for that. Like, I didn’t even say hi. I should know better than that. Just, to my slight defence, I was still affected by the show ending and some personal stuff. But I’ll make it up right now.

Hiiiiiiii!!! Thundercest anon back here for the final finale. Unbelievable. Well, mostly I can’t believe it’s been almost exactly a year since I binge-watched the entire show right up to the mid-S4 finale and then cursed (and also thanked) all of you guys who turned me onto the show. For a non-canon pairing, that was some A+ content and a fairly decent amount of it, too. Siiiigh. All good things must come to an end, I suppose. Happy watching, by the way!!

So, Looperheroes. I don’t know if it was intentional or not, or, if so, which version was intentional, or if it was just a plot hole that didn’t matter to them as long as they could conveniently advance their plot, but anyway, it is very, very, veeeeery interesting that Phoebe was the only other person besides Max who was conscious of the time loop. At first, you think it’s the Z-Force conducting another test and it makes sense. But when we find out it’s Max who’s created the time loop, with a device he made, and he might even be resetting it every morning to start the loop all over again, one has to wonder how come Phoebe is in the loop about the loop when nobody else is (besides the guy who actually makes it happen). As far as I could tell, there didn’t seem to be any “logical, science-y” reason that could explain it. Like proximity. Unless Phoebe and Max were sleeping in the same bed behind the scenes, and Phoebe had woken up early because she’s Phoebe, and anyway, the point is that Colosso and the rest of the family had logically equal chances of getting pulled into the time loop, but it was only Phoebe who ended up in it. So, any way you look at it, it’s all very… Thundercestuous. Now, I’ve come up with three scenarios so far. 1) “Blame it all on the superhero twins bond.” It’s been a recurring theme throughout the show that superhero twins have special bonds that manifest in multiple ways. So, Max and Phoebe had to stay within a few feet of each other when that meteor was close to Earth, and in the finale, that is “Thunder Games”, we also learn they’re supposed to have a special superpower that they can only activate together. So maybe this bond dragged Phoebe into the time loop. Not as Thundercestuous as the other scenarios but still a very nice thought. 2) Keeping the superhero twins bond, we add to the mix the actual emotional bond between Max and Phoebe. They’ve always had it, no matter what, even when Max was dead set on being a villain, but in S4 it’s developed so much more. They still mess with each other in true Phoebe and Max fashion, but now they are not enemies. On the contrary, they share a common goal and dream and they have to work together to achieve it. And we’ve seen them overcome their antagonism in order to do so. So, both bonds, one of them by nature, the other built by the twins both consciously and not, could have been what pulled Phoebe in the loop. Another factor might have been their mental and emotional states those few days before the final Z-Force announcement. I imagine both could only think about that and were very anxious over it. I mean, Max definitely was, he created the loop out of fear of failure, and it’s in Phoebe’s character to freak out over it. And taking it even further, this was a perfect case of suffering or going through something, and wanting to be around only someone who understands you perfectly, maybe even goes through the exact same thing. It’s all very Thundercestuous in any case. 3) Max chose to pull Phoebe into the loop with him. Just Phoebe. Not even Colosso. In a semi-crack, semi-serious take on this, Max knew that messing with time could have world-ending consequences (he admitted as much) and might have also been uncertain about the level of functionality of his device, so he decided his best bet was to have Phoebe in the know. Who better to brainstorm or share the responsibility of a catastrophe with? (Exhibit A through Z: Max hunching down in a protective position while Phoebe destroyed the looping device and then explaining that messing with time could have had world-ending consequences. Oh, Max.) Anyway, back to the main point of this theory: Max chose, especially if he had to reset the device every day, to spend at least 95 repetitions of the same day with Phoebe. And I say with Phoebe specifically because Max can put two and two together pretty easily. If Phoebe was the only other person conscious of the day repeating but not aware that Max was the one causing it, then she would think it was the Z-Force testing them (which is exactly what she theorized and Max was there conveniently going along with it) or some villain attacking them etc. With Phoebe working off of such an assumption, they would be forced to work together to come up with ways they could break the loop (and pass the test in the case of the Z-Force). And of course, it’s not like anyone would believe them easily or at all about the loop (as was evident when they told Barb, not to mention that Max was trying to deter Phoebe from asking for help). All in all, Max had to know beforehand that he and Phoebe would be spending a whole lot of time together, brainstorming ideas and putting them into effect. And so they did. From partying hard like there’s no tomorrow to saving the world from the smallest perceived evil, they were joined at the hip most of the time. That is a lot of time spent in each other’s company. Seriously, 95 mornings of Phoebe coming down to Max’s lair, of going to school together, of working closely together. They ended up in such a sync, too, even simply in their enjoyment of Bradford’s and Wong’s misfortunes. And one does have to wonder: what things did they try and what would have they tried or been willing to try in order to break free of the time loop? And the Thundercest kicks up a notch or two or a dozen when you keep in mind that Max was behind the whole thing and could have stopped it or even changed the settings at any time. Also, once again proving people over the age of 20 should not be watching teen Nick, can we talk about Max throwing in Phoebe’s face her “kink” about following direct orders? No need to get up. I’ll see myself out.

Thunder Games. Oh, boy. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: actual physical battle between Phoebe and Max is the stuff of legends (and Thundercest dreams). Phoebe and Max have been training together and under the supervision of the same people their whole lives. And in the past… however long S4 takes up in canon, they have been training together to be a team, in sync. To complete each other. Sort of like Jaeger pilots (where’s my AU fic?). So, the choreography is inevitably a thing of beauty. How they attack and deflect and it ends up looking more like an intimate dance, an intimate exchange, than a fight. I’ll say, this battle was a beautiful summation of Max and Phoebe’s relationship. It was their individual characters and mutual feelings summed up and put into the most prominent display.

Phoebe giving up her lifelong dream of becoming an acclaimed superhero so Max would get to live out his own dream of becoming a famous superhero? That’s peak Thundercest, in my opinion, and characterization consistency of a rare kind, because Phoebe loving Max so much that she would make this kind of personal sacrifice for him has been a recurring theme since S1, in spite of lapses in between that were convenient to one plot or another, and who even applies that kind of thoughtful criticism to the Thundermans (besides the very much adult audience that metas the hell out of Thundercest. Anyways).

And I think that Phoebe sacrificing her Z-Force dream for the sake of Max’s Z-Force dream is as consistent a characterization as is Max finishing Phoebe off in that battle. They mutually agreed beforehand that they would essentially give it their all until there was a winner (obviously without killing each other, which however didn’t seem like an undesirable outcome as far as the Z-Force and its commander were concerned… seriously, what even. Another case of misguided and harmful jokes on the writers’ part). So anyway, the point is that Max didn’t do anything wrong, but the twins’ individual choices in that fight made prominent my favorite, I would say, contrasting aspects of their characters: the quality of their individual goodness/their “good” alignment and the quality of love they have for each other.

(Fair warning: I don’t have the right words to clearly express what I mean. But I think you’ll get my point for the most part.)

Phoebe’s love for Max is, in a sense, pure. Of course, I’m not going to dwell on petty rivalries, pranks and the like. No, I’m talking about the love that’s there underneath everything, once you strip away all superficial layers, all antagonistic shenanigans and exchanges. Phoebe doesn’t want Max to be just alive and safe and well. She wants him to be happy. And when it came down to choosing between his happiness and her own, she chose his. You can argue, of course, that the Z-Force is only one thing that could contribute to her happiness in life and also that seeing Max happy would make her happy, as well. But I’m going to circle back to a point I made when we got the episode with the visiting Thunderman grandparents, where the Thunderkids’ grandpa, who until then was all about Phoebe because she wanted to be a hero and Max was the black sheep who wanted to be a villain, was now all about Max, neglecting Phoebe entirely. And Phoebe was hurt and rightly so: we know and we’ve seen her do everything right on her way to becoming a hero. Never skipping school, always a diligent student with straight A’s, forgoing parties and other outings, always following the rules. I’m not going to look into Max’s psyche and talk about the reasons he wanted to be a villain etc. That’s a whole other talk that involves the analysis of Hank and Barb’s parenting, the superhero society and it’s status quo etc. Still, Max did try hard to be a villain, topping it all with the S3 finale that almost got his entire family killed. He was stubborn and reckless and it was his instrumental involvement in his family’s near murder that finally acted as his wake-up call. And then the Thundermans had to face the consequences of being exposed as superheroes, which was also Max’s fault for the most part, and if President Kickbutt hadn’t chosen to leave their powers intact in secret, the consequences would have been: a) Phoebe, Nora, Billy and Chloe stripped of their chances to ever become superheroes, and b) the Thundermans officially and publicly powerless and at the mercy of all their superpowered past nemeses. And yet, even with all that, when Max realizes he doesn’t actually hate his family and he wants them alive, he works to rectify his mistakes but that isn’t the same as him setting out from the start to perform some heroic act, but all is still forgiven, he earns a superhero cape and then chooses to compete for the Z-Force. Now, with the lives Phoebe and Max have led, if Phoebe objected to Max getting a cape or was annoyed at everything being forgiven so easily etc, wouldn’t she have been in the right? But she doesn’t object and she cheers him on and teams up with him, essentially sharing her Z-Force dream with him. And I’m not saying Max should be constantly punished for his past or deprived of his chances to be as great a superhero as Phoebe (or any other superhero that has always walked the “righteous” path), but Phoebe has fought and made sacrifices for that Z-Force spot her whole life while Max had been working up until the S3 finale to be, one could argue, at the top of the Z-Force’s Most Wanted list. Anyway, even I’ve lost my train of thought. The point is, with all this in mind, Phoebe letting Max win is a huge sacrifice on her part and speaks volumes of the amount of her love for him and the quality of that love.

Max, on the other hand, has always had this extra touch of “darkness” -for lack of a better word- when compared to Phoebe, which is what differentiates the type of good he is from the type of good Phoebe is, and which is what led him to finish Phoebe off while her “good” alignment and “purer” love led her to fake defeat for his sake. Max loves Phoebe, possibly just as much as she does. (I can’t make up my mind on this issue.) But I think Max may never shed some other key parts of his feelings and his love towards Phoebe: his obsession and dependency on her. Max has always behaved and acted in a way that put Phoebe at the epicenter of his activities, made her the focus of his energy, even his target at times. And he probably doesn’t realize it, at all or mostly. I’ve said before that Max wants to be the center of Phoebe’s attention, he wants to monopolize her interest and her actions and her energy. I am personally certain that had he become a master villain, he’d have wanted and chosen no one else as his archenemy but Phoebe. And we’ve also seen him be aware of the kind of love Phoebe has for him, of its quality and quantity, and he took advantage of it again and again, until the S3 finale where he saw Phoebe react to his actions, his villainous shenanigans, in a way she never has before. Right then, Max realized with terror for the first time in his life that even Phoebe and her love for him have limits and he had been pushing her towards her breaking point for a long time now. And now, dealing the final blow and winning the Z-Force battle, I think he was still partly satisfying his need to be the prominent figure in Phoebe’s life, unforgettable, the leave-a-mark kind (which is what would have happened), while he was also beating her fair and square, winning a years-long competition that he never managed to put behind him (unlike Phoebe, who proved that she did by letting Max win). Frankly, I’m not so sure Max would have taken it so well if he’d lost to Phoebe. This is where the contrast between the quality of his goodness and that of Phoebe’s comes into play. I know for certain that had Phoebe truly lost, she would have still been good, heroic. She might have gone through some depressive phases but she’d eventually go on performing superheroic acts, just like tons of superheroes who weren’t and aren’t part of the Z-Force. But Max needs to be the best, needs the recognition (again, parenting etc are factors here). The Z-Force has been a big driving force in his heroics, and his leap over to the side of the heroes is still very recent. He’s still too volatile. Winning that official fight against Phoebe and choosing himself later on to quit the Z-Force in order to save his family were essential, I believe, in his tame reaction to losing his Z-Force spot. It matters a lot for his mental and emotional health that he won the spot and chose of his own volition to give it up. It makes all the difference in the world. Max loves Phoebe but he also has some deep-rooted issues and he needs to officially be better than her. Going forward, he would know Phoebe might feel some resentment and misery that she didn’t get to be on the Force, but she would hide it, and he would gladly pretend, and it wouldn’t taste unpleasantly to be the big Z-Force superhero and teaming up with his regular superhero twin when she needs him. In the end, what I’m saying is Max clearly hesitated to deal the death blow, but he still did, while Phoebe thought of his happiness and sacrificed her own.

Siiiiigh. I don’t know. I’ve put my Thundercest goggles on and I’m dissecting a teen show on Nickelodeon. What am I even doing? Truth be told, though, I don’t know if it was intentional or not on the writers’ part, and it probably wasn’t, let’s be real, but Phoebe and Max are written so much like an archetypical pairing of incestuous heterosexual siblings that you just go there straight away if you’re so inclined. Phoebe’s morality, Max’s moral ambiguity, the rivalry and the tension, the times he’s managed to make her stray even in a tiny, insubstantial (in the grand scheme of things) way, the times he’s pushed and pulled and stretched thin all her good will and love for him, his need to be better than her, but on one condition: Phoebe has to be second best. Because I think that’s how Max’s obsession with Phoebe manifests: he wants to be the best on a global scale, hero or villain, and he needs, he wants Phoebe to be second best, to be able to keep him on his toes but, in the end, individual battles aside, he always ends up having the upper hand in the war. Again, hero or villain, whether the war is them two against each other or together against the bad guys of the world.

Okay, the goggles are coming off because this got waaaay out of hand. I’ve gone from reading into things to reaching and someone needs to take the idea of a grown-up Thundermans show and run with it. No need for anything canon, we take care of that ourselves juuuust fiiiiine.

Oh, I forgot about the special twin power. I probably have more to say about this but I’m still very deep in the Z-Force fight thing. It’s left a mark. But holding hands and creating that kind of a bang? Incestuous pairing or not, that gets a shipper’s heart beating wildly. Also, I haven’t watched any Gifted, but from all the gifsets I’ve seen on this very blog, the way Max and Phoebe’s superhero twins power is activated and the explosiveness of it seems reminiscent of the twins (or just siblings?) on that show. And then, Phoebe and Max as heads of the T-Force? The through-the-roof cheesiness and ridiculousness factors aside (that commander needed to be gone ASAP but Max and Phoebe as the successors? Come on), the twins heading the Force conjures up all kinds of Thundercestuous images and I’m so down for it.

Well. Thank you for reading this monstrosity and for turning me onto the Thundermans. I don’t regret it for a second. Thundercest is dream incest and I’m glad I joined the rest of you guys on this ship. And I hope my mistakes aren’t that many. This was so huge. About 37 asks huge, to be precise. I’m so so sorry??? And I can’t wait to hear your own thoughts and meta and anybody else’s who wants to contribute. How on Earth did this ship come to matter so much to me? Okay, I’m done.

❤❤❤

First of all, let me apologize for taking so long to answer this, Anon! I have just not been able to find the time/energy the past couple of weeks to make any significant progress on clearing out my inbox. And of course The Thundermans 5-episode finale blowout is a big deal and you sent in a lot of thoughts (BUT AM SO GLAD - and also glad you did a submission instead of 37 asks haha) so I couldn’t just sit down when I had 10 minutes and do it. But I really do feel bad because I know you and others were excited to talk about it and I just always let everybody down when it comes to time-sensitive things. Every day I was thinking I would answer asks after I got home from work, but then I was just too tired. So, enough excuses, on to the good stuff!

I’m so glad you joined us on The Thundermans ride. It has been a pleasure discussing the show with you and especially just reading your insights and thoughts! Max and Phoebe really is dream incest. I’m still over the moon that the show ended with the two of them single and teammates like that. Unlike some other shows which drift more and more towards canon love interests, The Thundermans never did.

Oh Looperheroes. What a gift! When we learn that MAX is the one who has been making the day repeat over and over again, which means spending all day every day with Phoebe, and Phoebe being the only one in on the secret (well, part of the secret)…the thundercest is real. It took me back to season 1, to that episode when they spent the day at school alone having snowball fights or whatever. (Haha, I can’t even remember why anymore.) It was like Max wanted three months of days like that. Regardless of why Phoebe was in the time loop with him, the fact is that they spent that time together and he could have stopped it at any point but never did.

It’s wonderfully impressive that any explanation for why Phoebe is in the time loop with him is hella shippy, but I do very much like your theory that he has pulled Phoebe into the time loop with him. Maybe he really is thinking more and more like the two of them are a team, and he wants his teammate there with him in case something goes wrong. And also just to be with him!

I think your character analysis is spot-on. Max loves Phoebe in a way that manifests itself differently from the way she loves him. She doesn’t hesitate to self-sacrifice for his happiness, whereas Max can not entirely rise above his competitive feelings towards her or his own selfishness. But we see how much she means to him again and again, and there is what you mentioned - that obsession with her, almost, and that desire to put her at the center, and for her to come in second only to him. I really think it’s best described the idea that if he had become a super villain, that she would have been his nemesis, and he wouldn’t have had it any other way. That he probably became a super villain just for that.

But let’s just take a moment to appreciate how much Phoebe Thunderman loves her twin brother. Because damn. After everything he has put her through, and she lost the Z Force challenge on purpose for his sake. *slow clap*

I am so thrilled that they gave us this last-minute twin power. It was exactly like Andy and Lauren on The Gifted - twins, who hold hands, and then basically the same thing happens too - white light and an explosion of some kind. Of course on The Gifted it gets all windy and turns slow-mo and is ridiculously romantic but this is Nickelodeon after all. It’s a comedy not a drama. This officially means that Phoebe and Max will always be strongest together - but we already saw that in the episode when they figured out that only together they could make each other fly.

I am so pleased by this show in general and particularly by those final 5 episodes. Both The Thundermans and The Middle knocked their finales out of the park.

I’m honestly on overload. Thank you, The Thundermans, for this incest playground. And than you, Thundercest Anon!

#asks #anonymous #thundercest #r: brosis #nc #tw: incest #the thundermans #the thundermans: episode: looperheroes #the thundermans: episode: the thunder games #submission #max and phoebe #max and phoebe: commentary #nr #noiv #commentary

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monkey-network · 7 years ago

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Good Stuff: THE TROOF ABOUT STARLIGHT GLIMMER

WARNING: Make sure to put a titch of salt in your hot cocoa. Boosts the flavor a bit. All original imagery belong to their respective owners and I swear to not claim them as my own with this post, which was all made by happenstance and fun. Thank you, take care out there, and enjoy.

A 3rd rate song in Hasbro’s otherwise swinging OST

To be frank, my thoughts on the character Starlight Glimmer are surely something. On the one hand, I find myself connecting with the tragedy that is essentially her trying to make it through her new life, and the other involves curb stomping her face in. I mean, they are sincerely pushing this character to provide some sort of value to the world, but I can’t really say what yet. Yeah, she’s the kind to make mountains out of molehills, but that’s like 85% of the show in general. Yeah, they forgave her faster than most would, but besides killing two characters the show can be incredibly angelic. All in all, I see where the detesting attitude towards her comes from, but something in me still couldn’t see the clear case behind her poor character. Yet, I think I understand now, and I’m surprised most never really touch this thought. Roll with me here...

She’s the total opposite of Discord. The Nega-Discord, if you will.

I see many compare her to Sunset Shimmer, and I definitely see where they’re coming from, but when you start stacking her to Discord, the troof speaks for itself as Discord has everything Starlight wished she had. As villains, Discord relished in chaos (hence the name) whilst Starlight wanted control. Both were content with the results they wanted and made the most of it until a single moment of convenience brings everybody together to defeat them in spades. Compare this to Sunset Shimmer, whose plans as a villain in the 1st movie were generally aimless and the motive behind it didn’t amount to much beyond an elongated grudge against her former mentor. Her motive were better than Starlight, sure, but besides trying to prove Celestia wrong nothing about her villainous stance really evolved before it was killed off entirely.

Though that grudge has come full circle. Which, splendid.

Even after getting their ass handed to them, with the promise to elicit a semblance of change, Discord and Starlight continue to let their villainous sides seep into how they affect the story in their respective episodes. Their escalating actions, though, is where the distinction starts to show. It’s after “Keep Calm and Flutter On” where Discord’s chaotic nature doesn’t create the problem but centers around it; the use of his powers may complicate the situation for others, Discord included, but it’s never to directly put them in any rut that they haven’t dug themselves. Discord’s essentially the anti-hero of the show, effortlessly willing to be the bad guy compared to everybody else, only for his actions to provide a lesson for those affected. He’s pill nobody wants to swallow, but in doing so helps those see the benefit.

With a platonic ship I find beneficial, mhm

And with Discord being the anti-hero, comes Starlight being the anti-villain, or somebody with well off intentions only to make matters worse in reality. Let it not be said that with the episodes that actually gives her spotlight, not just to be a plot device supporting character, it’s always her building the problem only for others to resolve it and spell out the lesson to her (or us), all for the intent of having some semblance of control like before (or having literal control in one episode). Unlike Discord’s chaos which plays a part in solving the problem, Starlight’s control is the problem. And while her motives can appear as reasonable or relating in its terribleness, you can’t deny that the ends add up from more evil means than Discord and this doesn’t make us root for her.

Now I see i<3kimpossiblealot’s stance on Discord clearly

But one might ask, “Monkey Network, you fool, that’s barely enough to label Starlight as the Nega-discord.” And you’re right, their actions aren’t the only thing that makes them extracted opposites. Their presence is also the key element; can’t have a character with only tell and no show. But, here’s where things get transparent: the sheer duality comes in progression of their appearances. People have said Starlight is typically stapled to the episode to have somebody to consider a main character, and they’re right. Unlike Discord, who not only stands out effortlessly but makes his presence known immediately, Starlight comes in and out like a neighbor next door. Her personality is generally static, so it doesn’t feel hard replacing her with Spike or any average character. It reminds me of this other show, Mob Psycho 100, where the main character’s entire point is to be one within a mob even when he is a psychically powerful person, hence his nickname “Mob”. However, his overall character arc is not trying to stand out among the crowd with said power, but enjoy being around one with his increasing circle of friends with or without. That’s what Discord’s character arc is all about, an all powerful chaotic god having a touch more humanity in him and having a sense of belonging with his former adversaries and the world in general. Starlight wants to be more than a past villain, she wants to learn about friendship, however vague that is, but in return nothing makes her stand out beyond baggage, strong magic, and kites. Yeah, she makes friends with Maud, Thorax(?), Trixie, and NEET boy, but it doesn’t affect her place in the canon in any way. They’re the ones having their character built more, not Starlight’s. She’s the peasant among well tuned kings.

And let us be real, she hasn’t made any sort of mark no matter how hard she’s tried and actually succeeded

And as a final blow, it gets pretty meta when you see that Discord getting less actual screen time in the 4 seasons he was around makes him a better character than the 2 Starlight got. Hell, even if you switch Discord and Starlight’s histories, the former has much more charm and likability that his fuck ups wouldn’t make you hate him as much as you would Glimmer. So with all the effort put into Starlight for two years, she got the worst improvement: the kind begging for your attention. The kind that says that you could change only to be continuously overshadowed by your more precise equal.

Now you can see why Discord was the push behind Celestial Advice’s existing plot

We basically got not only a character that’s string compared to the likes of Sunset Shimmer but the same character twice with Discord’s primary presence. And with all that said, what can we do with her? Well, nothing really. She’s so deep in this rabbit hole that it’s too soon to just write her out and too late to say she’s deserved to die. That’s the sad thing about her. Her development existed outside everyone else’s, so we’re literally seeing a bubbled vision of how this fool of a villain tries to redeem herself, practically by herself, with the only sense of keeping afloat is the fear of failure and utter isolation. The lacking discipline, the uncoordinated freedom of doing what you want however you so please, culminating in a tragic state of stagnancy and unintentional detriment.

No wonder people tend to relate to her

So consider it a slow, deflating tragedy, where her presence ironically gets cast into a boundary of isolation with every passing episode. Watch her slowly fall deeper into the background of your mind, and with every scream for acknowledgement, you slowly grow blissful to the white noise, walking by every excuse for her existence only to then look back in the end and say, “You know, she could’ve been made worse.” That might not seem clear, but it’s certainly happening.

She’s basically the new Star Wars series: a polarizing, ambiguous, yet overall mishandled present on your doorstep that will be shelved and forgotten in favor of the original product not long after

Truth be told, I can’t hate Starlight anymore; I’ve certainly grown tolerant enough for her to be a supportive background character with a nice voice. It’s like stomping a roach, you can feel disgusted, scared, annoyed, angry, but after all that, after a while, the emotions mellow enough and the motivation for continuing the scrutiny burns out. And with this, if you are able to find Starlight to be compelling character, that is okay; make lemonade out of lemons. But like staining cashmere, we mustn’t say propelling judgement on her is wrong when the writers have clearly tried to say otherwise to no real avail. All in all, she’s a dead end and you can either enjoy the end with her or turn back around and move on. Whether she truly develops or falters later, there’s no harm in enveloping her with your time. Or you could just be a villain and fucking kill her off.

And as I will never get tired of this gif, I’m Roy Macintosh, and that’s all I got

#starlight glimmer #mlp discord #sunset shimmer #mlp #my little pony #cartoons #analysis #characters #characterization #villains #long post #Good Stuff #reviews #Roy Macintosh #mp100

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transdonaldduck · 7 years ago

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The Witness (1/1(?))

Fandom: Darkwing Duck (focus on an OC) Pairings: Gen Characters: Wade Whittaker (OC-centric), Fearsome Five, Darkwing Duck, Gosalyn Mallard, Launchpad McQuack Summary: Wade Whittaker, an insomniac, is at the wrong place at the wrong time and ends up being chased by some of the most ferocious villains in St. Canard.

Wade Whittaker liked to think of himself as a work in progress. The rest of his family, however, like to think of him as ‘unemployed’ or ‘a deadbeat’ but Wade tended to ignore calls from his mom so he really didn’t get that as much anymore. He made enough picking up odd jobs to live in an old rundown apartment off of Charleston street, a stone’s throw away from the cemetery and a fifteen minute walk from the nearest Hamburger Hippo. The walls were a little discolored and the heater often broke intermittently during the winter but it was home, and Wade found that the landlord was a bit more lenient on rent deadlines when he could afford to be.

The reason he often lost jobs was because of his clumsiness, and his rampant and untamable insomnia that left him wide awake at night but uselessly exhausted during the day. He’d picked up night jobs before (he tended to, well, Not excell per say, but do marginally okay) like groundskeeping at the cemetery or working the cash register at 24 hour convenience store. He’d managed to work the convenience store for almost a year before his boss had cut hours to save money- making him half time instead of full time and costing him half his paycheck.

Having worked nightly for a year, coupled with his chronic insomnia- well, it meant it was 2 am and Wade was awake and restless. He often shrugged on his hoodie, grabbed his glasses, and took a leisurely stroll around town. Though recently Wade had been… unable to leave his apartment. Not in the sense that he was trapped, but in the sense that he was cornered.

“Wade, Wade, Wade,” He groaned, flopping back on his squeaky mattress and staring blearily up at the ceiling, “How do you get yourself into these situations?”

The situation being the fact that Negaduck, St. Canards number one bad guy, had it out for him personally. You see, his insomnia often drove him out at random, unlucky times of the night. He’d seen a lot of things in his time in the city- including walking in on crimes in progress. He’d barely managed to stay under the radar for this long thanks to the terror that flaps in the night, who usually managed to command all the villains attention leaving Wade time to escape the way he’d come and live to walk in on another crime the next night. Recently, however, he’d been the unwitting witness to the fearsome fives most recent meeting- one where they discussed plans for their upcoming nefarious plot.

They’d broken into Adam’s Jewelers on First Street. Wade knew Stacy, the owner. They’d gone to college together until he had dropped out in sophomore year, but she was still a good… acquaintance? And he sometimes dropped in to catch up. He’d been on another late night walk when he passed her shop, only stopping because the lights were on. He knew she usually closed early, but figured she might have extended store hours to work on the upcoming shipment of precious stones she had told him about last time they spoke. Deciding to offer a hello and an offer to grab her some coffee, Wade had ducked in the unlocked door and walked inside.

He’d made his way behind the counter, intending on opening the back door and peeking inside when the door opened and Negaduck himself stepped out. He had a sack thrown over his shoulder and he was walking backward, facing the rest of the villains in his squad and talking to them.

“Our next move is to isolate him from his sidekick, it won’t be hard if he thinks it’s a routine bank robbery.” He explains, and Wade wishes he had the superpower to turn invisible because that would be extremely helpful at this point- but the other four have already taken notice of him, and it’s looked like he was about to be toast.

Negaduck, having noticed his lackeys eyes looking past him, spun around to face whoever they were looking at. Wade was sure he didn’t look intimidating other than being about half a foot taller than Nega. He was currently shaking like a leaf and inching towards the exit.

“How much did you hear?” Was the first thing out of the supervillains mouth, eyes narrowing to slits before he shook his head, “It doesn’t matter, I’ll kill you anyway.” He turned his head to the side, “Fearsome Five- get him.”

Megavolt, the one directly behind him, is the first one to step forward. An arc of electricity trails after his hand as he raises it, and with a simple flick of his wrist lightning explodes out of his palm and Wade decides that getting fried by raw electricity is maybe not on the top of his to do list. He throws himself sideways over the counter, catching his hip hard on the glass case but skillfully avoiding the death ray. He doesn’t manage to catch his balance quick enough to land on his feet but does transition it into a tight roll. He takes a moment to catch his breath as the electricity strikes the cash register he had been standing in front of and turned it into a ball of flame and metal shrapnel.

About two years ago when Parkour had been at it’s height, Wade had attempted to get into the sport. He’d gone to a few of the free classes some passionate free-runner named Leaf had hosted at the park, but after the third meeting where he scraped his knee and cried for fifteen minutes he hadn’t made another appearance- tho he appreciates what little he did know, as the fall could have been much worse if not for how he’d learned to recover from it.

The explosion triggered the store alarms to go off, and the Fearsome Five seemed to panic- They scattered, but Negaduck rounded the edge of the counter after Wade, not intending to let him go with what important information he had eavesdropped on. Wade scrambled to his feet, running out the door and taking a hard left. Never in his entire life would he have ever imagined that he would be personally pursued by a supervillain, and he was almost tempted to stop and pinch himself to see if he were just dreaming- but he wasn’t, the aching pain in his hip was enough proof of that, so he kept moving.

One pro to restlessly prowling the streets was that you learned a few things, tips and tricks, and which alleyways led where- So wade began cutting around bends, climbing up and over trashcans, sliding through holes in fences, and taking shortcuts between cars to put as much distance between him and his pursuer. He kept up this random and confusing trail until he reached his apartment building, reasonably sure he’d lost him, and darting up to his apartment, slamming and locking the door behind him.

It was only then, in the safety of his dark apartment that he’d relaxed enough to start feeling his injuries he’d gotten while on the run. He didn’t dare flip on his livingroom light, too afraid his window would give away his location, and popped into his bathroom to clean up. Where he’d caught his hip at the jewelry store, a huge bruise was starting to form. He’s fallen several times, scraping his hands and knees up on asphalt and concrete. His nerves were on high alert and the pain seemed distant even now, he felt fine. Well, as fine as one could be after unwittingly stumbling upon five dangerous criminals and now, subsequently, being on their hitlist.

That had been two days ago, and Wade hadn’t left his apartment since. He couldn’t risk getting caught by any of those after him. He was a nervous wreck, any groan of the pipes or creak of the old building made him jump out of his skin. He was constantly on high vigilance, and it was taking a toll. He’d just been an insomniac before, now he could add anxious and paranoid to that mix. He hadn’t been able to sleep a wink.

He watches the sun rise on another sleepless night. The curtains are only open a crack, and a thin stripe of sunlight cuts across his dingy carpet. He needed to get help. It was an option he’d considered, but at first he wasn’t sure how he’d find Darkwing Duck at night faster than the Fearsome Five would find him, but maybe he didn’t need to find Darkwing Duck…

He stands up, pulls his long hair back into a semi-respectable bun, and grabs his keys. Daytime didn’t mean he was safe, but if he stuck to the more well-populated streets and kept his head down he hopefully wouldn’t attract too much attention. This would be a long trip, he lived in the heart of the city, but it would be worth it for some help.

He’d run into quite a few characters on his trek, but the last door he’d knocked on had actually been of some help. Herb Muddlefoot and his wife Binkie were… an experience, to say the least. Not bad per say, but certainly overwhelming, and willing to share happily with a complete stranger. They’d basically dragged him inside for pie and a chat, talking about their two young sons and their neighborhood. They’d made him take a slice “for the road” despite his destination being a the house next door.

It was a quaint little home, nothing special. Two stories, yellow, typical in every way. Wade knocked three times on the door, waiting as patiently as he could with the saran-wrapped pie in one hand. He hears a crash, a muffled shout, and then the door swung open.

“I already told you Herb-” The Duck at the door starts to snap, but the words die on his tongue and he blinks owlishly at Wade, obviously expecting someone else. Behind him are two kids, one with a mop of vibrant orange hair pulled back into pigtails and another in thick glasses. The girl was holding a hockey stick and looking sheepish mixed with curious as she strained to get a good look at the visitor on her doorstep. Gosalyn mallard, if Wade’s memory proved correct- she’d been in the paper with Darwing Duck Once or twice.

Sticking his head out of the kitchen, Launchpad McQuack quirked a brow, “Who’s at the door?” He asked, and Wade recognized him instantly as Darkwings sidekick.

“I don’t know,” The duck in front of him frowned, “Are you new to the neighborhood?”

Wade almost laughed. What a mundane question. “Uh- no, no.” He stuck out his free hand, “My name is Wade Whittaker.”

“Drake Mallard,” He introduces, automatically shaking his hand.

Wade let’s go, casting a glance over his shoulder, “I’m pretty sure I haven’t been followed- but the reason I came here is because I need your help.”

Drake’s face turns serious and he nods automatically, “Of course, what can I-” he stops short, as if just remembering something, “I mean, why do you need my help?”

Frowning, Wade blinked at him, “You’re Darkwing Duck.” He say simply, a statement of fact.

The entire household looks like they’ve just been slapped, and Wade hopes they’ll invite him inside since he feels a little exposed out here.

#darkwing duck #darkwing duck oc #drake mallard #negaduck #wade whittaker #my post #my writing

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perfectackeracy · 7 years ago

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Shingeki no Kyojin chapter 96 review (+ theories)

On with the pain train!

By pain train I mean Reiner’s life is filled with nothing but hard decisions where he has nothing to lose. The chapter as a whole covers the timeline from aftermath of Marcel’s death to the titan trio’s enrolling in the military and while that chapter was poignant, it was unfortunately the beginning of the descent to hell.

I suspect we’re going for a long series of flashbacks aiming to answers some plot holes here and there while answering questions in Marley in the past. Or at least that we’ll alternate between present time and the flashbacks. Everything is slowly starting to make sense at that point. Why didn’t anybody retrieve Ymir or why the warriors didn’t rush straight to the gates and a very important point, where Annie was by the time Reiner and Bertolt broke the gates.

The content, I think, is a bit less expanded than the content from the previous chapter, but some character finally got some spotlight after a huge lack of focus.

Follow me under the cut. Thanks to @kaschy for the scans!

The aftermath

The fall of Wall Maria

The settlements’ period

What now?

The aftermath

Why Marcel’s power wasn’t retrieved - Ch. 96

The opening of the chapter was one of the most uncomfortable I had to read. Before Marcel got eaten, the first night went under no big problem. Reiner was spouting Marlean propaganda as usual, Marcel made him a breaking revelation before saving Reiner from Ymir’s grip the next morning.

That’s exactly where I’m starting to feel bad: Reiner’s childhood dream of a nuclear family was already reduced to shreds, the propaganda nobody believed had all he had, and to sugarcoat the whole situation, as Reiner realized was never meant to be chosen, Marcel died saving him.

When he realized that, he was completely devastated, before being kicked by Annie. While Reiner scores lower than his peers in terms of aptitudes, he has a good potential for survival (ahem... chapter 77). The chapter also confirms titans are drawn like magnets to the walls.

We finally know why nobody did anything for Ymir at the moment: Reiner was running away, completely broken by the series of events, Bertolt was following him and tried to stop him and Annie... didn’t do anything because her companions ran away.

We also got the explanation about why nobody went for Ymir during the day, when she regained conscience at night. Just as Annie suggested the three of them went back, Reiner stopped her and Bertolt, thinking about his mother, not wanting to disappoint her as a mere failure.

Reiner reaching for Bertolt and Annie - Ch. 96

Reiner argued back against that course of action, saying failure equals death, including of course, the three of them. That was the part of the manga where Annie was acting rather cold towards Reiner, looking like she’s deadset in not accepting any objections: “Not that you losing the armor makes any difference to me”. Oh and another interesting fact: Bertolt was capable of mastering the Colossus, the famous god of destruction right away, which implies Bertolt is indeed very skillful.

Showing further Annie was ready not to listen to a single word to Reiner, she implies Reiner was threatening her. Considering she won’t see the point of Reiner’s suggestion about continuing the mission and how he used that trick against Porco in the past, it makes sense.

Then this happens...

Annie beats Reiner up - Ch. 96

And this isn’t a simple beat up between kids: what Annie is ding to Reiner is rather deadly. If Reiner wasn’t a shifter, the bruises would’ve been permanent. As she and her decisions were feeling threatened, she shuts Reiner up by kicking him repeatedly in the head, breaking his jaw and a set of teeth.

Annie shows her true colors since she set foot on that island. Screw the ideologies, she wants to save her own skin and return to her father. Her lines are very poignant considering how Reiner wants to be glorified as a hero, so her mother, but also the others, would recognize him. When Annie gives him a piece of her mind, it’s all coming back right in his face.

Add the death wish and you’ve got a broken Reiner.

So broken, in fact, he’s willing to renounce his identity and role to fit into Marcel’s shoes, so they could continue the mission.

Reiner’s “death” - Ch. 96

That was the most touching panel of the chapter. Reiner was beaten, his childhood ambitions shattered while the shards were pissed on, but he’s still going up. He has to and they can’t go back, even at the cost of his own mind.

It was the first hint of bad tension between the trio that would later resurface after the Marco’s incident. Annie eventually gave up and went along with Reiner’s decision, because in the end, no matter how rough her attitude is, she’s just one of those girls going along with the flow.

Resistance is futile - Ch. 96

The other shocking part was just Bertolt doing nothing when the two started to fight. Instead he just froze when Annie kicked his face over and over again. And when Reiner damaged himself mentally even further, the tears began flowing on his face, completely unable to stand his face’s pain.

Bertolt begging Reiner to stop - Ch. 96

The fall of Wall Maria

That day... - Ch. 96

We’re finally getting a point of view of the warriors’ invasion of Wall Maria and finally a clear point of view of Annie’s involvement.

To my surprise it looks like it’s completely unrelated to the very first SC assault we’ve seen in the manga. The Survey Corps were already inside by the time Annie called that mass of titans. Also the Garrison was apparently slacking because that titan activity surprised nobody. That or they had too much faith in the walls.

In any case, the strategy was already elaborated before entering Marley: Annie gathers the titans, Marcel runs away from them by the time they reach the walls, Bertolt breaks the front gate, Reiner breaks the inner gate. Considering Marcel was missing, the plan was difficult to carry, but it eventually succeeded.

That was close though - Ch. 96

Very very close.

Dina facing Bertolt - Ch. 96

I gotta mention Dina’s behavior though, because there’s definitely a mechanism working behind abnormal titans. No idea if it’s due to a strong will post injection, but she didn’t eat Bertolt, whereas she was chompy-happy with Carla and Grisha. She was also the first titan to enter the walls. I suspect she was mind whiffing Grisha and traced his path. There’s indeed a main reason why she targeted the Yeager house and unconsciously ate anybody trying to get in the way between her and Grisha -or rather Eren-.

Same explanation connecting her and the cult girl kneeling in front of Illse because she looked like Ymir.

Oh and let’s talk about Bertolt’s reaction, because his feelings about kicking a huge wall pondered our brains for a while.

Bertolt facing Wall Maria - Ch. 96

His reaction is interesting. He was prepared before when Marcel told him he couldn’t go back, and they had to murder a bunch of people. In this situation, they’re short on time, and I was distracted by Reiner’s inner thoughts to pay closer attention. Despite Reiner announcing the plan, Bertolt didn’t know whether he could destroy it. Turns out removing the front gate was a piece of cake.

Bertolt is one of these guys who don’t really trust their abilities but can accomplish miracles with it.

Meanwhile Reiner, just as he broke the front gate, recalled all the misery that happened just before he left. What was an ambition has became an obligation. The more I read it, the more I feel like Reiner’s shackled to that purpose when he left.

“I wanted to become a warrior... because I thought it’d grant my mother’s wish and let us live together with my father. But... I never had a father who felt the same way. My mother was always dreaming of something... that would never come true. I wasn’t ever supposed to become a warrior, and I wasn’t supposed to survive past today... Why did he apologize...? Why did he save someone like me...? No- I don’t wan’t this to end here...“ - Ch. 96

Reiner also feels he must repay Marcel’s sacrifice somehow, and not plunge her mother into deception either. Yet nobody is really forcing him to do these things. When he failed the mission 5 years later and was the sole survivor, Marley gave him an ultimatum. Was pushing the mission that far really necessary?

In the end, what brought the warrior trio together was more the obligation to go back full-handed. After all, they’re all alone, surrounded by enemies from all sides, without adult supervision, which led to fucked up mentalities before they even sign up for Paradis’ army.

The warrior trio hugging it out - Ch. 96

Never going back, always moving forward.

The settlements’ period

Reiner opts for going into the army - Ch. 96

A less agitated period starts for our warriors. We’re starting this section with the famous story Bertolt told Eren and Armin. And not just an approximate version. Bertolt retained the story heart by heart. Obviously, something must’ve triggered him enough to carve it in his mind.

The hanged man - Ch. 96

Must be tied to his suicide and the fact he was the sole survivor of his village, thus lonely. Jesus Bert, you are so cute yet so sinister.

People are arguing whether Reiner, Bertolt and Annie actually orchestrated his death so they can take the papers, later discovered by Hange. It helps that nobody else knows this settlement. Considering the mental state of this man, suicide is still a viable option. Yet the “three kids the age of RBA” part was a bit too convenient. At that point it would be easy to make this man’s death look like a suicide.

In the meantime, only Annie went inside the capital, because only women were allowed there. That’s how they learned who the nobles were and that they were indeed not descendants of Ymir, even though that part was obvious. They tend to preserve their status as nobles unlike “slave blood” as stated by the mayor of Stohess. Annie also offers up probably the most light-hearted moment of the chapter.

Prostitution jokes - Ch. 96

Women being only allowed lead up to grim implications, leading Annie to joke about it. And of course Bertolt is completely oblivious to the joke.

Aww don’t say that Annie, I find you pretty cute! Not as cute as Historia...

Ok almost.

Since Reiner can’t count forever on passing Annie to the capital, theor only option is to join the MP and getting close to the King. We also learn that the Tybur family detains the records from the current situation in Paradis. And who got another detail of the vow?

Eren Kruger.

I feel somehow we’re going to have yet another flashback of Kruger’s encounter with the Tybur patriarch somehow. Did they doubt Kruger was an infiltrated revolutionary who detained the Attack Titan? Can Eren reach the Tybur family using Kruger’s memories?

The explanation as to why the warriors haven’t destroyed the walls is because they fear the cry of the Coordinate. Too bad they were unaware of who detained it, which would have advanced things. Especially when their goal was, two years ago...

Right behind them - Ch. 96

Reiner started to regain a purpose in the course of these two years, as he uprooted a dead tree. A symbolism of him renewing himself as he joined the army and as he realized how terrifying the cry can be, shall the king direct an attack on the world.

Reiner’s purpose - Ch. 96

This poetic line has a double-entendre. It serves the initial cause Reiner fought for while serving as a perfect cover for a devoted soldier. “Saving Humanity” in this case means preventing a bunch of coordinated wall titans to stomp on the world. When Keith hears that, he automatically assumes it’s for a world where the titan menace is exterminated. The danger, unfortunately, could cause Reiner to lose himself in the image of the brave soldier protecting the walls. Considering he has adopted Marcel’s traits by now, the temptation to fall in that big brother image with all these weak people looking for someone reliable is way too big. Next chapter might focus on him struggling between the adoration and his main goal.

What now?

We still have to cover events in the present time, as enunciated in the previous reviews: the Tybur festival, the amputee, the Leonharts and the Hoovers, etc...

That chapter however, brought fleshing on the trio and filled some plot holes from previous chapters. As such, I wish for the flashbacks to continue and bring further detail about a couple of things:

Why was Reiner’s spinal fluid in Rod’s bag?

Why were the cult roaming near the trainee grounds? Did they trade Reiner’s serum for information?

Why weren’t they ticked off at their classmate named Ymir?

Why planning Trost just before affectation day?

Was Annie’s separation from Reiner and Bertolt quite harsh?

What happened during the time where Reiner, Bertolt and Ymir were wandering? Did the three of them return to Marley or was it only Ymir for her execution?

Same question for Zeke: while the walls were having a revolution party and a chicken titan on the loose, did he spend 3 months camping with Pieck eating marshmallows?

Why sending Zeke five years later (and Pieck at the same time)?

How did Zeke communicate his spinal fluid to Ragako’s inhabitants?

Was Reiner eventually led to a trial after he finally came back alone?

Every time we spend a chapter under Marley’s point of view, I’m loving this story even more. I wonder how this arc is going to end, but it’s bound to be one of my favorites.

#reiner braun #annie leonhart #bertolt hoover #snk 96 #snk spoilers #dina fritz #snk #attack on titan #snk meta #snk theories #meta #theories #reiner #bertolt #annie #dina #marcel galliard #marcel

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ramajmedia · 5 years ago

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Alien: 10 Questions We Still Want Answered | ScreenRant

Even decades after its release, Alien holds up as one of the greatest science fiction and horror films of all time. This Ridley Scott classic was a game changer that began a franchise of films that still continues on today. This tightly written and filmed movie knows just how to build up all of the suspense and create the most terrifying mystery that most people could imagine, which results in one of the most memorable movie twists of all time.

RELATED: 5 Things Alien Did Better Than Aliens (& 5 Things Aliens Did Better)

Alien is definitely mysterious, intentionally so. It certainly builds up the suspense and fear factor, and obviously it's more convenient for the writers to have to explain as little as possible to the audience. While the thrills are fantastic, we still want the answers too! Of course, there are some questions that are better left unanswered, but here are 10 questions about Alien that we still definitely do want to be answered.

10 Why Didn't Kane Notice Anything Prior?

Okay, clearly, being attacked by an alien that clutches on to your face for hours before suddenly releasing you isn't a very typical experience, even for these seasoned astronauts. However, Kane wakes up and is eating his dinner with the rest of the crew just before the alien bursts from his chest, and somehow he doesn't seem to be feeling that strange beforehand?

Yes, he's visibly sick, but if an organism of that size was growing inside of you and about to break free, wouldn't you feel something? It's like a nightmarish version of I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant.

9 Why Didn't Anyone Listen To Ripley?

It's obviously one of the most standard horror movie conventions: one of the characters always warns against a certain course of action, no-one listens, and chaos and death ensues. It's entirely understandable that the crew wasn't willing to let Kane just suffer under some foreign alien attack without doing anything.

They've all been trained in the protocols, though, and Ripley initially refuses to let the others come back into the ship because the organism could contaminate the entire craft. Granted, no-one could have known how bad things were going to get, but there are rules for a reason, people!

8 What Were Those Other Aliens?

Of course, whenever anyone thinks of Alien, they think of the alien life forms that cause all of the chaos and destruction for the crew of the Nostromo, the aliens commonly referred to as the facehugger and the more mature xenomorph.

RELATED: Ridley Scott's 10 Best Movies, According To Rotten Tomatoes

However, when the Nostromo first lands their craft they find another spacecraft and the desiccated remains of some kind of other alien. It's unclear what it is or where it came from, but it's very clearly not human and it's safe to assume that it was also killed by the aliens that go on to destroy most of the crew of the Nostromo.

7 How Did The Alien Get Where It Was?

The titular alien of Alien is a creature that is shrouded in a lot of mystery, but there are some questions about it that just need to be answered. For instance, how did it even get to this abandoned place? It's not something that is capable of space travel, but this barren wasteland obviously doesn't hold any other life forms, so how did the xenomorph wind up there in the first place?

The mystery behind the how, what, or why definitely makes Alien an even more terrifying movie, but it's a bit difficult to swallow the fact that the alien was just here in this abandoned place indefinitely.

6 How Did The Facehugger Penetrate The Space Suit?

Even a team of astronauts and scientists can't seem to detach a facehugger from its host (at least not without harming said host), so it's safe to assume that these tiny demonic scorpions are impressively strong.

RELATED: 10 Best Movie Aliens, Ranked

However, how strong would they have to be to bust through a space suit that was presumably designed to endure the most extreme conditions that a human being can be subjected to? Beyond that, how exactly can the facehugger snap through a shield of glass without being cut or injured in some way? Yes, they must be hardy organisms, but they're still living things.

5 Why Does It Require A Host Body?

There are plenty of parasitic organisms that do require host bodies to survive and flourish, but the fact that the aliens require a host body in order to incubate isn't really explained at all in the film. While it's not too far of a stretch to imagine that the aliens need a nice environment in order to hatch, it's kind of confounding when you consider where the Nostromo finds the alien eggs initially.

The place that the aliens are inhabiting is an incredibly hostile environment, so it's a little strange that they can't be born in equally hostile conditions.

4 How Does Anything Living Have Acidic Blood?

One of the greatest successes of Alien as a film is how unreal everything about the aliens really is. They're creatures unlike anything a normal human has ever seen, and they're strong enough to do some real damage even to the most prepared person.

RELATED: Alien: 10 Facts You Didn’t Know About The Xenomorph

One element of the creature that is obviously terrifying is the fact that it's blood is acidic. However, when you get past the initial shock of that revelation, it's really a puzzling aspect of the film. Yes, they're aliens, but at their most basic they're still a living organism made of organic material, so having blood that can eat through steel but somehow doesn't erode flesh is inexplicable.

3 How Did The Alien Survive The Ship's Atmosphere?

Once again, the xenomorph and its "adorable baby form" the facehugger may just be organisms that are very highly evolved and capable of surviving in nearly any environment, but basic common sense would dictate that the aliens shouldn't have even been able to survive for very long within the ship.

We know that the planet that it's found on is a dangerously different atmosphere because none of the characters walk out there without space suits, so logic would dictate that the reverse would be true: anything that could live out there would have some serious trouble surviving inside the Nostromo.

2 How Did The Alien Survive, Period?

The aliens are obviously a pretty hardy species since they managed to survive in a barren wasteland for an undetermined amount of time, but presumably they still need something to survive besides air. Every living thing consumes something to sustain itself, and if the desiccated alien corpse is anything to go by, then it seems reasonable to assume nothing new has been there in a very long time.

The alien appears to be a predatory species, so one would assume that it's a carnivore, not an herbivore. It didn't look like there was anything else alive around it, certainly not enough to survive on, so how exactly did it survive?

1 Why Was There Only One?

Although we only see one fully-grown xenomorph in Alien, there are facehuggers as well as what look like eggs on the planet that the Nostromo lands on that the crew explores. Why exactly is it that there is only one fully grown alien there?

Perhaps they're a solitary species, but the volume of eggs would indicate otherwise. Perhaps there were actually more fully grown aliens on the strange planet, but only one of them wound up on the ship in the end. Once again, though, that begs the question: why did only one decide to board the ship?

NEXT: Alien: The 10 Scariest Moments, Ranked

source https://screenrant.com/alien-movie-questions-plot-holes-mysteries/

#screenrant

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ruleandruinrpg · 8 years ago

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CONGRATULATIONS, NINA!

You have been accepted for the role of IRA SOROKIN. Admin Em: We’d received FANTASTIC, beautifully written applications for Ira and I had the worst time trying to make up my mind - but Nina, it was your headcanons that ultimately swayed me. You fleshed out areas not elaborated on in the bio to create a complete, vibrant portrait of a wolf of a girl - I especially loved how the tale of Ilya Muromets inspired her original name, and her goal to prove Durasts are as much warriors as any of the other Grisha, the invention of a weapon that was most effective in the hands of her fellow Durasts a clever accompaniment. ‘She decided that, if the birth of greatness wasn’t her natural calling, the death of it could be just as useful.’ What a beautifully succinct line that perfectly captures her adaptability. Thank you, so much for your beautiful application and welcome to R&R! You have 24 HOURS to send in your account. Also, remember to look at the CHECKLIST. Welcome to Ravka!

OUT OF CHARACTER

ALIAS: Hey there! I’m Nina.

PREFERRED PRONOUNS: She/her.

AGE: I’m 21 yo.

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL: I’m currently finishing undergrad school, and that’s pretty much all I’m focusing my time on rn. So, I’ll be checking the dash every day and plotting/answering to threads every time I can get to my computer. I would be a solid 7 out of 10, I think.

CURRENT/PAST ACCOUNTS: -

IN CHARACTER

DESIRED CHARACTER: Ira Sorokin.

WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER?

My first option when I found this rp was Valerian Petrov, as it was the first one I wrote for, but upon reading the other characters, Ira was the one who stood up. I love how wild and master of her own fate she is. And also how her savagery gives me so much ground to work with. She has this infinite possibilities look that pretty much made me choose her.

WHAT FUTURE PLOT IDEAS DID YOU HAVE IN MIND?

Warriors.

The order of Fabrikators isn’t usually acquainted with combat skills, since their work’s focus lies elsewhere. But Ira doesn’t believe that her work and training are enough to keep her afloat, and to be adrift was never the position she favored in life. The Durast believes she, as any soldier, should be able to fight not only with her claws or the will of every metal on a battlefield, but with everything she had. Therefor, Ira decided to seek a partner who could train her on combat during nights and hidden from curious eyes. This is the person she chose to teach her, to destroy every bit of her confidence and rebuild her into something new, stronger. But this is also the one who knows her secret: Ira Sorokin doesn’t like to feel vulnerable, and if she felt it was necessary to trust another being to give her the skills she needed to survive, she would. One can only hope her trust isn’t misleading her.

Both a friendship plot or a manipulative one would work here. It all depends on who takes this on. I would like to see both happening, so there’s that.

Honesty versus Refinement.

When standing side by side with Fyodor Drugov, something rather curious seems to happen. The contrast between them only bring them closer. At the same time Ira presents herself as something wilder, savagery in its true form, to be with Fyodor is to belong. They’re her kind. Undoubtedly. And it urges her even closer to see how refinement suits a beast so well, when she spent a lifetime believing there was no such monster. Ira knows Fyodor is intimately acquainted with the limits of a cage, and she can see in their eyes how they loathes it too. This could be the birth of a true alliance, or the death of her. She isn’t quite sure. But Ira isn’t quite searching for an answer just yet.

The best opportunity to do all sorts of things is right here. Those two have lots of potential and I can’t help but wonder what we can do with that.

The leash.

A wild thing does not wear a leash. But time after time, Ira seems to find herself in the end of one. First, it was her parents and the dead weight they had become in her life. Then, came hunger and its way of driving her to the edge, towards an abyss that stole years of her life; – those she spent in the Sorokin household. Now, it seems the Darkling holds the end of her leash and Ira is growing anxious about holding it herself. She knows this was her choice, and she’s also aware that going against the Darkling’s domain is a step taken towards death, but a wild thing can’t help but feel claustrophobic in a cage. For how long can she keep her claws to herself, then?

Discussing if the Darkling would bother to make her respect him enough to ignore the leash, or if she is as insignificant as the Darkling keeping indifferent towards her, would be very nice. Depending on what he sees fit, Ira’s inclination to once again fight for her freedom would either settle down or grow into another war inside her. Treason or loyalty? That seems to be the question.

Angel of small death.

To lay such a violent devotion upon a fragile thing is to choose a doomed fate, but Ira had no choice. She only knows love as a violent act against the world, and when her heart found something in desperate need of nurturing in Stasya Belov, she forced her claws to be as gentle as she knew how, just to see the other’s wall building up faster than she could possibly understand how. This was rather ironic, if looked closer. The beast who knew no human trait finding the urge to devote all her love to a human who wanted no part in it. At least, this was what Ira perceived. Both the need and the walls separating them, Ira never had the courage to ask. To come closer.

Since this is a one-side connection, it would be very interesting to see Stasya’s side of it. If Ira is imagining it all, or it Stasya indeed had no interest in Ira’s devotion.

Humor me.

If there’s one thing Ira indulges herself in, is the liberty of instinct. She loves how it fits her so well, and how in control she seems when her inner beast manipulates her way through life. The very materialized form of this, is her relation with one certain Druvik Jadeja. Had she spared a moment of consciousness to consider the matter, Ira might have had the idea of how cruel that dance must’ve been to the other, but truth to be told, she neither cared to be moral nor did she have the interest to hide her cruelty. Ira loves to make Druvik dance for her like a monkey to whom she taught some very nice tricks. Manipulation is an art she began to understand through him, and one she would be very disappointed to lose in case of Druvik getting tired of their game.

Here, I would very much like to see what Druvik’s player thinks. Either see him falling deeper and deeper into her game, and wait for Ira to grow tired of how easy it has become to her, or see him revolting against her and allowing another kind of fun to present itself to Ira: the one in which she finds herself between his struggle to get rid of her cruel game and her urge to be so very violent about it all.

WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO HAVE YOUR CHARACTER DIE?: I believe so, yes! As long as it makes sense to her story, I believe it would be quite the final touch.

IN DEPTH

IN CHARACTER PARA SAMPLE(S):

BEFORE

The taste of blood in her mouth was a rather pleasing one when the girl opened the door to the Sorokin’s Household. It meant freedom in such a twisted way, that Bo grew fond of provoking the children in the streets of Ketterdam just to get into a fight and come home bleeding all over the Sorokin’s things. Every time they sent her to do errands around the city, her way of protest came with bloodstained packages and a face so bruised, the mistress wouldn’t want her in the house.

It was easier to spend hours in her master’s workshop, playing with metals as she pleased, than to spend countless hours pinning the mistress’ hair, feeding her false words and listening to her disgusting compliments in between threats. And once the woman saw the face of her child slave, what Bo had predicted unfolded right in front of her.

“This is unacceptable, child!” the woman yelled at her, “I do not wish to see your ugly face inside the house”, and against her scum, Bo hid a smile as she looked down and left the room. The pain that came with all those bruises was never so great as the one of serfdom. The girl wasn’t born to live in a cage. Wild things belonged somewhere else. But the Sorokin seemed blind to such a small and meaningful truth. It was rather convenient to keep her at an arm length. And so they did.

Every day she was moved as the masters pleased. Obeying every word in order to feed, to be kept warm and to have a bed at night. More frequently than not, the girl missed the soft brush of leaves against her skin, and the smell of freedom surrounding her. Those were days of happiness, – the ones spent in the wilderness of Ketterdam’s outskirts. She had no family, no master and no mistress to pin her down. Bo was free.

Shame that hunger brought her to a gun point. Now she knew this world wasn’t her place of right. She was told just how much otherworldly and beast-like she was at every bullet she escaped by the will of her mind. “Grisha”, the man had called her, and Grisha she became in the hands of her master.

That man only knew how to take advantage of Bo’s abilities, and though she despised every inch of him, this was a lesson the girl soon learned upon living with the Sorokin. If Bo wanted something, she had to take it from whoever had it. If she wanted to be left alone in the master’s workshop, she had to be beaten up badly by the lost children of Ketterdam and return home with barely no dignity.

But the girl knew, deep down, that this lesson would thrive into something greater. Time was all she needed. For as she manipulated steel into the form she well pleased, unnerved by the bars in her cage, Bo planned the future days of freedom. Those who waited for her in the end of that piece she was working one: a blade. The instrument to buy her way out of this hole.

INBETWEEN

Tw: slavery, torture.

The sea crashed against the hull of the ship as the whip of a master against his slave’s bare skin. It had the cruelty of who feared nothing and respected no one but itself. And it reverberated on a certain Ira Sorokin who knew that reality far too intimately to not spare a minute of recognition when the structural entity of the ship was set in a fierce wave.

At this point, the men on board seemed to be so acquainted with the violence of the sea and how it reflected so perfectly on Ira’s eyes, that they settle themselves on not bothering the girl once she was balanced on the bowsprit at the end of every day of work. For this was the time she devoted to the past. The moment of every passing day on the sea where she would close her eyes and feel the wind upon her face. Where she would poise herself as the daughter of feral things and travel back to the world of a girl whose name was now lost. “Bo Murometz”, she would whisper to herself and into the wilderness. In an attempt to hold on to that piece, to keep herself from forgetting.

She wasn’t sure why it mattered so much, but the thought of letting go was rather a sharp one. It left disfigured cuts on its way and more often than not, bathed on her blood. Ira Sorokin could never let Bo Murometz fade away. It was a stupid name of a stupid girl, but it belonged to her. There wasn’t many things in her life that she could call her own. Freedom, Bo Murometz, the chance of a glorious future… these were the things Ira possessed, and to devote herself to those small details, was to hold on with all her violence, in all her cruelty.

With the traders as her witnesses, Ira became the sea of unwanted things, and with no one to care for them, she took upon herself to be their guardian. Every day she stopped at that same place, climbed the wooden structure towards the bowsprit, and let her mind wander. The men feared her, despite the prejudice of women bringing bad fortune on sea. And they admired her, far beyond the immaculate beauty of her face. They knew she was something else entirely. Not the woman who worked her way into that ship and woke up every morning to prove her value to the crew. Not the girl who seemed lost in those split seconds of solitude. But certainly the being whose claws were beast-like.

They knew better than to ask, though. And she was grateful for it. Her hands were still wet with her masters’ blood. Her tongue still poisonous with her mistress’ name on it. She wasn’t just about to spill it all out, nor did she cared to do so. They kept to themselves, and Ira did the same. For the day she would set her feet on Ravka’s shore, was the day she would not have the time to the past. This was her way to say goodbye. This was her way of, utterly, and reluctantly, let go.

AFTER

The sound of chains made of Grisha steel whipping the ground was like a thunder ready to bring down a fortress. Ira greeted that old force with the devotion of a lover.

This was the moment she waited for the entire day. The fall of night when she could escape the curious eyes and hide as far way from both palaces as she could, with nothing to accompany her but the chains around her torso and a handmade tobacco roll burning between her lips. And though the drug was the one erasing all the insignificant beings that crossed her way, the weapon was the one to calm her down.

With time, she grew fond of the grip of metal between her fingers, or the rush that using her power brought. Ira liked to watch the tsepi unfold and move like a snake by her feet under her command. She could see, there, how promising her order was, for her dreams of glory always came hand in hand with the Durasts being able to be something other than workshop’s rats. Within those walls was another cage, and Ira wasn’t just about to confine herself again.

So the woman raised the roll to her lips and breathed in the smoke of tobacco. Her dark eyes falling shut as she stopped and ordered the tsepi to wrap around her torso once more. She smiled fiercely. A part of Ira knew she wasn’t meant to be displaying her pride like a trophy, but the part born beast made her loose hair and untidy clothes fit naturally to the chains she summoned back to her body.

That moment, Ira Sorokin was made of warning, of danger. This was the girl who murdered the man and woman who dared to imprison her. This was the wild thing that survived in the forest for so long and with no help at all. And this was the sailor who bought respect from the traders that led her here.

Strange was the path of a monster such as Ira Sorokin. One she, herself, couldn’t understand. Yet, she managed to conquer a few great things. A brief moment of freedom. The liberty to be otherworldly amongst her equals. What would her mistress tell her now?

There was no blood staining her clothes, her ethereal beauty as intact as the real Ira Sorokin liked. But her mistress was long gone. She couldn’t see her child slave now, and that piece of satisfaction, that small accomplishment, made the beast thrive.

CHARACTER HEADCANONS:

x The lost child.

There’s a name whispered at night that Ira holds close to her heart and out of danger. It belongs to a girl who could barely remember her first years in this world, but who had known, with every inch of her soul, what her father had cried out in his vices and what her mother dared never to say. She believed it meant “wave” in her mother’s tongue, for she knew it was different from the one she learned in Ketterdam. It was an easy-to-remember name, a simple and sonorous one to Ira’s ear. It was Bo. Just this. No family name.

Until, there is, she wandered off and went to the outskirts of Ketterdam, where once, upon hearing voices between the trees, the girl found a father and a son traveling north. Hidden and far too curious about their ways, she heard a story about one Ilya Murometz, a bogatyr whose story started with “From the famous city of Murom, out of the village of Karacharovo, the valiant, doughty youth Ilya Muromets, the son of Ivan, set out far into the open fields…”.

She wasn’t sure what that word bogatyr meant, nor where those cities and villages were, but the girl was certain they were very much real, like Ilya himself. She learned how he spent his first 33 years of life on a stove, unable to move, as the consequence of a curse put on his grandfather, and how, upon the arrival of three religious men, the bogatyr found himself able to walk for the first time and became the owner of a super-human strength.

Enacting battles and great heroic moves, the strange traveler described how Ilya single-handedly defended the city of Chernigov from invasion and how he, afterwards, killed the forest-dwelling monster who murdered travelers with his powerful whistle. And with every victory, Bo celebrated as fiercely as she knew how. Ilya Murometz defeated bandits, three-headed flying serpents, possessed knights and even princes. A true bogatyr, a true hero.

When the night fade away and Bo lost the travelers in her sleep, she woke up the next morning to one decision: she was to be a monster slayer, a hero, just like Ilya. From that day on, she was to be called Bo Murometz. The girl who survived on her own and left on her path many victories.

This was the name Ira Sorokin kept a secret: the easy-to-remember word her useless parents gave her and the tale of glory she stole from a traveler in Ketterdam.

x The tsepi.

Ira isn’t as devoted to the creation of things as she’s to their destruction. For a Durast in the Second Army, who was supposed to tailor equipment and build ships and fortresses, then, it was a tough path to fit in. But as always, Ira managed a way. She decided that, if the birth of greatness wasn’t her natural calling, the death of it could be just as useful.

Upon settling her mind to the task, Ira excelled on designing weapons to fit every special need. In the beginning, it was a rather disappointing project, but Ira didn’t rest until she left the workshop with triumph between her fingers. She created something called the Tsepi, a weapon that could only be useful to very skilled hands or to the Durast, It consisted of a chain made of Grisha steel that could be wore as a defensive weapon upon attacks in hand-to-hand combat, as well as one that involved knives and objects alike. But also one that worked as a whip and followed every command of the people who controlled metal as she did.

And once tested and proven worthy of her every efforts, Ira decided to be the first to show that Durast were warriors as much as any other Grisha. She knew it wasn’t exactly the description of her kind’s endeavors, but she didn’t really mind. Ira wears her tsepi wrapped around her torso, beneath her kefta, as the most beautiful and priceless jewel, and dreams of the day it will be a success in the Second Army, because the Durast will be encouraged to leave the workshop if they wish to.

x The True Sea and the Shadow Fold.

On her way to Os Alta, Ira had two paths to choose from. One used the land bridge between Kerch and Shu Han to cross the True Sea and get to Ravka through the mountains that divided Shu Han’s and Ravka’s territory. The other was a wagon to a Port City where she would find her way into a Trading Ship with its course settled for Ravka, where she still would have to cross the Unsea to get to Os Alta.

Aware of the stories that travelled all the way to Ketterdam about Grisha who were experimented on in Shu Han, Ira decided she would rather cross a million times the Shadow Fold than risk being caught by the Shu Han and become a slave again. So she settled for the wagon, and once in the nearest Port City, found her way into a Ship that carried tobacco to Ravka. It wasn’t an easy journey, but she found out she loved the True Sea. Had she not dreamt of glory in Os Alta, Ira would’ve settled with a life on a ship, traveling back and forward to wherever the wind would take her.

This was particularly why the sight of the Unsea made her partially regret her decision. From something so beautiful and pure, to that aberration. From freedom itself to her grave. At least, this was how she defined the Fold the very moment she entered it. Rather unnerving was to realize, once she heard the volcra surrounding them, that she was more curious about them, than it would be wise. Something about those creatures just found an echo in her. Ira was afraid of them as any other sane human being, but that thing reverberating in her with the wings of the volcra and the blood they left in their path, just seemed right. After all, like calls to like. Beasts feel at ease between their kind. Why wouldn’t Ira be curious about the volcra?

x The way to vices.

The girl Ira once was would never dare to nurse a vice. The reality of its ruination still fresh on her mind from all the disgusting things her father meant to her. But the woman Ira became needed a vice so desperately, that she took upon the opportunity to learn from those tobacco traders how to roll tobacco to smoke and which were the best to chew. It became a rather strong and reliable thing to do whenever she was unnerved or displeased with something or someone, and since the trip to Ravka, the Durast is still nursing that poison on her mouth.

If she’s not in the workshop or training, she’s most certainly smoking by the lake or wandering through Os Alta to buy her stock of tobacco.

EXTRAS:

x Personality.

ASTROLOGICAL SIGN

Scorpio.

MORAL ALIGNMENT

Neutral Evil.

TYPE

Entrepreneur // ESTP-A.

TRAITS

Cruel. A conscious is a luxury not many were granted on birth, and Ira just isn’t one of the lucky. She was born to a world of cruelty, where the only ones who survived were those who learned how to be just as fierce and cruel. And as time went by, this particular trait of her developed with every drop of blood to ever touch her skin.

Independent. There’s not a thing or soul in this world that may control Ira, if she doesn’t allow them too. She has become her own master and made sure no one would ever rule her around once more. Now, the only one she respects enough to follow is The Darkling, for she also knows how to preserve her own freedom.

Feral. Everything Ira does has a heartfelt and powerful intensity. She may be small and rather fragile-looking, but those are the traits no one seems to perceive once she enters a room. For Ira walks as the person who knows what are life’s barriers, but has conquered them all. She’s involved with the world, with this life, in such an unique way, that powers emanates from her. And it’s wild, beast-like. So otherworldly, that she could very well be the monster on her favorite bogatyr’s story.

Devoted. To love is a rather violent act to Ira. She knows nothing about gentle emotions and thereof how to display them in such manner. But she, as anyone else, can love. And hers is a rather strong and fearless one, – though Ira won’t offer this rare and precious form of devotion to many. She’ll love whom she chooses with all her soul, mind and body, but she won’t know how to tune it down, how to be civilized about it. Ira will do it as fiercely as if it was a battle for her life, and though it may not be healthy, she knows no other way of loving someone.

Self-centered. When you live a life as she did, you learn that the one person to be trusted is oneself. She doesn’t trust anyone, no matter how strongly she feels about them, and won’t rely upon any other. Therefore, Ira is the most important person in her life and that’s final. All she does is based on her interests only, and all she thinks about is how to benefit from everything surrounding her. For as long as her distrust in mankind exits, this will be the way of Ira Sorokin.

x Aesthetics.

Here.

x Quotes.

1. “Nada do que fui me veste agora (Nothing I was fits me now)." — Maria Gadú.

2. "Her violence was art." — Rachel Vincent.

3. "I am made of untamable demons and unfillable voids." — Ira V. Simon.

4. "The passions we cannot control are the ones that define us.” — Simon Van Booy.

5. “Re-create yourselves: and let this be your best creation.” — Friedrich Nietzsche.

x Playlist.

1. Iron by Woodkid.

“A soldier on my own, I don’t know the way I’m riding up the heights of shame I’m waiting for the call, the hand on the chest I’m ready for the fight and fate

The sound of iron shots is stuck in my head The thunder of the drums dictates The rhythm of the falls, the number of deads The rising of the hordes ahead

From the dawn of time to the end of days I will have to run away I want to feel the pain and the bitter taste Of the blood on my lips again”

2. Running with the wolves by Aurora.

“Go row the boat to safer grounds But don’t you know we’re stronger now My heart still beats and my skin still feels My lungs still breathe, my mind still fears But we’re running out of time, time All the echoes in my mind cry There’s blood on your lies The sky’s open wide There is nowhere for you to hide The hunter’s moon is shining”

3. Youth by Daughter.

“And if you’re still bleeding, you’re the lucky ones ‘Cause most of our feelings, they are dead and they are gone We’re setting fire to our insides for fun Collecting pictures from the flood that wrecked our home It was a flood that wrecked this home

And you caused it”

ANYTHING ELSE?

Regarding the book question, as I said before: I confess I had a really hard time thinking about my answer. I know it’ll probably change, as it did a few times, but The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, The Secret History by Donna Tartt and Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgueniev are my favorite books rn. I’m an Oscar Wilde trash 4ever, as in I pretty much love everything that guy wrote (and also Teleny, that no one actually knows if he wrote it or not, but wtv), and that’s the only constant regarding books and myself, but those three are the favorites of the season, or something like that kljdslfkjsdlfkjs

#raraccepted #accepted: ira #i said beautiful 10000 times

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