#Robin does not get paid enough to deal with the two of them and their problems | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

steddieas-shegoes · 2 years ago

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For the requests: Steve has a good relationship with his parents & when they come back from wherever & someone (Nancy/Robin) tells them about the UD & his parents react by calling out every single adult involved. Maybe he got badly hurt, & they were called in & upon finding out they call out Joyce, Hop, Owens & Murray for the way no adult inthese kids lives had any clue about what their kids were going through. Nor were their parents given notice esp bc having underaged kids sign NDAs is not legal nor legally binfing (Maybe all the parents of the party kids are there and get all the info just like the Harrington's)

MY DARLING! LIGHT OF MY LIFE! HONESTLY this one hit different. You know how much I love making Steve suffer and when he has good parents, a lot of his suffering disappears. But it was nice to branch out a bit. Also finally some common sense! KIDS SHOULD NEVER BE SIGNING AN NDA THEMS THE FACTS! Steve's parents are here to fight for everyone so WELCOME TO THE CHAOS OF STEVE'S OVERPROTECTIVE LAWYER PARENTS! - Mickala ❤️

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Steve Harrington had managed to avoid the hospital for years. Not because he shouldn’t have gone, but because he refused to go.

But this time, he was unconscious, which means he didn’t have a choice.

And now, staring at his parents’ shocked and appalled faces next to his bed, he realized he wished he’d just died, actually.

“This happens…often?” Anne Harrington asked Dr. Owens, who looked like he wished he was also dead.

“It does happen more often than we like. But it appears to be fixed now! Steven has been a wonderful asset to us, which is why we want to make sure he is comfortable and all his medical expenses are paid.”

He handled that well, Steve thought.

“And this is the first time anyone has bothered to call us?” Richard Harrington asked much too quietly.

That was his ‘I’m about to lose my shit’ voice and Steve didn’t have the energy to deal with it.

“I do apologize, we had to deal with enough NDAs as it is,” Dr. Owens replied, not realizing that he was speaking to two lawyers who were about to ruin his life.

Steve let his head rest against the pillow of the hospital bed, sighing.

“At what age did Steve sign his first NDA?”

“I believe he was 16.”

“And did he have a lawyer present?” Anne didn’t wait for a response before continuing. “I can tell you he didn’t. We’re his lawyers and we were not even called. Are you the one in charge of this shitshow?”

It wasn’t often Anne Harrington said a curse word. Steve only ever heard it a handful of times, usually after hanging up with a client who would lose their case.

“I am one of the people who is tasked with this, yes. But if you don’t mind, I need to check in with a few people before I can truly devote time to this conversation.”

“Oh, please. Continue on with your day. Don’t mind us sitting next to our son in the hospital.”

Dr. Owens sighed, knowing this fight was barely even starting, and left the room.

Steve’s parents turned to him.

“How many concussions have you had?”

“Why didn’t you call us?”

“Who else knows about this?”

“Will this happen again?”

The questions were too much, and Steve’s head was pounding. He couldn’t do this right now.

“Hopper.”

“Jim Hopper? I thought he died.”

Admittedly, his parents had been out of town for a while. They didn’t know Hopper was back as of a few months ago, and probably didn’t realize he’d taken over as chief again.

“He didn’t. He’s around here somewhere.”

“He knew about all this?”

“Mom, I love you, but my head is splitting down the middle. I need to stop talking.”

Anne slowly brushed her hand through his hair, planting a kiss on his forehead.

“Of course, honey. We’ll be back soon. Do not sign anything without us here, okay?”

“Okay.”

His dad briefly touched his shoulder before they both left the room.

Finally, some peace and quiet.

Until he was woken up by yelling.

Not just any yelling. Richard Harrington yelling.

If he wasn’t chained to the bed by an IV and blood transfusion bag, he would be up and in the hallway.

Apparently, he didn’t need to worry, though.

His mom came into the room, leaving the door open to the hallway so he could hear everything.

“I’m glad you’re awake, honey. We have a lot to talk about.”

“Who is he yelling at?”

“Every adult who didn’t bother to take care of you the way they should. Not just you, but all of these kids,” she said, tone more annoyed by the second.

“I don’t understand.”

“Honey, you’ve been protecting these kids in ways you never should have had to. All these adults who were involved never told any of us what was going on. They let you keep standing in the line of fire, getting hurt, seeing things you shouldn’t have to and never even bothered to call us. You signed NDAs with the government without parents or lawyers present. That alone is illegal, do you understand that?”

“So I’m in trouble?”

“Oh, honey, no. You’re not in trouble. Your dad’s having a few words with the chief and Dr. Owens.”

Steve tuned in to what was being said in the hall.

“I cannot fathom what you’ve done. Expecting these children to save this town, the world, and not even have their own parents know? Who are they supposed to turn to? You? And what have you done to help them? As far as I’m concerned, you should be arrested and imprisoned. If I have anything to say about it, you will!”

“Mom, can you please get him to stop? I know he’s upset, but Hop really protected us a lot, okay? And Dr. Owens was just doing his job.”

“A lot of people have just been doing their jobs instead of considering that maybe children shouldn’t be responsible for defeating actual monsters.”

Well. Yeah, she did have a point there.

“Where is everyone?”

Anne sat on the edge of his bed, holding his hand, running her thumb along the back of it.

“The Munson boy is in the room next door, he’ll be okay. Robin is home with her parents. Most of the kids are now with their parents, but that Sinclair boy is still being watched for concussion symptoms.”

Steve sighed with relief.

No one was lost. Everyone had pretty minor injuries. Maybe he was able to protect everyone.

“That Dustin boy is relentless,” Anne said with a smile. “He really looks up to you.”

“Yeah, he’s like a brother to me.”

“His mom didn’t know about any of this either, did she?”

Steve thought about it.

Honestly, she probably had some idea. Maybe not of the real details, but she had to know Dustin was involved in something he couldn’t talk about. Same with most of the parents.

But Steve’s parents were gone a lot. Their main office was in Boston, and they would often have to travel around the country for their clients. He was used to not seeing them, only getting to talk to them on the phone once or twice a week.

It’s easy to hide shit over the phone, and when they did manage to make it home, the Upside Down monsters were safely tucked away underground.

They had no way of knowing anything was wrong. He did it on purpose, just like all of the kids did.

Even without signing the NDAs, he’s pretty sure they wouldn’t have told their parents.

“I think we just thought we were protecting you guys.”

“Honey, it’s not your job to protect us. It’s our job to protect you.”

She looked so sad.

Steve didn’t want her to be sad.

“Mom, you couldn’t have done anything. And we’re all safe.”

His dad walked in the room, face red. He closed the door behind him and ran his hand over his face.

“Doctor said Steve can go when the nurse comes to disconnect him from everything soon,” he said, coming to sit in the chair by his bed.

“That’s good news. We’ll get you home and settled. We canceled our flight out so we can stick around for a while and make sure you’re okay,” Anne said with a smile.

“You guys don’t have to cancel your trip. Your clients need you.”

“Not as much as you need us, son,” Richard said, giving him a soft smile.

“I’ve handled it before, though.”

“And you shouldn’t have. Trust me, this town, the government, they’ve got a shit storm coming and I’m leading it,” his dad huffed.

A knock interrupted Steve’s response, the door opening slightly before they answered.

Eddie.

“Steve? You okay?”

Steve’s parents looked at the door, then back at Steve, who was doing his best to hide the fond smile on his face.

It wasn’t working though, not when he saw the way Eddie was trying to take inventory of his injuries from across the room.

“You can come in, Eds.”

“Who’s this, honey?” Anne asked.

“This is Eddie.”

“Oh! You poor thing. I heard all about what you’ve been through. Let me just say, if we had caught wind of it earlier and knew you were Steve’s friend, we would’ve been representing you in court,” Anne rushed to say, her hands fluttering over Eddie’s when he got next to the bed.

Eddie’s wide eyes would have been amusing if Steve didn’t worry that he might run for the hills at the care his parents showed.

“Uh. Thank you?”

“Do you need anything right now? Do your parents need anything?” Richard asked, sitting forward in his chair, business face on.

“Um, just me and my uncle, but no. I’m heading home, but wanted to check on Steve before I go.”

“Of course! You guys are close friends?”

It was an innocent question. His parents just liked to know who was in his life, that’s all. But Eddie looked at him with panic written all over his face.

Steve gave him a small smile, then turned to his parents.

“Actually, he’s my boyfriend.”

They were quiet for a moment, which Steve expected. No matter how well he thought they’d take it, he knew it would be a shock.

But his parents didn’t let him down.

“How long have you been together, Steve?”

“Since March. Four months?” He watched as Eddie started to back away, probably expecting the worst.

Anne smacked Steve’s arm, forgetting for a moment that he was in the hospital for a reason.

“Sorry,” she said before crossing her arms. “You’ve had a boyfriend for four months and didn’t tell us? We could have come back and arranged dinner to meet him. I’m so sorry our son is rude, Eddie. He wasn’t raised that way, I assure you.”

Eddie’s jaw dropped.

“Um. What’s happening right now?”

“We’ll be home for a while to make sure Steve is alright. We’d love to have you over for dinner soon. With your uncle if you’d like,” Richard added as Eddie just stared between them.

“What do you like? I just got a new cookbook that has so many European dishes I want to try. Are you a fan of Polish food? You know what, no, what about Greek? We haven’t had good Greek food in so long.”

Steve was laughing, he couldn’t help it.

“Steve, what the hell is going on here?”

“Eddie, that’s my mom, Anne, and my dad, Richard. They’re kind of the best, and apparently they want you and Wayne to come for dinner. Think you can find time in your schedule?”

“Uh.”

“Oh dear. Do you have a concussion? They should monitor you kids better,” Anne worried, moving her hands up to cup his cheeks and look in his eyes. “Should I get a nurse?”

“No, mom, he’s okay. He just expected you two to freak out.”

“About what?”

“The fact he’s a man.”

“Oh! I do suppose that’s a reasonable concern.”

“Eddie, let me ask you this: do you make Steve happy?” Richard asked.

“I think so.”

“And he makes you happy?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Then it sounds like we have no reason to be upset. Now, dinner? Maybe tomorrow night?”

“Okay.”

Steve laughed loudly.

“Eds, come here,” Steve gestured for him to come closer.

Eddie moved next to the bed, his arm bandaged, and a new cut with stitches in it on his forehead.

“Closer.”

Eddie leaned in.

Steve leaned up and kissed his lips. Just a quick peck, just enough to get the point across that this was really okay and really happening.

“Tomorrow at 6?” Steve asked before he pulled away completely.

Eddie nodded.

“And please bring your uncle, we need to discuss our plan for a lawsuit on behalf of all of you,” Richard spoke up from his chair.

“Oh. Yes, sir.” Eddie pulled away from the bed, nervously playing with his rings.

“Richard is fine, son.”

Eddie was blushing, which Steve was absolutely going to make fun of him for later.

“See you tomorrow, then?” Eddie asked awkwardly.

“Love you, Eds.”

“Oh. Uh. Yep. Love you too, Stevie.”

He raced out of the room, leaving Steve and Anne laughing quietly.

“Poor boy. Didn’t know what to do, did he?”

“No, I think he isn’t used to a positive reaction when people find out about him.”

“His uncle knows about you two, though, right?”

“Yeah, Wayne’s been great.”

“Good. Well, I’m going to find a nurse so we can go home. You should be comfortable in your own bed.”

“And I am going to make a quick call to my buddy in Chicago to see if he can pull some information on this Owens guy. We have a lot of work to do.”

Steve was used to this. For some kids, maybe this wasn’t good parenting. Maybe his parents being gone for a lot of his life had a negative impact.

But Steve never doubted how much they loved him. They still came home for every birthday, every Christmas. They still managed to take a family vacation every year. They gave him everything he needed and most of what he wanted. They supported him through everything, the proof right here in front of him now.

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #the party #steve harrington has good parents for once!!!#and they're about to fuck shit up!!!#ficlet #request

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stevethehairington · 2 years ago

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From the prompt list you just reblogged (absolutely no pressure btw, I just love ur writing!)

“I’ll still be here when you’re ready.” + Steddie

hellooo!! thank you for sending this in!! (and ahh thank youu!! 🥺💕)

okay i had SO much fun writing this one omg, i hope you like it.

79. "I'll still be here when you're ready"

“Eddie, come on, please. Cut a deal with me,” Steve just about begs for the third time since Eddie has snatched up Pennsylvania Avenue — the last green property and the only one left Steve needs to collect before he can start loading them up with houses and hotels and fining the everloving shit out of everyone. “If you give me your green card I won’t make you pay if you land on any of the rest of my green. If you land on any of all my properties. You’ll get full immunity.”

“You can’t do that!” Dustin cries out from across the floor, throwing his hands up. “That’s against the rules! No one gets full immunity!”

“No one gets any kind of immunity!” Mike chimes in vehemently.

Steve ignores them both, and the rest of the gremlins who kick up a fuss too, in favor of drifting into Eddie’s space. He pushes his lower lip out at him and widens his eyes, batting his lashes a couple of times for good measure. Eddie’s always been ruthless with his own puppy dog eyes, but Steve can give as good as he gets, too. He knows he can break him.

Except Eddie doesn’t even falter. He just laughs, this deep, amused chuckle, and tries to shake Steve off of his arm. “No fucking way, Harrington,” he says. “I’m not giving it up.”

“I’ll pay you for it,” Steve adds to the pitch, desperate now. He hopes that the lure of even more fake money will make his offer that much more enticing, that much more lucrative, and he reaches for a couple of the orangey-yellow hundreds from his small stack to wave Eddie’s way.

It does not have the desired effect. Instead, Eddie snorts. “What is that? Two hundred bucks? I paid more than that to buy the damn thing.”

Steve pouts for a moment, before he lights up with the idea for a new tactic. Leaning in closer, he turns on the bedroom eyes and drops his voice lower. “If you give me your green card,” he whispers slowly, making sure to brush his lips against the shell of Eddie’s ear, “I’ll give you a blowjob later.”

This time Eddie’s attention seems well and truly captured, and Steve internally pats himself on the back for that. It may be a bit of a questionable move, to sink so low as to promise sexual favors in return for help to win a family game, but all is fair in love and war. Especially with this bunch.

And this? This is war.

Eddie looks up from the board, where he’d been carefully watching Max move her tiny silver dog piece forward six spaces, to meet Steve’s eyes. “A blowjob, eh?” He repeats quietly, the corners of his lips curling up lasciviously.

Across the board, Robin scrunches her nose up at their not-so-subtle exchange. She can’t hear them — at least Steve hopes she can’t — but he has no doubt that she knows him well enough to make an educated guess as to what, exactly, his proposal here is. Ergo, nose scrunching.

Eddie hums out a considering noise. “Mm, that does sound nice,” he says, and Steve thinks he’s done it. Thinks he’s finally sold Eddie on the trade.

He smiles proudly and stretches his hand out, palm up, so that Eddie can pass the property over to its rightful new owner.

Eddie starts to pull his hand from where it’s splayed against the floor, propping himself up, presumably to snatch up the coveted card. Except instead of reaching for it, Eddie’s hand floats right past it and settles into Steve’s instead. He curls his fingers around Steve’s, then draws his knuckles to his lips, where he kisses them softly.

Steve’s heart flutters at the display, but he reigns himself in. He can’t get distracted. Not when he hasn’t secured the switch yet. That’s exactly what Eddie would want.

Eddie meets Steve’s eyes again over the top of their hands. “But I’m still not giving you my card, sweetheart,” he says, oh-so-smugly, grin turning sharlike as he shatters Steve’s glee.

Around the circle, the kids cheer out triumphantly, thrilled that Eddie actually stuck to the game rules this time, and didn’t give in to his boyfriend, as he is so often apt to do, much to their chagrin. Steve had been banned from Hellfire campaigns for exactly that reason.

“Sorry, Stevie,” Eddie says with a helpless shrug, but he doesn’t sound sorry at all.

“You’re gonna wish you didn’t say no, Munson,” Steve replies, taking his hand from Eddie’s so he can point a finger right at him. He shakes his head, then bumps his shoulder into Eddie’s. “But lucky for you, I’m a good guy, so I’ll still be here when you’re ready. When you come crawling back. The offer will still be on the table.”

The game goes on, and the offer still stands. But Eddie doesn’t cash in on it.

He continues to do fairly decent, plucking along mostly unscathed. Occasionally he lands on Max’s Water Works or Lucas’ Electric Company, and he has to fork over those fees, but they’re not too bad considering neither one of them managed to snag both of the utilities — the perks of playing with eight.

And then somehow, some fucking how, Steve manages to land on both Park Place and the Boardwalk. He wastes no time shelling out the $750 it costs to own them. After a few more rounds collecting rent on all his properties, he gets enough money to add houses, and eventually to trade those houses in for hotels.

The tension in the game has been slowly building up over the last half hour or so, but what happens next — it’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

Eddie rolls a god damn fucking five and his little silver boot piece hops its way right onto Steve’s god damn fucking Boardwalk.

He loses his shit.

“Two thousand? No fucking way, no way!” Eddie shouts, eyes wide after Steve hits him with the magic number he owes. “That’s all my fucking money, you asshole! I’m not gonna have anything left after that! What the fuck!”

Steve just throws his head back and cackles, rubbing his hands together like the sneaky little bastard he knows he’s being. “Them’s the rules, Munson,” he says. “Pay your fucking debt, babe.”

He holds his hand out and wiggles his fingers at Eddie.

Eddie tries to smack his hand away, but Steve catches his arm with his other hand and holds Eddie back, grinning the whole way through.

“I don’t know how, but you did this shit on purpose,” Eddie says, shaking his head.

“I did not!” Steve cries, still laughing. “You landed on my property fair and square! Pay up!”

Eddie groans and gathers up his money, giving it a quick count through before he holds it out for Steve. Steve’s hand only just closes around it when Eddie freezes, grip tightening.

“Wait,” he says, sitting up straighter. “Wait, wait, wait. Your offer, from earlier — you said it still stands.” A slow grin spreads across his face. Loophole.

Steve barks out a laugh, though. “I… I did say that, but it’s kind of a little late for that now, don’t you think?” He asks. “I don’t know if I can give you that.”

“You can’t! You can’t! No immunity!” Dustin shouts, waving his hands in the air.

Again, neither Steve nor Eddie pay his outburst any mind.

Eddie shakes his head at Steve. “Come on,” he pleads, “throw me a bone.” He bats his eyes, folds his hands together and holds them over his heart. “I’m at your mercy, sweetheart. I’ll do anything.”

The counteroffer there stands between them, unspoken but very much obvious.

“Oh boy,” Steve hears Robin mutter across the way.

And oh boy is right. The way Eddie’s looking at Steve, the way he’s casually managed to spread his legs where he sits, the way he’s chewing on his lip, letting it pop out from between his teeth all shiny and glistening.

Fuuuuuck.

Steve is just a man. An incredibly, ridiculously, embarrassingly weak man.

Still, he tries to make it look like his decision isn’t already made. Tries to pretend like he has to mull it over. Like he has to debate the choices here.

But in the end, he gives in. Of course he does.

“Well,” he starts, and a delicious grin starts to spread slowly across Eddie’s face while the rest of the party erupts into groans and shouts and utter chaos over this injustice. “I did make a promise. That wouldn’t be very fair of me to go back on it.”

“No. No, it certainly wouldn’t,” Eddie agrees, already inching closer to Steve.

Steve hands him back his money, and Eddie accepts it gratefully, dropping it carelessly to the side before he tugs on the front of Steve’s shirt and pulls him in for a kiss. He keeps it chaste in their present company, but the promise of what’s to come sits heavy against his tongue.

“Thanks, Stevie,” Eddie says sweetly.

“Anything for you,” Steve says back.

And if in the process of “getting more comfortable” for the remainder of the game, Eddie “accidentally” kicks his foot out and knocks the board clean off the table, thus ending the game and giving them an excuse to escape, that’s nobody’s business but his and Steve’s.

100 ways to say i love you prompts

#asks #momotonescreaming #steddie #stranger things #steve harrington #eddie munson #dustin henderson #robin buckley #mack writes #macks ficlets

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thefreakandthehair · 2 years ago

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I have had A Thought and now I have the urge to write The Thought

Steve dies in season one

But hear me out! It’s where no one sees, he’s alone, abandoned by his friends, having pushed his girlfriend into a fight because he couldn’t control his own temper, and he’s concussed, but it’s worse than he thinks. He parks his car on the side of the road because he’s too dizzy and he’s mad, but he knows it’s not safe.

He closed his eyes just for a minute, to let his vision settle

But when he opens them, he’s not in his car anymore

The afterlife is a room, photos covering the white walls, memories and important moments in his life but it hits him at once as he looks around

There’s not a lot. He hasn’t lived long enough for there to be a lot, and he knows without knowing where he is. There’s two doors, one on either end of the room, one golden, one wooden. There’s light behind the golden one and he knows if he picks it, it’s over. But the gaps in the walls tell him he’s not done, so he picks the wooden door and wakes up in his car.

Now I’m a big fan of the came back wrong trope and this is just came back Different. He feels different. He goes to Jonathan’s house, needing to apologize, feeling a pull to it, and amidst all the Different feel he find the world turned inside out and you know, it’s all a lot to deal with

My favorite little snippet from the end of season one is Steve in the waiting room at the hospital because like. He didn’t need to be there. He could have gone home and I don’t think anyone would have blamed him, but he was there anyway

So he’s there, because there’s another pull, like an itch in his fingertips.

It takes him a while to figure out, that pull. When he does, it’s because there’s a curly haired kid making demands and looking up to him and it feels right to be there keeping him safe.

It hits as he patches himself up at home, an ache in his back that he doesn’t notice at first. It gets worse over the course of the night, until he feels like his back is breaking from it, and through the haze of pain and the disorienting ringing in his ears, he finds himself on the ground, a pair of glowing wings impossible to ignore. (I like the idea of them starting off black, lightening over the years as he works though his guilt)

Through trial and determination, he finds he can hide them, but it’s uncomfortable to do it for too long, makes him all anxious. And there’s no instruction, but he knows what happened, knows it instinctively. He died, but he chose to come back, so now it’s his job to protect people, it’s the price he paid for a return trip, and he knows who’s his to protect by that itch.

Along the way he picks up Robin, who he can tell is his from the first day, who strokes his wings, a bluish gray while his face is still healing, who never hesitates to tease him even as she trusts him to protect her.

And then they find Eddie, who needs all the protection he can get, who he aches with the need to protect, who he flies for the first time to save. His wings are dirty, closer to brown, ruffled and messy and it stings a bit how out of order they are but he can’t pay that any mind when Eddie is floating between life and death.

Eddie makes the realization first, or at least is the first to say it out loud, opening his eyes to see Steve smiling at him and the words come without thought

“I knew an angel would save me from the depths of hell.”

And well, Steve never really thought of himself as an angel even if he knows it’s what he is now, but with Eddie? He could start to believe that.

kat.

KAT.

I am (with consent) holding your hands and begging you to follow this thought.

like?! this is ART. this is beautiful. this concept has so much meat to it? Steve as Eddie's angel?! I'm not above begging, I'm definitely not above it, and this is me b e g g i n g.

#asks #but with Eddie? He could start to believe that.#friend that is POETRY I'm rattling the bars of my cage #steddie #this is also poking at my inner dean/cas feelings :')#kat you deserve your own tag so this is it

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ro-botany · 9 months ago

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What was Freddie's reaction to finding out Robin and Grima was the same? Did he feel he was paid enough for everything? How much did he want to say, "I told you so" to Chrom?

(Hi, this is Robot from the future after writing the post. This is a long and unorganized stream of conscious disaster. Please bear with me. I promise I have an actual point to make lol.)

---

In my mind that was a pretty complicated moment for Frederick. In part because the reveal of Robin's nature happens very late in the story, long after Frederick has become friends with Robin and come to trust them as a commander... and in part because depending on which shipping AU I'm in, Robin is likely to be Chrom's partner in marriage, by that point.

Frederick is responsible for the safety of Chrom and Lissa. Whoever those two marry becomes a part of Ylisse's royal family, and thus, Frederick's duty to safeguard the royalty extends to them. If Robin is exalt-consort of the realm, then Frederick is going to protect them. Perhaps not as fervently as he does Chrom and Lissa, given that he hasn't known them since childhood, but it's Frederick, so you know he's putting his full effort into it. The man does nothing by halves.

What happens if the exalt-consort of Ylisse is also the fell dragon? What do you do, what do you even think, when your dear friend's partner, your own close friend, the commander you've trusted your life with for years, the royal you're duty-bound to guard the life and health of... is bringer of the apocalypse?

Oh, he's certainly vindicated in his initial mistrust of Robin, but it's a bitter victory.

And it's made yet more bitter by the fact that Robin was as unaware of it as the rest of them, and as horrified. It wasn't even a betrayal on their part; he can't even direct his anger their way.

I think that at first, and similarly to Chrom, Frederick probably took it at face value that Robin and Grima must be separate entities. From the way Validar talks about it, from the ravine of difference between the Robin he knows and the monstrous fell dragon, it doesn't make sense for them to be the same.

But by the time the Shepherds reach Naga, I think he's clued in to the fact that Grima and Robin are the same person on different paths. He's seen Robin's work firsthand, worked under them for years. He remembers how they defeated the Valmese fleet. He's seeing how they're changing as a person as the battle with their other self draws nearer. He heard Robin exclaim that they are the fell dragon -- not its vessel, but it in its entirety -- and heard the other Robin confirm that. He's the one who calls out the concept of defeating Grima with his own power as suicide, too.

Whenever I think about this I keep coming back to Frederick's pyromanic tendencies, and the fact that he has them so effectively controlled that he can be trusted to set up all the campfires for the Shepherds early in the mornings. Clearly being the reincarnation of the fell dragon god Grima is at a COMPLETELY different scale of severity from his issues... But I think he can relate, to some degree, to having some inherent destructiveness in you, inextricable from you, and how scary it is to face the severe and immediate risk that you may hurt or even kill people you care about, and not necessarily be able to control those terrible actions. He's come to terms with and leashed his demons. But he can also see the world where he failed to.

---

...I guess to answer your first question, about what Fred's reaction would be... Ime Frederick's in a better position than most of the cast to understand the conflict of self Robin is dealing with, and he has a lot of reasons to worry about their fate and to work towards reaching that understanding of them. The initial shock might lead to him trying to soften the reality to preserve his opinion of his friend, but I think he would come around to genuine understanding of their nature faster than many. And that he would ultimately want them to get out of this alive. The reveal of this aspect of their nature doesn't change the fact that they've fought long and hard for what's right.

He would absolutely think "i told you so", but with the amount of trauma the whole plot point deals to the gang, and especially to Chrom, I don't think he would ever seriously consider saying it. Just silently soak in the irony. Stare into the camera like he's on the office.

He absolutely does not get paid enough for this and he knows it. Obviously he cares too much to sit any of this out but gods above, when he signed up to be a knight he didn't think he would be fighting a whole ass deity by the time he was 30.

#fe awakening #frederick #it's late night blorbo posting hours #not even one of these thoughts is organized. good luck <3

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cebwrites · 1 year ago

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Unwelcome (Sabo's Tattered Invitation)

a/n: a lil smth smth for @raptures-finest teehee :3 and thanks to @skylerfox26 for the translations!!

oc x canon, oc-centric (not the same OCs) word count: 1.3k

It was a beautiful, quaint little thing.

Rio would have nothing less than perfection for that goofy doe-eyed kid and their daughter. They could be just as hard to please as their hubby about particulars of the smallest details as the wedding planners were loathe to find out. Well. They were getting paid more than fair also courtesy of Katakuri's treasure hoard so that should've been enough to cover any therapy costs needed.

What mattered was that Andy and Koala were happy and having the best day of their life. Rio even pulled Noire and Alto aside to help with the weather of all things. Absolutely nothing was to go wrong on today of all days.

What did darken the reception's doorstep, however, was something that Andy begged and pleaded for - Rio's initial response was an immediate and firm no, he could hear how uneasy Koala was over the phone in the conversation that ensued after, how Ace pleaded to vouch for his brother.

Despite all odds, Andy wore the two of them down. Sabo was allowed entry like an unsightly old toy dragged on the floor by a toddler to a fancy dinner if only to placate them and reduce the parents' headache.

When Dragon's dog walked in beside Fire Fist himself, taking the plus one of what would usually go to Yamato, Deuce on Ace's other arm, Rio downed another glass of wine. Ace at the very least had the decency to look sheepish under the warning look they shot him when he waved.

Keep him on a tight leash.

They'd send the Spade pirates home with a doggy bag and an extra bone for Yam as compensation. Right now Rio would have much preferred the rowdiness Kaido's son brought as opposed to the "guest" Andy personally wanted there.

Strawhat Luffy, of course, was banned altogether. Ace could vouch for one brother but he was fully aware of the chaos that the other brought, and no one here wanted to deal with the Marines' armed militia or some secret villain this island actually housed ruining the function.

Robin was allowed to bring her hubby because Koala wanted her there and Brook of course supplied the music for the night at Andy's request, both men openly sobbing at different points of the evening over "young love" - but three Strawhats were already more than Rio was willing to swing normally.

Andy and Koala had gotten them to sit down for a short forty-five minutes to eat and Rio even played the piano with Brook's accompaniment on the violin, stealing a kiss or two from their captain's table, letting Alba fix his dress shirt while they talked about where the kids would go from here with Violet, watching Katakuri and Kaku both flounder at social interaction under a little teasing.

From scrutinizing the catering's plating and flower arrangements clipboard in hand, to yelling at Ace for being faced down in his hors d'oeuvres. All of this between keeping a close eye on the happy couple, Rio would consider the night more or less a success.

As the festivities died down and Rio slipped away for a smoke, that damn toy finally crept out from the shadows. Sabo cleaned up nice in his freshly laundered three-piece with that ridiculous top hat and cravat he insisted on wearing everywhere but Rio saw right through him.

Buttons for eyes hanging lose on old thread, fabric thinned from being put in the wash one too many times, bits of stuffing trailing his every step. It was so worn and battered you'd think they'd let the family dog have a go at it before coming here.

Someone with no face in the mirror desperately cobbling together a human veneer.

"You've been avoiding me all night."

"Yet you still can't seem to take hint, can you?"

Sabo's expression pinched at the utter lack of emotion in that response, teeth set so tightly against each other he might just reset his jaw. He wasn't even worth looking at.

"Why."

"What?" Rio turned with their eyebrows knitted in the way that Sabo could recognize as annoyance. Okay, he could work with annoyance.

"I mean why are we always like this, why couldn't we just sit down and have a nice, normal—"

"I avoided you because I wanted to have a pleasant evening without any of this "nicety" nonsense," Rio flicked their gaze below to light up another cigarette, "you know I'm the last person that wants you here, so I don't understand why do you keep pushing."

When their eyes met again hers were once again cold and as Rio turned to leave. Losing that inch of expression that he managed to eek out from them, even if through irritation, Sabo felt his stomach hit the floor.

"I don't get why you keep running away from me, why do you hate me so much? Anything I do isn't enough for you, so just tell me how I can fix this! Why—Why did you abandon me?!"

Sabo laid chase. He was losing important ground, what exactly that was supposed to mean he couldn't quite parse right now. In a mild state of panic, he grabbed Rio's arm in an attempt to get them to stay. Instead, he felt the reflexive flinch, saw the look in her eyes, right before Rio yanked it away.

Oh.

"Rio, I-"

"Stop trying." They punctuated their words with a step back up the stairwell, until they stood at full height again.

"If you pulled your head out of your ass for as long as it takes you to lie to yourself non ti illuderesti che non ci sia una buona ragione per cui sei qui. You are here, because of whatever good graces luce dei miei occhi Constantine still has for your presence."

Rio always towered over Sabo even back when he was young and they still had a good relationship but little else made him feel as small as how he did in this moment right now as they walked him back to the railing.

"What you will not do, Sabo, is stand here and pretend that you are the most put upon man in the world because I won't waste my night listening to you blow smoke up everyone's ass.

We did our best to keep you out of Dragon's reach because she knew he'd turn you into a monster and we lost everything. I didn't have my future go up in flames just for you to destroy Andy's happiness on a selfish whim, quindi non puoi sederti qui and whine to me about being left behind."

For the first time in—fuck, forever, he guessed—Sabo saw what genuine anger looked like on Rio's face.

But for all the guilt and regret that he regularly tamped down beginning to swirl and spiral inside of him, the central emotion that maybe even protected his mind from the rest of those heavy feelings was confusion at one particular word.

""We"?"

Rio's gaze took on a frightening chill, like they'd accidentally exposed something precious and unfathomably raw, before it slipped back into that usual blank slate.

Just behind the shape of their shoulders, Sabo barely made out the glow of Haki in someone's eyes before an unbelievable pressure threatened to crush him. Rio simply turned with a passive raised hand, "I'm fine, Kat. Lets go back for dessert."

Sabo couldn't see her face anymore but he could almost hear how exhausted Rio was. And with a few clicks of their heels down the stairs, Sabo was left to catch his breath alone.

Slumped against the balcony while his best friend and the love of his life enjoyed the rest of their wedding.

#cebwrites #one piece #op sabo #revolutionary sabo #one piece sabo #sabo the revolutionary #portgas d ace #op katakuri #koala one piece #kandyku #katario #andy and wawa have a beautiful wedding #sabo does not get his way #he gets the consequences of his actions actually #three cheers for katakuri the good protective hubby

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robinofgothamcity · 3 years ago

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♡ scenario: connor losing his mind when you're hurt and charging into the fight recklessly.

♡ pairing: connor kent ( superboy ) x fem! reader

♡ note: not checked for grammar or spelling mistakes / i'm sorry but i'm living for these angst to fluff moments rn especially bc i rewatched reign of the superman and forgot how much i loved connor in it.

Connor watched as you were completely slumped on the side of the building, no longer clear headed and struggling to stay awake. what was supposed to be a clean and easy mission turned out to be more than what the league expected.

he had requested for back up and while they were already trying to fight off the thugs that were attacking Connor, he could still see that you were fighting to stay alive and he had no idea if you were even going to come out of this fight alive.

"what the fuck?" Connor whispered, seeing you now slumped on the ground. he turned to the person who attacked you, eyes fully red with no intention of holding back. Clark could sense his song was a second away from committing murder as he saw Connor charge into the heart of the battle with no game plan, just murder.

"SUPERBOY NO!"

you waved shyly to the group of league members as you hid behind Wonder Woman. you were new to the scene of sidekicks and had no idea how to even introduce yourself without sounding like a complete idiot.

"woah new girl!" you heard a male voice say as you stood in your place petrified. you had no idea who it was as Diana had yet to individually introduce you to everyone, "i call dibs!" you heard the same voice say.

Diana turned to you before grabbing the boy who was charging towards you by the head and tossed him back to Superman, "she's not up for 'dibs' Superboy. she's my newest apprentice and you will treat her as such," she threatened.

you giggled behind her as a few of the sidekicks introduced themselves. you knew them as the Young Justice team and although you weren't formally with the team, you figured Diana was training you to become apart of them in the future.

"( your hero name ), this is Superboy," Wonder Woman said, "he associated to the Super family," she explained as he pushed up his dark circled glasses and flicked his hair back, "pleasure is all mine," he muttered, shaking your hand.

you returned a tiny smile before she continued to introduce you to Robin and Impulse. you noticed how Superboy kept his eyes on you. you had no idea if it was because he liked you or he disliked you but every time you turned to look at him, he was already staring at you.

after introductions and the cliche 'your real identity is sacred' conversation ended, Diana felt it was for your own good to get used to your new 'teammates'. she wanted you to make sure you weren't uncomfortable around any of the YJ team even if that included Superboy.

"so, what do you like to do for fun?" Wonder Girl asked, sitting down next to you and handing you a bowl of popcorn. you shrugged, "uh, not much. I like to watch tv and read for the most part. no one really invites me to do things with them," you admitted, scratching the back of your head.

she laughed, putting her arm around you, "well that ends today! we should all do something fun! how about we go to the county fair? doesn't that sound fun?" she asked. you shrugged, not really opposed to the idea, "I call all the rides with ( your hero name )!" Jinny replied.

you smiled, following her and Wonder Girl out the door as Robin, Impulse, and Superboy followed behind you. Robin looked at him, "you like her don't you?" he asked, already calculating the minute Connor had fallen in love with you.

"well she's apart of the team, i'd like to hope we'd all like her," he replied as Robin shook his head, "no, you get what i mean by that," Robin pressed as he could see Connor's face fall with realization. he didn't reply but he could tell what he was tell Connor's real answer through his face.

as they arrived to the fair, they all booked it to the first food stand they saw. Robin offering to pay for everyone being Bruce Wayne's son had its benefits. you ordered a simple coffee as you didn't want Robin to spend too much on everyone.

"what ride should we all get on first?" Jinny asked excitedly. you pointed to the tallest ride, it was one of those high rides that sat two people at the top and had them spinning around, "oh I can't do that. it's way too scary," both Keli and Jinny said.

Superboy smiled at you, "I'm down if you are," he said as he grabbed two tickets from the worker, "cool," you replied as the two of you walked to the line, sweat already building up from nervousness.

once they sat the two of you and made sure you were both buckled in, you stared at Superboy nervously as the ride started up and pulled you up before immediately starting to spin. you stared at Superboy, screaming for you life. you unintentionally grabbed his arms, not realizing you were holding onto him as you continued to yell.

Superboy chuckled, finding your reaction cute.

after the months passed and you finally grew closer to everyone on the team, you were particularly close with Jinny and Superboy. you and Jinny shared a lot of common interests as she showed you how to shoot a gun and Superboy...well, everyone could tell the two of you were just seconds away from actually dating.

you walked into the YJ lair, sipping on hot chocolates with Jinny as the weather was turning cold. she was cracking some cringe dad jokes, trying to make you laugh as you tried to contain from choking on the hot chocolate.

"hey, where we yall at?" Keli asked. you turned to Jinny before giggling, "just doing a few errands we had to run before I had patrol with Superboy," you said, not really clarifying on what you both were actually doing.

although everyone could see how much you liked Connor, Connor himself thought you had a thing with Jinny. he knew she was particularly close with you and felt as though he was practically competing with her for your attention.

"do you have my phone?" you asked Jinny as she dug into her pocket and handed it to you. you grabbed your phone before quickly snatching her hat and putting it on, "yee-haw," you giggled into the mirror as Jinny started chasing you down the halls.

as you turned a corner, you bumped into Superboy and fell flat on your ass, "oh, I'm sorry Superboy, I didn't see you there," you groaned as Jinny grabbed her had and put it back on her, "you've yee'd your last haw," she said, making you laugh harshly.

Superboy's eye couldn't help but twitch as he gave you his hand, "ready for patrol?" he asked sternly. you looked to Jinny who crept away from the angry Kryptonian and left you to deal with him, "yeah, let me just freshen up again and I'll meet you outside," you murmured, going into the bathroom.

you quickly used the bathroom before checking if you had everything. you opened the door and walked into the lair's common area. Connor had yet to drop the angry attitude and everyone was eerily silent as you walked in. he grabbed you by the arm and practically rushed you out the door.

"weird," Jinny told Robin as he shrugged, "what isn't weird about him," he replied making everyone laugh.

patrol started extremely awkward. you hadn't felt this weird since you first started on the team and you had no idea what was wrong with Superboy since he wasn't telling you.

the two of you walked on top of roof, scanning the empty roads before you turned to look at him, "what's up? you seem bothered," you asked him as you both sat on the ledge, "seriously? you seem annoyed at me or something so at the very least you can try and tell me what's wrong," you pressured again.

he looked at you with eyes of determination before grabbing you by the collar of the shirt and pulling you into a very heated kiss. you were taken back by surprise but let him continue to kiss you. a part of yelled at Connor pulled you close but another part of him was still screaming at him that you still could've liked Jinny.

"I had to do that before Jinny officially took you away from me," your eyes fluttered in confusion, "uh, what do you mean by 'take you away from me'?" you asked, not knowing what he was talking about.

Connor sighed in frustration, "I see the way you're around Jinny and figured that she likes you and vice versa," he finally admitted as he stood up, not wanting to hear your response. you quickly stood up and grabbed him by the wrist, "hey wait," you said.

he stared at you, "I'm really not in the mood to get rejected ( your hero name )," he ran his fingers through his hair annoyed. you shook your head, "I don't like Jinny nor does she like me. we're just really close friends Superboy," you whispered, bringing him into another kiss.

this time, he was the one taken back but he melted into the kiss, all his negative emotions washing away as you continued to kiss him. he wrapped his arms around your waist as you him in closer by the neck. Connor was definitely not expecting this tonight.

"so does this mean that we're like....together together?" you asked playfully shy. Connor let out a laugh before lacing your hands together, "clearly. I can't let Jinny steal you away from me," he jokingly replied.

Connor ran to the three different henchmen as his strength was to the point of killing, not caring if he died in the process. he was recklessly dodging bullets, knowing they wouldn't do anything to him. he grabbed the first man and threw him against a wall as it collapsed around him. Connor only hoping that it did enough damage to unalive him.

the second one he managed to choke him out enough to the point where he passed out but that wasn't enough for him. you were on the brink of death and if he had to see you die, he was going to make sure the men who possibly killed you got what they deserved.

"SUPERBOY!" he heard his father scream again. Connor paid no attention to him as he grabbed the third henchman and slammed him to the ground, throwing punches left and right, "listen to me," Clark screamed at him.

he could see the tears coming down Connor's face as anger, fear, and sadness clouded his mind, "this is not you! pull out of it!" he yelled, shaking Connor's shoulder, "you're about to kill this man. I get that you're angry but you don't get anything out of hurting him. all you get it consequences and your girlfriend needs you right now more than ever!" he continued.

Connor finally shook himself out of his trance as he heard his dad telling him to go to you. Connor nodded and ran to you, seeing you unconscious and hardly breathing, "I'm taking her to the hospital," he yelled to Batman before hauling your body into his arms and flying towards the nearest hospital.

once he finally reached the emergency doors, he shoved everyone out of his way and to the front desk, "she needs help...NOW!" he yelled to the poor receptionist. the girl jumped up from fear but nodded and screamed for a bed and a few doctors.

the doctor asked Connor to place you on the bed before the doctor told him that he could follow them inside. a part of Connor wanted to straight up move the doctor to follow you into the OR but he knew that he'd get into more trouble with his dad and the MPD if he hurt anyone else.

for what felt like hours, he was waiting inside of the room they had told him you'd be in once you got out of surgery. he had already gotten the lecture from his dad about the consequences he would've gotten if he actually managed to kill the three men earlier.

"she's going to make it," the doctor told Connor as he walked into the room while they adjusted you to the bed. Connor nodded, "she'll be out of duty for months. she sustained a lot of injuries to her body that'll take weeks to recover and she got a nasty concussion so you'll need to play doctor for the next few weeks to make sure she's okay," he explained.

Connor nodded as the doctor told him that you should be waking up within the next few hours. Connor adjusted himself on the seat and got comfortable as he had no intentions of leaving your side until you were awake and ready to leave the hospital.

you woke up a few hours later, your body killing you from all over as you saw balloons all around the room. you knew you had landed in the hospital but you had no idea how long you were asleep or in a coma even. you turned to see Connor passed out next to you, his body slumped awkwardly.

"Kon, Kon wake up!" you whispered, shaking him softly. Connor jumped up in a fright as he immediately realized you were awake, "how do you feel? are you okay? do you need anything?" he immediately asked as you couldn't help but laugh at his frantic attitude.

"Connor, I'm okay, I promise," you whispered as you brought him in for a kiss, "my body just hurts and i'm still kinda tired," you murmured as Connor nodded. you managed to wiggle yourself enough to make space for him, "babe, it looks like you haven't slept in days."

"I had to make sure you were okay so i haven't exactly slept in a while," he admitted sheepishly. you shook your head, "you're too much sometimes," you giggled as you put your head on his shoulder, "but you love me regardless," he replied.

this was the first time the L word had came up in the relationship, "yeah, I guess I do but now you need to sleep," you said as you closed your eyes and felt Connor pull you closer to him, "I love you too by the way," you whispered, giving him another kiss on his partially exposed chest.

#dc #dc x reader #dc imagine #connor kent x you #connor kent x reader #connor kent imagine #connor kent #superboy x y/n #superboy x reader #superboy imagine #comics #dc comics

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ectonurites · 4 years ago

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hey! how knowledgeable are you on stephanie brown? because i got in a bit of an argument with a dc fan on reddit who claims she's all these awful things, but im still relatively new to steph and i want to see what was true and what wasn't. link to screenie right here: https://ibb.co/vh6CYCJ

these may be matters of opinion, but even then, i'd like to know your take. i haven't read her firsthand often enough and i trust your judgement over this random redditor who seems to have some sort of blonde-woman related trauma left untapped.

I'm not necessarily the most knowledgable on her in the world, but I do know a decent amount because she's one of my absolute faves and I love her

But ohhhh boy that screenshot is a lot.

I will say that several of the things this person brings up are based in canon but are taken in the worst faith and framed in the way that makes her look as bad as possible, if that makes sense? It’s ripping things away from any context, because there's a very clear bias against her here.

I'll go through it point by point under the cut

First of all though before digging into this, I want to make it clear she was a 15 year old for the majority of the things this person is talking about. Like just pause for a second and remember she’s a 15 year old victim of abuse. That is something that I think factors into a lot of her behavior! Anyways, I kinda while doing this got into a ranty 'talking at you' format in response to the person who wrote all that, so don't take any of this as me yelling at you who asked the question/you anyone reading this.

"She always acted entitled" - Saying Steph is entitled is absolutely ridiculous to me. Stephanie grew up with a very unstable childhood due to her dad frequently being in prison and her mom dealing with a drug addiction, living in a lower class part of the city. Tim is entitled. I don’t mean that as like a bad thing about him, but he is based on his living situation, she is not. She has wanted life to be better for herself and her mom, and is determined about that, but she is not and does not act entitled.

(Secret Origins 80 Page Giant)

"and stubborn" - I will give you stubborn though, that one is true. She’s stubborn as hell! I don’t really see that as a bad thing though, pretty much every bat is stubborn?

"demanding that Batman and Robin accept her untrained ass" - Steph may have been untrained in fighting but she's shown to have exceptional gymnastics skills from the start, and at one point Bruce even says that with the right training she could be as good if not better than Tim (in Robin #88)! So like... her realizing she enjoys trying to be a hero after she tried it out to deal with her personal business, so she looks to the local experts… and is determined about it… how is that a bad thing? It’s also not like she walked up to them and said ‘im perfect as i am let me in’ what she wanted was a chance to be a hero. But she also wasn't even really looking for approval, either, not having Batman's blessing was never going to stop her. ("So excuse me if I don't jump when you bark, Batman." in Robin #16) Later when Bruce does bring her in to train (and she also gets to train with the BoP) she's excited! She’s stubborn about wanting to be in the hero business, but it’s not like she’s unwilling to work for it.

"advocating leaving criminals to die because they 'deserve it'" - She’s a 15 year old who grew up knowing firsthand how dangerous Gotham criminals can be because of her dad, of course off the bat when they’re in a dangerous situation where any of them could die (because that’s the context here, this is in Robin #35 where they’re trapped in some super dangerous snow) she thinks they shouldn’t go back for another criminal who just tried to kill them and should instead save themselves. But she also literally WITHIN THAT SAME ISSUE then says she realized she learned something after listening to Tim and trying to save the guy! In the same issue! Characters in a story aren’t supposed to be perfect from the start… they learn things along the way???

(Robin #35)

"trying to steal from the shops they just stopped from being burglarized" - She’s 15 and doesn’t have a ton of money. She was gonna take two sodas, and when Tim said not to do it she paid with very little fuss. They stopped people who were robbing the place at gunpoint for prescription drugs. If you can’t understand the difference in severity between those things like… I do not even know where to start. (this situation is in Robin #56 btw)

"forcing physical affection onto Tim despite his visible discomfort and repeated objections (not even stopping when he told her he had a girlfriend)" - This one I will give you because she did cross boundaries with all that! But I do also want to clarify that she didn't start coming onto him until after Tim kissed her first (in Robin #5) while not telling her he had a girlfriend. That doesn’t excuse her later actions but for the first issue that she’s coming onto him from her perspective he expressed interest and she was just returning it! She even specifically says 'Maybe I should pay you back for saving my life the same way you paid me' (in Robin #16) before kissing him. That first time she kissed him unprompted was under essentially the same circumstances he kissed her unprompted, and she literally did not know about Ariana until after the fact. From that point once she knew about Ari she definitely should have backed off and she didn’t, that’s a very fair thing to criticize about her as a character. But Tim lead her on first, and I feel a lot of people like to casually forget that when talking about this situation. The way this is phrased of ‘not even stopping when he told her-‘ implies she was repeatedly doing the bad behavior before he told her, which is not the case. She still did bad things here but don’t misrepresent the situation.

"And lashing out at Tim, her mother, and her classmates in violent fits of anger" - Every comic book character lashes out at other people for the sake of drama like, I dare you to come up with a well-known superhero character who hasn’t done shit like that to a partner/family/friends in a moment of high tension/stress?

"She treated the girls around her like they were stupid bitches" - frankly this ones a little too vague like, I'm not sure off the top of my head exactly what they're talking about? in that era right around her pregnancy and stuff I really don't recall her being mean with other girls? I could be forgetting something I guess but the closest I can think of is a bit after this period of time when she has the confrontation with Greta in Young Justice but that was Greta attacking her first, not the other way around.

"got insanely jealous if Tim so much as expressed concern about another girl" - Steph getting jealous and thinking Tim was cheating isn’t that crazy when STEPHANIE BASICALLY WAS THE OTHER GIRL DURING TIM’S LAST RELATIONSHIP? Tim has cheated a little bit before! Tim cheated on Ari with both Jubilee from Marvel (during a crossover thing where he even mentions Ari specifically so it’s not like this was out of continuity/a setting she wasn't an issue or something) and also with Steph. While most of the kissing between them was Steph coming onto Tim which I wouldn’t count as cheating on his end, he did still kiss her which I would count. Not to mention that the jealousy thing (I imagine they’re talking about the instance with Star, the girl who taught Tim to skateboard, this arc of stuff starts in Robin #80 and continues for a few issues) is happening during the time she’s dating him while she still doesn’t even know his real name. He literally has a whole other life she doesn’t know about, and is someone who has initiated romantic moments with other girls while in a relationship multiple times before! With that in mind I don’t think a 16 (she's def 16 by this point) year old girl being kinda paranoid about how he interacts with girls he might know in his civilian life is that unreasonable? The later big instance with jealousy is the Darla situation- where Steph sees Darla kiss him and gets mad about it (and doesn’t talk to him about it) and thats what prompts her to become Robin. The important thing to remember about Steph in this time frame is that DC decided she had to die and they wanted to make her Robin first to drum up more attention for that death. They were doing ooc things with her to set those pieces in motion, and that needs to be taken into account. I think her getting upset about seeing something like that isn’t even ooc, but her using it as motivation to become Robin and not even saying anything to him about it is. In the earlier instance where she’s upset/jealous about Star, she does communicate to him what’s going on at least a little bit on the rooftop after they’d saved her. She makes it clear the thing she was upset about is that she feels like she can’t trust him because she doesn’t really know him while he knows everything about her, and that’s why she thinks he’s cheating. Her reaction to the Darla thing is not in line with how earlier in canon Steph would have handled the same situation, because they wanted her to die and needed a way to explain her becoming Robin.

"and expressed that jealousy by accusing him of cheating and throwing things at him" - I just addressed the cheating stuff but the throwing things was fucking slapstick oh my god this is a comic book for kids/teens like. ah yes this is horrible abuse in this little funny montage of how Steph wants him to leave her alone because she’s mad at him and he refuses to give her space

(Robin #82)

I don’t think anyone at DC or even in fandom would/should try to argue she’s perfect, because she’s not! And I don’t want her to be because perfect characters are boring. Steph is flawed, Steph has been compared in canon to Robin-era Jason by Cass & Bruce

(Detective Comics #790)

And I think these highlight some of her very real flaws that are an interesting part of her character. These plus her stubbornness and determination are part of what makes her her.

And for fuck's sake the world was mean to her, and to act like it wasn’t is just blatantly ignoring a lot. A criminal father who made her life really difficult (‘when my dad was mad at me he’d lock me in the closet!’), that time she got kidnapped for two weeks and her mom had left her (a 15 year old) alone at home so long she didn't even find out it happened (in text Steph says Crystal was visiting friends, a lot of people interpret that as her mom possibly being in rehab for her addictions again), that whole thing about how one of her dad’s friends tried to sexually assault her as a child, also just how due to her dad's work sometimes criminals would be living in their house (Literally the fucking Riddler at one point!), the fact that we as an audience watched her get tortured for several days because a plan she tried to enact to prove herself backfired since Batman didn’t trust her with important information (something Selina even calls him out on in her internal narration), like… sorry but in what way is all that not the world being mean to her?

She was Robin, she dated Robin, she likes Eggplant (because purple would've looked stupid), and makes jokes. She’s also impulsive, headstrong and determined, and wants to prove to herself and others that she can be more than just the daughter of a shitty criminal, that she can actually be a force to do good in the world.

She’s a complex character, and nobody is required to like her, but to act like she doesn’t have a single redeeming trait is ridiculous. You could write a paragraph like that with the worst moments of basically any character and make them look like shit if that's what you were setting out to do.

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cringelordlikesplaz · 3 years ago

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Strange to be an Eel

Turning into silly putty wasn't the strangest thing that had happened to him, honestly. It’s everything that happened after that which was weird.

"Please! I'm begging you, Jake bailed last minute and we don't have any replacements! This musical is our last chance. If this flops, we'll never be able to keep this place open!" She cried. 'She' being a short woman with desperate tears in her eyes and too many freckles.

Eel pulled his wrist out of her surprisingly strong grip. He shook his hand off and observed the woman in front of him. She looked stressed, tired, and a general mess. Her name tag read ‘Penny’.

"Well, Penny." He said curtly, "I got things to do. Better things to do than-"

"But you're the perfect fit! You're the right size, you already know all the lines-"

"Seeing a musical five times doesn't mean I've memorized-"

Penny snapped to attention and pointed her finger into the air dramatically. The imaginary audience located in the storeroom fell silent.

"And if I'm not here to save the day- Then as God as my witness, I'll be here to save the night!"

"-It's 'then as the gods as my witnesses'." Eel pointed out. Penny smiled smugly and Eel shook himself off.

"That doesn't prove anything. And it doesn't change the fact I can't go onstage!" Eel said.

"You'll be wearing makeup and goggles! A hat too! No one will be able to recognize you in costume!" Penny said, suddenly desperate again.

"No! I won't do it!" Eel said in response to her puppy eyes.

"Please! Please, Bruce Wayne's out there and if this goes well the PR will be fantastic!" She said, tears beginning to fall.

Eel looked up at the cracked ceiling and let out a long, long groan.

"I want 100 bucks." Eel said.

"Deal!" Penny said, the tears instantly evaporating.

Damn actors.

~~~

So, the musical rendition of the hit show 'The Grey Ghost' went pretty damn well, in Eel's opinion. He was skeptical at first, as anyone should be, but he had to admit it, Penny was right. He was an amazing Grey Ghost.

It helped that Eel had been a fan of the Grey Ghost since he was a boy, and it also maybe helped that he had snuck into the theater to see the practice runs of the play five times. He had thought he was being sneaky, but apparently theater kids could like, smell intruders. Fresh blood, if you would.

He hadn't known what would happen when he was cornered by a very manic little blond lady, but it ended up surprisingly well. He even got paid.

After he and the other actors had taken their bows or whatever, Eel snuck back to the storeroom. He pried off the grey suit- it was kinda itchy honestly- and began to dig around for his usual clothes.

He put his suit on. The nice one, that didn't pinch his shoulders and had all his crap in the pockets. He buttoned up the coat and pulled out his glasses. They were black and pretty slick, if he was honest with himself. Which he was. Occasionally.

The temples were wide and helped hide his eyes from the side. They hid his scar even better. They were sunglasses, unfortunately, not the best eyewear to have in Gotham, but he liked them. And that was enough for now.

They were also expensive as all hell. Some sort of designer brand. He would wear them till they broke for how much they cost him.

There was a knock on the door.

"I'm decent," Eel said.

Penny opened the door and held her clipboard to her chest excitedly. Her eyes sparkled.

"So." She said.

"So?" He asked.

"So! Y'know how Bruce Wayne was in the crowd tonight?" She asked.

"Yup," He said.

"He liked it! He liked it so much he wants to fund us!" She said, "And he wants to meet you."

Eel blinked. "He what?"

"He said your performance was incredible! He wants to meet you!"

"No."

"No?" She asked, her head cocked, "But you've got so much talent! He could get you a job, y'know."

"No. Just- no." Eel shook his head. He could just hear the sirens now. "I can't, Penny."

She seemed like she wanted to press him- like she did with getting him into the costume. But something on his face made her reconsider, apparently.

"Alright." She said, sighing, "I'll tell him you're not available."

"Thanks, pal." Eel said.

They stood awkwardly.

"I need to go." He said, pointing behind her to the door.

"I- okay." She said. Penny stepped aside and Eel left the storage room, Penny following behind. She led him to the backdoor.

"Um, thank you...?" She said as he stepped out into the alley.

"It's best if you don't know my name." Eel said.

"Will you be back?"

"Probably not." Eel said, "What with your success here tonight- I think there's going to be too much foot traffic around for a crook like me to be hidden."

She smiled softly, "You weren't very hidden in the first place."

"I'll have you know I've hidden from cops in more obvious spots."

"I think that says more about the GCPD than it does your skill," Penny said.

Eel huffed, mockingly offended.

"Later, miss." He said, turning to leave.

"Goodbye." She said.

Penny waved to his back and waited for him to slink into the shadows before she shut the door.

~~~

"Eel O'brian." A gruff voice called.

Eel grinned and craned his head around to look at a familiar face.

"Matches! Ol' pal, where've you been? It's been ages." Eel said.

Matches Malone slid into the seat next to him at the bar. The bartender wordlessly handed Matches a drink and Matches wordlessly slid a few bills over the counter.

Eel took a sip of his own drink- a cocktail.

"I've heard there's work around." Matches said, taking his match out of his mouth to take a sip of his drink. Whiskey probably.

"I mean, yeah-" Eel said, rolling the cherry around his glass for the hell of it, "But there's always work around."

"Hmm."

"Yeah yeah, I know what ya mean." Eel said, nodding. "You want the work that won't have you dressed up as a daisy and punched by a furry. I gotcha."

"Hmm."

"I miss the good 'ol days, Matches. Before all these folks in spandex came along and started going nuts all over town-" Eel paused, taking a sip of his cocktail, "-But I do got to admit it; the spandex is pretty hot."

"I need cash." Matches said, ever eloquent.

"Cheers to that!" Eel laughed. He downed the rest of his drink, swallowing the cherry.

"Where's the work?" Matches finally asked, and Eel's grin faltered. Always work and no play with this guy.

But Matches seemed to like him well enough, so Eel wouldn't hold it against him.

"So, new boss in the West part of town looking to hire some folks. I think they're hiding something pretty big, but we won't know that 'till we get there, won't we, Matches?" Eel said.

"Hmm."

"Yeah, me too buddy."

~~~

Things at the new job were getting crazy. Like, really really crazy. Like the type of crazy he spent a great amount of his time trying in vain to avoid. Super crazy.

Pun intended.

It started off fairly normal. By Gotham standards anyway. Looting places. Stealing. Scarin' the living daylights out of folks. Keeping out of the limelight.

But the boss turned out to be working for an even bigger boss- who had a penchant for monologuing- and Eel couldn't help the sinking feeling he had in his gut.

And then the boss- the small boss and not the bigger, monologuing boss- somehow kidnapped Batgirl of all people and decided to drown her. And he did it in this big glass chamber with a valve on the side.

He stood in front of it, glaring at each of his men accusingly.

He had each of them turn the valve, adding a few inches of water to the chamber, and taking few inches of air away from Batgirl. He was trying to root out a snitch. Or, as he put it, a bat.

Matches didn't even hesitate. Eel wished he had that guy's confidence.

But Eel? He wasn't a big fan of murder. It made him feel icky. It kept him awake at night. He already had enough insomnia, thank you very much.

And Batgirl- She was just a kid. A baby-faced teenager. Up close, she was no longer a force of nature fighting alongside a cryptid. She was a teenager up to her nose in water, her clothes torn and bloody.

Eel went last.

He put his hands on the valve and-

He couldn't do it.

He wouldn't.

A lot of things happened after that.

The boss (the small one) told the rest to shoot him down, and Eel had a half a second to view his terrible life before Matches tackled him to the floor.

The glass of the chamber broke and the room was suddenly flooded with a lot of water and one very mad vigilante. Then a window got busted in, even more glass flying, and then two Robins showed up- There was the young Robin who was grumpy and the other older Robin that wasn't Robin anymore but Eel couldn't really be bothered to remember his name at the moment.

There was fighting, gunfire, blood, and then there was glass in his hands-

And then Matches had somehow manifested them both outside and set Eel on his feet.

"You-" Eel spluttered, "You saved me!"

Matches looked at Eel. Eel looked at Matches. The street was quiet. Inside the building, it was not.

"Thank you." Eel said softly.

"...You cost me my payment." Matches said at last.

Eel's face fell.

"I just- She's just a kid, Matches. I ain't a monster." Eel said.

Matches shook his head and walked away, leaving Eel on the sidewalk with glass in his hands.

Guess he was wrong about Matches.

~~~

That day wasn't too bad, though. In the middle of the night he was woken up to a knock at his window. His fourth story window in his crappy apartment.

He opened his window and suddenly a basket was shoved into his arms. He fumbled with it for a second, his hands still raw. There was a blur of movement and Eel was left standing half-naked holding a- a gift basket?

He sorted through it- it had cash and cookies and bandages. It also had a plain white card. He opened it and raised a brow in surprise.

"Thanks for not drowning me!"

It was signed with a little bat drawn in the corner.

The cookies were delicious.

~~~

The safe was built into the wall. The safe itself wasn't too big, and the wall was only made of plaster. It would be a pain to lug the safe back to base though. And it would cost precious seconds to hack away at the wall to get the safe out-

There was really only one option. The bomb he had was small and wouldn't do much in terms of excavation- but it would absolutely open up that pesky Wayne-Tech lock.

"Alright guys, we need to get back-" Eel didn't hear anyone. He turned- "Guys?"

"It's been a while, O'brian." Batman said, surrounded by the unconscious bodies of his crime buddies. Well, not really buddies- you get the point.

"Batman! Hello! I don't think we've met," Eel said, swinging on his heel and turning to face his doom.

"No, we haven't. But when I didn't hear word from the police of any of your activity for a few months- well." Batman took a silent step closer. "One tends to worry."

"Oh? Me? Lil 'ol me? You shouldn't have." Eel batted his eyelashes, though the effect was diminished as he was wearing his shades.

"You plan these heists well." Batman said slowly, "You waited until the Riddler attacked to go for this safe. You got past the cameras without setting off the alarm. You tipped off the police of where you'd be- on the other side of town."

Eel tried to reach for the detonator on the bomb. If he could just- "You flatter me, Batman really, but I-"

"We could use a man like that on our side, O'brian." Batman said. "A smart man like you could do some real good in the world."

Eel laughed. That was the most wrong thing he'd ever heard. He laughed but it wasn't funny.

He pressed the button and the bomb started counting down from 10.

"I don't think so, Bats. I'm not the hero type." Eel said, and then tried to make a run for it. Batman caught him by the collar.

"It's not about types. There's good in you."

"I really wish I could stay and chat, but I gotta split." Eel said, slipping his arms out of his coat and breaking into a mad sprint.

The bomb let out a single shrieking beep before it detonated.

Eel didn't turn back to see what happened to Batman.

~~~

A deal went wrong. Unsurprising. They broke his leg. Unsurprising. He was alive. Surprising! Unfortunately, he was still very much crippled and bleeding out from somewhere.

He limped along the sidewalk at night, always a dumb thing to do. His vision was either going or the lighting in this city was getting worse by the moment. Given that he lived in Gotham, it was likely both.

He limped into a grassy part of the city- a park of some sort. He'd get caught soon. Or maybe he'd bleed out and die. He couldn't manifest the energy to care either way.

He flopped down onto the grass, for lack of any other bright ideas. He couldn't see the stars through the cloud cover. Tragic.

"Hey." A commanding voice called. He looked around until he spotted a scantily-clad woman. She was green and wearing leaves and had bright red hair and was looking at him like he was a pile of dead slugs.

Oh. Oh crap. Oh crap that's Poison Ivy.

Eel tried to shrink into the ground.

"Hiiiii Poison Ivy, how's the weather?" He asked. He tried to smile charmingly but it was most likely very strained and bloody.

"Why are you bleeding on my flowers?" She asked, a single brow raised.

"Haa, would you believe that blood makes a great fertilizer?" Eel said.

"It does." She said.

"Uh," Eel had lost too much blood for him to come up with a witty remark.

"Please don't kill me." He said.

"Greater men than you have begged for mercy. What makes you better?" She asked, head cocked.

"I can, uh," Eel panicked, "I can give you my grandma's recipe for caramel coffee."

Poison Ivy's other eyebrow raised.

They looked at each other for a moment.

Then, a shrill voice called from across the park.

"Ivy! Come on!! What are you even doing?!"

Eel was fairly certain he was hallucinating now. Blood loss and all that. Because Harley Quinn, wearing a football jersey and sweatpants, came running up to stand besides Poison Ivy.

"We're going to miss the game," Harley pouted, then took notice of Eel, "Who's that mess?"

"Someone who can make caramel coffee, apparently." Poison Ivy said, bemused.

"I like caramel." Harley said.

Poison Ivy shrugged, "We can keep him if you want."

"I also like coffee..." Harley tapped her chin in consideration, "Yeah we'll take him. Come on, Ivy!"

~~~

That was how he ended up getting high with Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. His leg was propped up on a table, a bong was being passed around, the apparent football game played on the TV in front of them. They were in a greenhouse and the city’s lights shone through the glass almost magically. This was probably not what someone suffering from blood loss should be doing. Eel almost considered making a break for it.

But Poison Ivy was the Weed Queen of Gotham, and getting this stuff free? Too good to pass up.

Harely had seemingly forgotten about the promised coffee, but since they hadn’t killed him yet and gave him weed, Eel decided he'd write the recipe down for them before he left.

"I don't get why capes dress the way they do," Harely said, "I mean, rogues have the same problem but like, it's more noticeable with the heroes, y'know?"

"Like, the boob windows?" Ivy asked. Harley nodded enthusiastically.

"Yeah, yeah! The boob windows." Harely said, "Why do all the guys wear kevlar and body armor and the girls got to show off their tits?"

"Maybe the dudes should show off their tits too." Eel said.

Poison Ivy laughed and Harely nodded even more enthusiastically.

"Yeah! This guy gets it!"

"See, if I were to go running around in spandex-" Eel gestured to his very much not spandex coated body, "I'd show off my cleavage all the time."

"Men don't have cleavage," Ivy pointed out.

"Not with that attitude they don't." Harley said, "Say, Eel, if you ever get tits, come over so we can prove Ivy wrong."

Eel cackled, "Sure thing! And if I ever start wearing spandex as a hobby I'll make sure the V-neck plunges all the way down."

"You'd better!"

Ivy laughed and Eel was handed the bong again.

~~~

Eel wasn't even doing anything. He was in his apartment, minding his own business. Well actually he was trying to sleep but that wasn't going so well.

Then there was a tapping on his window. Feeling a sudden wash of deja-vu, Eel turned around. There was an otherworldly, haunting green glow coming from his window.

Pausing, and exercising a healthy amount of caution, walked over to the window.

A UFO hovered outside his window. A tiny one.

Eel rubbed his eyes.

The UFO bonked against the glass, seemingly wanting inside.

"uh," Eel said. Against every ounce of common sense, he opened the window.

The UFO flew inside his room, casting its light oddly through his home. There was a mechanical whir, and suddenly a robotic arm sprung out from the bottom of the ship.

"Uh," Eel said, regretting everything immediately.

The UFO then grabbed Eel by his good ankle, his other leg still in a cast for a few more weeks. He lost balance and hit his head on the floor. The small ship lifted him off the floor by his ankle, and then dragged him out the window. He tried to claw at the windowsill but the ship was too fast.

"UH,"

He dangled dangerously over what was at least a thirty foot drop. The UFO paid no mind to his panicked flailing, and instead began to go higher.

"OH GOD."

~~~

The small UFO took him to a bigger UFO, of course.

A small hole opened in the underside of the ship, and Eel was brought inside. The inside of an alien spaceship looked nearly identical to its outside, apparently. Weird and green.

The smaller ship finally dropped him off in a large circular room. He was set down gently on his back, but he still hissed in surprise. The metal floor was freezing and he was only in his shorts.

"Uh oh uh oh uh oh..." He muttered.

"Hello, human!" A cheery, buzzing voice greeted.

Eel looked around frantically and finally spotted a small, glowing blue light.

"Uh, hi?" He said to the light. The blue light bobbed up and down- excitedly?

"Human!" It said, "We are the-"

It said something that sounded eldritch to his human ears.

"-and we saw your performance!"

He blinked.

"...my what."

"On February 7th, approximately 11 months ago, you performed in the musical "The Grey Ghost Strikes Back!"." The light said. Several other colorful lights manifested around him.

"...uh huh."

"If you are wondering why you did not see us, the-" [REDACTED] "-in the crowd on the date of your performance, it is because we were not there."

"Ooohh kayyyy...."

"Batman recorded it and sent us a copy!"

Eel blinked. They were speaking alienese, he was certain of it.

"He also sent along with it 307 other forms of human entertainment as a welcome package to Earth!" It said, "And we must say, we really enjoyed your performance."

A red light, hovering just a little lower than the blue one, perked up.

"We especially enjoyed your performance in the third act, and would like to compliment your singing skills." The red light said.

"Thank you?" Eel said.

"If it is not too much trouble, human, we would like what is most commonly known to you as an 'autograph'." The blue light said.

"...alright."

~~~

The night started off odd, he'd admit it. But it wasn't bad. He signed some stuff. He didn't know what the things he signed were or what exactly he wrote with, but it hardly mattered. They asked him to sing a song from the musical- he did- and they somehow applauded him.

They gave him alien food, and he'd be damned if he didn't accept free food. Even if it was probably radioactive. It tasted like cotton candy. Again, not bad.

They told him a bit about their situation. Their home- somewhere on a different plane of existence- exploded. They were the last of their kind. Batman approached them, because he could do that apparently, and offered them a place on Earth.

"Our culture is based on entertainment. Each piece of what you call 'media' is like a fine work of art to us." They said.

"Oh, cool. So do you kidnap actors you like in other stuff?" Eel asked, trying to figure out the best way to consume the slime on a stick he'd been given. He decided there was no proper way to do that so he just decided to slurp it off.

"We would like to meet the actors and actresses in other media, but they usually just scream the whole time they are here. We gain the impression that they do not appreciate our hospitality." They said.

Eel shrugged, "I can't imagine why. You guys are great."

"You have taken this whole experience very well, comparatively."

"I mean- I'm a bit desensitized to weirdness." Eel said.

"Is this experience considered 'weird' to other humans?" They asked.

"Nah." Eel said, waving off their concern, and set his slime stick down, "Hey, I'd like to get home now. This has been fun and all, but it's kinda cold in here."

"Of course, human. We wish you fame and fortune for your future."

"Uh, you too?"

They dropped him off on the roof of his apartment building. The sun was beginning to rise. He made his way down the stairs, nearly naked and his leg still in a cast. He slept okay.

~~~

Eel was known for many things. He knew most, if not all, of those things were bad. Hell, all of the things he was known for would be bad to the common man. But to the common crook? Only most of those things would be considered bad.

Some of the things he was known for made him desirable.

He was a safecracker, he never got caught, he could make a good plan and stick to it. He was good at his job.

But Eel was not... valuable, per-say. He was a tool in most people's eyes. Something to be discarded when the job was done.

Eel knew this. Made his peace with it. He knew when he took this job that the guys he was working with didn't give two shits about him. But he needed their muscle for the security guards, and they needed his skill to crack the safe. They all needed the cash.

They walked into this big facility during a storm. Mr. Freeze was causing havoc in city hall again. The outer parts of the city didn't get the blizzard- they got the freezing rain.

The security guard appeared- he had a gun and he was willing to use it. If the folks he was working with were smart, which they weren't, they would have ran. Don't shoot back, don't have murder put onto your sentence along with theft and arson and everything else.

But they were stupid, and they shot blindly, and the guard shot Eel in the shoulder. And the bullet tore through his shoulder and into a container of something-

Another shot rang out, the guard fell.

There was a crack and suddenly Eel was soaked in something- it was bright and hot and it burned like the embers of Hell. He screamed, of course.

The people he was working with, his 'pals', stared at him for just a second.

"Eel-!"

"Eel doesn't have the cash, now run!"

Eel got up, and gave chase. His steps faltered and his vision swam.

He made it outside just in time to see them get into the car and book it.

"Adios, Eel!"

"You putrid punks!" He yelled, his hand clutching his shoulder. Everything burned. Everything throbbed. His pulse beat in his ears, the rain came down like knives, and the bullet hole poured blood like a faucet. But it was oddly thick- was it? The world kept wanting to wobble and spin.

The- the police. They'd be here soon. Maybe. Eventually. He needed to go.

He walked.

Down the street, down an alley, then another, then another, until the buildings began to spread out and trees and grass began to coat the land.

The rain was softer here. Warmer too. He climbed a shallow hill. Like climbing a mountain. His heart slammed the inside of his skull like a drum. There was a tree on the hill, its branches bare.

He collapsed beneath it.

He didn't have time to see if he could spot any stars before it all went black.

~~~

Eel's life had always, always been strange.

But it apparently that was just the beginning.

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bombshellbois · 4 years ago

Text

Bait

@harringroveweekoflove

Harringrove Week of Love Day 2: Mythological Creature AU

Rating: T

Words: 1641

Summary: Steve is barely paid enough to scoop ice cream under the hot sun at the Hawkins Aquarium. He's definitely not paid enough to deal with their asshole of a science project.

Steve is used to Dr. Owens showing up at his job by now. The Scoops Ahoy stand at the Hawkins Aquarium sees most of the science staff at some point because Indiana summers are fucking hot and a 15% employee discount is a 15% employee discount. Dr. Owens doesn’t come for the ice cream, though. He comes to ruin Steve’s day, usually carrying a bucket of raw fish for the... secondary duties Steve has now.

There is no bucket today. There’s a black eye, a busted lip, and a ruined wetsuit under a Hawkins Aquarium windbreaker, but no bucket. The signs of carnage are not uncommon either.

“Harrington.”

“Still think having a mermaid in an aquarium is a good idea?” Steve asks, glancing at him briefly before he goes back to wiping down the stand’s serving counter.

“I didn’t ask your opinion,” Owens says shortly. Talking splits his lip back open.

“But you want something from me.”

“You’re on the clock, aren’t you?”

Steve could argue, and sometimes he has, that he’s on Scoops Ahoy’s clock, not Owens’. Not even the aquarium’s, technically. And he’s being paid 3 bucks an hour to sling ice cream, not deal with the world’s first known mermaid. But Owens seems to be having a tough day, so he lets it go.

“Fine. Robin will be back from her break in 5 minutes. What do you need?”

***

Once Robin is firmly in charge of the ice cream scoop, Steve heads to the giant laboratory at the back of the aquarium. The heavy door buzzes open as soon as whoever watches the cameras sees him coming. Yeah, they all know him here, the asshole in the sailor uniform who’s Owens’ bitch.

‘We need to clean the tank,’ Owens had said. Which meant they needed to empty the tank first.

Billy wasn’t having any of that, apparently.

Steve sighs as he climbs the industrial staircase up to the top of the massive 2-story tank. There’s a lot of humming in his ears from the giant industrial filter and all the equipment in the room. He can’t hear shit inside the tank, but he doesn’t need to. A cursory glance over his shoulder confirms that, yep, as per usual, he’s got a mermaid following behind him. Probably staring at his ass.

Billy pops up at the top of the tank, folding his arms on the rim of it as Steve reaches the top of the stairs. He shakes his head of wet, blond curls out, and grins when water splatters all over Steve’s blue work uniform. Steve has no idea where a mermaid learned to be such an asshole.

“Hey, pretty boy,” he says, running his tongue over his sharp teeth. Steve doesn’t know where he learned that either.

“Why are you roughing up Owens?” Steve asks, crouching on the platform along the lip of the tank, bringing himself down to Billy’s height. “You always bitch that your tank isn’t clean enough.”

“It’s not. Because it’s a fucking tank and not an ocean.” Billy flashes him a grin that shows off his teeth, like rows of pins. “What can I say? They don’t handle the merchandise correctly.”

Steve gives Billy a critical once-over. He’s all muscle, from the sturdy human trunk to the thick red tail that Steve has seen him use to break ribs. “Too delicate for Owens’ handling? That’s what you’re sticking with?”

Billy scrunches his nose, and that’s all the warning Steve gets. The giant fan of his tail fin pops out of the water and slaps down on the surface, hard. It sprays Steve with more cold water that definitely, definitely needs that cleaning. He coughs and splutters, fumbling for his hat when it falls. Billy makes a grab for it, but Steve manages to slap his hand away. This time. Billy already has two of these stashed somewhere in his tank, and Steve’s boss is going to start charging him if he keeps losing them. Even if it’s aquarium property that’s stealing them.

“Were you saying something there, princess?”

“Asshole.” Steve drops his weight back and sits on his butt. “What’s got your mer-panties in a wad? Seriously.”

Billy’s tail fin slides back under the water and he shrugs. “Where’ve you been? You haven’t come to see me.”

Ah. That’s probably it. “Missed me?”

That earns him a dramatic rolling of eyes as if Billy has ever heard of anything so absurd. As if he hasn’t just roughed up a man in his fifties to get Steve to come to his tank. As if Steve is somehow the unreasonable one here.

“It’s okay if you did.”

“We don’t feel shit like that. Merfolk aren’t pussies.”

Steve is pretty sure that’s a lie. According to Owens, mermaids might have a very complex system of interpersonal relationships, which may or may not include bonding the way humans do, blah blah blah. From what Steve can tell, Billy’s pretty human in respect to how his emotions work. He’s just a typical guy about them, meaning he doesn’t want to talk about them or acknowledge that they exist.

He really hates that he’s the emotionally mature one here. That is not a thing that should be happening in Steve’s life right now. Robin has already confirmed for him that if emotions were a car, he wouldn’t even have a learner’s permit. He’d still be on roller skates. It’s a sound analogy, and it’s comforting because it confirms what Steve pretty much already knew.

“I’m sorry I haven’t come to see you,” he says because it’s just faster. Pointing out that he’s not allowed inside this place unless Owens has requested his help won’t end well. Steve is pretty sure that’ll make Billy just dig in his proverbial heels every time he wants to see Steve. That’s kind of sweet, in a Billy sort of way, but Steve doesn’t want to suddenly find himself working six days a week and on-call for Sundays even though the aquarium is closed. Easier to just take the blame.

Billy huffs a breath out through his nose. “You’re just being nice so I’ll let them clean the tank.”

“And you were only an asshole to Owens so I’d show up and be nice to you,” Steve points out. He’s learned not to let Billy’s bullshit slide. He might be some majestic legend of the sea, but he’s also an asshole. And an opportunist.

Billy breaks out into a grin, doing that Thing with his tongue again. “You got me.”

“So. Will you let them clean the tank?” Steve asks. “I’ll bring you your lunch in the holding tank and tell you about the bullshit new ice cream flavor they’re making us push.”

Billy looks up and off to one side as if he’s considering it. “Hm... sure.”

That was relatively easy. Small mercies. “Awesome,” Steve says, getting to his feet, sneakers squeaking on the wet platform. “I’ll tell Owens to get that hammock thing th—“

“But only if you carry me.”

Steve stares down at him. Billy just gives him a shit-eating grin, popping his tail fin back up and swaying it in what Steve swears is a taunt. Not that he knows anything about mermaid body language but that... that’s taunting right there.

“No.”

“Then I’m not leaving my tank.”

“Billy.”

“Steve.”

Steve flails helplessly, gesturing to include all of Billy. “Dude. You’re over 200 lbs.”

Billy fakes an affronted look and pats his sculpted abdomen. “Hey. I’ve been watching my figure.”

“Your tail is the size of a person.”

“Only a small-to-medium size person.”

“I am not hauling your slimy ass down two flights of stairs.” Steve is not paid enough for this bullshit to begin with, but this is a whole new level of paid that he’s not getting.

“Excuse you, I am not slimy!” Billy strikes the water again with his tail on a hard angle, sending a small wave of water crashing over Steve. Then he shoves back from the side of the tank and starts to submerge.

“No, no, no!” Steve coughs and wipes the water from his face, crouching back down. “Okay. Okay, you win, I’ll carry you.”

Billy pauses and raises an eyebrow. “...And?”

“And... you’re not slimy.” Steve has no idea if that’s true or not because he doesn’t usually have to haul Billy’s entire ass around. But apparently, he’s about to find out.

***

Getting down two flights of industrial stairs with a mermaid whose tail is the size of Steve when the whole thing is out of the water is... interesting. In a lot of bad ways. Steve’s arms feel like they might rip out of his sockets after the first five steps because Billy is well over 200 lbs of muscle and fucking fish scales and maybe he’s not slimy but he’s definitely slippery. And then he has to get up a half flight of stairs to get Billy to the smaller holding tank.

Billy thinks the whole thing is hilarious, and also steals his hat in the process.

The only satisfaction Steve gets is dropping Billy’s heavy mer-ass into the holding tank completely without ceremony. Which, as he should have remembered, does the same thing as dropping any other large, heavy object into the water. Steve gets soaked for a third time today when the wave it creates crashes over him, but at least this one doesn’t reek. And maybe it even gets some of the fish smell out of his uniform.

Billy pops back up from the water, laughing his ass off. “Good thing you look good wet, pretty boy,” he says, leaning on the side of his tank. “Now I believe you said something about lunch?” He snaps his fingers twice. “Chop, chop, I’m starving.”

Mermaids are assholes and Steve is absolutely not paid enough to deal with them.

#my writing #harringrove week of love #harringrove #billy/steve #the repeating theme here is that Steve is tired and underpaid #so it's pretty much canon-compliant #except Billy has a tail

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stevethehairington · 2 years ago

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robin asks to borrow a few bucks from steve because she used the last of her spending cash and they don't get paid until next friday, and steve begrudgingly agrees, except when he pulls his wallet out it's empty and he's like "shit, right, i used the last of my cash last night" and robin's like "last night?" and wiggles her eyebrows and steve rolls his eyes and goes "not like that, me and eddie just went to the movies again. tickets, popcorn, and sodas though, ten bucks! can you believe that? cleaned me right out man." and robin raises her eyebrows at steve and goes "ten dollars for your ticket and popcorn and soda?" and steve goes "well not just mine, i got eddie's too." and robin's eyebrows climb higher and she goes "you... paid... for eddie's?" and steve shrugs and goes "yeah" all casual like, like it's no big deal. and robin pauses for a moment but it's long enough that steve gives her a look and he's like "what?" and robin takes a step towards steve with her hands out and she speaks in a slow, delicate voice as though speaking any other way might spook steve and she says "im going to say something and you have to promise me you won't get mad or upset at me for saying it." and steves brow furrows and he's like "robin, what?" and robin stops in front of steve and looks him in the eye and says "steve. i think you took eddie out on a date." and there's a pause before steve laughs and goes "what?" and robin nods and goes "yeah, you went to the movies together, right? just the two of you?" "yeah." "and you paid for his ticket? and you bought him popcorn and a soda?" "yeah, but-" "did you pick him up too?" steve scoffs and goes "well yeah, but only 'cause i hate his fucking van and he drives like shit." and robin presses her lips together and is like "steve come on" and steve just keeps brushing it off because "that's crazy, robin, it wasn't a date." and then robin goes "what did you do with heidi when you went out with her?" and steves like "... we went to uh, see... we saw pretty in pink..." "at the movies," robin says, then, "did you split the cost?" and steve goes "of course not, i paid." "and you guys met at the theater?" and steve goes "no... i picked her up." and robin raises her eyebrow pointedly. and steve rolls his eyes again and puts his hands on his hips and goes "oh come on robin, that doesn't- that- it- no that doesn't mean anything. it's just a coincidence. movies are good for dates and something fun to do with a friend too. besides im not- im not, yknow, like that. like you. and and who knows if eddie is either! come on, rob." and so robin holds up her hands - she can see steve isn't going to budge - so she goes "okay, okay fine. not a date. got it."

except it's not fine. because steve can't stop thinking about it. no matter how much he tries to ignore what robin said he can't stop rolling it over in his head. was it a date? did eddie think it was? did he want it to be? did steve want it to be?

so the next time eddie asks steve if he wants to catch whatever new movie is out, steve agrees, but robin's words are still echoing through his head. so steve makes the excuse that he's working late that day so they'll have to just meet at the theater, which works well enough, except when he gets there eddie's waiting out front with his hands in his pockets and when he sees steve approach he pulls two tickets out with a grin and tells him he got them while he was waiting. when they get to the concession stand, steve goes to pull his wallet out to pay for his popcorn, but eddie elbows him out of the way and tells him "put that thing away, i got it this time" and when steve tries to argue and maybe even shove a few bucks at eddie to take eddie just shakes his head and laughs and tells him he won't take steves dirty money.

they take their seats and eddie keeps leaning in close, in that unaware-of-personal-space way he always does, to make comments about the previews and steve is hyper aware of how close they are. finally the lights go down and the movie starts and steve's got his arm on the arm rest between them, and at some point eddie laughs at something in the film, loud and boisterous, and steve glances over at him and his chest kind of gets tight, and his heart thumps harder against his ribcage because eddie? is like framed in the glow of the screen, his hair's a little wild and he's got this big smile on his face, eyes all crinkled up, and it just. it gets a little hard to breathe for steve for a moment there. so he has to look away, tries to focus back on the movie and like get control over himself (and he can hear robin's voice in his head over and over and over, just "date" "date" "date" and its not helping). and then eddie like settles back into his seat, and his arm comes up on the armrest right next to steves, and his forearm presses right up against steve's, skin to skin contact, and he doesn't pull it away, just lets it rest there, touching steve's like it's no big deal. and steve risks another glance over at eddie, and his eyes drop to their arms and he just kind of stares at them, at the places where their arms meet, and at this point he's completely lost the plot, doesn't even know what's going on in this movie anymore, but he doesn't care, he can't stop thinking about eddie, right there next to him. and his pinky twitches out, like it's got a mind of his own, towards eddie's hand, and steve's heart is in his throat, but before he can make contact, before he can do something stupid he draws his pinky back, and he clenches his fingers into a tight fist, nails biting into his palm. he feels a little dizzy after that.

he tears his eyes from their arms, forces himself to look ahead at the screen and try to stop thinking about eddie and how robin was actually probably really right and fuck, it totally is a date, and steve's kind of not upset about that at all, really, even kind of wishes, hopes, eddie thinks its one too.

but he looks at the screen and tries to make sense of what's going on in the movie. and in doing so, he completely misses the way eddie takes his own peek towards steve, towards their hands, the way eddie's pinky twitches too, inches closer to steve's, closer and closer and then. stops. stops so close that his nail almost grazes skin. but then his pinky curls home, and he squeezes his eyes shut for a moment and bites down on his lip and wishes he wasn't such a coward.

maybe next time they'll both be braver.

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #very seriously considering turning this into like. an actual fic? maybe? possibly? 🤔🤔

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brain-deadx0 · 4 years ago

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First Night

Part of New Big Brother

Summary: Remy and Patton have a short talk before bed.

Note: This is directly following part one of New Big Brother. I couldn’t find a way to fit it in so you get it now.

After watching both Ratatouille and Finding Nemo as well as making it halfway through Robin Hood, Virgil had passed out next to Remy. And by next to he meant leaning against. By the time the movie finished Remy’s arm was just as asleep.

“I’m gonna put him to bed.” Dad character whispered as the credits rolled, “Did you wanna watch another movie?”

“No, I’m good.” Remy told him as Virgil was gently peeled away. The kid nuzzled closer to dad character as the man rubbed his back.

“Ok.” The man smiled, “I know it’s starting to get late but did you wanna go over rules and stuff before bed or would you rather wait?”

“Now’s fine.”

“Ok, I’ll be down in a bit.” Dad character smiled softly before heading for the stairs and presumably the kids bedroom.

In truth, Remy would’ve put off the rules talk indefinitely, but at the end of the day it was better to get them out of the way first. He just hoped they were at least reasonable. He’d be fine with the babysitting part, Virgil didn’t seem to be a bad kid at least, chores he could deal with, he could do basic cooking if he really had to. The man seemed like a decent guy so far, so he didn’t think he’d have to worry too much about many food rules. He would probably end up with a curfew but hopefully it wasn’t too early. Whatever.

After a few minutes he heard Dad character coming back down the stairs and consciously relaxed his face into boredom. Or tired. It had been a long day.

“Hi.” Dad character smiled as he sat back down, “So… uh, is there anything you wanna know right off the bat or..?”

Remy shrugged.

“Ok, then,” The man said as he started fidgeting with his hands, “um… Well I guess we could start with Virgil. I’m not gonna make you take care of him, or even spend time with him if you really don’t want to, but I’d like you to at least be… civil I guess? He’s normally really shy.”

Remy wasn’t so sure how long the first part of that would last but so far the rule was “don’t be mean to the little kid” which was pretty easy. Remy nodded and the man took that as a sign to continue.

“Ok, uh… what time do you usually go to bed?” He asked.

“I can go whenever.” Remy told him.

“Well I suppose but…” dad character rubbed the back of his neck. Remy really must be his first teenager based on the guy’s attempt at giving rules. “How about be home before an hour after dark and bed by 11:30 or so? When school starts I’d rather you be in bed a bit sooner, at least on school nights, but so long as you can get up in time to catch the bus?”

That was actually... better than Remy thought it would’ve been. He nodded and dad character seemed to relax a bit. Remy was not expecting the man to be the nervous one in this situation.

“Virgil does some chores, mostly just setting the table, helping me put the dishes in the dishwasher, simple stuff like that and I give him two dollars a week. You don’t have to, but if you want we could talk about chores you might feel like doing and your allowance?”

“Allowance?” Oh shit he said that out loud didn’t he?

“Of course.” Dad character told him easily, “Your room is your space, you don’t have to keep it spotless, but I’d like it to stay clean enough to see some of the floor. So if nothing else you’d get some money for that.” He sent Remy another small smile.

“Uh, ok?”

“I’m trying to think of something else… Sorry my brain doesn’t work when tired.” Dad guy told him, “Uh, is there anything you want to know? Or anything you wanna talk about?”

“Um… food?” Remy tried.

“Oh are you still hungry?” He asked, “You’re welcome to any food you can find.” He told him, “You can do your own thing for breakfast and lunch if you want. I usually make Virgil both and I’d be more than happy to make larger potions if you want that too. Dinner is at about six every night and we always eat that together. Do you have any allergies?”

“No, not really?”

“That’s good.” Dad character smiled.

They sat in awkward silence for a minute before the man spoke again, “Well,” He said as he stood up, “I think I’m gonna head to bed. You can stay up if you want.” He told him, “Did you want anymore of this?” He gestured to the candy and leftover pizza on the coffee table.

“No, thank you.”

“Ok then.” Dad character said before moving to clean up. He put the few leftover slices of pineapple pizza in the much less empty pepperoni box and stacked the bags if candy on top before heading for the kitchen.

Remy followed suit and grabbed the empty plates, cups, and pizza box before going to the kitchen as well.

“Oh, thank you.” Dad character smiled when he noticed him, “You didn’t have to, I would’ve gotten them.”

“It’s fine.” Remy told him, “What should I…?”

“Oh just put the dishes in the sink, I’ll wash them in the morning, and the box on the counter.” The man told him as he finished putting the candy back on the top shelf.

After Remy had done so, Dad character bid him goodnight and went upstairs, leaving Remy alone.

Remy waited a few minutes to make sure the man had gone to bed. He wasn’t really tired yet, he doubted he’d get much sleep anyway, so he decided to scope out the ground floor. Virgil was a good kid, but a focused guide he was not. Especially when dad character mentioned candy.

Unsurprisingly the ground floor was pretty standard. Guest bathroom, coat closet, living room, kitchen, etcetera, etcetera. Couple of potted plants and candles here and there. Some glass cat knick knacks on some of the higher shelves. And family photos covering the wall.

Remy hadn’t paid much attention to them at first. But now it was quiet, no one was around to watch his every move. Most of the pictures were of Virgil, some of a pair of kids and another man, probably a relative of some sort. An older couple, more relatives. Dad character was in a few as well, but it was mostly Virgil.

The kid had been there for at least a couple of years judging by the pictures.

As he thought that his eyes caught on a picture of dad character. He was sitting in a chair with a “guest” sticker with some writing he could guess stuck to his shirt. Despite the traces of tears visible in the picture, he was smiling happily down at a baby. A new baby.

Oh.

Oh shit.

Dad character was Virgil’s dad dad.

“Remy?”

“Fuck!” Remy breathed as he spun around.

“Why’re you wake..?” Virgil asked sleepily.

This kid was gonna give him a heart attack by the end of the week if he kept appearing out of nowhere.

“I could ask you the same thing.” Remy told him, “You should be in bed.”

Virgil nodded tiredly but otherwise ignored that statement, “Wha’re you doin’?”

“Couldn’t sleep. Looking at stuff.”

Virgil walked over and looked at the pictures as if they were some museum art. Staring without much real interest. He pointed at the picture of the man and himself, “That one’s from when the messenger falcon gave me to dad.”

“... Messenger falcon? ...You mean the stork?”

The kid looked at him in confusion, “Why would a stork have a baby?”

Why was this a conversation Remy was having with an exhaused child late at night?

“Well… you got me there.” He admitted, “Anyway, we should both probably be in bed.” He told the kid.

Virgil nodded but made no effort to leave.

Remy shook his head, “Come on kid, back to bed.” He told him before making his way over towards the stairs. Thankfully the kid followed and the two quietly made their way back upstairs.

Virgil went back to bed easily, he was definitely tired and Remy wasn’t sure if he’d even remember coming downstairs by the time he woke up. Kid back in bed, Remy went across the hall to the room he would be sleeping in and did the same.

~~~note~~~

I love giving my characters the wrong conclusions.

#new big brother #brain dead writes #extra stuff #sanders sides #fan fic #Remy sanders #Patton sanders #Virgil sanders

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itsclydebitches · 4 years ago

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RWBY Recaps: Volume 8 “Fault”

Hello, everyone! We’re not even bothering with an introduction today, let’s just get straight to the only thing that matters.

HERE HE IS, THE MVP OF THIS EPISODE, OF THE WHOLE VOLUME, THE SERIES, THE ONLY ONE I CARE ABOUT RIGHT NOW

I’m joking… but only a little. In all seriousness we will get to Ren, but you all want to hear a funny story first? I somehow got it into my head that there was no RWBY episode this week—the holiday and all—so I poured all my meta time and energy into a ridiculous Ironwood analysis as a placeholder, only to wake up this morning and find the strongest (and most complicated!) episode this year waiting for a recap. Like some sort of grimm nosing into my inbox.

Okay, so it’s not a funny story, but if RT would just do a better job with their website my life would be a whole lot easier.

So here we are, taking a look at the episode “Fault.” Quick question, is every episode this volume going to have a one-word title? It’s not a criticism, I’ve got nothing against a punchy name, I’m just curious since RWBY has never done that before. If anything, they’ve gone more for symbolically significant phrases like “A Brawl in the Family,” “Players and Pieces,” and “The Lady in the Shoe.” I wonder what sparked the change.

Anyway, we open on Robyn laughing about some story she’s told, something about Joanna losing a fair fight for the first time, presumably to her. This is what we’ve learned about Robyn since this volume started: she refuses to acknowledge that she had a hand in Clover’s death; she was asked by Blake and Yang to keep the Amity secret but, according to May, couldn’t keep her mouth shut about it; and she tries to cheer Qrow up by bragging about her own skill.

Alrighty then.

Obviously, this little story fails to land. “Tough crowd tonight.” Robyn looks to Jacques as well as Qrow when she says this and since she clearly doesn’t care about cheering him up, she must want to get a rise out of him. Create something, as she says at the end of the scene, that’s exciting. Robyn just really loves to start fights. Against Ironwood, Clover, bickering matches with Jacques—stories told about winning them! If she’s not fighting someone she’s not interested.

Qrow does eventually give the smallest smile though and Robyn cheers. “Did I win?” They both quickly grow serious again though and Robyn says she’s “sorry for what happened. It wasn’t your fault.” Her apology would mean more if she was apologizing for her actions, not providing a generic ‘Sorry for your loss’ like she had no hand in this.

Qrow then insists it was his fault… but, of course, not for the reasons why he’s actually responsible (also, didn’t we do this two weeks ago?). For starters, Qrow blames his semblance for everything that went down, despite the fact that his semblance is not responsible for him breaking Clover’s aura, or Tyrian stabbing him. The most we’ve seen his semblance do is cause minor mischief, which in and of itself is absurd considering we’re meant to believe that it has kept him from his family most of his life, and informs choices like whether he’ll travel with the group in Volume 4. Still, it’s not unexpected that he would blame his semblance and think that having friends is a “childish dream”—depression is one hell of a liar—but rather, it’s frustrating that no one is helping Qrow see the truth of the situation, both the good and the bad. He certainly doesn’t need Robyn providing generic platitudes that absolve them both of their choices.

You know what the worst part is? The two kind, level-headed adults with enough distance to help Qrow acknowledge his mistakes while also correcting him about his misconceptions… are Ozpin and Clover. The former is still ignored by the cast, the latter barely got to be a character before he was killed.

Qrow goes on to say that he “made a deal with the darkness and [Clover] paid the price.” I’m sorry, what does that mean?? Outside of referencing his team-up with Tyrian, that’s the most dramatic, nonsensical thing he could have said. Qrow doesn’t admit to the team-up though, rather he starts blaming Clover for his own death.

Precisely like a good chunk of the fandom has done 🙃

He says that Clover just “wouldn’t let up” (translation: he wouldn’t agree to let me go when I was under arrest) and that they could have “worked together against Tyrian if Clover had just—”

There’s a lot to cover this episode, so I’m not going to dive into another explanation of all the justified reasons why Clover didn’t trust Qrow in that moment and why Qrow was the one who “wouldn’t let up.” If you’re interested in that rundown, head here.

Side note: can RWBY please stop with the weird mouth closeups? I’m begging the animators. Especially when so much else in this episode is gorgeous.

Yes:

No:

Robyn’s response is to make it all about her. I say, as a hypocrite, because my instinctual response in comforting someone is to also bring up a way that I might, sort of, know what they’re going through. It’s something to work on and, as always, I’d be more receptive to Robyn’s attempts if she weren’t failing so spectacularly in every other aspect of her characterization. Case in point: she says that having a truth semblance tends to make people push her away, but we’ve never once seen that. We’re introduced to Robyn as she’s adored by Fiona. The people celebrate her. Yang and Blake trust her immediately, for no reason, and comment on how useful her semblance is—they’re not concerned with it. Ironwood likewise works with her and allows her to use her semblance on him in public, at least for a time. May spoke fondly of Robyn last episode. She just finished a story about Joanna… where is this pushing away you speak of, Robyn? I really wish RWBY would consider things ahead of time and actually show them to us, rather than just having characters announce that they’re (supposedly) there.

Nice symbolism though with Robyn touching the electric bars and pulling her hand back. You reach out, you get hurt, curl in on yourself, blah, blah, blah. Too bad it’s not a moment attached to an actual struggle of hers.

Qrow buys it though, saying he’s never thought about it that way before.

You know, I get why a lot of people in the fandom hate Clover. I can’t even claim I’m much interested in him as an individual. I’m sick of straight, white, able-bodied men getting the spotlight, which is one of the things that drew me to RWBY in the first place… so theoretically Robyn should be the better choice for Qrow’s BFF, right? Especially in a world where FairGame only existed in RT’s social media queerbaiting. Give us the badass gender-bent Robin Hood instead of the boring military man!

On paper it sounds great… which is why it’s astounding that RT bungled that so badly.

Qrow never finishes his thought about Clover because the Ace Ops come in to return Watts to his cell. Interesting. The writing has definitely made Ironwood stupid, but perhaps not as stupid as he could have been? If he got Watts to hack Penny (we don’t yet know what’s going on with her during all this) and then promptly shut him away again, that’s just about the best way you can follow up on your worst decision.

Harriet spots Clover’s pin and tells Qrow “You don’t get to keep that,” but then doesn’t take it from him. See, that right there is a better motivation for potentially opening the cell. Qrow says he didn’t kill Clover, Harriet shoots back that his blood was on Qrow’s blade (again, focusing on the wrong way that he’s guilty), Robyn challenges her to get the truth via her semblance… and Harriet considers it? Why? She’s not the one struggling with her loyalty here, that’s Marrow, yet he’s the one who has to pull Harriet back with “What are you doing?” when she looks at the keypad. Have Marrow almost be swayed by Robyn’s taunting, or have Harriet almost open the door because she’s furious and desperate to get Clover’s pin back. Either one of those would make more sense than this.

Also, no one checked Qrow during his arrest/before he was thrown into his cell?

Also, note that Marrow uses a nickname here—“Hare”—so I’m continually unpersuaded by the ‘They’re not friends’ claim. Yes, Harriet hits his shoulder on her way out… and Ren will later scream at Jaune about cheating. Harriet being in a bad mood because their leader was just murdered isn’t evidence that they’re not close, no more than Ren responding to Everything Traumatic Ever is evidence that he doesn’t care for his friends.

Also (x3), Robyn calls Harriet “mohawk”?? Can’t this woman come up with a single good insult?

As the Ace Ops leave Robyn lays back down on her bunk, exactly as she was before, and says, “Well, that was almost exciting.” Kind of like this scene! Luckily, the episode is about to get a whole lot better.

The music immediately picks up as we segue to Ren, Jaune, and Yang chasing after Oscar. On the whole I really enjoyed this scene, largely because it shows the group doing their best—in a way that feels persuasive. I’ll admit that others have a point about them just standing around while the Hound changes form—yet still failing because, you know, our villain is actually powerful! However, there are, as always, some nitpicks.

One of the first bits of dialogue we get is Ren noticing that the bikes can’t stand being in the cold for very long. It bugs me that bikes suffer more from the cold than the civilians do. To say nothing of the fact that it once again doesn’t amount to anything. Their bikes carry them through the whole battle and Jaune looses his because of a grimm. Then Yang manages to fix the totaled bike with a single part, despite the continued cold. Why bother introducing this as a problem when it’s meaningless each and every time?

The three do demonstrate some great teamwork though. When Yang yells that she wishes one of them could fly, Jaune uses his shield to launch Ren at the Hound… so that he can get dragged through the air, hitting rocks. This poor guy. I like that though because no, these teens shouldn’t be perfect, strategic masterminds and yes, they’re in the kind of situation where they just have to try something and see if it works. Jaune can’t think ahead to what Ren will do once he grabs the Hound, they just have to get him to that point and go from there. Which they do. Ren snags a boulder to slow them down further (that’s smart) and Yang goes higher to fire at the Hound’s face (don’t hit Oscar he doesn’t have aura!!). They’re at a crazy disadvantage here and still trying their best to get our boy back.

The overall tone is… fine? Again, love supportive Yang—that high five with Jaune was wholesome—but it continually feels weird to get that when Oscar is in the literal jaws of death here. On the whole though the scene keeps to the action and seriousness of the situation, which I appreciate. We’ll talk more about tone during the outpost scene.

It's looking like they might be making some sort of headway when the Hound lets out a roar that, as Yang puts it, calls for backup. 1. Yay giving this grimm even more power to mess with the cast, 2. Holy shit there are so many grimm around. See, scenes like this is why I’m side-eyeing the anti-army rhetoric in the show (a stance I’d otherwise agree with 100%). Because do you see how many there are? That’s not Salem’s army, that’s just the normal grimm hanging out around Atlas. The cast is screwed if anyone were to, say, order them to attack the kingdom…

Kudos to RT for bringing back the centipede grimm though. I honestly thought they’d just be a one-off action sequence in Volume 7.

While everything is falling apart Ren catches a glimpse of Oscar, complete with rosy cheeks to make him look super young, and the sight fills him with

He starts climbing towards the Hound and we cut away.

Meanwhile, Jaune’s bike is hit with some of the centinel’s acid (again, not the cold causing problems) and he takes a tumble, managing to keep his feet before Yang snags him. Moments like that really do show how far he’s come and I’m glad we got to see such a moment in an episode where his cheating was brought up. Jaune then uses his shield to fly over one of the dragon-y grim, but... wait. The shield is flexible?

Literally what is the point of that? As a shield, I mean (it clearly works fine as a ramp). If you can just tip it over like that then so can the grimm or another fighter. Forget how tiny the shield is, all a monster would have to do is boop it and it would fall over. In fact, it probably should have with the grimm scratching at it before. Seems rather useless, unless you’ve got writers crafting convenient situations. Also, does Jaune have multiples of this thing? He picked it up before, but there’s no way he found that one again. Idk, I’m really not feeling this addition to Jaune’s arsenal. Better to give him a range option so he’s more versatile.

Still, they fly over the grimm and the two let out a sigh in synch. Whatever else we might have to say about this volume, RT is definitely giving us different interactions and team-ups. Well done there. Why, Jaune and Yang have managed to survive all that together!

Oh wait, never mind. They’ve gone off a cliff.

Honestly, I’m shocked they actually went over. I thought Yang would stop in time, or we’d have a classic moment of them tumbling off the bike and ending an inch from the edge, maybe going off slow with time for one to hang on. But nope, they plummet and it was done with such confidence by the camera that for a split second (the illogic of killing them both off aside) I thought that was it. They’re done for. Lucky for them, Ren catches them at the last second, managing to snag Jaune’s sword and them and immediately use his semblance so the grimm doesn’t eat them. That’s skill, baby!!

But you can see why he’s pissed, beyond just the fact that his semblance is holding this group together. It’s not Jaune and Yang’s fault that there was suddenly a cliff, but last we saw Ren he was heading towards Oscar. He had a plan. Granted, not one that was likely to lead anywhere given the Hound’s power (and the plot needing Oscar to reach Salem), but that’s not the point. He was pulling himself towards their kidnapped friend and then at the last second had to cut himself loose to save two others. This moment wasn’t anyone’s fault, but it would take someone with no emotions at all not to be frustrated by it.

So we leave the trio literally hanging out and return to Ruby’s group who is threatening kids!

Seriously though WTF, Weiss? Look, I haven’t always been kind to Whitley. In fact, I think there’s a Volume 7 recap where I really laid into him for his attitude and for supporting Jacques. But then—with the help of some friends and other anon perspectives—I thought about it for a hot second and considered how little power this child has. I was wrong to blame him for so much given the various circumstances here. It took, like… five minutes of thinking, and that’s for a fictional character, not a real life brother. Weiss clearly hasn’t given her brother five seconds of thought. He’s in the same abusive household that she was. He wasn’t blessed with combat abilities and a semblance to easily escape. He didn’t have Weiss there to guide him like Winter guided her. He had to watch BOTH his sisters abandon him to Jacques… so when exactly was he supposed to learn to be better? Why would he be inclined to? Weiss was an entitled racist when she got to school and needed new friends to show her a new path. She admitted as much last volume! Yet the fact that Whitley is completely alone in this house while their mom locks herself in her room to drink doesn’t register at all? This woman, an adult out to save the world as we’re frequently told, never once considered what it took to get her here and realize that Whitley has had none of the resources she did?

I want to emphasize that Weiss threatens him with her weapon. It’s not just that she’s dismissive of him and his plight, she’s also happy to use violence if Whitley doesn’t do exactly as he’s told. Violence… against her brother… who is a child… without any training. Again: WTF, Weiss? You know how I was praising RWBY last episode for not having the group beat up the Atlas personnel? Yeah, we get this instead.

Then she tells him to go to his room??

Speculation is that Whitley is about 2-3 years younger than Weiss. Or, to put it another way, roughly the same age as Weiss’ leader, Ruby. She’ll follow Ruby unquestioningly into world-changing decisions, but sends her brother to his room like a toddler? Which is it, RWBY? Are 17 year-olds leaders you should listen to, or babies who must leave the room while the grownups talk? He certainly can’t be any younger than Oscar, so again, she’ll fight beside him, but treat Whitley like this? Whitley isn’t exactly going to offer help in a respectful, eager manner, but that “Fine. What do you expect me to do?” was incredibly open given his situation. He was willing to help and that was the perfect opportunity to have him, you know, do something. Something small and innocuous that wouldn’t threaten the team if he betrayed them, but kept him around so he could talk to someone. But nope. Weiss just sends him to his room after criticizing him for not understanding that they’re “busy trying to save Atlas.” Weiss, what does Whitley know about all that? He’s locked up in this manor after your father was arrested and the one news clip we’ve seen said that no one knows why Ironwood recalled his forces, or what’s up with those grimm overhead. She’s acting like he should have any idea what’s happening right now.

Also, all of this is coming on the heels of Willow begging Weiss not to forget her brother, so that’s just great. RWBY has the rest of their time in the manor to fix this, because if Weiss comes out of that scene having only been handed the means of arresting Jacques… that’s just bad all around.

Finally, should we talk about how strange this choice is? Last episode we saw the group flying away and I assumed it was them leaving Atlas to go back to Mantle. It certainly looked that way, but now they’ve decided to stay until Nora is awake. Why? Isn’t it more dangerous here? I mean, they didn’t know the staff was gone and there are still arrest warrants out. Was Weiss just going to threaten anyone who dared report her? Where are these shields Ironwood spoke of? Have they gotten through them somehow, or are they currently trapped in Atlas?

This is “Oscar is in the slums, leaves the slums, learns they’re going to the crater, but the slums are actually the crater, so we’re heading back now” all over again.

The one good thing about this scene is that Blake and Ruby talk! …for about two seconds lol. Eh, better than nothing. Blake says that if Ruby is worried about Yang she could try calling her. Ruby has, and Yang isn’t picking up.

Does Ruby think she’s in danger or ignoring her? Unclear. We, however, know that Yang is now lost in the middle of nowhere with no reception and no transportation back to Mantle. The three of them start trudging towards an outpost Ren spotted, needing to find shelter “before this weather drops our aura levels completely.” So what about everyone without aura?? I wish that I could check off the bingo space again because this is ridiculous.

Ren, once again, isn’t in the mood to talk, but unlike Jaune, Yang can’t leave something alone. So she coaxes him to tell him what’s wrong and you know what? She does a real good job at first. She’s encouraging, but her voice is level and she doesn’t come across as accusing. Well done, Yang.

Things quickly fall apart though as Ren says EVERYTHING I’VE EVER WANTED TO SAY TO THIS GROUP. Holy shit, everyone, let’s count ‘em up:

Nothing is going smoothly so let’s stop pretending it’s all fine

Oscar has been horrifically kidnapped that’s #bad

This is not a normal part of being a huntsmen

We don’t know the first thing about being huntsmen!

Every time we’ve had to make real decisions we got them all wrong, yay us

We’re trapping a city here for Salem to destroy whenever she feels like it, yay us x2

Our leader is barely more than a kid and one of us cheated our way here

People are going to die because of us

“I’m just saying what nobody else wants to”

Yang’s response? Incredibly weak imo. Just as weak as the fandom’s has been since this conflict started in Volume 7. Her argument against letting Atlas go is that Salem won’t just let it fly away with her whale… but no one knows that. She’s certainly just letting it sit right now! Assuming that something won’t work because you expect the worst is not a compelling reason not to try.

Her argument against their ineptitude? They saved Haven, took down a leviathan, and got the lamp to Atlas. Let’s break that down a little more.

Did they fight well at Haven? Yes… overlooking that Weiss would have died if not for a timely semblance reveal. But the real point here is that they “saved” the school by getting the Relic. Problem is, they never won the relic, it was handed to them. Literally. They retrieved it not because they were capable of overpowering Salem’s forces and a Maiden, but because Raven decided she’d rather her daughter be a target than her. That doesn’t tell us anything about the group’s skill, only about Raven’s flaws.

They took down a leviathan… after drawing it to Argus in the first place. That’s kind of an important detail when Ren is trying to make the point that their decisions suck. Also, how did they take it down? Using Ruby’s silver eyes, which only worked because Jinn randomly decided to let her stop time. Oh, and also using the rest of Cordovin’s mech that they hadn’t yet destroyed. Again, nothing about that fight demonstrates their skill, only others’ abilities, resources, and the strange favoritism they benefit from.

Getting the lamp to Atlas. Well, you drove Ozpin away who was your ticket across the border. Then Maria told Ruby how to save you all from the Apathy (and Ruby herself was the only one able to resist long enough to demand you get the Relic back in the first place). You started that leviathan fight and ended it surrounded by Cordovin’s fleet. So how did you get to Atlas? Because she let you cross. How did you reach Ironwood? Because he dropped your arrest. Yang stopped Adam, yes, but that was its own, separate fight. Regarding the “getting to Atlas” point they botched that up completely.

Basically, this resume of victories is unpersuasive, to say the least. Yang highlights the end goal rather than acknowledging Ren’s point: have we, as individuals, actually made things better lately?

They absolutely have not.

Note how, in contrast, Ren includes himself in this criticism. He doesn’t just lay responsibility at Ruby and Jaune’s feet, he’s second on the list for being underprepared. For messing up. He’s just an “orphan from nowhere” and this tells us that, unlike Qrow, Ren is actually concerned with this problem and his own place in it. He’s not just blowing off steam and running from his responsibility. Rather, he’s making important points here yet, as he says, no one else wants to listen.

And that’s why the scene ultimately sucks. “But, Clyde! It’s a speech straight out of your metas!” Yes it was and it was beautiful to witness, but the problem is that Ren’s supposed to be wrong. Jaune glares at him before leaving. Yang clenches her fists and asks if he just wants to push everyone away. He’s left hanging his head. Then later they talk about how “broody” he is and provide advice about how to stop doing that. The takeaway here is not, ‘Holy shit, Ren is right and we should rethink our choices,’ but rather that Ren is wrong and needs to come over to their ‘correct’ perspective.

I love that this was laid out. I love that the group is actually fighting for once (way better than Ruby and Yang’s ‘fight’). I also love that we finally see what’s bothering Ren… but we all know this isn’t leading anywhere. The scene ends with Jaune dismissing everything by stating that if Ren doesn’t want to be a huntsmen, fine, but he has a job to do. Ren is supposed to feel guilty here for… telling the truth? Jaune is supposed to look like the hero for soldiering on with his responsibility while moody Ren drags behind. The scene is great, but the purpose of the scene sucks.

Actually, I’d like to talk about a portion of the outpost scene real quick. Skipping ahead, because we really see here how little RT believes the words that they’ve put in Ren’s mouth. Jaune admits that he’s right about cheating into Beacon… but nothing else. Indeed, that “mistake” is swept away because he’s earned his right to be here now. You shouldn’t care about that anymore! Ignoring the point Ren was making about how much they’re in over their heads. Yang apologizes to Jaune on Ren’s behalf, making it clear that she cares more about his potentially hurt feelings than any of the points Ren made. Remind you of anything? Like oh, say, that time Yang cared more about Jaune’s feelings than whether he’d hurt Oscar after slamming him against a wall? All of this despite the fact that Yang JUST accused Ruby of the horrible situation they’re in. Now Ren acknowledges that they’re in a horrible situation and Yang… doesn’t care?? Again, RT is good at giving us the pieces we want, the surface level stuff, but is rarely able to combine it into something fulfilling. If anyone actually takes Ren’s stance seriously, changing their ways rather than talking him out of it, I’ll be shocked.

Especially since the real nail in the coffin of this scene is Jaune telling him that “The more you hide from what you’re feeling, the more alone you’re going to feel.”

Jaune………..buddy……….pal…………were you asleep during that scene? Ren DID tell you what he was feeling. For the first time he did come clean about everything he was experiencing and you both rejected him for it! He’s not pulling away because he’s hiding from what he’s feeling, he’s pulling away because he did show it and both his friends reduced it to “pushing [them] away.” Which is it, Jaune? Should Ren be more open, or should he stop saying things you don’t want to hear? It’s a more complicated version of telling your parents about your interests, them mocking those interests, and then they’re surprised when you don’t share things with them again. I mean, the gall of Jaune to reject everything Ren said in the moment, ignore it after he’s calmed down, and then lecture him about being hiding his emotions.

Jaune and Yang (and the story) don’t want Ren to say what he really thinks, they want him to say what they think. Ren should speak up, but only if he��s going to agree with them.

So Ren sits out in the snow because potentially dying from cold is better than staying in a room with Yang and Jaune. I can’t really blame him lol.

One last thing about the fight scene. Remember how May was put in her place last episode for not using Penny’s name? Well, Yang doesn’t either. Granted, “the Maiden” isn’t as overtly insulting as “tin can” (or whatever it is May said), but it amounts to the same thing: both are replacing Penny’s individual identity with her status as a tool they can use. May sees Penny as the cool tech girl who can get them into the military base. Yang sees Penny as the cool magic girl who is the answer to all their ‘How do we win this?’ problems. Everyone is using Penny. Ruby to launch Amity, Ironwood to open the vault, but you know RWBY will never have a scene where Penny corrects Yang about her name and Ruby looks on, smug. Because the group can continually make the same mistakes as the adults/antagonists around them, but aren’t called out on it in the same way. Ren calls them out and he’s told he’s wrong.

Anyway, the tl;dr of this scene is that Ren is the best. Too bad the story doesn’t realize that.

We then move to my poor Oscar who wakes up looking at his own feet, Ozpin’s voice is as reassuring as it can be under the circumstances. “Oscar? Don’t panic. We’re going to be okay.” I mentioned two weeks back that I hoped the show would explain why we didn’t see Ozpin try to take control during the Hound fight and we still don’t have an explanation, so that’s disappointing. This line is all we get from Ozpin because that’s the norm now. We moved from him being written out of the story entirely to having one or two lines an episode (excluding a speech meant more for the audience than the characters). So, improvement? But a lackluster one, I think. Especially given that he is the focal point of this entire situation with Salem.

I’m avoiding the elephant in the room though. Oscar’s torture is horrifying. In the sense that it should be horrifying. Salem might still inexplicably not be attacking Atlas—and what she’s after at any given time might be getting more and more muddled—but she’s absolutely terrifying here, which is what we needed. The mix of assault with that nurturing tone is just skin crawling. “My long lost Ozma. Found at last” while she (I think?) shows images of their daughters. Honestly, I only heard that from friends, didn’t catch it myself, but then my eyes are shit to begin with. I couldn’t see a thing in this shadowed shot.

(It’s like watching Game of Thrones all over again.)

Oscar tries to pretend to be Ozpin and he does a damn good job with “I’m sorry the reunion isn’t living up to your expectations.” It’s not enough to fool Salem though. She says he’s “not him” yet and I’m again reminded that the show continually references this merge without showing us any change. They’re apparently closer to one person now, but they still speak as individuals. Oscar has Ozpin’s magic, but hasn’t used it, even when his life was on the line. The closest we get to evidence that the merge is underway is that Oscar attempts to lie about knowing Jinn’s name… but what the hell else is he supposed to do here? I suppose he could go the action hero route and shout that she’ll never get the answer out of him, but trying to lie is by far the safer option. That doesn’t tell us that he’s becoming like Ozpin, or even that they’re truly “like-minded souls” as Salem claims. It just tells us that Oscar has two braincells to rub together and can say a short sentence without totally giving himself away. Maybe the kid played a few rounds of Remnant’s Among Us.

This moment highlights another justification for Ozpin’s secrets though. He lives an existence where he is not in control of his own (“own”) body. At any point the host he’s with could falter, fail, turn on him, and in doing so give crucial, world ending information to the enemy. It’s already happened on a small scale, with Oscar successfully taking control, stealing the Jinn information, and giving it to the group. Now here he’s being tortured. How long can he last? Will Oscar give up Jinn’s name? If Ozpin didn’t have the location of the Relic locked up tight in his own consciousness, would that information be lost too? I’m not looking to blame Oscar for anything here—I don’t want to imply that this situation is karma for him taking Jinn’s name, or some such nonsense—I just want to acknowledge that this is the sort of stuff Ozpin has to worry about. If he shares these secrets then that’s more fallible people who are capable of giving that information to Salem. If he keeps them…well, he’s the only one who has to keep his mouth shut during a torture session. His host might want information about the Relics, there’s an argument to be made that they’re entitled to them, but if I were Ozpin I wouldn’t want to take that risk either. The question has essentially become, “Would I trust a 14 year old to keep quiet while tortured by a witch?” Maybe Oscar will! He’s enough of a BAMF to manage it… but that’s still not something I’d want to bet on. Better that Oscar simply doesn’t have that information to give Salem, period.

So obviously this “working relationship” that Salem wants isn’t going well. When Oscar lies she jumps straight to torturing him.

This was legitimately hard to watch and I’m torn about that. On the one hand it’s what I wanted: a scary, powerful Salem who uses the tools at her disposal to get what she’s after. That’s great! Yet I’m still reminded of how far this show has gone to literally beat up the child of the group. Oscar is the one punched into a tree, attacked by a friend, shot by an ally, the star of the show’s most horrifying kidnapping, now the first to be outright tortured by Salem. I don’t really have a point here, I’m not looking to level any specific accusations at RT, I’m just commenting on the pattern and acknowledging that it makes me uncomfortable. There are parts of a story where you’re supposed to be uncomfortable—like the villain torturing a hero—and then there are parts where you’re uncomfortable because the writers seem overly focused on showing images of a specific kid suffering and that’s… weird.

I’m not sure what to make of that just yet.

Anyway, Salem’s magic here is surprisingly pretty. Pretty and painful, but I expected more red and blacks, perhaps some spikey imagery, so the rainbow was an interesting surprise. Given the amount of pain Oscar is in, I suspect too much of that would kill him, so Salem calls in Hazel to continue the interrogation. The first few hits he deals are for Haven, the others for his sister.

See, this is why RWBY needs to actually embrace its “life isn’t a fairy tale” theme. You cannot show me child torture in one week and then move to Ruby “We’ll win because we’re the good guys ^_^” Rose the next. The whole reason why Ironwood (and Ren now) was right is because this is the shit reality they’re dealing with. You didn’t run when you had the chance and now Oscar (and Ozpin) is being tortured. You keep talking about saving Mantle, but the only reason why they’re not already dead is because the writing randomly turns the cold danger on and off. This mix of horrific, real world danger and unjustified confidence doesn’t work.

…also, I officially don’t want any redemption arc for Hazel. This guy is beating on a child because he’s convinced that he’s Ozpin, blaming Ozpin for his sister’s decision, all while forwarding a genocidal maniac’s plans. Hazel and his ridiculous shirts can just get on out of here, thanks.

Finally, I just want to say... this is the woman a lot of the fandom defended. This is the woman you wanted raising those girls and blamed Ozpin for trying to escape with them.

This is how Salem treats children.

Oh, and all of this is without his aura because it just broke. So Oscar is in serious, non-fantasy trouble here.

Someone please rescue him soon 😭

We finish up with some frankly boring stuff with the rest of the villain cast. We learn that the Hound is an “experiment” and a new one given that Cinder has never seen it before. Salem’s dialogue is admittedly great—“Do you hear that, my pet? She thinks. She wants.”—but Cinder just rehashes everything we’ve heard from her before. She wants the Winter Maiden power. She has trouble remembering that she’s playing at Salem’s slave. She even rehashes the exact same line, “Without you, I am nothing.” Why are we wasting time on this when we had that tantalizing backstory before?

Bleh.

Salem tells her in no uncertain terms to stay put.

So Cinder immediately leaves LOL.

She just wants to “check on” Amity tower because she “knows those kids” in ways Salem doesn’t. I’m admittedly slightly confused as to how Cinder knows to go there? Did she believe Ironwood’s lie that it was finished even though it apparently IS finished now? Has she overheard something? I’m not sure. Frankly, keeping track of that stuff in RWBY is headache inducing, so let’s just roll with it.

Neo, the only one with a brain around here, makes it clear she thinks Cinder is an idiot for going. Emerald, always the Cinder fan, offers to go in her stead. She’s been working on her semblance, so I expect we’ll see something cool with that soon. They head off, apparently not worried about what Salem will do to them when they get back.

Which is when we move to the outpost for our final scene, most of which I’ve covered. I only have two more things I want to bring up here.

The first is the tone. As said earlier, the tone of the Hound chase wasn’t horrible, but I find myself disappointed in the overall attitude of Jaune and Yang. Yang is making jokes about how they can’t fly, high-fiving Jaune, and they’re both shrugging off Ren’s concerns. Jaune says he won’t be able to sleep due to worrying about Oscar, but neither of them act particularly worried. Which isn’t to say they need to be sobbing the whole time or whatever, just that Ren is the only one who feels real here. They may not agree with his stance about everything else, but they’ve all experienced the same event: watching a grimm that can morph, talk, and think horrifically kidnap a teammate. Shouldn’t there be more emotion attached to that? Things have gotten better with Oscar than they’ve been in the past, largely due to details like Nora’s hug at the beginning of the volume, but let’s be real, they’re still not perfect. Do we think Jaune and Yang would be this nonchalant if Ruby were kidnapped that way? Say all you want about Ruby being her sister, or others being teammates for longer, but the fact remains that Oscar has been taken to Salem herself and the only one reacting to that in any meaningful way is Ren.

Who they say will “brood himself to death.” That right there. The one guy freaking out about your kidnapped friend should not be described as “brooding.”

All of which segues into my second point, namely that Yang doesn’t seem to care about Ruby anymore either! She asks Jaune, “Do you think she thinks less of me?” for not going to Amity and when Jaune reassures her that Ruby will always love her, Yang’s response is, “Yeah… Ruby.”

She was thinking about Blake.

The kicker? I thought she was talking about Ruby too. Because Ruby is her sister. Because she and Ruby had the fight (“fight”). Because Ruby was trying to call her to check in. Because Blake and Yang didn’t even acknowledge that they went on different missions here. I thought Blake was like Jaune, not really taking a side and just heading with Ruby because the team is splitting down the middle. Where did this worry come from?

And I want to praise RT here (I really do) because I can see the effort. I said Blake and Yang needed to spend time apart, they have. I said they needed to work through their co-dependent identities, now Blake is reminding Nora (and theoretically herself too) that someone you love is just a part of you. I said that the group couldn’t be a hive-mind, now there’s disagreement. I said the show needs to make Blake/Yang canon at some point and you can’t do that if they don’t talk about and to each other. So I fully admit that this is everything I asked for… so why does it feel so badly done? No matter how many boxes it checks off, it’s still a moment where we thought Yang was finally worrying about her sister again—like she used—and then it’s ‘Sike! It was really just about Blake! Again. Yang is worried about a problem that was never even introduced.’

I suppose that’s why it doesn’t work for me. Yang and Ruby had the falling out, but Yang and Blake, somehow, become the focus. Is it really so hard to write Yang as a sister and a potential love interest? Yang apparently can’t care for Ruby and Blake, Weiss can’t care for her team and her brother, Ruby can’t care for Mantle and Ironwood… it’s like each character gets one (1) thing to put their emotional energy towards at any given time and that’s it. That’s all they get.

On the flip side, this is why Ren feels like a person this episode. He cares about Mantle, and the future fight, and their past mistakes, and his place here, and the problems within the team, and Nora… He feels like a well-rounded person! vs. Yang and Jaune who don’t even consider his perspective, vs. Yang having a fight with her sister but only cares about Blake. They’re one-dimensional in comparison.

It is, as always, disappointing.

As the group “broods” then the camera shows us a piece of the ice nearby, slowly cracking as Jaune says that “Things always seem to get worse before they get better.” Well, that’s unexpected. I didn’t think our opening would be literal. I’ve been worried about Atlas falling on everyone, not everyone falling… to whatever is underneath the kingdom as a whole. Is the kingdom falling apart? Or is something waking up and moving towards the surface? If RWBY can reproduce the characterization we got with the Hound, I wouldn’t be opposed to another leviathan grimm rising from the snowy deep to assist Salem…

Though how the fuck group will survive everything and that, who knows lol.

And that’s our episode! Issues aside—most of which have been ongoing issues. We knew they were there—I think this was our strongest episode so far this volume. Well done! There are still problems, no doubt, but at least I was only bored for a small portion of that 20 minutes. Let’s just keep heading in that direction.

Exciting Saturday, huh?

Regarding bingo updates:

RWBY actually re-used a grimm I thought they’d abandoned, so well done there.

No civilians around for the giant grimm army to attack, so that was fine. Kind of strange though that they completely disappeared after the Hound left.

The timeline is starting to get wonky. For example, what kind of stakes am I supposed to expect when Cinder decides to head to Amity? Is it currently empty? Is Pietro there? Has Penny made it yet? I said weeks ago that RWBY would need to follow multiple groups to fill out fourteen episodes in just two days—and they’re definitely doing that—but that means we don’t have a clear sense of what events are happening simultaneously and what are meant to be linear.

No Winter or Ironwood this episode.

Watts is back with Jacques! Potential for team-up 2.0? That will admittedly be hard with Qrow and Robyn there, unless those two escape.

(Oh yeah, I thought Qrow and the others would be held in the military base and Ruby would find him during her heist… but she doesn’t even care that Qrow is in jail.)

Maria is still a ghost. If we hit the halfway mark with her not doing anything I’m calling the space.

I definitely wouldn’t call this cliffhanger needless. That’s actually a cool way to end things, even if Jaune’s line was pretty on the nose.

Neo may be getting closer to backstabbing Cinder if those expressions are anything to go by.

Still waiting to see if Amity works.

And finally, drumroll please! …

“More obvious Blake/Yang implications without confirming a relationship.” Yup, I’m marking that this week. After Blake’s ‘just a part of you’ comment and now Yang only being worried about her reaction? Definitely calling it. If RWBY confirms a relationship this volume I’ll eat my words—and some celebratory cake — but until then salt prevails. Especially after the fiasco that was Supernatural.

Still no bingo. Ah well, maybe next week lol.

Until then! 💜

[Ko-fi]

#rwby #rwby spoilers #rwby volume 8 #rwby fault #rwby recaps #mymetas

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welllpthisishappening · 4 years ago

Text

First-Line Defensive Pairing

Of all the things they’d done in the last few months, spending the afternoon at the Museum of Ice Cream was one of the more ridiculous. Mostly because of the wooden spoons they gave out on the tour. Partially because it seemed Will Scarlet could not stop casting furtive glances at Belle French. Or the heels that always matched her dresses. Maybe because she kept answering his hypothetical questions. And maybe even because he was willing to drift far closer to genuine these days. At least when it came to his feelings for her.

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Word Count: 3.7K AN: Take two! Ok, so apparently yesterday when I posted this Tumblr thought it’d be a really cool idea to just...reformat the entire story. With whole graphs in totally wrong spots. Anyway, here it is again. Just as ridiculous as yesterday. With just as many Will and Belle emotions. Because that’s a thing I’m doing now, apparently. Writing Blue Line-era Will and Belle. If you’d like more of these flirt-prone idiots, here is their first date and Belle getting annoyed that Will fought someone on the ice. Technically, this was part of the kiss prompts and was “height difference kisses.” I hope the five of you who are interested in this enjoy it. That includes @shireness-says and @eleveneitherway who are mostly to blame for this.

————

“I’m going to ask you a hypothetical question.”

Belle lifted her eyebrows. Let some of that light creep back in her gaze, a flash of amusement that regularly made Will’s stomach leap dangerously close to the base of his ribs. That’s why he did it. Maybe not the rib thing, partially because he wasn’t even sure that was the correct technical term. The rest of it, though. The eye thing. Sure. Definitely. One-hundred percent. Why he’d also made sure the little wooden spoon they’d been given at the start of this tour was still in the corner of his mouth; to guarantee absolute absurdity, and he figured that started when they decided to spend their afternoon at the Museum of Ice Cream, but he was willing to take it all a step further.

In the absurdity factor, at least.

Other things were—

Well, it wasn’t as if they explicitly decided to keep the relationship a secret. Not on purpose. Not really. Or come to any sort of legitimate agreement regarding the use of the word relationship. It never seemed...important, honestly. And that was a potentially problematic and lackadaisical approach to someone who made Will smile with an almost alarming consistency in the last few months, but she’d also sort of snuck up on him, and Ariel was going to be so annoying.

About the whole goddamn thing.

She’d never shut up about it, he knew.

So he didn’t push. Belle didn’t, either. An unspoken agreement, that’s what it was. He had other things to do, anyway. Like get ready for a playoff run and ignore the lingering ache in his calves after the echo of Arthur’s whistle stopped ringing in his ears, and, ok, his apartment was starting to feel a little bit larger than it had in a long time, maybe since Killian had moved out, but that was fine. Cup runs did not come because someone was in a relationship. Will had seen that first hand. With Cap, of all people.

Watched the way his whole life had fallen apart around his ankles, little shards of hope and possibility that, Will knew, still threatened the structural integrity of Kilian’s internal organs and all four ventricles of his heart, and he did not understand enough basic biology to be making those sorts of sweeping observations, but Robin had lost someone too and that had been horrible and tragic and—

If Will simply did not want to jinx things, then that was neither here nor there.

Relationship’y speaking.

It was good. They were good. He hated the wooden spoon they gave them to taste test half a dozen ice cream flavors.

He was legitimately worried about getting splinters in his tongue.

No excuses could possibly reason away that problem pre-game.

Belle’s eyebrows were still in the same spot. “You going to follow up on that, or…” “Would you burn a Gutenberg Bible? To stave off the apocalypse and or potential frostbite?” “Those two things go together, do they?” He shrugged. “In this instance, yeah, because—” “—Well, it wouldn’t matter,” Belle said, eyes flitting towards the overly enthusiastic tour guide and the seemingly never-ending history of ice cream, “because I wouldn’t allow myself to be in that position. And I don’t live anywhere near the Public Library. What would I be doing there when the freeze-wave came?” His stomach. Did that thing. Jumped and twisted, got a ten from the Russian judge on its floor routine. He was cautiously optimistic he’d be able to pull off a flawless beam performance too. It was an exceedingly convoluted metaphor. Wrong Olympics, too.

“Does salt air give you mind-reading powers?” “You’re not nearly as subtle as you think you are,” Belle grinned. Moving her hand faster than he was entirely prepared for ensured that he nearly dropped his small plastic cup of churro churro ice cream. He made noise. Without trying. A hiss and a grunt in the back of his throat that then led to a sound escaping between Belle’s half-hearted scowl, and that sound was closer to a giggle than either of them would ever admit and just enough to mess with his mental faculties a little and the tour guide stopped talking. To stare straight at them.

Color lifted on Belle’s cheeks, ice cream-covered spoon held awkwardly between them.

“As you were, ma’am,” Will said, all false bravado, and that was something of a trend. In several different capacities. It was far too depressing a thought to have while eating cinnamon-flavored ice cream.

Belle elbowed him.

And the tour guide got back to her to spiel. Without a reprimand.

“Say freeze-wave again without laughing.”

Her eyelashes were more of a problem, honestly. Than the eyebrows. Or the specific jut of her chin Will had rather quickly learned meant she was ready to challenge him on some ridiculous topic, fully prepared to argue a position she might not have otherwise agreed with. Only because it wasn’t what he was arguing, and it was easy to understand why she won that Model UN award.

Plus, her eyelashes were just stupid long, and he thought she was really pretty.

Like in a fundamental sort of way.

“Freeze-wave,” Belle enunciated, pausing between syllables for maximum effect, “are you asking me Day After Tomorrow questions because of the ice cream, because I’m a librarian or because you’re the strangest man alive?” She finally ate the rest of the ice cream. It was starting to melt, that was why. This was very melt-prone ice cream. “Oh, shit,” she mumbled, “this is really good. Better than mine.” Something popped in his shoulder when he reached towards her plastic cup. He wouldn’t tell Ariel about that, either.

“Which kind is—” Fighting off the objections of a small librarian who resolutely refused to wear anything except heels, no matter what the weather was like, was not usually as difficult as it was in that moment. Will assumed it had something to do with sugar. Or the force of his smile. Robbing the rest of him of energy and the ability to fend off either one of Belle’s fists. “Why are you like this?” “You didn’t want to try peanut and pretzel. With peanut butter swirl.” “Swallowed the flyer for this place while I wasn’t looking, huh?” Sticking her tongue out was distracting. Almost enough that he didn’t notice the absolutely atrocious attempt at impersonating his voice. “Oh, no, no, babe, I don’t want that; you can get peanut butter anywhere. That’s not special.” “Well, it’s not.” “I’m a big fancy hockey player, and I know everything there is to know about ice cream flavors and the potential life-changing palette moment that comes from the sublime combination of salty and sweet.” “Oh, now you’re just taunting me.” Her eyes narrowed, that time. His smile was going to permanently stretch out his cheeks. “You have a disgusting mind.” “You can’t get churro ice cream everywhere, babe.” “I’m going back to get honey later.” Will hummed. Stuck his lower lip out. Noticed that flash return. And hoarded it. Like a relationship—

Ah, fuck.

“Would you burn the Gutenberg Bible?” Her laugh was quickly becoming his favorite sound. Which wasn’t bad, per se. Was just kind of passably concerning. God damn. It was the heels. All of them kept matching the dresses she wore. She kept wearing dresses.

Of course, that was going to mess with Will’s head.

Belle shook her head. “No.” “Historical significance?” “Well, once again, I would not be in that position, would have listened to science and fled to warmer climates, so as not to make myself prey for escaped...what were they? Tigers?” “I honestly can’t remember,” Will admitted.

“This was your hypothetical!”

Heads snapped their direction. Frustration creased the tour guide’s forehead, and they’d paid extra to learn about the history of ice cream. Will had already known about the origins of the ice cream cone, though. So, the whole thing felt almost like a raw deal, and he was far more interested in preserving the color in Belle’s cheeks. He saluted. Who he was saluting was anyone’s guess, but it very likely was the otherwise unengaged teenage kid trudging behind his family who absolutely recognized Will.

“That’s going to end up on sixteen different social media sites,” Belle warned, not quite able to get her voice to an appropriate whispering level.

“So long as he got my good side, you won’t hear me complaining.” “Do you have a good side?”

“Sweetheart, the self-confidence. God.” She squeezed her eyes shut. While practically beaming at him, and Will had to bend his knees to reach, something else creaking in the process, but that was fine, and good, and pretty goddamn fantastic because her lips tasted a bit like chocolate.

“‘S’not your best work,” Belle mumbled, almost entirely into his mouth.

“Brain freeze.” “I would burn no books. That’s my final hypothetical answer.” Her eyelashes must have existed purely to torment him. Leaning back made it clear when they fluttered back open, and he swore there were flecks of gold in her eyes. Maybe he was melting, too. With the ice cream. That was almost poetic. “None at all? What if you were going to die?” “Maudlin.” “I don’t know what that means.” “Liar,” she challenged, another smile tugging at her mouth, and Will was clearly staring at her mouth. Stained slightly with chocolate, as it was. “I stand by it, though. The book stuff, not the commentary on your burgeoning intelligence.” “You want to find a corner to go and make out in?” Different laugh. The kind that came with her head thrown back, hair tickling Will’s forearm because at some point his arm had found its way around her, and touching Belle was becoming something almost close to second nature. “I could keep complimenting you if you want,” Belle said, “or I could give you my reason for not burning books.” “You’re a giant nerd, that’s why.” She clicked her tongue. “Very, very cute nerd, though.” “Betcha say that to all the girls.”

His stomach stilled. Dropped a few inches, for good measure. Below where it was supposed to be, and inching dangerously close to his feet, and what Will could not imagine was a very sanitary floor. The Museum of Ice Cream had a giant sprinkle pit. Nothing about that seemed very sanitary.

“I think stories have a purpose,” Belle said, still not quite whispering but definitely getting there, and he knew. Knew she knew. What he was thinking and feeling and unspoken understanding was quickly becoming the name of this particular game. With them.

Where it wasn’t a game at all.

Damn.

Ariel was going to be so annoying.

“No matter what they are. Shitty as they can be, all those ups and downs, and ridiculous, often unnecessary melodrama. It’s going to matter to somebody. Someone, somewhere, will be living their life and read those words or see those letters, and they’ll think, wow, whoever wrote this, gets me, and it will change everything for them. They’ll go back to it. Find solace and safety in it. Themselves, maybe. They’ll believe everything will be ok. Even if they only think that while they’re reading.” “Don’t forget audiobooks,” Will muttered, voice strangled and tinged with emotion. In the ice cream museum. Figured, honestly.

Belle pinched the side of his wrist.

“Ow. Avoid the bruise further up, please.” “Did you get hit?” Nodding took more energy than it should have, too. She hadn’t been to a game. He hadn’t asked her. What an idiot. “Not bad though, that’s just—” “—Par for the course.” “Mixing idioms, mon trésor.” “Oh, I got that one, actually.” “Slow pitch softball, that’s why,” Will reasoned, some of the tension he wasn’t especially pleased by loosening.

“I think we’re on a roll now.” He hummed. Nodded, again. Curled his fingers into the back of Belle’s dress. Blue, that afternoon. With matching heels. “It all matters,” she added, soft and earnest, and his eyes snapped. To her and with her and that second one didn’t make sense, not really, but he was and wanted to be and that absolutely terrified him.

Of it all falling apart again. Of it not being enough.

He wasn’t enough.

A story no one was ever all that interested in finishing.

“You think?” Belle nodded. “Why’d you start playing hockey?” “Quite a transition.” “Tit for tat, or—no, no, c’mon don’t look at me like that.” Red stained her cheeks, now. Making it difficult to concentrate on anything else, although the desire to kiss her again was a fairly strong second, and that kid was taking more pictures. “That’s not fair.” “You’ve brought this on yourself, babe,” Will argued, and he hoped Lucas didn’t yell. At him. He’d never really listened to the social media rules. “It’s a very long, occasionally depressing story about a kid and his single mom, the second of whom often worked her ass off and her fingers to the bone, and all those other delightfully visual clichés. But then! Who would guess, she got a job picking up extra shifts cleaning at the rink in town. Home to the world’s shittiest ice and loudest Zamboni, it instantly drew the attention of our kid-like hero.

“He was...infatuated, let’s say. With the sounds, especially. Nothing sounds like that first scrape of skates on fresh ice. Full of possibility, you know?” Belle didn’t answer. Will kept talking. “Best noise in the world. And then he learned there were other noises. Pucks hitting the back of nets. Sticks clanging together. Grunts and groans and the game itself, how loud it was. Helped silence some of his thoughts, none of which were ever very good. Lots of worries, some about his very dead sister, then a few more about that mother and her predilection toward clichés.”

“Good word,” Belle murmured. He kissed the top of her hair. The kid was openly staring at them, now.

“Anyway, the crux of the story is that the guy who owned the rink agreed to let the kid play on the rink. Knew the mother, understood her situation, and hockey is expensive. Like, well, we spout all that bullshit about hockey is for everyone, and I’ve got to stand up there and smile and nod and agree, and it’s fucked up because it’s not really true. Hockey’s for rich kids and families with regularly functioning alternators in their car.”

He shook his head. Had to. To chase away the memories and the cobwebs, and Cap knew this, too. Understood it, even. Remembered a life before the Vanklads, and not every kid got the Vankalds, and sometimes Will let himself wonder what would have happened if he’d found the Vanklads. Or their upstate New York equivalent.

Gotten better shin pads, probably.

“Hockey’s an exclusive sorta club,” Will continued, “gotta know someone who’s related to someone else, and they know someone who played, and it’s six degrees of increasingly desperate separation. By some lucky twist of fate, though, Jimmy Newell knew some bastard who knew somebody else, who saw me play, and you don’t say no to USA Developmental. Spent two years in Minnesota, way before Cap did, so he doesn’t get to claim that state as his own.” Belle’s lips twitched. “Good to know, for argument’s sake.” His stomach was becoming a problem.

Heart, too.

Sputtering and slamming, uneven beats that were going to leave another bruise. Will licked his lips.

“I went to Developmental, declared for the draft, got picked by New York, went to college, stayed in college, and the rest is history. As they say.” “They do say that, yeah.” “What’s the next question, then?” “How do you know there’s another question?” “Shot in the dark,” Will shrugged, but that was a lie, and it was getting increasingly easier to read that pinch between her eyebrows. “So, hit me.” “Literally?” “Please do not literally hit me. Locksley’s been feeling the forecheck the last couple’a practices.” “I know what that means!” Someone shushed them. Will couldn’t imagine the color will ever leave Belle’s cheeks.

He kissed the bridge of her nose.

“Who’d you get to teach you French?” “Who said I didn’t just learn French on my own?” “Babe,” she chided, and, well, that was the tipping point. As they say. To his heart and his stomach and—

“You wanna come to a game this series?” Belle blinked. Once, twice. Leaned back. Tilted her head. Likely waited for the camera crew that was inevitably lurking in the corner he was cautiously optimistic they’d make out in eventually. Didn’t happen, though. There was no camera crew.

Just Will Scarlet, professional hockey player, and part-time sap. Standing in one of the more nonsensical museums they’d been to in the last two months. Although they did go to the transit museum on three separate occasions, and he could honestly say he didn’t expect that.

So, maybe this was all just—

Par for the course.

He’d have to make some sort of deal with Eric. To make sure Ariel didn’t proclaim her relationship-plotting victories from a variety of rooftops. Someone in front office had to know someone else with Empire State Building connections.

Zelena probably did.

Ariel would use that.

“Where would I sit?”

He pulled her. Up. With an almost violent amount of force, threatening the safety of both of Belle’s shoulders in the process. But she’d asked the one question he hadn’t totally considered in his half-plotted plan, and getting his mouth back on hers was an acceptable diversion. Plus, she looped her arms around his neck pretty quickly.

Which had to count for something, he figured.

One hand cupped the back of his head, pulling him closer. Like he had any intention of being anywhere else, swiping his tongue against Belle’s lip and swallowing her sigh. They were still in public, technically. Her feet trailed the multi-color carpet beneath them, Will’s arms tightening and his palm flat against her back and her spine, and if she kept rocking up like that, he was going to do something drastic.

Something in the same realm as melting, probably.

Strands of hair tickled his skin, making him tilt his head and alter the angle, and that was entirely appropriate, but getting kicked out of the Museum of Ice Cream would probably make an absolutely fantastic story. Once they told people they were—

Doing whatever it was they were doing.

They’d get there eventually.

“Cap’s sister-in-law is coming,” Will said, not entirely able to catch his breath, “wants to see Kris and—” “—Should I know who that is?” “Works in equipment, and that’s not really the point.” “What is?” “That Little Vankald isn’t super interested in listening to Cap be full older brother on her and, far as I know, is fully capable of getting tickets wherever she wants. Can sweet talk the gold out of anyone’s pockets, and—” “—Wait, wait, are you equating hockey tickets to gold?” “When I’m playing, ma choupette.” “Is that cabbage?” He hummed. Nearly tripped over his own feet trying to hold onto Belle and the mostly melted cup of ice cream and paying for more churro ice cream made perfect sense. At the moment. “One of the kids at school was French Canadian,” Will explained, “used to swear all the time on the ice, and then he’d use stuff like that.” “You’re sharing endearments with a trash talker.” “More or less, yeah. Used to infuriate other guys.” “Who wants to be called a cabbage?” “I think you’re super cute.” Belle scowled. Didn’t argue, though. And Will refused to linger on the beat of his pulse. “I’d really like it if you were there,” he added, “Little Vanklad’ll be cool about it. She owes me. I fed her for a very long time.” “Did you just?” “I make incredible garlic bread; ask anyone.” “Wow,” Belle drawled, “just like people on the street, or…also, do you call her Little Vanklad all the time?” “To her face and behind her back with startling regularity. Not everyone gets my French endearments, babe. Consider yourself lucky.”

She scrunched her nose.

Stayed silent. All Will could hear was the soft explanations of the tour guide, and the questions from tourists who probably also thought going to the Museum of Sex made them edgy. After they bought a STRAND tote bag. God, maybe he was a dick. A judgmental dick, who still had too many thoughts and used an occasionally violent game to silence them by making sure he was the one dictating the noises and the trash talk and—

“Hey, uh, Will...Mr., uh—Mr. Scarlet? Do you think we could get a picture?”

Belle’s lips disappeared. Behind her teeth, and that didn’t do anything to temper the sound of what might have actually been joy. At the prospect of the staring teenager and his photo request.

In the goddamn Museum of Ice Cream.

Giving a jerky nod, Will quickly scanned the kid for any team-branded, but it didn’t look like he was wearing merch and that was a rather small miracle. Far as those things went.

Still, he had been in the middle of a pretty intense internal dialogue and potential freakout, and there was going to be ice cream on his hand if he didn’t throw this cup away.

Belle took the phone.

The kid’s phone.

“Smile,” she instructed, and Will tried. Really. He hoped he didn’t end up looking like a murderer on Twitter or Instagram or whatever kids used, and he had no idea when he got that old. When things started to freak him out, and he let the nerves claw back in, and the worry take root and—

“Hey,” he said before the kid could walk back to his parents and their matching STRAND tote bags. “You think you could take a picture of us, real quick?”

No one had ever moved faster.

In, like, the history of photography.

Circling an arm around Belle’s waist, Will’s smile came a bit easier and that was good because he was totally unprepared for what happened after that. Another instruction and flick of someone’s thumb, but then Belle was on her toes, even with the heels, and her lips were pressed against his cheek and it was like some sort of really exceptional sugar high.

Without the threat of inevitable crash.

Will didn’t think so, at least. He was also pretty positive it wasn’t tigers in The Day After Tomorrow. Wolves, maybe.

“Tell Little Vankald to save me a seat.” “I mean, I don’t think you should call her that.”

Her teeth grazed his jaw. Both of them were laughing in the picture, the kid’s eyes going impossibly wide as Will thanked him. “How hard you think it is to set up an Instagram account?”

#scarlet beauty #scarlet beauty ff #scarlet beauty fic #will x belle #blue line one shots #what did i use yesterday as my tag for this?#so as not to also confuse it with the au of the au staring will scarlet?#defensive!blue line #that wasn't it but it is now #anyway these have been real fun to write #because as we all know i am certified trash for alternate stories in the same 'verse #also giving belle a personality finally is a delight #seriously i hope the five people interested in this enjoy it

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yukiwrites · 4 years ago

Text

Sothis, Loathing

Thank you so much for the support as always, @xpegasusuniverse! I hope you like it!

Summary: In Askr, there were many stories of Heroes who had fought against Dragons of Destructions back in their own worlds, to the point that at least one out of three people had come from a world threatened by an evil dragon. Sothis felt the presence of one tailing her as she and Byleth went to look into their circumstances...

Commission info HERE and HERE!

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Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3

Having a physical body was more exhausting than Sothis remembered; if she had any memories at all, though.

Not counting the pesky Golden Deer poking at her patience at every waking moment, there was also the issue of walking with your own two feet to move from place to place. Never would Sothis think that she would’ve preferred to be a non corporeal being if it meant never having to stomp her bare foot on the cold stone again.

Of course, it wasn’t as though she actually had to stomp on the floor, but not stomping wasn’t an option, especially whenever she felt irritated, so the goddess could always be seen wearing a scowl unbefitting of her small stature. She crossed her arms as she and Byleth headed to the library as it had been their custom for the past few days.

Commander Anna and the Summoner had made it seen through their actions that the books in Anna’s office weren’t privy to the heroes, so it fell on Byleth and Sothis themselves to research their circumstances. Unexpectedly enough, there were many books that hailed from Fódlan in that strange, almost mystical, library. It looked like the size of a small room from the outside, but spammed rows and more rows of bookcases as though they headed ad infinitum.

Once they entered, Byleth immediately made eye contact with Robin, the ylissean tactician.

“Oh, Byleth. Reading again today?” The white-haired man smiled politely, nodding to his fellow researcher.

“Yes. Literature from my own world hasn’t been helpful so I wanted to broaden my scope.” The Professor replied with a business-like tone, making Robin nod in agreement.

“Mhm, mhm. I, too, read many books from other worlds while looking into my own, so I can give you a few recommendations if you want?”

“That sounds wonderful.” Byleth concurred, stealing a glance at Sothis as though she was a child getting in the way of adult’s talk.

She squinted once their eyes met, as though she could read his thoughts. “Even if I possess a physical body at the moment, it does not mean that our shared mindscape is empty, you fool.”

Perhaps it was because Sothis was a non corporeal being from the start, but Byleth found it difficult to access their mindscape once they reached Askr, so hearing her confirm that she had access to his thoughts to some degree only made his smile grow.

He patted Sothis on the head as he chatted away with Robin, picking up the tactician’s suggested books before heading to an empty table. The three of them sat there -- Byleth and Sothis on one side with Robin opposite of them -- as they discussed the similar topics of their worlds as well as other interesting connections.

Robin tried to insert Sothis into the conversation from time to time as well, but she only rolled her eyes and pretended not to hear him, wanting to have nothing to do with a conversation borne out of pity.

It’s here again, Sothis thought with annoyance as she felt a piercing gaze burn a hole at the back of her neck,. She had felt someone observing her movements the day after they had arrived, wondering what they could possibly want from a goddess that’s probably not even the one they had in their world.

Narrowing her eyes, Sothis looked back from her seat, seeing the tips of a fluttering cape -- or cloak -- disappear behind a large bookshelf.

She then jumped onto the floor from the tall chair, landing without a sound as Byleth checked on her with the corner of his eyes. She tapped on his hand before leaving, as though signaling him that she would be close.

Nodding, Byleth simply let her do as she pleased and kept talking with Robin.

The only sound following Sothis was the low hiss of her long dress dragging behind her calm yet rushed steps towards that revolting presence she had felt observe her.

The moment she reached the bookshelf, she crossed her arms and tilted her head to the side, most likely to make herself sound imposing although she could barely reach people’s chests with her short height.

“State your business at once.” Sothis commanded with the authority of a goddess towards the malevolent aura that surrounded the man Sothis had just been with back at the table: the presence wore Robin’s face and body like a cloak.

“... Why are you so chummy with your vessel?” Grima’s distorted voice sounded from deep within Robin’s throat, making Sothis narrow her eyes even more at the disturbing question. Sothis stole a glance at the table, confirming that Robin and Byleth were still chatting away.

“You are not making any sense. Vessel?” She turned her gaze to this revolting individual.

Grima, who had been slouching by the bookcase, stood straight as his scrutinizing gaze observed the little girl in front of him. “I have been watching you and your vessel for the past few days, but it is truly an incomprehensible sight, so I’ve had no choice but to ask. Why are you forming bonds with him when all you’ll do is overlap his ego with yours?”

Sothis’s eyes shook and she almost forgot how to breathe. “What manner of nonsense are you speaking of right now? It is indeed true that we are here in search of ways to separate ourselves but- for me to take over a body that isn’t mine?”

The man surrounded in a dark aura took one hand to his chin in thought as he observed the girl in silence. After a few seconds, his eyes slowly widened as though he had come to a conclusion. “You truly have no idea what I’m talking about, do you?”

“Enough with this play with words!” Sothis seethed, somehow remembering to keep her voice down despite stomping her foot hard on the wooden floor.

Shaking his head, Grima peeked at the direction of the table, watching as another vessel that was made specifically for him laughed as though his future wasn’t set in stone. He slowly opened his mouth to speak. “I, too, suffered from memory loss after taking over this body -- I still have gaps in my memory, so I’ll let you in on a good piece of information, from one god to the other: that man you’re so attached with, he’s even more twisted than this flesh I wear.” Grima placed one hand over his own chest. “You managed to make a meat-puppet that was capable of thought while infusing him with your own power as his center.”

Everything Grima said flew right over Sothis’ head, making the girl blink in confusion. However, Grima continued.

“For me to be able to inhabit this body, I had to wait a millennia for the right vessel to be born. Countless years I waited for the right combination of blood and darkness to gather in a human so I could wear him to unleash my power to the world.” Grima spoke nonchalantly, as though they were talking a stroll. A devious smirk grew on the corners of his mouth. “But this? You managed to accurately craft a jar of flesh and blood with the minimum of free will necessary to make your take over as smooth as possible. It is inspiring -- perhaps the next body I inhabit will be crafted to perfection just so I don’t have to deal with that buzzing ego that never seems to go away.”

The tips of Sothis’ fingers grew cold at the sheer absurdity of what she was hearing. Her heart beat wildly inside her chest -- something that would be impossible were it not for Askr’s magic -- which also made her recall some long lost memories.

They were simple glimpses of what once was, and immediately disappeared from her memory as she grasped them, like dust to the wind. She felt like the darkness of those who live under the ground was shaking her very being into remembering something vital to her sense of self.

Each time she saw it, she forgot it immediately. Only the vague and unsettling sense of foreboding engulfed her like a wave.

“Do not-” her voice shook, “do not compare me to servants of the darkness like you filth!” Sothis’ shoulders trembled, though not by fear nor self-preservation.

She was angry.

She was furious.

That entire speech hit her the wrong way, making the girl want to stomp on that bug who wore Robin’s face.

Grima, however, threw his head back in a low, mocking chuckle. “Servant? I am the lord. Wherever I step, darkness follows.” His sharp gaze pierced into hers, as though they shared a battle of wills.

That made Sothis open and close her fists lest she used the draconic power inside of her to obliterate that lowly being that dared to suggest that she- that she did something so inhumane!

“Besides, it is fruitless to direct your anger at me; the deed is done and the meat-puppet grew into a fine specimen ready for the overtaking.” Grima pointed at Byleth’s back, accurately pointing to the place where his heart would be. “The center of your power is there, you need simply to call upon it.”

Angry as she might’ve been, Sothis felt compelled to look at the direction the finger was pointing. She gasped once she noticed something she had never paid attention to before.

Perhaps it was because she and Byleth had shared the same body, so it was a different issue to be able to pinpoint something within one’s shared body and when looking from the outside. Sothis could see that Grima’s finger pointed straight to the center of Byleth’s body; to the place that his heart should’ve occupied.

She felt a power akin to her own in there -- no, it wasn’t merely ‘akin’, but identical! She could feel as though a piece of herself was there, right inside Byleth’s heart.

Or perhaps, it was there in place of his heart, as the core of his entire being.

When had she left that power there? Was it the reason why Byleth had been so apathetic the first time they met?

Loathe as she was to trust Grima’s words, Sothis couldn’t help but feel that what he had said was true: Byleth barely had had an ego before he started teaching. He also had the power of a god sleeping inside of him.

Perhaps the anomaly in this case was Sothis appearing in his mind instead of overtaking his body right away as Grima suggested.

She had heard about Grima from Robin during their constant meetings in the library, so Sothis was aware of how a god could descend onto a human being of their choice -- but to think that Byleth seemed like a fabricated being that would only serve as her medium to the world?

That felt wrong. No, that felt terrible.

Was Sothis this kind of person before she lost her memories? Someone so terribly calculating that they would make an entire new body from scratch and imbue it with some power before being allowed to take over it once the time came?

Sothis was confused.

She felt repulsed by Grima’s acts, but since there was not much for her to go on regarding her and Byleth’s situations since it all already happened, there was nothing Sothis could do apart from keep on researching.

Robin wasn’t even the only proof of a god descending on a human’s body in this world, either, so the more Sothis thought about it, the more sense Grima’s words made. But she refused to even think that he could have been right at some point, not wanting her own self to be someone she loathed.

Noticing the horror in the girl’s eyes, Grima simply took a few steps back to hide beneath the shadows, ever observing these new players that had come to this immense play that was the world Askr.

#fire emblem three houses #feheroes #fe3h #fire emblem heroes #byleth fire emblem #sothis fire emblem #my writings #yuki's commissions

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