#She even kept her moral compass and asked the group not to kill them

[percable]

Nat went from being having the worst, most traumatic day of her life to locking tf in so they could find the frog researchers is so awesome to me. Like yeah she just mercy killed and carved of the remains of her father figure, but she activated like a sleeper agent when it was time to hunt??? I love her sm.

[wingedshadowfan]

⚠️arcane s2 spoilers⚠️

i just saw someone say "vi put on a uniform for caitlyn but caitlyn never took hers off", even going as far as saying that caitvi shouldn't have ended up together bcuz they have the dynamic of "oppressor and oppressed". tell me you've never paid attention to a single thing caitlyn's done or said in either season without telling me😭😭 (this is my nth post abt this bcuz it pisses me off when ppl mischaracterize her so when you see underlined text, it's linked to a more detailed post)

are we forgetting when she traded her weapon, her gun, her only protection away for a shimmer/medication/potion thing w/ that fucked up undercity dude with the glasses (the one who became the first of the glorious evolution) for vi and hugged him as thanks?

when she saw ekko's commune, his tree, and validated ekko's feelings about piltover and enforcers but also told him the cycle of violence needs to be broken because the undercity needs healing - something ekko could understand even in his anger and hurt.

when she confronted her own parents abt how the government doesn't care about zaun and the situation there, and then took it straight to the council. when jayce, her literal childhood best friend and basically a brother to her, now a councilor, ASKED HER IF SHE KNOWS WHO MADE ONE OF JINX'S BOMBS AND SHE WENT "no, well, uh-" because vi held her hand. she asked him, in front of everyone, "what happened to you" when he suggested using hextech to invade zaun.

even when vi got sick of trying to change things through the council, caitlyn kept telling her there must be another way and they just needed to make a new plan. oil and water, vi said, and that she was stupid to think it would work, but caitlyn's response was, what about us? what about the actual people, not their value as representatives of a group, a stereotype, one of many indistinguishable units? we aren't oil and water.

ppl say she used to view zaunites as just "creeps, crooks and villains" and after seeing more from them through vi, she changed it to "innocent helpless victims", which obv is dehumanizing since you don't recognize a person's capability for both good and evil and only see them as a stereotype. but she's always recognized both kinds of people exist in the undercity and that being "good" or "bad" isn't that simple. ppl seem to be mad she didn't try and dismantle piltover's entire police force like that would be possible or a solution to zaun's problems. she has a strong moral compass and a sense of justice - innocents should be protected and criminals prosecuted, zaunites or topsiders. if you steal, you should go to jail. but when you come from the dark alleys of zaun and poverty and deprivation is all you know, you're way more likely to steal, and when enforcers are prejudiced against you, you're more likely to face excessive violence and maybe serve a longer sentence. and this is why she tells the council that there are good people down there, that there is rampant poverty, famine, a drug problem, etc. her focus is on the daily humanitarian struggles of the average people.

you guys will twist yourselves in knots to make excuses for jinx, justify her actions and forgive her for what she's done (when she literally, aside from murdering a bunch of people and destroying a fuckton of stuff because she was insane, unstable and uncontrollable, literally directly prevented zaun from getting sovereignty by blowing up the council) but you don't recognize caitlyn's entire change in character started when jinx tried to blow her up multiple times, kidnapped her, tried to get vi to kill her, blew up the council killing her mother and then (this wasn't jinx but caitlyn doesn't know that) turned the councilor memorial statue reveal to a massacre. see: this very accurate post.

"caitlyn never took her uniform off" well maybe because she was scared of jinx, paranoid, angry, grieving her mother, seeking justice and buckling under the pressure of becoming head of house kiramman. perfectly normal reactions considering the circumstances. she even acknowledged to jayce how upsetting it was to realize this hate she harbored for jinx had started to undo a lot of the work she did towards understanding the undercity and zaunites better and seeking to help them. but i believe she thought jinx was a hazard to them too.

i have a whole other post diving into this, as well as why she wanted vi to "put on a uniform" (temporarily until they caught jinx, and not just bcuz she thought vi was "one of the good ones" but bcuz she wanted her close, under her protection and equipped w/ all resources and privileges available to piltover, not to mention ppl are seriously undermining the fact that vi played a role in that conflict too) and why she made the mistake of going too far in her pursuit of jinx - most notably becoming rougher and jailing people, poisoning the air as a battle tactic, endangering isha, hurting vi, assuming the commander position and pursuing jinx even harder. but this post isn't about that, it's about other ways in which she metaphorically took off her uniform, and even the way she wore it.

caitlyn wasn't happy as a commander, she wasn't going on a power trip, she didn't "become a dictator all too willingly" like ppl are saying. and yes, that doesn't mitigate the damage she did to zaun but she had clear goals she was pursuing, none of which involved harming innocents (but protecting them), and she even confronted ambessa when she thought her right hand was out of line, which caused tension between them. though blinded by a desire for revenge, she remained concerned with the undercity's state and realized ambessa was manipulating her, even saying something like "why is peace always a justification for violence?" to her. the cost of what she was doing was too much for her. all things considered, commander caitlyn wore her uniform in the best possible way.

and she took it off as soon as she saw what was on the line. vi's father turned monster would go berserk when injected by singed, innocents would be ripped to shreds, and he'd be captured and used as a weapon by ambessa (against the undercity or whomever). for all of these reasons, caitlyn betrayed ambessa. she double crossed her, and the way she acted it out matters, not just because vi, who she'd decked the last time she saw, called her "cupcake". but because it was the right fucking thing to do.

i have a separate post about caitlyn's implied guilt about the things she'd done, about her knowing she couldn't undo those mistakes. this is what made her so desparate to try to make up for them that she not only send the guards away so vi could free jinx (another brilliant analysis here), but it also resulted in the way she fought ambessa tooth and nail alongside mel - like she had a death wish. she, a sniper, sacrificed her eye so she could remove ambessa's talisman by cutting it free with the dagger she took out of her own side. and even in the very end, when she asks vi if she's still in this fight, it could be interpreted as the fight for zaun too since she gave sevika, a zaunite, an ally of jinx, her mother's councilor seat.

so don't fucking talk to me about how she "never took her uniform off" for vi, when she's done that so many times metaphorically (and their last scene is literally one of the very few in the entire show where she isn't wearing any insignia), and she's done it for zaun too. and maybe even more so than that - it's how she wore it that matters. what she did with her privilege and her power - her character and agency.

season two is at fault for mismanaging the piltover/zaun conflict and not focusing on it enough in its latter half, as well as also not showing any proper longer caitvi conversations that might've taken place, in favor of... glorious evolution alien robots??

[seriousbrat]

hi, i’m the anon who sent you an ask about james and i’ve now seen your answer (also, thank you for your time).

first off, not trusting remus and sirius who are trying to keep a good image of their dead best friend they so dearly loved to harry, an orphan child, is completely reasonable. if it wasn’t for harry’s curiosity we would’ve never even known that james was a bully because sirius and lupin weren’t going to tell him, which is also pretty reasonable, who would?

dumbledore making james head boy doesn’t prove all that much seeing as james hid the fact that he kept bullying snape. obviously for him to become head boy there must’ve been some changes but if we’re still told he didn’t stop bullying snape it means that he didn’t change on that aspect.

saying that “if lily started dating james then it means he must’ve changed” is a bit weird to me (even if i’m sure you had good intentions, most people just make lily the moral compass when she’s not) because lily can date not-completely-good people (one example is her being friends with snape even when he was a wannabe death eater) but i’ll bite. lily didn’t know james didn’t stop with his bullying and i don’t think james didn’t change *at all* i can believe that he must’ve deflated his head, he was part of an underground resistance group that was helping people like her, and what i want to say is, he did some good so lily might’ve just not cared that he was bullying her ex best friend who was about to join a cult whose members wanted to kill people like her (that, if she knew about it).

i do agree that snape had an aggressive side and i completely agree with the fact that he didn’t take james’ bullying lying down. but is that really a flaw? james bullied him mercilessly for years, he is allowed to respond (obviously snape has exaggerated, especially with his spells for the marauders and he’s not a role model but I’m saying this keeping in mind that this is a wizards franchise and snape isn’t supposed to be a good person) but i really really don’t think that snape hexing james is a bad thing seeing what james did to him and seeing that we know he never stopped. (i may be biased with this as i was bullied myself, you tell me😅)

i want to conclude this all by saying that i’m not angry at you for liking james and i don’t want to come off that way because at the end of the day this is harry potter we’re talking about! i just really enjoy having these discussions, hope you have a great day!

Tbh I don't really understand what point you're trying to make here! "James changed but not as much as he could have" or "James didn't become a perfect guy"? Ok, I agree completely. He still did bad things, just like Snape did, and he still had growing up to do. Like I'm not sure what we're debating here haha, because we both seem to agree that he DID change even if that change wasn't a total instant reversal of his entire character. it wouldn't be realistic if it was.

I've also never said Sev attacking James isn't understandable. It is understandable and I think I've said a few times that I support him lmao. The reason I mention it is that it lends weight to the idea that the dynamic between them was different during 7th year. It didn't become perfect; James didn't suddenly start acting like a flawless paragon of righteousness and restraint, and he certainly didn't become the victim, but it's also incorrect to act like James never changed his behaviour towards Snape at all. It went from large scale public humiliations to one-on-one conflicts that weren't generally known about. That IS a difference in and of itself, even though it's still shitty behaviour from James.

While I have a lot of sympathy for Snape in general, this is also the year where he was fully planning on joining the Death Eaters, meaning he was an active threat to Muggleborn students. Attacking James was really like... the least bad thing he was doing imo haha. I don't bring up Snape's aggressive side in order to paint James as a victim, I bring it up because I think it's proof that their 7th year dynamic wasn't as simple as "James maliciously targeting poor terrified baby Snape in secret," the way some people make it out to be. It doesn't mean that James's past role as the sole aggressor wasn't still a factor or that James wasn't in the wrong.

re: Lily, again I don't totally disagree, although personally I think James dedicating his life to a resistance group at the age of 18 is more than just "some" good. You said it yourself, he clearly did change. While the way I see Lily I don't think she would have tolerated anything like SWM, we know this wasn't happening. If she only dated perfect people she wouldn't have dated James, that's obvious. It's not that she's a moral compass, it's that she hated him and then didn't, but all this proves is that a teenage boy grew up somewhat, as they do. And I think that's all I've ever said lmao.

You're allowed to not like James, as clearly you do not, and you don't need to justify it to me or anyone. I'm glad to hear you're not angry at me haha but it does seem that it's a bit personal for you, meaning he'll probably never be a character you'll like. That's totally fine, and I get it, but I still like him and I don't think its really that unreasonable for me or others to like him, at all. He's very, VERY far from the worst character I like. Apart from that it doesn't really seem like we totally disagree so I just don't really understand where the debate is!

Hope you have a great day also!

[jedi-enthusiasm-blog]

@ilovescarletwitch

My blog's name is Jedi Enthusiasm. All my posts are tagged pro jedi, pro jedi order, or Jedi appreciation. I speak constantly about how much I love the Jedi. I have written essays about how much I love the Jedi.

You are clearly a Jedi anti, or at least Jedi critical. So why on earth are you reblogging my post to throw shit about the Jedi?

I'm gonna ignore the shit about Anakin because people have already written essays about him and his relationship to the Jedi better than I ever could, so I'm gonna say this:

Mandalorians adopting orphans and rescuing children from dangerous situations? Mandalorians being honorable and accepting of their children no matter what? Mandalorians considering children sacred/the future?

We. Made. That. Shit. Up.

Canonically, Mandalore is undergoing reforms because they nearly destroyed their own planet.

Canonically, the Death Watch (which is the closest thing we have to fanon Mandalore) are terrorists.

Canonically, the Prime Minister poisons children.

Canonically, Mandalorians support the Empire until it comes for them.

Canonically, Mandalorians steal a peacekeeper's sacred weapon, the darksaber (because yes, Tarre Vizla was a Jedi), and use it as a sign of power and military violence.

Canonically, the only Mandalorian who actually opposes the Empire out of moral principles instead of convinience is Sabine. Sabine, who is a cultural rebel and has a Jedi as a father figure.

Canonically, Sabine feels alien in her own Clan because she doesn't support the Empire and doesn't fit the mold.

Canonically, all prominent Mandalorians are villains save Satine, her allies and Sabine.

Canonically, the Jedi are drafted into the Clone Wars, which they fight in despite everything to protect innocent people.

Canonically, the Jedi are the only ones to respect the clones' individuality and sapience.

Canonically, many Jedi put themselves in the line of fire to protect clones and civilians alike.

Canonically, Jedi are hunted down like animals.

Canonically, the Jedi are getting caught in a trap designed specifically for them by their ancient enemies.

Canonically, "the Jedi Code is like an itch, they cannot help it" and "their compassion leaves a trail."

Canonically, Jedi refer to each other as family (Obi-Wan tells Anakin he was his brother, Aayla compares Quinlan to her father, Ahsoka calls Sinube 'gramps', Reva calls the Jedi her family…) and act like it (Obi-Wan feels safe asking Mace Windu and Yoda for advice in AOTC despite him being a Knight, Plo Koon is known out-of-universe for being approachable, Anakin is on a first name basis with several Council members and jokes around with them…)

Canonically, the Jedi actively fought the rise of the Empire to the bitter end (Mace Windu and the rest of the Jedi killed by Palpatine), and many kept on fighting even after their near-extinction (Kanan, Cal, Cere…)

Canonically, the Jedi are very accepting of other cultures (several characters have cultural tattoos, Ahsoka and Shaak Ti wear a cultural headdress, many have accents which implies Basic isn't their first language, other characters don't speak Basic at all…)

Canonically, the Jedi fought and destroyed a slaver empire.

Canonically, the Jedi are kind, compassionate people who do their best to protect the people of the Republic.

There are no interpretations here. Zero. All of this is canon, it's all on screen.

If you knew nothing of Star Wars and had to decide which group were child stealers, who would you think it is?

Anyways, enjoy the block. One anti sneaking into my blog to spew bullshit is one too many.

When a Jedi takes in a child, it's kidnapping. But when a Mandalorian does it, it's a foundling.

[soulmate-game]

Useful Part 2

fluff with a little hurt and comfort. If you want answers as to the lack of angst, look through my recent posts for an explanation. 

—* — * — * —* —* 

“Wait, you have a WHAT?” were the first words that the rest of the Gotham-based vigilantes heard when they finally were able to track down where Damian had gone. Dick looked over at Bruce, who was noticeably tense. No surprise there, the man had just found out that he had a second biological child. One who was apparently a superhero already, without his intervention, and also apparently had a tragic background in the League of fucking Assassin Assholes. Not to mention that Damian’s track record with meeting siblings wasn’t great, even if this one wasn’t actually new to him. Nobody had any real fear of Damian relapsing on his no-kill rule, they knew he had matured far too much to be at risk of killing for something as immature as sibling rivalry anymore. 

But there was still fear. Because this new Wayne was an Unknown Factor, and as a rule the Bats hated Unknown Factors. And they had no idea what the relationship between the two had been before they had been separated, or what it would become now. 

“That wasn’t Damian’s voice,” Dick helpfully pointed out the obvious. Bruce only frowned, doing his best (and failing) to hide his anxiety about what they would find. Silently, the group inched forward to the edge of the abandoned building they were on top of so that they could look over at what was happening. What they saw was a girl, presumably the same one who had been in a ladybug onesie and had fearlessly begun to ask them to leave Paris— until she had laid proper eyes on Robin and fled, that was. That girl was sitting down next to an unmasked Damian, who had his arm around her shoulders and let her lean into his side. He even smirked cheerfully at her question before continuing to speak to her. 

“A dragon-bat. I knew you’d love hearing about him, I’ll introduce you when you come visit the Batcave. His name is Goliath,” Damian admitted smugly. Despite the familiar attitude and pride behind his words though, his spying family couldn’t help but notice that he kept periodically rubbing the girl’s (they really needed to find out her name) shoulder in reassurance. None of them missed the tear tracks on both of their faces, or how red the girl’s eyes were. Clearly they had missed something big. 

But nobody wanted to try to figure that out yet. This scene was too precious, too breathtaking for them to interrupt just yet. They had never seen Damian this vulnerable around someone outside of their little circle before, someone from the Time Before Bruce, no less. Most of the time, only Nightwing was able to see this side to Damian. And usually the roles were reversed, with Damian being the one consoled. They had never seen him in the position of the comforter before. The pillar of support. 

It really cemented just how far he had come. 

So they watched silently as the girl flinched, pulling away a bit and hunching in on herself. The laugh she let out was small and overflowing with self-degradation. 

“You make it sound as if the rest of your family actually wants me to visit,” she replied sourly. Damian gently cuffed her over the head, frowning. 

“Two things,” he held up two fingers from his free hand. “One: They will. They accepted me, and I was— well, you remember how I used to be. Once they actually meet you, and process the fact that there’s another Wayne now, they will bombard you with more welcoming than you will know what to do with. Two: It’s Our family, Marinette. Not mine, ours.”

Well, at least they had a name now. But it seems like they had bigger issues now, like Marinette’s clearly damaged sense of self. Jason and Tim traded knowing glances; it wasn’t hard for them to guess where, or how, she might have been damaged enough to think so lowly of herself. 

They watched as Marinette shook her head. 

“I don’t know. It’s one thing to try to… to get to know you again. We used to be close before… everything,” she haltingly argued, voice small and frail and uncertain. But she never once looked away from Damian’s eyes, trying to convey as best as she could what she was feeling. “But they’re different. They don’t have any reason to trust or like me, Dami. And I’m bad at, well everything, but especially,” she waved her hands frantically as if indicating the whole situation they were in. “I mean, listen to me! I can barely articulate right now, and I’m talking to someone I’ve known my whole life! I’m a mess. Nobody wants a mess.” 

It was Damian’s turn to snort, and he pulled her right back into his side. “Please. If anything, that’s exactly the type of child Father goes looking for. We’re all a mess. Especially Father, trust me.” 

“You’re just trying to make me feel better,” she accused suspiciously, but sank into his sideways embrace anyway. Damian chuckled. 

“No, I’m being honest. He’s terrible at emotions, not that I really have much room to talk. We all are pretty bad with them. But he’s the most obvious when it comes to that issue,” Damian smirked over at his sister conspiratorially. “For example. He still tries to tell people that he works alone, and pushes people away because he has this intense desire to protect, but doesn’t know how to say “I don’t want you to get hurt, stop worrying me,” so instead he says “Go away, I don’t need you,” only for us to see through that nonsense and remind him that the amount of people in his team is in the double digits already. He doesn’t want to admit he cares about us and is vulnerable—”

“Sounds familiar,” Marinette teased with a watery grin, startling a short laugh from her twin. He nudged her a little roughly (but not to roughly) and playfully glared at her. Marinette just giggled.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he lied with a grin before waving his free hand in dismissal. “Anyway. Another example. He has no idea how to tell a stranger, “hey, I’m your father and I will not reject you. In fact, I’m completely willing to adopt you right this moment and whisk you away to Gotham and relative safety and hire an entire team of therapists to help you and buy you half the world if you asked for it,” so instead he and the rest of our emotionally constipated family just lurks on the edge of a building in broad daylight eavesdropping on us and expects us not to notice.” 

“Wait what,” Marinette’s gaze instantly whipped up towards the sky, taking only half a second to locate the aforementioned eavesdroppers. Everyone except Bruce at least had the courtesy to duck down and pretend not to be there when they noticed she had seen them, leaving Batman standing seemingly alone on the concrete roof. Marinette blinked once. Twice. Then turned to Damian. “I’m gonna blame the fact that I didn’t notice them on emotional turmoil, because there is no way I’ve gotten THAT rusty.” 

Damian smiled, but didn’t laugh. He knew that was a deflection to try and distract from Marinette’s quickly resurging self-consciousness. Her hands were already trembling again, and the fear from only minutes ago had resurfaced. The insecurity. He could practically see the words “I’m not good enough,” written in her irises. 

“You’ll be fine,” he whispered, standing up and pulling her with him. “If anyone has to worry here, it’s me.” 

“What the hell are you talking about?” Marinette whisper-hissed right back, eyes wide in disbelief and confusion. “You’re— You! Mister Perfect!” 

Damian rolled his eyes, and his self-deprecating smirk matched the laugh Marinette had given just a few minutes earlier. “For the League, maybe,” he shrugged. “Never the Wayne family. Which is why I know you’ll be fine. If they put up with everything I’ve done and still call me one of them, they’ll accept you with barely a second thought.” 

Marinette’s next argument was cut off by the sound of a dozen soft footfalls stirring up dirt not far ahead of them. The BatClan had landed from the rooftop. 

Marinette gulped. 

But if there was one thing— one thing she still remembered from her days as Marie Al-Ghul, it was how to fake pride and confidence. She straightened her shoulders automatically, lifted her chin, and pulled away from Damian’s supporting arm around her shoulder. Damian let her. 

A little bit of old resentment flared up in him as he saw Batman walk up close enough to comfortably talk with them. Resentment that he no longer held onto, but that had haunted him nearly every night of the first two years he spent with his dad. The realization that maybe his twin was the one that was meant to be a Wayne. Marie had the blue eyes, the compassion, the more specifically detective-oriented mind. The calm head. Sometimes. Marie was exactly who he imagined when he thought of a naturally born member of the BatClan. Stubborn, clever, morally just. She had risked immediate death just because she refused to fight him, for crying out loud. Because she didn’t want to hurt the boy who used to be her best friend. The only ally she had ever had, growing up. 

Meanwhile, he still had issues reigning in his anger sometimes. He had too much blood on his hands, he was more of a battlefield tactician than a long-term strategist. Still stubborn, but also completely unaware of the pain he brought others with his words or actions a lot of the time. He used to be such a rage fueled little demon, and thinking about how his sister fit the classic Wayne outline more thoroughly than he did had made him destroy more than a few practice dummies in frustration. 

But now, looking at Marinette trying so hard to appear strong and proud when he knew she was still so shattered inside, relief overpowered the old and dull resentment. This was what she needed, he could sense that easily. She, just like him all those years ago, needed Bruce and the others to start to heal her and reforge what the League had badly molded. 

“... Marinette, I suppose?” Damian nearly facepalmed at his father’s awkward attempt at a conversation starter. Marinette herself was clearly too keyed up and overthinking things to even register any amusement at the lame attempt, merely nodding with an overly serious expression on her face. 

“Marinette Dupain-Cheng, Monsieur Wayne. Or that’s my name nowadays, that is,” She stumbled a little in her response before clenching her fists and forcing herself to continue as calmly as she could muster up. “My birth name was Marie Al-Ghul.” 

Bruce’s eyebrows visibly furrowed underneath his cowl. “Was?” 

“I…” Marinette finally looked away, shame creeping back onto her face. “I was explicitly told that I was stripped of the Al-Ghul name and would be killed if I ever dared lay claim to it again. So I not-so-legally changed it. And I was later adopted.” 

Several sharp gasps or the hiss of breath through teeth bit through the quiet breeze. Nobody was necessarily surprised, Marinette could see it when she looked through her eyelashes and examined the winces and sympathy on the faces of the vigilantes before her. Batman’s shoulders were stiff, as if someone had paralyzed only his shoulder blades. 

“And the people who adopted you?” Batman pursued. Marinette couldn’t read his tone very well, but it sounded vaguely angry so she quickly raised her hands in a placating gesture and her eyes widened significantly. 

“They’ve been amazing! They don’t know anything about my past, or who raised me, but they are endlessly patient with me. I mean, honestly! Sabine caught me when I was trying to steal one of her gold bracelets in Hong Kong— and I know I’ve never been as good of a combatant as Dami, but I’ve always been better at sleight of hand and stealth so honestly that’s impressive— and she saw my dirty eight-year-old face and for some reason decided, ‘yeah I want this one as my daughter’ and roped Tom right into it and next thing I know they somehow tailed me to my hideout? I still don’t know how the hell they managed that, but Tom had a huge plate of steaming buns and I was so hungry and suddenly it’s two years later and I’m adopted and we’re on a plane to Paris—” Marinette threw up her hands. “I still don’t fully grasp what happened sometimes.” 

She belatedly seemed to realize that she had just gone on an entire breathless rant at the speed of sound, and slapped her hands over her mouth before lunging into a deep bow. “I apologize! I spoke horridly out of turn!” 

To her surprise though, she was met with a soft laugh instead of a scolding. She jerked in surprise, whipping her head up only to see Batman holding a hand over his chin to hide his large grin. It only took another second for the boys behind him to laugh a lot LESS softly. Nightwing strolled over casually and swung an arm around both her and Damian’s shoulders, playfully nudging her brother with his knee. 

“I think she fits right in, don’t you little D?” 

“Of course,” Damian scoffed, though his eyes were playful. “She is a Wayne by blood. She ‘fits in’ more than you strays.” 

“Dami!” Marinette whipped back to him and puffed out her cheeks. “That was uncalled for!” she barked. Damian held his hands up in surrender. 

“Relax,” he said as soothingly as he could manage. “They know I’m joking,” he dropped his hands and a knowing smirk took over his face. “And besides, now you’re relaxed so my plan worked,” Marinette could only blink at that. She… did feel more relaxed, actually. “Also. I told you you’d be accepted easily. They already consider you one of us.” 

“Wha— there’s no way—” she frantically looked at each of the older men around her, but each of them just shot her a smile or grin and a short nod. Her shoulders and jaw both fell, and it broke a little of everyone’s heart. 

Marinette looked so utterly shocked, bewildered to be accepted as if it was still something profoundly foreign to her. And there was that disbelief in her eyes, that distrust that screamed that she expected some sort of lie here. That told that she thought this would all crumble away at any second. If anyone had any reservations about bringing her into their inner circles, it vanished right that moment. She needed support, or she’d crumble away and they all knew it. 

“How about we start by talking about the situation with Hawkmoth?” Red Robin spoke up, walking forward to stand beside Batman. “I assume that’s a little more in your element?” 

Damian silently vowed to thank Tim later for that. In a silent, completely anonymous way of course. Couldn’t have Tim thinking they were friends or something now, could he? Marinette instantly straightened up and nodded, her confidence returning with a little more sincerity this time. 

“Yeah. Yeah, let me transform again. It’ll be easier to explain.” 

—*—*—*—*—*

It was three weeks later, on Marinette’s third now-weekly visit to the Batcave, when the question finally came up. Jason had asked to spar with Marinette for the first time, having seen her in action as Ladybug and wanting to test the girl when she didn’t have superpowers to rely on. Damian hadn’t been down in the cave to warn him, and the result was Jason’s gut sinking as Marinette scrambled as far away from him as she could, eyes wide and chest heaving in the beginnings of a panic attack. 

“Shit,” Jason muttered before he quickly knelt down and did his best to talk her down, to calm her until her breathing slowed and her pupils were back to normal. It wasn’t long afterwards that Marinette started hugging herself, refusing to look at him. But he wasn’t going to just back down, he wanted to solve this issue. If even the mere suggestion of a spar was enough to set her off, he needed to figure out why and fix it. 

So he carefully lowered himself so he was sitting only a foot away from her, resting his arms across his knees casually. 

“Sorry,” he apologized. “Didn’t think it would be a sore subject. That’s on me.” 

Marinette just shrugged, but didn’t answer him. She just buried her face in her arms and took a shaky breath. 

Jason let the silence linger for a while before trying again. “Does this have to do with certain Asshole Assassins?” 

That startled a slightly hysterical bark of laughter from her, and she had to wipe away a few tears when she raised her head and finally turned it in his direction slightly. Not enough for her to be looking at him,  but just a subtle turn to show that she was listening and speaking to him. “Yeah.” 

“You know, you never told us why you got disowned,” Jason tried to make his words as casual as possible, but wasn’t surprised when Marinette still stiffened and took a sharp breath. He didn’t push. The stage was set, and he’d wait until either she took the opportunity to open up or told him to leave well enough alone. Her tongue flicked out to wet her lips, and her foot tapped on the ground a bit. Clear signs of her anxiety around the subject, and Jason’s hopes vanished a little. He would probably have to wait longer for her to be ready to share.

But, to his pleasant surprise, he was wrong. She took another few minutes to gather her thoughts, but she did eventually open up to him. 

“I refused to fight Damian,” she admitted. “It was… We were seven. It wasn’t supposed to be a fight to the death, but it was a very important spar. We were using live weaponry, and we were told to fight until we couldn’t anymore. Whoever fell first would be relegated as a mere soldier, and have to fight for status like any other assassin in the League. The winner would officially be named as G— as Ra’s Heir. I didn’t want to fight, because I knew Damian would win but I also knew that it wouldn’t be as easy as Ra’s probably expected if I gave it my all like he wanted. I knew both Damian and I would be heavily injured if I did as he asked, and it wouldn’t be worth it. If I misjudged anything, any single hit, I could have accidentally injured Damian permanently and ruined his worth in Ra’s eyes, and that wasn’t an option. I didn’t care that throwing the fight was as good as giving up my life, because at least I could be sure that Damian kept his. I could make sure that he was treated well, or as well as anyone could hope for in the League anyway. I could, with only a few words, make sure he became indispensable. Ra’s and Talia never liked me as much as Damian anyway, I figured… I figured it was nobody’s loss,” She swallowed heavily, clenching her eyes shut. “I was always just the spare. The extra. Damian was their crown prince, the one with actual value. Even to me. I saw him, and I saw everything I wanted to be. I… I tossed down my weapons and let him stab me, because I figured I owed it to him for being such a failure in comparison to him. That I owed it to him to do everything I could to make things easier for him, since I was just an unnecessary obstacle—” strong arms wrapped around her, and she turned to sob into Jason’s chest as he just silently held her. 

“Idiot,” Damian whispered, making Marinette jump. Her twin sat only a few feet away, though only Jason would have known when exactly he had gotten there with them. He shook his head at her. “I never would have gotten as far as I did without you,” he whispered, looking up at the cave ceiling. “You were the only real rival I had. When you left, everything was either too easy or nearly impossible, nothing was the same as trying my best against someone who was just as good as me. And when I got here and met the others, I didn’t think any of them were worthy of taking your position, you know,” he scoffed a bit as he got lost in his memories. “That’s why I hated Tim for so long, I think. He reminded me of you so much that I wanted nothing more than to punch him for daring to replace you—”

“Heh, the Replacement twice over, huh?” Jason joked. Damian chuckled with a small eye roll. 

“Plus, he just has a really punchable face,” Damian added, trying to distract from the emotion behind everything he had just admitted. “Part of me thought you were dead. The other part refused to believe that. And seeing Tim and how some of his mannerisms were the same as yours,” Damian shrugged a little. “It stung. Especially that second year, when I started to regret that you never had the chance to come here and join them with me. Meet them with me.” 

Marinette sniffled. “... Who are you and what have you done with Dami? He’s never this sappy.” 

Damian flicked a pebble at her head with a good natured glare, successfully diffusing the serious air a little. Marinette wouldn’t ever be normal, and it would take a while before she was no longer fragile, but she could get there. Especially now that her bridges with her brother had been mended, and and a whole new family had cropped up to help support her. 

She was glad Damian had convinced her to try, again.  

[chemicalpink]

대취타 (DAECHWITA) | EMPEROR!YOONGI X READER | FINAL

Pairing: Emperor!Yoongi x Assassin!Reader

Words: 3.5k

Genre: Emperor AU, Historical AU (kinda), smut, angsty

Warnings: mentions of death, mentions of historical public execution, oral sex (male receiving), lowkey breath play, unprotected sex

A/N: FINALLY IT’S HERE. I hope you enjoy, I had a hard time trying to make this not seem lame so here it is! please let me know what you think!

Summary: You used to be an assassin, got caught and works at the palace as a servant up until you are escorted to the main palace, either to meet your inevitable destiny or for a change of plans. 

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4

Forehead resting against your own as you found yourselves panting, him sliding out as your spasming cunt dripped with both of your releases onto the floor, placing one more soft kiss on your lips with his eyes closed “Marry me”

 You almost sat up with a start. Suddenly the world was bright and hazy. Yoongi had opened his eyes and they were digging like daggers into yours, an unusual look on him. You looked at the emperor apologetically before turning your gaze to the end of the room where there was a pile of books, silently detangling yourself from him.

The silence was deafening.

Then again, who in their right mind proposed marriage while having their cock buried deep inside some assassin turned royal slave. All the same, Min Yoongi wasn’t exactly known for having a right mind. But it wasn’t just the fact that he had proposed seemingly out of the blue, more than it was everything that came with it. The words seemed to tangle themselves inside your brain as you hear him say them over and over again. That he couldn’t think of himself marrying some woman that was inferior to him in mind and spirit. That he had wanted to marry to someone he loved. To think that Min Yoongi had proposed you marriage not in the heat of the moment but fully conscious of his actions would not only mean that he was in it for the great sexual escaped you two regularly went on, but because due to some fucked up mindset the royal had, he believed he could love you. 

Yoongi reached for your hand in an attempt to get your attention, face soft with post orgasmic bliss as he repeated the ill fated words “Marry me, Y/N”

You  snapped out of his hold. “Yoongi I don’t think you understand the situation”

“What is it then, please do enlighten me, Y/N cause from what I understand is me asking for your hand in marriage, twice now” he blinks a few times, looking at you expectantly, crossing his arms like a petulant child

“FUCKING READ THE ROOM MIN YOONGI ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND”

“Well I’m not, but you seem to be”

“I’m a fucking assassin, my hands? they will forever be tainted red” you look down at your hands and the blond man comes near to hold both of them inside his 

“Y/N I couldn’t care less about that, it’s not like I’m a saint either”

“You just don’t understand”

“Then help me out” somehow his ever consistent and aloof tone gave you more chills thana you could’ve imagined if he were to raise his voice at you “Y/N I’m serious with my proposal, the sex is amazing, but you’ve proven to be an excellent addition not only to my court, but to my life”

You are shaking, voice trembling and just above a mere whisper “I was the one that killed your mother on that freezing December night”

He freezes in place.

He seemed oddly composed for someone who had just been told the responsible of his mother's death was none other than the woman he thought he wanted to marry

You remember how a few years ago, he had gone on a killing rampage, exposing heads outside his palace as if they were homemade decorations, swearing to find the person responsible for his mother’s death and get revenge. It had been months of bloodbath. Some had considered the emperor’s son to have gone completely out of his mind. 

You storm off. Not before accepting the responsibility of your actions, perhaps Yoongi had also been a good addition to your life “I’m fine with you deciding to execute me for my crimes, I understand whatever sentence is best fitted for me, your majesty” for the first time since you had arrived at the palace, you don’t dare to look him in the ye, opting to follow court protocol and bow deeply before taking your leave, attempting to detangle yourself from your messed up robes and even more messed up string of thoughts.

The following days to that conversation were a blur and for the most part, uneventful, the emperor had opted not to gravitate your way unless strictly necessary, oddly enough, the air wasn’t awkward at all, it was as if nothing had ever happened between the two of you in the first place. Yoongi had retreated to being an aloof ruler, along with regular trips to meet his once very occupied and spoiled rotten concubines, all the while you were kept apart from. Sometimes, you would receive jobs outside the palace and were expected to fulfill them according to instructions. More times than not, you were left wondering if you would make it back to the palace or if it was one hell of an excuse to execute you.

Hearing approaching footsteps, you couldn’t help but hide the best that you could behind one of the hostel’s walls. Hooded and well muffled with the cape, as you did your best to camouflage yourself into the shadows and become a mere wisp of darkness. A maid from the hostel trudged to the open window and closed it, grumbling. Lightning illuminated the landing. You took a deep breath and reviewed the plans that you had so painstakingly memorized throughout the three days you had been guarding that building on the outskirts of the kingdom. Five doors on each side. The target’s bedroom was behind the third one on the left.

Stealthy as a specter, you walked down the landing. You pushed the target's bedroom door, which opened with an almost imperceptible squeak; waiting for another thunder to rumble to close it carefully. A second flash of lightning illuminated the two figures sleeping on the canopy bed. Young Hee must not have been over thirty-five. His son, small and beautiful, slept soundly in his arms.

“I’m not murdering a poor kid’s mother”

“So you’ve gone soft”

“No I haven’t gone soft” “What could a poor merchant woman have done to you for her to deserve such an end to her life”

He sits down on his throne “You didn’t even hesitate when killing my mother, though”

“Yoongi I-” he turns his head to you, a sharp gaze following your every move, as if he was a predator waiting for the precise moment his prey took a wrong turn to jump on them. You turn your gaze to the floor immediately “Your Majesty”

“Listen Y/N- I’m a very busy man, so I’ll make it easier for you” he stood up from where he was sitting, and although you weren’t looking directly at him, you could hear him move around the room until you were able to see him stop right in front of you, a hand you were so familiar with once caresses your cheek as he grabs your chin and forces you to look at him face to face “It’s either her life, or your life. Easy choice, Y/N”

You can feel your heart wanting to burst out of your ribcage at that exact moment, finally understanding the importance behind such a horrifying task, the mirroring in the situation. And the choice was as simple as it could get. “Kill me instead”

You could see the rage inside his eyes, even as he stood still for a few second, steady as ever, unfaltering as he called over one of the palace’s servants to get him the royal seal, the infamous red ink that decorated the skin of those in line to be executed by the royal himself, an utmost sign of rage, of personally wronging the monarch. A sense of longing crossed his gaze for half a second as he locked eyes with you before he took your wrist in his hand and stamped the cold ink on it; you couldn’t keep your body from reacting to the action, whether it was having him touching you again, the almost imperceptible stuttering of his movements when he did so, or the knowledge that you’d have to face an execution, making you shake lightly as adrenaline filled your veins. 

Preparations were something the emperor certainly didn’t scattered in, back when he became known as the cold hearted borderline psychopath he had a vaste fame of, ikt was mostly do to the whole antiques that surrounded his personal executions, the way that they seemed to mimic a kingdom’s festivity was almost breathtaking, were it not for the fact that the main entertainment of the day would be having you publicly executed.  You had been waiting for that night for a whole week. Sitting in the wooden corridor nestled to one side of the golden dome of Min Yoongi’s personal library, remembering how the last time you had been there, things were so different from how they were now, where the emperor had asked you to marry you in the worst way possible and you had confessed the greatest murder of the dynasty; you let yourself be carried away by the music that rose through the amphitheater. With your legs dangling under the railing, you leaned forward and rested your cheek on your crossed arms. One could almost swear the palace was preparing for a wedding, if the way you were constantly dressed up and down during the week, the way the palace’s servants were constantly bustling around the building to ensure the greatest quality for the evening, the greatest night for the kingdom. The execution of the Empress’ murderer. 

“You seem oddly calm for someone who's about to be executed” Jungkook mentions as he approaches where you were currently hanging out, a few minutes to spare before a small group of designated maids were to call you to get you ready for the night.

You look up at him tiredly, without separating your head from where it was laying, catching him taking a seat by your side in the most infantile way you had ever seen the royal guard do, shrugging to no one in particular, you add “You know, accountability and stuff”

“Oh and she grew a moral compass during her time here” if he was expecting a bickering comeback, the way you used to do back when he was designated to look after you, he was certainly not getting anything other than be met by an extended silence that seemed to rise the tension and seriousness of the whole interaction between the two “Why are you letting this happen to you?”

“What are you talking about” this time, you do turn to face him, confused as to where he was expecting the conversation to go.

“You didn’t kill his mother”

“I did”

He huffed out air, sounding a bit exasperated at your response; you could have even sworn you saw him roll his eyes faintly “No you didn’t, you were a mere 15 year old” there was a bit of laughter behind his sentence before he regained his composure and went back to his former self from a few minutes ago, looking at your face quizzically as if there was something hidden in there that held the answer to his question  “So why are you doing this”

You try and miserably fail to convey a nonchalant look on your face as memories of your time with the emperor fill your mind, not just the carnal ones, but those where you would watch him work for his place in the royal hierarchy, the soft sides around the rough edges that were publicly hidden on purpose, turning away from the guard you say softly “Yoongi’s a great man”

“Okay sure, he could do with a more...tame temperament, but what does that have anything to do with you chopping your own head off”

You try your best to ignore the way your heart seems to physically ache at the thought behind the answer; you almost don’t get enough strength from within to mutter “I’m hoping to get him some closure, be an even better ruler”

“That’s- definitely not how it’s supposed to work Y/N” Jungkook says incredulously 

 “I was technically part of the killing so, it’s all the same”

He huffs before going to stand up, dusting off his uniform and already facing away from you, before you can hear him call for you one last time “Yoongi’s in his room, you know, he was looking for you a few hours ago, in case that information helps in any way”

So perhaps you were naive for thinking that he would answer his door, he would have no reason to do so, especially given the circumstances, if it were you, opening the door to the person that had confessed of murdering your mother, and having them come up at your room, you wouldn’t even need to think it once to decide not to further interact with them, but Jungkook had said Yoongi had been looking for you before, so the chance of him wanting to see you alive one last time were there. Unless you were reading it all wrong. You turned your back on the huge wooden door you had come to know as the emperor’s bedroom a few months back, resigned, when you heard the creaking of a door opening and a calm steady voice.

“So you’re going to just knock on my door and run away the same way you entered my life and are now leaving it forever?” his frozen tone still having an effect on your body as you turned to face him properly for the first time in what seemed like an eternity “Came to discuss a bargain for your life?”

“Not at all” you lock eyes with him when approaching him, until you were practically inside the room, his judgemental gaze still on you “I wanted to say my goodbyes properly, your majesty”

“Then don’t waste my time and come in already, Y/N” 

The royal wasted no time in cornering you against the door, face so close to yours you could feel his breath on your skin, the tip of his nose nuzzling the side of your face and you knew him enough to know he had his eyes closed to keep his composure as he talked “I’m going to miss you like a fucking mad man” 

It felt like falling back into routine, the way he kissed you, down to your neck up to your collarbone, pushing past the robes that covered your skin, in preparation for the ritual, his hands roaming freely in a familiar way, grabbing all the right places as he draws little sounds from your throat, all while he worked the both of you to where his bed was placed, although he was giving your body and pleasure a decent amount of attention, you couldn’t brush off the fact that he irradiated an angry aura, words left unspoken as he got his anger out by pleasuring both of you. Maybe himself more than you, as he removes himself from caressing your body as he usually did and positioned himself above you, his member laying flat on your already expecting tongue,as soon as you realised what his intentions were when he started undressing himself, his hips thrusting a few times in an experimental manner, soon enough finding a  pace at the same time as you bobbed your head up to capture as much of his length as you could inside your mouth, your hands captured under Yoongi’s weight, unable to help you work him further, the way you’d done before. 

You feel him start to thrust further into your throat at one particular kitten lick of yours to the tip of his cock, your head starting to hang from the edge of the mattress you two were on as he picked up the pace, his cock filling you up all the way until it hit the back of your throat a few times, you trying to whine around him, only further encouraging him to take a handful of your hair and push you further against him, your gag reflex taking the best of you as he held you there, nose close to his navel, deep grunts ripped from his lips, the air leaving your lungs and becoming slightly light headed after a few seconds of you tapping his thigh in a motion to let him know to let you breathe, at which Yoongi locked eyes with you, a mix of anger and longing in his yes as he  thrusts a few more times as saliva started dripping from your mouth, tears decorating your pink stained cheeks before he removed himself from you, giving you a few seconds to gain air before he repositioned both of you. A deafening silence taking over both of you, as you were still catching your breath and he positioned his cock at your entrance, his tip, wet with your saliva, playing with your folds for a few seconds, as you take a sharp intake of air when he enters you and immediately sets a slow deep pace. You can feel his member filling you up perfectly, mind racing with flashbacks to all those other nights before where the emperor and you shared endless nights all over the palace. 

The knowledge that this would be the last time creeping up in the back of your mind. You feel an unfamiliar wetness hit your neck where Yoongi was kissing your skin, rolling down as you identified it as tears, as he was still passionately thrusting into you. 

“I don’t want to lose you” his voice barely above a whisper, trying to conceal the way his chest was tightened with sadness 

“You have to let me go, Yoongi” one of your hands comes up to caress his locks as he pushes up to stare at your face, anger long gone and replaced with utter sadness before one last thrust has him filling you up with his seed, warmth enveloping you, a soft whimper leaving your lips as his cock leaves your cunt, a briskly wind coming from the window causing your body to shiver for a second at the loss of body heat on top of you.

“I guess this was it then” his cold and unnerved facade was on again, making the cold shivers in your body that much worse as you watched him adjust his clothes and walk out of the room, leaving you to dress yourself and ultimately face your fated destiny at the end of the day.

The palace’s front plaza is filled to the brim with spectators as the news got out that the Emperor was finally getting revenge for his mother’s killing, people from the kingdom and even some people from neighbouring ones all lined up in the outer sides of the fire marks that decorated the space to illuminate the middle path where you were placed in the end of it to walk your way up, two unknown guards on each side of you as each grabbed your elbows to push you forward, the rope certainly leaving marks on your skin as it was wrapped tightly around your wrists.  

You could only catch a glimpse of Yoongi’s blond hair, wrapped in his infamous black and golden hanbok, drums roaring in unison, people screaming as you watched him take the sword from the swordsman that had prepared the ritual beforehand, as someone wrapped a cloth around your eyes and you were promptly pushed forward, legs buckling every few seconds as you came to realise what you were about to face, it hadn’t been clear before, mere seconds away, finally falling to your knees, head bowed down in resignation as you could barely hear the sharp sword cutting the air around you, gasps from the crowd filling the air along with the constant sound of the drums around you. You could only hope your death would bring much needed peace to the monarch and his kingdom. Your heart seemed to want to burst out of your chest, if anything, Yoongi was known for being an espectacular swordsman, which hopefully made the whole execution that much easier. You could hear cheers and a metal cutting the air before your body fell limp to the ground.

But your consciousness never left, the drums couldn’t be heard anymore, cheers were replaced with confusion as a pair of hands helped you up to your knees, fumbling with the cloth around your eyes to come face to face with Min Yoongi kneeling before you, a subtle smile on his face as one of his hands caressed your cheek before helping you up beside him.

“I’m sure you all must be confused right now” he announced to his subjects “This woman right here, has got more courage in her than anyone that has ever worked for me, any of us, for that matter. Which is why I’m asking once again, publicly, for the first time, for her hand in marriage” he turned to face you, as you were still dazed by the whole ordeal, his hand in yours being the only thing holding you down “Marry me, Y/N”

[saffronique]

I Read Leopardstar's Honor So You Don't Have To: A Review (Not Spoiler Free)

Oh Leopardstar. A cat who has long divided the fanbase as a leader beloved by some and despised by others. After years of waiting (for some) she was finally given her own super edition. In a word it was... underwhelming.

Introduction:

The book opens during Leopardstar's kithood days. The first scene is adorably heartwarming- readers are treated to Leopardkit and her denmates playing the warriors version of hide and seek, and there are some absolutely adorable moments here, such as Crookedjaw helping Leopardkit escape the seeker by whisking her away on his back, and Mudfur doting on his daughter. The scene takes a sharp turn when Skykit, one of Leopardkit's denmates, lures her away from the group to shove her head underwater and berate her for giving away Skykit's hiding place in the last round of hide and seek. Skykit's actions are startlingly cruel here, as she tells Leopardkit that she's a rotten kit that killed her own mother and that she is doomed to the dark forest like all the other murderers. This understandably disturbs and traumatizes Leopardkit, and when she speaks to her father about it, Mudfur reassures her that she is good, and that Brightsky came to him in a dream to say that Leopardkit will one day save RiverClan. Leopardkit latches on to this dream, and the book follows her through relatively disjointed moments in her life as she tries to live up to her destiny.

Pacing:

The pacing of the book is an absolute nightmare. We don't spend long enough in any one part of Leopardstar's life to see her have any meaningful interactions with other cats, and thus the majority of the relationships she has seem surface level at best, forced at worse, with Whiteclaw being a notable exception. She spends maybe 3 chapters as a kit, 3 as an apprentice, 3 as a warrior, 2 as a mentor, and so on. As a result, we don't actually get the opportunity to see Leopardstar learning or struggling in a meaningful way at any point. We're TOLD she's a hard worker, that she's dedicated and loyal, but the book gives you little chance to actually see it. The book slows down long enough to force an almost love story with Frogtail, which Leopardstar ultimately gives up on to focus on her work, but then a few chapters later Frogtail is dead and it's back to jumping around through her life.

The book really suffers from a lack of side characters and relationships to help things feel connected. The only real through line is this silly dream from Mudfur-not even an official prophecy- that Leopardstar focuses on to the exclusion of all else. Compare this to Crookedstar's Promise and Bluestar's Prophecy- while both books feature a greater destiny that the characters focus on throughout the book, they are given the chance to develop meaningful relationships that last for large chunks of the book. Bluestar has her relationship with her sister and her rivalry with Thistleclaw, and even her friendship with Thrushpelt, all of which allow her story to feel genuine and naturally lend themselves to interesting subplots. Crookedstar has his relationship with Mapleshade, his romance with Willowbreeze, his desire to prove himself to his mother- again, all things that make him feel like a well rounded, multifaceted character. Leopardstar has her dream, and ONLY her dream. None of her friendships last more than a few chapters before the other character is killed off. Her most meaningful relationship, with her apprentice and adopted son Whiteclaw, has the potential to round out Leopardstar's character, but Whiteclaw's fate has been predetermined. We all know he's going to die in the gorge because we see it happen in Fire and Ice. After Whiteclaw's death, Leopardstar briefly has a compelling relationship with Silverstream after she discovers her relationship with Graystripe. Silverstream and Leopardstar have opposing priorities of love and duty, and the interactions between them are an interesting insight into both characters. Silverstream actively rebukes Leopardstar's mindset and challenges her priorities, something that would have been invaluable in making Leopardstar's choice to join Tigerstar seem more consequential. But Silverstream too is doomed to die, and by the time the book reaches its climax, Mudfur is the only cat left to challenge Leopardstar's choices. Instead of letting the rift between father and daughter build, Leopardstar has no problem simply banishing her father and medicine cat for disagreeing with her. No one that she cares about is left to challenge her for her decisions, and thus there are no real stakes to the choices she makes. Sure, Stonefur dies and its awful, but the book doesn't bother to develop any real friendship or camaraderie between the two, so it doesn't feel as impactful as it should. The book concludes with Leopardstar understanding that she's wrong and Mudfur convincing her that she's going to save the Clan from the disaster she helped create. At the very least, Leopardstar seems to understand the problems with this and points out that it's not really her saving the Clans, its Firestar. This is completely true, as she has no role in Tigerstar's downfall and no role in stopping Scourge. The best that can be said for Leopardstar is that she doesn't get in the way of Firestar here.

She faces no real struggles aside from her father's doubt as to her ability to lead, a dynamic already witnessed between Brambleberry and Crookedstar and done much better.

Awful editing:

This book suffers from an almost unbelievable lack of care on the part of the editors, with big chunks of text very obviously cut and pasted to different parts of the story without any effort to edit out nonsequitors. The most painful instance of this revolves around Stormpaw and Featherpaw's apprenticeship. In one scene, Leopardstar comments on the fact that Primrosekit and Pikekit will be made apprentices any day (Reedkit is inexplicably absent here, and Perchkit seems to have died offscreen though it is never mentioned) and notes that Stormkit and Featherkit still have their kit fluff and look tiny next to their older denmates. A couple paragraphs later, we see Featherkit and Stormkit being apprenticed to Mistyfoot and Stonefur, in a paragraph that EXPLICITLY STATES that it's the very next day. The other kits have mysteriously been apprenticed already. Boulder and Jaggedtooth of ShadowClan are inexplicably present at the ceremony, despite there being no mention of their arrival at any point and Leopardstar refusing Tigerstar's offer to join their two Clans together the day before. A few pages later (yes, literally just pages later, that's how atrocious the pacing is) we cut to a battle between RiverClan and ThunderClan at the Sunningrocks, where Stonefur and Mistyfoot's parentage is revealed. Leopardstar doesn't actually hear this, but she does overhear them discussing it in the most painfully forced way possible moments later. Leopardstar finds herself absolutely HORRIFIED that she's apprenticed two half-Clan cats to half-Clan mentors.... and then a few chapters later, after forming TigerClan, Tigerstar asks her if she still intends to make Mistyfoot and Stonefur mentors to Featherkit and Stormkit despite their parentage, to which Leopardstar responds that they are still loyal RiverClan warriors. Yes, I'm serious.

Leopardstar's character:

This super edition is nothing but a showcase of the absolute worst aspects of Leopardstar as a character. Throughout the book she is shown as racist, battle hungry, self-centered, foolish, and utterly lacking in compassion or even pity for any Clan other than her own. She is constantly making racist generalizations about cats from other Clans, actively wishes for WindClan's downfall, sides with Tigerstar simply because Fireheart is a kittypet, and, perhaps most disturbingly, tries to murder Fireheart in cold blood because of his kittypet background. This book literally does nothing to endear the reader to Leopardstar, it makes her out to be the most despicable, honorless cat imaginable. And honestly, if you're not a Leopardstar fan, I think that's one of the most compelling things about this book. The desire to see what atrocities Leopardstar would commit next was what kept me interested in the story, honestly it was the only reason I finished it. There was something morbidly fascinating about watching a character so self absorbed and lacking in compassion interact with the world around her. It was enjoyable in a way to see a character so deeply set in the beliefs that the series has repeatedly established as wrong time and time again. Pacing and editing aside, this difference in philosophy is a breath of fresh air after the same recycled plotlines and moral messages that the series has been using for years. This book isn't going to make you like Leopardstar, but it is going to make you love to hate her.

What the book did right:

While there were very few positives to the book, it wasn't completely lacking in value. The book succeeded in developing a deeply meaningful relationship between Whiteclaw and Leopardstar that, thankfully, wasn't a romance. Their mother/son and mentor/apprentice relationship does a good job at setting up Leopardstar's grudge against ThunderClan over Whiteclaw's death as we see it play out in the first arc. Honestly, Leopardstar as a character would have been served far better if this had just been a novella detailing the relationship between these two. That was probably the only real thing of value in the book, honestly. Aside from that, Frogtail and Leopardstar's relationship, while I personally found it completely unnecessary, addressed a topic I've been hoping to see in warriors for a while now-- two characters who love each other but decide that the things they want out of life are mutually incompatible, and part ways amicably. Leafpool x Crowfeather and Bluestar x Oakheart both almost did this, but fell short because it was only ever really one character who decided to end the relationship. Unfortunately, the value in this message is somewhat diminished by the fact that Leopardstar later laments multiple times that she should've given up on her goals and just had kits with Frogtail instead, an absolutely disgusting conclusion that plays into the recurring problem of misogyny in warriors where women aren't allowed to be both mothers and hold a position of power, they have to choose between the two.

All in all, this Super Edition is easily the worst so far in terms of plot, pacing, and writing, but I still found some enjoyment in reading the perspective of such a selfish, cruel protagonist.

[palidoozy-art]

The more I think about your recent post about the changes you made to Strahd, the more I wonder about those changes you made to the others mentioned (Rahadin, Van Richten, Ireena, etc). I'd absolutely love to hear what adjustments you made as you already shared some stellar ideas already. Like the Tome? -Chef kiss- Amazing.

Oh mannn I do love talking about my campaign. I changed a lot with them. Again, weirdly enough, I think Strahd wound up being the most like his original incarnation. I could talk forever about the changes I made so I'll try to be brief haha. IT STILL WON'T BE BRIEF.

Obvious CoS spoilers below

IREENA - I thought it was weird that the picture they gave her makes her look like such a badass, and then the module just kind of writes her as a damsel in distress to either get kidnapped or pulled into water or dumped somewhere. To me, she's like, the second most important character in CoS -- and the book literally gives you less direction to roleplay her than her brother. Furthermore, reading her ending actually legit made me mad.

So I said fuck all that. Ireena in my game was a 19-year old girl who grew and developed over the course of the campaign. Several of my players actually said they thought of her as "the main character," just because she experienced a lot of character growth and development, going from a sheltered meek teenager to someone who can fight and assert herself. The biggest change I made to her though was that I very specifically did not just want her to be "Tatyana with memory loss." Ireena is a unique individual who happens to be partially made out of Tatyana's soul. While she shares many similarities with Tatyana, they're separate people, and part of what Ireena has to grapple with is how to live up to that. She's in the post-campaign because of that distinction -- while Sergei offered her to join him, she declined, because she wants to experience life past her twenties. I didn't get to play it out because we were kind of rushing towards the end, but I honestly envisioned a scene where she talks to the portrait of Tatyana, apologizing to her because she knows she's being selfish remaining alive.

This also brings up a unique problem in the post campaign. If Ireena dies, she ceases to exist and may not be able to be resurrected. When her soul leaves her body, it's Tatyana's again. Ireena very much wants to live. Tatyana doesn't. A resurrection has to be made with the consent of the soul, and if Tatyana declines, Ireena's just... gone. Forever.

Related: because I wasn't sure what my players would ask, and Rahadin would absolutely know this information -- there have been 18 incarnations of Tatyana, including the original. I actually have a timeline of when they were all born and how they died. The curse manifests in that they always die or are killed before their 25th birthday. If Strahd attempts to marry them, they lose their minds and throw themselves off of the same balcony the original Tatyana jumped off of during the ceremony. Strahd can never have Tatyana. Vampyr will ensure of that.

But yeah, essentially: Ireena gained actual class levels; she wasn't just Tatyana with memory loss; she traveled with the party for 90% of the campaign and wasn't just a macguffin to be kidnapped/take to places; and I removed any of the "Sergei takes her into water/the sky and you never see her again" endings because I absolutely hated those.

VAN RICHTEN - Van Richten I tweaked a lot from his original incarnation. First, I started him off as Lawful Neutral. No, game, I know you tell me he's Lawful Good, but I'm gonna have to disagree with you that "training a racist tiger to genocide an ethnic camp" falls under the spectrum of Lawful Good. Second, I changed him from cleric to artificer (alchemist). I somehow just got the impression the dude was a godless man, and so he felt more fitting to be a man of science rather than a man of the church. Third, since I wasn't sure the other dread domains were ever going to be brought into 5e I moved him out of Darkon and into another world from the outside.

His backstory was also tied more into Strahd and the campaign in general, as well as the Dark Powers. About 30 years ago, he went into the mists with his own adventuring party (that included Escher) to try to rescue his kidnapped son, Erasmus. He found his son half-turned and begging him for death. Killing him, Van Richten hunted down the Vistani woman (Ezmerelda's mother) who sold the man, and in a rage strangled her to death. This gave him a curse. Ezmerelda witnessed it happen.

He went on a warpath against vampire spawn and vistani alike, until Strahd proposed a deal to Escher. Escher lured the group to a familiar dinner date with Strahd... only for Strahd to murder all of them, including Van Richten. Van Richten was approached by a dark power -- Vaund the Evasive, and given the option to return to life in exchange for the promise that Van Richten would eventually return to Amber Temple and free him. He took it, waking up outside of Barovia. From there he became famed vampire-hunter-book-author, until in his early 50's he decided it was time to seek vengeance and fulfill his promise. He brought in his hat of disguise, came up with an alibi, and headed into Barovia as Rictavio the Great.

He was absolutely played as a much more morally grey character at the start (the party's first encounter with him rather than Rictavio was him literally torturing a dude). He softened over the course of the campaign as he grew attached to the party, until finally reaching a point in the post-campaign where he's considered Lawful Good

Also: Ezmerelda was treated more or less as his adoptive daughter. She absolutely argued against this every single time, but he even slipped up and referred to her as his daughter on a few tense occasions.

RAHADIN - Rahadin I adjusted a lot, too. A LOOOOOOT. Strahd being comically evil makes sense -- the dude is a darklord, that kind of comes with the territory. With Rahadin, I wanted him to have more motivations to his actions, because the base game actually suggests that the dude is actually capable of caring. In the base game, you can find him at Amber Temple, trying to "petition the dark god into releasing his master from his torment." He screams in grief if he finds Strahd dead. Furthermore it felt like the game glosses over the fact that the dude was adopted as Barov's son. It doesn't bother addressing how Rahadin felt about Sergei, who would in theory be his other brother. I thought a number of things suggested in his backstory were interesting, but not expanded upon in the base game. So I took it upon myself to do so.

I changed how dusk elf society was built, which affected the three major dusk elf characters. It worked off of a pretty brutal caste system, with three kings at the top overseeing all of it. Rahadin was born in a lower caste, but actually brought into the warrior caste after a member of royalty was intrigued by his stature. Rahadin worked as a general, but grew frustrated by the inefficiencies of the caste system and its inequality. He started attempting to use his influence to petition other members of nobility into changing or loosening the strict system.

Patrina caught wind of this, and viewing it as a threat to her lifestyle + viewing it as an easy way to gain brownie points with those above her... tattled on him to the three kings, spinning what he was doing as treason. Rahadin was arrested and subsequently tortured. They attempted to execute him on a breaking wheel, breaking his bones against the spokes and leaving him in the town square as an example. He wound up escaping, crawling his way out of town until he was subsequently rescued by a group of human monks. The event pretty much broke him, morally. He went to Barov soon after and sold his people out, taking a personal hand in helping annihilate the dusk elves and conquering their land. Barov was so impressed by the man's loyalty that he adopted him as his son.

Part of this was done to make a connection as to why the hell Rahadin just absolutely fuckin' hates Patrina so much (since that definitely got played up during the campaign). When thinking of Rahadin's motivations, I tried to come at it from the angle that this man was evil... but legitimately cared deeply about Strahd, Sergei, and Tatyana. He was devestated from the events of the wedding, but saw Strahd's return as a second chance. As the lone surviving witness from the wedding, he desperately wanted to help the three of them. But his own blind loyalty to Strahd and his broken moral compass prevented him from doing so.

One of my favorite little additions was a sidequest I offered to the players (they wanted to redeem Rahadin). They were requested by him to retrieve (well, "not destroy or sell") one of his most precious belongings in his office. When they get there... it turns out it's a birthday card and a worn-out old amulet from Sergei and Tatyana that he's kept after all these years. They got Ireena to read the letter to him, to help him keep going after Strahd's death.

anyway i could ramble on about changes forever but i don't want this post to get too long haha. i have. many feelings. over this campaign. maybe at some point I'll do a separate post with some of the others.

i also kinda wanna do a comic of an event from Rahadin's backstory for my players but we'll see, I might deem it "too stupid."

[laylainalaska]

I was thinking about Drummer’s arc in season five and posted this to DW, so I figured I’d cross-post it here. 

I’ll put it under a readmore because a) spoilers, and b) because I have had highly conflicted feelings all season about the space pirate storyline and I don’t want to upset anyone who really liked that storyline, so be aware that I talk a lot about that too.

I was thinking about that scene back early in the season when Oksana talks Drummer out of pursuing Marco, and tells her she used to be violent and full of rage, but now she can be softer because she has a family to support her.

I think that I, like everyone else, took that scene at face value at the time: that Oksana is right, that being with Oksana and the others has gentled her and settled her and made her happy. It's only looking back on it that it starts to feel like a sort of ... grinding down, I guess, of Drummer's moral center, with Oksana talking her out of trying to stop Marco before he hurts other people, and instead passing it off as someone else's responsibility, and convincing her that what she feels is right is actually the wrong thing to do.

Which is what Oksana continues doing throughout the show.

Oksana isn't a bad person! She's not even wrong. It's not Drummer's responsibility to go track Marco down. And she really is well-intentioned. She cares about Drummer and wants her to be happy.

The thing about Oksana, though, is that her moral compass is centered very firmly on keeping the people she loves safe. For her, responsibility centers on that one tiny group of people - her family.

And when someone like Marco comes along, that ends up turning her into a collaborator. With her family at risk, Oksana eventually will do whatever Marco wants her to, no matter how vile, as long as it keeps her family safe. It's not that she's evil or anything, in fact I really appreciate that she's not portrayed that way, but I saw someone call Oksana the moral center of the group (which I guess is what tripped off a lot of my Thoughts™ about this) and ... no?!! She's the textbook definition of a collaborator. She doesn't want to, but she will do anything Marco asks, up to and including killing people, in order to keep her family safe.

But Drummer is not like that. Working for Marco is tearing her apart all season, and comes to a head at the end, when she finally rips apart the bubble of uneasy safety that she and the rest of the Mowteng/DeWalt crew have created around themselves at everyone else's expense and does what she believes is right.

It's making me look back and think about the thing I felt most conflicted about with Drummer's storyline this season, which is that Drummer becoming a pirate feels like such a repudiation of her character up to this point, and realize that maybe it's supposed to feel like that.

When she turns off the message from the robbed ship asking her how she can live with herself, that's not supposed to be a moment of triumph. It's a moral quandary that Drummer is effectively bypassing, which comes back to bite her by the end of the season.

Drummer isn't a fragile flower; we saw her try to space a guy to keep order on the Behemoth. She's not going to shy away from piracy if it's what she needs to do to survive. And I'm now thinking about Drummer, adrift in the Belt, looking for a place to be, falling in with this group of people (led at that time by Oksana) who offer her a place as long as she does things their way. She doesn't have anywhere else to go, and she likes them, and she has a feeling of camaraderie, of equal camaraderie, and family, and love, maybe for the first time ever, so of course she's going to fall in with them and allow their moral compass to become her own. And every time she starts to steer back to who she used to be - a big-picture person, a commander, someone who spent the last year working thanklessly and tirelessly to try to maintain an uneasy peace between Belters and Inners - Oksana gently steers her back to who they are: a "family is everything, let the world burn" group of Belt pirates.

Getting back to Oksana as the moral center of the group: she is, actually. And that's not necessarily a good thing. It's what makes the group crack down the middle at the end, not that either Oksana or Drummer are necessarily right or wrong, but that Drummer's big-picture, trying to fix the world way of being is completely at odds with Oksana's "my family is what matters, let everyone else burn" way of being. It always was going to come to a head sooner or later.

Being the way Oksana is (Family Above All) turns you into a collaborator when someone like Marco comes into power. And being like Drummer (do what's right, no matter the cost) can very easily get your friends killed, which is what's been happening to her all season. It's not easy. I really appreciate that we actually saw the brutal, bloody cost of that. Oksana’s way would have kept their family safe and together. Drummer’s way ripped them apart and got one of them killed.

But I also feel like we've spent the season watching Drummer pulled farther and farther out of true, dragged away from the core of herself, with Oksana as the main agent of that (however well-intentioned), and I'm really looking forward to seeing what she does next season, and who she turns out to be at the end of it all.

[siennahrobek]

Working with Obi-Wan Kenobi’s grand padawan was…different. He had heard a lot about Skywalker and Kenobi as a team through many forms – propaganda, gossip, billboards, reports, victories, losses, campaigns. They were a popular topic. They seemed to pull off some of the most insane mission parameters and come out alive from fighting varying horrifying villains and Separatists, darksiders and Sith.

Feemor quickly figured out Ahsoka was quite a bit like Anakin Skywalker. Which sounded awful, now, knowing what he had done and what he had become, but he had meant it in a better way. At least, nothing that extreme. She was fast paced and protective with a strong sense of justice and a decent moral compass. She didn’t seem to understand some of the intricacies of governments, politics and the war effort, she cared about the people. She seemed to go back and forth between cynicism and belief in people. It was an interesting combination.

He wondered if Obi-Wan could help her smooth out some of those more high-strung tendencies.

Then again, Feemor didn’t really know Obi-Wan very well either.

Feemor and Ahsoka spent most of the evacuation helping groups of people and shuttling themselves back and forth with supplies. A few recovering 501st and a of couple Coruscant Guard had joined them on one of the trips. They had lost Rex quickly into the evacuation, before even their first trip back to Ahsoka’s ship. Luckily Feemor had spotted what had happened with him and had to quickly explain to a near panicking Ahsoka that he had simply helped a padawan carry a trooper to the medical bay for surgery when she noticed his absence. He was probably still there.

***

“Are you going to take a shuttle to Obi-Wan’s venator?” Feemor asked quietly. It was their first trip back to the 332nd venator, their shuttle piled full of supplies, clothes and other resources. A few soldiers came along with them, although huddled in the back with one another. Some of them were a little too scared to be hanging around Jedi at this point. It wouldn’t be long before everyone was packed onto the ships of Obi-Wan’s forces, ready to flee away from their brainwashed friends and the Sith wanting them dead for no other reason than existing.

“I want to,” Ahsoka replied after a hesitation. She didn’t look at him. She was piloting, Feemor had gotten the impression she wouldn’t have led him pilot, even if he had tried. “I want to see him. I want him to tell me everything is going to be okay. I have so many questions. I want him to have the answers,” she paused and glanced down. “I know he won’t.”

Feemor didn’t reply, just kept his eyes on her, soft and understanding. What did one say to that?

Ahsoka just looked up into the stars once again, determined driven into her expression. “But I should stay with the 332nd. They have been burned enough by the jedi.”

He wasn’t sure what that meant exactly, as it seemed that the 332nd, although betrayed by Skywalker by brainwashing their brothers, had been, at the very least, kept away from that horrible end. Skywalker was only one jedi. What other jedi could they have been burned by?

“Will you?” her voice was quiet and a bit sudden after the stretched silence.

“Maybe,” Feemor shrugged. “Even if I don’t the first time, it isn’t a long trip to Kamino. I need to talk to him, at some point, but I don’t think there will be a good time any moment soon,” he admitted.

The young togruta glanced at him. “You haven’t taken the moment in, what? Thirty years? You never know when you will lose the chance forever. Do it quickly, Master. Before it is too late and one of you is gone.”

***

Rex jogged up to them and silently helped pack up their shuttle. He hadn’t said a word until Feemor had tried to strike up a conversation on the ride over to the 332ndship but Rex kept his answers to a bare minimum, mostly one-word answers. His hands were nearly shaking.

“I saw General Kenobi,” Rex barely muttered out while in the cockpit with Ahsoka and Feemor. The latter figured he was probably talking with her. “He seemed mostly uninjured. It was a little hard to tell because his robes were so dirty. He was wearing his old armor.”

It was the most Feemor had heard Rex speak at that point.

“Is that so. What did you talk about?” Ahsoka’s voice was almost disconnected, like she was talking through a machine. She didn’t sound interested even though Feemor was fairly certain she was.

She didn’t meet his eyes but that didn’t stop the captain from staring at her. He chose his words carefully. “Feelings, mostly.”

“Did you talk about… you know…”

Rex paused and looked away. “Some. You should probably talk about it with him yourself. I think it would do both of you some good.”

Feemor suspected they could make one more trip after this before the evacuation was complete. The end of the conversation was clear.

***

They had done several trips back and forth but this last one, was alone with only supplies in their cargo bay. They had brought up a few clones but not many, most had wanted to stay with the rest of the 501st, many of which still recovering from short surgeries.

He didn’t know how the conversation came up, but he knew why. Ahsoka cared a lot about the clones, especially those under her command. It hurt her, he imagined, watching the ones she worked personally with be brainwashed by her former master. Perhaps it was that reason that she latched onto them instead of the betrayal of her old master. Feemor had his only issues with his teacher, but they paled in comparison to hers. His master just threw him away and got himself killed by a Sith. Hers became one.

She talked, rather ranted, about the unfairness of what was happening with her friends. With Commander Appo and all of the other 501st members that she cared so much about. She talked about the blindness and cowardice of the jedi, just leaving and abandoning them to the fate of a droid, to be used by the Empire for whatever means.

Feemor tried to gently remind her that the jedi were trying to save the helpless and their children. That the jedi do not currently have the numbers or the resources or a plan to rescue them all at this time.

“The jedi will come back for them,” he promised at the end, quiet and gentle. He knew it to be true, the Jedi would come back for the clones, for anyone who needed them. It was a part of their identity, to help those who couldn’t help themselves. But it was even more poignant for the clones, he knew. The Jedi would itch to help them, unwilling to leave their friends to such a fate.

“They didn’t for me.”

Her voice was strained and angry but so quiet, Feemor nearly doesn’t hear her. He understands abandonment. His own master had repudiated for something that not only wasn’t Feemor’s fault, but also something he never had any control over. It never had anything to do with him specifically, it was Xanatos who had ruined it all. And Qui-Gon’s love for Xanatos had just torn the older master apart even more.

He did not remind her that the Jedi did ask her to return.

She was just upset and mixing her feelings, much like any teenager who had been wronged, would.

“They’re just trying to survive, Ahsoka,” Feemor replied, instead. “We cannot help the clones if we are all dead.”

Ahsoka had stopped talking and stared out at the venators they passed, peacefully and ignorantly sweeping the planet, orbiting in a protective barrier, waiting for an attack that would probably never come. Her gaze had settled on one, just a little out of the way, further than the others out in the open space before she turned the controls, sharply curving them towards the ship, instead of away from it.

“Ahsoka, what are you doing?” Feemor asked warily.

The teenager didn’t answer. Instead, she turned the ship even tighter and then straightened out towards the unfamiliar venator.

“Ahsoka!” he yelped. “That is not the ship we want!”

She continued to hold her silence and no matter what Feemor says or does, she continues to fly their shuttle right toward the docking area of the larger venator. She even used the Force to push him nearly out of the chair when he tried to stop her.

“You are going to get us killed,” he hissed. “I’m sure plenty, if not all, of the Coruscant Guards have had their chips activated!”

Swallowing hand, she slowed down, now far too close to turn back now, clicking in comm codes and landing on the outskirts of the bay with a heavy thunk. The Jedi master stared at her, eyes wide.

“We need to get out of here,” he tried again but the togruta female just stood, stone faced and determined. “The rest of the Jedi are going to be leaving soon and we need to be with the 332nd so we can keep up with them.”

“We are going to take this ship,” Ahsoka announced, her tone giving no room for debate. She stood up and grabbed her sabers, marching away. Feemor sighed, running his hands along his face. This was going to be something else.

The clones, so engrossed in their chip activation, had not even noticed the unscheduled landing of an unfamiliar shuttle.

It didn’t stop Feemor from hesitating when they snuck off the ship. As they snuck down the ramp, out of sight, he glanced around. A partially crashed into the wall was a Jedi Delta-7 Interceptor, complete with a dead jedi inside, the bubble that usually encased them in the cockpit broken apart in shards. Neither of them recognized her but she was easily identified as a jedi, even from a distance. She had been shot several times; her chest riddled with blaster shots. Her gorget armor piece had helped her survive, at least until she had got to her ship, but she hadn’t gotten any farther. The engine had been shot out. Feemor hoped she died on impact; he didn’t know if her killers would have had granted her a quick death from bleeding out.

Ahsoka snarled. Feemor looked and felt sick.

A couple of the nonclone natborn officers were laughing on the balcony. The hum and although dulling light were easily distinguishable and identifiable as a lightsaber, whirling and flying through the air. They had taken her lightsaber. They had taken it and were playing with it like it was some kind of toy.

“It’s not even that they don’t care,” Ahsoka choked out, nearly in tears. “They are happy,they are glad, we are being killed off.”

Feemor noticed her use of the term we. It continued.

“We are being killed and they are celebrating…they love that we are dying, leaving our bodies to rot without care, where we are cut down. Distracting us, our ways, playing with part of our souls like children while they murder our children.”

She just cried silently.

“Come on, Ahsoka. Let’s find a place to hide and make a plan.”

***

The two of them snuck through the halls, barely keeping out of sight of the clones. With nothing in their minds, it was easy to keep their attention away. They didn’t want to see anyone – they didn’t see anyone so using a brief signal in the Force to look away was easy to the both of them.

They hid in a few closets, taking down several key troopers throughout some of the ship during their way to the bridge, stripping them of weapons and communications and giving them heavy sleep suggestions. They would be out for hours at the very least. They had talked about a plan, to take the bridge and use the natborn officers to take over the ship. Lock them all in the bridge, including Feemor and Ahsoka, which would keep the clones out but still safe. The plan hadn’t gotten much further than that.

Nearing the bridge, Feemor had pulled Ahsoka into a supply closet as several officers had passed by. To their infinite luck, the officers had stopped nearby to speak to one another, forcing the two jedi to stay in the closet until they were done with their conversation and passed out of sight.

“Master Obi-Wan will like you,” Ahsoka declared, confidently. Her voice was hushed and subdued, but it did nothing to take away from the sentiment.

“You think so?” A welcome topic for Feemor, to be sure.

“I dragged you into something random and unexpected and dangerous. You tried to talk me out of it but then, eventually, just went with it and helped me,” Ahsoka explained. “Just trust me on this one.”

***

“I kind of prefer them this way,” one of the officers noted, watching as lines of clone troopers marched, perfect and silent, down the hall. “They don’t talk, pretending to be men. They just do what they are told.”

“Without complaint,” another snickered, giving one of the clones a shove. The man sprawled to the ground, helmet smashing into the floor. He just got up and kept walking again. No one had even flinched.

Both of the officers laughed.

Ahsoka nearly burst out from their hiding place around the corner, but Feemor held her back. They were close but they couldn’t give away their position yet. It would surely get them killed.

He pulled her away, towards the bridge. They were so close.

As they got nearer, Feemor and Ahsoka dipped into an empty room to prepare. “Three guards, all clones,” Feemor reported, taking a glance in the direction. He pulled back as Ahsoka’s lightsaber snapped in her hands, unignited.

“I’m faster,” Ahsoka noted. It was true of course, if only because she was so much younger than him, but he was rather amused at her assumption of his lack of speed. He wasn’t lacking, as he had noted to himself, the only thing she had on him in terms of that was youth. “You handle the guards with sleep suggestions, and I’ll start clearing a path in the bridge.”

Feemor actually found it a tad entertaining and a bit insulting as well that she had to clarify the sleep suggestion part, as if she thought he was going to purposefully murder a couple of brainwashed clones. “We need some of them alive, Ahsoka,” he shot back.

She turned to stare at him momentarily. “Yeah. Yeah. I know.”

Taking the bridge wasn’t difficult. They didn’t see it coming and were completely unprepared for an assault by two jedi. Ahsoka had taken out the communications officer first – all of the bridge had been quickly replaced with natborns, unsurprisingly – and had nearly taken off his limbs. In the end, it hadn’t mattered. He was dead.

A few of the officers did end up dead, mostly due to Feemor and Ahsoka reflecting blaster bolts back at them. The rest had surrendered fairly quickly. Upon ordering communications throughout the ship to be blocked, Ahsoka worked on the technology part of the controls of the ship, while Feemor cuffed and herded their hostages away from said controls.

“Alright,” Feemor smiled, something wicked and cold. “This is how things are going to go. We are the leaders on the ship now. You will stay here for the duration of your stay. You will not communicate with anyone – not that you could anyways – and if you somehow do, upon someone figuring out what has happened because of it, bad things will happen. You will not let any of the clones on the bridge or tell them that we are here. Do you understand the rules?”

Everyone was rather hesitant, shooting him horrible looks but they nodded.

“Fantastic. Then, we can move along,” he turned and walked towards Ahsoka, keeping a blatant eye on their prisoners.

“Ah, Ahsoka?” he questioned. “This was great and all but now we have at least hundreds of brainwashed clones aboard. What are we going to be doing with them?”

Ahsoka just shrugged. “For now, nothing.”

Ahsoka walked towards the holotable in the middle of the bridge, Feemor trailing behind her uncertainly. She clicked in a comm code and Feemor shifted uncomfortably on the other side of the table. He couldn’t believe they had taken the ship. Keeping it, that was going to be another story. He had no idea what she had in mind; what she was going to do with this entire ship full of brainwashed clones. It wasn’t like the two of them could just take them down or something.

Jesse and Echo, if Feemor remembered correctly, popped up on the table in the blue holoform. “Commander!” Echo greeted, easily. “We were expecting you back hours ago! Is everything okay?”

“Just fine, Echo,” Ahsoka nodded, seriously. “Any word on General Kenobi’s ships and the other Jedi around?”

“Leaving quite soon sir,” Jesse responded this time. “The last couple of ships have left the planet. They will be leaving for Kamino promptly. Rex said he is going to stay with the… with the rest of the 501st, Appo isn’t doing so well.”

“We actually suggested it,” Echo butted in. The look on their faces were pained and mournful. Jesse struggled to speak again but once he started, his voice got stronger.

“What about you, where are you?”

“When are you coming?”

Ahsoka paused and took a deep breath. Feemor watched, carefully. “You go on to Kamino without us, boys,” she started.

The other two began to protest, rather vehemently. “Never sir!”

“You really think we would leave without you?”

Ahsoka nearly let out a laugh but settled for a smirk. “Don’t worry. I will meet you on our next destination. Master Feemor and I…. well, we found ourselves another ride.

[justafairytailofinnocence]

Hi sweetie, I saw you were doing matchups and was wondering if you could do one for me from Marvel (male character)? 😊 My name is Mira, she/her. I'm quite tall, I have long reddish brown hair and green eyes. I'm studying psychology in university and my hobbies include theatre, singing in a band and and volunteering (mostly with kids and youth). In my spare time I like to sing, exercise and read, I also love traveling. I'm a bit reserved with strangers when I first meet them, but I'm still told to be approachable and I warm up to people quite quickly. With my friends, I'm talkative, bubbly and playful, but I am the mom friend, I take care of my friends and try to always be there when they need me, I'm also told to be quite mature and responsible, but I can still have a good laugh and goof around. My friends say that I am smart, kind and sweet but I can also be quite stubborn and independent. I'm also a perfectionist and I tend to put others needs before myself. I'm also told to be a bit naive, I trust people too easily, because I tend to believe that people in general are good. I have quite strong moral compass that I follow and I try to see the positive in the world. I love learning new things and skills and I adore challenge, sometimes I might even get a bit too competitive. And my personality type is ENFJ and I'm a virgo (I don't know if you need those, but just in case).

And I was wondering if it not too much of an effort, could I please get these extras with my matchup:

A picture of the wedding dress, dialog about the scenario, added gifs and a theme song.

Thank you in advance and I hope you have a wondeful day/night! 🌸💜😍

Hello dear of course I'm happy to do a matchup for you.

For marvel I ship you with:

Steve Rogers a.k.a captain america🇺🇸

- mira met Steve through your course of walking through the streets after finishing up with a youth group. Steve was running around central park and bumped into you.

- Mira's chemistry with Steve quite amazing all the good mortal compasses and kindness about you is what drove him to fall in love with you.

- Mira's goofy and good nieve nature reminded him of his younger days when he was skinny and kinder to people.

- he would ask you out when you were jogging in the park he was faster of course.

Mira: oi no fair Steve I can't run that fast *laugh, huffing out of breath*

Steve: hah guess I should've kept up with you Darlin *smiles wondering if your alright*

Mira: oh of course I love this after all I do have my musical after this

Steve: I actually do like your voice your a good singer

Mira: mhm *trying to catch your breath*

Steve: actually I was wondering Mira Darlin if you would um l-like to have coffee sometime *awrkwardly smiles*

Mira: of course I would *hugs him despite being sweaty*

Steve: great I'll need a raincheck on that date

Mira: I'll need one for you too

- the way mira would hug him would feel like having a muscular body builder softy wrapping his arms around you.

- his first kiss with you would be after he thought you have died because the winter soilder tried to hunt you down.

Steve: Mira are you alright darlin

Mira: yeah Steve I'm f-fine just need to relax on the fact I was nearly killed

Steve: he's my old pal but your safety is more important

Mira: oh Steve truly I'm fine *carassed his cheek* you need to focus on what's right for you

Steve: your right for me Mira you always were *leans in softly touching her lips*

Mira: oh Steve *passionately snogging*

- he would take you out for dinner dates and often dancing if your into that. He wouldnt let you go for the life of him.

- you have what most wemon Steve finds attractive which is a beautiful kind soul. You have a killer voice as well.

- your the old soul couple normally Natasha teasing about how your both two old souls.

- he would be very happy to help you with anything he would lay his life on the line for you.

- your wedding would be very beautiful he would be wearing a tuxedo and your in a beautiful white dress. The wedding would be surrounded by the Avengers in a church.

- your children would be very strong having your brown reddish hair and having Steve's blue eyes. They would be the next captain America.

- your theme song:

Anyways that's all I have for now:

Ta ta💫

[downwiththeficness]

In the Bond-Chapter 2

Summary: Lilah often wished she’d never said yes to working with the Gecko brothers—usually while dodging gunfire. At no time was she regretting that decision more than when she’s hanging upside down from the ceiling, staring down a group of hungry culebras and one (1) extremely powerful sun god.

Word Count: ~2,300

Warnings: None

A/N: This is an AU of my Story In the Blood, which can be read here. Basically, this fic explores what would have happened if Lilah had met up with Geckos before she met Brasa.

Taglist: @symbiont13

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Lilah slid into a chair and regarded the lovers. Kate was sitting in Richie’s lap, rolling her eyes as he pressed intermittent kisses on her cheeks and neck. She’d grown used to their easy affection since the brothers had saved Kate from Amaru. For the first few days, Richie had hardly let go of Kate’s hand, would go where she went, snarling at anyone who came a little too close. Even now, he didn’t go very long without touching her, no matter the situation—a hand on her thigh, a the small of her back, toying with her hair. Kate seemed to take it all in stride, a soft smile that somehow made her look impossibly young.

It was Kate’s eyes that Lilah noticed first when she’d stepped through the doors of Jackknife Jed’s.  They flashed with gloom, aging her in a way that in no way reflected in her actual face. Looking at her made Lilah feel so disjointed that she still struggled to hold the younger woman’s gaze. Still, despite the unease, Lilah liked Kate. She certainly made dealing with the ever-arguing brothers just a little bit easier. Lilah couldn’t so easily be out-voted any more, and that was worth the disquiet she sometimes felt in Kate’s presence.

The door to the office flung open, Seth barreling through with no regard for how it hit the shelf behind it, a few of Richie’s knickknacks shaking in their stands. He was wiping sweat from his brow, his ever present frown just a little deeper than normal. Lilah’s eyes narrowed as she watched him come closer.

“Hey, watch the merchandise,” Richie called out, one hand lifting from around Kate’s middle to gesture broadly at the memorabilia.

Fandom was the one thing that Lilah and Richie really agreed on. They’d spent a lot of time on stake outs talking Star Trek, and then Firefly, followed by a whole host of niche geeky topics. He was surprisingly insightful about the little details that made each show unique. And, Lilah had spent a lot of time in hotels watching old B horror movies to be able to hold her own when he went down a rabbit hole.  It made the fact that she disagreed with him about the tenants of Jedi life acceptable, in his mind.

“We’ve got bigger problems than Obi Wan’s lightsaber, Richie.”

Seth was definitely in a mood. He might not understand Richie’s interests, and he might roll his eyes when his brother went on a tangent about canon timelines, but he at least respected Richie’s belongings enough that he didn’t intentionally screw around with them. This, whatever it was, was serious. Lilah eyed him narrowly, waiting.

Eyes vaguely betrayed, Richie muttered, “Its Mace Windu.”

Kate patted Richie’s arm lightly, saying, “What’s the problem?”

Rounding his desk, Seth sat heavily. After a deep sigh, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper, tossing it on the desk in front of him. It bounced, making a soft ‘shhh’ sound as it slid across the pressed wood of the tabletop.

“We got a message today,” he explained, “And I don’t know what to make of it.”

Lilah leaned forward and plucked it up with two fingers. The paper was a heavy vellum, thick woven. She unfolded it, curious. The ink was a deep red, the lettering thick. As she brought it closer to read, Lilah caught a fragrance that had followed her in the weeks since their last failed mission.

Oh, no.

The letter was meticulously worded. The writing thick and bold, swirling softly around the crosses. Formal. Elegant. Commanding. Brasa.

Lilah read and re-read it, “He’s asking for peace.”

She looked at Seth, brows lifted in surprise. Then, she stood, stepped to Richie’s desk, and handed it to the younger brother. All the while, she tried to keep her face as neutral as possible. Lilah was grateful that Seth never bothered with the overhead lights, that only the lamps on either desk illuminated the room.  Her face was hot, her hands shaking. She didn’t know how to stand so as to draw no attention to herself while she internally panicked.

“He’s playing a game,” Seth said as he opened a drawer in his desk, pulling out a bottle, yanking out the stopper, and drinking straight from it. “Its a trap.”

Richie took a few moments to read the letter before Kate took it from him. She stood and read it, as well. Lilah watched her face, trying to discern her reaction. Kate chewed her thumbnail as her eyes flicked over the page, her brows together. A shadow passed over her expression.

“No,” Kate uttered so low that Lilah almost didn’t hear it, “He’s really asking for peace.”

Lilah didn’t have the time to think about how she might know that, or the implications. Or, how she might feel about those implications.

Seth scoffed, “How the fuck do you know that?”

Setting the letter down on Richie’s desk, Kate shrugged, “I spent a lot of time with him when I was...when she was inside me.” She sniffed, “Even though Amaru thought they were bullshit, he obeys the old laws. This is a formal call for peace talks. He’s written it in his own blood.”

Lilah felt her eyes widen, shocked that Kate could tell whose blood was on the paper. Shocked even further that someone would write a letter in their literal blood. Shocked still further that she cared how he might have procured his own blood in enough supply to write such a letter.

There were a few side effects from Kate’s possession, little quirks that Kate would sometimes display without really thinking. She’d stand up way too fast, know who might walk through the door next, hear conversations from the next room. Lilah did her best to just roll with it, but this was a little bit too freaky for Lilah’s normal ‘roll with it’ sensibilities. She deliberately set it aside, hoping that she wouldn’t need to examine the thought later.

Richie lit a cigarette, blowing the smoke through his nose, “Why now? We’ve spent the last six months fighting and killing each other, and now he wants to talk peace.”

Lilah sat down, folding her hands in her lap as she tried very hard not to think this was about her. She could not be so self-centered as to think that Brasa would give up a war just because she happened to be on the other side. A war he was, by all accounts, winning as the Gecko’s ceded more and more territory to the culebras he seemed to govern.  There had to be another explanation. A trap, maybe, a false sense of security.

“Alright,” Seth drawled, “We get him in a room and gank him.”

Kate gasped, looking horrified, “We have a chance to get real progress, here. Do you want to fight forever?”

Lilah definitely knew the answer to that question. Seth’s entire life was a fight—physical or otherwise. He wasn’t comfortable if there wasn’t some sort of conflict to battle through, his brother at his side. Even if they achieved peace, he’d be at someone’s throat within twenty four hours. It was both endearing and utterly frustrating to watch him cycle through the same motions over and over.

Seth rose, leaning his hands on the desk, “You, more than anyone, have a reason to want every one of those snakes dead.”

Sneering, Kate crossed her arms, “I, more than anyone, have a reason to want all of this to stop. I don’t want to see any more death.”

Behind her, Richie shifted uneasily in his chair. Lilah took each of them in, knowing there was far more history than she was privy to playing out right in front of her. It left her feeling like she couldn’t make a good decision, didn’t have enough data to create a strategy. This was not her preferred method of moving through life. She remained still, waiting.

“We should meet with him,” Kate asserted, hip cocking to the side.

It was not a rare occasion that Kate would insist that they act in a certain way. She had a strong moral compass that clashed with the brothers’ more criminal predilections. More often than not, Kate centered them, kept them from going too far. Lilah was grateful. She had never been successful in stemming off their momentum, once they got started.

“Absolutely not,” Seth shot back, his mouth a firm line.

Lilah surprised herself by adding, “I agree with Seth.”

Richie stubbed out his cigarette, “I’m with Kate.”

This was not surprising. Richie tended to side with Kate on most things. Lilah caught the look he sent Kate, though Kate was still looking at Seth. His eyes were following the line of her petite body, admiring in a way that made Lilah look away, embarrassed.

Seth circled his desk, leaning his hip against it, “Two against two. How’re we going to break the tie?”

There was a beat of silence, then Richie stood and offered up his fist, “Best out of three?”

When Richie beat Seth two to one, Seth gave him a hardy ‘fuck you’ and strode from the room. Richie heaved a beleaguered sigh and followed him. Lilah dropped her head in her hands, boggled by the decision making skills of her partners. Rock, paper scissors...honestly.

“Why don’t you want to meet with them?”

Lilah lifted her eyes at the question, feeling her chest constrict, “I won’t have to do the actual meeting, Kate.” Lie, lie, lie, Lilah, “I just don’t think we’ll be successful.”

Kate tilted her head to the side, “You think its a trap?”

Lilah grabbed onto that line of thinking. It was logical, far more logical than ‘No, Kate. I just don’t want to meet up with someone who claims I am his bondmate and with whom I have exchanged blood’. Even in her head, it sounded so incredibly stupid. Not to mention the fact that she’d been hiding it long enough that admitting it would only lead to suspicion.

“I think Seth is too hot headed,” Lilah clarified quickly, “I think that it’ll fall apart before it even gets started.”

There, that was a convincing lie that was pretty grounded in enough truth that even Lilah half believed it. She very carefully did not study Kate’s face to see if the lie had landed.

Kate moved closer, her ancient gaze peering at Lilah carefully, “You’re right.”

Oh. Okay.

“Thank you.”

“You need to go with them.”

Ah, fuck.

“What?”

Kate nodded, her expression hardening, “You go with them, keep things level, make this work.”

“Me?” Lilah didn’t like how high her voice came out. She cleared her throat, “No, you know them better than I do. You go. Bring me whatever contract they draw up, I’ll red line it, make sure its fair.”

That was her role. Look over the game plan, find the flaws, work out the kinks. In that, Lilah was comfortable and safe. No need to put herself back in a room with Brasa. No need to let this get even more out of hand. No need for the messiness that would come from that.

Shaking her head, Kate took a step back, “I can’t. I can’t face him. What I did to him was,” she searched for words, “terrible.”

The sudden turn of Kate’s tone, the way her face screwed up in real disgust, made Lilah sit up and stake notice. Where had this come from?

She inhaled, trying to parse the words, “What does that mean?”

Kate’s eyes were focused on the middle distance, her mouth quivering, “Amaru loved torture, all kinds of torture. She didn’t care who it was that she hurt. I—she liked,” Another breath, “Brasa was blood bound to her, she could make him do things, do anything. She never got her hands dirty, but him…”

Lilah waited for more, but Kate simply stopped speaking. She looked shell shocked, tears welling up. God, but Lilah had been completely fooled by Kate’s frequent smiles and clear headedness. She hadn’t known how much trauma the hell queen had put Kate through, hadn’t even thought that Kate was conscious of the things that she’d done while trapped inside her own body. Moved to action, she stood and embraced Kate, saying to her the only comfort she could think to give.

“Its the past. And, it wasn’t you.” Then, “Are you still blood bound?”

She felt like real shit for asking, but she needed to know what Brasa’s relationship was with Kate, and if it would make their own relationship (did they even have a relationship?) more complicated. Kate made a soft sound in the negative and Lilah let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. That was one complication she had, thankfully, avoided.

Kate’s body was taut, “When she first brought me back, when I met him, I felt the power I had over him. And, she abused it. I drained him dry that first night, to regain her strength. After three days, when he managed to stand up off the ground, she did it again. Because she could.” Kate pulled back and looked at Lilah, “That wasn’t even the worst of it. How can I look him in the eye after all that?”

Lilah shook her head, “Like I said, it wasn’t you. And, if he really wants to talk peace, he’ll set it aside. If not, fuck ‘im.”

That, at least, was the truth. Lilah had been fighting his kind of less than a year and she was tired of it. She wanted peace. She wanted to go on nice, normal jobs—jewel theft, a bank heist, possibly even some fine art that they could sell on the black market. Stuff that was in her wheelhouse, in her comfort zone. If he was going to hold Kate responsible for the actions of Amaru, then he wasn’t worth negotiating with. Full stop.

Kate loosed a soundless laugh, “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

[fantasticstoryteller]

New Dynasty Chapter 55

Peter watched as Wade paced the room. The older man was nervous and slightly twitchy as he moved. Slowly, Peter was coming to realize that the twitches were the man reacting to the voices in his head, the “boxes” as he called them.

“Please calm down,” Peter urged as Wade paced.

“I can’t—I mean, I shouldn't—shut up! I’m getting there!”

Peter felt a little hurt that the boxes got a full, complete sentence to themselves while all he got was broken grammar. He strode over and quickly grabbed Wade’s shoulders. “It’s okay!” he assured the man—still clearly not all there.

Wade gasped for a moment and then pressed his hands to his face. “I got a job.”

Peter waited. Clearly there was more coming.

Wade began to shift, like he wanted to pace—but he didn’t break away from Peter, who kept his grip light enough that Wade could break away. “It’s in New York.” He rushed on, quickly. “But it’s not a killing job and I know I said I wouldn’t kill in the city but it’s a good job for a friend and there’s no killing involved.” He paused. “I asked.”

Peter nodded. Sure, he knew Wade said he wouldn't kill in the city—and that was good. He also knew that Wade was a mercenary which meant he had to take jobs. He felt certain Deadpool was trying to funnel that money into Peter’s house without the boy knowing. He didn’t see why Wade was so worried about it.

“Do you need help?” he asked as he released Wade’s shoulders.

Wade stared at him for a full minute before suddenly dropping into a crouch with both hands on the back of his head. “Fuuuck,” he breathed. “You don’t—you just don’t know, Baby Boy.” Suddenly, in a lightning change of mood, he jumped back up and grinned. “It’ll be fun!”

Peter grinned back. “Of course,” he said. “You’re always coming along with me, so I’ll come along with you.”

“Woohoo!” Wade danced around Peter towards the door, and then shuffled back to avoid hitting Aunt May as she came in with groceries. “Oh, let me help you with that!” he said.

“You are a dear,” the old woman replied as she handed the bags she was carrying to him. “I have more in the car.”

Peter grinned. “Let me help too,” he said as he went out to the car.

After all the groceries were in and put up Aunt May invited Wade for dinner, and—for the first time since he’d woken up recovering in the house—he declined. “Sorry Aunt May,” he said cheerfully. “Spidey’s going on a job with me and I have to make sure it’s safe.” He twitched slightly. “Of course I know what recon is!” he said suddenly. “I just don’t normally bother!” He bowed, saluted, and then pulled his hood up before dancing out the door.

“Well, you certainly made him happy,” Aunt May commented. She looked at Peter and raised an eyebrow. “A job?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Wade said there’s no killing,” he said, “and I believe him.”

“Hmm.”

^^^

{Smooth, idiot. That was real smooth.}

[‘Make it safe?’ Just how are we supposed to do that? Just last week the Lizard knocked him off a building!]

“We do the best we can,” Wade said soothingly. It was something Peter had told him on one of their lunch dates.

{Date!}

[Dude, he’s way, way too young.]

“Not like that,” muttered Wade as he walked down the street.

[And why are we working for that bitch, anyway? She tried to kill us!]

“Everyone tries to kill us,” Wade argued.

[She THREW us into a VOLCANO!]

Wade winced as the words echoed against the inside of his skull. “But it wasn’t personal,” he protested.

[The hell it wasn’t!]

{Anyone else curious as to why she came to us? Considering she told us to go to Hell last time we met?}

“We have more skills than she does!”

[The only skill we have that she doesn’t is the skill not to die. Are you sure this is going to be safe for Peter?]

{Aw, relax. She’s also lazy.}

Wade reached his apartment and hauled out his maps of the city. Now, from what she’d said the object he was supposed to be collecting was in this high-security facility. All he had to do was—

There was a rap on the door. Then it turned into a vicious pounding. “Dammit Deadpool!” snarled his roommate. “Open the damn door!”

Curious as to why she needed him to open the door, he did so. His roommate, a pale young woman with hair in multiple colors, was holding one of her shoulders as blood seeped between her fingers. “You look bad,” he commented as she limped into the apartment.

“Don’t start,” she growled as she limped towards the medicine cabinet in the kitchen.

Wade saw odd purple and blue lights dancing in the spilled blood.

[That’s new.]

{Never seen that before. We sure she’s human?}

“Pretty sure she’s not,” murmured Wade as he closed the door.

“What was that?” demanded the angry voice.

“Your blood’s all sparkly!” Wade said cheerfully.

“Yeah? It’ll wear off.” Her voice lowered and she muttered to herself. “Fucking unicorns.”

{Hey look! The room’s brighter!}

Wade nodded as he looked at the literally glowing golden strands of hair next to the young woman’s head. They were the only parts not dyed. “Your hair’s glowing again,” he pointed.

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” muttered the woman as she grabbed a beer with one hand, smashed the neck of the bottle against the counter, and chugged it. She pressed the cool glass to her head. “I miss home.”

“Because of your hair?”

“That too.”

Standing there it occurred to Wade that his roommate was almost as indestructible as he was. “So Carol,” he said.

“Cora,” she corrected firmly. “As in, ‘Coraline.’ As in the other person on this god-forsaken lease.” She angrily tossed her beer bottle towards the trashcan and it hit the wall where it shattered. Most of the glass went into the garbage can. Neither of them really cared to clean up the mess.

[We ever ask where she came from? Because, I think it might be important later.]

{We said we wouldn't ask if she didn’t, so we didn’t.}

“Coraline,” Wade agreed. “I’m going on a job soon.”

“Good for you.” The phone in her pocket rang, she dug it out, and answered with a single word. “No.” She put the phone on the counter. “And?” she asked.

“And Spiderman wants to tag along. There’s no killing involved,” he added.

Coraline sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Deadpool,” she said wearily, “you accepted a job.”

“Yes.”

“In New York City.”

“Yes…”

“What’s the job?”

Wade beamed behind his mask. “Object retrieval!”

Coraline closed her eyes. “Object retrieval,” she repeated.

“Yup!”

“Deadpool, did you seriously ask the spider if he could tag along on one of your jobs—the mostly law-abiding do-anything-to-help-along-the-boys-in-blue spider, I’d like to add—when it involves stealing?” She looked at him. “I’m not an expert, but that sounds like a good way to alienate him.”

[She’s right.]

{Oh, my God! What were we thinking!}

“Gotta go!” Wade said realizing there was a crap ton of research he had to do.

“Yeah yeah, good luck,” muttered Coraline as she head towards the bathroom, limps already fading.

^^^

Peter crouched in the corner overlooking the building in front of them as Wade, in full Deadpool regalia, checked an odd little compass on his wrist. “What’s that?” he asked.

“My moral compass. Just making sure I don’t lead you down the wrong path, buddy,” said the mercenary as he put the thing away.

Some of the things the man said made absolutely no sense. “All right,” he said. “So, now that your moral compass is straightened out, what’s the mission.”

“Right. So, my client, my friend, works for these people who had this—thing stolen from them by these people. Now, they called me, instead of the police, because none of them are supposed to have it.”

Peter felt his lips twitch behind his mask. He wasn’t sure if they were twitching in distaste at stealing or amusement at the way Wade was putting the situation. “Let me see if I’ve got this right. A group of people, who were not supposed to have this object—whatever it is—had it stolen by this other group of people, and the first group has hired you to steal it back for them.”

Wade nodded. “That’s it. Contract complete when said object is in her, the contract holder’s hands.”

Peter nodded. He was slightly surprised at the formal phrasing, but Wade was a mercenary. Presumably that meant he had a lot of experience with contracts. “What’s the object?” he asked.

“Some kind of book. She said I can’t miss it.”

“All right.” Peter waited. “How are we getting in?” he asked.

Wade’s head whipped towards him. “What?”

Peter held back a sigh. “Your mission,” he reminded the other man. “Your plans.”

“That is both the single best and most terrifying thing I have ever heard from you,” Wade said softly.

“So, what’s the plan?” asked Peter, both anxious to get started and to keep Wade from thinking too much.

“Plan? Right, plan. Spidey, you’re backup. I want you to stay out of sight as much as possible. These people are sneaky, and I may need super-secret backup to get back out of there.”

Peter nodded. “All right,” he agreed. The two of them went into the building.

Everything seemed normal enough at first. There seemed to be an appropriate number of guards for what was a secret priceless artifact. The security was not quite the best, but appropriate. Pretty much all Peter had to do, as Spiderman, was follow along the ceiling keeping an eye out for surprise attacks. There were a few, and he webbed those would-be attackers to the walls and floors before Deadpool even registered that there was a threat, but nothing major. And Deadpool was very careful not to actually kill any of his attackers, a fact that Peter appreciated.

Before the mission Peter and Aunt May had sat down to have a talk and Peter understood that Deadpool was a mercenary known for killing. Knew it very well, in fact. He had accepted that there might be reasons fro Deadpool would kill on this job—because he was working and it simply might not occur to him to use non-lethal force. He was prepared for that.

When they made it to an inner room, Spiderman still hanging back in the shadows providing silent support, the game changed. On a wooden table was a single, huge book. It was blue. It looked like it was glowing.

Leaning against the table was a woman. She was tall, for a woman (slightly shorter than Wade), was wearing a white dress that looked like a bunch of feathers had been sewed together, and had long, cascading blond hair. “Hello Deadpool,” the woman said in a calm voice. She was holding what looked like a bunch of Popsicle sticks tied into the vague form of a human in one hand. In the other she held what looked like a bloodstained piece of cloth. Just behind her, on the table, was a tall, wide glass of water and a second doll.

Peter’s senses went haywire. This woman, whoever she was, was bad news. Deadpool merely waved cheerfully. “Hi,” he said. “I’ve come to get that book on the table behind you, and once I get it I’ll be on my way since I don’t want to kill anyone in Spiderman’s city.”

The woman chuckled softly and Peter felt the little hairs on the back of his neck raise at the sound. “Oh, yes,” she said as she wrapped the bloodstained piece of cloth around the doll she was holding. “I’ve heard about your little—team up with the human spider.” She moved to where the doll was being dangled over the water. “I’m surprised he isn’t here now.”

Another chill ran over Peter, warning him that something was about to happen. He tensed, not knowing what to expect as he looked around the room desperately for any sign of the danger his senses said was coming. He trusted his senses explicitly.

The woman simply released the doll to where it fell in the water. Wade gasped and choked as Peter stared, not certain what was going on until water began pouring from Wade’s mouth. The man was drowning. The woman dropped the doll into the water and now Wade was drowning.

Peter dropped to grab the doll, to haul it out of the water only to be easily backhanded out of the way by the woman, her nails ripping bits of his suit. “There you are,” the woman said in satisfaction. She smiled at Peter as she pulled a thread from his suit and tied it around the other doll. The merc choked one water as the woman snapped the leg on the doll.

And Peter felt his own leg snap in response before he collapsed to the floor. He gasped as waves of pain rolled over him—but he had fought his way through worse. He’d once swung through the city to catch Norman as Green Goblin with two cracked ribs. That had been bad. This was—still bad, but not quite at those levels yet. He swallowed hard as the woman walked towards him.

“Do you give up, little spider?” asked the woman in a voice that sounded kind, but his senses warned him were anything but.

“Never.” Peter shot webbing at her, and she easily dodged with a laugh.

“You are losing your touch, little spider,” the woman said.

Peter felt his lips widen in a grin. “Am I?” he asked as he yanked on the webbing. The glass fell to the floor. It didn’t break, but the water spilled out.

“Poor little spider,” said the woman sadly as she snapped the other leg. “Just doesn’t know when to quit.” She gasped as suddenly a sword protruded through her stomach.

“Want to bet?” snarled Wade as she fell off the sword, clutching the wound in her abdomen.

A dim part of Peter’s brain that was still functioning noted that it wasn’t a kill move. Even drowning, Wade had held back. As Wade picked him up, Peter webbed the woman to the floor. He also snagged the book with another piece of webbing; no reason to leave it behind. The book sagged as Peter reeled it in. “How heavy is this thing?” he demanded.

Wade glanced at the book. “If I recognize this,” he said absently, “about sixty pounds.”

“Sixty pounds?” demanded Peter, his vision graying slightly as Wade moved him. “What exactly is it?”

“I don’t think anyone is really sure. It sort of showed up a few years ago and has been bouncing around private collections ever since.” Wade carefully carried both Peter and the book out of the building. “Shit!” he swore when they were outside. “This was supposed to be a safe mission!”

Peter couldn't help but chuckle. “I don’t think there is a such a thing,” he said. “How many buildings have you been knocked off of?”

“Yeah,” said Wade as he walked. “But that’s me. I heal. I know he does too, but not as fast!”

Peter frowned. He healed both too fast and too slow. Too fast to risk going to a regular doctor and too slow to keep up with Wade.

“Not to worry,” Wade said as he tried to keep his steps even to prevent from jolting the injured spider in his arms, “we’ll just drop off the book-it thing and then I’ll take you back to Aunt May.”

They were a ways down the alley when suddenly the building they’d escaped exploded. Peter stared at the wreckage in horror. “All those people.”

“Not your fault,” Wade said quickly. He sagged. “Mine.”

“Your fault?” Peter frowned as he mentally reviewed the mission. Had the merc planted a bomb or something without Peter noticing? No, he hadn’t. Wouldn’t. “No,” Peter said firmly. “Not your fault, either.” He turned back to the wreckage. “It must have been some kind of self destruct,” he mused.

“Must have,” echoed Wade dully. “Come on,” he said turning and sprinting down the alley. Peter clung to consciousness with all he had. Every step hurt his legs more.

It didn’t take too long for them to reach Wade’s goal. Wade propped Peter (careful about jolting the injured legs) in a shadowed area of the park before taking the book to the swing set. Peter clenched his jaw against unnecessary sounds and worked to set the legs himself. He’d learned that his bones healed faster if they were set as soon as possible.

A woman, dark hair and sensual curves, approached the swing set. “Deadpool,” she purred.

Peter frowned. Used to hearing meaning behind words he read the dark irritation in her voice. Not usually the voice used to greet a friend. He looked up warily as the woman approached. Actually—she slunk more than she approached.

“Ana. You lied to me.” Wade’s voice was hard, cold, and almost unrecognizable.

“About what?” asked the woman, Ana, Peter supposed she was called.

“About the mission,” he said. “Medium security, no powers, that’s what you told me.”

The woman shrugged. “So they hired extra help after I looked into it. Not like you can die,” she added carelessly.

Rage flickered in Peter at the tone. He grit his teeth as he started to understand Wade’s casual attitude towards injury and dying. It took all his will to stay seated where he was and not draw attention to himself.

Wade merely sighed and tossed the book to the woman—who caught it easily. “That’s my friend,” the woman purred.

Peter had heard enough. He got up, barely registering the sharp pains in both legs, and strode over before webbing the book to her hand and the rest of her to the swings. “That,” he said grimly to the woman, “is no way to be. You can’t base ‘friendship’ on favors. That’s not how it works,” he told her before pulling his phone out.

“Spidey, what are you doing?” asked Wade.

“Look, you said the contract was complete when she was holding the book. She’s holding the book. Contract complete,” Peter grumbled as he dialed. “It’s me,” he told the operator. “Came across what looked like a shady deal at the park.” He rattled off the park’s address. “The buyer is webbed. The seller?” He turned to look at Wade and firmly added, “The seller got away.” He looked back at the woman as he slipped the phone back into his pocket. “They’ll be here in twenty minutes,” he told her. He took off quickly.

Wade loped off after him. “Hey, what?” he asked the hero.

Peter stopped for a moment and then looked at the merc. “All right, listen,” he told the man. “If something happened and you did kill someone in the city—we’d still be friends. Granted, we’d be friends with distance because I wouldn't be able to let you stay in the city—but we’d still be friends. It’s not dependent on you doing anything for me.”

The Deadpool mask stared at him for a moment, eerily still. Then he pointed down. “Do you realize you’re walking on broken legs?” he asked.

“What?” Peter looked down and stared as he gently stomped his feet against the ground. “Oh—huh.”

The two continued on their way. “You need to figure out how to do that on purpose,” Wade told him as he locked fingers behind his head.

“I wouldn't even know where to start,” Peter said wearily.

Later, the two men would find out that their mysterious adversary was known as The Witch. They found that out—the same time they found out that there was no female body found in the explosion.

[stargazer1682]

Buffy’s Leadership - Season 7

Let’s start with the concession that just being the Slayer doesn't make Buffy the de facto leader - I don't think anyone actually generally argues otherwise. Buffy was the leader on account that EVERYONE turned to her and expected her to have the answer for virtually everything. They all made her leader. She never sought the role, but it was expected of her.  She DIED and they brought her back and still expected her to be the one to make the final decisions. Giles turns up at her door with a batch of Potentials, seeking the benefit of her training and protection. In short, she was called upon again and again to be the leader by those who were prepared to follow her – until it became less convenient for them to do so.

Now, before we get to the merits of that leadership, let's look at some of her team.

There's Anya, who was made essentially immortal and given god like powers capable of bending all of reality a thousand years ago, all because she got revenge on an ex that one time. When she finally grows a conscience and finds herself in danger as consequence, she gladly accepts Buffy's offer of protection, and then has the audacity to question whether Buffy "deserves" the great gift of being the Slayer; what with the abbreviated life span, the constant danger of herself and her loved ones, everyone expecting her to have all the answers; and, oh, yeah, if you're really lucky, when you died your friends might actually let you stay dead. Meanwhile Anya brings.... (checks notes) nothing of actual value to any fight or conversation....

Then we have Robin, who's a newcomer, but he's a skilled fighter; he has a long history being part of this world, what with his mother being a past Slayer and being raised by a Watcher. He hits it off with Buffy and seems to fit right in with the group.

....And his judgment is immediately compromised by his blind, yet understandable passion and motivation for revenge against Spike, fueled by.... The First.....

But then there's Giles; stalwart, trustworthy.... and he's going behind Buffy's back to have Spike secretly executed..... Right.

Well, I'm sure the Potential have redeeming... (Sigh) No, Kennedy, it's not your turn to be in charge, that's not how this works. And even if it did, there's WAY more people ahead of you. No, leave Willow alone; she's still kind of emotionally vulnerable and you're coming on kind of stro.... Fine, you can either have Willow or be leader, but you can't have both.

Andrew, stop filming everyone; you're not our guest, you’re our murderous prisoner, with a dubious moral compass. (Sigh) Fine, yes, you can tidy up; just tell us if the First starts talking to you aga... What? It is? What do you... Willow kept the what?

What do you mean ANOTHER Potential is dead?

Willow, why are you asking about our policy about having murderers who betrayed and even tried to kill us, living in this house? You and Anya are... Oh, hi Faith.

And then there's Buffy's much belabored leadership.

Let's start with her decisions and objectivity regarding Spike. I am distinctly not a fan of "Spuffy," but I don't know that I entirely disagree with Buffy's reasoning here regarding Spike in season 7. The writers muddled a lot of the character behavior and motivations in season 7; even the First's ultimate plan never seems to make full consistent sense. It's attacking the Slayer line and waiting until it's killed all of the Potentials, before going after Buffy and Faith. Wait, no, there are a TON of Potentials still out there in the world and it’s barely made a dent before going after Faith. No, it just wants to be corporeal. No, it wants to be... inside of everyone...? 🤷‍♂️

And it brings Caleb to Sunnydale to dig up a powerful weapon the Slayer knew nothing about, that it wants to keep out of the Slayer's hands; and then has Caleb tip off Buffy about it by relaying the message he has something of her.  And when she comes and takes the scythe, the First says they'll get it back, but then doesn't even try.....

But I digress.

Spike. The First wanted to use Spike for... something... What that was, who knows? 🤷‍♂️ He was siring a bunch of regular old vampires that Buffy didn't even break a sweat dispatching, accomplish jack squat. But he can't be trusted; that's the important thing. Not like Andrew or Anya or Robin or Willow or Giles..... 😒

Well, he's a murderer, unlike.... I want to say.... Dawn...?

At the end of the day, the First didn't need a post hypnotic trigger to risk the lives of anyone in the Summers house. It did plenty of damage without Spike. Meanwhile, killing Spike would be premature until they knew that that didn't play exactly into the First's plan; especially when Spike was easily the third most powerful fighter among them, after Buffy and Faith.

Then there's the preparation of the Potentials. I don't know exactly what there is to say, because for one thing, it's not like Buffy was alone in their training. They all had some degree of involvement; Kennedy's drill sergeant routine was perhaps a bit dubious, but she’s hardly any more at fault for Chloe’s death than Buffy. Ultimately that came down to the First. There’s no sense blaming anyone else.

Could Buffy have done more to undermine the First’s influence?  Sure.  So could the house full of other people.  

This wasn’t a flipin’ football game, this wasn’t a game at all; they were in a fight for their lives and Buffy wasn’t there to coddle them.  They came to her and she continued to freely put her own life on the line for these people, many of whom were strangers; and at least some of them, most of them even, were only committed so far as protecting themselves and that’s it. They were in it to win the battle for their individual lives; Buffy was in it to win the war to save ALL of their lives.

And sure, so was Willow, so was Xander and Dawn and Giles.  Again, Anya was mostly there for Anya.  

So what’s Buffy supposed to do when the big bad is managing to pick them off when it can’t even raise a weapon?  How was she supposed to respond to the First whispering in their ear?  Is she supposed to make them all hot chocolate and tell them it’ll be okay and that all of them are going survive this?  It sounds sweet and comforting, but hardly realistic. She’s had to face the prospect of dying since she was at least 16 and kept facing that danger, and even flippin’ died and it didn’t stop.  They keep turning to her to make it better; and in exchange for that and while she tries to come up with answers, she gets to dig their graves, one at a time, because it all has to end up resting on her shoulders.  But it’s BUFFY’S attitude that sucks here.

And then there’s that “moment”.  When Caleb set the obvious trap and Buffy lead them into danger and failed them, because it was a trap; and they’ve NEVER gone into an obvious trap before and it’s NEVER been worth the effort.  You know, except all of the other times they did that and it ended up being completely worth it.

It’s not like they went in blind. Buffy and Faith did recon beforehand, yet despite their best laid plans, they got their asses handed to them. Some of them got hurt, some of them died; which is exactly the thing she was trying to prepare them for, yet it caught them completely by surprise, somehow.

And then Caleb comes to grandstand about the seal – and Buffy is exactly right; the school was deserted, and Caleb makes a point to proactively engage her and talk about the seal, but by all accounts their resources are focused on the vineyard.  And it’s at this point all of the characters turn into complete fraking morons.  Because there is a certain reason to what Buffy is saying; and they’ve acted on much sketchier ideas – like Xander’s idea to steal a rocket launcher from a military post to fire at a blue demon that can fry your soul just by looking at you. Or, you know… fighting a literal god…  But just entertaining the idea that there might be a reason the latest big bad has amassed their forces at the vineyard and left the seal unattended is “a hell of a lot to ask.”

And then they all just attack.  They don’t have an alternative. Rona seems to think Buffy is “obsessed with beating Caleb,” gee, I wonder why???

Giles points out that Buffy isn’t sure how much she can trust some of them, and again, who could imagine the cause for the foundation of their trust to be shaken?

She wasn’t suggesting going in half-assed without a plan.  She was very clear about that.  They’ve collective put together much wilder plans with arguably much lower odds of success and still succeeded, but they want to do… what instead?  

Ultimately, Buffy managed to do it all on her own.  Sure, she arguably got lucky with part of that; maybe one person getting in and getting out of the vineyard instead of a larger group increased the odds of success without casualties.  But she did it.  And she killed Caleb single handedly.  Part of that may have been because of the scythe, but whatever the reason, if she could do it by herself, then there’s no reason that with the right plan, she could have done it just as easily, if not more so with the support of everyone else.

[thorne93]

The Softest Fire (Part 8)

Prompt: Rosaline Vaughan had it all: fame, money, power, glory, a high status job. Until, one day, she woke up, and realized something was missing from her life.

Word Count: 1566

Warnings: dealing with animals(??)

Notes: First Fantastic Beast fic! I could NOT have done this at all without @arrow-guy​​. They have created a counterpart to this fic, writing it from Nora Vaughan’s perspective (Rosaline’s cousin/adopted sister). Fic aesthetic done by @mrs-dragneel-stark-solo​​.

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

Jacob began looking around at the cemetery, his gaze concerned. “What�� what’re we doing here?” he wondered. 

I drew my wand immediately, inching forward. “Jacob, stay close to me. I don’t know what’s going on or why we’re here but this is where Nicolas said those things were taking place.” 

“That stuff is going to happen, right? It hasn’t already happened, has it?” he questioned, hope in his voice. 

“Correct. I need to find a way to stop it,” I murmured, walking through the stones towards the large building in the middle of the field. I kept creeping forward, slowly picking up the pace until we reached an entrance to the marble mausoleum. 

“Should we be going in?” Jacob wondered behind me. The fear was clear in his question. 

“I fear we don’t have a choice. This is where those things were happening. I have to go in. My cousin could be in trouble.”

I heard him swallow, and I took that as a sign of agreement. I continued forward down a long corridor, arched with marble tiles. “Lumos,” I quietly muttered, hoping to light our way in the dark. I could hear voices, many of them, at the end of the hallway, echoing. I turned back to Jacob, frowning, unsure what was up ahead. 

Finally, we emerged. I killed the light on the end of my wand and took in the spectacle before me. Witches and wizards of all ages stood in an arena style area, with someone addressing the crowd -- Grindelwald. His face had been on nearly every poster and newspaper. 

I glanced to my left and saw Queenie. Turning back to Jacob, I got his attention and gestured with a head nod towards his girlfriend. He immediately saw her and ran towards her. Behind them, I saw the rest of the group, listening, watching the crowd. 

Grindelwald’s speech was… a great marketing pitch. He claimed he didn’t hate muggles, or the no-magic. I listened with great intent, trying to search for signs of weakness, or conflict, any sway in his convictions. 

“Would the aurors from the Ministry please step forward from the crowd?” Grindelwald requested. 

Many of them looked around, confused,nervous, scared… But they came forward. That was when it started. An auror was attacked from a Grindelwald follower in the crowd, but the auror killed her first. Grindelwald then ordered all of his followers to leave and spread the word that they weren’t the violent ones. It was only after they left that the aurors were left, along with Queenie, Jacob, Newt, myself, Tina, Theseues, Creedence, Nora, and a girl I’d never seen before.

Blue fire swirled and licked at us, keeping us back from Grindelwald and his pack of followers. It was a very effective, very interesting spell he’d cast. One that I had actually studied. When one of the followers tried to join it appeared his heart was not in it and he was slowly eaten alive by the flame. 

“Aurors, join me, in the circle,” Grindelwald encouraged. “Or die. It is here you will know freedom. Only here you will know who you are.” 

But many of the aurors began to retreat, and the flames quickly shot up the steps of the mausoleum stairs, killing the aurors. I watched on in horror and terror as they died. My gaze shot back to Grindelwald, standing in the middle of the stage, proud. 

“No cheating, children.” 

Suddenly, the woman I didn’t know was holding Creedence back. Newt went to try to help, to try and talk him out of joining him, but the flames shot up at him. I raised my wand to help deflect the fire away from Newt. But it was futile, as Creedence made his way safely through the flames, Queenie begged Jacob to come with her. She screamed at him, “Walk with me!” 

With tears in his eyes, Jacob said, “You’re crazy.” 

That was all it took for her to snap her body the opposite direction and rush into the fire. Queenie just walked through the fire, unscathed. She was one of them now and that broke my heart for Jacob. How could she possibly choose that over him? 

I had just dodged a shot from one of Grindelwald’s followers before throwing an attack back at him, effectively disarming him. Grindelwald appeared as if he were conducting an orchestra, and more flames raced up the steps, killing more aurors, even ones that were trying to apparate away. 

“Mr. Scamander, do you think that Dumbedore will mourn for you?” Grindelwald asked and my eyes went wide as my heart raced. He shot his fire at Theseus and Newt, forcing them on their backs as they tried to fight off the flame. I quickly pushed the flame away from them. 

“Grindelwald, stop!” Leta demanded. 

Just then, my gaze went up, watching Leta walk towards the fire. My eyes narrowed on her. As much as I believed she would’ve joined someone like Grindelwald, I somehow knew she wasn’t doing that. 

Theseus and Newt began fighting the fire to get to her, but it just kept after them. 

“This one, I believe I know,” Grindelwald said almost to himself. “Leta Lestrange. Despised entirely among witches and wizards. Yet brave, so very brave. Time to come home,” he said as he offered her his hand and he began walking back towards the circle. She took his hand, but only for a moment before she let it go.

“I love you,” Leta said, looking to Theseus. 

Before I could object, Leta raised her wand and began to fight Grindelwald from behind. One of her shots hit the object Grindelwald’s follower was holding and it unleashed even more flames that whipped around inside the mausoleum. 

Just as I was about to run up and shove her away, I realized what she was doing. She was giving everyone a chance to escape by distracting him. Disbelief filled my core as I stared at her and her sacrifice. Leta continued to try and attack Grindelwald before turning to Newt, Theseus, and myself and ordered, “Go! Go!”  

Nora and I made eye contact before Newt and I did. The three of us knew what was happening but Theseus was transfixed for only a moment, when Grindelwald pushed out his blue flame to include her in the circle. 

Theseus cried out, rage and fear taking over as he struck at the flames over and over, futily. But he wasn’t strong enough... Grindelwald obliterated her. I closed my eyes, looking away, clenching a fist. 

An array of emotions slammed into me like a train… guilt, remorse, grief, regret… Leta seemed to be the final straw. Aurors were dying right and left, and now… Leta had given herself up. 

When I heard Theseus cry out, I looked, and Newt was holding him back. The sight made my heart constrict. 

Before I could even process what I was really doing, my feet were moving. A deep breath came over me before I squared my shoulders and stashed my wand up my sleeve before walking towards the flames. 

Nora stopped, watching me. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me.

Without pausing, I stepped through the wild blue flames, their heat not touching my skin. I was unharmed as I walked closer and closer to Grindelwald. He peered at me with curious eyes, assessing me. 

Just as I stood a foot away from him, face to face, the blue flames suddenly got closer, only surrounding he and myself. The flames went high, circling us, making a funnel. I smiled at him, a polite smile.

“Now, this is a treat. Rosaline Vaughan, in the flesh,” he admired, his eyes raking over my body.

“Gellert Grindelwald.” 

"Seems we're both celebrities," he remarked fondly. "Right, me for my heroism, moral compass, and ability to do the right thing....” I noted. “And you, for terrorism. We're so alike..." Sarcasm bit at the end of my statement. I usually wasn’t one for sarcasm, but I think in times of great peril, it calls for it. "You have quite the mouth. How did my flames not capture you?" He stroked my cheek with the back of his fingers. I wanted to blast his hand away from me, but I needed to remain calm. I let him touch me, not flinching or grimacing. "I guess there is a lot you don't know about me or my abilities." "That sounds like something I need to find out then." 

I thought he was about to pull his wand out, so I let mine drop from my sleeve, but the next thing I knew, he was leaning forward, and whispering in my ear. In two seconds, I was blindingly dizzy and began to fall towards the ground before Gellert caught me, holding me up with one arm, the other hand on my forehead, his wand right there. 

He gazed down at me with adoration and desire, and suddenly I felt weightless, as if all the worry, all the anxiety was rid from my body. But I was too weak to reach up and touch him. There I lay, limp in his arms, barely aware that Nora and the rest of them were outside of our proximity. 

In the next second, Gellert, his flames, his followers, and myself, disappeared. We apparated out of the mausoleum, and out of Nora, Newt, and Theseus’ life.

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

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[questionsonislam]

What are the fundamental rights Islam gives to man?

To comprehend the importance given to human rights in Islam, it is better to have a glance at the circumstances of the world before Islam. As follows:

1. All of the states in the world were ruled by monarchy. The ruling king, monarch or emperor had full authority over the people he ruled. He used to kill or exile the people he desired, and he did not have to account for anything he had done to people.

2. People were divided into classes. The monarchs close acquaintances and relatives (the nobles) were in the privileged class. Besides, a large group of people who were despised and whose rights were violated constituted a separate class. There was a deep gap between those classes.

3. Slavery was carried out in the most barbarous way. Personal dignity was flagrantly violated.

4. People were treated depending on their races and color of their skins; the superiority of the lineages were accepted as the unique superiority measure. People were not appraised according to their intelligence, knowledge, competence, morals and virtue.

5. There were no fundamental rights or freedoms. None of the fundamental rights or freedoms such as freedom of conscience and religion, right of property, freedom of having a residence, freedom of opinion were considered for an ordinary person. People were subjected to oppression and persecution because of their belief and opinions; and consciences were under oppression.

6. The fundamental principles of law were disregarded. It was even impossible to imagine fundamental judicial concepts like equality in law, domination of the laws, individuality and legality of the punishments. Personal desires and commands were deemed as law, different punishments were applied to the persons committing the same crime but belonging to different classes.

The religion of Islam came and committed the greatest revolution in the history of humanity when the world was in such a dark state.

If it is examined fair-mindedly, it can be seen that the ultimate humane targets that have been attained today were realized many centuries before the human rights declarations were published in the Western World both in the Noble Quran and in the practices of the Prophet (PBUH),

As a matter of fact, the principles included in the speech (the Farewell Sermon) the Prophet (PBUH) gave during his Farewell Hajj are the clearest examples about the issue.

This sermon was read in the year A.D. 632 in the presence of more than 100,000 Muslims. That is, 1157 years before the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen which is regarded as the first written text concerning human rights.

The new principles Islam brought to human rights also had major effects on the struggle of the human rights in the West.

Man has a different value from the other beings. That value increases through belief in Allah and obedience to His commands. Thus, man becomes the most honorable guest in the universe. Man gets the value of humanity by his birth, in fact by the beginning of his formation in the uterus and he bears that value throughout his life.

The value of being a human surrounds everyone. Woman-man, elder-younger, black-white, weak-strong, poor-rich, no matter from what religion and nationality, race or color; the shadow of that compassion encompasses all.

Thus, Islam protects the blood of every person from being shed illegally, his chastity from being violated, his property from usurpation, his dwelling from being violated, his lineage from being deteriorated, his conscience from being under constraint. Islam assures the honor and dignity of humanity.

The fundamental rights and freedoms Islam has provided humanity are as follows:

1. Islam put an end to the discrimination of race and color. All people descended from Hazrat Adam. It is not possible for a person to choose his own race and color. It is completely by Allahs determination. It is extremely wrong and harmful to make discrimination and to regard some races and colors as supreme by condemning some races and colors both from the point of view of Islam and humanity.

Almighty Allah says in the noble Quran that He created mankind from a male and a female, and that when their numbers increased, he made them into nations and tribes so that they would know and help each other easily and they would make friends . (al- Hujurat, 13)

As it is seen, the fact that people are from different races and colors are not for superiority to each other but for getting acquainted with and helping each other.

An event illuminating that approach of Islam is as follows:

Abu Dharr, from the companions (sahaba), got angry with Bilal al-Habashi and insulted him by saying: Son of the black woman. He despised him because of his mothers color. When the Prophet (PBUH) was informed of the event, he got very angry and told Abu Dharr the following:

— O Abu Dharr. You have despised Bilal because of his mothers color, is that so? Then, you still have the mentality of the age of ignorance (jahiliyyah).

Hazrat Abu Dharr felt very sorry and repented for those words that slipped out of his mouth with a momentary anger without his intention. He began to cry, threw himself to the ground and put his face on the ground and he said:

— I swear, I wont raise my face from the ground unless Bilal threads and tramples on my cheek with his foot.

He apologized to Bilal al-Habashi repeatedly.

2. Islam put an end to the superiority of family and ancestry and being proud of that. During a meeting that the Companions (sahaba) were present, Sad b. Abi Waqqas offered some of the notables to mention the names of their ancestries. He named his ancestors from the beginning to the end. Salman al-Farsi, who was originally from Iran, was also present there, He didnt have a famous lineage as the notables of Quraish. He did not know his ancestors in detail, either. When Hazrat Sad offered him to name his ancestors, he found this offer strange and gave him this answer: I am Salman, son of Islam. I dont know my ancestors like you. I know one thing that Allah has honored me with Islam

Hazrat Umar also felt uncomfortable with that unnecessary offer of Sads about naming ancestors that reminded the mentality of the age of ignorance . He was so pleased with Salmans meaningful answer that he likened his answer to Salmans answer saying, I am Umar, the son of Islam, too.

When the Prophet (PBUH) heard the case, he also liked Salmans answer and he said: Salman is from me, from my family.

The Prophet demolished the mentality of ignorance based on the superiority of the lineages by giving the noblest families daughters in marriage to some companions that were slaves set free.

3. Islam brought the citizens the right to control and supervise their administrators. It aimed to put an end to the arbitrary management, injustice and illegality in the administration of the state. Hazrat Abu Bakr expressed that issue as follows in his speech when he was elected as the Caliph: O people! I have been elected as your administrator although I am not the best one among you. Obey me if I perform my duty in accordance with Islam. If I go astray, warn me.

One day, Hazrat Umar asked the Muslims in the mosque, If I go astray, what will you do? They replied: We will straighten you with our swords. Hazrat Umar was very pleased with that answer.

4. Freedom of Thought and Conscience. Freedom of thought and conscience is the most important human right after right of living. Not giving this right to man means reducing him to the degree of the animals by getting him out of his real essence. Therefore, Islam by no means allows thoughts and consciences to be kept under oppression. With the principle There is no compulsion in religion, Islam does not approve of making people accept the fundamentals of belief by force.

5. Islam has paid attention to the establishment of slavery painstakingly and brought it to a judicial regulation.

When the religion of Islam arose, slavery was prevalent as he most barbaric and inhuman practice all over the world. Islam, of course, could not have been expected to abolish that establishment completely that was prevalent all over the world. So, Islam did not choose to abrogate slavery completely at once but gave it the most humane and civil form by making great reforms regarding it. In addition, Islam supplied some formulae to make slavery abolish indirectly by increasing and facilitating the ways of passing to freedom from slavery.

6. Freedom of Property. Love of property and desire to have goods are among the various feelings Allah has given to man. That issue has been specified clearly in the Quran. Islam has given man the right to have property and has laid the groundwork for satisfying that feeling in a legal way. Nobody can interfere in any way with anybodys right of having property that Islam gives to him without his permission.

7. Equality before Law. Islam accepts all people equal before law like the teeth of a comb. Islam does not allow making a privileged treatment to the people in accordance with their social status and pedigrees.

In Islam, the dominance and the superiority of the laws are essential. The president and any of the citizens are treated equally before law. The guilty one is penalized even though he is a president. The most striking examples of it are that Fatih Sultan Mehmet and a Greek architect; Hazrat Ali and a Jewish; Salahaddin al- Ayyubi and an Armenian were taken to the court to be judged.

A woman from a noble family of the Mahzum tribe committed a theft on the conquest day of Mecca and she was caught in the act. She had to be punished. But, since the woman belonged to a noble family, they were afraid to blacken the name of the family so they wanted her to be forgiven and not to be punished. But how would they attain it? How would they tell it to the Prophet? Eventually, they sent Usama b. Zayd, the beloved one by the Prophet, to the Prophet as an envoy. Usama entered the presence of the Prophet and told him about the case. He asked him to forgive the guilty woman. The Prophet (PBUH) got very angry with this offer. He got out right away and made this historical speech:

O Muslims, do you know why the nations before you had been demolished and destroyed and had become a thing of the past? When a person from the notables committed a crime, they would not punish him. However, when an ordinary person committed a crime, they would desire strongly to apply the punishment. This injustice caused them to be destroyed. I swear, if the person committing the crime were my daughter Fatima, I would not hesitate to punish her at all.

Thereupon, the punishment was applied immediately.

The following sentences from the speech that Hazrat Abu Bakr made when he was selected as the Caliph also attract attention from that point of view: The weakest ones among you are the strongest before me till they take their rights. The strongest ones are the weakest before me till I take others rights from them.

8. Individuality and Legality of Punishment. In Islam, there can be no illegal punishment, and punishing somebody else instead of the person committing the crime is not in question.

The principle of the individuality of punishment is expressed in Chapter al-Anam as follows: Every soul draws the meed of its acts on none but itself: no bearer of burdens can bear the burden (sin) of another. (Verse: 164)

9. Independence and Impartiality of the Courts. Courts, which are the establishments for justice in Islam, have been kept away from all kinds of outer oppressions, personal animosities, spites andarbitrary applications; and the judges havent been allowed to lose their impartiality. In Islamic courts, presidents were tried with ordinary people and they were punished if they were found guilty.

10. Inviolability of Residence and Immunity of Private Life. In Islam, nobody has the right to interfere with an individuals private life and to enter his residence without his permission. In Islam, it is forbidden inspecting peoples confidential affairs.

11. Freedom of Travel. In Islam, traveling is accepted as a cause to learn lessons and to get healthy. Therefore, people are encouraged to travel.

12. Right of living, assurance of protecting lives, property and chastity from violation. That issue has been manifested in the most beautiful way in the Farewell Sermon by Allahs Messenger:

O people! Just as you regard this month, this day, this city as Sacred, so regard the life and property of every Muslim as a sacred trust. They are protected from all kinds of violation.

13. Social Security. The religion of Islam patronizes man so that he wont be aggrieved and wretched due to old age, illness, disasters and accidents, and Islam takes the future of the needy under assurance through social security measures it supplies. Above all, Islam incites people to take themselves under assurance economically by encouraging them to work. Besides, Islam supplies a distinct security in the family, in the circle of neighbors and relatives by various measures it has taken. The state itself takes the individuals security under assurance when all of these security precautions are insufficient. The establishment of zakat (alms) and waqfs are the perfect social security foundations.

14. Freedom of Labor, Justice and Equality of Payment. In Islam, working and endeavoring are appreciated and encourageed greatly. Begging, being a burden to someone else is not welcomed. What is more, working to provide a living for ones family is regarded as worship as long as (fardhs) obligatory duties are performed. The verse, That man can have nothing but what he strives for. shows the importance Islam gives to endeavoring and working

Islam, which assures the freedom of working fully –on condition that it is a legal earning way-, also organizes the relationship between the employee and the employer in the nicest way.

The principle Pay the wages of a worker before his sweat dries assures the rights of workers in the perfect way.

The worker, in return, will try to complete the work assigned to him perfectly and completely and he will accept trying to deserve the wages he receives as a principle.

15. Patronage of Children. Islam patronizes children beginning from their birth; several aids are made to parents for their children nutrition and clothing expenses and subsidies are allocated from the treasury of the government. Today, that aid is supplied in all rich states under the name money for children. Allahs Messenger insistently warned the army of Islam against killing women and especially children in the wars.

16. Fundamental Education is Obligatory and Free of Charge. The hadith Seeking of knowledge is obligatory for every Muslim man and woman. makes the fundamental education obligatory. The curriculum of the fundamental education has been prepared very carefully in Islam.

The fundamental education includes vocational education besides religious, ethical and moral knowledge. Islam considers it necessary for children to be trained for a profession along with religious knowledge.