#SHRIEKS!!!!! we could have had so much!!!!!!!!!! i understand canon had to play it different | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

heyitsyn · 4 years ago

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Keeping Up With Seijoh Ep. 1

a/n: this is a mini-series that are based off of your asks and once i,,,,, finish,,,, my seijoh phase, i will also do this for the other schools but pls take these offerings in the meantime as i work on the next part of my manager!seijoh and the time traveler au

for more seijoh content, check this masterlist out!

anon request:

Wow, your series of Seijoh managers is so cute.🥺👉👈 After starting to read, I can only think about Oikawa and y / n on a Saturday night seeing mean girls, painting nails, taking care of the skin and the another day Oiks rubbing the face of everyone who spends much more time with his dear businessman LMAOO Anyway, congratulations on your work 💕💕 seriously, I LOVE this series omg-

I MIGHT BE AN IWA AND KYO STAN BUT OIKS IS DEFINITELY THE MOST BEAUTIFUL AND PRETTIEST DUMPSTER IVE EVER SEEN

yep lets start the pilot

so basically, oikawa was being oikawa again

what might i mean, you ask

well, he was starting to work much harder than before since this was his last ever inter-high and his last ever chance on beating ushiwaka

even though they finally have the team assembled avengers assemble! with kyo back on the team, he still felt lacking and wanted to use every single free time to work on becoming better

yall fun fact about me, oikawa is actually my favorite character bc of how hard he works and the pain i have in that once scene during the karasuno match when he slammed into the tables and was struggling to get up bc of his knee----NO IM SOBBING AGAIN

iwa noticed him doing this again so he sent you out to drag him out and distract him from this

‘cmon oikawa-san-’

‘NO, Y/N-CHAN! I HAVE TO-’

‘no, the only thing you have to do is spend time with me bc i miss you and i want to have that movie you kept talking about’

bahahaha he is so whipped that a single ‘i miss you’ from you will literally make him break his back and bend for you

it was successful and you were in your room, your parents understanding oikawa and his antics since youve complained about it before, and he was sitting on your floor while looking through movies

‘y/n-chan, do you have no alien movies in here? or barbie?’

IN MY CONTENT, IT IS CANON THAT OIKAWA LOVES THE BARBIE MOVIES FITE ME

you laughed from your spot on your bed and shook your head

‘no, oikawa-san. natsu took all my barbie movies and i get scared of alien movies’

he pouted but continued to look until his eyes literally lit up

it was like god took a picture of him and you saw the flash

‘MEAN GIRLS! Y/N-CHAN I DIDNT KNOW YOU LIKED THIS TYPE OF MOVIE!’

he shrieked but you shrugged

‘meh. katsuki, natsu’s boyfriend, gave it to natsu as a joke but he gave it to me instead bc he cannot stand regina george’

you reasoned while picking out nail polish colors and looking through the ingredients of your face masks

‘WE’RE WATCHING THIS! PERIODT!’

omg hes so loud but i am too so we compatible

ugh i hate my logic

then later,

as the movie played, you were arguing with oikawa as he refused to wear the unicorn and wanted the panda one, which was your favorite

‘OIKAWA-SAN, I LIKE THIS ONE!’

‘Y/N-CHAN I LIKE IT MORE!’

you sucked in a sharp breath before relenting bc you wanted oikawa to be relaxed per request of your beloved senpai

‘fine. but i get to paint your nails’

he nodded eagerly and you handed him the packet, to which he simply stared at it

‘y/n-chan, can you,,,, put it on me?’

he sheepishly asked and you gave him a confused and bewildered look

‘oikawa-san, have you never put these on yourself?’

he shook his head, cheeks flushing and eyes focusing on the blue blanket

‘my sister always put it on for me. or iwa-chan’

‘IWA-?! wHAT-?!’

but you nodded anyways and he made you sit on his lap to put it on

‘um, oikawa-san, this position-’

he smiled at you, a gentle and real smile, not the ones for his fangirls

‘nuh uh, its fine, y/n-chan. oikawa-san loves you so he likes you right here’

he mumbled, blushing and wrapping his arms around your waist to pull you closer making you giggle and nod

‘okay. close your eyes then, oikawa-san’

he excitedly nodded, expecting a kiss from you but you flicked his forehead making his eyes fly open and wince at the pain

‘so perverted, oikawa-san. pervert-oikawa-san’

you scolded and he pouted

he said something but you didnt listen, instead placing the mask on his face and smoothing it out

his fringe was about to touch the wet material so you hastily grabbed a clip and held his hair up

he looked so cute that you couldnt help but reach over and snap a picture of him

‘ara ara gomen did y/n-chan just take a picture of oikawa-san?’

he teased but you shook your head

‘no. what are you talking about?’

he did the same thing to you and now you were both painting each other’s nails, ofc staying loyal to your school mint green and baby blue on the ring fingernail

lmao dont blast me for not being exact w the school colors but it looks mint green to me

he finished yours first and omg?? hes so??? good?? like what???

you were holding his large hands with your small fingers and his heart started thumping really fast at the simple touch

‘thank you,,,,, y/n-chan’

you looked up to him with large eyes, still unfamiliar with the softness of his voice

it was such a contrast compared to his usually loud and obnoxious, mocking tone

‘oikawa-san is not a really good captain since he burdens and bothers everyone but you always fix it all and keep everyone together. so, sorry for everything’

he mumbled and the eye holes from the mask let you see his sad eyes, genuinely sad about himself

you made the last paint stroke and capped the nail polish before leaning forwards, hands on his thigh so you could be closer

oikawa ofc freaked out because wow youre so much prettier up close and he doesnt?? deserve you??

your eyes blazed with anger and he stuttered your name but you cut him off

‘OIKAWA-SAN IS NOT USELESS. HE IS A REALLY GOOD CAPTAIN WHO LED HIS TEAM TO BATTLE THE ULTIMATE RIVAL AND EVEN THOUGH THEY LOST, THEY STILL WON IN MY EYES. YOU GOT KENTA-KUN TO COME BACK EVEN THOUGH HE DIDNT WANT TO BUT HE DID BC HE KNOWS HOW GOOD YOU ARE. HE WANTS TO PLAY ALONGSIDE A PLAYER WHO DESERVES TO BE ON THE COURT AND EVERYONE ELSE THINKS THE SAME THING. ME, Y/N, IS JUST A MANAGER WHO MIGHT NOT KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT VOLLEYBALL OR THE TECHNIQUES AND ALL THAT BUT I RECOGNIZE YOUR TALENT AND YOU WILL MAKE IT BIG SOMEDAY, OIKAWA-SAN! I PROMISE! AND WHEN YOU DO, I WILL SUPPORT YOU AND COME TO YOUR GAMES BC YOU ARE MY CAPTAIN AND I DONT REGRET EVER MEETING YOU. SO DONT APOLOGIZE AND SAY SORRY TO ME, INSTEAD TELL ME YOU ARE HAPPY TO BE IN THIS TEAM AND SAY YOU LOVE THE TEAM AND YOU LOVE VOLLEYBALL AND YOU LOVE-’

but he cut you off, placing a chaste kiss on your exposed nose

yall really thought it was the,,,, speaking function part of your face

nahnahnah that is only for the doggie

oop what

you stopped, flustered at the sudden action but oikawa smiled

‘i love you, y/n. i really love you so give me a chance, okay? i will wait, no matter how long it takes but,,,, let me catch up and for now, think about me, okay?’

BRUH HOW IS THAT RELEVANT TO HER LONG RANT LIKE WHAT---

you tilted your head to the side, confused

she is deadass naive like bls protect her

‘a chance for what? you want to catch up for what? youre already good, oikawa-san’

then he laughed

so much more different than the ones he let out in public

it was so,,,, beautiful

you found yourself grinning with him and he calmed down, brushing away the stray hairs that is in danger of getting stuck on your mask

‘come on, y/n-chan. lets go take this off’

he stood up and offered his hand which you took

after the moisturizing and final touch-ups for your skin, you finally settled on the blanket fort and dozed off, the movie still playing but you were too comfortable in oikawa’s arms that you didnt even notice the credits rolling

the next day, you didnt feel the need to mention it at all

but oikawa did and it was still truly an accident

iwa heard about him staying late again and you having to drag him out of there and he was hitting him and kicking him again

you were so used to this that you were just writing down your notes at the corner, oblivious to oikawa’s crying

finally, he had enough of it

‘SEE THIS IS WHY Y/N-CHAN DOESNT LET YOU SPEND THE NIGHT WITH HER! BECAUSE YOU ARE SO MEAN!’

um, sire what did you just say

that was completely taken out of context and everyone, omg, especially iwa and kyo just froze

‘what,,, did you just say?’

iwa asked in a dangerously low voice and you shrugged

‘you told me to distract him, iwa-san, so i did. he was happy and satisfied and thats all that matters, right?’

you shot them a smile and oiks had such a smug smile when iwa looked at him and he was about to hit him when kyo just came out of nowhere and YEETED the smile off of his face

oikawa screamed

just a wittle blurb about this bc i totally love this :( and he totally needs more love and some of my readers love oikawa and want oikawa manager content so here it is!!! feast on these crumbs!!!!

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srose-foxfire · 4 years ago

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Damirae Week 2021 - Day 3

A/N: Happy Damirae Canon Anniversary Day!!!

Whoo, day 3 is upon us! I hope you don't mind this prompt being particularly longer than my last two, I couldn't get myself to ‘cut-off’ some parts since I want to keep this AU storyline with the Week’s prompts. Some of the next prompts will be long as well to fit everything that needs to stay in the AU to make it run smoothly. Enjoy and see you all tomorrow for Day 4! ~~ Simona

“Joyfulness before Despair” Day 3: Holidays

It been years since the castle had ever felt alive. The end of the year celebrations had arrived at the castle. Raven busied herself to get the parlor ready to spend the New Year’s Eve with Damian and his family. After her little incident two months ago, Damian seemed to have changed and Raven had done the same. Since he has revealed himself to be a beast, Damian allowed her to venture outside the castle, and the spirits, which turned out to be Damian’s family were allowed to talk with her and not keep distance.

Dick Grayson, the eldest of all of them had explained to her what happened. Centuries ago, when Bruce had just appointed his youngest son; Damian would be the one to take his throne as the next king. A witch came to their door. Damian who had been studying and groomed by Bruce allowed the witch to rest in their castle as an honored guest. The witch thanked him and gave Damian her blessing, it wasn’t uncommon to allow visitors to take refuge in the Wayne Castle. Though the witch had another agenda, when everyone had retired to their chambers, the witch entered Prince Damian’s room, she was to slay him in his sleep. The witch didn’t count that the young prince was a skilled swordsman and so Damian easily bested her. Furious that she failed, she shrieked and announced she had been hired to bring the prince and his kingdom to ruin. Words of an ancient language spouted from her old weary lips. She cast a curse on Damian and his family. His half-siblings became spirits, binding their souls to reside forever inside the castle. As for Damian, she cursed him into a beastly form so that whoever laid eyes on him would be repulsed.

After Dick finished telling of their tale – he left out what had happened to Bruce - Raven now understood why Damian had been cold towards her. He had allowed himself to be open to a stranger, which then cost him his family’s life and his kingdom. Though she could never recall of ever hearing of the Kingdom of Gotham. Dick explained that it was a mystery as well, King Bruce Wayne was loved by many and an ally to the neighboring kingdoms. They could not understand why their people never came to their castle looking for the royal family after they been cursed.

Just then Jason, Stephanie, Cassie, Kori, and Tim came into the parlor with boxes filled with assorted candles and some golden decorations.

“I can’t believe we are doing this.” Jason grumbled as he set the old box down. It fascinated Raven to see them able to handle physical objects even if they had all a ghost-like form. Tim, who considered himself quite a scholar, believed the witch may had not said her curse properly. If they put their minds to it, they could lift and carry anything if they so wished. They could even open and close doors, though floating through it was easiest.

Stephanie scoffed and placed her hands on her hips, “Seriously Jason? Have some holiday spirit, we haven’t done this in such a long time. I could almost recall when the whole castle smelled of cinnamon and spice, gosh how I miss Alfred’s cooking.”

Having heard the name for the first time, Raven couldn’t help but ask, “whose Alfred?”

Everyone became stilled and remained silent. Raven could sense that the mention of Alfred’s name had sadden everyone. Though these siblings jested and were always carrying a smile, Raven could always sense they were hiding their sadness. She could only imagine what the witch’s curse had truly taken from them. They all been so kind to her, Raven wished she could do something in return.

“A dear friend.”

Everyone turned their heads towards the doors, Dick was standing there with a silver platter, filled with assorted biscuits and brewing hot tea. He too seemed to be saddened at the mention of their friend’s name.

Raven didn’t know what to do to lively their moods, just then Jason who had busied himself to finish setting the last candles over the fireplace, cleared his throat, “I thought you were supposed to help Damian with the food?”

Shaking his head, Dick tilted hid head to the side and gave his brother a lopsided grin, “I thought I bring Raven some snacks she’s our guest-”

“Demon Spawn kicked you out, didn’t he?” Tim added while he fixed a small round table and prepared two seating arrangements. Raven couldn’t stifle a small giggle at the mention of Damian’s pet name.

“He did.” Dick grumbled.

Raven raised a brow at him. “Are you not allowed in the kitchen.”

Jason walked over and grabbed the silver tray from Dick, he then turns his gaze towards Raven. “After we were cursed, we tried helping out around the castle as much as we could, then someone had to set the kitchen on fire one morning.”

Dick was beyond annoyed and gave out a heavy sigh, signaling he was tired of being reminded of his faults. “What? I was trying to be a good older brother and prepare Damian a tasty breakfast.”

After placing the silver tray on the round-coffee table, Jason scoffed at Dick’s remark. “Tasty? You were practically cooking lumps of coal! If the curse wasn’t enough, Damian would also have to endure your horrible cooking!”

The two brothers continue to bicker, while their sisters went to complain to Tim, asking him to stop the feud. No one had noticed that Raven had left the room. She wanted to feel useful and believed she could lend Damian a hand in the kitchen. Walking down one hallway, Raven noticed the amount of work the Wayne family had put to get the castle ready for their little festivity. A week before the end of the New Year, everyone had pinched in and clean the castle from top to bottom. There were no more spiderwebs on every crevice, the walls that only appeared to held darkness were now illuminated by candlelight. Everything had been dusted off, revealing beautiful golden tapestries, vases, and marble statues of legends. The castle was truly brimming with light and happiness.

When she finally arrived at the kitchen, Raven cautiously entered. She peeked from behind the large wooden door and saw Damian moving some pans over a small fire. He looked almost as he was in his own small word. A world where only he existed. There were still things Raven wanted to speak to him about but didn’t know if she was allowed to ask.

“May I come in?”

Damian quickly turn around and his eye widen for just a moment. “Hello.” He nodded and turned around and tossed some ingredients in the air. “I apologize for the delay; I’m getting our dinner ready.”

“Let me help, just tell me what to do.”

“Very well.” Damian gave her a small yet gentle smile, he then pointed at some dough that need to be rolled out and portion to make garlic bread. They worked in silence, but every once in a while, Raven would catch herself side glancing and just admire Damian. For being a great and large beast, he was very meticulous with his work. He grabbed a kitchen knife and perfectly thinly sliced some basil leaves. Which he then tossed into a pan that seemed to have crushed tomatoes and ground beef.

“That smells delicious.”

“I hope you enjoy it, it’s a dish an old friend would prepare every year. Beef Ragu.” Damian said proudly as he grabbed a small tasting spoon and handed it to Raven to taste.

“This friend wouldn’t happen to be Alfred?” Why… why did she allowed her mouth to run off on itself? Raven hated herself for letting the name slip from her lips.

“Yes, he is.” Damian added rather nonchalantly. He continues to stir the beef ragu, “Alfred Pennyworth was my father’s royal advisor. He been a friend to the Wayne family since before my father was born. He acted like a grandfather to me, once I came to live with my father.”

“Can I ask, what happen to him… and to your father?”

“The curse affected them differently… they were turned into stone. We don’t know if their alive or gone.” Raven could notice that this hurt Damian greatly, she saw that he was trying so hard to fight off his tears. All she could do in that moment for him was wrapping her arms from behind him.

Once dinner was prepared, Damian and Raven were seated in the small round table in the parlor, they ate in silence. Raven grimaced having his siblings just lounging in the parlor and not have a bite to eat. Kori explained that they never got hungry. They could however smell the food and that was enough for them. After dinner, Dick started rambling off some nonsense and twirled around the room. Tim whispered into Raven’s ears that Dick enjoyed acting like the court jester. Kori left the room and came with assorted instruments in her hands, she gave one to each of her future siblings-in-laws and everyone started to play off-key. Damian couldn’t help but grumble and sighed heavily in his seat as he tried very hard to hide in his black cape. Raven clapped and giggled as everyone gracefully floated around the room.

~~~~~

As the festivities continued to roar inside the castle, outside was slender-hungry harpy; her feathers a dark shade of bloody red, and her body a pale ghostly white. She silently watched the cursed Wayne family frilly and dance around the fireplace with an unexpected guest. She huffed an annoyed grunt and flew off into the dark night. She flew over treetops, meadows, and valleys; until she reached the side of a long lonely mountain. There near the top of it peak was a dark cave, she screeched and flew into it. Darkness enveloped her for a few moments, then green boiling water, erupted from an old black rusty cauldron. The harpy landed next to it, tucking her winged arms to her sides.

“Show us what you found, my pet.”

From the shadows two figures emerge. The old witch that cursed the royal Wayne family and a second fellow who shielded his face with a black and orange mask. The harpy screeched and plucked one of it feathers out, placing it the cauldron. The green waters disintegrated the feather, like it fallen in a pot of acid, and then it started to swirl revealing an image in it waters. It was of the royal family prancing and laughing with one another. Then at the corner of the room stands a raven-haired maiden who reaches for the paws of the cursed prince and bring him to stand next to her. She smiles at him and urges him to dance with her. They move to the off-key music and laugh all together. The witch curses under her breath.

The masked man, the one who employed for her services centuries ago, scoffs and crosses his arms over his chest. “Don’t tell me if the boy falls in love then the curse will be lifted.”

Just like her harpy, the witch screeches angrily, and points her boney-old finger towards the man beside her. “You peg me for a fool? Love is a strange power, but I made sure none of my curses to ever be lifted by ‘true love’s kiss’ or ‘sacrificing oneself for love’. No this is worse, that girl, she holds magic of her own. She is the daughter of a demon and of a sorceress from Azarath. Their magic is far greater than any witch’s enchantment, she could break the curse.”

“Well then, this changes things.” The man said as he hovers over the boiling cauldron and inspected the maiden more closely. She was very beautiful, he thought to himself.

“I can have my harpy go kill-”

“No. Don’t harm the girl. I find her to be quite interesting. Daughter of a demon, you say? Well now, wouldn’t that make for a most pleasant queen to be by my side?”

#damirae week 2021 #day 3 #prompt holidays #damirae #beauty and the beast au #be our guest #Damian Wayne #dc damian #raven roth #dc raven #raven and damian #batfamily

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undertalethingems · 5 years ago

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Bark at the Moon Chapter 13: Undaunted

Or read on my Ao3>

Rating, Setting: Gen, Pre-canon

Chapter Warnings: None

Chapter Summary: Undyne's the heroine who never gives up--she's not about to lose that title now.

The search parties had mostly given up after only a few weeks, but Undyne wouldn't. She couldn't, not after the months of trouble her friends had been put through. She didn't care if she lost her place as captain, she didn't care what it meant for her career--two monsters under her watch had been treated horribly after suffering long enough already, and she couldn't rest until she knew for sure what had befallen them. Asgore had been understanding when she'd explained the situation, but others might talk... Well, she'd let 'em. If they had a problem with how she spent her time, they could take it up with her--so far, no one had.

Dressed in a heavy coat to ward off the cold, most of Undyne's days the last month had been spent scouring the wilderness. She worked the forest systematically, keeping track of how much ground she'd covered and which direction hadn't been explored. She drew on everything she knew, every instinct and shred of knowledge and ounce of determination, and kept going. They had to be out here somewhere.

She crested a low hill, and hooted triumphantly--there! Clear as a pond in Waterfall, a trackway. They were old, but fresher than any of the ones around town--and she didn't know of anyone or anything else that would leave such tracks. Four digits in front, three in back, thin and always tipped by claws--the only thing that came close were the various icedrakes, but they were bipeds. As long as she followed these, she'd find something--she was sure of it. She powered forward, legs carrying her faster and faster until she was almost running--

Something impacted her. She pitched forward with a grunt, landing roughly in loose brush, only to be hauled up by her backpack and shaken. She dropped roughly to the ground, and yelped as her arm was pinned and her assailant tried to pull the backpack off again. She rolled and kicked out to knock her attacker's leg from under them, and glimpsed that not only was said leg made of bone, it was broken.

Her strike connected. The creature shrieked and darted off, pausing briefly a few yards away to stare at her hollowly with orange eyes. Then it dashed off again, and Undyne scrambled to pursue. She'd found something alright, and it made her soul twist painfully.

"Papyrus! Wait! I wanna help!"

She chased after him, weaving through the brush and trees breathlessly; even with an injured arm he was easily outpacing her and it wasn't long before she'd lost sight of him. She continued following his tracks--but the new trail petered out by going off a cliff. She skidded to a halt, panting; Undyne knew Papyrus had incredible jumping abilities so he hadn't just fallen however far down that was. She'd lost him. She grit her teeth, then punched the nearest tree in frustration. Chunks of snow rained from its branches, smattering around her with little splats--the only sound aside from her ragged breathing. She'd been so close...! If she'd gotten in range she could have used a green attack, and then... well. It didn't matter now--he'd gotten away. But her frown softened as a thought occurred to her. At least she knew he was alive.

But...

He'd attacked her, and though they'd stared at one another, he hadn't seemed to recognize her at all. She'd seen only the wary gaze of an animal in those orange lights. He'd slipped... and it seemed worse this time. Back when he'd pounced on her in the hidden cave, he at least knew she was a friend and was playing with her. She rotated her arm, feeling out the lingering soreness from the scuffle--this time, he'd held back, but not much. She had to find him again, and break him out of this like she said she would. She made a face--hopefully it wouldn't involve any actual breaking.

She had to find him again, and Sans, but it was getting late and she wasn't prepared for a night in the forest. She glanced back up, looking out over the valley black with thick, hardy evergreens and cut by a rushing river. They were out there, somewhere...

She stomped her foot with a grunt, and shouted as loud as she could. "Papyrus! I'm coming back tomorrow! Don't be late, y'hear me?! And bring your lazy excuse for a brother too, got it?!"

She glared, listening to her words echo and hoping, somehow, she'd hear a reply. But it was getting too cold. She turned and retraced her steps until she finally came back to the road. After everything that had happened, the rest of the journey to get home felt so long... maybe she'd just stay at the Snowed Inn again. It was always clean and cozy, and they had the best cinnamon buns. Yeah. That sounded relaxing. She could use the peace and quiet to come up with a gameplan that wasn't just 'wander in the woods until she found her friend'. She needed to do better than that. Papyrus--whether he knew it or not anymore--was counting on her.

But she'd done everything she could today--after a full day in it, the cold was really biting at her scales. She grit her teeth and pulled her coat tighter against the icy breeze. Just a bit farther...! She sighed with relief when the warm lights of town finally poked through the trees. She'd take Snowdin's cold over Hotland any day, but the thought of taking a hot shower before snuggling under cozy blankets sounded like the nicest thing right now.

Once she'd gotten settled into her room for the night, she called Alphys.

"O-oh, hello, C-Captain Undyne," she stammered on the other end of the line, and Undyne felt her heart do little flips.

"Hey Doctor Alphys! Um, I was wondering... if... er, if you could help me with something," she started--more awkwardly than she wanted it to sound, ugh. "I've uh--I've got a case I'm working on and--well--I was hoping you--um--"

"I-I'd love to!" Alphys said quickly, and there was the sound of ruffling papers. "It's th-the case of the b-beast, right? Only, it wasn't a beast it was the skeleton brothers--I had no idea transforming monsters were real, it's just like this show I've been watching where it turns out the main character's best friends are really--WHOOPS spoilers ha ha ha... Um... Is it... that case?"

Undyne coughed. "Yeah. I'm... trying to find them. I saw Papyrus today."

"O-oh! Th-that's good! ... Right?"

Undyne sighed. "Yeah, but... it was like he didn't recognize me at all."

"O-oh..."

"Yeah. I've seen him do this, where he acts... different. More like a wild animal, I guess... He kinda reminds me of the dogs, but then when he stretches it's more like a cat, and then if he's watching something it's kinda like a bird--anyway, the point is, he stops acting like Papyrus. I mean, you can still tell it's him in there, but... I've been able to snap him out of it before, but this time... I dunno. He seems like... like he's really in deep."

"Hmm..." Alphys was quiet as she thought; it took a while, but Undyne didn't mind--she was enjoying just having her on the phone.

"W-well," she finally started, and it sounded like she adjusted her glasses. "Based on what little information you gave me, I can only guess so much, b-but... um, I only have like one episode of this show, b-but, one of the characters loses his memories, and seems like a totally different person until his friends spend enough time talking about things they all did together. I don't know if that would really work--i-it's kind of silly, saying it out l-loud now, um, nevermind--"'

"No! No, I think that might be exactly it," Undyne said quickly; of course it was something obvious like that! Man, Alphys really had a problem with confidence sometimes--she had the best ideas. "I was just gonna go out and like, tackle him, but now I think I should do that... AND tell him about all the other times I have too!"

Alphys managed a weak laugh. "Th-that... seems like it's worth a shot. T-tell me if it works, okay?"

"Of course! Thank you so much--um, I might ask you for more help again soon, okay? Actually... Back when he was... still in town, Papyrus seemed really bothered by the fact he was stuck in his beast form. You think you could, I dunno, rig up some science thing to scan his magic and see if something's going on with it?"

"I-I could certainly try," Alphys replied, and Undyne heard a sound like she was tapping her chin. "I wish I could have looked into it before they transformed so I'd have a baseline to compare it to, b-but, I guess I'll have to use regular monsters as a control... I-if their bodies can change so drastically, I can only imagine what their souls are doing, and that could explain why their mental states change as well... I'll have to see what the literature says about endomagical structure and regulation... O-oh, sorry, I'm rambling--you're probably busy, that was probably really boring--"

Undyne scoffed. "I mean, I can't exactly weigh in, but I love when you talk science stuff. Now, when you get into jargon, then I'm really lost."

She loved when she talked any stuff, but science was a topic Alphys could happily discuss at length. Even if she didn't understand, Undyne could listen to her for hours. She just liked seeing Alphys happy.

"Y-yeah, ha ha... I don't know enough about this to get into any jargon yet, b-but trust me, there's gonna be jargon eventually."

"There always is," Undyne teased, then turned serious. "Well hey, listen--I'm really glad you want to help. These guys have been trying to deal with it on their own this whole time, and... needless to say it hasn't worked out. I'll do everything I can, but... I think we need someone who can really look into this once I get them back."

"Yeah... I-I... I'll do my best," Alphys replied quietly. "Let me know when... when you find them."

"Oh yeah, for sure. So, uh... cool. Uh. Talk to you later....?"

"Yeah! O-oh, um, okay, bye!"

She hung up, and rolled onto her back. Alphys was so smart--such an obvious solution to helping the brothers remember themselves hadn't even crossed Undyne's mind. She'd give it a shot for sure. And then, once they were back, Alphys could use science to help them figure out what was up with them being stuck... It was nice to feel like maybe things might work out. Undyne had tried not to be hard on herself, but she felt like she'd let the brothers down.

Maybe she should have let Papyrus help with the investigation after all, before things had gotten so out of hand that the townsfolk were ready to attack on sight. But it was too late--she had to face this head-on and not get bogged down with regrets. She'd take Alphys' advice and try getting through to her friends tomorrow.

#undertalethingem writes #bark at the moon fic #Undyne (undertale)#papyrus (undertale)#alphys (undertale)#gaster blaster au #Undyne is a good friend ;u;#i'm glad i could finally bring alphys in; this won't be the last time she shows up! ^^

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elsanna-shenanigans · 3 years ago

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April Contest Submission #8: River Rockman

Words: ca. 2,000 Setting: canon Lemon: no CW: none

River Rockman The sound of a river stream echoed through the trees and the golden leaves. Autumn meant it was cold, but not cold enough to freeze the shallow stream of clean running water. Maybe at different times of the year that whole area could be a river, Anna would never know. She was too young to even know for sure where this memory was. She knows her age and has a vague idea it couldn’t be in their kingdom because it was the only time the whole family exited Arendelle. Nowadays Anna would guess her father was on a diplomatic trip, but with all the other details fuzzy she can’t find out. She only knows how old she was, because… A platinum white braid swayed behind a young girl as she held the hem of her skirt to avoid getting it wet. Black polished shoes hopped on stones, crossing the water.

Yes, Anna couldn’t be older than five if Elsa was there. Elsa started tossing stones to try and make them skip on the water like they sometimes would on the fjord. The water was too shallow for that, but neither girl knew that back then. They spoke something about needing to find a perfect stone and that would make it work. Anna was more than eager to join, to help, to participate and follow her bright sister’s ideas. Elsa seemed so big and wise. Three years older feels like a decade when you’re five. The little red haired princess searched with fervor… for half a minute. She ended up distracted by the movement of minuscule fishes –were they even fishes?– when she heard Elsa squeak. It wasn’t a bad squeak, it was a good squeak. Her tiny legs barely had enough coordination to keep her from falling into the waster as she rushed to Elsa’s side. What did her sister see? She wanted to know right that second. She didn’t want to be left out. “Anna, look!” Anna remembers when Elsa opened her palms and the gasp that escaped her own lips. “It’s a snowman!” Saying it looked like a statue would be a stretch, but for a five and a seven year old the pareidolia bordered perfection. All the main elements were there; three connected spheres –not quite– of diminishing sizes and some bumps and crevices that made a decent impersonation of a snowman face and nose. All it missed was the arms. The girls squealed with delight. Finding a naturally made snowman before winter felt like finding a treasure. Nowadays, knowing that gemstones and precious metals can be found in rivers, Anna would compare their joy with the one of a lucky miner. Anna is sure what she remembers is not exactly what happened, for a long time she wished she didn’t, so perhaps she simply doesn’t. Her own feelings got muddled then as she saw the precious find in Elsa’s hands. Her sister held it with the same poise she would anything else, her slender fingers delicately scanning the stone surface, still discovering its secrets. Elsa’s fascination made Anna feel odd. During her childhood Anna lacked the tools to understand the context of the memory; her memory had been robbed and never returned, but now thanks to her new knowledge, a knowledge she had back then, it made all sense. Elsa had found in nature what she herself could create. It must have felt like finding a piece of yourself, carved and left for you to find by fate. “We should give him a name,” Elsa said almost to the air instead of at Anna. Good and bad emotions warred inside the little princess. She wanted the prize for herself, but it was Elsa’s discovery, so it was hers. Anna wished she found it first so she could have been the one to show it to Elsa and cause that face of wonder, that calm contentment. She wanted to be the reason Elsa was happy. Her chubby hands shook as all her preferred scenarios crossed her mind. She just had to choose what mattered the most. Anna was taken by surprise in her focus when Elsa held her hands and pushed the stone into her distracted palms. “Here.” Anna blinked, astonished. Was Elsa giving the treasure to her? What would make Elsa do that? She wanted to accept it, but what would she do with it? Everything seemed ruined now because she couldn’t simply give it back after taking it. Her possessive feelings clashed with her desire to see Elsa happy with a thoughtful gift from her younger sister. “No!” Anna tried to push the snowman back into Elsa’s hands. Elsa was confused, and while back then it didn’t make sense, now it is crystal clear. Elsa saw Anna’s frustration and figured it was because her sibling wanted it for herself, which was partially true. Anna’s refusal probably looked like stubbornness, reluctance or even petty jealousy. Anna wished that at five years old she had been wise enough to know that nobody was to blame for what would happen next. The sisters firmly pushed the proffered snowman back and forth between themselves, both reluctant to keep it and be the cause of the other’s unhappiness. “No, it’s yours! You found it!” “It’s a gift! You want it. It’s yours!” Thanks to their most selfless selfish argument –Anna is sure it was her fault because Elsa was too coordinated to be blamed– the precious snowman slipped from their grasp and fell into the water with a terrible cracking noise. Elsa covered her gasp with her hand and Anna let out a mute shriek. The younger princess quickly retrieved the snowman from the water, as if she was fast enough she could undo the damage. Tears welled in two sets of eyes as they each saw the new fissure in the stone. The damage hadn’t been strong enough to break the snowman completely, but the face was now scarred by a diagonal gash that crossed the whole body vertically. Their treasure hadn’t lasted five minutes before Anna had destroyed it due to her petulance. It wasn’t truly broken, but she ruined it all the same. She marred it with a scar not unlike the one she would someday have herself. Anna doesn’t remember what happened next. Did they argue? Did Elsa cry? Did she cry? Maybe they both cried? She does remember getting back into the carriage and how Elsa silently held the wounded snowman all the way home. - “Hi.” In the present Anna leans on the wall in the study, watching Elsa get lost in the details of their once precious treasure as she cradled it in her hand. “Hi. I was just searching for a letter opener…” Elsa trailed off. She doesn’t move her gaze from the little snowman. Anna smiles as she watches Elsa. The snowman doesn’t look like what it was when they found it (or broke it). The entire body is now covered in an uneven coat of white paint and it now has a red scarf around its neck with delicate branches glued to its sides, mimicking arms. Elsa’s slender fingers explore it delicately like they did so many years ago and Anna knows Elsa is lost in her own memories now. “Good memories?” “I tried hard to fix it,” Elsa says, putting it back inside the drawer where she found it. “I didn’t know you kept it. It wasn’t in the box along with the other Olafs.” “Well…” Anna approaches Elsa, taking it out from the drawer again. “This is the first Olaf isn’t it.” Anna smiles as she caresses it. It feels much smaller now in her hands. The paint is dirty or cracked at some places, revealing the stone beneath. “So you noticed,” Elsa mentions quietly. “It had the same shape! I remember back when you first introduced Olaf to me. You made it move with your arms and said in a pathetic gruff voice that he liked warm hugs.” “And you loved him.” “And I loved him.” Both sisters chuckle and a comfortable silence falls between them. “I thought you didn’t want to play with me anymore because I broke it,” Anna starts then pauses. “At least I did until it showed up one day in the middle of the clean laundry.” “Oh, Anna.” Elsa takes Anna’s free hand in hers and squeezes it. “I didn’t know… I thought fixing it for you would make you happier, but…” Elsa grimaces. “Looking at it now I did a really bad job fixing it.” Anna can’t help but laugh. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. It’s fine work for a seven year old.” “I could have done a better job,” Elsa insists looking at it. “I could have made him a little top hat. And not have borrowed the scarf from Sir Jorgenbjorgen. And I could have asked to buy real paint instead of…” Elsa trails off. “Sorry, I didn’t catch that last part,” Anna tries to say evenly. “It’s nothing.” Anna can feel the unspoken words trapped in Elsa’s head from the way her sister looks to the side. Elsa tries hard to mute her body language, being the Queen. But when they’re in private or when Elsa is comfortable… She just slips and Anna loves pushing her sister’s reactions. “Ohhhh.” Anna purrs like a happy cat. “Is that a secret I smell.” She nudges Elsa.Elsa winces. “Don’t make me say it out loud.” Anna nudges her, knowing her sister is not really distressed. “Come on, big sis. Confess.” She knows Elsa will spill it out. They always share embarrassing childhood tales. Elsa makes an indignant noise. “I could not haven stolen the paints from the royal painter. He was doing that portrait of Father and… I just didn’t want to admit what I truly wanted the paint for and I didn’t want to lie.” Anna can’t help but chuckle at Elsa’s expense. “Are you telling me Prim and Proper Elsa committed a crime to avoid committing a crime? I. Am. Shocked.” Anna feigned her best appalled expression. Elsa swatted Anna’s arm, who kept laughing to herself. “I don’t know why I thought it looked good. You can even see the crack.” “About that…” Anna stopped laughing and fidgeted with the figure in her hands. “I kind of broke it again.” She was barely audible. “Hmmm, what was that? I didn’t quite hear you,” Elsa grins. “Fine!” Anna is as red as a tomato now. “I broke it again as soon as I got it back! But it wasn’t bad, look.” Elsa watches as Anna removes scarf from around the snowman with care and places it back inside the drawer… only to unceremoniously split their treasure in half. Elsa’s jaw drops open and her brows knit together in worry as she tries to make sense of what’s happening. Anna hands her one half and she understands after careful examination. Inside both halves of the snowman were covered in crystals as blue as a clear sky and between those and the outer shell of rock was a layer of smaller white crystals. The overall effect reminded Elsa of- “It reminded me of you,” Anna commented, looking at her own half. “I couldn’t remember why- I didn’t know why snow and ice crystals reminded me of you… But looking at it made me really happy. I was less lonely.” Elsa didn’t know what to say. Her mouth ran dry. “Is it celestite?” she tries instead, feeling the spiky crystals, rough to the touch. “Yes! Who knew our snowman was a geode all that time right? It is funny how-” “How some things only are revealed after they break.” “Yeah…” Their eyes connected and they silently gazed at each other for a long time. It was a comfortable silence filled with words unsaid. That is, until… “Oh my. Was that me?” Anna blushes and removes her hand from Elsa’s palm to cradle her stomach, and hopefully quell it from making another embarrassing noise. Elsa chuckles and takes Anna’s hand again. “Let’s get you something to eat before we uncover the monster that lies beneath.” “Meanie.” They place the two halves together again on top of Anna’s desk as they leave for dinner. A perfect fit with no missing parts along the crack. Aside from a scar, the halves fit like they were never broken.

#elsanna #submission #April 2021 contest #prompt: break

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trilliastra · 5 years ago

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[when canon lets you down, you write your own ending. a my roommate is a detective fix-it of sorts]

Salim hands him the letter a month after Lu Yao and Bai Youning leave for Paris.

“Qiao Chusheng, please. I do not know what to do! Lu Yao disappeared! Oh, I am afraid he will get hurt! Please, come quick!” It says in Youning’s neat handwriting. Qiao Chusheng is on his feet before Salim could leave the room, taking the letter with him as he storms out of his office. He only remembers to question how the letter arrived so quickly once his ticket to Paris has been bought.

–

He doesn’t get much sleep once he’s in the ship, nightmares with Lu Yao being tortured appear every time he closes his eyes. He left clear instructions to his men to question – or torture, whatever works – every British man in Shanghai and Master Bai promised, angrily, to look into it as well, he would have the head of anyone who made his daughter cry, thanking Qiao Chusheng profusely for deciding to take matters into his own hands “You’re a good man, Chusheng.” He had said.

There’s nothing good about him, Qiao Chusheng sighs, running his hands through his hair after yet another failed attempt to fall asleep. He’s selfish and ungrateful. His boss has been nothing but a great father figure to him, and Bai Youning a kind – and sometimes annoying – little sister, and yet he can’t help but want to take their happiness away. He should be going to Paris to pay a debt, help a friend, but in reality, he’s going to save the man he loves.

–

Some nights he dreams about stopping Lu Yao’s wedding, other nights, he’s the one on that ship with him not Bai Youning. After, he always wakes up in a cold sweat with tears streaming down his face.

It was painful to see his two closest friends getting married and smiling at each other happily, planning a life together while his own plans for the future are to try not to die. He’s been alone for as long as he can remember, and though Master Bai saved his life, he couldn’t give Qiao Chusheng the love he so desperately wanted. And once Chusheng became a weapon to protect his boss, he knew no one would get close enough to see him, let alone love one of the most dangerous man in Shanghai.

Qiao Chusheng had resigned himself to a life without love. And then Lu Yao came in. The man was never afraid to speak up and prove him wrong, and despite Qiao Chusheng’s reputation, Lu Yao never cowered in fear but instead, let himself get closer, become his ally and in the end, his friend.

It was impossible, Qiao Chusheng admits, not to fall in love with a man as free as the wind.

–

“Lao Qiao!” Bai Youning cries out, waving her hand at him. The people around them are staring, but he doesn’t care. He’s never been to another country before, but he doesn’t have time to think about the scenery, not when Lu Yao is in danger.

“What happened?” He immediately asks, holding her arms. She doesn’t look hurt, or upset for that matter. Qiao Chusheng narrows his eyes when she smirks at him. “What did you do?”

She smiles cheerfully, practically jumping in excitement. “I wrote a story!”

–

“Let me go,” he tries to shake her arm off, but Bai Youning only holds him tighter, “I have a job! I can’t travel to another country just to appease your childish needs!” He has never felt anger quite like this, especially not directed to someone he cherishes, but he just never expected her to play this kind of wicked trick.

“You are not listening!” She protests, “Lu Yao needs you!” Qiao Chusheng growls, pushing her away angrily. Bai Youning falls, letting out a surprised yelp and looking up at him with wide eyes. People around them stop immediately, shocked, and Qiao Chusheng himself blinks, astonished at his own action.

A woman helps Youning up, glaring and muttering angry words that he cannot understand, trying to pull her away from him, but Youning only shakes them off with kind words spoken in broken french.

“I am sorry.” He says, immediately, once the people around them start to leave, not without a last judging look. “I shouldn’t have –” he is about to kneel in front of her and apologize when Bai Youning raises her hand.

“Lao Qiao,” she interrupts, “just follow me.” She says, turning around. This time Qiao Chusheng follows silently.

–

They get a taxi to the hotel Lu Yao and Bai Youning have been staying. Qiao Chusheng keeps his head down the entire time, berating himself silently for letting his feelings get the best of him. She is the daughter of his master, in the end she owns him just as much as her father.

“You know how he is.” She says once they are at the hotel, climbing the stairs to her and Lu Yao’s room. He tries not to think about what they have been doing all this time, alone, but he looks up curiously when Youning stops in front of a closed door and turns to him. “He just wants to be free to do as he pleases, without his father telling him what to do or the watchful eyes of the Brits or even my father. And I –” she smiles sadly, “maybe I wanted the same.” He nods in understanding.

In Shaghai she will always be Bai Qili’s daughter, married or not.

“Then why bring me –”

“Lu Yao is a genius,” she cuts in again, rolling her eyes. “but he is also very very stupid. It is frustrating, really. Can you believe he thought you did not love him?” She huffs, ignoring the way Qiao Chusheng’s mouth opens in surprise. “Men, honestly.” Bai Youning pulls a key out of her purse and turns to the door.

Qiao Chusheng feels like he is in a dream where everything looks and feels confusing and time does not exist. Has it been that long since he stepped out of the boat? Or was it only two minutes ago? Is Bai Youning real or is his mind making it up and he will wake up from one of his naps to Salim bringing him coffee?

“Lu Yao!” Bai Youning yells, pushing Qiao Chusheng inside the room forcefully. “I got a present for you!”

“I don’t want another watch.” Lu Yao whines. He is lying on the couch, eyes closed, a bottle of wine in his hand. “I just want my Lao Qiao with me.” He sniffles, taking a gulp of wine. “It’s afternoon in Shanghai right now,” he keeps talking, unaware of Qiao Chusheng watching him from the door, “he must be training. Shirtless.” He sighs. “Sweating.”

Qiao Chusheng blinks, turns to look at Bai Youning, confused. She gestures at Lu Yao like saying ‘I told you’.

“Youning?” Lu Yao calls, sitting up. His hair is ruffled and the top button of his shirt is open, Qiao Chusheng doesn’t understand how someone can be so cute and so tempting at the same time. “Where is the –” he coughs, eyes wide as he notices Qiao Chusheng for the first time, “Lao Qiao.” his voice is barely a whisper and Qiao Chusheng can’t help but smile. He missed Lu Yao so much. A month is a long time, especially once he got so used to having him around, sharing meals and discussing cases. More than once, after Lu Yao and Bai Youning left, he caught himself walking to their old apartment in the morning, turning around to ask him about his opinion on the scene of the murder, only to realize Lu Yao was not there.

It was incredibly painful.

“Lao Qiao.” Lu Yao repeats, standing up. He staggers and Qiao Chusheng moves on instinct, ready to catch him if he falls, but Lu Yao manages to keep himself upright as his eyes move from Qiao Chusheng to Bai Youning. “What is happening? Something happened with your father? No,” he immediately says, “you look far too happy for it to be something bad.” He narrows his eyes at Bai Youning. “What did you do? You are my wife, you are supposed to take care of me and not –” he gestures towards Qiao Chusheng awkwardly, avoiding his eyes. The reminder of their wedding is enough to wipe the smile off of Qiao Chusheng’s face.

Bai Youning’s expression softens and her smile is sad as she says, “our parents are not here, you don’t need to pretend.”

“But –” Lu Yao looks at Qiao Chusheng, then immediately turns to her again, “he –” he mumbles.

“It was a long trip,” Qiao Chusheng crosses his arms over his chest, annoyed. This is getting too far. “I’d like an explanation. Now.” This is too cruel to be a prank, Bai Youning may be childish but she isn’t mean. Even though Lu Yao has no idea of Qiao Chusheng’s feelings, the look on Bai Youning says she has.

“I do not love him.” She finally says. And that – oh, that is worse than a prank, that is – it is cruel. Because Bai Youning knows him, he’s noticed the confused looks on her face, the understanding when he refused to leave the hospital when Lu Yao was shot, the pity on her wedding day. And he forgave her for marrying him anyway, he forgave her because he thought she loved him, because why should he deny her happiness when he will never get his. But this – oh, he never thought she would do something like this. “He does not love me.”

“Youning!” “You –” Lu Yao and Qiao Chusheng yell at the same time.

“We wanted to be free!” She keeps going, ignoring them both. “And I did not know.” She turns to him, rests her hands on his shoulder. “I swear I did not know. It was not my intention.” A stray tear falls from her eye and Qiao Chusheng feels all the anger leave him. “He loves you too. It is annoying how much he loves you.” Lu Yao shrieks, runs to put a hand over her mouth. Bai Youning only elbows his stomach and keeps talking, ignoring Lu Yao’s cries. “He talks about you when he is sober and he cries when he is drunk.”

“Bai Youning!” Lu Yao keeps trying to pull her back and Qiao Chusheng has never felt so many conflicting emotions in his life.

“But, you are married –” he finally says, “I saw it. We all did. Your father –”

“And no one knows.” She says. “Not here.” She holds another key for him to see. “We are sleeping in different rooms, I am his little sister. And nothing more.”

“Stop, please stop.” Lu Yao begs, collapsing on the floor. “He – Bai Youning, you know why I –”

“But he loves you!” She insists, pointing at Qiao Chusheng. “I know he does!”

“I do.” Qiao Chusheng finds his words again, eyes on Lu Yao. “I do love you. You are – ridiculous and clever and so – fascinating, I – of course I love you. The moment I met you – I had no choice but to love you.”

He watches Lu Yao shake his head as he starts to cry. He holds up his hand and Qiao Chusheng takes it. “I know you do.”

Bai Youning makes a noise of surprise and Qiao Chusheng tries to pull his hand back but Lu Yao tightens his hold, still kneeling in front of him. “I know you do.” He repeats, tears falling non-stop. “The way you touched me and looked at me and the way you talked.” Lu Yao smiles sadly. Qiao Chusheng never thought his heart could hurt so much.

“I cannot believe you –” Bai Youning screams, throwing her purse at Lu Yao, who barely moves, hand still holding Qiao Chusheng’s.

“I love you, so much.” Lu Yao confesses. “I have loved you from the moment you refused to say no to Bai Youning,” he sniffles, “a man so fierce but so sweet, a man capable of hurting to protect those he loves. So loyal.” He presses a kiss to Qiao Chusheng’s hand. “So brave.”

“Why?” Qiao Chusheng whispers, feeling his own eyes water. “You never said –”

“I love you.” Lu Yao repeats, fiercer this time. “But I will not go back, I can’t. And I won’t force you to leave everything you have behind. I love you too much for that.”

It all makes sense then. Lu Yao is a free spirit and he will never be free in Shanghai. He might go back for Qiao Chusheng but he will never be truly happy. There are too many variables, too much at stake.

He looks into Lu Yao’s eyes and sees it – the love, the one thing he had given up on. “I do not have much.” He finds himself saying. And he realizes it is true. A few shirts, some pants, another boot? Not even his house is his own. “I do not need much.” He adds, kneeling too. “Just you.” Lu Yao’s face brightens and Qiao Chusheng touches his cheek, feeling happy and seen and loved for the first time in his life.

–

Bai Qili gets a letter two months after Qiao Chusheng left for Paris, almost five months since his only daughter got married.

“Qiao Chusheng tried his best, but oh, those evil, evil, men. In the end, he could not save him, father, but he gave his life trying and I shall remember him for eternity. And Lu Yao, I can still see his smile, feel his hand on mine, I wish to come back but I am afraid I will only miss him more. And oh, his family, I cannot face them. Please father, I hope you understand. One day I shall come back to visit, but I am afraid Shanghai without my beloved Lu Yao and my friend Qiao Chusheng is not the same. It is not home.”

Oh, his poor child. Bai Qili thinks. She must be feeling lost in Paris, without a husband or her family. He will bring her back, she must stay with him, it will hurt for a while but she will get better, he knows because he will be there for her. Always.

–

Bai Youning is sitting outside the adorable bakery near her hotel. She puts the pen down and takes a sip of her coffee, thinking about what to write her father about Berlin. She’s never been there, obviously, but neither did he, so he won’t know the difference. When he send his men to search for her she won’t be there, but it is for the best.

She smiles as Lu Yao and Qiao Chusheng discuss what flavor of cake they are going to try today. To the outsider they look like ordinary friends having a heated conversation about chocolate and strawberry, but Bai Youning knows better, watching Lu Yao touch Qiao Chusheng’s hand softly while the latter smiles in adoration.

It all worked out in the end, she sighs, perfectly content.

#my roommate is a detective #chuyao #qiao chusheng #lu yao #lu yao x qiao chusheng #mriad #my fic #i haven't watched past the 18th episode #i only know what happened through tumblr so... sorry for innacuracies #oops im rambling #we tired of queerbaiting here!!

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consumedkings-archive · 4 years ago

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ancient names, pt. xvii

A John Seed/Original Female Character Fanfic

Ancient Names, pt xvii: what the wolves taught me

Masterlink Post

Word Count: ~6.9k

Rating: Explicit.

Warnings: mentions of gore and blood, like a LOT of mentions of blood, mentions of self-harm, shower sex without Reasonable Protection, also like kind of dubious if you squint because John is tripping, bad decisions are made as well as some questionable dirty talk (John really likes that she beat a man to death). Elliot kind of has like one (1) tiny power trip. Idk man just like proceed with caution??

Notes: A little bit of an interlude chapter, this one! Last chap was a bit intense, so this one's more of a transition--not a lot happens in terms of plot movement, so everyone can go ahead and catch your breath. ♡ As always, a big and huge thank you to everyone who reads and comments, has come and said hi to me on my tumblr. This fandom has been so incredibly lovely and welcoming and just understanding of my general chaos and my inability to bend to canon at all. I'm just so grateful to each and every one of you! Thank you thank you thank you!

Big thank you to @shallow-gravy for lending me their eyeballs and for making me this GORGEOUS moodboard for Elliot. When I say that I like died inside when I saw it, it's because my life became complete and I was ready to ascend. Thank you so much!!

And of course my angel @starcrier, my lover my life my shawty my wife, who proofreads all my garbage even though she doesn’t even go here but she goes here for me! ILY ♡

As always, I hope you enjoy and thank you again! ♡

John felt pretty good, all things considered.

Yeah, he was probably going to feel like shit when came off of his high; yeah, kissing Elliot did smear blood all over his mouth, but when he spotted the two of them in the reflection of the truck’s dark windows, Elliot’s face and hair splattered in crimson and the very obvious incrimination on his mouth, he thought, well, don’t we make quite a pair?

Everything blurred and pulsed pleasantly around him now as he sat in the passenger seat of the truck. The crash of the drug wasn’t really much of a crash at all—idly, John wondered how it was they got the downturn to be so easy, so slow, so mild. Each time he took in a breath it felt like the car expanded with him. There wasn’t anything the world, in that moment, that wasn’t for him, not a single thing that didn’t sway and pulse and beat in time with the rhythm of his own heart.

Except for Elliot. When he looked at her, red sparked off of her in violent waves to their own metronome, mimicking the dashes of crimson on her face and in her hair; the bruises welled red and blue along the pillar of her throat, her jaw, one on the corner of her mouth. She looked wild; her eyes moved with a sharp clarity that had him wondering how long that Wrath had really been sitting inside of her.

Not a good girl, he thought, watching Elliot drag her thumb from one end of her mouth to the other, wiping the blood their liplock had smeared around. He could still taste it in his mouth. Not anymore.

You couldn’t be good and bash a man’s skull in, could you? And it was bashed in—John had gotten one single good, long look at Kian’s face, and there was nothing of it left except bloody mush and two battered eyeballs barely stuffed into his skull. Gruesome. Well past the point of killing him.

“They attacked the compound,” Jacob was saying from the driver’s seat, pulling out onto the highway with a not-so-kind lurch as they hit pavement. “About an hour after you took off. I bet they were waiting. Fucking cockroaches.”

John glanced into the rearview mirror. He meant to look and see if he could catch any movement in the trees—anything that wasn’t Eden’s Gate—but he just looked at Elliot. Sharp-eyed, bloodied, fingers knotted into Boomer’s fur as the dog lay with his head in her lap. It wouldn’t have done any good, looking back there; everything was moving. Everything was breathing.

“Drugged me,” he offered helpfully, his tongue feeling a little too big for his mouth. Jacob looked at him through the sides of his eyes and hit the cruise button. “Got a radio back, too. I tried calling you guys, but—”

“But not Elliot,” Jacob said, less a question and more a confirmation of what he believed to be true. John shrugged idly.

His eldest brother glanced back at Elliot then, but she was silent for two heartbeats longer than what it should have taken for her to answer before she replied, “Wouldn’t have been fun for him if I was.”

“Yeah, well,” the redhead muttered. “You sure made...” His voice trailed off, and his eyes fixed on the road again. “... Work of him, didn’t you, deputy?”

Elliot sighed. That Jacob said you made work instead of you made quick work made John painfully, delightfully aware of how many times and how much effort it must have taken for Elliot to cave Kian’s face in, and that knowledge writhed pleasant and desirous in his stomach.

But Jacob didn’t sound pleased. John supposed that he wouldn’t be, all things considered. Kian was dead, sure, but the rest of the Family had almost certainly scattered like rats to whatever corner of Hope County they could reach. They would be a problem. By now, they were all supposed to be hunkering down in the bunker to outlast the End Days, and instead, they were contesting with an entirely different pest.

Maybe Elliot was right; maybe without Ase and Kian, they would just leave. Go and kill some other tiny town of people. Get their skin melted off by the nuclear war.

In fact, if John really thought about it—and it did take work—he didn’t think that the Family was much of a problem at all anymore. The only thing that remained questionable, and up in the air, was Elliot herself.

My wife, he thought, his brain ticking and idling like an engine cooling down, wading through the neck-high water of his thoughts. Each leap from one thread to the next felt sugary-slow. Little killer, aren’t you?

He didn’t think that she would be content with hunkering down in a bunker. That would take some time to warm up to, probably—and, John reasoned, he would have to first broach the subject of their legal binding. But that was another problem, for another time, and right now all John wanted to think about was getting home and enjoying his high while he had it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

When Elliot was very young, she remembered coming across a snake coiled on the hot pavement of the path up to their front door. It had been after school; her mother had had the windows of the kitchen open, playing an old song, something about a dream, and she could hear it from all the way down at the road. The snake was basking—drinking in the sunlight, mottled in shades of brown and copper, flecks of white highlighting the prettiest parts of it. The snake had been a dream to a girl who ran wild and barefoot through every inch of the Hope County wilderness she could reach; the speckled pattern begging for a touch, it’s elegant coil beckoning for attention.

The window to the kitchen had been open, and the second her mother had seen her staring at the snake, she’d come sprinting out the front door. Her mother had never liked any kind of animal that didn’t have four legs and wouldn’t fall under the “fluffy retriever” category, so at first, she had thought it was just her mother’s aversion to the scaly members of the animal kingdom; but after her mother’s insistent shrieking that she give the rattler a wide berth on the way up to the front steps, she’d thought maybe it was actual danger worrying her mother.

Of course, Scarlet had called the sheriff’s office and immediately demanded someone come and get rid of the snake (even though you weren’t supposed to call the sheriff’s office for that kind of thing, there was animal control) while she made herself a vodka soda.

“He’s pretty, mama,” Elliot had said, staring out the window at the snake. “Did you see his spots?”

“Pretty.” Scarlet had never sounded more displeased. She squeezed her lime into her drink, muttering furiously. “All those spots mean that ugly thing would kill you with one bite, bunny. Do you hear me? Venomous. Stay away from it.”

Now, sitting in the back seat of an Eden’s Gate truck, her face mottled with a dead man’s arterial spray, she felt like that prairie rattler, her spots belying a poison and vicious bite.

Pretty, she thought tiredly, combing her fingers through Boomer’s fur. Pretty venomous.

Her gaze drifted absently, away from the landscape blurring past them as Jacob cruised back to the compound and instead onto the occupants of the car. John was leaned back in his seat, eyes fluttering shut occasionally like he couldn’t keep them open very well, and Jacob had a tight grip on the steering wheel. A pack of cigarettes sat in one of the cupholders in the center console, and she reached for them on autopilot.

Jacob’s gaze flickered down to her hand snaking between them. For a second, he looked like he’d been about to grab her hand, like maybe he thought she was trying something—but his fingers stayed on the steering wheel, and he said, “Probably a lighter in the console.”

Elliot snagged the cigarettes and then fished around in the console until she found the lighter. The cotton fabric of Ase’s high-necked dress felt sticky on her skin, like she was in the middle of a summer storm; chill seeped down into her bones, and her skin bloomed feverish, and she thought this is when the crash happens, but it didn’t hit. She lit a cigarette and rolled the window down before she took a drag and felt the tiredness pull at the corners of her vision.

The song from her memory played on a gentle loop in her head. Leisurely, lulling. So dream, when the day is new; dream, and they might come true. Her mother had listened to that song so many times, growing up. She wondered, briefly, if her mother was alright. If she’d gotten out. If she’d gone with the resistance and fled, or if she was still here somewhere, or if she was dead.

“Anyone get hurt?” she asked after a minute. “At the compound?”

“A few,” Jacob replied. His eyes narrowed. “None dead, though.”

Elliot exhaled smoke out the window. She thought she would have felt dirty, now, sticky with Kian’s breath and his fingers and his mouth against her skin—but she didn’t, not right away. She just felt—

“Sure that’s disappointing for you,” Jacob continued.

—tired.

“Eat shit, Jacob,” she muttered. “I just solved your biggest problem.”

“No, you didn’t,” he snapped back. “Not by a long fucking mile, deputy.”

The redhead eyed her through the mirror, but she didn’t say anything to that—and for the rest of the ride back to the compound, it was blissful, empty silence.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

John thought he must have certainly fallen asleep in the car, because one second he was blinking through Jacob talking about how the compound had been attacked, and the next they were parking.

The compound looked a little worse for wear, but it was quiet; if not for the bullet holes in the walls of buildings, and the occasional blood spray dried nearly black with time, he wouldn’t have known anything was amiss at all. He would have thought it was a regular evening—but was far from it.

At the very least, John felt a little clearer now. His high was slowly cruising down, and he’d probably feel all of his bruises once he sobered up, but for now he buzzed.

Jacob climbed out of the driver’s seat beside him, and his body operated on autopilot to do the same. He saw Boomer drop from the truck and stick his nose to the ground instantly, eyes wary and waiting to see if any danger still lurked. When Elliot’s feet touched the ground, the Heeler did a single loop around her legs and then nosed her hand.

“John,” his brother said, his voice clipped. “Chapel.”

“Right,” John replied. He glanced over his shoulder and then looked at Elliot; she took in a little breath and waved her hand.

“Gonna shower,” she told him. “I’m good.”

John reached for her, fingers itching; Elliot caught his wrist before his hand could land on her shoulder, or her face, but she used it to pull him closer, and then she kissed him—leaned up and pressed her mouth, tasting like wild copper and a little like ash, against his. John’s brain fizzed white static and he sighed against her kiss, and he was reminded of how electric she had felt back there in the forest with the buzz of her kill still sitting under her skin.

“John,” Jacob insisted, louder this time, “now.”

“Okay,” John said, but he said it into the kiss, sliding his hand from Elliot’s grasp. “Okay, I’m—”

And like that she had pulled away from him; she whistled for Boomer and set off across the yard for the bunkhouse, and he turned and forced his legs to move towards the chapel. I’m good, she’d said. What did she mean? What did “good” constitute?

His brain felt too muggy for him to contemplate whether or not he was spiraling on a thought because it had some other meaning or because he was high, so he just pushed aside as he walked into the chapel, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. Joseph was there, sitting beside Faith; their heads bowed in silence, only disturbed when the sound of his and Jacob’s footsteps echoed in the quiet.

“You’re safe,” Joseph said, sounding relieved. As John came closer, his older brother lifted an arm; beckoning him, and he went instantly. Joseph’s hand cradled the back of his head and pressed their foreheads together in an embrace that was far softer than anything that had occurred between them as of late. It felt like John’s entire body sighed in relief. “We were so worried, John.”

“And high as shit,” Jacob replied as they neared. “Tripping fuckin' balls, aren’t you, Johnny?”

“It’s fine,” John insisted, though he could hear the words slur a little even as he tried very hard to punctuate them on their way out of his mouth. “Not so bad.”

“You look awful,” Faith murmured. “What happened?”

“Um,” he said.

“Kian’s dead,” Jacob explained helpfully.

Joseph blinked. His expression was guarded, but hopeful. “Good news, then.”

“Deputy Honeysett bashed his skull in with a shotgun.”

Faith said, “Oh.”

A moment of silence stretched between them. Jacob paced to the front of the chapel; Joseph absently scratched at his cheek, his hand having withdrawn from John as he took in this news from his brothers. John tried not to shift too much, but the silence was killing him—he didn’t know how Joseph was going to feel about that. If he would still want Elliot with them.

“Was she?” Joseph asked after a minute. “Drugged?”

“No,” John said. “Not—I mean, she said she wasn't.”

“So she did it on her own,” he continued, “without being influenced by anything that could arguably… Cause a hallucination which would make her do that.”

“I—” John’s brain struggled to keep up with Joseph’s train of thought. “I—guess—”

“This is good news, then.” Joseph’s voice bloomed with warmth. “Don’t you see? There is no person more in need of us,” he continued, “than someone who has nowhere left to go.”

“And where would she go,” Jacob muttered, “that wouldn’t commit her to a psychiatric ward.”

Joseph nodded. His hand returned to the back of John’s neck and gripped there, firm and steadfast.

“You’ve done so well, John,” he said, “but our time is running out. You know that, don’t you? We are borrowing it now, from God himself, and I don’t intend to go into the next phase of our lives with a debt to pay.”

John blinked through the fog in his brain and swallowed thickly. He thought he knew what it was that Joseph was telling him—but before he could think too hard on it, Jacob interjected, “John hasn’t told the deputy about their blissful union.”

“What?” Faith asked, head snapping to look at him.

“Well,” John began.

“Actually,” Jacob continued, “he lied about it.”

“Well,” John tried again, irritably, “it had already been done, and she didn’t remember it thanks to Faith’s handiwork, and at the moment in time I thought—maybe—it would be worse off to tell her rather than…”

He fumbled for the words he wanted to say; the truth was that there were no good excuses. He just didn’t trust Elliot not to go absolutely feral when she found out, because she certainly didn’t remember it which meant she certainly was going to have feelings about it. And that was a problem.

But a problem for another time. Right?

“You’re gonna stick us in a bunker with her,” Jacob snapped, “and let her lose her shit on us while we’re trapped.”

“I won’t,” John insisted.

Joseph exhaled softly. “John—”

“I’ll—I’ve got it under control!” he exclaimed, looking at Joseph. “I know Elliot better than any of you, and I’ll find the right way to tell her, and it’ll be fine. I know.”

His older brother watched him with a pensive gaze. For a moment, John thought he saw regret flash across Joseph’s face—maybe for praising him too fast, maybe for entrusting this to him at all in the first place. But if he let someone down, that wasn’t his fault, right? This shit was so far beyond the plan of attack—so far beyond what they had anticipated, that there was a margin for error.

No, John thought, no, there isn’t. I know better. I’m better. I know.

“Borrowed time, John,” Joseph cautioned at last. “We’ve got to get rid of these locusts, and then we will be retreating for the End. You understand?”

John steadied the breath that tried to slip out of him. I don’t want to go into the next phase of our lives with a debt to pay.

“Yes, Joseph,” he replied. “I understand.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The stinging shower water ran pink to the drain. Elliot dunked her head under the water and passed her hands over her face; she stood there for a moment letting the water pool in the cups of her hands until her lungs ached and she had to let it go, spilling over her neck and shoulders. The dark dress, wretched thing, had been discarded and tossed into the trash; she thought if she had to look at herself in it for one more second she was going to come fucking undone, and that just wouldn't do.

The door clicked open; a brief moment of hesitation sounded before she heard footsteps coming inside. “El?”

She turned in the shower, wiping water from her eyes before tugging the curtain back. John regarded her with eyes only half-intoxicated, more clarity about them now than there had been in the truck.

Elliot watched him for a moment as she considered. The chill hadn't left her bones, even in the scalding hot water.

“Are you getting in?” she asked, watching his gaze flicker absently before landing back on her.

“Are you inviting me?”

Elliot pulled back from the curtain and ducked back under the water. “I’ve never known you to need an invite.”

“Fair enough, I won't disappoint.”

There was the gentle rustle of fabric, the push of the curtain, and then she wasn’t alone in the shower anymore; but it was fine, because she didn’t want to be alone anymore, because it felt like her entire body was vibrating and she couldn’t get it to stop. Unlike John, who she guessed was cruising down the same gentle crash that she had felt when the Family had drugged her with their weird shit, there was nothing inhibiting her body now. Only the quick, sharp, violent buzzing of blood on her mind, under her fingernails, between her teeth.

It felt good, too. An adrenaline high; the fall, right before impact.

John’s hands slid along her hips. The calloused pads of his fingers—fingers meant to hurt, to twist and coerce—skimmed the scars along her abdomen, sloping across her hip bones; she didn’t have to glance down to see that’s what he was doing. You’ll tell me, he’d said that morning. Eventually.

“I did them,” she said around the dull roaring in her ears. The words tasted strange on her tongue. A verbal admittance was very different from scribbling it into a journal. But the catharsis had begun; with Kian’s collapsed skull imprinted into her mind forever, it felt as though a tension had released in her, pulled taut and sharp and finally ripped free.

“Did what?” he asked, nosing past wet hair to glide his mouth along the pillar of her throat.

“The scars,” Elliot murmured. “I did them.” To feel real, she wanted to say, I did them so I could know that I was still real, but the words wouldn’t come. Maybe they didn’t need to.

John’s thumb swept along the one that stretched over her hip bone. He hummed, low and hungry, into her skin. He might have been coming down from his high, but it didn’t seem to be pushing him into sleep; he was enjoying it, the gentle careening to sobriety.

And maybe tomorrow she would regret telling him. Maybe tomorrow she would feel dirty for the way that she killed Kian, instead of intoxicated with her own magic. Maybe, maybe, maybe—but that was a thing to think about when the time came, and just like she had done everything else about herself that she hadn't liked, she would strangle it and move on.

John turned her around so that he could pull her against him. He said, “I thought so,” like he had recognized it in her, and she thought about that dream. Just like me, holding her blood-covered hands in his. You’re just like me.

Lifting her arms, Elliot carded her fingers through his hair and then gripped, pulling him in to press her mouth against his. She kissed him the way that she wanted to; no time for shyness now, she thought, no room for hesitation. John had watched her cave a man’s face in, and he was still here and hungry, so she kissed him hard—dug her teeth into his lip and revelled in the way that he moaned and leaned into her.

He’d kissed her frantically, too, back in the clearing and with Kian’s body just a foot away from them. Kissed her with blood in her mouth, greedy and insatiable, and frenzied, like he’d wanted her right then and there and wasn’t willing to let her go until he absolutely had to.

The raised skin of his Sloth scar dragged under her fingers. She dug her nails into the soft expanse of his shoulder, and he made a low, delicious noise against her mouth. I could give him more, she thought, dizzied at the idea of it, at this sudden humming, heady power she felt had become hers. This something that had become unlocked inside of her. I could give him more, and he’d thank me for it.

“Elliot,” John began, hands gripping her hips as he nudged her back against the shower wall. But he didn’t follow it up with anything; he just kept her there, skin on skin, heat bleeding out from every inch of him. His hand drifted up above her head, fumbling at the window, trying to push it open. “Fuck, it’s so fucking—hot in here—”

I want to be yours. I want a home with you.

Briefly, she wondered if that dream had been as wishful as she’d thought. John had been exactly what she wanted him to be—just the color, just the shape, everything in him built to lure her and keep her there like the most perfect predator. It was easy to forget that she had never known that she wanted a man whose hair was dark and his eyes a little cruel until she had looked at John Seed. But now it was impossible to ignore; she pressed to him, craved him, this delicious anchor of hers.

He could be cruel, if he wanted—he’d considered drowning her to death. He’d been greedy to mark her skin forever with her sin. He’d littered his body with markings and scars, testaments to his devotion, just like he had done every other conversion.

Yes, she thought absently, against the stifling heat of the stinging shower and John’s own radiating warmth, feverish from the hallucinogen seeping out of him. He is cruel. But maybe I—

And then he murmured, against her ear, “Want you,” hazy and buzzing and warm. His fingers slid down between them, gliding along the curve of where she most wanted his attention, and she felt her breath hitch in her throat. He buried his face into her neck and sighed, pressing into her and eliciting in her a spark that traveled straight down her spine; and then, almost as though he wasn’t thinking too hard about it: “Would’ve—back in the forest—”

He cut himself off and his movements stilled, just for a second. Elliot tilted her head to look at him through her eyelashes and canted her hips to gain some friction against the heel of his palm; she wasn't bothering anymore to stifle the stuttered, half-breath-half-whimper that came out of her as slick pleasure pooled in her stomach, the feeling of his fingers dragging a delicious, heady burn through her.

Elliot heard him swallow back a sound over the white noise of the shower. It was a wicked kind of thing, this watching John as she leaned down into him; watching the muscle in his jaw tense and flex just before he beckoned his fingers against her and bit out a swear between his teeth when her body tensed and arched prettily into his touch. Needy and wanting; just the way that he liked, she was sure.

“Would’ve what?” she prompted breathlessly. John’s lashes, long and darker still from the shower spray, flickered. He seemed to be weighing it in his head, the pros and cons of what he had been going to say, but Elliot was no longer in a place of wanting to wobble. No floating, no drifting between ethereal and corporeal—she didn’t want to have to wonder, to have to piece together what it was he was thinking with the crumbling threads she could scoop up.

He didn't answer her; instead, he dragged his mouth along the slope of her neck, teeth digging against her pulse point. Elliot moaned, choking the noise halfway out of her spitefully, because she wanted him to earn it, and he did it again—harder this time, less like he was testing and more like he knew that she wanted it. The sting rippled heady anticipation straight to her brain, sparking through that hazy fog in her mind.

She sighed, "John," just as he dragged his fingers out slowly, torturously slowly, not enough to give her even half the friction she wanted and not so little that it didn’t make her suffer in the best sort of way. As soon as they didn’t return, but rather traveled the expanse of her abdomen, a quiet complaint slipped out of her; John kissed her, his tongue gliding against hers, his teeth nipping and biting as he dragged her leg up around his hip.

Everything felt like it was happening between breaths, between heartbeats, her pulse moving so sluggishly it was lava spreading through her body. Stifling, so hot, too hot, too much, but John’s mouth over hers pushed and pulled the breath out of her, guided the currents of her like the moon. Elliot tried again, giving the words more punch on their way out, “You would’ve what?”

She thought that she knew what he was going to say, and she wanted to hear him say it, that he would’ve—

“Fucked you,” John managed out hoarsely, just as he rocked into her. “God, I—”

Yes, she thought; the word left her mouth in something close to an exhale, and she didn’t know if she was responding to what he’d said or to the way it felt like he’d set a wildfire going racing along her skeleton the second they connected. He managed out a half-moaned swear and shifted into a slower, more leisurely paced as he sighed, “I would’ve, El— fuck , you’re so tight— ”

Pleasure wrenched in her stomach and writhed, hot and wicked. John’s pace was halting; he was trying not to go too fast or too hard even though he wanted to, but then he said things like how he wanted to fuck her while she was covered in blood and—

And she felt seen, and wanted, and she thought this must have been how they did it: took all of the grit and gore of someone and worshipped it, like something holy.

Biggest fucking Peggy-killer this side of Hope County, he’d spat at her that day they’d found Waylon’s body. But now? Now, it was all, so tight, El, want you, would’ve fucked you right there.

His hands grazed the bruises on her body before stopping at her hips again. He pulled back to get a good look at her, and then reached up, cradling her jaw with his left hand and dragging the pad of his thumb across her lip. A thrill crawled up her spine, hot and searing and latching onto her; she thought, this magic is mine now, too, and she parted her lips obediently to drag him into her mouth just so she could watch John just about come unglued.

And never before had she felt like this, wicked with John’s eyes blown wide and dark with want as his gaze fixed on her mouth and moaned, “God, Elliot—”

She wanted to forget about Kian’s hands on her body, his mouth on her skin, his words ringing in her head. So she did; she indulged in the feeling of John’s breath trembling as her tongue flickered against the pad of his thumb and the way he hissed as his pace changed.

“Should have,” Elliot managed out when his thumb slipped from her mouth so that he could press his hand against the wall by her head. She said it between dizzying, radiating pleasure dragging through her body, devouring her, dragging her further and further toward the edge. “Should have—fucked me then, John, I—”

“F-Fuck.” The swear left his mouth wrecked, his movements stuttering. “Fuck, that’s so— filthy.”

He stopped tempering himself. If he was doing it because he was worried about whatever injuries she’d sustained, she was glad that he’d stopped—each haphazard, frenzied connection of their bodies sent her rapidly hurtling towards her finish, his fingers digging and dragging against the parts of her that craved him the most. It wasn’t fair, really, that John could rumble a few dirty things about wanting to fuck her in the woods and get her so close: but he did, and she was, and that was the end of it.

She breathed out, “Close, John—I’m—”

“Liked that, did you?” He sounded awfully pleased with himself, even as each of his breaths were punctuated with a desirous sound. “Liked me telling you how badly I wanted to push that dress up and fuck you right there? You get s-so —fucking tight when I say that—c’mon, El, let me hear those pretty noises—”

“Yes,” Elliot moaned, hazy with want, desperate and still trying to swallow some of it back, so close so close so close. “Yes, yes, I— John—”

John said something into her mouth; she couldn’t have said what it was, because all of the blood went rushing through her head the second her climax hit. There was a strange, suspended moment of nothing before it ripped straight through her, every neuron firing off rapidly as she buried her face into John’s neck and dug her nails in hard while the wave washed over her, wicked-hot and nearly too much.

Nearly, but not quite. John’s teeth on her lip dragged her back, and he moaned, “Holy shit, fuck yes —fuck, El, I’m gonna—let me—”

He couldn’t quite get out what he was trying to say, but Elliot thought she knew; it wasn’t hard to guess, anyway, considering the way he was gripping her like he’d fucking disappear if he didn’t. And she felt a little wild, a little wicked, only a vicious desire left before she hit empty, so she managed out, “Beg.”

John pulled back a little and let his gaze rake over her. His movements slowed, just enough that she could tell that he was pacing himself, holding back the same way he had that first time when she’d dragged him through his own climax. Though his eyes were blown nearly black, the clarity about them made her want to squirm—that she knew he wasn’t quite so high as he was before, that he was going to remember this.

“Wh—” The brunette swallowed thickly; his hands skimmed absently across her skin, like he didn’t need to really think about it to do it anymore, but that they did it of their own volition. “What?”

With that same kind of recklessness, Elliot knotted her fingers in his hair and said, “ Beg to finish inside me.”

A short, breathless laugh barked out of him. He said, “Fuck you. I’m not—I don’t—”

Elliot squirmed, pulling on his hair until his lashes fluttered and he was leaning back into her on instinct. “You do now,” she replied silkily against his mouth. And then, in an attempt at graciousness: “Didn’t you want me to be loud, John? To hear me?”

He groaned. “Y—Yes—”

“So beg me,” she bit out, canting her hips against him and feeling his breath stutter and hitch, “and I’ll be as loud—”

“Fuck—”

“—as you want—”

“— yes —”

“—tell you how much I want it—”

“ Please,” John moaned as he slotted his hips against hers, unable to hold still any longer. He made a low, wrecked sound, and by the time the adrenaline rush from hearing John Seed say please to her had hit her brain he was foregoing all pretense. “Please, El, let me finish inside you, I’ll—fuck—make you feel so good, baby, make you mine—”

Elliot kissed him, hard and punishing, and moaned “Yes—yes, John, so good ,” against his mouth until he was driving into her like a man incensed, frenzied, each desperate dig of his fingers against the bruises in her skin delivering a different kind of delicious pain; and when he came, panting, yes, fuck yes, don’t stop, El, please, fuck, she held onto him tighter.

Anything to feel whole. Anything to feel safe. Anything to forget, even for a moment.

“Don’t move,” John managed out unsteadily. “Don’t—Jesus, fuck, it’s so fucking hot in here.”

“Don’t know where I’d go,” she replied in a murmur. Her brain felt foggy now, delicious sliding down from her high, remembering the surge of delight she’d felt when John had said please, El. The water had since gone lukewarm, and she wasn’t sure she even got all of the blood out of her hair, but it didn’t matter; pleasant after-currents rippled through her, and all she could think about was how little of her brain was being spent on churning around the Family.

John’s mouth traced a bruise on her neck—either from him, or Kian; she didn’t know—and his breath slid across her skin.

“Viper,” he murmured huskily, admiringly. “Aren’t you?”

“You said it yourself,” she replied tiredly, eyes fluttering as the desperate need for sleep finally registered in her brain; no more adrenaline to keep pushing it away. “More devil than woman.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

It was the second time waking up next to John, and the second time of having to try and brace herself for some kind of impact after.

That is to say, Elliot thought that maybe fucking John Seed felt a little bit like throwing herself off of a cliff, and so every time it happened—she thought, as though it had been more than twice—it was the same sensation of falling. The feeling prevailed over any other logic in her brain: upon waking, she thought very little of the sensation of his arm draped over her waist or his face buried into her hair and only of the sheer blast of panic that raced through her.

I smell, I feel, I hear, she thought, closing her eyes tight, but when she did, she saw Kian—blood streaming down his face, gripping her jaw, will you feel guilty about this too? And the panic shifted into dread, knotting tight and hard in her stomach.

She forced her eyes open. Sheer exhaustion had pushed her through a dreamless night, but that didn’t mean that her nightmares were confined to sleeping hours only.

When Elliot shifted, John stirred; his fingers skimmed up the back of her shirt, palm flattening at the spot between her shoulder blades, and she winced. Everything hurt. Everything ached. She wondered what was worse; nightmares, or this?

Definitely the nightmares, she thought, each breath a labor of her bruised and battered body. Right? Has to be the nightmares.

“Stop moving,” John muttered against her head.

“I don’t know why you don’t get the concept of a twin bed,” she snapped. “Fuck, my body hurts—”

“Well.” He was clearly trying not to sound smug, and failing; she could feel his grin into her hair. “I do recall you spurring me on—”

Oh, she thought, reminded of their shared shower. That.

A problem.

“Not from that, fuckhead.” She squirmed back from him, back pressing against the wall. “Feels like someone tried to curb stomp my ribs eighty times.”

“Probably did,” he replied. John tilted his head, wincing a little, and then nudged the blankets back from her body. His gaze was admiring. “Christ, you bruise easy, huh?”

“A fucking van t-boned us in a truck that spit out pitiful, half-functioning airbags, ” she bit out, “and then I got tossed around like a ragdoll, so—yeah, I guess if you consider battery and assault “easy”, then—”

John’s hands came up to her face and he kissed her. It lacked the same kind of urgency that it’d had last night; this was John taking his time, savoring her, parting his lips against hers and sighing into the kiss as he carded his fingers through her hair. The gesture itself was so unexpected that Elliot could do nothing but reciprocate, and the breath hitched in her throat as he tugged her back against him—part in pain and part because of the way he did it, like he just couldn’t get enough of her.

“So ungrateful,” he said against her mouth, “after I gave you what you wanted so badly last night.”

“I’m not the one who begged,” Elliot replied sharply, “am I?”

John’s hand skimmed the slope of her hip, and he made a low noise, thumb digging past the top of her underwear to press lightly into a bruise that she thought his fingers had left. She sucked in a sharp breath as a familiar heat sprinted down her spine and squirmed.

“Worth it,” he replied after a moment, teeth catching her lip, “to have you say how much you wanted me in you.”

He flashed that half-cocked, shit-eating grin that she could feel against her mouth, and she swatted his hand away from her hip. There was, perhaps, a part of her that regretted goading him like that—that regretted spurring him on—but there was no point in lingering on it now. As much as John might want to. As much as, when he looked at her with those too-blue eyes, she might want to.

Elliot opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, there was a soft, quick knock at the door. Boomer, curled up on one of her sweaters by the door, immediately pricked his ears and barked at the intrusion.

“Elliot?” It was Faith’s voice. She felt her stomach somersault, plunged into—well, it wasn’t quite shame, but maybe a little bit of embarrassment, in the way that it was to have the little sister of the man you were currently entangled with knock on your door while you were still in bed.

“I’m—” Elliot sat up, slapping a hand over John’s mouth when she saw him start to say something. “I’m getting dressed, what is it?”

“Joseph wants to talk to you,” Faith called back, pausing. And then, perhaps with a bit more slyness than Elliot liked: “And John.”

Fuck fuck fuck. The last thing she wanted was for Joseph to know . There was probably a ninety-eight percent chance that Joseph was going to be flashing that psychotic smile the second she walked in, knowing that she and John were—

“W—I’m coming,” she said, as John gripped her forearm and pressed his mouth to the pulse point on her wrist, letting his teeth drag there. She yanked her arm out of his grip and hissed, “Stop , you fucker, or I’ll pick my teeth with your fucking bones.”

“Okay,” came Faith’s light-hearted reply. “See you soon!”

As soon as she heard the footsteps receding, she turned to John. “What the fuck does your brother want with me, John?”

John shrugged. “Contrary to what you may believe about me, I am not entirely all-knowing.”

“As usual, you are stunningly unhelpful,” she muttered crossly, sliding out of the bed and over to her bag of clothes. Now, she really felt it—each impact had been dulled by the adrenaline at the time, but as she shimmied into her jeans, every inch of her body screamed in pain and her vision fuzzed around the edges.

John had gotten out of bed as well, but he departed to the bathroom and returned with a bottle of aspirin, which he shook two pills out of and held in his palm for her.

“You might consider something with a higher neck,” he suggested lightly.

Elliot snatched the aspirin out of his hand and swallowed them dry. “My teeth,” she said, jabbing a finger into his chest, “your bones.”

“Just trying to be helpful.”

“Suggestion box is closed,” Elliot snapped. “Now—”

Her eyes flickered over him. It was very easy to disassociate John’s personality from his physical body, but harder when he was half-stripped-down in front of her, scars and tattoos on display and reminding her how intimately familiar she was becoming with them.

“Now put your clothes on,” she finally said, somehow managing to keep her voice mostly steady. “I want to get this done as fast as possible.”

The brunette flashed her a cheeky smile and gave her a two-finger salute that rang sardonic at best.

“Anything you want, baby.”

#john seed x deputy #john seed x ofc #ch: elliot honeysett #otp: death keep off; i am your enemy #fic: ancient names #my writing #far cry 5 #fc5 fic #i'm not tryna be out here like have sex after you kill a man but if the mood fits u know #per usual john's hardware is on the fool setting only

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whoknowsbud · 4 years ago

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Stand Mutation AU DiU

Again, this is FILLED with body horror and somewhat loose connections to the recent epidemic but they are there. There’s also a massive amount of angst around the Nijimuras.

See the first post & explanation here

Morioh is under a sort of quarantine. Due to not being contagious, it may be more of a research center, to keep research subjects in one place. When people start getting infected again (from the arrow, of course) there’s a pretty massive panic, from people assuming the virus must be evolving. So, aside from finding Josuke, the Speedwagon Foundation has Jotaro there to find who’s using the arrow.

Josuke is pretty much Crazy Diamond; his pompadour is basically a massive diamond helmet, with a heart-shaped front, a few thorny details from dad. Skin might be a little shiny, or sparkly.

Okuyasu begins as extremely feral and rather monstrous, but over time becomes more human. His form becomes smoother, until the infection becomes localized on his right arm. He has the common headlight eyes and his normal hair, but with the black mark covering above his eyes & reaching the tip of his nose, in addition to his scar.

Keicho is also fried, and is basically something of a human-transformer mix. Green camouflage body, bandages around his head, gun arm, helicopter blades in his back… Looks a little like something you’d expect to see if the Terminator had real flesh, with additional machine parts..

Koichi gains the common headlight eyes and starts turning green first. Following, not overnight but still fast, comes the beak, tail, and his lower legs become wheels. He does not lose any of his ability or evolve in the same way, but does change. As ‘act 2’, he regrows his legs (the wheels now his feet), his beak becomes more of a reptile snout, and he’s more armored. As ‘act 3’, he’s back to looking more human. The wheels are now just his heels (yes, heelys), and his tail is shorter.

Yukako… maybe fully made of hair? Or just the same as canon...

Tonio can just imbue his food with the sort of healing power. That or he grows the Pearl Jams on his body, which is very disturbing, so we'll probably go with the first. His power is extremely limited with this infection, which upsets him quite a bit. He can strengthen your body and all, but what can it do with stand shit? This isn't the flu.

Rohan’s arms are like heaven's door's hat; just the yellow lines outlining them. Depending on mood, desperation, & writers block, his sketchy-ness spreads more through his body.

Shigekiyo is a bunch of Harvests in a trench coat! Original Shigechi is essentially the ‘queen bee’ so to speak.

Mikitaka is an actual alien (cause fuck you, we do what we want). Planet was probably overrun by the virus, and he left to… either help other planets with it or prevent it or something… That or just. To find somewhere he can live a better life.

Tamami… probably just about the same, but creates locks on himself as well, for each victim currently affected - not because of guilt or anything, just to make sure they’re still in his control should they separate.

Hazamada is pretty much just Surface.

Akira is, basically, a toxtricity (amped, of course.) But yea, basically take RHCP, give it rocking hair and music ability, and there ya go.

Yuya basically sends his own feet, which gains a vague body to go with them.

Kanedaichi is SuperFly. A few bug decals on the tower maybe… He uses radio waves to communicate, and an unsettling doll to make himself known… Tickle me Elmo.

Terunosuke appears to be origami, with his face drawn on. Despite this, he can’t actually change his overall form.

Yoshihiro is probably the same as canon...

Kira’s mutation is much more subtle than most. His skin is pink, he has Killer Queen’s eyes, and very sharp and stiff ears. He hides most of this with makeup, contacts, and clips his own ears, to live under the illusion that he's 'just a normal guy'. When he feels stress, his face starts turning translucent, so you can see his skull - which reveals that his ears are more part of his skeleton. His hands frequently explode, and his sweat is explosive.

Stray Cat is just the same as in canon.

As mentioned earlier, the Nijimura’s story here is (I believe) even more upsetting than it is in canon. Though Angelo doesn’t happen, Josuke’s grandfather is dead.

Keicho finds the arrow, as he did in canon, but nicks himself in the process. He (somehow) hears the Speedwagon Foundation is looking for it and, realizing the arrow played a big part in the infection, panics. This makes his infection, which was already starting to mutate him, go wild. He turns feral in a different way than most; he guards the arrow, obsessing over it - like their dad over that ripped picture. Okuyasu, of course, tries to get through to his brother.

His body isn’t completely developed; the helicopter blades are half-stuck in his body and his gun doesn’t work. So, when Okuyasu tried to reach him, Bad Company only understands that someone is approaching the arrow, and attacks him… With the arrow. Fully aware of what the arrow did to his brother, Okuyasu is at peace with what’s going to happen to him. His only family is like this, and they don’t even remember him… How much worse could losing his own mind be?

The house is said to be haunted, so when Josuke and Koichi pass it, they stop to look. Koichi mentions, now that he understands a little of the infection, that he wonders if the ‘ghosts’ ‘haunting’ it are just more victims. Josuke realizes it's likely, and tells him to call Jotaro and wait outside.

Koichi calls Jotaro and does not wait outside; he goes in after Josuke, gets lost, and ends up finding the room Bad Company is in.

Meanwhile, Josuke’s struggling against Okuyasu, who may or may not be crying. Josuke realizes this guy really is a victim, and thinks he must be able to help. So, when he does take him down, he tries to fix this, only to feel terrible because this is another thing he can’t fix. But he can’t stay, because Koichi screams, so he has to run.

He finds the room, but it’s obvious that whatever attacked Koichi hasn’t left, and he’s worried this’ll go horribly wrong if he runs in, but if he doesn’t, Koichi’s probably going to die. This is when he hears the bass boost ‘bbbvvvrrrrrrrrr’ and he spins, ready to fight, but Okuyasu’s already erasing the space between them and Koichi, and now he’s in range for Josuke to heal him. Josuke’s not sure what’s happening, but it’s obvious Okuyasu isn’t going to attack. So, Josuke’s healing Koichi, and trying to figure this all out, “so do you… have a sibling here?”

He nods, looking at him with pleading eyes, begging for something. Josuke starts thinking aloud, “they must be infected, too… uh, you... want me to fix them?”

He's nodding so vigorously it looks almost painful, and this is when Koichi wakes up, and he shrieks because what the fuck is that. Josuke makes sure he's okay (Koichi's irises are turning bright yellow, but he can't worry about that right now), and has Okuyasu watch Koichi.

Okuyasu is surprised that he's being trusted like this; but Josuke's already ripping the door off the frame, holding it in front of him like both a shield and battering ram, and he's charging in.

Koichi is far, far too tired to move himself, so Okuyasu carries him away from the fight. But Okuyasu starts fidgeting, worried. He's hearing shots, explosions, and yelling, and there's a lot of smoke. Obviously Koichi's worried too, so they kinda sneak back over to get a look, and what koichi sees is... alarming, to say the least.

Uninfected, you don't see the full quality of his skin, and his helmet just looks like a weirdly solid block of hair. But now koichi's getting the whole picture, and… He's gorgeous.

His body is suddenly shining and sparkling from the armor, his skin almost glittery, and the massive diamond form encasing his head reflects light like a goddamn disco ball - it's all almost blinding

Sexuality crisis ahem so anyways

Josuke eventually gets Bad Company down, and he's trying to heal him, but the light suddenly comes on. They all know someone else is here, so Okuyasu - not wanting anything to keep his bro from getting fixed like he was - runs in to intercept the form coming fast, but Keicho's a little faster

But instead of going for the arrow, it's Okuyasu he targets.

Okuyasu and Josuke are alarmed at this; he'd shown that he only cared about the arrow, why do this? Why go after Okuyasu, before he even got the arrow back?

But Keicho's looking at him - even as this electric being's arm goes through his stomach, his eyes are focused on his brother.

"I act on my orders," he says, whereas before the only thing he ever said was "the arrow", "follow orders"... things like that.

Because Bad Company had been ordered to protect the arrow at all costs

But Keicho Nijimura did that to protect his brother

Which clearly worked against him but moving on

Okuyasu makes this cry, this wail, and Koichi can feel the hurt echoing in him and wishes he could've done something as the being takes the arrow into the light

But Josuke realizes there's a fuse box in here, and its being overloaded, and they need to get out right now, so he grabs the two survivors and jumps out the window.

He ends up being hurt pretty bad splinters of wood dig in his calves and his back, but he's gotta make sure these two are ok.

Josukes not sure if that actually helped, because he's crying so so hard now, and the three just sit there for a while

Okuyasu looks at josuke, crying, pleading... Josuke knows what he wants

"I saw it," he chokes out, "you should know.. Ididn't bring him back, I barely reached him… You did."

Jotaro spots the building when the room explodes and comes running, of course relieved to see these kids are sitting outside, safely... Well. Not dead. Josuke asks about Okuyasu.

"Yea that happened to me, he'll be fine. It's pretty common."

Then he sees Koichi's eyes are a little different and just fuckn grabs the kid and stares super close for a few minutes

Irises are yellow, but more important, the whole ball is getting kinda... segmented? Like... there are creases forming. W/e - they're slowly becoming headlights.

It's an uncomfortable minute for these children, until Jotaro lets him go and says (usual deadpan), "you've been infected."

Then jotaro sets him down and says, usual deadpan, "you've been infected." And Josuke freaks out, assuming he was the cause.

So, Jotaro has to explain that - no, the only way to become infected is if you or a (close enough) relative is injured by the stand arrow. Okuyasu jumps on the phrase, practically barking with desperation. Jotaro, having gone through a rather similar stage, figures it out pretty quickly, "you know about it… where is it?"

“Is that what that weird arrow was back there," Josuke wonders around, jumping when Jotaro focused on him, "well, uh… some electric thing took it… after killing this guy's brother."

Jotaro can't really do much with that, so he moves on, "alright, you three get to the Speedwagon building, I'm gonna do a walkthrough."

They agree, but Okuyasu's looking at the house & not moving Josuke & Koichi try to reassure him about keicho, while Jotaro just walks right in to investigate.

After a minute he comes out carrying Weird Frog Dad who's holding the ripped picture, "what is this." Okuyasu makes this "aa!" sound while the other 2 are Shook.

Okuyasu's looking at Josuke, though he's already moving, but Jotaro stops him, "this can't be fixed." Josuke's like "but i gotta try" and does, and newsflash it doesn't work, but he sees the picture and fixes that and at least that's sweet

So, nearly on the opposite side of the emotional spectrum, the next day we see Koichi skating to school. At first he's very weirded out, tries to hide it, but then he realizes "wait. The town's full of infected people, this isn't that bad." His mother and sister, of course, freak out, but Koichi knows enough to explain it all and put them a little at ease.

Also he does not end up with Yukako, they both deserve better. Like, yea she probably still has her obsession, but it gets handled after the first time. It takes a little while for her to adjust to... not.. doing any of that. But they're both way healthier for it. Not cool or healthy to date your fixation or stalker

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detectivesebcas · 4 years ago

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Whumptober 2020 Day 24- Forced Mutism

Warnings: none

Universe: AU, canon divergence in STEM

----

“Stefano!”

He hears Sebastian’s shout somewhere in the background, beyond the rushing of air in his ears, beyond the screaming voices in his head. He is in the clutches of the ghost woman, her face less than a foot from his, her hands digging into his arms, and her mouth gaping open.

He remembers the war, Emily’s death. Every low and painful moment of his life flashes through his mind in quick succession, but it doesn’t stop there. The memories are being pulled from his mind the same way the air is being pulled from his lungs. He is going to lose his mind. He is going to lose himself. He is going to become one of the mindless, shambling horde.

“Stefano!”

Sebastian’s voice is louder this time, breaks his concentration, and possibly his attacker’s as well, because she disengages abruptly and turns on Sebastian, emitting a horrible shriek of rage as she bears down on him. Stefano prepares himself for the worst, but as quickly as the specter appeared, she is gone, leaving the two of them staring at each other in shock.

Sebastian crosses the room to him immediately. “Are you alright?”

He opens his mouth to tell Sebastian he’s not sure, but no sound comes out. He tries to clear his throat, tries to cough, but that doesn’t produce any sound either. It’s baffling. He can breathe, and his throat is unobstructed, but he can’t seem to make any kind of vocalization.

Panic starts to rise up in his chest, because he was already impaired enough before this. His vision has never been quite what it was before the accident, and Sebastian already has plenty of reasons not to trust him. If he becomes useless, if he becomes a burden to Sebastian, then Sebastian is going to leave him here, and without his powers he will not survive on his own.

“Stefano?” Sebastian says, looking at him with confusion.

His heart is pounding. His hands go to his throat, and he looks at Sebastian in terror.

“You can’t speak?” Sebastian asks.

Stefano nods furiously, tears welling up in his good eye and burning his bad one. He brushes them away, but it doesn’t make him feel much better. His budding partnership with Sebastian is going to be over before it starts, and that hurts much more than it should. There is more than survival at stake here.

“Hey,” Sebastian says, stepping in a little closer and placing a hand on his shoulder. “It’s going to be okay. I don’t know what’s going on, but we’re going to figure this out.”

Stefano gazes back at Sebastian in disbelief, because surely Sebastian doesn’t mean this. Sebastian isn’t going to go out of his way to help someone he barely knows, someone who, until recently, was rather at odds with him. But that seems to be exactly what Sebastian is suggesting, because he gives him an encouraging smile and squeezes his shoulder.

True to Sebastian’s word, they continue on their mission. Sebastian is a little more attentive to him, taking care to face him fully when talking so that he can see Stefano’s reactions to his words. Unfortunately they learn very quickly that Sebastian can’t read lips, but Stefano does attempt to communicate through facial expression and body language, and it works well enough.

They are taking a break at one of the safehouses when Sebastian says, “You know, I never thought I’d say this, but I kind of miss you talking about art all the time.”

Stefano rolls his eye, exaggerating the gesture with his head for Sebastian’s benefit.

“No, I mean it,” Sebastian says. “I mean, I didn’t understand much of it, but you’re obviously passionate about it, and that made it interesting to listen to.”

Sebastian seems to be genuine in his statements, so Stefano shoots him a look that is rather smug.

“I’m not saying I’m learning to appreciate the art,” Sebastian clarifies, “but I can appreciate your passion for it.”

Stefano smiles. He had thought that a one-sided conversation with Sebastian would be insufferable, that it would simply be Sebastian talking back and forth to himself, but Sebastian has proven to be more complex than he expected, and certainly more introspective. It’s a pleasant surprise, and one Stefano would like to explore in more detail if he can ever regain the ability to express complex thoughts.

He rubs at his throat absently, wishing he could speak his mind.

“Don’t worry,” Sebastian says. “I’m sure it’s not permanent. Things are weird here.” He gestures to the room around them, but Stefano is sure he means all of Union. “We just need to figure out what exactly happened and how to fix it.”

Stefano is concerned to say the least. The ghost woman has demonstrated some powers that shouldn’t exist in Union, powers that are entirely outside the system that’s been constructed here, and if she isn’t playing by the rules Stefano has no idea how to begin reversing whatever she did to him. He shrugs at Sebastian.

“I’m telling you,” Sebastian says. “We’re going to find a way to solve this. I’m making it a priority.”

Stefano can’t help but smile a little at that, because so far Sebastian’s only priority has been finding the Core, and it is comforting to know he ranks high enough with Sebastian to get priority status.

Sebastian’s hand lands on top of his where it rests on the seat beside him. Stefano looks up in mild surprise. Sebastian has laid hands on him a few times, but this feels different. Sebastian’s hand on his feels almost electrically charged, and Sebastian’s eyes are boring into his with such intensity that his heart accelerates in response.

Sebastian’s fingers interlace with his, and Stefano gives his hand a squeeze. He might not have believed it a few hours ago, but there is a lot that can be communicated without the need for words, and he and Sebastian are finally speaking the same language.

#whumptober2020 #no.24 #forced mutism #the evil within 2 #Fic #Sebastian Castellanos #Stefano Valentini #anima

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starship-squidlet · 4 years ago

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Rescue Me: A canon-era Newsies fic

Summary: Mush, Finch, and Elaine’s first meeting(s) in 1899.

Warnings: brief descriptions of minor violence and injuries/blood.

Word count: 4,544

Disclaimer: I do not own anything you may recognize from any version of Newsies. I do not own the lyrics to ‘The Journey’. I do, however, own this story, the character of Elaine, and anything else you don’t recognize from the various Newsies medias.

Tag list: @the-cowbi @aggressive-bucky-barnes-stan (ask to be added/removed!)

A/N: Will I ever write something for Newsies that isn’t titled after a song/song lyric/piece of theatrical media? Probably not xD The song used at the end of this story is ‘The Journey’ by Shelby Flint, from the soundtrack of The Rescuers.

This story follows something a little closer to the events of the movie than the musical, at least in regards to the rally at Medda’s. But you can definitely read it without having seen either one of them!

As I’ve mentioned before, this story serves as a sort of prequel to The Green Fields of France, but you certainly don’t have to read it to make sense of that fic, nor will not having read this impact your understanding of the events in Green Fields!

Medda’s theatre was packed. It was a better turnout than any of the Manhattan newsies had expected. Despite their reluctance to throw in their support, Brooklyn had come out in full force, and just hearing about that had brought just about every other newsie in New York to the theatre. It was jam-packed, stuffed to the brim with kids of all shapes and sizes, from eight—and even younger—to eighteen. Medda herself stood among the newsies on the stage; these were a handful of representatives from each borough, along with all of the boys from Manhattan, with one notable exception.

Medda had mingled in with the boys on the stage before the rally started, chatting with everyone, but dwelling especially on the Manhattan boys, who she knew best. The afternoon’s show was over, and many of her employees had already left for the day, but a few had stuck around. The stage manager was fretting over the boys, doing his best to keep them out of the wings and backstage, or from touching any of the set pieces other than the flat with the boot painted on the back of it. A handful of the working girls stood in a little knot at the back of the stage, giggling over the uncouth boys shouting over each other and play-fighting on the stage. When Medda finally chased the stage manager and girls away, much to the boys’ disappointment, two of them lingered in the wings. One was a tall, curvy girl with bright blonde hair still tucked into her elaborate updo from the earlier show, with a purple brocade dressing gown draped elegantly over her. The other was small, barely going up to her friend’s shoulder, with long, dark curls falling almost to her waist, dressed in a plain white blouse with puffy sleeves and a navy wool skirt. She chewed on her lip and hung close to the taller girl, watching the boys with wide eyes, jerking away any time someone got too close.

“Nervous?” the blonde teased as the smaller girl jumped and ducked behind her.

“No!” she said, stepping out and straightening her blouse. “I just don’t like crowds.”

“Elaine, you live in New York City,” the blonde rolled her eyes. “One of the biggest cities in the world. You deal with crowds all the time.”

“It’s different when you’re out on the street,” Elaine grumbled.

The boys on the stage—and everyone else in the theatre—fell silent abruptly. The girls looked out and saw a short, dark-haired boy in a red-striped shirt, hands raised, every eye in the room trained on him.

“That’s impressive,” Elaine whispered.

“Shh,” the blonde giggled.

Moments later, the boys started chanting a name—Jack, they thought—but a taller boy, also with dark hair, stepped forward and called for their silence, before beginning to speak. Elaine touched her friend’s elbow and pointed to another boy—a little older than the others, wearing a blue shirt and looking angry—slipping through the wings to come up behind some of the kids on the stage. He was followed by several men, many of them large, or, at least, larger than the children filling the theatre, and over half of them in police uniforms.

“Time to go,” the blonde whispered, grabbing Elaine by the arm and towing her back to the dressing rooms.

“What is it?” Elaine asked, once they were in the safety of the dressing room.

“That many cops? Nothing good.” The blonde shook her head. “The only reason cops would show up in force like that is if they’s planning on breakin’ up the rally, and anyone in this building when that happens is fair game. It don’t matter that we weren’t participatin’; if we’re here and get nabbed, we’re just as guilty as they are.”

“Guilty of what, practicing free speech?” Elaine grumbled. Nevertheless, she helped the other girl get dressed. They were just about to step out of the dressing room when the shouting started from the stage.

.*.*.*.*.*.

Everything happened so fast. One minute, they were shouting at Jack, calling him a scab, and the next everyone was running, and the cops were wading through the crowd, swinging their clubs gleefully at anyone who stood in their way. In seconds, Mush had lost all sense of direction, and any ability to recognize the people around him. Everyone was moving and screaming, and he didn’t wait around to get hit with a bull’s club. He slipped through the crowd, shoving past the bulls and Weisel’s cronies—recognizable from the earlier fight at the World building—throwing punches as needed. He joined a small river of other kids flowing towards the back door. They were all panicking, not that he wasn’t, pushing each other out of the way, a tangle of freneticism in the dark backstage area.

Mush found himself stumbling towards a side hall, shoved by someone he couldn’t see. He came to a stop, of sorts, when he slammed into someone smaller than him. He heard a shriek, and then they were falling. An elbow made contact with his jaw, and a knee with the inside of his thigh—that was close—and then they were on the floor, gasping for breath. Mush rolled off of the small body and grabbed her—that’s definitely a girl—hands and yanked her to her feet. He started to pull away, heading for the back door, but small hands grabbed hold of his shirt sleeve and yanked him back into the hallway.

“Not that way,” came a whisper. “The cops’re outside. Come with me.”

Mush glanced over his shoulder, listening to the shouts from outside. In a split second, he made his decision. He grabbed the girl’s hand and let her pull him into the backstage hallway. They ran past the dressing rooms and slipped into the wing on the other side of the stage. Mush tugged on her arm, pulling her to a halt, and whispered: “Where are you goin’? The bulls are out there.”

She pointed upwards, the light creeping back from the stage catching the white of her blouse. “There’s a fire door on the catwalk. It’ll take us outside.”

Best option I have, Mush sighed internally, and followed her to the ladder against the wall. They scaled it quickly and sat for a moment on the wobbly catwalk to catch their breath—it had been a thirty foot climb straight up—before clambering to their feet and creeping along the metal walkway. Below them, the stage had turned into a full-fledged brawl between Pulitzer’s men and the city’s newsboys. Mush felt a pang of guilt in his stomach, that he had managed to escape while so many others hadn’t. The girl reached back to grab one of his suspenders and pull him after her. He could feel her fingers trembling through his shirt, even clenched into a fist as they were.

The fire door took them out onto the fire escape, looking out over a side alley. On either end of the alley, they could see the edges of the brawls that had begun as the cops tried to stop the children fleeing the theatre. Directly below them, a few of Pulitzer’s men were in the alley, fighting with a handful of newsies. Mush looked around. “Where to now?” he hissed.

“Didn’t expect them to be in the alley,” the girl murmured.

Mush glanced back through the door as he heard clattering on the catwalk. A pair of burly cops, waving their clubs and shouting, were running towards the door. Mush grabbed a board from inside the door and slammed it shut, wedging the board under the handle. “That won’t hold them long.” He looked around, and finally settled on a plan. “Come on.”

He hurried down to the next “landing” on the fire escape, which lined up perfectly with the one on the building across from them, and climbed up onto the railing.

“You must be joking,” the girl gaped up at him.

“It’s a six foot jump at the most,” Mush said. “Don’t worry, I’ll catch you.” He leaned back and flung himself across the gap, just barely managing to catch hold of the railing on the opposite fire escape and pull himself up.

Elaine glanced up the fire escape as the bulls began banging on the door above them. She took a deep breath and climbed up onto the railing, gripping the support pole on the corner. Across the alley, Mush mirrored her, then leaned forward, holding his arm out to her. Elaine took another deep breath, leaned back, and leapt towards him.

Mush caught her arm and pulled her into him; she wrapped her arms around his neck as he fell back, nearly tumbling onto the landing. He managed to hop down, one arm wrapped around the small of her back, and set her down on the metal grating, then grabbed her hand and dragged her into the shadows at the back of the stairs, pressed up against the brick wall of the building. The theatre fire door flew open, the plank snapping against the pressure exerted by the pair of cops, and the two burst out. One went up, towards the roof, while the other made for the brawl in the alley below.

Once they were out of sight, Elaine started to pull away, but Mush pulled her back, pinning her against the wall. “Hey!” she gasped.

“Wait ‘til the other one goes down,” he whispered.

She nodded and settled back against the wall, eyes trained on the opposite rooftop. For the first time, Mush had a moment to take her in. She was small—probably no more than five feet tall, and slender—with a mop of wild, long, dark curls, pulled back just enough to be out of her face, except for a few wispy ringlets in front of her ears and over her forehead. Her eyes were wide and dark, framed by long lashes, set in a red-cheeked, pale face with a handful of freckles sprinkled over her nose, which turned up a little at the end. He reached up and brushed one of the curls on her forehead back, fingers running over her brow.

“Did I do that?” he murmured.

She hissed as the calloused skin of his fingertips snagged on the torn skin. “I think I hit it on the floor.”

“Sorry.”

“‘S fine.” She reached up and rested her fingers against his jaw, wiping blood away from a split in his lip with her thumb. “Did I do that?”

Mush smiled. “I think you got me with your elbow.”

“Sorry.”

“I’ve had worse.”

Her fingers lingered on his jaw as their eyes met, hearts pounding. They stood in silence for a moment, the sounds of the brawl in the alley below fading out.

“What’s your name?” he asked suddenly.

“Elaine,” she whispered.

“Mush,” he said. “Figured I should probably get your name at some point, given I’ve already knocked you over once and jumped over a forty-foot drop with you tonight.”

Elaine let out a breathy chuckle.

They were snapped out of the moment when the cop on the other roof clattered back onto the fire escape, making his way down to the alley. As soon as he was a flight below them, Mush took Elaine’s hand and led her up to the roof.

“Now where?” she asked, looking around. “Don’t even think about making me do another jump like that.”

Mush laughed. “There,” he pointed at a door in a shed in the middle of the roof.

“You don’t think it’ll be locked?” Elaine asked, tagging along behind him.

“Probably,” Mush shrugged. He dropped her hand to try the knob, found it locked, and took a step back. A single kick snapped the knob off and the door creaked open. “Easy,” he shrugged again.

“Vandalism,” Elaine muttered, but followed him into the building. They slipped down the stairs and into a hallway between two apartments, which led to a door into a side stairwell, which actually took them down to the ground floor. Outside, they could hear the fight in front of the theatre, and saw bloodied kids running past the handful of spectators brave enough to linger. They slipped through the door and joined the pedestrians hurrying away from the riot. Mush spared a glance over his shoulder, the feeling of guilt returning as he turned his back on the others.

“There’s nothing you could do there,” Elaine whispered, slipping her arm through his.

“I could help,” Mush said through gritted teeth.

“And you’d just wind up getting hurt or arrested too,” Elaine said. “And what good would that do anyone?”

“I might be able to help some of the others get away…”

“You helped me get away,” Elaine said. “Anyways, that’s all anyone else is trying to do anyways. Look how many of the others are running, too. It doesn’t make you a bad person for trying to protect yourself.”

He nodded, but glanced over his shoulder again as another wave of kids bolted past them.

“Mush!” they froze at the shout. Seconds later, Finch slammed into Mush, wrapping his arm around his shoulders. “You’re okay! Last I saw, you was headin’ for the back door. Ain’t no-one gettin’ out that way. I was afraid you got grabbed.”

“Came close,” Mush grinned, wrapping his free arm around Finch’s waist. “Miss Elaine here showed me a different way out.”

“Hi, Miss Elaine,” Finch grinned, offering her a hand to shake. “I’m Finch.”

“It’s just Elaine,” she laughed, shaking his hand. “Looks like you had a rough time.”

Finch grinned sheepishly. Blood was running down the side of his face from a wide gash and he was a little unsteady on his feet; his shirt was ripped, and there were bruises on his arms and knuckles. “Not so bad,” he mumbled. He pointed to the cut on Elaine’s head. “Who got you?”

“This one knocked me over,” she grumbled, pointing to Mush.

“Wh—hey! I didn’t do it on purpose! Someone pushed me into you!”

“Likely story,” Finch teased. He weaved slightly, and Mush slipped an arm around his waist to support him. Elaine let go of Mush’s arm and hurried to support Finch from the other side.

“Yeah, ‘not so bad’,” Elaine muttered. “Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up.”

.*.*.*.*.*.

Elaine opened the door to her apartment slowly and peered in. There was a light under the door to the bedroom, and she waved for the boys to follow her in. “Go get settled in the kitchen,” she whispered. “I’ll be right back.”

She slipped into the bedroom, where the blonde dancer from earlier, along with another girl of almost the exact same build, height, and coloration, were sat on one of the two beds, chattering about the rally.

“Elaine!” one of the girls jumped up and hurried over to give her a hug. “You’re alright! I was so worried after I lost you at the theatre!”

“Thanks, Missy,” Elaine smiled as she pulled away. “Are you alright?”

“I got out the back door just before the cops closed in on it,” Missy sighed and sat down on the bed. “You?”

“Uh… It’s a long story,” Elaine glanced over her shoulder. “One of the boys from the rally helped me though. He and his friend are hurt; I brought them back here to get them cleaned up.”

“You did what?” the other blonde demanded.

“It’s fine, Claire,” Missy put a gentle hand on the other girl’s arm. “Do you want any help?”

“No, it’s fine. My mess to clean up. You two have to be at the theatre earlier than me, anyways. Get some sleep.”

Missy nodded. “Let us know if you need anything.”

“Thanks,” Elaine said, slipping back out into the apartment.

It didn’t take long to get Finch patched up. Once the bleeding from the gash on his head was cleaned up and stopped, it proved to be a surprisingly small wound. Elaine cleaned it out and placed a plaster over the wound, then cleaned the abrasions on his knuckles and wrapped them in sterile gauze. “Go lie down,” she instructed, pointing to a narrow bed against the far wall.

“We should head back”—Finch started.

“It’s too late, and you shouldn’t be out on the streets,” Elaine shook her head. “Get some rest, and leave in the morning.”

Finch looked about to protest, but kept his mouth shut. He flopped down on the bed and was snoring in seconds.

Mush laughed and shook his head. “That didn’t take long.”

Elaine grinned and got up to get a pair of blankets from a stack on a chair near the bed. She handed one to Mush. “Sorry there’s not another bed or anything. You’re welcome to one of the chairs, though.”

Mush grinned. “Lemme clean up your head first.”

Elaine sat down across from him and let him dab at the dried blood on her forehead with a damp cloth. “I think you’ll be alright,” he said, setting the cloth aside. He put a small plaster on it and smiled down at her. “All done.”

“Thanks,” Elaine said. “You want me to look at your lip?”

“No, it’s fine. I’ve had way worse. This’ll probably be cleared up by mornin’. Not much to do for a split lip, anyways.”

“Fair enough,” Elaine shrugged.

“What were you doin’ at the theatre anyways?” Mush asked. “You definitely ain’t a newsie—do you work for Medda?”

Elaine nodded. “I sing, and do some dancing. Mostly singing.”

“How old are ya?” Mush asked. “Ain’t you a little young for that?”

“I’ll have you know that I’m sixteen! Just turned it last month. Medd doesn’t let me work as much as the other girls, though, so I do other jobs when I can to help pull my weight around here. Laundry, mending—and I sell knit and crocheted things I make.”

“Why’re you here and not with your family?” Mush asked.

Elaine sighed and stared down at her hands in her lap. “I couldn’t stay there any more. I love my brothers, and my father’s not so bad—but he hasn’t been able to look at me for years. I remind him too much of my mother. And his second wife is a witch. She’s hated me and my brothers since she married our father, and now that she has her own kids, she’s been downright horrible to the three of us. I just couldn’t take it any longer. I miss my brothers, and even my father, but I like the freedom of being out here on my own.” She looked up and offered him a bright smile. “What about you? Why are you a newsie?”

“My mother died when I was a kid, and my father hasn’t been doin’ well ever since. Drinks too much, can’t hold down a job. So, when I got older, I started sellin’ papes to help him out. Make sure we have a place to sleep and all.”

Elaine nodded. “It’s good you two were able to stay together. Will he be worried that you’re not home tonight.”

“Not sure he’ll notice,” Mush scoffed. “Anyways, I stay at the lodgin’ house a lot anyways. He’ll probably just figure I’m there.”

.*.*.*.*.*.

A few days later, Mush and Finch found themselves wandering the Bowery after selling their papers more quickly than they had expected. It was a hot day, and they were trying to find something to do that would get them inside, out of the sun, without costing much money.

“Wish I would’ve taken a few more papes this mornin’,” Finch sighed, kicking at a rock on the pavement. “Might as well take advantage of the deal Jack worked out with Pulitzer to buy our papes back and get a few extra every now and then.”

Mush nodded. “If today had been a better headline, I would’ve taken more.”

“Well, you know what Jack always says”—Finch started.

“‘Headlines don’t sell papes, newsies sell papes,” they chorused together, then laughed.

“Hey, let’s go to Medda’s,” said Finch. “She’ll let us sneak in, and at least we won’t be outdoors no more.”

The boys slipped through the back door of the theatre, sneaking expertly past the preoccupied stage manager and slipping into the wings, behind the flyrail with the stagehands and performers waiting to go on. It was strange to be back in the theatre, considering the last time they had been there it had been stuffed full of newsies fighting off cops.

The theatre wasn’t packed today, but it was comfortably full, most of the seats occupied. The boys had arrived just in time for a performance, and the lights came up as they watched, the small orchestra in front of the stage striking up a slow, mournful tune. The spotlight focused on a small figure in the center of the stage, dressed in a white satin leotard and white tights, an ankle-length skirt made out of soft blue gauze and adorned with white and silver sequins, with white satin ballet shoes, her dark hair twisted and tucked into a tight bun. She began to move slowly in time with the music, graceful and elegant as she swirled around the stage. Two taller blonde dancers, dressed in darker shades of blue and less sparkly, stepped out on stage and began moving with her, as she paused to sing a single line: “Who will rescue me?”

The line was repeated twice more with the crescendo of the music into a stronger, more powerful section, before the girl in white came to a full stop to sing the song’s only verse:

“I’m lost at sea without a friend,

This journey, will it ever end?

Who will rescue me?”

The dancers in blue swirled back into motion as the singer stepped slowly towards the front of the stage, skirt swirling around her ankles, to sing “rescue me” twice, slowly, as the music came to an end. They all froze in place for a moment as the audience applauded, then each bowed and hurried offstage in a flutter of blue and white.

.*.*.*.*.*.

After the show, the boys slipped into the back hallways, dodging performers and stagehands. “Where are we going?” Mush asked.

“Dressing rooms’re this way,” Finch said. He turned and winked over his shoulder. “You did want to see her again, right?”

Mush felt his cheeks flush, but kept quiet. They nearly ran into one of the tall blonde girls—not so tall up close; she was maybe an inch taller than Mush, and just a bit shorter than Finch—as she left a room, grinning and shouting over her shoulder.

“Oops!” Missy yelped, jumping back as she nearly collided with Finch. “Sorry ‘bout that! Oh, wait”—

“Hi there,” Claire leaned around Missy to grin at the boys. “Looking for someone in particular?”

“Elaine, those boys from the other night are here!” Missy called back into the dressing room. She hooked her arm through Claire’s and dragged the younger girl down the hall. “Glad to see you two’re lookin’ better today!” She called over her shoulder as she pulled Claire out into the back hallway.

Missy’s shout into the dressing room had been followed immediately by a crash and some banging, before the door flew open to reveal a red-faced Elaine. Her hair was loose, floating around her shoulders and down her back like a dark, fluffy cloud. Her soft blue blouse—the collar and cuffs embroidered with little white flowers—had been hastily tucked into a grey skirt, and she was holding one boot in her hand. “Hi!” she gasped, grinning broadly. “I thought I saw you two in the wings!”

“Yeah—you were great!” Finch said. Mush nodded furiously in agreement.

“Thank you!” Elaine beamed. “Um… come in? I need to put my shoes on.” The boys stepped into the room, warm from the electric lights glowing from around the mirrors that lined the walls. “You can sit wherever; everyone else is already gone.” She settled down at a messy station, the countertop under the mirror covered in cosmetics, jewelry, hair accessories, and so on. She lifted her skirt up just enough to pull on her boots and lace them up, tying them neatly. Once the shoes were on, she plucked a white ribbon from the mess of the table and wound her hair into a loose braid over one shoulder, tying it off at the end with a ribbon. She stood up and plucked a straw hat—adorned with a wide white ribbon tied into a big bow in the back, a soft pink silk rose fastened to the center of the bow—off of a peg on the wall next to the mirror, plopped it on her head, and turned to face the boys. “All done! Let’s get out of here, shall we?”

Finch opened the door and ushered the others out into the hallway. Elaine slipped one arm through Mush’s as they left the theatre. Out on the street, she grabbed Finch’s hand to pull him forward, slipping her arm through his and grinning up at him from under the wide brim of her hat. “I’m glad you two came today. I’ve been wanting to come find you since the other day, but haven’t had a chance. Your head is looking better, Finch.”

“Yeah, I keep forgettin’ what happened to it, because it doesn’t even hurt any more.”

“How’s your lip, Mush?” she asked, peering around to see the other side of his face.

“Almost good as new,” he grinned.

“I’m glad,” she laughed. “I’d hate to think I hurt you badly.”

“How’s your head?”

“Healing nicely!” Elaine chirped.

“Elaine, you said you’d been wantin’ to come see us—why?” Finch asked.

“Oh, just to see how you were doing,” she shrugged. “I was at Newsies’ Square for the strike the other day—it was amazing! I didn’t stay very long, once that boy announced that you had won, I left. I had to do a show. But it was so exciting! I’m very happy for all of you. And I think your win is very important for child workers all over the city. Hopefully it makes life better for lots of kids out there.”

Mush nodded. “That’s the goal. Thanks for comin’ out.”

Elaine grinned and gave his arm a squeeze. “Of course!”

“Where are you headin’?” Finch asked. “We’ll walk you there.”

“Don’t you have selling to do?”

“Nah, we both sold all our papes for the day already.”

“Well, I was going to stop and get lunch on my way home. Would you two like to join me? My treat.”

“Hey, no way we’s lettin’ a girl pay for our lunch!” Finch sniffed.

Elaine arched an eyebrow. “Suit yourself. Mush?”

“Are you sure it’s alright?”

“I wouldn’t have offered if I couldn’t afford it,” Elaine said. “I sold some embroidery this week, so I have a little extra. I’ll save as much as I can, of course, but I can afford to take you two to lunch. Finch? Last chance.”

Finch groaned, clearly trying to decide between his pride and his hunger. “Oh… Fine.”

Elaine laughed. “Jacobi’s, then?”

“Literally anywhere else,” Finch protested. “If the boys find out that a girl bought us lunch”—

“Okay, then you pick,” Elaine laughed.

“Come on,” Mush rolled his eyes. “I know a good place.

#newsies #fanfic #fanfiction #jack writes #rescue me #rescue me (newsies)#newsies fic #canon era #newsies canon-era #not au #canon compliant #ones shot #mush (newsies)#mush meyers #finch (newsies)#finch cortez #elaine o’dell (newsies oc)

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skittydolly · 5 years ago

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Can we have Paz headcanons? Just like...how he operates, what he likes/hates, how he spends time, all that good stuff?? Btw i love your content!

Huuu, here are a few headcanons AND THEORIES that I can list off the top of my head and that I’ve mentioned in my fics, some of them correlate with Din since I’ve tied their history together very closely:

Theories First:

💙 First things first, I DEARLY believe that he had to have been a descendant of Pre Vizsla from the Clone Wars. Jon Favreau played the voice for them both, that cannot be a coincidence on my part. Disclaimer right now: I have like 3% knowledge or interest in other Star Wars content, I’m pretty clueless in that aspect prior to The Mandalorian. I just try and do my research as best I can. But it can’t just be a coincidence that Paz was NAMED, he has to be an important key in this story and timeline.

💙 Because of this, after seeing the Darksaber at the end of the season, Paz must be aware of its existence and significance in his clan and how it was lost to Darth Maul. If Paz is the only and/or the eldest Vizla/Vizsla, I would like to think that makes him the rightful heir to the darksaber.

💙 From what I understand Clan Vizsla and the Death Watch are relatively interchangeable?? If they’re not particularly equivalent, they’re at least related. We see in Din’s flashback, he was saved by the Death Watch. The Mandalorian in particular that saved him/took him away from the battle, I’ve referenced as Din’s father in my fics.

From the Death Watch we see in The Mandalorian episode 8, they’re all in blue and they all BLATANTLY have the jai'galaar (shriek-hawk) sigil presented on their armor. Incredibly visible.

Meanwhile, Paz has the look, all blue and so worn, I’m certain he’s faced many battles in that armor. But what’s interesting to me, and call me out if I’m wrong, but Paz does not have the Death Watch / Clan Vizsla sigil anywhere on his armor. He has the classic Mythosaur stamped on his left pauldron, but that’s it.. From what little we’ve seen of the other Mandalorians in the Covert, that sigil doesn’t seem present either.......

Again, I’m no expert and I lack the knowledge of the story line from the Clone Wars series, but this to me seems maybe like some sort of abandonment... out of shame? out of fear? out of anger??? I have no idea, but from what I can tell, that symbol is only seen in Din’s flashback, again, very blatantly...

The tribe we get to see is so different from what these animated series have shown us, of which Jon Favreau was apart of and I’m certain he has not forgotten about, I’m sure he’s trying to link them, and Paz would be an incredibly important link in that aspect.

The tribe aren’t pacifists, but they also aren’t entirely war hungry either. The only reason they came out of the shadows was to save their own and they did so with skill. But NONE of them had a sigil.Soooooo I don’t know what’s going on there, but anyway back to Paz

💙 His helmet was NOT in the pile in episode 8. Paz’ helmet is EXTREMELY distinct, the color of his cheek plating alone would have stood out, the shapes are so angular and sharp, it would have been impossible to miss in that pile. If they wanted you to know he was dead, they would have had Din lift up his helmet and/or have put it on the very top where you’d be able to distinguish it.

Headcanons and Stuff I’ve Used in my Fics:

💙 Paz is 3 years older than Din. I had originally planned him to be at least 9 years older ��💦 But because I wanted them to interact through their younger years, I decided to shrink the age difference so it would make a little more sense for them to have been so close

💙 Due to the Covert rule of “one Mando at a time can leave”, I suspect Paz was a little restless (as I’m sure most of the tribe was). He couldn’t particularly sit around buffing his armor or playing cu’bikad all day, he had to find some use for himself. I headcanon him to have helped train the foundlings and younglings present.

I’m not sure how much the tribe could get away with in terms of noise levels, but him teaching them countless types of weaponry and how to wield it. That’s his specialty and his knowledge is something he could pass down to the little ones as is The Way. He’d teach them how to properly defend themselves, how to hold themselves in battle. He’d also tell them stories of his battles and experiences.

💙 He’s the largest Mando in the covert.

💙 Because of my belief in Paz’ connection to Pre Vizsla, I designed him with the whole blonde hair/blue eyes/light skin to fit his ancestor’s appearance. Had it not been for that connection, I would have gone in a totally different direction with his design in general. Young Soldier 76′s design from Overwatch really helped in that aspect.

💙 He’s high in rank. Paz already gains respect by his experience and size alone, but I’d like to think he lead a squadron of some sort during the siege/purge.

💙 He’s actually quite poetic in his wording, very high vocabulary. Very outspoken and incredibly articulate, as a leader should be.

💙 Not really a headcanon, it’s very apparent in canon. He’s got a temper. He’s extremely hardheaded and brash, while he words things extremely well, it doesn’t really mean he thinks about how mean it’s going to sound to someone once it’s out in the open aksjdf 💦 A bit too honest sometimes.

💙 He and Din have fought together side by side countless times and Din does not like being ordered around, Paz finds it amusing and annoying as hell at the same time.

💙 Judging by the dents in his helm, he has been concussed way too many times akdjfa omg

💙 My first impression of him was that he looked like a teddy bear cause the bulky hardware attached to his audials which I would assume are for transmissions/communications/radar give him the appearance of ears 🐻

That’s all I can come up with right now, I didn’t mean to ramble but I think he’s so fascinating hhhhh 👀 Please feel free to add or ask more questions if you’d like! I’d love to hear some of y’all’s headcanons too! I hope you enjoy these at the very least, thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to get all these out, sweet anon! ❤

- Dolly 🎀

#dollycries #the mandalorian #paz vizla #clan vizsla #din djarin #dyn jarren #hhhhhhh #thank you....#ask

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caffeinatedtimdrake · 6 years ago

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40, 17, and 53 with Jason Todd. Love you!!! You deserve way more than 200 followers.

love YOU!!! sorry this is so late! 1.6k words of Jason x reader fluff in which you’re stuck in an elevator.

17.“Did you just… agree with me?” “Oh, I wish I could take-““Nope! You said it! No take-backs!”

40.“You’re a psychopath.” “I prefer creative.”

53.“I hate you.” “Why? I’m lovely.”

In hindsight, maybe it wasn’t such a wise idea to take the elevator during a raging storm, but you could only be so functional after a three-hour British literature final exam.

Massaging the palm of your hand and gnawing anxiously on your bottom lip, agonizing over your concluding paragraph, you hit the down button with your elbow and had barely half a mind to acknowledge the torrential downpour outside the walls of Gotham Academy.

The elevator dinged dismally and you trudged inside.

Wordsworth said to fill your paper with the breathings of your heart but you couldn’t stop worrying that you dumped the jumbled thoughts of your mind onto the lined pages. You were fretting so intensely that you barely heard the pleas to keep the elevator door open.

“Wait! I need to catch the elevator! Pretty please!”

You startled and moved to press the open button, but a body barreled in through the doors and hit the wall with a slightly concerning bang before you could do so.

The figure was broad and sinewy from behind, a backpack hanging off toned shoulders and veiny arms showcased thanks to a snug black t-shirt. Something about that admittedly nice butt was awfully familiar, and then the human canon turned around.

“Oh. Hey, Y/N.”

You stiffened and braced yourself, though you were unsure what you were bracing yourself for. “Hi, Jason.”

He cracked a smile, slow and warm, and your heart skipped several beats before settling into a panicky rhythm.

Oh. That was why you braced yourself.

He quirked an eyebrow and nodded to your hands. The fingers of your left dug into the palm of your right so hard, your knuckles turned white. “Still recovering?”

You dropped your hands. “In more ways than one.”

Something about Jason always had you on edge. You two were notorious for getting into heated debates regarding humanist theory and the best Romantic era poets, and you’d nearly lost your mind when you worked together because the professor assigned partners for a literature analysis presentation – he pushed your buttons excessively.

Maybe it was because he was so hard to read, but he was able to read you with startling clarity. You didn’t know much about him, only that he was a few years older, enjoyed blasting Bobby Brown, had strong opinions on bread, and knew Keats better than his own name. You had known him for four months, but he already knew that you despised untied shoelaces, snapped a rubber band against your wrist when you were nervous, and owned two cats. Your guard was highly fortified because people who’d known you for years barely knew one of those tidbits; who did Jason think he was, waltzing into your life and making you self-conscious every time you exhibited a nervous tick?

Your unease around Jason Todd might also have to do with the fact that he was so beautiful, he left you flustered and babbling angrily much more often than you’d like.

“How’d you feel about it?”

“About…what?”

Jason laughed and you blinked in surprise at the sound of sunshine on this rainy day. “About the exam, Y/N.”

“Oh. Uh. I wish I felt better about it. You?”

His shoulders lifted in a dismissive shrug. “I’ve been through worse.”

“Who’d you focus on for the last question?” You asked as the doors glided shut with a groan.

He snorted. “Coleridge, of course. Who else?”

You frowned. “Barrett Browning.”

He shot you a dubious look. “Is it because of Sonnet Forty-Three?”

Flummoxed, your frown deepened. “No…”

“Mmhhmmm,” He nodded, mouth sliding up into a playful smile.

“Well. Maybe a little.”

“Quite the hopeless romantic, aren’t we?”

You opened your mouth to retort defensively but betrayed yourself; you locked eyes with him and suddenly found yourself lost in a sapphire ocean. “Yeah,” You sighed in resignation.

His eyes widened, eyebrows raised in bewilderment. “Did you just…agree with me?”

You blushed deeper. “Oh, I wish I could take –”

Jason waggled a finger accusatorially. “Nope! You said it! No take-backs!”

You jutted your chin out and crossed your arms over your chest. Maybe you should have been concerned when the elevator groaned a little in dissent, but you couldn’t hear much above the little voice at the back of your head scolding you for not being more vigilant around him.

“Fine.”

His smile softened, gentle like the Caribbean, and much to your dismay, so did you. “It’s not a bad thing.”

“I-I guess. I don’t know.”

You did know when the lights flickered and died with a buzz and a few concerning sparks.

You also knew when the elevator jolted and dropped a few feet, bouncing unevenly because it pulled a shriek from your throat, and you flung yourself at Jason Todd.

He stumbled back a little with an “oof” but didn’t hesitate to wrap his arms around you.

He smelled of jasmine and old books and some kind of spice. You were in the middle of a third deep inhale, safe in his arms, when the elevator groaned again, reminding you where you were. You wrenched yourself out of his embrace and slammed against the wall opposite of him with a jolt, pressing the help button frantically – but to no avail, it looked like the whole array was shot.

The elevator made another agonized noise and panic seized your lungs.

“Well. I think the elevator’s stuck.”

“It still m-moves. What if – what if it falls all the way d-down? We’re gonna – oh, fuck, we’re gonna die in here, aren’t we?” You warbled, slowly sliding to the ground.

Jason’s brow furrowed, shadows dancing against his skin beneath the dim emergency light. “We’re not going to die in here, Y/N.”

You squeezed your eyes shut when thunder rumbled irately, practically shaking the walls. “You can’t guarantee that.”

“We’re probably not going to die in here.” He simpered, taking steady strides over to you and the buttons.

You had to choke back whimper when the elevator tilted slightly.

You heard him shifting slightly, setting his backpack on the ground and kneeling next to it.

His knee bumped your knee and your eyes snapped open, but he continued shuffling around in his bag, unbothered by the physical contact.

You didn’t want to die before you could find out who scored higher on that exam, but you refrained from voicing this aloud. For the moment.

“So, you’re scared of centipedes and dying in an elevator. What else?” He asked in a low voice.

In spite of the slightly dire situation, you flushed, reminded of the unfortunate insect incident in the library a few weeks ago.

The answer left your mouth before you could swallow it. “You.”

You were unsure of how serious that response was and maybe he was too, because the corner of his mouth quirked up into a smirk. “Me? I’m harmless.”

As these words left his mouth, he unearthed a daunting piece of technical equipment from his backpack.

You wanted to tell him that he was actually quite harmful to your emotional stability, but instead you asked, “What the hell is that?”

His smirk grew into something even more dangerous, setting your heartbeat awry again. “Our way out.” He pressed a button and what might be a laser flashed and buzzed menacingly.

“You’re a psychopath.”

“I prefer creative.” Jason told you cheerily, turning away from you to wiggle the suspicious tool beneath a panel near the bottom row of buttons.

There were some more unsettling buzzing noises, but he must have known what he was doing because several moments later, all of the lights blink on.

He pressed the help button with his knuckle, and it rang shrilly in acknowledgement.

“Now, we wait.” He scooted back a little so he could sit in front of you, cross-legged and almost boyish in the way he looked at you expectantly, more like a patient puppy than a muscly twenty-something with threatening equipment and novels in his backpack.

You felt your face heat up again. “Oh. Great.”

He leaned forward a little, one dark brown arched in inquisition. “Are you really scared of me?”

Your stomach flipped a little because he was striking up close, pink mouth and strong nose framed by handsome angles, earthy olive skin littered with storybook scars, and eyes that whispered the most tragic of poems in a language you couldn’t quite understand.

“I’m trying to figure it out.”

“You must not be completely petrified because you seem quite calm, considering we’re in a confined space together. Also, you threw yourself at me.”

You gaped at him indignantly. “I hate you.”

“Why? I’m lovely. At least three different people tell me on a daily basis.”

It was your turn to arch an eyebrow. “By people do you mean drooling college girls?”

That smirk returned. “Old ladies crossing the street and soccer moms occasionally, too.”

You crinkled your nose in distaste. “Bleh.”

“Beauty is meant to be appreciated.” Jason stated, fixing you with a look of saccharine reverence that made you think, perhaps, he wasn’t referring to himself through the eyes of appreciative grown women.

Bashful, you broke away from his gaze, finding sudden interest in your sweaty hands and playing with your fingers.

“That’s why poets exist.” You muttered.

“Shakespeare, sonnet eighteen.”

You narrowed your eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Now, his smile was all sunflowers and chirping birds on a summer morning. “It means you’re beautiful and I want to compare you to a summer’s day. And take you on a date when we get out of this elevator. If you’ll let me.”

It took a few moments to shake you out of your daze. “If we can get out of this elevator and avoid a Shakespearean tragedy, sure.”

#i love sappy poetic jason that is the only thing that brings me peace sometimes ok #i would gladly get stuck in an elevator with jason todd #jason todd #red hood #jason todd x reader #red hood x reader #jason todd imagine #red hood imagine #robin imagine #robin x reader #dc imagine #teen titans #young justice #prompt #did you just agree with me #fluff

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codenamesazanka · 6 years ago

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I know this is a really vague thing to ask, but do you have any tips for writing Shigaraki? I know Echodrops made a whole meta about fanon Shigaraki vs canon Shigaraki but do you personally have anything in particular you'd want to mention yourself about the portrayal of Shigaraki in fanfics?

(Here’s the link to @echodrops‘s post! It’s really, really good, and helped me figure out Shigaraki a lot in the first place. thank you!)

oooh! Not at all a vague thing, this is a great question. I started all this meta because I wanted to figure out how to write Shigaraki as well. A word of caution tho, because this would be my personal interpretation of Shigaraki, though I’ll try to use as much manga examples as I can. As always, super long post.

Note: images are edited to fit exact quotes to relevant and reasonable sized images, instead of a whole manga page

Here’s some hand man characteristics/traits that I think are overlooked:

Shigaraki Tomura, in his beliefs/values, has a tendency for all-or-nothing thinking, to be extreme in his actions. In all three of his incarnations - the oneshot Tenko, the draft Sazanka, and this current one - a core of the character is 1) finding something flawed/bad/had hurt him somehow 2) completely loathing it 3) vowing to destroy it.

Tenko despised samurai and their warring, and wishes to rid the world of swords. Sazanka is on a quest to kill quirk-users with quirks he deems too dangerous for society. And Shigaraki has decided that the Heroes and justice system is a farce, and is out to destroy it.

Kinda fitting for a guy with his quirk - he either doesn’t destroy something, or destroys it completely. The moment he makes his decision, it’s fast and permanent.

For Shigaraki, murder is murder, destruction is destruction, violence is violence, no matter how you dress it up. That’s why he couldn’t see the difference between him and Stain. That’s why he can’t see that Bakugou, as aggressive and vicious as he is, still wants to be a good guy.

Now this is my take, but I think his mindset is: Because All Might can’t save everyone, he’s a fake, he’s trash; because everyone will say they condemn murder yet go about their lives carefree even though they know logically someone is out there getting killed, morality and justice is an illusion; because justice is so fragile and flimsy, I will expose it and destroy it.

Not in any goodwill or for a better society, mind you. He just hates it.

He also has no illusions about himself or his actions, he knows he’s evil.

Shigaraki is a lot more sarcastic and sardonic than usually portrayed in fanon. He’s very rude and can be foul mouthed, but the real insult comes from his tone and behavior. He condescendingly calls Eraserhead cool. He calls Stain the ‘Great Senpai of scoundrels’. He points out to Overhaul how a wakagashira/underboss like him should be more polite. Just about half of everything he says is dripping with mockery, and he’s very breezy and irreverent. So a bit less ‘I hate you, fuck off’, and more cheek.

Adding to that, if I’m reading my Japanese right, Shigaraki can change how he addresses people depending on the person and situation. His default speech is rude, but he’ll talk somewhat (barely) politely-ish if needed; it’s just it’s very obvious he’s not taking it seriously.

Related, I feel like Shigaraki says a lot of things he doesn’t really believe. He tries out concepts, half-heartedly, on a whim. There’s that infamous speech at USJ about Heroes and Villains both using violence - which does seem to have some semblance to the actual ‘two sides of the same coin’ that even Best Jeanist talks about.

And here’s him considering Stain’s effects on heroes, with gusto, before ditching it.

I know it’s Smash!, but here’s him reciting some sort of pseudo education philosophy he picked up somewhere??? to Kurogiri to get out of exercise.

He’s a total smartass

Of course, this brings up the question, is he genuine in his speech to Bakugou, or to Toga and Twice?

Like Echodrop notes, he can be in a good mood. He can be (seem?) happy, he can smile, he will acknowledge when someone does a good job of something.

Sure, it’s got a manic edge to it, it’s probably not coming from a place of good, fluffy, innocent feelings, but he can laugh, enjoy the moment, be psyched about something.

I really like this scene because he actually giggles a bit. He squeezes Midoriya, and he really does seem excited for a chat.

He’s quick to go back to being default cranky tho. Quick to enjoy, quick to get irked.

Shigaraki is a weirdo and I love him.

My boy is smart. Really, Shigaraki is smarter than he looks. In the Ultra Archive, his profile lists his intelligence as ‘A’, ranking him above most characters, including Midoriya. I get that Deku’s whole thing is being the strategizing main character, but Shigaraki’s just as analytical. Even the Smash! Comic points this out.

His room is filled with books, so either he reads a lot or he hoards them to look smart. I think it’s the former. Well, it’s not mutually exclusive, I should know.

He thinks and reflects and questions. He was super pissed about Stain, but he realized Stain was right and tried to figure out why. He went on a walk to calm down and just ruminate. He sought out Midoriya just to get second opinion. Afterwards, he quickly sees the bigger picture and realizes the issue is systemic and he’s gotta attack the structure. Of course, kinda shaky on the specific details and it’s not endgame long term, but still impressive.

There’s a lot of Villain!Deku fanfics - and I like them a lot! - that turns Deku into the criminal mastermind or makes him the brains behind Shigaraki’s operations. Which is fair, Deku could totally be one! And also a lot of fics where Shigaraki is dismissed, with everything he does being AFO’s machinations. Again, fair. But Canon Shigaraki is AFO’s successor and leads the League for a reason.

This also means, I think, that Shigaraki isn’t as clueless to the fact that All For One is manipulating him. This point is entirely debatable, though. All I have to back this is how Shigaraki wondered if he was lied to in the USJ.

Even tho he’s facepalm crusty boi neet, Shigaraki is still a very dangerous S-ranked villain. I feel like sometimes people forget this.

He’s not that childish. He can be immature, he’s still learning the ropes of being a supervillain, he’s got an irritable and sullen disposition, but he’s not a five-year-old. He’s also not completely unhinged.

When things don’t go his way, his first response usually isn’t to shriek or whine or immediately snap. He’s got a clear head and a good sense of what he can and can’t do. Kurogiri is down, All Might escaped their grasp, but Nomu’s still active? Cool, we got this. It’s only when Nomu gets team-rocket-ed that he panics. Stain stabs him? Doesn’t start a fight right there and then, asks Master for some Nomu, is patient enough to wait until he decides he really can’t stand Stain, then finally gives the go ahead for a rampage.

Shigaraki knew from the start he can’t handle All Might. That’s Nomu’s job. As much as he hates All Might, he doesn’t jump at the chance to kill the hero personally. He’s not ruled by impulse or easy distractions, not really. And he will back down if Kurogiri reasons with him - see accepting Stain as a party member, see letting Toga and Dabi live. And after he got his motivation, he’s been very restraint since.

He doesn’t immediately destroy his things in anger - we only see him destroy only few items pre-mall talk. He decays binoculars, a photo of Deku, maybe a newspaper, all quiet and deliberate. Kurogiri’s bar is intact and clean, despite being the long-time hang out spot of the destructive Shigaraki Tomura. Would he decay a controller after losing a game? Maybe, but also just as likely maybe not.

Shigaraki will complain and bitch and sulk and hold a grudge, tho, yeah. He will lose it after a series of stressors/things gone wrong. He can be moody, cruel and sadistic, bloodthirsty and mayhem-loving. But he’s got himself under control more often than not.

Finally, video games: My biggest pet peeve about portrayal of Shigaraki in fanfics: He’s super obsessed with video games, to the point that he plays them all day long, and he can’t stop using video game slang for everything - or so a lot of the fandom believes.

I’ve pointed out before that we’re more likely to see him reading the newspaper and we’ve never actually seen him use a console ever in manga or anime. True, he likens scenarios to games frequently, but not all the time - the USJ fight was when he did that the most, then in his other appearances only once or twice during the whole scene (Doesn’t want Stain as a ‘party member’, none at all when meeting Dabi or Toga and then at the mall, camp arc has him seeing himself playing a Sim instead of an RPG, calls All Might ‘last boss’ during the raid, then nothing for his next appearances). At least not out loud. As fun as it is to imagine him as a geeky gamer, and he is, but he does more than just that.

I think Shigaraki uses video games and media to create mental scripts for himself to understand/interact with the world, but it serves as a skeleton. He fleshes it out, always adding to that mental model to create a more complex one. He calls his change of strategy as playing a Sim game, but it’s a good analogy that works for him, and we see how layered his plan is - dealing a blow to UA that works whether the Vanguard succeed or not, kidnapping Bakugou and Ragdoll, in order to bring about the media and public criticism of UA/heroes, and had it not been for the raid, something would’ve happen to Bakugou that would’ve demoralized everyone.

He def is grounded in reality enough to know what he’s doing is more than just a game.

And that’s all I got for now! There might be a part two. idk, but I hope this was helpful!

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gracie-p8-officialblog · 5 years ago

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Spilling Tea On Phantom of the Opera 2004

DISCLAIMER: I just want to say from the start that it is not my intention to offendanyone, you're entitled to your opinions and I'm allowed to have mine...

Ok, so, I just watched this movie a few days ago on my laptop and it was pretty much my first time sitting through the movie. I watched a few clips of the movie on YouTube but... Then, I decided to watch the whole movie. And this was my reaction.

Don't get me wrong! There WERE parts I liked but... That was just half of the movie... But overall... Um... It was meh. Ahem. Down to business!

My opinion on Gerard Butler as the Phantom? Um, wow. And not in a good way. I feel like this was a case of a talented performer being grossly miscast as the Phantom. I think this Tumblr post best describes on what I thought of his singing.

"He's supposed to have the voice of an angel, but it sounds like he's been gargling vinegar" ~Quoted by @faded-florals

Don't get me wrong. His voice is quite good for an untrained singer but... The Phantom is one of the biggest musical theatre roles of all time! It's right up there with Jean Valjean. It's really not a role that could go a competent singer, someone who's never sang professionally before but could be good once they've been trained up a bit. The role demands a truly great singer... And he wasn't right for the part.

His voice felt too strainy, growly and rock-ish for the Phantom. I didn't like how Joel Schumacher bought into the whole "sexy Phantom" thing and cast a hunky heart-throb, who was nowhere near disfigured enough. It's meant to be a gothic thriller novel with a small romantic subplot, not a B-grade vampire romance movie!

As for Emmy Rossum as Miss Christine Daae... it's true, her voice is good. She should know though, should she wish to excel, she has MUCH still to learn (Heeeeehee. Sorry. Couldn't resist.)

Emmy's Christine had little-to-no character growth and personality but I don't think it reflects her as an actress, but reflects more on the director and casting director because of how young she was (but more on that later)

Not only that, her Christine was SIGNIFICANTLY dumbed down and oversexualized. I mean, the entire point of the story is that Christine grows strong enough to overcome the trauma of an abusive relationship and make sure that her abuser never hurts anyone ever again but still shows the Phantom compassion and sympathy. I mean, her story arc is her becoming strong-willed enough to overcome the Phantom's pull/spell/enchantment/hypnosis or whatever you percieve it as on her! And don't get me started on her costumes because of the SEVERE lack of modesty.

The chemistry was a little flat because she was underage and her two male love interests were both in their 30s (which totally isn't HER fault, of course, but the directors could easily have cast someone else older)

Her voice, too, strikes me as being much too young and undeveloped. She has a very pretty, sweet-sounding quality to her singing but she doesn't sound rich and operatic enough to be a convincing Christine. Rebecca Caine and Amy Manford do the best job of singing the way I think Christine ought to sound- a maturing opera voice! Though POTO is NOT an opera (you wouldn't believe how many people actually think it is...), it does revolve around opera, and Christine is an opera singer, not a pop star.

And now onto... Everyone's favourite vicomte!!!!!!

C'mon people, put your bottles down. It is a truth universally acknowledged (or at least in the wee Raoul Defense Squad Circle) that Raoul is one of the greatest and most underrated boyfriends to ever exist in musical theatre and it's almost impossible to hate him because of how relatable he is.

Ladies, puh-leeze. He's much more relatable than you admit and face it, we all have a little bit of Raoul in us. Failure to see things staring us in the face, saying or doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, having a 'see it to believe it' attitude when we have little-to-no evidence on something... yeah, don't pretend you don't see a trend. Raoul is relatable whether we want him to be or not.

My thoughts on Patrick Wilson as Raoul, he was one of the few redeeming qualities of this not so great movie. Yeah, the swordfight and Tarzan leaps were a little too much but can you blame him?! And though I feel like that foppish wig made him look more like a magic elf prince than a vicomte, he couldn't control that!

His Raoul was so gentle and caring! Yeah, his acting was a bit stiff but at least his voice wasn't a chore to listen to, it has this warm, tender, comforting quality to it which suits Raoul. I really loved the way he sang "Don't throw away your life for my sake" and "I fought so hard to free you" in the Final Lair (😭😭😭) It feels like Raoul is genuinely apologising to Christine.

I know, I know... The Hadley Fraser fans are approaching with menacing expressions as we speak but let me clarify. I still think Hadley is amazing but... His Raoul kinda felt a little too shouty for me and his Raoul was closer to the LND-canon than POTO-canon (not his fault though).

Miranda Richardson (aka. Rita Skeeter) as Madame Giry is kind of weird. I mean, I know Madame Giry's supposed to be a little Strange and Mysterious. But this Mme. wasn't really Strange or Mysterious at all, or even slightly Spooky at all. She was just kind of an oddball. Popping up in random places to give warnings about the Phantom and looking at people as if she were questioning their life choices or something. As for her daughter... well, Jennifer Ellison's Meg was so-so. She's got a sweet-sounding voice and that added scene where she looked for Christine in the lair was a nice touch... But... Her Meg was kinda forgettable and uninteresting. Meg is supposed to prance around shrieking that the Phantom of the Opera is here, not whisper it in a blase manner that you half expect to be followed up with, "by the way, what's for lunch?" Not to mention, she rivaled Christine as far as low-necked costumes went.

Minnie Driver as Carlotta was spot on! Yes, I know she didn't sing the score but her acting was alright. She was very over-the-top and self-centered, which is great for Carlotta, but I felt her portrayal was a little too childish to be accurate. Carlotta is a successful middle-aged diva who's willing to scream and storm when she doesn't get her way, but she isn't a two-year-old pouting and throwing tantrums. (Yes, there's a difference.)

Ciaran Hinds and Simon Callow played Firmin and Andre, respectively. Their managers kinda felt like twits and nothing more. Also, Firmin's masquerade costume was ridiculous. The stupid kind, not the funny kind. ...Well, okay, it was a little funny.

I'm not going to touch on every song here, but I will say that "Hannibal" was beyond awful (if you thought the costumes in the stage version were a bit risque, you should see the movie ones- no, actually you shouldn't) and that "Think of Me," while very nice, was not particularly memorable. Christine's dress, however (despite its less-than-ideal neckline) was GORGEOUS, even though it looks completely out of place in a musical that supposedly takes place in ancient Alexandria.

"Little Lotte" kinda lost its charm by being spoken instead of sung. And Gerard Butler's voice in "The Mirror" was too rough and raspy for my ears and made me cringe in sympathetic shame. The title song was like a cheesy, campy B-grade horror movie tbh, trying way too hard to be spooky and chilling ("ooh, look, Phantom's Lair! It's DARK and SCARY down here!") and succeeding only in being cringeworthy. Not that I've actually ever seen a bad horror movie- or any horror movie at all, for that matter. Unless you count this one.

Christine's costume, too, annoyed me no end. She was basically wearing a corset and drawers under the dressing gown. *facepalm* The dressing gown is supposed to go OVER your COSTUME to keep it CLEAN, peeps. It's not a BATHROBE. And the amount of eye makeup she had on would terrify a raccoon. Yikes.

Though I liked the random horse because of its nod to the Leroux novel.

"Music of the Night" was so blah-slash-touchy-feely that it made me summarily uncomfortable.

I'd like to be able to say something nice about "I remember/Stranger than you dreamt it" but I have none. One thing that bugged me to no end was how Christine is no longer wearing stockings, like dude, that gives some GROSS implications. Anyways, let's skip to Il Muto!

Oh, but first I should say that "Notes" was rather a flop and that "Prima Donna" is unmemorable and indeed should probably be fast-forwarded as there's a rather unsavory bit involving a crew member showing the audience what he thinks of Carlotta's behaviour.

"Il Muto," I must say, was pretty doggone funny. Carlotta's "Your part is silent. Leetle toad," cracked me up into a bunch of giggling little pieces, and the little vignette of the Phantom tinkering with Carlotta's throat spray made her croaking later on a lot more believable.

Now for "All I Ask Of You", SQUEEEEEE!!!!!!!!! I honestly can't understand how anyone could listen to this song and still maintain that Christine and Raoul don't belong together. He represents everything she needs- stability, protection, a guiding hand and affirmed affection. She represents everything he needs, in turn- someone to show affection to and his childhood friend.

One thing I definitely think could have been left out was the scene in which Erik kills Buquet- we totally did not need to see him being chased, terrified, through the rafters and finally strangled. Gross.

And the Phantom and his rose crouching behind that statue... I think this was supposed to be sad, but there was too much snot mixed with tears for it to be sad. It was, again, gross. So was Gerard Butler's pathetic attempt at the "all that the Phantom asked of you" line. And the lack of a chandelier crash in that scene made the song anticlimactic.

And "Masquerade" was so-so but... The Phantom's entrance is anticlimactic somehow, and his Red Death costume (if indeed it's supposed to even BE the Red Death) is unimpressive. I don't like how Raoul just runs off to desert Christine as soon as things start looking ugly (yes, I realize he was going to get his sword, but still... something could have happened to her while he was gone. Duh, did this guy learn anything from "Little Lotte/The Mirror"? Just sayin)

As for Madame Giry's flashback immediately following, I like how it gives us some of the Phantom's backstory, but it seems really abrupt. You don't even realize until she's done that she was talking to Raoul the whole time- it sounds like she's just randomly reminiscing about Stuff, and if you didn't know the story you might be sitting there thinking, "who is this strange woman again?"

Also, Christine leaving wherever-it-is at, like, five in the morning to go to who-knows-where, completely oblivious to the fact that the Phantom is driving her. Whaaaaaaaaa? How'd he know she was planning to go for a graveyard stroll? Was he watching her through the mirror again? THAT'S JUST CREEPY.

"Wishing You Were Somehow Here Again" was rather mediocre and dulled down the fact that it is a Christine Empowerment™ song. Why, exactly, does Christine's father have the biggest monument in the cemetery? If he were a rich and famous violinist as his crypt seems to suggest, why on earth was his daughter struggling along as a chorus girl taking free music lessons?

The swordfight... Well... I had mixed feelings about it. Sword fights are all well and good, but... The swordfight takes away the element of mysterious danger to the Phantom. Okay, fine, Christine getting Raoul to spare the Phantom's life is a nice touch, I guess, but did it strike no one else that his "now let it be war upon you BOTH" makes absolutely NO sense after that? If she just saved his life, why would he suddenly be all, "thanks, but no thanks, I'M GOING TO MURDER YOUUUUUUUUUU"?

And "Twisted Every Way" was after "Wishing" which made ZERO sense. Plus, I didn't like how they cut most of it because in the musical, it gave Christine a spine!

"Point of No Return"? Hooooooo boy....... There are so many things wrong with this number. Let's just a list a few.

*HOW did no one recognise the Phantom through his "disguise"?! At least in the stage play, it made more sense because of how he was wearing a cloak that obscured most of his body.

*Christine's sleeves falling down over and over again were REALLY annoying.

*It was just too touchy-feely for my taste.

*The fact that Emmy Rossum was a teenager during filming made this scene gross because of the way they oversexualized Christine in this scene.

*Gerard Butler's voice in that scene made me cringe and shake my head in sympathetic shame.

*In the stage play, Christine ran from him, showing her own agenda and resistance to his pull! While in the movie, she didn't resist him!

*Now for the one that took the cake... The disfigurement! Or it would be a disfigurement if it actually made him look, y'know, deformed. Instead, as several people have put it, he looks like he got a bad sunburn or something. It's really rather pathetic. It makes him look more like a drama queen than he already is! Yeah.... I really don't like this movie.

On to... Final Lair!!!!!!!! It was a flop. From Raoul's whining and flailing around and his stringy hair flopping about (shallow complaint, I know, but it's so ugly) to Christine's sappy melodramatic "don't make me choooooooose" faces to the Phantom's prancing around with his ropes and maniacal laughter that somehow wasn't really scary at all... yeah, it was a flop. A major, major flop. And though The Kiss wasn't all that bad, all I could think of was, "She's SIXTEEN! SIX! TEEN! THIS IS CREEPY, DISTURBING AND GROSS!"

Which is why it's so difficult for me to admit that, um, I... cried at the end.

I COULDN'T HELP IT GUYS HE WAS ALL ALONE THERE IN HIS LAKE WITH HIS MONKEY AND HIS SMASHED MIRRORS AND HE WAS CRYING AND IT WAS SAD.

And then that rose on the gravestone? That single red rose? And the look on Old Raoul's face (still Patrick Wilson, by the way, under all that makeup) when he saw it and realized he wasn't the only one visiting Christine's grave? Yup, I lost it again there, too. And I really didn't want to. Because I tend to cry over movies I love, y'know? And I didn't love this movie. At all

Yet I still cried at the end. I'm not really sure why. I think perhaps it had something to do with the way the story still "got" me, deep down inside, despite the lousy casting and less-than-perfect singing and ridiculously unnecessary elements that totally didn't need to be there. It's still a tragically beautiful romance, and even a bad film can't kill that.

In conclusion, I think Mary Poppins can best express what I thought of POTO 2004.

In conclusion, I rate it a 2.7/5

#Grace spills tea #grace speaks #poto 2004 #phantom of the opera musical #phantom of the opera #the phantom of the opera #Phantom of the opera 2004 #movie review #my reviews

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sanjuno · 6 years ago

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Rereading your gorgeous SM/KHR cross idea and wondering how it would go if they meet earlier? Maybe where Ikkuko realises her no-good brother has a wife & kid and decides Nana needs to know what he has gotten her into? I just think babyTsuna needs more support and two cousin & extended guardians & friends would be amazing. Especially if Tsuna's first flame use is discovered/understood in the magic framework - Tsuna magically willing together an outfit & catchphases because that is what you do ;)

… Oh. Oh, my gods that would be glorious. Let me see, let me see… ok.

So it would have to diverge right around when Chibiusa shows up, because that’s the first time Usagi having relatives outside her household is brought into the narrative. So Usagi, having seen Chibiusa brainwash her parents and brother goes off about not having any cousins. Except oh dear Ikkuko has a good-for-nothing criminal for a little brother. Usagi is furious and also curious and it all cumulates in 12 year old Tsuna getting a surprise visit from his relatives and his “little sister”.

Tsuna doesn’t have a little sister! Cue the screaming and the panic (from Tsuna) and intent interest (from Usagi and Luna), because Tsuna’s seal may be fundamentally horrible but it does have a nice side effect of keeping his Flames and mind safe from outside tampering.

Shingo, being the naturally suspicious brat that he is, twigs to something being wrong because his cousin keeps insisting that he’s an only child. Tsuna’s protests about Chibiusa make more of an impact on Shingo because Tsuna is a new presence in the family and therefore Tsuna’s shrieks are not automatically dismissed as jealousy the way “stupid Usagi’s” dramatics were. Which all leads to Shingo and Tsuna investigating the discrepancy in Shingo’s memories and accidentally discovering that Usagi is Sailor Moon in the process.

Tsuna and Shingo are targeted by and/or get caught up in a Black Moon plot shortly after they discover that Usagi is a Magical Girl. Usagi panics when she finds her cousin and her little brother critically injured and/or brainwashed by the enemy and Moon Crystal Heals them both at the same time.

Tsuna’s seal disintegrates.

Tsuna and Shingo promptly burst into Sky Flames that contain a hefty degree of prismatic rainbow glitter.

Usagi panics more.

The boys are not any calmer.

Tsuna flash-crystalizes a tree. Shingo turns a garden gate into a portal that dumps all three of them into the throne room of the Moon Palace.

Praise be to the All-Seeing Void for the Palace AI that Queen Serenity left behind, because none of these flailing morons are calm enough to take the Sudden Magical Awakening with any grace. The AI directs them to a testing chamber where they can find out who the boys Patrons are. Shingo is a Knight of Janus (with power over doorways, beginnings, and ends), and Tsuna is a Knight of Sancus (with power over loyalty, honesty, and oaths). Usagi finally manages to regain coherency and explains the history of the Silver Millennium and also why they’re all magic.

Assumptions are made.

Assumptions like Usagi’s Lunar Inheritance cross contaminating her younger relatives through their blood connection. None of them have any idea of the Flames being anything except for Magic as a result of post-apocalypse reincarnation. Usagi drops her transformation and tries to do the glowing-without-tranforming fully thing she saw the boys do.

Her clothes shred apart under the force of White Sky Flames. Cue more shrieking. Usagi promptly summons up the ribbons and forms her Senshi uniform. Then she makes the boys swear themselves to secrecy. The boys agree because it’s not as if their clothes fared any better.

Shingo has a few moments of disassociation as he reconciles his flighty big sister with his hero Sailor Moon. Tsuna is having a small moment of panic over the idea of fighting demons by moonlight. Then Usagi gives the boys a crash-course in accessing their magical powers because they’re suck on the moon until Shingo can control his portals enough to get them home.

Thankfully, not only does the eventual transformation provide a semi-coherent users manual for their magic powers, but dropping the transformation restores their clothing to an undamaged state.

They do eventually make it back home. Whereupon they are hustled off by the rest of the Senshi for a debrief and also a rather frantic health check. Because Shingo and Tsuna are magic now and what theeeeeee ever-loving hell how did this happen?

Background to the hysterics of the Lunar Royal Shenanigans, Ikkuko has been getting to know Nana and has a 10 pound cast-iron skillet with her stupid little brother’s name on it. Kenji is prudently hiding behind his newspaper when his wife’s vindictive muttering about no-good deadbeat shames on the family name start rising in volume.

Mamoru avoids making an ass of himself because his fiancées family drama has been distracting him from his nightmares. Also the reality of Shingo and Tsuna waking up their Magic Powers is a huge, glaring difference from the “visions” Mamoru is being sent that he’s rightfully suspicious of how accurate they could really be.

Chibiusa is less likely to run wild or act out because her little trick on the Tsukino’s has gotten wildly out of hand and she’s worried it’ll get worse if she tries to correct it. However, Chibiusa’s initial relationship with Usagi is also a great deal better than it was in canon because Usagi has been so preoccupied with meeting and getting to know Tsuna and Nana that she has less energy to spare for getting worked up about Chibiusa being around, and also because Mamoru isn’t avoiding her Usagi isn’t displacing her resentment about that onto Chibiusa either.

So as soon as Usagi catches on to the fact that Chibiusa is the target of the Black Moon plots Usagi’s instinctive protectiveness of her secret future daughter ramps all the way up because of course Usagi has Hyper Intuition too and the Vongola Tri-Ni-Sette gift is being able to look up and down your current timeline. And so. The Lunar Royals close ranks with all due speed, and Chibiusa is accepted and welcomed with an understanding of her reasons for the brainwashing that took a lot longer to reach in canon.

The Dark Moon Clan get their asses Royally kicked. Pun intended.

The trip to Crystal Tokyo ends the arc, and Pluto is hella confused by the Knights of Janus and Sancus. This isssss… wrong. She doesn’t know where she went wrong but things definitely went wrong somewhere. Oh dear.

Also Neo-Queen Serenity doesn’t remember meeting Chibiusa as a teenager. That should be telling but it’s overlooooooked. XD

Tsuna goes back to Namimori, secure in the knowledge that he has his relatives to support him even if he’s still “dame-Tsuna”. Shingo gets regular practice making portals between Juuban and Namimori because Usagi may whine and complain about it herself but like hell is she letting her little brother and baby cousin get away with being undertrained. There’s no telling when the next Enemy will show up.

Chibiusa comes back for Senshi training, and is doted on by her mother’s past self and her father’s past self and her two Uncles.

Chibiusa treasures her time with Shingo and Tsuna, because they’re weren’t there in Crystal Tokyo and Chibiusa is terrified of what that means. She’s hoping that they just didn’t have a Lunarian lifespan in her original timeline. She’s hoping that with their magic having woken up because of the changes Chibiusa’s presence made to the timeline that they’ll live to see the future Chibiusa comes from.

Chibiusa hopes, but there is a corner of her mind that is expecting the worst. Because Chibiusa is 900 years old and she didn’t know her mother had a little brother until she travelled to the past.

This is where KHR canon comes into play, because KHR introduces the concept of multiple timelines and dimensions as being related to but inherently separated from one another. Chibiusa didn’t travel to the past of her timeline, but to the past of a similar timeline. Chibiusa bringing up Usagi having a cousin changed the timeline. Even Pluto is clueless about the consequences of this. It’s fabulous. ^_^

The Mistress 9 and the search for the Holy Grail thing happens. Everybody gets their power-ups, and the Outer Senshi learn to Believe In The Power Of Love or else. Sailor Moon in Hyper Dying Will Mode is a thing of beauty and existential terror.

Due to the teeny-tiny fact that his seal is gone and all the damage it caused to his psyche has been magically bandaged by Usagi’s healing power, Tsuna is recovering from his trauma much faster than he did in canon. Not having Reborn sitting around to snipe at him for shits and giggles helps. Of course, Tsuna being Tsuna and a Sky and also a member of the Lunarian Royal Family means that he’s started tripping over his Inner Court with truly ridiculous frequency. This goes on for about a year but the relationships in question change very slowly due to Tsuna disappearing to be with his cousins whenever he’s not supposed to be at school.

But! Before anything can actually get resolved we have Reborn show up! Yay! ^_^

And now the KHR Daily Life arc is running congruent to the SM Dread Moon Circus events and it’s a mad banquet of chaos. Reborn is caught wrong-footed more often than he’s comfortable with. The fact that when Tsuna gets shot with the Dying Will Bullet he ends up wearing a sliver-embroidered version of Primo’s suit, complete with cape, is a mystery that Reborn is still trying to figure out.

But hey, at least Tsuna is actively recruiting his Guardians. That’s nice to see.

Tsuna called Usagi on the communicator to wail hysterically about being a Mafia Heir and they took him to the moon so he could hyperventilate in peace for a while. It helped a lot with coming to terms with the situation. Usagi has rightfully pointed out that Ikkuko’s tendency to snarl about Iemitsu makes a lot of sense if she knew her brother was a criminal. So yeah.

Usagi and Shingo stay well away from Namimori at Tsuna’s request. The last thing he wants to see is Reborn’s reaction to more of Primo’s descendants being of trainable age. Luckily Nana’s belief that Chibiusa is her daughter is conditional to Nana speaking to Chibiusa within the last 24 hours. Otherwise she doesn’t recall Chibiusa at all. Which means Reborn has no idea that Tsuna has cousins and a niece living nearby.

Tsuna and Shingo being part of the battles creates an opening for Tigereye, Fisheye, and Hawkeye to get flipped and because Endimiyon is paying more attention this time around the Prince of Earth takes them into his court. So during the “leeching life from the Earth causes Mamoru to fall into a malaise” drama, there’s someone else there to see the ghosts of the Shitennou trying their best to comfort their Prince.

Which naturally spawns a whole other side plot about Mamoru learning to use the Golden Crystal properly so he can pull one of Usagi’s tricks and resurrect his Court. This will, of course, eventually succeed because I like the Shitennou and I think they deserved better than what they got in canon.

Nehellenia gets smashed at around the same time the Ring battles are announced. The confrontations with Squalo and Leviathan happen, and Tsuna panics because there are Mafia Assassins coming for his Court and Tsuna isn’t the member of his family with enough raw power to raise the dead by resetting the entire planetary timeline back by a year.

So Tsuna may just enlist Shingo’s help to abduct all of his Guardians and associated family members because panic and Lunarian protective instincts are not a pretty combination. The Namimori 10th Gen Crew stares blankly at the lovely view of North America offered from the balcony of the Moon Palace as Shingo pats Tsuna’s back and reassures him that “Aneki sent Mama to deal with the Family Shame so it should be safe to go home in a few days”.

Usagi blows in, radiating enough enraged Sky Flames to put even Hibari on his ass and promptly squashes Tsuna in a hug as she promises to be there and turn anyone who wants to hurt her “cute fluffy baby cousin” into dust. Fite her. Usagi dares you.

The news from Tsuna that the Mafia had discovered magic inherited from Silver Millennium citizens being reincarnated on Earth shook the Senshi up and they’re a lot more aggressive about their Guardianship of the Sol System then they were in canon. Also they are planning a massive social reform because do you have any idea how useful more magic users would be when the Enemy comes knocking? Even just having Shingo and Tsuna to help with the fights has caused significant changes to how quickly and successfully the Senshi were able to deal with various threats ever since Chibiusa first popped into the timeline.

So yeah, Tsuna has been funnelling everything he learned about how the Flame Mafia works back to Usagi and her Court so they can figure out how useful they’re going to be when it comes to reestablishing the Sol Kingdom. Having Tsuna’s new Court get killed off by professional assassins before they start working on that was not in the plan.

Something along the lines of the following conversation happens:

“Jyuudaime is a UMA?”

“I’m a Lunarian.”

“You’re an alien!”

“And you are probably a Martian, Hayato! Who cares!”

Then the Senshi drag everyone off for a training montage that starts with learning how to complete a transformation because trying to channel Celestial Power through a squishy baseline non-magical human body is just asking for trouble. It’s a large part of why so many Flame Actives die young. They burn out because they keep getting halfway through the process and then they get stuck.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Reborn is watching Iemitsu get his head caved in by a very pretty woman with Flames in her eyes and the type of voice projection that is unique to mothers and opera singers. Reborn would be more concerned about his dame student disappearing with his fledgling Famiglia so suddenly, except Ikkuko has made it very clear that she’s taken her nephew into her house until her horrible no good deadbeat criminal brother has left and taken his horrible no good wastrel criminal influence away from her sweet kind nephew.

So there, you drunken layabout shame on the family name.

Ikkuko flounces off, leaving Iemitsu heavily concussed and buried under about three kitchens worth of cast iron pans. Reborn doesn’t quite react fast enough to catch the Varia spy that was hanging around, but hopefully Xanxus has enough honour left to leave Ikkuko’s kids alone until after things are decided with Tsuna.

Of course, Reborn doesn’t need to worry about that because Usagi and Shingo are mysteriously nowhere to be found. Just like Tsuna and company are mysteriously nowhere to be found. How very mysterious. ^_^

The Ring Battles happen on far more even grounds, given that the Senshi have made the magic happen when it comes to the 10th Gen Guardians being able to use their Flames and associated Powers. It still comes down to the Sky Battle though, because drama. Tsuna looks at Xanxus from close range for the first time and oh.

So that’s where Chibiusa got her eyes.

Instead of Zero Point, Xanxus gets a face full of Moon Healing, complete with the mind melding memory sharing BELIEVE IN THE POWER OF LOVE blasting mystical heart-to-heart that brought Chibiusa back from the corruption of Wiseman’s Black Lady. There is so much glitter. Glitter everywhere. The Varia have no fucking clue what just happened. The CEDEF have no fucking clue what just happened. The attendant Arcobaleno have excellent poker faces but? They have no fucking clue what just happened.

The ghost of Primo and Secondo make guest appearances during Tsuna and Xanxus’ heart to heart. The most bedazzled of family feuds took place within the span of about 6 seconds. The fight ends. Xanxus spits out sparkles and concedes the Sky Ring to Tsuna.

Tsuna cackles, because he recognizes the Ring as being blood locked to his direct lineage and instinctively knows that the Ring is the best possible Channel for his powers. The Vongola Rings are gathered up and dropped on Luna and Artemis with polite requests that they study them and then fine tune or upgrade the Rings to match with Sol Kingdom expectations of Magic Foci.

The 10YL Arc is immediately derailed because Tsuna has experience with time travel to possible futures and he recognizes that they aren’t in their natural timeline anymore because the 10YL Tsuna didn’t have Usagi waiting in the wings to wreak holy righteous vengeance in response to his assassination.

Byakuran was not expecting to get lectured and then turned into a pile of glitter dust. No he was not.

The Sailor Stars have a lot more trouble dismissing the Senshi as childish and naive thanks to the Mafia politicking the Senshi have since been exposed to. Also, thanks to said Mafia information network, Usagi is informed of Mamoru’s death within hours of the plane exploding. Seiya’s attempts to charm Usagi are subsequently rejected without mercy because instead of feeling neglected by her boyfriend Usagi is in mourning.

The Galaxy Cauldron thing occurs with far less waffling around.

Then the Arcobaleno Trails happen, and Kawahira was not expecting the Crown Princess Serenity to show up and rip him a new one for being a jerk. Between the Silver and the Gold Crystals the Arcobaleno Curse is broken, the Vindice all get healed of their hatred and are living people again, and Kawahira gets put in time out on the Moon for being a jackass.

Mamoru and his Generals take point on dealing with Enma and the Simon because they are Earth Flame users and even before most of the life in the Sol System got wiped out Earth Mages were vanishingly rare. I mean, he knows now that the sharp decline in Earth’s magic-capable population was because of Metallica sneaking around and abducting them, but back at the time it was just an accepted fact that most Earth Born just didn’t have magic. Only now there’s this Mafia Family that does and given how Usage’s situation worked out Mamoru has suspicions.

Especially given how Mamoru was orphaned in a car crash and there was very little information available to be found on the “Chiba” family. Can we all say “cover up”?

Rei sticks an ofuuda on Daemon and exorcises him with extreme prejudice.

Mamoru and Usagi get married and the slow buildup to the creation of Crystal Tokyo begins.

The End. ^_^

#Sanjuno talks back #KHR x SM #music of the spheres #music of the spheres AU #magical knight Tsuna #Mafia Princess Usagi #fic I haven't written yet

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