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dangerouslyallaboutdraco · 3 years ago

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Story of us

A/n: Angsty, post-Hogwarts and slightly r13 towards the end.

The history between Y/n and Draco was... complicated. There was something between them that their friends just couldn't understand. On paper there was no reason for them to dislike each other as much as they did, she was a pureblood Slytherin who grew up very similarly to him and also had to change her views like Draco did after the war.

They shared trauma and multiple parallel life experiences but they just didn't get along. Pansy and Daphne never got it, why Y/n had that look of disgust on her face once Draco finished talking.

Blaise and Theo thought it would get better after they left Hogwarts and didn't spend all their free time together, but still, Draco rolled his eyes whenever she walked into the room.

Now they were adults in the wide world, jobs, partners but the tightknit friend group stayed close. Friday nights were always time they spent together, reserved for clubbing or a pub night out or even sitting on Blaise and Pansy's living room floor.

Tonight it was the latter. With a G and T (her favourite muggle alcohol) in her hand, Y/n sat on their couch next to Pansy who had had a lot more than her to drink.

Just as the boys had taken out their hidden stash of weed, Y/n spoke up. "I'm going to go outside." It wasn't that she was opposed to weed, she just didn't like the smell and the boys always insisted on smoking so much they couldn't see out the windows.

Blaise and Pansy's apartment had a beautiful wrap-around balcony. While Y/n and Draco were both fair wealthier, they both received substantial graduation gifts that went a long way to getting an apartment in a good part of London.

They had been together since the last year of Hogwarts, all of their friends watching them slowly grow closer over the year until they realised they were in love.

It was beautiful and while 17-year-old Y/n envied them, she always wanted to speak at their wedding.

As soon as she opened the balcony door the still night air hit her. While it was colder than inside, the sweet smell of the summer air made it a nice contrast.

The sun was just setting in the distance and the sky was the most beautiful golden, pink colour. It was the time Y/n always liked to look out her window at during the war, knowing there was peacefulness at the end of the day always made the long days feel slightly better. The way the warm light danced over the water, dancing on the walls of the usually dark dormitory.

Standing out on the balcony, where the world was right and falling into place felt a lot better. Like nothing could get her down.

She was off in her own world, not noticing when Draco opened the sliding door and walked out next to her.

"Shit Draco!" She shrieked once he put his hand on her lower back. She ignored the tingling feeling in her stomach as she glared at him.

Draco stepped closer to her, maybe too close for her liking. "You could really do with some weed to chill out." He told her, holding the joint closer to her face. "This stuff is the shit, just fresh from my guy." He continued to tell her.

Maybe she would have been interested in Draco if he were less cocky, less rude and a bit more sensitive. Something in his bad-boy image had developed over the year that meant she liked him less.

"Do you always insist on speaking like a druggy?" Y/n asked him, watching him carefully as he looked over the railing with his joint.

He retaliated quickly. "Do you always insist on being such a tight ass, Miss Goody-two-shoes?" He couldn't understand why she always seemed to spoil their fun, ever since they were sorted into Slytherin.

She just rolled her eyes at him and stared out into the distance. While he was no longer disturbing her silence he was still disturbing her peace and alone time.

She didn't feel like arguing with him either, it was just too much effort. Draco stood there, smoking his joint while Y/n gazed at the skyline.

“Why are you even out here?” Y/n snapped at him, suddenly feeling annoyed by the smell of his smoking.

“Because I can be, what even is your problem with me?” He was definitely going to find out how she felt now, pushing her to the limits made her snappy.

She rolled her eyes at him, obviously annoyed. “We faced pretty much all of the same challenges in life, but you just became a failure and it really annoys me.”

“Well, you’re just a slut who hooked up with several guys at school, none of which liked you for any reason other than your body.” Draco’s words did hurt her quite a bit, it wasn’t like she didn’t know he hated her but hearing him say that the people she’d been intimate with never actually cared for her hurt.

“Fuck off, Draco.” She told him, carefully.

The look on his face showed her that he was not going to stop for a second. “Just because you don’t like the truth, bitch.”

“Just leave me alone.” She told him, turning away.

Draco couldn’t stop winding her up now, it just brought him too much amusement. “Or what, Y/l/n, will you sleep with me like you did every other guy?”

Y/n turned around and put her hand up to slap Draco’s cheek. It wasn’t as hard as she could have hit him but it was the hardest she ever hit anyone. There was a loud sound as her palm contacted his face.

Still stunned and with her hand in mid-air, Draco snatched her wrist. There they were standing in a face-off, Draco’s slim finger wrapped around her wrist and suddenly there was not one sound. Both of them staring into each other’s eyes. Although Y/n felt threatened, never one to back down from a challenge she scrutinized his eyes.

Draco was seeing red, his least favourite of all the colours. He was like a bull staring down where he was going to charge. The colour of hatred, blood, anger and passion.

The passion she felt for him, it was surging from where he was touching her. He was the energy source that filled her usually with range but now it was amour fou.

In a moment Draco released his grip on her hand and moved his hands to her cheeks. Unlike his prior roughness, his thumb stroked along her cheekbones softly and carefully like he was afraid to break her as he lay his fingers under her jawline.

His softness was a complete shock to Y/n who was still gazing into his eyes. The cold fingertips were more gentle than she’d ever expected, dancing across her jawline with such care. She wasn’t sure she’d ever experienced a touch this delicate.

There they stayed for a few moments, taking each other in. Both of their minds were on the other, brains frenzied trying to figure out how this had happened. Draco was sure he was infatuated with her perfume, obsessed over the perfect blend of coconut and vanilla that was all he could focus on.

Before either of them could think about the consequences their lips were pressed together in a heated kiss. The passion radiated off them, electricity circuiting through them. And it finally felt, for both of them, that every little puzzle piece fit.

Eventually they lips parted, their eyes flickering open. Draco was an inch from her face, not believing just how beautiful she was. He held his hands on her face tighter not wanting to let her slip out of his grip.

“Draco Malfoy, I am 100% in love with you.” Y/n slowly let out. She’d just kissed her arch-enemy so there was no point in not being truthful.

He smirked, that cute little smirk that had only ever annoyed her from across the common room. “Damn it, y/l/n!” He exclaimed with mock anger. “Now we’re going to tell our kids that mum said ‘I love you’ first.” It was odd for Y/n to see him like that as they were usually at each other’s throats. And now he was thinking about their very distant future.

She smiled to match his. “Just tell me it back, you dork.”

“I am 110% in love with you.” Draco counted. “Do you want to come back to my place?”

Y/n’s face turned to worry. “This isn’t a joke, is it?” Usually, this isn’t the type of shit he would pull but she’d never know.

“No, no, no.” His fingers were back stroking her cheeks. “I am really sorry about what I said, believe me, I’ll never say something like that again.”

Something in Y/n knew he wasn’t lying. There was no chance he didn’t feel the same passion he did in the kiss. “Well, you could take me to dinner before you try and get into my panties.”

Draco let out a light laugh, blowing air right onto her face. “Whoever said I wanted to do that, you flirt?”

“Don’t act like you don’t want to fuck me.” The chemistry between them was electric and hot. The pair looking into each other's eyes with desire.

“Let’s go before I do you right here.” Y/n looked at him with challenging eyebrows. “Do you need me to prove it?”

Y/n pulled back from his grip on her face, leaving Draco standing there like an idiot. “Hurry up then.” She said, looking back over her shoulder with a smile as she went to open the patio door.

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hafanforever · 5 years ago

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Split Decision

So I think what happens at the end of this particular scene in Frozen II has caused some controversy about Elsa’s actions. I’ve seen fans here on Tumblr displaying anger towards her because they believe that she was only hugging Anna, and then had Olaf join them, in an act of trickery to lure them closer to her so she would make sure that her ice boat creation would surround and hold them before she sent them away.

However, while I agree that Elsa’s move was a bit sneaky and deceptive, I understand why she did it and why she felt it was her only choice, even though she knew Anna would consequently be furious with her over it. And now that I think about it, I look at Elsa’s hug from another perspective and believe that it wasn’t merely a trick to lure Anna and Olaf into her boat trap, but her own way (though a rather forceful and indirect one) of saying goodbye to them.

Before this happens, Elsa has decided to venture to Ahtohallan alone, without Anna, saying that crossing the Dark Sea to reach Ahtohallan would be too dangerous of a trek for both of them to make. Yet Anna adamantly insists on coming to prevent anything from happening to Elsa, which she had earlier promised to Pabbie.

The thing here is, Elsa turns out to be completely right about the Dark Sea. When she tries to cross it, she gets knocked down twice by the waves, struggles to swim in the deep, choppy waters, and has to use her powers to try to overcome the obstacles to get further out and closer to Ahtohallan. Things get more complicated for Elsa when the Nokk appears; several times, it aggressively attacks her and attempts to drown her, forcing her to fight back with all of her might until she finally makes it settle down.

This whole scene reminds me of the earlier scene when Elsa decides to go to the forest and tries to discourage Anna from coming, saying that she (Elsa) has her powers to protect her, while Anna does not. But Anna stubbornly refuses to take no for an answer, given what dangerous feats she overcame on their previous adventure without the use of magical powers.

The entire scene of Elsa against the Dark Sea proves her point about her powers’ use in protecting her perfectly. She would not have been able to take care of herself by working to get past the big waves and fighting the Nokk if she had to do it with Anna, too. Maybe this sounds a little biased, and I don’t mean for it to sound that way, but it’s true that only Elsa could successfully face off against the Nokk since they are both magical beings (and as it turns out, Elsa is an elemental spirit just like it). Okay, yes, we’ve seen how Anna can do a damn great job of taking care of herself in tough situations, and I give her credit for it. I am not at all dismissing her as a weak, inept, incompetent, helpless damsel in distress, because I KNOW she isn’t. She’s tough, plucky, spunky, brave, and fearless. But Anna DOES have her limitations, and I think she sometimes overlooks or underestimates that about herself. Successfully crossing the Dark Sea and taking on the Nokk is NOT something she would have been able to do at all.

Getting back to Elsa’s reasoning that she had to go to Ahtohallan by herself, like I said, the scene of her doing so proves that she was right. Now she probably didn’t anticipate on encountering the Nokk, but I bet Elsa did think that there might be risks about which she didn’t know yet while crossing the Dark Sea, which is another reason why she refused to let Anna come along.

Another thing here that catches my attention is how Anna doesn't seem to heed Elsa’s words about the sea being too dangerous if they both tried to go, since she immediately responds to Elsa’s statement with, “No, no. We do this together. Remember the song? ‘Go too far and you’ll be drowned’.” It is crystal clear from these words, and from her earlier scenes where she never wanted to leave her sister’s side, that Anna had a desperate desire to protect Elsa during this journey.

When she adds, "Who will stop you from going too far?", it sounds like Anna isn’t thoroughly considering that the chances of Elsa dying was much greater, and for herself as well, if they tried to pass the Dark Sea together. Anna wanted to ensure that Elsa didn’t head too far into Ahtohallan’s depths and dying, but they wouldn't have even made it to Ahtohallan without crossing the sea first. They both could have perished before getting there, and then their mission would remain incomplete. Then again, perhaps Anna did realize the possibility of them both not being able to make it across the sea, but she just didn’t want to accept or even think about it because she was far more afraid of losing her sister if Elsa went all alone.

Obviously, the fact that the two discovered moments earlier that their parents had died trying to reach Ahtohallan in search of answers to her powers is what made Elsa decide that Anna could not go with her. She guiltily felt responsible for Agnarr and Iduna’s deaths, and she didn't want to carry extra weight on her shoulders by feeling responsible for Anna’s safety and taking the chance of her dying if they went together. Since Anna is the only blood family Elsa has left, she refused to risk losing her, too.

I mean, remember: Elsa briefly lost Anna once before, and at her own hands, so she was determined not to let it happen again. Any chance of losing Anna again on this journey would no doubt be permanent, and Elsa would never forgive herself if that happened. 😔

Like the earlier scene, Anna stubbornly refuses to take no for an answer to Elsa’s decision to go to Ahtohallan alone. While she understands Anna’s fear of the chance that she (Elsa) may die on her trek, Elsa knows that she may have to take that risk just to do what is right for Arendelle and the forest. But successfully crossing the sea is something that is far beyond Anna’s control.

So having made up her mind that crossing the sea would be more dangerous if they both go, Elsa puts her foot down (by LITERALLY doing so when she creates the ice path 😆) with utmost and firm determination that Anna cannot continue the journey by coming to Ahtohallan with her.

When Anna says that she wants to come because she can’t bear to lose Elsa, Elsa says she can’t lose Anna, either, and pulls her sister in for a hug. Like I said above, I see her hugging Anna, and Olaf, not just as a ruse to ensure that she could send them off to be safe, but to say goodbye. If Elsa thinks that she may die and thus never see them again, then she wanted to embrace them now since it may be for the last time. Despite Anna’s insistence and voicing her fear of losing Elsa, Elsa feels that her fear of losing Anna is even greater since Anna would be in much greater danger with trying to cross the sea. So she resorts to forcing her sister not to accompany her by making the ice boat and sending Anna and Olaf away to make sure that they wouldn’t and couldn’t follow her. Elsa also creates the ice path on which for the boat to slide to ensure that the two would be sent too far away for them to easily follow and catch up with her.

Additionally, I have been wondering if Elsa's desire to journey to Ahtohallan on her own wasn't just for the safety measures of her sister, but also because of her introverted nature, because of her independence and desire to do certain things alone (which she clearly demonstrated when she made up her mind to travel to the Enchanted Forest). Additionally, the fact that Elsa is another elemental spirit of the forest, the fifth spirit, means that she had to go to Ahtohallan by herself, as part of her destiny to learn her true identity. She had to be independent, as she likes to be, and discover the whole truth for herself, on her own.

While Elsa is the introvert between the two sisters, Anna is the extrovert, and with this kind of nature, I don't think she truly understands the ways of introverts. It is with this scene, and even in Frozen, when she insists to Kristoff that "nobody wants to be alone, except maybe you" as a response to him saying “Most people who disappear into the mountains want to be alone” that shows that she doesn’t entirely comprehend their ways. Maybe after three years, Anna understands Elsa and Kristoff’s introverted behaviors a little more. But when considering the big picture, I think she still believes no one ever really wants to be alone, or even do things alone, just because she doesn't want to. After all, Anna spent nearly all of those 13 years alone and isolated from the outside world, and she wants to make sure she never goes back to that life. And yet despite her tragic childhood and adolescence, Anna grew up to be kind, sweet, loving, and good-hearted, and never hesitates to help others and do what was right. However, it also seems to have made her a bit delusional and unrealistic by thinking everyone else wants to be around people like she does, or that they always need help for every situation. Anna doesn’t appear to fully understand that some people like to be independent and have to do things on their own, nor does she seem willing to accept the fact that she can’t help everyone with everything, especially Elsa. She has to learn that she can’t be by Elsa’s side all the time just to stop every bad thing that might happen. She has to learn to accept and respect the fact that Elsa feels comfortable taking on some challenges all by herself and doesn’t always need help. In the first movie, Anna’s ignorance of Elsa’s secret is part of why she didn’t understand why her sister was so distant and closed in. But even after discovering it, she still disbelieved that Elsa wanted to be alone and that it was a major reason why she ran away. And while she was right in the long run, Anna sometimes seemed to go too far with her optimism since she didn’t really listen to Elsa’s concerns that she couldn’t remove the winter curse. Likewise, when she first met Kristoff, Anna didn't understand his grumpy, rude, unfriendly behavior towards her and Oaken, or his contemptuous attitude towards people and society.

So now in this scene, Anna seems to be unable, or perhaps just far too stubborn, to comprehend the fact that Elsa MUST do this on her own as part of her destiny, and that her powers could help her through this, while the same could not be said for her (Anna). Again, the tasks of making it across the Dark Sea and simultaneously taming the Nokk are beyond Anna’s control. It would have been far more treacherous than climbing the North Mountain, surviving a frozen heart, and saving Elsa from her ex-boyfriend without powers to aid her. 😉

Moving on, when Anna and Olaf are finally out of sight, the last shot of Elsa in the scene shows her holding herself and looking unhappy at what she did. As I said in “Keep Your Hands to Yourself”, Elsa does feel guilty and unhappy over sending Anna away the way she did, knowing full well that having done so has made her sister angry at her. But right now, Elsa is far more concerned about Anna’s safety than her happiness, and she would rather send her away to be safe than let her come along for the rest of the journey just so Anna can be happy that they are still together.

So again, Anna could not come with Elsa to Ahtohallan because the perils of the Dark Sea could have killed them both. If it didn’t kill both of them, Anna would have been the more susceptible victim because she possesses no magical powers to help her, especially in dealing with the Nokk. With even one of them dead, Elsa and Anna’s mission would never be finished; as I explained in “Girls in the Mist”, they HAD to do it together.

Elsa’s decision to split her and Anna up in this scene means that for now, she has broken her promise that she and Anna would do their mission together. But when Elsa temporarily freezes to death upon going into the most dangerous part of Ahtohallan, Anna manages to lift the mist and free the forest by provoking the Giants into destroying the dam.

Because she was alive and safe like her sister wanted her to be, Anna was able to successfully finish the work Elsa started. So even though they weren’t physically together the whole time, they STILL did it together, meaning that in the end, Elsa kept her promise to Anna. 😁😄😊

#Frozen 2 analyses #Frozen analyses #Disney #Disney Frozen 2 #Disney Frozen #Frozen 2 #Frozen #Elsa #Anna #Dark Sea #Ahtohallan #decision #separation #1K #my stuff #mine

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robininthelabyrinth · 4 years ago

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Three Gates - on ao3 (for content warnings check Ao3) - on tumblr: pt 1, pt 2, pt 3, pt 4, pt 5, pt 6, pt 7, pt 8, pt 9, pt 10, pt 11, pt 12, pt 13

- Chapter 14 -

“I would like your advice on something,” Meng Yao said to his mother.

Meng Shi was wearing silk again, rich colors that suited her – she had fully recovered from the serious illness she’d had a few years back, something for which he would be forever thankful to Qinghe’s doctors because he knew she wouldn’t have made it if they were on their own – and a fur-lined jacket that made her look especially comfortable. She finished pouring the tea and smiled at him.

“You do?” she teased. “Still, after all these years?”

“I’m never too old for your advice,” he said and kissed her on the cheek before sitting down.

The weiqi board in the corner was midway through a game, he noticed, and was glad: Sisi was terrible at weiqi, and the only other person who routinely played against Meng Shi was Nie Huaisang. Things between them had grown better as he’d grown older – he loved to paint, to play, to keep birds and raise flowers, and those were the things Meng Shi liked the most.

It was good to see them spending time together. Meng Yao hoped that Meng Shi could show Nie Huaisang how to forgive, and to remember how to be as carefree as he had once been.

After all, Nie Huaisang had taken up what had once been Meng Yao’s duties, during the war, all the intelligence work and strategy, the battlefield clean up and the politics, and it had left its marks. Indeed, if Meng Yao had been anyone other than Nie Huaisang’s dearly beloved brother, he would probably be the subject of a decade-long plan of utter obliteration right now, good motivations or not – in fact, he was pretty sure that Nie Huaisang had one already plotted out, and was still considering it an option if Meng Yao didn’t make regular deposits on the infinity of fans he apparently owed him.

(The brat wouldn’t take duplicates, either. Meng Yao had put in an order for someone to send him an entire ship’s worth from Dongying in the hopes that that would earn him a little credit. The relevant someone being Wei Wuxian, who was off exploring the world with Lan Wangji - possibly for no other reason than to get away from the rest of them all teasing them about the long and overly dramatic way in which they’d confessed their affections for each other.)

Still, Nie Huaisang had forgiven Meng Yao, even if he hadn’t forgotten, and they were most of the way back to being as they had been before – which admittedly was closer than he’d ever been with Meng Shi, who Nie Huaisang seemed to treat as a casual acquaintance instead of a mother. He treated her about the same as Sisi, actually, and usually acted as if he thought Meng Yao and Nie Mingjue were his birth parents instead of his brothers.

And possibly Lan Xichen as some sort of rich uncle he could (and routinely did) extort for gifts.

(He still called him ‘pretty gege’, though he’d recently started up several debates – mostly monologues – as to whether Lan Xichen ought to now be called ‘er-ge’ and Meng Yao ‘san-ge’ according to their ages, being that he was now part of the family, or if they should just all go ahead and get properly married already so that he could call him ‘sao-zi’ instead. They’d all collectively decided to ignore him.)

“Is it about those sworn brothers of yours?” she asked, lips curving up into a smile that was entirely unlike the practiced ones she had once used most of the time, a real one that was a little bit crooked, and that made it all the more beautiful in his eyes.

Meng Yao batted his eyelashes at her. “I will of course let myself be guided by Mother.”

She laughed. “I think it’s a good cover,” she said. Her eyes crinkled at the corners, now, and she didn’t try to hide it with make-up or anything else. Meng Yao treasured every blemish and imperfection. “You three can spend all your time in each other’s pockets, putting each other above everything else, and no one will question it – or, well, question it too much.”

“Let them talk,” Meng Yao said. There would never come a day when people didn’t whisper about him behind their sleeves, calling him the son of a whore, and nothing he could do, no matter how hard he tried, would stop it. He could only adjust his own thinking and ignore them, at peace in his heart with the knowledge that they were wrong about him. With the knowledge that he was better than they were or indeed would ever be.

Perhaps there was something to Lao Nie’s old exhortation after all.

“But do they have something to talk about?” his mother asked, arching her eyebrows at him. “You retire to the same room to sleep, but I’ve never seen any of you walking strangely the morning after – what are you waiting for? Actual marriage vows?”

“The sworn brother oath served that purpose,” Meng Yao said dismissively, just as he’d explained time and time again to Nie Huaisang. It was just as permanent, after all; they would be bound together in this life and the next, each name forever placed alongside the others in the annals of history. “And we’re just moving slowly.”

He’d explained, in the end, what Wen Ruohan had wanted, what Nie Mingjue was, what that meant; he didn’t want to keep it hidden and risk anyone later thinking that he was taking advantage.

He didn’t want to keep even one more secret from his lovers in this lifetime.

Nothing. Not even surprise parties.

Nie Mingjue hadn’t cared one bit about finding out that he was a furnace, because of course he didn’t; he was still an idiot after all these years. Lan Xichen, at least, had been rightfully alarmed – neither he nor Meng Yao wanted to risk harming Nie Mingjue by accident, no matter how much he argued that his cultivation was high enough that he wouldn’t even notice a setback, and anyway that he trusted them not to try to steal away from him.

Nie Mingjue had finally convinced them to try, the night after they’d taken the oath. Emotions had been running high, and they’d all fallen into bed together, their blood running hot.

It had been – an experience, to say the least.

Sex was pleasant, something Meng Yao knew intellectually from his days in the brothel and personally from the few experiences, male and female, he’d forced himself to have in order to ensure he didn’t have any demons in his heart on the subject. He’d been glad to confirm that although he liked it well enough, it wasn’t so good that he would become addicted to the feeling, descending into dissipation and cruelty the way his father had.

What they’d shared together on that night, however…that wasn’t just sex.

That was something he could become addicted to.

Meng Yao had insisted on a strict moratorium on any further activities until they could process what had just occurred, and it had been telling that neither Nie Mingjue and Lan Xichen had argued.

It had been mindblowing, a combination of overwhelming physical pleasure and emotional satiation, and then there was the spiritual ecstasy of cultivation – Meng Yao’s own cultivation, never especially strong, increased at an almost frightening pace for the next week, and Lan Xichen had confirmed a similar effect had occurred for him. Nie Mingjue’s cultivation seemed just as high as ever, unharmed, but obviously they had to do more research before they did anything else lest they accidentally cause harm to him somehow.

That meant they were back down to the basics, limiting themselves to rubbing up against each other at night and offering each other helping hands, given that Meng Yao and Lan Xichen weren’t willing to do anything together if it meant excluding Nie Mingjue – though recently they’d figured out that Nie Mingjue could narrate pornography without batting an eyelash with that frankly magnificent voice of his, and also that he liked telling people what to do (they knew that already, but still)…

They were going slowly. That’s how Meng Yao thought of it, and it was fine – he had no doubt that they’d figure out how to move to the next step sooner or later.

Sooner rather than later, given how quickly Lan Xichen was pouring through their respective sect libraries; apparently sexual frustration was a very effective motivator for him.

“If you’re sure you’re happy,” his mother said, and he smiled. “You seem to be. I’m glad.”

He nodded.

“So if it’s not about that, what do you want advice on? You haven’t needed to consult me on political matters in years. A-Sang would be better at that.”

“It’s not entirely political,” Meng Yao said, “though it’s not entirely apolitical, either, and don’t worry, I’ll consult Huaisang as well. Nevertheless, I wanted your views on the subject. You see, a rather complicated situation has arisen…I’ve been made an unusual offer.”

“An offer? A-Yao…”

“I know, I know,” he said, smiling. “Be careful of offers from strange men, especially bad men, and this is exactly that. But I still thought it was something worth considering. After getting the benefit of your insight, of course.”

“Well, then,” she said. “Now I’m curious. What’s the offer?”

He gave her the letter that he had received and drank his tea while she read it, her eyes going wide and then even wider.

“So,” he said, when he judged that she was done. “What do you think? Do I look like a ‘Jin Guangyao’? Or should I tell my father to go commit anatomically improbable acts on himself?”

“A-Yao…”

“I’m serious,” Meng Yao insisted. “This was always your dream, well before it was mine: whatever you decide, I’ll do. If you’d like for me to claim what should have been mine from the start, I’ll do it, though obviously if he thinks a mere name is enough to convince me to leave Qinghe in favor of Lanling he’s got a nasty surprise coming his way. But if you want me to tell him to his face that I’d rather be your son than his, I’ll do that too.”

He leaned back in his chair, and smiled.

“After all, I already have everything I want.”

- END -

#mdzs #meng yao #jin guangyao #meng shi #my fic #my fics #three gates

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slytherin-team · 4 years ago

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Some thoughts about similarities between Snape and Petunia and how Lily reacts to both of them -

In Snape’s memories, when Lily and Petunia are on platform 9 ¾ together, it starts out with Lily apologizing to Petunia and insisting that she’ll get Dumbledore to let her go to Hogwarts too. Although Lily clearly feels bad for her older sister (and presumably would feel more comfortable leaving home with her by her side) and is trying to placate her in some way, Petunia’s pride gets in the way. She responds (this is straight outta the book):

“I don’t – want – to – go!” Petunia had spat as she dragged her hand back out of her sister’s grasp. “You think I want to go to some stupid castle and learn to be a – a…” Her pale eyes roved over the platform, over the cats mewling in their owners’ arms, over the owls, fluttering and hooting at each other in cages, some already in their long black robes, loading trunks onto the scarlet steam engine or else greeting one another with glad cries after a summer apart. “ – you think I want to be a – a freak?”

Petunia, feeling like she needs to protect and preserve her ego, ends up saying something deeply hurtful to her sister.

In Snape’s worst memory, when he’s being bullied - sexually assaulted really - by James Potter, Lily steps in and tells James to leave him alone. Severus, like Petunia, doesn’t find Lily helpful in this situation but instead feels that her interference is a blow to his ego as well. Of course, this is when he utters, “I don’t need help from a filthy mudblood like her!”

So, Petunia hurts Lily by trying to turn her witch nature into a bad thing, something that makes her “freaky,” while Severus hurts Lily by trying to turn her muggle heritage into a bad thing, something that makes her “impure” and dirty.

Of course, Petunia, being Lily’s sister, has magical heritage because it has been explained that muggleborns are usually the result of a squib ancestor who integrated into the muggle world, and Petunia, for the rest of her life, can never seem to fully sever ties with anything magic related - it always comes back to her because even with her lack of powers, it’s part of who she is actually.

Likewise, Snape’s father is a muggle, just as Voldemort’s father was, and although being a “half-blood” is a step up the totem pole from being full-on muggleborn, the pure bloods at the top will still look down on you. We never learn why Snape remained in his childhood home at Spinner’s End, but it seems that like Petunia, he could never fully sever ties with his muggle heritage. So the way they both go about hurting Lily is ironic.

Now let’s talk about how Lily reacts in almost the same way to both of them,

First, this is how she responds to Petunia insisting that she really doesn’t want to go to Hogwarts and calling her a freak (straight outta the book again):

Lily glanced toward her parents, who were looking around the platform with an air of wholehearted enjoyment, drinking in the scene. Then she looked back at her sister, and her voice was low and fierce.

"You didn't think it was such a freak's school when you wrote to the headmaster and begged him to take you."

Lily gets vindictive when being insulted and I certainly don’t blame her. She’s kind and goodhearted but she’s no doormat. Good for her.

After Severus declines Lily’s help and calls her a mudblood, this is how she responds:

Lily blinked. “Fine,” she said, obviously hurt. “I won’t bother in the future. And I’d wash your pants if I were you, Snivellus.”

Again, she has a spiteful retort for someone declining her help and insulting her, and naturally I don’t blame her. However, if she detested Jame’s behavior so much, as she claimed, then it is disappointing to see her using his disparaging nickname for Severus and commenting on his pants (which means underpants here).

There’s also something about her suppressing a smirk or laughter when Severus is initially thrown into the air by James I think, like she does find it funny but also knows it’s wrong.

We know Severus calling Lily a mudblood was the final straw and what ended their friendship. It seems Petunia calling Lily a freak, and deciding from that moment on to resent the magical world, had the same effect. Of course, being her sister, she still remains in her life in some way but there’s no intimacy in their relationship as teens or adults it seems, just familial obligation.

Personally, I get a kick out of how much Petunia and Severus hate each other for shallow reasons (class, muggle status, wizard status, etc) and yet are almost exactly alike. They always let their pride get in the way and they both end up as very bitter adults who treat Harry terribly and yet do give him the protection he needs. In short, this is why I ship them together. I basically just wanna jump into the book and be like “sorry but you guys are the same and you just need to accept that, and then start a really fiery star-crossed lovers romance with each other.” *shrugs* Maybe that’s just me.... >.<

I can never fully form an opinion on Lily since we get so little of her but I think the scorn she receives from her sister for being a witch, complicated by her muggle parents thinking it’s like the coolest thing ever, and then entering the wizarding world and realizing some people see her as a “mudblood” and coming of age in the time of Voldemort, must have had quite an impact on her sense of self and her understanding of her place in the world. She’s presented as so perfect but underneath it all, she’s dealing with a lot of complex issues and she’s shown to really bite back at people, for good reasons, but still, she seems to derive satisfaction from that.

These three characters and their dynamics overshadow everything else in hp for me, which is funny because in a series about magic these family and friendship dynamics couldn’t be more mundane, but I’m really drawn to the layers they add to the characters, the story, and the bigger universe of the series.

Not to mention, I like the marauders era, which of course includes Lily, Severus and Petunia as kids/teens, and all the characters from that era (or at least how I imagine a lot of them) way more than Harry’s era and the characters of his era. There’s something very appealing about the nostalgia and tragedy of the marauders era as well, and the former is super relatable, especially as I get older.

#hp thoughts #hp analysis #hp meta #severus snape #petunia #lily potter #marauders era

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bookandcranny · 4 years ago

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Beatrice - Chapter Four

“Doc-- Petra,” she greeted with a polite nod. She wasn’t really in the mood for chatting, but she tried to relax her expression into something resembling friendly nonetheless. It wasn’t her fault she was so on edge.

“Where have you been?” the professor asked. “I came looking for you but everyone I asked said you were out sick.”

“I was, but I’m better now.”

Again and again she replayed the events of that day in her mind. At night she lay on her side staring at the lowered blinds until frustration or exhaustion or both forced her to roll over and at least try to sleep. She was still struggling to make sense of all that Dr Rappaccini had told her, unsure how much of it she should even take to be true considering how obviously unstable the old man turned out to be.

In the end she decided it didn’t matter. Whether Beatrice was some test-tube baby in the shape of a second-coming, whether she was the daughter of a mad doctor straight out of a 1970s B-movie, first and foremost she was Beatrice. She was still the girl Gianna had fallen for. There had to be some way to reach her, to free her from her father’s control.

In the meantime however, between bouts of mourning her relationship that wasn’t and fanatically drafting and scrapping plans to whisk her away from her troubled life, there was work. Now feeling recovered from whatever had been ailing her, Gianna couldn’t justify taking off any more days, not even for her own heartbreak. She allowed herself the weekend to sulk and then woke up early the next morning prepared to throw herself back into her work.

Despite her best intentions however, the encounter with Beatrice’s father still weighed heavy on her mind. She tried to let work serve as a distraction, but then out of nowhere she would look down and remember the weight and feel of a hand twined with her own, or find herself touching the back of her fingertips to her lips, light as the flutter of a butterfly’s wings, and wondering what might have happened if she’d had the courage to kiss her before her father had walked in.

The strange dreams had begun again as well. She wasn’t exactly surprised. All through the night her head was filled with visions of a feminine figure draped in green, then red as the blissful scene became dirty and blood-soaked before her eyes. Gianna would wake up gasping, grasping for someone who wasn’t there and aching down to her marrow with the absence.

Shaking herself, Gianna stepped out of the arts building and gave herself a moment to linger in the breezeway, taking in fresh air that never seemed quite fresh enough anymore. Once again she was fighting a losing battle with her impulse to brood, when a familiar voice called out to her.

“Gianna, good heavens,” Dr Bagnol exclaimed as she hurried across the courtyard.

She was acting like they hadn’t spoken in years, Gianna thought with some annoyance, when she knew it had only been… how long? A few weeks? A month? Time has been moving so weirdly lately.

“Where have you been?” the professor asked. “I came looking for you but everyone I asked said you were out sick.”

“I was, but I’m better now.”

“I asked after you for days, Gianna.”

For some reason, the old woman’s concern grated on her.

“Yep. I was out for a few days, but I’m better now. Was there something you needed?”

Surprised hurt flashed in her eyes for less than a second. “I’d remembered something I wanted to ask you about. It had to do with that thing we talked about, about Dr Rappaccini. After you left I got to thinking, reminiscing on those days when we worked together. I decided to dig up some of my old research and journals and such from around that time and I realized there were some… loose ends I never followed up on the way I should have.”

Gianna bit her lip. This was the very last subject she wanted to talk about. “I don’t know how I could help. The guy’s just my neighbor, you know.”

Petra’s eyes raked over her face and her expression grew stern. “Ah. So you did speak to him after all, didn’t you?”

“We met, briefly,” she confessed with a grimace.

“Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?”

“I haven’t been avoiding you. I was out sick.”

She hummed her disbelief. “Well you look well enough now. Very well in fact. Why, you’re glowing, Gianna. And,” She paused and tilted her head to the side. “What’s that smell?”

Gianna felt a prickle of cold sweat on the back of her neck. It was true; that tea must have packed a bigger punch than she thought because, in addition to waking up feeling fully restored the next morning, her hair had also gained a vibrant shine and her skin was softer and clearer than it had been since she was a young child. She half wondered why the Rappaccinis were sitting on a recipe like that when every celebrity influencer would probably trade their left tit for the brew. But then again she supposed it wasn’t as thought Dr Rappaccini needed the money. As for the smell though, she hadn’t noticed.

“Acetone? Epoxy resin maybe?” She nodded toward the building she’d come out of. “Actually, I should probably get back in there.”

The professor grabbed her wrist. “Has he taken you into his garden?”

“Hey, that hurts.”

Her grip tightened. Petra was surprisingly strong for her age. “Gianna.”

“I barely spoke to him!” she insisted. “I only went over there once, to see Beatrice.”

“Beatrice? You mean, the girl is still alive?”

Her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean by that? Of course she’s alive. She’s… she’s wonderful. And she’s not like her father at all. She’s smart and sensitive and loving--”

“Gianna, listen to me,” Dr Bagnol interrupted. “Dr Rappaccini does not have any children. He has experiments. However dangerous the doctor himself is-- and he is-- whatever else is living with him in that place is far worse. This girl… you can’t trust her. You can’t trust anything she tells you.”

Gianna tore herself away from the professor, disgusted, and took several steps back. “Don’t you say that about her. Beatrice is-- I’m in love with her, don’t you understand that? Doesn’t anyone understand that? I don’t care what you think she is, I know Beatrice.”

Petra called out in one final attempt to reach her, but she was already gone.

It revolted her to turn her back so coldly on someone she’d considered to be a friend, but she couldn’t stand to listen to those lies any longer. Whatever animosity lay between Petra and the old doctor, his daughter did not deserve her spite. And the way she spoke about Beatrice was just as bad as the man himself! They acted as though she weren’t even human.

But I’m not really any better, thought Gianna. Walking home alone that night there was nothing left to keep her from these idle guilty thoughts. She might feign righteousness, but when Beatrice had gone all silent and subservient like that, she’d been unable to get past her own discomfort and defend her. Between her bizarre behavior and her insane father’s outrageous claims, it had just been way too much.

So she had left her there, abandoned.

I spent all that time building her up in my head, thinking of her like she was some perfect heaven-sent angel, and ditched the second the reality became too complicated for me. That can’t be how I act with someone I care about. That can’t be how we leave things.

Gianna charged into her apartment and wrenched open the blinds. She had braced herself for the worst but when she looked down on the terrace, there was Beatrice, watering her plants like nothing had happened.

“Beatrice!”

The woman looked up, mouth hanging open, and for a moment Gianna thought she looked hopeful. Then again, it might’ve been wishful thinking on her part. As she descended to the lower platform Beatrice pursed her lips together and looked away, focusing intently on her work.

“I-I’m not supposed to talk to you.”

Gianna glanced over at the sliding door half-hidden in greenery. “Is he listening?”

She hesitated a moment then shook her head. “I don’t think so. He doesn’t come out here very much on his own. There are cameras hidden in a couple of the planters-- that’s how he knew I was meeting with you, I think-- but they don’t pick up sound. As long as I keep working like normal I don’t think he’ll bother to check up on me.”

Gianna frowned but bit her tongue. “Well, good, I guess.”

An uncertain silence fell between them.

“I sort of thought… I was afraid I wouldn’t get to see you again,” she admitted.

Beatrice kept watering, watching drops of water roll off the waxy bell of a foxglove.

“Father can punish me all he wants but he can’t keep me away from my garden. Someone has to take care of it and he doesn’t have the strength anymore.”

This time Gianna couldn’t control herself. She scowled. “About that, Bea. You’re an adult. He can’t treat you like this. It’s sick, you understand that, right? Spying on you, ordering you around, talking about you like you’re his property. That’s not normal.”

“I know that,” she said. “But there’s nothing I can do.”

“Of course there is! You can leave!”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“I mean, if it’s a matter of money or needing a place to stay…”

“You don’t get it. I’ve never even…” She trailed off, closing her eyes. She took in a deep, quavering breath. “He’s my father, Gianna. He’s all I have.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way. I--”

“You don’t understand!” she repeated. The watering can clattered to the ground. “This is all my fault. I was stupid to think I could have this. Look, take a look at this plant.”

She pointed to one of the many flowering shrubs. Gianna squinted at the merry looking pink blooms.

“Um, Latua Pub-- Pubiflora, right?”

“You remembered.” She smiled despite herself, giving the specimen an affectionate touch. “It’s common name translates to something like ‘sorcerer’s tree’. Most people are more familiar with its cousin, the deadly nightshade, although ironically she’s probably the less poisonous of the two. Now look at this one.”

Gianna looked and saw blood red blossoms in a sort of fan shape. “I don’t think I know that one.”

“That’s because, officially, it doesn’t exist. It’s a hybrid species of my father’s own making, the only one of its kind. It can’t survive in the wild. It needs to be pollinated by hand because the smell of the nectar it secretes kills any insects before they can so much as touch it.” She knelt and lowered her face into the flowers’ embrace, breathing deeply. “She’s just one of my father’s many projects. And me too, I’m the same way. I’m a hybrid, a splice, a hothouse orchid; designed to be pretty from a distance but never touched. I can’t survive outside of the walls of my father’s world.”

“What do you think will happen if you leave?”

She wrapped her arms around herself. “I don’t know. Something terrible.”

Gianna leaned heavily on the railing. “Beatrice… I know you’re scared, but you can’t let him keep brainwashing you for the rest of your life. You’re not a flower. You don’t stay rooted wherever you’re planted. Don’t you want more than this?”

“You know I do,” she sighed.

“Then run away with me!” she blurted out. “We can leave all this bullshit with your dad behind. We’ll get out of the city, go somewhere where you can stretch your legs, where you can feel the earth beneath your feet, someplace beautiful and green. We can figure out the details later, just-- the way he talked to you, the way you looked. I never want to see you look like that again. It was like you weren’t even really there.

“You told me before that you didn’t want to lose me. Well I don’t want to lose you either. I care about you, Beatrice.” She felt her eyes grow wet. “I care about you so much. And I wasn’t strong enough to say so before. I wasn’t strong enough to help you. That’s why I was afraid to face you. I should’ve done something, I should’ve seen what was happening sooner.”

“No, Gianna,” Beatrice shuddered out. “It wasn’t your fault. I knew the risk when I went against my father and I took it anyway. I’ve never wanted anything as badly as I wanted to be able to touch you. I still do.” She balled her fists. “I’d take that risk again a thousand times. I will. I’ll go with you.”

-----

Day by day their plan began to coalesce. Gianna did all the research, staying up late into the night scrolling through articles and the firsthand accounts of abuse escapees, mapping routes and making plans, but it could still be argued Beatrice had the harder job of the two.

While they could see one another under the guise of her daily gardening, Dr Rappaccini had been keeping a sharper eye on his daughter than ever. The man hardly went outside as it was so finding times to meet and share their findings without prying eyes was tricky, and trying to arrange the time and date of their ultimate escape that much more so.

Then Gianna had an idea. Although the other caretakers came and went in the Rappaccini home, Beatrice remained the most consistently responsible for her father’s care, and prepared many of his meals. With her expertise on medicinal plants, it would be a simple thing to mix the right combination of herbs into his food and put him out of their way.

At first Gianna was afraid she was asking too much of her, that requesting she drug her own father was going too far, but when she cautiously proposed it as an option, Beatrice lit up.

“That’s perfect! I’ll just give him something to make him sleep for a while. I used to do the same thing with my babysitters when I was a kid so I could stay up late.”

“And there’s no chance that you might, you know, give him the wrong dosage or something?”

“It’s harmless,” said Beatrice. “I’ve known these plants my whole life, I know exactly what to do.”

In spite of all their scheming, when the day finally came, Gianna felt as much dread as she did excitement. Everything had seemed so certain, so flawless in that initial flurry of adrenalin and heady heartsick longing. Only when she was staring down the suitcase laid open on her bed did the enormity of what she was about to do strike her full-force.

It felt like just yesterday she’d been unpacking this same bag, getting ready to begin her new life in the city. But she had made a promise to Beatrice and she didn’t intend to go back on her word now. She needed for her to be safe, for her to be free. The rest, she figured, they could work out along the way.

Bag packed with some time left to kill, Gianna made a quick detour to the market a block over, where a regular vendor could be found selling flowers from a stall outside. She bought a bouquet in rich romantic hues which she hoped would make her friend smile even when she was forced to part with her own beloved garden. She knew she loved that terrace more than anything. She would probably stay there all day and night if she could, sleeping on a bed of earth with leaves for a pillow. Hopefully they wouldn’t have to be parted for too long.

Gianna was feeling more lighthearted by the time she arrived at the apartment. 6pm on the dot, giving Beatrice enough time to serve the old man his dinner and let the drug take effect. She punched in the passcode, but in place of a chime and cheery green light she was met with a low, admonishing tone. Someone must have changed the code. Perhaps Rappaccini himself had had a word with the super or whoever after their attempted date. No problem, Beatrice could just buzz her in.

“Hey, it’s me,” she said into the receiver.

“Gianna?” The break in her voice was lost under the buzz of feedback and Gianna was too silly with love to notice.

“Yup! I’m downstairs. Are you all packed?”

“Gianna… I’m sorry.”

“What’s wrong? Talk to me.” It didn’t surprise her that she might be having second thoughts now that the moment was at hand, but she was confident that whatever her hesitation, they could work through it.

There was a pause, then a muffled voice in the background, a shuffle of motion.

“This was a bad idea,” Beatrice said in a near whisper. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

The intercom cut off. Growing panicked, Gianna yanked furtively on the door but the lock held firm.

“Shit. Shit!” She dropped her bag. She dropped the bouquet. She didn’t stay for long enough to see it wither and die.

next chapter

#writeblr #original fiction #horror romance #gothic #lgbt #rappaccini's daughter #my writing

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ourimpavidheroine · 3 years ago

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Wait you think that Qrow is Ruby's father?

I surely do. Despite Miles and Kerry's insistence that he isn't.

I'll put this under a read more since it’s long and most of my followers are here for the Wuko and not RWBY.

Well. Let me get this straight. I think Qrow is her biological father. I think in all other ways that Tai is her actual father; he's the one who has raised her as his and obviously loves her very much. This is not me dismissing Tai at all. He is her father in every way but the actual sperm donation.

I'm not the only person who thinks this; canon and the timeline certainly support it.

To whit:

Yang is born to Raven and Tai. Raven bails pretty soon after Yang is born - we're not told exactly when, but it's made clear that it's when she's still a baby. Raven still cares about her daughter - she's saved her ass several times (despite saying she'd only save it once) and she can use her Semblance, Kindred Link, to access Yang at any time.

Kindred Link can only access people Raven is very close to - those whom she considers her kindred, in fact. That's canon. Who has she accessed that way? Yang, Qrow, Tai and Vernal (RIP, Vernal). All people that she's very close to. We also know she's gone in her raven form to watch over Yang. But that’s not all. In fact, she’s using her raven form to watch Tai when Yang isn’t around and furthermore, he both knows this and acknowledges it. (See the final end scene in the final episode of Season 5 where Raven comes to see Tai and he knows it.) Between that and still being able to use her Semblance to get to him demonstrates that Raven still has feelings for him. Complicated feelings! For sure! But feelings. And Tai is the same. He's clearly got some complicated feelings about Raven as well that go above and beyond ex-wife who bailed on me and left me with the baby.

In other words, Tai and Raven had a marriage and what was clearly a loving relationship that went wrong somehow, leaving them apart but still dealing with Feelings about each other. (I mean, icky feelings, Raven is one fucked up individual but you know, Feelings are Feelings.)

According to the timeline:

Yang's birthday is July 28th (same as my father, glorious Leos the both of them) and she's 17 when season one starts in the fall. She's just turned 17. Ruby's birthday is October 31st, and she's 15 when season one starts, soon to turn 16. If you do the math to calculate that a pregnancy lasts 40 weeks (give or take) then Summer got pregnant with Ruby when Yang was about 6 months old.

So either Tai knocked up Summer pretty much the second Raven left him or he cheated on Raven to knock up Summer and that’s why Raven left him.

The former is certainly what is hinted at in canon; I’ve never seen the latter even remotely hinted at but you never know, I guess.

But let’s take the theory that both canon and the showrunners seem to be going with, which is Raven left Tai and then he hooked up with Summer.

Per canon, Tai was upset when Raven left him (as well as Yang!) and clearly he did not want her to do that. Now lord knows things happen and maybe Summer comforted him and the next thing you know BOOM. Along comes Ruby. I mean, it is a possibility. Doesn't really match up with what we know of Tai but a few drinks that lead into accidental pregnancies happen all the time. An unplanned pregnancy is something that could have happened, sure.

I do not, however, for one second believe that he fell out of love with Raven and then in love with Summer enough to purposefully get her pregnant all within six months of Yang being born, never mind whenever it was that Raven left them. Nope. Nothing in canon supports it - on the contrary! - and even if Miles and Kerry retcon it into being I call BS all over it. Nope.

Now what we do know from canon is that Summer stayed with Tai after Ruby was born and that she loved Yang and raised her as her own until she left on the mission that she never returned from. There was certainly a family thing going on there.

But - and here’s the but - Tai never talks about Summer as if she was his wife/girlfriend and neither does Qrow.

Now obviously people do not need to married to have a baby, but the fact that Summer’s role in that house seems to be as Ruby’s mother and Yang’s loving stepmother as opposed to Tai’s romantic partner is pretty telling.

And really, it’s just a whole lot to have happened in the six months after a baby is born. People divorcing and falling in love with someone else and getting them pregnant. Not impossible, no. But not in the ordinary, especially when the two people who got divorced still seem to be carrying a torch for each other. A fucked up torch, for sure. But Tai seems to be entangled with Raven in a way he’s never been entangled with Summer, and that’s what we know from canon.

So let’s look at Ruby’s relationships with her father and her honorary uncle.

Tai:

Tai is a very good father and clearly loves both of his girls. Despite the issues revolving around their respective mothers, Tai has raised them in a loving, secure and stable home.

He does, at length, discuss Raven with Yang. It's clearly a discussion that is uncomfortable and sad for him, but he talks to her and answers her questions as best he can. When she loses her arm he's the one helping her to rehabilitate, the one who contacts Ironwood for a high-tech replacement arm, the one who knows before she even realizes it herself that she's going to leave him to go and find her sister.

We don't see these kinds of interactions with Ruby. Oh, that is not to say that she is somehow second banana - that is clearly not the case. However, the discussions about Summer with Ruby are reserved for someone else, not Tai.

Qrow:

So how does Qrow all play into this?

According to current canon, Qrow is Yang's biological uncle due to being Raven's twin and is an honorary uncle to Ruby due to his friendship and former team member status with Tai and Summer.

We do know that canonically he's much closer to Ruby than Yang. He taught Ruby how to make and use her weapon, for example; it's a version of his own scythe. We certainly see his affection for Yang - he obviously loves her - but his affection is greater for Ruby and that's canon, baby. He follows Ruby and Team JNR all the way across Mistral until circumstances force him to out himself (as it were). He's not only following them but is proactively clearing the way for them by fighting off Grimm!

He's also the one who saved Ruby after she used her eyes at the fall of Beacon and you know damn well SHE was the one he was looking for. Not Yang, not anybody else. Her.

Plus let's take a look at this scene, at the very end of End of the Beginning, the last episode of Season 3, taking place in Tai's home after the Fall of Beacon:

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

Ruby and Tai look to see Qrow suddenly standing in the room, near the door. He finishes off the contents of his flask before continuing.

Qrow: Mind if we have a minute?

Tai: What, I can't stay here?!

Qrow: Tai. Please.

Tai stands up, sighs, and then leans in to kiss Ruby on the forehead.

Tai: I'm glad you're alright. (he starts walking away) I'll go make us some tea.

Tai glares at Qrow on the way out, but the latter doesn't appear to care.

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

So let's get this straight: the honorary uncle overrides the father over the 16 year old in the father's own house? And then HE'S the one to ask her what happened and then goes on to tell her what her silver eyes, the ones she inherited from her mother, are?

Her "honorary uncle" and not her own father?

Uh huh. Mmmmmhmmm. Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.

I mean. Come on.

And sure, Ruby looks way more like a combination of Summer and Qrow than of Summer and Tai (whereas Yang is a clear combination of both her parents, Ruby has literally no Tai in her at all) but whatever, she could take after her mother only.

*cough*

Qrow is the only one who talks about Summer with Ruby, and he's done it more than once. There's love there - for Summer, for Ruby - and I guess we're just supposed to buy that it's just Qrow being a stand-up honorary uncle but I am not buying it.

There's also these lyrics in the song Bad Luck Charm, which is Qrow's song.

Trust one thing, take my advice If you linger close, it's a hefty price You and I are not the same You don't want the burden of my name

It's been proven, again and again, that those character songs aren't just throwaway lyrics. That's something that's been acknowledged by the showrunners as well. Somebody isn't getting the burden of Qrow's name, but who?

Yeah. I think we know who.

Me? I think Summer and Qrow were the ones in love, I think Ruby is the result of that, and I think that the decision was made by Qrow, Tai and Summer that Tai and Summer would raise her because of Qrow's Semblance. And when Summer was gone, Tai continued to raise her, due to their agreement but also because he also loves Ruby as his daughter, not as her honorary uncle.

(I’m not sure about Raven - she canonically knows that Ruby is Summer’s child but she never really gets into Ruby’s father at all. She clearly doesn’t give a shit about Ruby and is happy to let Cinder take a crack at her but as weird as it may seem I don’t think she would actually tell Ruby her father was or wasn’t Tai if she knew. Raven is....well, she’s Raven and she’s morally gray shading into black but she’s not personally malicious, if that makes sense. It probably doesn’t make sense. But it does seem like a Raven way to be. Like...she’s got nothing personally against Ruby so why bother with her at all and that includes talking to her about her parentage. I don’t think it would matter to her if Ruby was her blood or not and if anything Raven holds her cards close to her chest, she basically never gives out any information about anything unless she absolutely has to.)

I've seen people state Qrow being Ruby’s biological father can't be true because it would mean that Tai wasn't really her father and that Yang wasn't really her sister and I call bullshit all over that. If you say that then you are dismissing every single adopted child out there as not being "real" family. Tai is Ruby's father and Yang is her sister regardless of biology.

I do know that the showrunners, from Monty to Miles and Kerry have denied this again and again. Either they really mean it and they've just set up canon in a way that is pretty wobbly and nonsensical and amateurish at best or they are flat out lying in order to avoid spoilers and try to preserve a surprise reveal of Qrow as her father. I don't know. But I will say for the record that if they really mean that Qrow is not her father they've done a pretty poor showing of it in their own canon. And that's all I have to say to that.

#long post #spoilers I guess

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bindi-the-skunk · 4 years ago

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Night is day and day is night In a world that's lost its mind! Chapter 2

"Deep breaths...deep breaths..." Robert encouraged well rubbing the back of his hyperventilating mate who did not react well to finding a disembodied hand in the cellar, not that the alpha could blame him, he had hoped to slowly explain things to him, too late, of course, his father had to leave a big mess!

Honestly, his father always stressed the importance of a clean image, too bad that did not extend to his other business! He took that a little lighter than Robert liked! Took his mother's special bleach blend and even then the whole stain did not come out of the carpet from the last one! He kept telling him to use a tarp!

He knew mother was just as tired of the constant mess as he was, though the tendency towards mess did nothing to lend itself to a more jolly personality...

"I thought you said he was on our side in this?" The elder Lanyon nearly growled, arms crossed in disapproval, if this was how his son's mate reacted to one severed hand there was going to be a problem...and that was another thing! His son had lied straight to his face that he was done with his attempt at a relationship with Doctor Jekyll!

He liked the omega fine, hard-working, and all that, but he was not what he had wanted for his son, too wiry and breakable, did not possess the iron core, some omega's could develop one with time, but still, not a good fit for their little family tradition...his wife had taken it all in stride and done her initiation ceremony flawlessly and without a moment's hesitation, he had been ready to call a preacher or a soul specialist right there as she stood tall, white ceremonial robes covered in blood and chocolate eyes burning with fire as she finished off her first, a child killer.

He wanted to go kiss her right now just thinking about her conviction! Now that was a mate! It only took a few words from her when Robert had nearly dropped out halfway through, then afterward he had thrown up and nearly made a fool out of himself in front of his grandparents...but that had not been her fault and nothing some ginger tea could not fix and he was much better later on.

She was just as skilled with an ice pick as with her knitting needles, he was somewhat disappointed she moved onto knives after her ice pick broke...too uninspired for her skill set and kept meaning to get her a new one.

"He is, I told you, but even I would not exactly be dancing about the room if I stepped in body parts!" Robert argued, he had hoped this would go smoothly, but it obviously was not, oh well, he just needed a verbal blessing in front of a witness so they could get officially married, that was all he wanted, soul bonds were not against the law, but the difference was sort of like being married by a justice of the peace and married by a preacher, some people did get picky when it came to those things and he wanted things to be perfect and leave no doubt.

He was just honestly glad it was something like this, as much as he was not a huge fan of Hyde's unsubtle ways, it was better than forcing his father to consent to their marriage via knocking his mate up, not that they did much to prevent that one...if it happened it happened, but this was a much cleaner method and showed his father that Henry could handle their secrets.

A little panic attack was expected, it was a lot for Henry to bite off in one go! Robert himself was still reeling from the night's events.

Oh! He would need to pick out the perfect person for his love's first time...he would worry about it later, right now he had more important things to do.

Henry's mind was in a jumble of emotions, his mate was a serial killer! Or at least his father was and Robert knew about it! What should he do? Demand the soul severance that he thought was going to be forced onto him? No, he still loved Robert and knew it would kill him to do that...he just...had to ..calm down...perhaps there was a rational explanation?

"Father, could you leave us alone for a moment? I will explain things to him, I think you are making him more nervous" Robert requested and was glad when all he got was a mild huff before his father disappeared down the hallway.

"R-Robert...I don't...understand..." Jekyll managed to get out, hoping it did not make the ..oh goodness...murderer...mad, just a few weeks ago they had taken two weeks off from their work at Roberts house so they could have the other to themselves, the alpha lying to his father he was on a business trip so there would be no disturbances.

What horrors unknowingly laid under Henry's feet the whole time? Did Robert also have a torture cellar? Or did everything take place in the Lanyon family home? Would he get mad if Henry did not agree with something?

Robert just smiled softly and put his warm hands over Henry's clammy ones "My father and I are working on ridding the world of a few...stains, we do not go after innocent people, that hand you saw in the cellar belonged to a serial rapist, he was even stepping up to murder when he was caught and captured, he had a knife to this young woman, no more than sixteens throat, he confessed a lot under...insistence...and was unapologetic for his crimes and even called those he assaulted, garbage, we have dealt with others like him and worse, Henry, you can help us, four is better than three! Mother adores you already and I will be right there with you when you do your initiation, father was very pushy during mine...but you can take your time...figure out what works for you"

He made it sound as if they were signing up for a dance class! But it was killing...Hyde made threats certainly...and the incident with Moreau...the man died from his injuries...but that was not...it was different! The fire did most of the damage, it was most certainly different...

Or was it?

Moreau did horrible things to animals...slicing them up well alive...sewing them back together well they cried out in agony...the worst kind of mad scientist...while the Lodgers still had a working moral compass, he abandoned his long ago and who was to say if given the chance he would not have moved onto people? Innocent men, women, and children yanked off the streets to be chopped up and sewn back together with nothing to dull their pain but death...and who was to say he had not tried it before? People whose families still wondered what happened to those they loved...

But Robert and himself were doctors! They were meant to heal people...innocent people...the same skills that lent themselves so well to saving lives, could just as easily take it away...

Henry did feel guilt over Moreau's death, the specter that had taken his form spoke to that, but should he honestly feel all that bad? He was going to hurt the Lodgers...take Creature and do God knows what to it...

A sixteen-year-old girl...was almost raped and killed...would that man have left her body there for the police to find? Discarded like the trash as Robert said he thought of his victims as? Or would he have disposed of her corpse, never to be seen again? No one ever knowing...her family laying awake every night, wondering where their precious baby was, or being forced to go down to some random morgue to confirm it was her violated corpse?

He had so many omega's in his society, and both Virginia and Rachel were pretty female alpha's he knew many of the scum in the black market would jump at the chance to try and take...young Jasper would not survive in the underbelly of the world...he would become a broken core...Henry would kill if someone tried to hurt any of his rogue scientists...that had been proven via Hyde's actions.

Would helping Robert in his quest really be that bad? He already was a murderer, and his mate made a good point, so many people who did horrible things just because it brought them sick pleasure...get rid of as many monsters as they could...but then they would be the only monsters left...

Did he want to become a monster?

He already was a monster...what was going a little bit further now?

"I'll do it...for the benefit of the world...and for you," Jekyll said, glad his voice did not waver too much at the statement.

Robert grinned and clapped his hands together and stood up "Excellent, now follow me!"

Henry just nodded and got to his own feet, wondering what on earth could be in store for him now.

The two headed down another hallway and Henry could not help but feel a coil of dread in his stomach as acid built up in the back of his throat at the idea of a tied-up person being on the other end of one of those doors... was he going to do this...initiation now?

"Do I have to....the ceremony...tonight?"

"Of course not, we have to make preparations! It's all more complicated than needed, but oh well...most ceremony does tend to have more intricateness than required...no need to worry about it, now, your night has been hard enough and you need to get cleaned up and into some better fitting clothing, I want you to relax, go in here and take a hot ba- FATHER! Get the severed head out of the bathtub! People live in this house!"

Welcome to crazy-Ville! Everyone gets a severed head hood ornament!

#TGS #tgs jekyll #Tgs Hyde #the glass scientists #The glass scientists AU #Jekyon #Robert Lanyon X Henry Jekyll #tgs lanyon #TGS Serial!killer AU

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allyvampirelass29 · 4 years ago

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The Besiege of Bruce Wayne McQueen

A NOS4A2 Review By: Allyssa J. Watkins

I didn't say you could get up I'll swing the hammer back Until you've had enough Your armor cracking, amidst your son's frantic call Tell me, Victoria Who's the Strongest Creative of them all? Bones breaking You cower before me shaking As I wield my blunt instrument without relent You've had your fun, Bad Mother I hope you've gallivanted to your heart's content I am the magic your beautiful boy has so long lacked Bruce Wayne best behave Or I'll break his mother's back Lost Boys belong in Neverland Consider me, his Peter Pan You don't care for him like I can Neglect and endangerment is the McQueen way, isn't it? You selfish fake C'mon Vic He's safer with his Uncle Manx You ungrateful Brat....... Just say THANKS!!!!

Three words. PULSE. POUNDING. PHENOMENAL!!!!!!! I write this wide-eyed and shell-shocked, a trembling wreck of electric emotion, the prevalent being pure, paralyzing BLISS!!!! DAMN, NOS4A2 you are SPOILING us!!!! Is it Christmas!? Last week I watched the glowing potential of the ascending firework disappear, and just as I lamented its predicted fizzle out, it SHATTERED the skies around me with an explosion of colours brighter and more vivid than anything I've ever seen, in a deafening ROAR!!!! HOLY SMASH!!! I LOVED THIS EPISODE, so much so, that I feel like I lived it, every death defying second, so ALIVE with the rawest emotion, the most terrifyingly beautiful villainy, my every sense heightened, and in this bloody besiege for one, Bruce Wayne McQueen, our spectacular cast shines BLINDING, giving their best, and most authentic performances of the series. Prepare yourselves for a Lake House excursion, you will NEVER forget!!!!

I LOVED how this episode sent us sprawling right into the action, and I was so so so wrong about the fantastic build-up of the suspense from last week going to waste, because it lit the fuse for one HELL of a firework display. Where last week didn't hit me quite hard enough, this episode STRUCK like LIGHTNING, electrifying every vein, and barely taken breath. The fight scene....... yes, you know the one, the all out, claws drawn, hammer wielding, haughty taunting, smoulder and slashing duel to the death was pure, screaming, POETRY!!! It's ART, the most electric, ENTHRALLING, aria of wit and savagery, it's the single most INTOXICATING scene, not just in an episode full of instant iconic images, but of the ENTIRE series.

Vic VS Manx, a faceoff fraught with revenge and raw energy, no special powers, no knives even, just hurling razor-edged words, fighting, grappling, scraping, nothing but an autopsy hammer between the two of them, was MESMERIZING!!! Charlie is a black, roiling wave of breathtaking rage, coming down on his worst enemy like hurricane thunder, with a ruthless, ferocity, such as we have never before seen. I loved every second, even as I fell apart at the seams, hand clasped over my mouth, trying not to scream. While some might say this head on collision lacked his usual finesse and refined showmanship, I must vehemently disagree. How clever of the writers to give us a Charlie driven to the verge, snapping, shaking off his gentleman's cape, to reveal his sharpest edge, and rawest fury, not to mention darkest intent. Charlie's done playing the game....... he's ready to win, to take the queen. Or in this case, the prince.

The juxtaposition of his elegantly brandished wit, and the brutality of his swiftly dealt blows, is pure, and utter genius, not to mention one hundred percent CHARLIE!!! I grinned like a lovesick schoolgirl when he told Vic, "I hope you have galivanted to your heart's content." I'm swooning, even as I write that, his dialogue was on point, as the kids say, as perfectly tailored to his elegant malevolence, his beautiful wickedness, as that magnificent chauffer's coat!!! Also, forgive me my shameless fawning, but can we TALK about his shiny, raven especially gorgeous HAIR during this episode!? Whether it's falling wild in his eyes, as he draws back his blood-thirsty hammer, or hanging in dark, feathery waves, as he smirks, leaning over his seemingly vanquished nemesis, Charlie's iconic silken strands were as deadly as his backswing, drawing my eye, and stoking my passion something fierce!

I loved how he laid it all out for her in his Malicious Manx Rhetoric, and one of the things I desperately love about Charlie, is how he can speak such vulnerable truth, even in the midst, of a rasping seethe. He explains it all, passes his sentence, this is why you don't deserve him, this is what I'm going to do, and why you can't stop me, even as he pounds the hammer against her back, oblivious to the protective armor, cleverly concealed in her biker jacket, due to some quick thinking, and a fun, surprising telepathic assist from the miniature McQueen. "No Mom, just play dead......" I loved all the nerves Charlie touched on, not just physical nerves, but the exposed, emotional ones as well. He knows how insecure Vic has felt, about the kind of mother she's been, her shortcomings, her fear about not being good for him, not able to love him like she should, provide for him, and Charlie exploits that to profound perfection. "You won't be able to ride away from your Beautiful Boy. He'll call you, sometimes, from Christmasland, and you will see...... He's BETTER with me!!!"

But the thing that shook me the most, was the bleeding truth of his words as he told her, "That's what you do, Victoria, you run. Even from the things that you LOVE!" WOW Charlie....... the depth, the piercing insight in that quote still gives me chills like mad, and it's a searing revelation. I also marveled at Charlie's outright admission of having been in love with Vic, which I'd always suspected, especially after Parnassus, but he's never just come out and said it, and definitely not to her face. "It's a dangerous game...... endeavoring to love Vic McQueen, I found that out myself with Craig, after you set us both on FIRE." I love how he snuck that in there, how he makes Craig and himself out to be HER victims, and I think Charlie's relationship status with Vic will always be, "It's Complicated," because while she holds a special fascination for him, most of her allure lies in the challenge. What he loves is the most about Vic is hating her. Hell hath no fury like Charlie Manx scorned.

You know what else, was just....... a THRILLING chill!? After giving her a good and proper thrashing, and tongue-lashing, Charlie's voice is a spiteful growl as he rasps furious, "Just say THANKS!!!" I could NOT breathe!! WOW........ What SPLENDID writing!!! It's not enough for Vic to lie there, and take her punishment, the punishment that in Charlie's eyes she so obviously deserves, but he demands her thanks as well, for taking her only child, reprimanding her wicked, wanton ways, sparing her from having to be a bad mother. "If you had a grateful bone in your body, you'd thank me......" Charlie has always seen himself as the hero of NOS4A2, saving children from their broken homes, and lonely lives, and if you told him point blank he was actually the villain, the antagonist, he'd scoff in your face. This idea that he's being generous, actually helping Vic, even as he enacts his ultimate revenge speaks volumes to that, and I loved it. He even tells her young son, with such soothe, "Don't worry........ She can never hurt you again."

That being said, I also loved how Vic fearlessly turned the tables on our handsome phantom, dropping the pretense of excruciating pain to strike hard, breaking Charlie's leg, and leaving a nasty gash across his lovely cheek, before reigning down hell on the Wraith. This was especially jaw-dropping for me, since I had written a scene eerily similar, over a YEAR ago, in my NOS4A2 Series, and it was such a giddy, breathless joy, to see it all play out, exactly as I had imagined it!!! I loved how Vic gives Charlie his insisted upon thank you, after making her move, even though, yes, I was a little heartsick, seeing that impossibly perfect face so drastically marred. The warm, happy, fuzzy feel of Wayne's childhood memories, interspersed with the impassioned violence was yet another INSPIRED, and poignant stroke of brilliance, and in my opinion made the scene even more powerful and intense. It also inspired a fascinating theory....... That Wayne is a Strong Creative, that can speak through his memories telepathically to his mother. There are several instances in, "Bruce Wayne McQueen," where our adorable title character floods his mother's mind with happier times, and words of wisdom. Yes, Vic is a powerful Creative, and this could very well be her own doing, but as she's never been one for sentiment before, something tells me Wayne is speaking to her, calming her down, keeping her safe.

This episode is a masterwork of action and suspense, a transformative audience EXPERIENCE. You're in the Wraith with Charlie and Wayne, sitting on the edge of the backseat, you're treading water, traumatized with Vic, as the bullets whizz past you under the surface, flinching with every shot Bing fires, and you're pressed up against the window with Wayne, hands on the glass, as his mother sobs her devastated goodbye, promising to find him, her stricken eyes so full of love, knowing she has to leave him, if ever she'll have the chance to fight again. It's so beautifully executed, every shot, drawing us into our creative heroes' journey with immersive cinematography. It's unique to any other episode that has come before, and stands out as a groundbreaking method of emotional storytelling.

I must say this though....... This episode was as close to achingly perfect as you can get, right up there with Sleigh House, a MAGIC that I never EVER thought anything in my natural life could touch, but as much enamour as I feel, there were a few slightly detracting flaws. I absolutely LOVED the shifts between different points of view, it may be an unpopular opinion, but I thought that was another daring risk, that definitely paid off. My issue however, lies in the repeated events from one person's point of view to the next. I felt that the needless repetition slowed down the breakneck action, throwing a kink in the timeline. There were more than a few times where I was like WAIT, did that happen before or after what we've just seen!? I appreciate that they were trying to give us a new vantage point to what we'd just witnessed, maybe even belabor the moment for dramatic effect, but it ate up valuable runtime, and undercut the flow in my opinion, as well as shortchanged the suspense, knowing full well what was going to happen, because we'd already seen it from another character's point of view! How much better to show a scene from one perspective, and then jump right into the consequent action with the change to the next? How much MORE would we have gotten to see!?!? Had they done that, then this episode would have surpassed even Sleigh House, my ultimate ideal.

Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy getting to see what happened in the car with the boys, during Vic's ride through the woods. I LOVED how Charlie, ever the paternal guardian, was so taxed by Wayne's vehement cries, and frantic banging on the windows, that he says, in true exhausted parent fashion, "Please Wayne, just a small nap......" There were times that the rewind worked, but most times, I just wanted to get on with the story. Another grievance....... What the HELL are the Wraith's windows made of!? Yes, I understand that this is a supernatural, sentient car, but SERIOUSLY!!!! No amount of force, be it from a swung wrench, or slammed autopsy hammer, or SPEEDING bullet, could shatter even one of the Wraith's windows. Yes, I know it added to the suspense, watching both parents try desperately, and still fail to free their son, but it detracted from the reality, suspending my suspension of disbelief. They should have been able to at least break ONE!!!

I was also a tad bit disappointed with The Hour Glass Man, how about you guys? The way Abe set him up to be this heavy hitter, this "Fixer," in the Dark Creative World, I was so excited to see his knife and how it worked!!! At the beginning of the episode, our calm, sharply-dressed secondary villain, uses an hour glass, not to stop time, not to rewind time, not to alter time, but....... to hypnotize the two feds long enough to assault the lake house, SHOOTING Chris McQueen in the leg, before turning the gun on themselves. Yes, it was only our first look, and I'm sure our man of unsolved mystery has more than a few tricks up his ironed sleeves, he isn't in high demand for nothing, but....... as he was supposed to be Charlie's ace in the hole, I had prepared myself for something truly mind-boggling, something more than just compulsion, an everyday occurrence on The Vampire Diaries. Even in his second go at Vic, he pulls a Manx, and just hits her with his far less supernatural SUV. I knew something was up, the way Charlie didn't veer, and try to run Vic off the road as she pursued him on her new motorcycle, firing shots into the driver side window. He let her ride alongside him, so calm, and I KNEW he was leading her into a trap, and leading me straight into my second disappointment with The Hour Glass Man. I don't know, even though it got the job done, and landed her in the hospital, him hitting her with the SUV just felt....... underwhelming, which this episode is definitely NOT.

The hidden hero of "Bruce Wayne McQueen," is by far Chris Freaking McQueen, who has redeemed himself in my eyes through his fearless fight, both to stay sober for his daughter, and to keep her from losing her son. Not gonna lie guys, I was HORRIFIED, when I thought the Feds killed him at the beginning of the episode, and for the longest time after he got shot I was like DON'T you dare FREAKING kill Chris, oh god, is Chris dead!? A question to which there is no answer until nearly the end of the episode. Vic, still treading water underneath the dock, shakes violently as she hears the gunshots go off a little too close, and I, myself, was scared as HELL, thinking Bing was firing straight down, having discovered her. A horrible moment, as the blood falls thick from between the wooden slats of the dock, directly onto Vic's forehead. And then....... Chris Freaking McQueen, like a gun wielding white knight charges the sick BASTARD, Bing Partridge, shooting him repeatedly, although, to our collective chagrin, does not kill him!!! Seriously. Somebody gut that Creepster Pervert like a fish!!! Chris even takes on Charlie all by himself, firing at the Wraith, as it speeds off to my complete and utter delight WITHOUT Bing Partridge leaving him behind, FINALLY!!! You GO, Charlie, time to sever ties with that obnoxious deadweight.

Where this episode uncovers Charlie in his most heightened, dangerous state, raw and intense, Bing is portrayed at his detestable WORST, and my hatred for this hulking henchman was infinite. I HATE the way he is with Wayne, it literally made me sick to my stomach. Charlie is so sweet and gentle, paternal, and patient with our dear little Bats, doting upon him, and you can tell how excited he is to be his father, how this particular child, Vic's only son, is the second most important entry into Christmasland, after his own daughter. I'm still dyyyying from the way he said, "You and I have been dreaming about each other, haven't we?" How PRECIOUS!!! In counterpart, Bing is disgustingly abusive, grabbing him up off the ground, dangling him by his arm, threatening to shoot him, bite him, calling Wayne a, "pretty girl," (GOD, YOU SICKO!!!!) and I just couldn't stand it, I was so damn furious, I couldn't see straight, and I'm DONE with Bing, I want to put a hit out on that lewd, child abusing, BASTARD!!! It would seem Charlie is done with him too, leaving him behind to die, and I especially enjoyed that cleverly veiled threat in the car, Bing droning on and on about what he wants to do when he gets to Christmasland, and Charlie smirking with a coy mention of a special feast. Yeah...... I see what you did there, Babe. It's time to hang a Partridge, swinging from a pear tree.

Another thing I particularly loved about this episode, was that it had the unique symmetry of beginning and ending in the hospital, and in both instances, Wayne's birth, and the aftermath of his abduction, Vic loses him. Even as a newborn, after a harrowing C-section, Vic knows something is wrong, crying out to the nurses, as they do CPR on the tender little babe, and after only just bringing him into the world, Vic already has to face the threat of one without him. That was beautifully mirrored in the final, heartbreaking scene, when Vic, seeing her boyfriend, and father in hospital beds from her own, but no Wayne, realizes, with abject terror, her son is gone. Her worst fear, the ONE man she'd fought for eight years to protect him from, has taken him. BEAUTIFUL, heart-wrenching, devastatingly good acting from Ashleigh, the desolate sobs, as her mother holds her in her arms, the hopelessness, and fear in her eyes. It shattered me.

An all time high for NOS4A2, "Bruce Wayne McQueen," holds all the emotional drama, and high risk of a proper Season Finale, and we're only FIVE episodes in!!!! If it's THIS good, this early in the story, I can't even imagine what lays in wait, as the Wraith races away with a very special boy in tow. Hold on, Strong Creatives....... Our WILDEST dreams are about to come true.........

#nos4a2 #nos4a2 review #charlie manx #vic mcqueen #bing partridge #chris mcqueen #the wraith #bruce wayne mcqueen

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eltanin-malfoy · 5 years ago

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Get A Grip III - Epilogue

pairing : draco/fem-y/n

word count : 3.3k

warning(s) : mentions of healing/PTSD/war/sex, lots of fluff.

requested : sort of??

a/n : i just wrote this in one sitting! lol. i hope this is satisfying?? i know a lot of my stuff ends on cliffhangers so I decided not to do that for this one. give me some feedback pls! love u! hopefully this doesn’t come off as rushed??

tag list : @kaibie @acciodracoo @drawlfoy @war-sword @socontagiousimagines

Part I II

Y/N’s life as a healer was nothing short of tedious on paper. But she still loved it.

After having received specialised training for treating those impacted by war, trauma and violence post her basic healing certification, her schedule remained full, full, full, thanks to the Second Wizarding War, of course. Everyone and their mother was impacted and gravely so. Thanks to the Ministry’s work towards spreading awareness about the mental implications of war and trauma, everyone had been encouraged to seek support.

Her ward at St. Mungo’s remained constantly occupied, with the people who were permanently disabled as a result of the violence of the war taking up beds and pretty much being forced to spend the rest of their lives there. It was heartbreaking, but she had to keep her head up high and help them move on. She’d been lucky enough to be able to cool down the impacts the war had had on her in time enough to complete her schooling and be able to work towards achieving the goal she had desired ever since her seventh year at Hogwarts.

Her clinic times were full as well, with her having to both counsel and treat afflicted patients. There were some familiar faces here and there, old friends and teachers and classmates from Hogwarts. And also, the others who’d been in the cellar along with her. Sure, a hospital wasn’t an ideal destination for her to meet others, but it was the only place she seemed to have time for. The little time she got off, she’d stay home, reading up and attempting to expand her knowledge of post traumatic stress disorder based on Muggle research. (Someone had to put in the effort for the rest of the Wizarding World, right?) Romance wasn’t something she put effort into anymore. Sure, she’d had a few affairs, but.. she wasn’t actively looking for something, not when she was so busy.

But sometimes, the best things come when you least expect them to.

Y/N was sitting at her desk, writing off yet another prescription of Potion for Dreamless Sleep (something that was so greatly helpful to those suffering with mental illness, you’d never have thought!) for a previous patient. She soon finished writing notes about the frequence of the dosage they were permitted and charmed the parchment to go to the patient’s hand.

She checked her list and almost froze as she read the name of her next patient.

Malfoy, Draco.

Age : 27. (D.O.B. : 5th June, 1980.)

Blood Status : Pureblood.

Nationality : British.

Ailments :

Diagnosed with PTSD at 18. Now mostly recovered.

Suffered severe physical damage and faced Cruciatus curse at a young age, has some sensitivity to loud noises, flashing lights, etc.

Suffered dark magic curse at 16, left with minor scarring on abdomen. No other permanent effects.

Hereditary concerns : skin hypersensitivity, family history of osteoporosis.

Prescriptions :

Potion for Dreamless Sleep. (Taking regularly for 10 years.)

There was a name she hadn’t seen in years. She’d thought about him, sure. But they hadn’t stayed in contact at all. She usually learned the most about him through the Daily Prophet, where she’d recently learnt he’d been seen talking to a woman at a party. Huh. There really wasn’t much to report about anymore, it seemed. Maybe that was something to be grateful about?

Most of what was on his sheet was expected, when she’d last seen him, at Hogwarts, during their 8th year, which most of the others in their year had chosen to forego, she remembered he was still taking the potion. The only oddity was his continued prescription.. most patients would basically be ‘weaned’ off of it by their fourth or fifth year of treatment.. why had Draco been taking it for twice that long?

Either way, she kept staring at her door a bit nervously, awaiting his entry. There was a soft knock at the door and she bit down on her lip. “Come in.” And then.. He.. walked in.

She offered him a smile and ushered him over to the chair in front of her desk.

“Hello, Draco.”

He was wearing dark robes, his height still prominent as he stepped into the room. His hair seemed to be a bit longer than she remembered it, a few pale strands covering his forehead but still styled meticulously. He seemed obviously more mature, and a bit less skinny than the boy she remembered. There were slight wrinkles on his face, under his eyes, which could again be traced back to the stresses of war, most likely.

“Good afternoon, Y/N.” He looked at her with an eyebrow raised. “I.. I recognised your name but I didn’t know whether it was really you. I should’ve brou-” For some reason, she forced out a slight giggle. “That’s no-no problem at all, really. I was a bit surprised when I saw your name too.”

“I usually have my check ups with uh.. Healer Bole? I thought it was him again, but the name on the door confused me.” “He’s taken some time off these past few days. That’s why they must have assigned you to me instead.” “I suppose…”

Y/N looked straight into his eyes as an awkward silence rose into the room. His grey pupils stared right back at hers, blinking very slowly. What were you supposed to talk about with someone you’d been close to ten years prior?

Oh, right, she was supposed to be healing him. Thank god there was no need for any actual small talk between them.

“So, what brings you here today? If you need counselling or anything, I probably shouldn’t do it since we know each other personally an-” “Oh, oh, no. I just needed to refill my prescription.” “For Potion of Dreamless Sleep?” “Yes.” “Right.. Before I do that, could I ask you about it..?” “Um, sure?”

“Well.. I wanted to know.. how come you’ve been taking it for so long? I don’t know if you know, but patients are only recommended to take it regularly for a maximum of five years.”

“I.. I need it. I can’t sleep without it. The nightmares are still awful.” “But you’ve been.. taking it regularly ever since th-”

“I have.” “So.. how do you know the nightmares are just as bad?” “Well.. um.. I’ve tried sleeping without it, it didn’t work out well for me.” “For a night?” “Yes.” “Well, I’d like for you to try it again, for a few nights. We can send in a nurse for you, if you want.”

He looked at her with a slightly pained, irritated expression.

“Must I..? Bole would give me the prescriptions just fine.” She hesitated for a second, then thought through what he’d just said. “Bole was.. making a mistake, I think. Did he know you’d been taking it for that long?” “I’ve been seeing him all along.” “You’re kidding!” “I’m not..”

Wow, had she just discovered her colleague had been engaging in medical malpractice? Taking the easy way out of a complicated situation? Surely, there had to be more to this, right?

“Did he never ask you to try..?” “He did, but after I told him it didn’t go well the first time he seemed fine with just continuing to prescribe it to me.” “I see..” Hmm. Bole had definitely not done the right thing. It sounded terribly lazy. He was risking Draco developing an addiction just so that he wouldn’t have to put in actual effort to heal him. When dealing with a case as such, patients were often kept in the ward for observation, but obviously Bole hadn’t even brought up the possibility of the same to Draco. A complaint was going to have to be filed, it seemed.

“I hate to inform you of this, but I feel Bole might have done the wrong thing in this case.”

“Oh..?” “Yes, I will again insist you try to forego potion for a few nights. There are major potential implications of using it for as long as you have, and we can avoid any actual damage if we can have you give it up soon.”

“But.. Y/N.. I..” “Come on.. “ She bit at the inside of her cheek. “Like I said before, we can have a nurse come in for you and observe. And also.. It’s Healer Y/L/N to you, Mr. Malfoy.” He smirked at this and set his hands on his lap, taking a deep breath.

“You know what, Healer Y/L/N? I might be willing to try.. but.. I don’t want a nurse to come in. I want you to.”

Her eyes widened and she reached for the quill on her desk, fiddling with its fibres. When an ex challenged you as such, were you supposed to take it? The feelings he used to stir inside of her had long faded and she was sure the both of them had moved on as much as the other had, it was a mutual break up, in the end. Was this supposed to be related to that..? Was he.. Actually interested? Or was he just playing games?

Did it even matter? Life was getting a little boring. Something a little out of the ordinary for her would be fun, for sure.

“You know what? Sure.”

***

It was seven o’clock on Friday evening when she finally finished up with all her work at St. Mungo’s and headed home, ready for the night that lay ahead of her.

She slipped out of the lime green uniform robes she wore to work and went through her wardrobe, confused. What the hell was she supposed to wear? Definitely not something inappropriate, not something overly casual, and not something too fancy either. In the end, she was going over to his place to watch him sleep, and hopefully manage to sleep herself, not to sleep with him. (She was quite tired, admittedly.)

In the end, she decided to wear a pair of pyjamas (white with purple stripes!) just out of spite. Would it be a turn off? Huh, possibly. Would it be funny? For sure. Would it be embarrassing? ..maybe, but hopefully not.

And so she did exactly that and apparated to his home. One she’d only visited years and years ago.

It was just as grand as it was then. Probably a bit more wellkept now. Obviously so, since it had been 10 years since the war had struck.. since she’d been trapped inside that very cellar. And for a second, she just stood there, processing her memories. She was not going to let the sight of this house cause her to relapse, absolutely not. It had been years. Many years since then. She’d gotten over it. She didn’t need to think about it.

Slowly but steadily, she made her way through the gate and into the estate. The hedges were gorgeous, trimmed to perfection and even with the sun down, the lamps set every few steps along made everything look even more.. perfect. Draco really did live in the lap of luxury. He always had.

She walked to the door and used the snake-shaped door knocker (Christ!) a couple times, staring up at the tall hardwood door as it suddenly opened.

And of course, it was him. Him. In a blue cotton button up shirt and silky pyjamas. Cute.

“Good evening, Healer Y/L/N. Do come in. Nice outfit.” He took a step back and held the door open. “Good evening, Mr. Malfoy.” She stepped in, looking around curiously.

It was all different. Draco had switched up the layout considerably. Gone was the dark and gloomy aesthetic that had presided over the interior of the house before. Everything was white now. Off-white, perhaps, like the color you’d call marble. The palatial chandeliers still hung from the ceilings, but that was all that remained the same. Everything else was brighter. She was glad to see it was so.

“Having a look around, are we?”

“Well, what do you expect, Draco? It’s been.. so many years.. It looks beautiful, by the way.” “Thank you, interior design by yours truly.” “I thought as much.. your taste has improved a bit, I’d say.” She smiled up at him.

The change was definitely helpful towards her not feeling panicked at the sight of the place. It actually looked.. inviting, to some extent.

“Glad to hear you think so, Healer.” “Right, so, were you going to get to bed?” “This early? I thought we were going to have dinner first.” “I.. had some dinner at work. Quite a bit, actually.” “That’s too bad.. I just had Golby set out the table for us. Nice food too.”

“You can have it, if you like. I’m just here for work, am I not?” “.. Y/N..” He rolled his eyes. “No formalities between us, please.” “It’s not a formality. It’s protocol.”

He set his hand on her shoulder and she almost winced. “Please? For me?” “Ugh.. fine.”

***

Sitting beside him on the table brought back memories. Pleasant ones. Of all the times they had together. The first true ‘moment’ they had between them wasn’t one she liked looking back at all that much. It was unpleasant and could still trigger an anxiety attack.

But everything after..

She could remember the joy that had filled her upon seeing Draco stumble into Shell Cottage that same day. He was wounded, badly, but he was alive. He could be healed. She’d helped Fleur as much as she could with all the healing after that point, and she took up a mattress right next to where Draco had been put to sleep, and she took care of him, personally. He was beyond grateful, as he’d told her a few days later.

And she was beyond grateful to Harry and Ron. They’d actually listened to her when it would have been so easy to just ignore her. She knew they’d hated him like anything at school, and it had truly elated her to see Draco again, actually alive.

They’d spoken to Draco and he was actually willing to help them. He told them of the plans he knew the Death Eaters were working on. It wasn’t quite a lot to go off of, since apparently, You-Know-Who had begun to distrust the Malfoy family, but it was still helpful. Draco even told her he basically saved their lives by lying for them, and they’d basically returned the favour. She wasn’t sure about the specifics, really. All she knew was that they’d somehow balanced out what they owed each other.

They’d spent a while at Shell Cottage before being moved over to a different safe house. Draco was the Death Eater’s biggest target at that point, and he had grown very, very scared. For some reason, it was decided that the two of them would go to the Tonks’ house. To Andromeda’s house. To Draco’s estranged aunt’s house. He felt even more afraid.

She’d been shunned out of their family! All because she’d eloped with a muggle born. He was afraid she wouldn’t take much of a liking to him, but.. it was completely different to what he’d anticipated. She welcomed with open arms, treated him like her own son. Everything was just fine. Or at least that’s what it seemed like.

The ‘Battle of Hogwarts’ came to fruition before them and the two of them stayed far from it, the lack of wands rendering them useless in such chaos. Obviously, after the conflict, they were off in search of their families. Draco’s was glad to have him back alive, as was hers. They’d apparently fled from the country the instant they realised she’d been kidnapped by the Death Eaters.

But.. of course.. she was then forced to spend quite a lot of time at St. Mungo’s. PTSD. Thankfully, she was far from alone. Practically every other person even partly involved with the conflict was also undergoing some sort of treatment post war. And right after a particular therapy session, when Draco’d asked her to join him for a pint at the Leaky Cauldron, was when repressed feelings came out into the open and she kissed him.

And that was that, really.

They were inseparable for the next year. The ‘eighth years’ at Hogwarts, which consisted of several students looking to get the NEWT’s they’d missed out in the year prior, were banded together most of the time, and Draco and Y/N seemed to be joined at the hip. Well, until they weren’t anymore.

It was a mutual agreement. Neither of them were treating it very seriously and they had things to focus on. It ended on a positive note, with a little giggle between them and a hug. They were teenagers, after all.

But now, ten years later, she wasn’t sure why all those feelings were coming right back. Making her blush when he spoke to her. Goddammit. Why did Draco have to get cuter as he got older?

Soon enough, it was time for bed. They’d chatted for nearly an hour just at the dinner table and Y/N suggested he try sleeping earlier than usual, just for observation’s sake. And so he led her into his bedroom, shutting his door behind the two of them.

“Should I.. get you a mattress?”

“That would be nice.” “Actually.. wait... I..” She stared up at him curiously, smoothing back her hair. All of a sudden he grabbed ahold of both of her hands and pulled her forward, closer to him.

“Draco, I-”

“No, I have a confession to make…” He took a deep breath. “I might have had.. intentions.. calling you over here. Doing all of this, really.” “You.. what?” “I asked them to schedule my appointment with you instead. I kind of.. missed you.” “..Oh?” “I totally get it if you don’t want anything.. romantic with me. I’m fine just being friends. I.. I don’t think you’re in a relationship, but of course, I could be wrong.. I just.. I.. we were so good together, you know?” “We were.” “We just.. got each other. You were so kind to me. Why did we even.. end us..?”

“It was a mutual thing, remember?” “I know but.. I like you, you know?” That made her cheeks flush more than she’d care to admit.

“You do?” “I do. I.. didn’t really need the potion when we’d.. sleep together. You’d just.. I don’t know how you did it.. But I’d feel calm with you. Around you. There’s no better candidate for a healer, really. I was thinking that you’d be very, very good.. and I was right, you were. You.. did the right thing, didn’t you?”

This was so out of nowhere. She should be more shocked, shouldn’t she? But why was she feeling like she was on cloud nine?

“I like you too.” was all she could manage out. He looked at her for a second before giving her a wide, wide grin.

“I can’t believe you pretended you didn’t know it was me! Was that just because you couldn’t be arsed to get me chocolates or something?”

“Uh.. well.. Maybe.” He laughed and she did too, playfully hitting the side of his arm. “I’ll get you some if you want them so badly. I have.. better gifts to offer you.” He winked.

“Draco!” She shook her head.

“Fine. As you wish, Healer.” She just rolled her eyes at him and stared at him with the most sincere smile she could manage. He pulled her even closer towards him, bringing a hand up and setting it on her cheek. His eyes were suddenly on hers and she leaned up towards him, puckering her lips.

And then their lips met. It was the most familiar feeling in the world and yet the most electrifying. Everything was soft and sweet and perfect. All their wounds were healed and they knew anything that still hurt would only get better.

All was well.

#draco x reader #draco malfoy #draco malfoy x reader #draco #hp #draco imagine #hp imagine #draco malfoy imagine #fluff #romance #draco x female reader

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damonsbitchx · 5 years ago

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Florida Burn p.3

Hello, friends! Sorry this took so long to get done, the pandemic sort of fucked my life up lol But we are back now and better than ever!

Summary: This is a series I’m writing based on New Moon, but instead of staying in Forks, Bella moves to Jacksonville with her mom. If you haven’t read the first two parts you can read them here and here.

Word Count: 2,496

Characters: Bella, Renee, Phil, Jacob (through text)

Warnings: There’s a little angst but mostly good vibes.

If you would like to be on a general or story tag list, please send me an ask!

Dinner with Renee and Phil wasn’t awkward. It was actually easier than I’d expected. Phil asked me questions about my life back in Forks about how I liked the school, what kind of things I did for fun since it was always raining, and a few others to gather the information he seemed genuinely interested in getting. Renee asked me about Charlie and a bunch of other people from Forks she probably knew at some point. She wondered about the infamous little orange truck I always talked to her about on the phone, so I got to explain in detail everything I loved about it. It made me miss her a little bit. She also asked about the Blacks.

“How’s Billy and his son? It’s been years since I’ve seen them,” she beamed, popping a french fry into her mouth.

“Yeah, uhm Billy’s good, he’s still rowdy as ever when he’s around dad,” I huffed a short chuckle.

Thinking about Forks and all the people there did make my chest ache, but I’d probably only have to do this once and they’d be satisfied after that. I was just grateful she knew enough to not ask about the Cullens. I was getting better, but not that much better yet. Renee cleared her throat.

“And Jacob?” she grinned innocently.

“Uh yeah Jacob’s good too,” I mumbled, nibbling on a fry.

“Your dad told me Jacob left you his number, he asked me to make sure you got in touch with him at least,” she purred, obviously ecstatic about the situation. I cringed internally but looked up to her with a smile.

“I’m going to mom, after dinner,” I grumbled, trying to sound reassuring.

“Okay,” she sighed with a sly smile, exchanging a glance with Phil who was mouthing at her to stop.

She giggled and we finished our dinner in a comfortable conversation after that. I helped clear the table once we were all done and tried to do the dishes but Phil insisted I not worry about it. They seemed to cherish small moments together often like cooking and doing the dishes by hand. I’d never seen Renee do the dishes before, but Phil brought out the best in her. Granted, she only dried them, but at least it was something.

I stood in the doorway of the kitchen lost in thought and admiration for a moment watching my mom and her boyfriend laugh and fumble over wet utensils. Then, suddenly, I remembered the folded piece of Forks still sitting in my back pocket. Before I left I gave them one last look and smiled in admiration, then I turned and quickly made my way back up to my room which was now filled with the deep bronze rays of my first Jacksonville sunset. I sunk into the desk chair next to the large window and pulled out my phone along with the note, flattening it out onto the surface of the desk. I didn’t think I would go down this road so soon after arriving in Florida, but I knew Renee wouldn’t let it go until she got details. Besides, it would be good to catch up with an old friend. I hastily punched the numbers into the address bar but then realized that I hadn’t given a single thought to what I was going to say. I frowned at the phone screen, slumping down further. I mean, I only talked to him a couple of times while I lived in Forks. Sure, we’d known each other since we were kids, but that was a long time ago and we were different people now. After some moments of consideration, I decided I should at least tell him who it is and leave the beginning of a conversation to him.

“Hey, it’s Bella. :)” I typed.

Then, I frowned and stared at the words on the screen for another minute. I squinted my eyes and grimaced. Who am I turning into? I quickly deleted the smiley face and pressed send before I could think about it anymore. With a heavy sigh, I flung my phone onto my bed across the room and yanked a book into my hands. I needed to distract myself, this was getting ridiculous. My knees pulled up to my chest and I dove into something Shakespeare, not caring enough to acknowledge which one. It took great effort to focus on the words my eyes would usually scan mindlessly but it became increasingly harder with each ticking second. Occasionally, I’d catch my gaze drifting to my phone sitting in the middle of my bed but I would quickly drag it back to the dull pages that did nothing to hold my attention. Then, my phone buzzed causing my heart to leap, pulling me up out of the chair and across the room so fast my book clattered to the ground. I launched onto the bed, grabbing the phone and yanking it open. It was him. My hands were shaking now, but not in the way they had been for months on end. They were shaking with anticipation and adrenaline. The blood pumping through my veins was laced with a type of electricity I hadn’t felt in months.

“Bella, hey! I’m glad you texted, I thought maybe you didn’t get the note. :)”

I released the air locked in my lungs with a sigh of relief. Smiley faces are encouraged. Then, panic struck again. What do I say now? I really hoped this would get easier, but for now, I would spend minutes upon minutes staring at my phone trying to come up with acceptable responses. I was absolutely not going to involve Renee in this endeavor, she would definitely take it the wrong way. Jacob and I were only ever going to be friends. I just wasn’t sure how to go about becoming friends again. In order to waste more time, I decided to take care to add him in my phone as a contact, pressing each letter of his name slow enough to make sure the characters were arranged in the absolute right order. The phone vibrated again, startling me enough that it almost slipped out of my hands. My wide eyes squinted to read the text.

“How’s Florida so far?”

The answer to that seemed easy enough.

“It’s only been one day, but I know I’ll like it here. Forks is great and all, but it could use some more sun.”

I rolled my eyes and scoffed at my word vomit but pressed send anyway.

“Lol yeah, I guess so. When are you coming back?

I began to wonder how much Jake knew about me moving back with my mom. How much did I really want him to know? This could be my chance to start over with someone who doesn’t look at me like I might shatter to pieces any second. That always made it harder not to. I’m sure he knew the Cullens left, but maybe that was all.

“I don’t know, probably not until after graduation.”

“That’s too bad, I just got a project I was going to ask you to help me with. :(“

I felt the weight of my anxiety lifting off my chest with each message. The conversation came easier than I’d thought it would.

“Oh, I’m sure I wouldn’t be much help anyway. Maybe you can come visit me in Jacksonville sometime. :)”

“Hah yeah, maybe. How come you left anyway?”

So, he must not know much about the Cullens’ part in my leaving which was better for me but then again, what was I going to tell him instead?

“It’s complicated, but I mostly just missed my mom and the sun. I am my mother’s daughter, after all. :/”

Everyone in that town knew what happened with Renee and Charlie, even ones who were born after the fact. So, Jacob knew and I used it to my advantage. He couldn’t really argue with it and to be honest, part of me really did feel the same way she does about that town.

“Lol yeah, I get that. Well, I should turn in. Will you text me tomorrow?”

“Definitely. :)”

“Cool, goodnight, Bella. :)”

“Night, Jake.”

As I clicked the phone off I caught myself smiling but it wasn’t forced like most of them had been lately. It was the kind of smile you see on someone’s face after showing them something undeniably beautiful, the smile of hope and light. Those are two things I’ve been a stranger to for what felt like forever. So I let it sit on my face for as long as it wanted, sighing heavily and tossing my phone to the side as I flopped down on my bed. I rested my head on the mountain of pillows, turned so I could see out my window down to the street outside. All the cream colored houses that lined the sidewalk across the street were settling in for a peaceful night. I was still smiling. The light was just a dim glow behind the horizon now, fading with each passing minute. I breathed in slowly and deeply through my nose, cherishing the scent left in the air from the sun that had been shining on the pavement and the plants all day. The air wafting through the window was comfortingly thin and refreshing compared to the thick, damp air I remember breathing from my bedroom in Forks. I felt light and weightless. I’d barely thought about them during the several hours I’d been here and that’s several hours longer than I could manage at Forks. Maybe this really was going to be good for me.

I laid still, focusing on deep breathing while I watched the sun take her last breath of air before she disappeared completely and darkness fully set in. Renee and Phil peeked in to say goodnight on their way to bed and with that, I was alone in the darkness in this unfamiliar but comfortable room. I hopped up and trotted to my bag before too many thoughts could crawl into my mind, grabbing my nightclothes and toiletries and crossed the hall to the bathroom.

I set my clothes and bag down on the counter then a reflection in the mirror caught my attention. My throat tightened in horror but only for a brief second because when I looked up I realized it was me. My shoulders relaxed back down and the tension faded away again, but I still stared at the person I saw looking back at me in the mirror. Although she was me I couldn’t help but feel she wasn’t really me. Already, she carried herself differently than I remembered. Her eyes didn’t look so worn and dark, the circles under them from the past abuse they endured were still there but seemed to be fading already. Her hands weren’t shaking with anxiety like they always did and her back wasn’t as hunched over like it used to be, desperately trying to protect her heart from any more damage. She didn’t look like she was on the brink of death anymore. The realization silently signaled tears to the edges of my eyes, that dark hole coming to swallow me just like it had done so many times before, but perhaps for a different reason this time.

I’d only been in Florida for a single day, how was I already this different? My chest tightened at the thoughts that plagued my mind. I couldn’t already be moving on, I wasn’t ready. If I moved on he would be gone forever and that was the last thing I wanted. The mere thought of him disappearing forever elicited a strangled gasp from my body as the stinging tears erupted from my eyes. I stumbled over to the shower, one hand clasped over my mouth to muffle the sound, the other flailing to find the shower knob and yanking it to turn the water on. I sunk down to the ground next to the tub, my hand still pressed firmly over my mouth. My lungs burned at the lack of air as I tried to keep the sobs from escaping my chest by just pushing the air out instead of the sound. The last thing I wanted was for Phil and Renee to worry about me. I thought moving was going to fix this hole inside of me. Maybe I was wrong.

My attention was yanked out of my own mind when I realized there was a soft tapping on the door. I quickly wiped the tears on my cheeks with my wrist and shoved myself up to unlock the door. The yellow bathroom light illuminated the hallway and the shadow standing at the door as I opened it. It was Renee. Her head hung slightly like a toddler who’d just done something minor they weren’t sure if they should’ve done or not so they were waiting to find out if they’d be in trouble. I stepped to the side so she could tiptoe in, closing the door behind her. Then, I lowered myself back to the ground again, hugging my knees to my chest. I refused to make much eye contact with her, even after she had sunk down to ground level with me. I had always had issues with emotional moments with both my parents, but for completely different reasons.

“I’m sorry, honey,” she spoke softly.

My gaze was trained on the floor tiles just in front of my feet, the rest of me was frozen. I managed to nod in acknowledgement but I couldn’t bear to look up and see the empathy on her face like she knew what I was going through. I knew she only meant the best but she’s never really been the emotional supporting mother she wanted to be. I didn’t hold it against her, I learned how to deal with things on my own. She draped her arm around my shoulders, squeezing me into a reassuring side hug. “Do you wanna talk about it?” she whispered.

“There’s nothing to talk about, mom.”

“Bella, it’s been months, you have to talk about it sometime.”

“Mom, really, I’m fine. I miss dad, it’ll take a while to get used to it here. That’s all.”

She sighed heavily, obviously trying to suppress a frown.

“I’m here whenever you’re ready to talk, Honey,” she whispered.

Then, she pulled me in to kiss the side of my head and hoisted herself up and out the door again. After the door clicked I drifted into my clouded mind, going through the motions of muscle memory to take my shower and get dressed. I didn’t have any clear, coherent thoughts, I just kind of floated around in the emptiness. For once I wasn’t happy nor sad, I was just existing. Something about Renee offering her support settled some fire in me that I didn’t know was burning. She would be there when I was ready to end this, so I had until then.

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#twilight #twilight series #twilight saga #twilight imagine #florida burn #fanfic #twilight fic #bella swan #jacob black #fan fiction #fanfiction #writing

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megaminds-destiny · 5 years ago

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We know that Megamind never felt like he had control over who he was or how he was going to be seen.

Roxanne on the other hand has always had a say over who she was and what she did in her life. Even in the times that she was kidnapped, she was always able to rise above petty emotions such as fear, or feeling helpless- no that was never an issue even as she was held captive. She has a will of iron, and the confidence to match! So why can’t Megamind? He can make a show and act all confident and puff himself up at times, but when it comes down to the real things that happen to him in life, he just seems to completely deflate, as if all that confidence and self esteem was nothing more than hot air. She doesn’t understand why he can’t just own up to his actions, admit what he has done and decide- completely for himself- who he wants to be instead. There’s nothing to it honestly. He’s being such a worry wuss over the whole thing, there’s no such thing as destiny. You make your choices based on what you think is what is best for yourself (keep others in mind too) and that is CLEARLY what he was doing as a villain (excluding the part about caring about other people too.) why else would he become a supervillain? Take over the city? Trick her into dating him without giving her an insight for judgement- like?? He must have got something out of it, and yet he keeps on acting as if he was actually the victim. As if he ‘never wanted to be a villain’ or something like that. He could say the same thing that he ‘never wanted to trick her’, and in fact, Roxanne can recall him saying things like that in the past. If he really didn’t want to trick her, then he shouldn’t have freaking gone and tricked her. It was so simple, and yet he has such a habit of over complicating things. Sometimes the world can try to influence you, but in the end, you are always in control of your own decisions. The tricky part to that was explaining it.

Sure, Megamind admires Roxanne and her confidence, but he would be damned if he knew how she got it. Maybe just because she is amazing and beautiful and smart, which let’s be honest, he could never be one of those things. If we begin with beautiful (or in this case handsome) there’s really no question about it. He’s an alien. Skinny as a stick, he doesn’t so much as match another person on this entire planet! His skin complexion- blue. The literal exact opposite to every other persons skin tone. Even the difference between the palest of the pale and the darkest of the dark skin tones in the human race were only different shades of the same colour. His couldn’t be further from the picture. His head, big and bulbous on the top, tapering so dramatically into a thin pointy jawline, there’s nothing about him that didn’t stand out, get pointed at, made fun of, stared at relentlessly! He can claim the title of handsome all he ever wants, but in reality, people only had to briefly cast a glance his way to become just how aware that it was otherwise.

Smart... it was complicated. Sure, he knew he was intelligent. It seemed that his race had a particularly high IQ, but with this high intellectual intelligence consuming majority of his learning capacity, he was able to become quite aware that he had next to no emotional or social intelligence. At times even plain old practical intelligence, or ‘common sense’ went flying out the window to make room for some of his inventions! No, Roxanne was in truth, the really intelligent one. She was able to decipher most of his plans before they had even been carried out. She could read him like a book, and react in ways he never imagined and render him baffled (and the next thing he knew, he was on the floor at the hands of Metro Man himself, having been so distracted by her it had cost him his entire game) No, his intelligence wasn’t even in competition with others truly, albeit his defining trait. What really was good about him? Or even bad about him? It was almost as if he was... somehow neither. Was he the Yin, or the Yang of this story..? With real experience on both, it was hard to decide. Mostly, he wanted to do what was expected of him. There’s really not much else. As a kid of course, he TRIED to go his own way, and the pushback was so severe it had left him bleeding away. All this time, he thought he was doing the right thing by the people by filling this role. Of course, he was aware that what he was doing was bad, but somebody had to do it right? That was what they had all told him. In fact, he read up on the Yin and Yang. A lot of features regarding the concept all pointed toward one rule- for there to be good, there must also be evil, and that is how the universe is balanced out. That was right. That was exactly what he’d been told. He never HEARD what his parents were wanting to say to him. They placed a destiny upon him that he never even got to know! He was left to his devices to figure it out for himself. And he fought so hard for the destiny he made up in his brain that he wanted! He wanted to do good things, and be loved or appreciated by some people, not excessively, just maybe not so much hated, and somehow it hadn’t worked out. He was a kid. He thought... he didn’t realise that it wasn’t up to him at that time. He hadn’t realised for so long, that his destiny was already chosen, and he was fighting it for so long- no wonder he had been miserable! That’s what you get, for fighting your fate. Pain, and suffering, and hatred, and misery. Bruises, cuts, blood and fractures, be pushed and shoved and yelled at and called names and made fun of and deprived and God it had been so awful, there’s still fear.

There is no way he is making that mistake again. If the city.... if they change their mind... with the hero being gone he supposes... now that there’s no good, he can finally change. Because they told him to. Because fate lead him there.

Fate.

‘The path we choose for ourselves’

That was crap and he knew it. There had been a couple of things that happened, he felt that maybe from here on, as the good guy he had the choice. Like Metro Man, but Roxanne was not at all impressed by Metro Man’s choice. As if the man had single handedly upset the universal balance, and by the looks of things he really had. There has never been more crime and destruction in this city than there is now. Megamind didn’t have a choice actually. Metro Man had for a lack of better words- f**ked up. And now, it had messed up Megamind’s position in the world (in a way that he had always dreamed about, but still) and it had directly caused a massive rise in evil in the common people, that wasn’t there before.

If he had ever needed any more proof that this Yin and Yang was truly the way of things, and that he had a destiny assigned to him from the universe, this was certainly it for him. It really couldn’t be more clear than now. And you know what else?

He didn’t make a very good hero.

It was hard work to do this job... harder than he had expected. There were some very evil people around that he had initiated run ins with, and come out looking like the loser of the fight (though thankfully, he hadn’t actually lost one completely yet) and if seemed SO hard to just keep things running peaceful.

‘Perfect and Rosy’

He was definitely inadequate, but God how relieving it was to finally have some people be just a big kinder to him, and obviously not everyone, more so it was a bit like just some people had come around to understand his change of fate, and that’s correct, it definitely wasn’t a change of heart, a change of decision, a change of uncontrollable Destiny assigned to him and followed through obediently by him. And this was where Roxanne had stoped understanding and begin to question- well pretty much the lot of it. He had tried to explain these things, but she seemed insistent that all these things were up to him. Imagine what could actually happen in the world of Megamind just suddenly up and declared- “I’m going to be a painter instead!” or “I’m going to leave the city and milk cows for a living!” No. The universe had purposely shoved him into these positions. If anything, it had seemed like he hadn’t been obedient ENOUGH, and he had some sweet little and also more impressive sized scars to prove it. If he just went and chose something wrong, there would most certainly be a punishment. And if it wasn’t for him, it would be cast upon someone else. And he couldn’t risk something like that happening again. Never again.

———————

So this was just a sketch I had done- a kind of crappy sketch, I did it mostly because I haven’t done a drawing in ages- but despite that I had no idea what I was doing when I started, I was starting to get somewhere with it in my head by the time I ended, and so it turned into a snippet of an argument between Roxanne and Megamind. I can’t help but imagine them fighting like this a lot after the end of the movie. The reason being, that Megamind’s actual main problem in life really never got solved. He did nothing but what he was expected to ever since that day they finally broke him as a child, and never tried to become or ask for more ever again. During the movie, hope started to arise inside of him that maybe now, things could finally be different since the situation had changed. He never broke any rules or actively tried to change his position, his role or his life in any way, he simply took the opportunities as they came to him instead of rejecting them like a proper villain would do. It didn’t seem bad at first, but because of what he did, because he tried a second time to acquire normal person privileges- because he tried once more to reject his Destiny assigned role, he paid his absolute highest cost for it as a punishment, and lost all the people he had ever held dear. That would be the last time he tried to fight against this ‘Fate’ this ‘Destiny’ of his that was hell bent enough on making him he someone he had never wanted to be, in a situation that did nothing but hurt him in silent but consistent way, or else suffer the consequences- now in the end of the movie obviously Megamind makes a comment about rejecting the idea of Fate and Destiny controlling his life, but the problem is he only says that because he’s not a villain anymore. Because the situation changed. The city lost the hero, the universe lost its Yang. In this situation, Fate would have it that he step up and be the new Yang, now that there is also a new Yin. Destiny is still in control, he never got to choose anything that happened or anything that he did. He STILL is stuck under the universes rule, that he must take what cards he is dealt Or Else, terrible things. And just like before he is going to continue to live in fear, now instead of fear of not being the perfect villain, a top notch bad guy, or else he gets bullied, made fun of, pushed back and called names- now it’s that he needs to be just a different kind of perfect. A perfect hero, who wears only white and doesn’t own weapons or creepy spiders. A perfect hero who always arrives on time, always saves the victim in question, always stops the bad guy from getting away, never fails to prevent something terrible from happening because it’s his brand new, shiny white, full time, life consuming job! That he would have chosen, but wasn’t given the open ended question. He complied to being pushed into this- and so therefore no one realises how bad for him this really is, it’s something he wanted for sure- but he never gets to choose his life for himself. No one ever tells him that it was just plain old bullying and terrible people that hurt him, not a punishment from the Entity labbeled ‘Fate’. If he messes up, he actually SHOULD be forgiven, he should be allowed to make his own chooses, mess up and learn from it, try things he turned out not to like. He’s never had a sense of freedom in his life, and no one will just sit down for a second and explain to him that it’s wrong. He’s had his rights absolutely taken from him, and replaced with an artificial mindset, a man made set of rules that he is manipulated into thinking that he HAS to folllow (otherwise that’s where the punishment comes in) he doesn’t have the option to go around and question this, I’m just about 100% sure he’s never even thought of it and that’s because he’s convinced that this entire thing is truth. It’s not. It was a fabrication that people used to get what they wanted out of him. And it never got solved.

#i probably took this a little too far #i just really wished that someday somebody would tell Megamind #hes allowed to be completely himself and make mistakes too #and if anyone hurts him just for that it is NOT justified #megamind #megamind 2010 #dreamworks #animated movies #analysis #rant #whump writing #hurt/comfort #movies #animation #art #traditional art #sketch #drawing #fanart

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bestfriendforhire · 4 years ago

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Children of BFFH, Entry 48

Even after a couple weeks with the three brothers on their island, the world held constant wonder for me. We had flown to this city on an airplane in the night, and parts of the city still seemed lively. The view from the air had been dazzling. lights stretching out toward the horizon. On the ground, I could see that many of the streets were lit, but empty. I wanted to explore and learn more, but we were racing the sun. Vampires were always racing the sun. I had learned this.

The blood knowledge granted me was full of facts and language skills, but Vito said he couldn’t share wisdom or understanding through blood. I had no idea what he had meant initially, but Zachary and Papak⁠—Vito’s brothers⁠—helped Vito to show me. I knew dozens of languages, but I could completely miss what was being said if I didn’t understand colloquialisms of the area in which they were spoken. Likewise, I knew what numerous machines were, but I still didn’t understand the details of how they worked. The blood knowledge granted me mental paintings, but I needed experience to relate to the artists’ emotions.

Learning from the brothers was much more fun than the tutors in my old life, strict and impatient if I grew distracted. My old home was probably long gone. My dresses, hairbrush, and lyre certainly were. Embroidery practice wasn’t necessary anymore, though Vito felt I should still perfect my skills just for the sake of having them.

“What’s the matter, child?” questioned Vito as he wiped a tear from my cheek.

I shook my head, saying, “Nothing. Sorry.”

Ariadne hugged me. “Missing us already? We will visit.”

“I was thinking of my mother. I know she’s been dead for hundreds of years, but I feel that I saw her just weeks ago.” I explained, brushing another tear away. I knew Ariadne wouldn’t care about tears in her shirt, but I still did. I lived in a time where fabrics were precious and tended with great care. Ariadne could create new ones in an instant, already cut and sewn. Magic lessons were more important now than knowing how to store my clothes.

Ariadne squeezed me tighter, looking more like a girl my age than an old vampire of considerable renown.

“Never forsake your tears, my dear. Vampires who forget the concerns of mortals don’t tend to live long themselves.” stated Vito, smiling at me like a kindly grandfather. “We’re here.” He announced, though the limousine hadn’t stopped yet.

I looked out and saw a sprawling building, not the biggest I had seen since waking, but certainly quite large. The brothers had spoken of James Michael Somerset III in so many different ways that I had no way knowing what he’d be like. He was rich. That much was inarguable. I wasn’t certain if he was young or old, human or something else. The brothers acted as if he was a younger brother, but spoke of him as someone of incredible power whenever I asked a question. They made jokes about him, but warned never to underestimate him. They were probably confusing me on purpose.

I blinked, and then found myself staring. A young man had appeared at the front of the house. He wore a fine suit, similar to how the brothers dressed, and looked as if he was prepared to wait an eternity for us to reach him. Yes, the limousine was a slow, meandering thing, but the brothers had insisted that acting mortal when observed was paramount for a vampire, lest we draw the attention of a Slayer. I took most of my first week to realize that the Slayers were a family, not a group of vampire hunters, though they apparently did hunt vampires down if the vampires drew their ire.

“I’m sure I’ve told you, Valeria, but you should always expect James to know more than you do. These days, he tends to be more aware than my brothers and me.” Vito reminded me, smiling as he observed James.

When we finally stepped out of the car, James immediately smiled, saying, “Always a pleasure to see you, my friends.” He leaned down to look me in the eye and held out a hand as he said, “Valeria, meeting you is a pleasure as well. I am James Michael Somerset III, and you are quite welcome to live here, though I left discussing your presence with Cosette to Vito and Ariadne.”

Vito was frowning a little when I looked up at him. “How long have you known?” questioned Vito.

“Only three weeks, but I am quite certain that Cosette will oblige you. Unfortunately, I can’t remain to see you inside. I’m actually out on business at the moment, but Mila is ever willing to accommodate your needs.” he told us, disappearing as he said the last word.

“But… I wasn’t even awake yet three weeks past.” I stated, looking to Vito and Ariadne for answers.

“No, you weren’t, but James is James.” replied Vito, still frowning slightly.

“You know there was probably a reason he couldn’t warn us.” suggested Ariadne.

“How could he be out on business if he was here?” I questioned, hoping for an actual answer to this one.

“James is James.” replied Vito with a shrug. “He didn’t run off just now. He either wasn’t really here, leaving an incredible illusion to greet us, or he teleported here long enough to greet us in person. Either way, don’t expect anyone else to pull off such a trick.” Then he muttered in a barely audible whisper “I swear I felt him, so he was probably here.”

“In this household, you’ll be able to be yourself without disguise. Most everyone has magic of their own. Though some are very human physically, others will exceed you greatly. Do be careful not to hurt anyone, or you might see what James is like when he’s in a bad mood.” warned Ariadne.

The doors opened, and a very beautiful maid stood just inside the building. I jumped, my head swiveling back and forth, when I caught sight of our driver stepping out of the limousine. They looked like the same person! That face… “Mila!?” I asked.

“Yes, I am Mila Wilson.” replied the maid as she curtsied. “If you need anything, just ask. I’ll hear and attempt to help you.”

“You’re the oracle of the mirror.” I told her, wanting to be certain.

She smirked. “I’m hardly an oracle, but I am well-connected. My other body will get your bags, so please follow me.”

“Always listen to Mila if she gives you instruction, my dear.” stated Vito as he and Ariadne went up into the house. “Mila takes care of this household and all who dwell here. She’s also the daughter of the brightest person you’ll ever meet, and her daughter is… Well, how is Serenity these days?”

“Exuberant just as often as when you last saw her. I’m keeping her distracted with a project at the moment, so she won’t bother Valeria before she’s moved in.” explained Mila, sounding amused.

Vito nodded and said, “‘Exuberant’ does seem quite fitting for her. Valeria, don’t challenge Serenity at anything until after you’ve gotten to know her. Just as you could accidentally hurt some of the more human children here, Serenity could accidentally hurt you if she gets carried away.”

“She rarely hurts anyone other than herself more than superficially, at least physically. The shock to people’s minds is more often the problem.” insisted Mila, glancing back at us.

“Have there been any serious incidents lately?” questioned Ariadne in concern.

Mila shook her head. “No. The worst we’ve had recently was a visitor who suffered from mild shock after having a snowball fight. Serenity went a little overboard trying to protect her.”

“Snowball fight?” I asked.

“Ah, yes. You would’ve been kept indoors in winter. Rolling small balls of snow and throwing them at one another in a sort of game was common even when you were born. Here, there are probably complicated rules and a great deal of magic involved.” explained Vito.

“Magic more than rules in our snowball fights.” acknowledge Mila, sounding amused.

When I stopped asking questions, Mila started explaining what rooms we were passing throughout the house, promising to show me a map and explaining more once I was in my room. The second floor of the Northwest wing was where Cosette lived, and where I’d be staying if she agreed.

The door opened as we arrived, and a pretty, chestnut-haired woman with deep blue eyes stood there in a lovely, white blouse and a dark blue skirt that barely went past her knees. I knew that this wasn’t considered immodest now, but I also knew my mother wouldn’t have approved, even with the white stockings covering her legs.

Brushing back some wandering strands of hair, the woman said, “What a pleasant surprise! Please, come in.” Then she stepped out of the way, motioning for us to enter.

“Sorry to barge in on you like this, but we felt discussing things with you in person would be for the best.” replied Ariadne, squeezing me by my shoulders after she walked with me into the room. “This is Veleria Cornaro.”

Curtsying, I said, “A pleasure to meet you, Cosette.” I felt nervous, reminded of when mother introduced me to different nobles.

Cosette seemed amused when I met her eyes. Had I done something wrong? What if she turned me away? What would become of me?

“Nice to meet you, Valeria. Care to sit?” she asked, pointing us onward farther into the room.

“Thank you, my dear.” replied Vito, gracefully walking past her and taking a seat on a comfortable-looking sofa. Furniture had changed a great deal over the years, and I couldn’t gauge whether much of what was in here would be considered expensive or not.

Ariadne and I sat next to him, and Cosette took a seat opposite to us on another sofa there. She was well-bred. Her posture as she walked and sat made me certain of it. She was speaking with one of the oldest three vampires and still seemed confident in her domain.

“I accept.” stated Cosette after we sat in silence for several seconds.

Huh? What just happened?

“Are you sure?” questioned Ariadne.

“Yes. Though this is certainly unexpected, You and Vito wouldn’t bring such an untrained vampire here if she did not need someone to care for her. She obviously needs some more practice blending in, although I’d guess her to be at least a couple hundred years old. How did you find her?” questioned Cosette.

I couldn’t figure out what I was missing, but I knew I must be missing a great deal.

“Quite right. She is five-hundred-and-sixty-four years old, but her mind matches her body. Whoever prepared her blood bath was quite skilled, so her body was almost at peak condition within days. There was an accident at an archaeological site, and the worker’s blood revived her when the seal was broken. Highly unusual circumstances. She’s fifteenth century Italian and from a noble family at that. Furthermore, she possesses quite rare magic. Even Ariadne hadn’t seen the like among the fey.” explained Vito as if talking about an enjoyable outing.

I had so many questions. What was a blood bath? Who was injured? What were the fey he spoke of? Would asking anything be considered rude by Cosette?

Apparently reading my worries on my face, Cosette said, “A blood bath is, more or less, what it sounds like, Valeria. A vampire is immersed in blood that was transformed, allowing it to retain vital energy for many, many years. That was primarily used as a way to hide during dangerous years for our kind. Your body drank up the blood and its energy. A more experienced vampire would have been able to completely wake themselves after the blood ran out. Since you were newly turned when you went in, you didn’t have that sort of reflex, drying out till you were indistinguishable from a well-preserved corpse.”

“What seal was broken? Who was injured?” I asked, since she seemed obliging.

Ariadne hugged me again. “One of the workers was struck by a crumbling pillar. The lid of your coffin was broken, allowing his blood to nourish you.”

“And what are the fey?” I asked.

“Magical beings whose blood mingled with that of humans off and on throughout the years, granting magical gifts to the descendents. Some can disappear at whim. Others can control light, sound, or fire. There are fey who change their shape faster than you can change your clothes. Categorizing them all would be tedious, so we tend to lump them together more often than not.” she told me.

“What is your magic like?” questioned Cosette.

Seeing Vito nod, I showed her. Her eyes widened in surprise, and she smiled at me in delight. Maybe she really would accept me.

#Children of BFFH #Children #of #BFFH #Jovial Times #Jovial #Times #Fantasy #Fiction #Story

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iris-writes-things · 5 years ago

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Two Guys and a Baby: Day 10

Read on AO3, FF.net or under the cut, or read up to 2 chapters ahead as a $1 Patreon patron!

This was why Crowley enthusiastically strode towards his front door and opened it, completely forgoing the peephole or any other means of identification of his visitor… s… “Crawly,” croaked an unfortunately familiar voice.

Or, anger, relief and other feelings.

Chapter 13 of 20 Ongoing 2375 words Romance/Humor

It was ten o'clock on Monday morning and Crowley was standing in his bathroom in his boxers and a well-worn A Day At The Races World Tour t-shirt*, his toothbrush dangling lazily from his mouth. He gently dried Adam’s hair with a soft towel as the boy sat on the edge of the sink. Adam had seemed especially reluctant about bath time this morning. However, once his rubber duckie got involved, the boy was on top of the world and there had been no further complications. After all, getting dressed before putting a baby in the bath would be terribly inefficient, and Crowley was nothing if not efficient.

(*Note for observant readers who may be noticing a pattern by now: while t-shirts don’t belong in the wardrobe of the epitome of fashion Crowley tries to be, he collects Queen tour t-shirts in his free time. His niece and sister frequently call him out on how weird it is that he wears his most prized collection to bed every night.)

“See? Sat wasn’t so bad, was it?” Crowley slurred around his toothbrush as he finished drying Adam and putting him in a diaper. There was knocking at the door and Crowley’s heart leapt. “That’ll be Ezra,” he mumbled, wrapping the towel around Adam, picking him up and spitting his toothbrush and adjacent toothpaste into the sink. “Wanna go see Ezra?” he asked Adam.

The boy’s face lit up at the sound of the shopkeeper’s name. Of course he wanted to go see Ezra. These last few days he must’ve come to associate that name with good food, stories, adventures and softness. What kind of child could object to that?

This was why Crowley enthusiastically strode towards his front door and opened it, completely forgoing the peephole or any other means of identification of his visitor… s…

“Crawly,” croaked an unfortunately familiar voice.

Where Crowley previously felt his heart soar, he now felt it do a deep dive through five storeys worth of apartment building, the foundations below it, and several layers of the Earth’s crust, and his blood ran awfully cold. The smell of, among other things, tobacco filled his nostrils. And where a week ago that exact smell would have been very enticing to him, it had now lost its charm altogether. “Hastings, Liggett. I didn’t know creative made house calls nowadays. And… I have a phone, you know that.”

“Enough with the pleasantries. Where were you last week?” Hastings demanded.

“You were supposed to pitch to the board of directors in Ferguson’s absence,” Liggett added, in case Crowley had forgotten. He hadn’t.

The pitch had been on Wednesday and it was about an expansive direct marketing campaign that Hastings and Liggett had, to their credit, worked very hard on despite not really being ‘of the time’ anymore. And since the two combined had the charisma of approximately a single toad, Crowley had been selected by Lucy to pitch while she was away, as he was more on the level of a snake, to stick with the cold-blooded fauna motif. Once they caught him up to speed, he knew the presentation forwards and backwards and would be five steps ahead of each member of the board of directors and their hang ups at all times. The plan was foolproof.

This was before the babysitter had flown to Cambodia.

After the whole my-babysitter-ran-off-to-south-east-Asia-to-rediscover-herself-after-a-particularly-bad-breakup-so-I’m-giving-you-time-off-to-look-after-my-baby debacle, they needed a solution, which presented itself as the intern known as Newton Pulsifer. His presentation skills understandably lagged behind Crowley’s and couldn’t begin to catch up with Lucy’s, but the main difference between interns, who are doing all this for the first time, and creatives who had been doing the same thing for thirty years and somehow still held their positions, was that you could still teach them a thing or two, and they would be eager to learn, too. So that fateful Friday afternoon, Lucy and Crowley had gone over the presentation with Newt for what felt like upwards of a hundred times. They gave him every note they had and hadn’t stopped until both of them were confident that the boy could successfully run the pitch by the board.

So… Hastings and Liggett standing here, in the hallway of his apartment building, didn’t bode well. And Crowley quickly figured it wouldn’t be wise to tell them he spent that entire day reading Miffy books to Adam in his crush’s bookshop. Instead, he told them, “Yeah, we told you I wouldn’t be there because I’d be taking care of Adam. We told you Newton would cover for me, too. Hell, we even asked you if you’d rather present your pitch yourselves instead of having the intern do it. Whatever happened, it’s out of my hands.”

A frustrated grumble escaped Hasting’s throat. “We thought you might say something like that,” he said.

“Then why are you here?” Crowley asked.

“To take you back to the office with us, where you’ll explain to the board exactly what went wrong. Now, put on some pants,” Liggett commanded.

Crowley stepped back when a hand grabbed his arm. He shook himself free and Adam whined at the jostling. “I can’t,” Crowley insisted. “I won’t. I have to look after Adam.”

It was then, that Hastings stepped forward, glowering at Crowley and towering over him. Compared to Crowley who, himself, erred towards the taller side, Hastings was enormous. “I think you misunderstand, Crawly. We are your seniors. You are only an assistant and you will not disrespect us in this way.”

The words oozed with venom and Crowley instinctively faced Adam away from them. It was bad enough that Lucy and Crowley had to deal with the pair of them on a regular basis. The less young Adam saw from them, the better, and the same went for Crowley, he reasoned. He took a deep breath and asked them with a boldness he had long forgotten he had, “And what have you lot ever done to earn my respect?”

“I suggest you choose your words wisely, Crawly,” Hastings said as he bowed down over Crowley, only inches away from his face.

“It’s Crowley,” he asserted. “And why should I respect a pair of out-of-touch, middle-aged creatives who always pull rank because they clearly have nothing else going for them? Who terrorize interns and intimidate assistants by showing up at their fff— bloody houses to call them names and make them take responsibility for something that wasn’t on them? Surely, I should be reporting you two to some kind of authority, but we all know that won’t do anything, so how about I make this easier on all of us and just announce that I quit.” He huffed, and without another thought he pushed the letter on the dresser by the door into their hands and promptly slammed his front door shut. That was about enough of them. “And newsflash, A-holes, unsolicited direct marketing** has barely worked on people under the age of thirty-five in, like, a decade, so your campaign was doomed to fail from the start. There’s some free fucking advice for you.”

(**read, the ones that get stuck in your spam filter and/or the ones that immediately go into the paper recycling.)

It wasn’t even an hour later by the time Ezra came knocking on the door. Crowley had only just finished getting dressed and he wasn’t proud of it; wearing the same t-shirt he slept in along with yesterday’s jeans and jacket as he opened the door. Meanwhile, Ezra’s outfit, worn as it was, was soft and pristine.

“Hey angel,” Crowley said.

“Good morning,” Ezra said softly, eyes flitting down to Crowley’s outfit.

Meanwhile, Crowley felt like he might as well have been naked. He coughed, bringing Ezra back from whatever fantasy he’d found himself in.

“Run into any unsavory types on your way up?”

Ezra glanced around the hallway. “No. Was I supposed to?”

“No. Just… we don’t have to deliver the letter. They came to pick it up.”

“Came to pick it up?” Ezra frowned, almost protested as Crowley ushered him inside. “My dear, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Poltergeist, more like. Two of them,” Crowley said flippantly, but the hand he carded through his messy hair shook.

Now, Ezra wouldn’t say he enjoyed seeing Anthony as shaken as he obviously was. In fact, he didn’t enjoy that at all. The idea that two men from the office would come over to his home to intimidate him was appalling to him. It wasn’t right.

But.

But there was something about seeing Anthony like this. Seeing him less put-together. It was endearing. It made him, for lack of a better word, relatable. After all, it was reassuring to know that even the most perfectly beautiful man who always dressed sharp and snazzy, could look like a mess. Specifically, a mess he wouldn’t mind too much waking up to in the morning.

Ezra made a point of it not to stare at him too much.

“I’m sorry this happened, Anthony. I wish I’d come by sooner, I might have been able to— to—” Truthfully, he didn’t know what he would have done. But he knew he would have done something. It wasn’t right, coming to someone’s house to tell them off for something they didn’t do, and Ezra was nothing if not righteous.

“I appreciate the sentiment, Ezra, but I’m fine,” Anthony sighed. “And so is Adam, I think.”

“Did they…?” Ezra trailed off.

“Who? Adam? Didn’t lay a finger on him. I’ll give them that, at least.”

“Then, did they…?”

Anthony shrugged. “Grabbed my arm, that’s it.”

That’s it?

There was a fire in Ezra’s eyes that Crowley hadn’t seen before. He wasn’t sure if he should be terrified or flattered.

“But even that is unacceptable!” Ezra said when he spoke again. “They still trespassed on your home, on the one place you’re meant to feel safe, on you, and that should never have happened.” He took Crowley’s hand and looked at him with angry, watery eyes.

“I’m fine angel, I swear. Moreso now that my knight in shining armor is here.” Crowley ran a hand through his hair in a way he hoped Ezra would experience as tenderly. Like in an out of body experience, he felt himself bend down to kiss him, but caught himself just as he realized what was happening.

That was, until he felt the lapels of of his jacket pull him downward and a pair of soft lips pressed against his own.

Oh.

"You care about me…" Anthony said a few hours later at brunch, as if the idea still felt alien inside his head.

Adam watched them from his high chair like a tennis match.

Ezra laid down his menu and tried not to sigh as he looked up at his friend. "Of course," he said. "One might go so far as to say that I quite fancy you."

This seemed to make Anthony choke on the breath he was taking. "Well yes, but since when?" he asked with an urgency there was really no need for. The wait staff had already picked up on the cues at their table and were avoiding it like the plague until the air around it cleared.

Now, if Ezra were about to admit his own superficiality, he would have said 'From the moment you set foot in the bookshop,' but he wasn't, so he didn't. Instead, he said "Ten years, give or take?" which meant pretty much the same thing and shrugged his shoulders.

"And it never occurred to you to tell me?"

"Did it to you?"

"Every day," Anthony squeaked. "For the last ten years and a few months."

Ezra blinked hard. The choice of words did not escape him. He wanted very much not to be so surprised, after all, Anathema had told him so outright, but to hear it from the man himself, the implication was all that was needed to send him reeling.

"Anathema told you, didn't she?" Anthony asked, finally breaking the silence.

Ezra nodded.

"She told me at dinner last Friday." Anthony let out a breathy laugh. "I swear, that girl is going to be the death of me."

"And me," Ezra said. Anthony smiled at him brilliantly and Ezra averted his gaze as a feeling of shame washed over him. "I'm sorry, by the way. About running out on you that night at that cafe."

"Angel, that was two years ago."

"I know! I just… we were both drunk, I didn't want you to get the wrong idea. I didn't want you to regret it."

Anthony choked on his orange juice and slammed the glass down on the table. "Regret it?! Are you joking? We could have been going out for years and you thought I would regret it?"

"Well, it was more like I didn't want you to think I was taking advantage of you."

"But… Ezra, I started it…" Anthony said, gesturing wildly.

“Well, you could have said something, too!”

A groan escaped Anthony, his face buried in his hands, fingers tangled in his hair. “In conclusion, we’re both cowards and we’ve been miserable for much longer than strictly necessary?”

“Well, I wouldn’t say miserable…”

“Okay, so maybe that was just me, but at least we both haven’t been as happy as we could have been.”

“I would agree with that…” Ezra mumbled. He glanced at the menu but he wasn’t sure he was all that hungry anymore.

Anthony followed his gaze and smiled that snake-like smile of his, that only looked charming on him. “Go on,” he said. “My treat.”

That second, Ezra decided he was famished.

A weight had fallen from Crowley’s shoulders. It had been replaced with the slightly less hefty weight of having to figure out their relationship anew, but it had to count for something. For these first few hours, Crowley found very little had changed between them at all. He still stole glances at Ezra as they ate. They still talked unreservedly and laughed at each other’s jokes. They fed Adam who, at this point, was ravenous for everything his little fingers could grasp on to.

What Crowley also found, was the pleasant heft of a warm hand in his.

#EN #fanfic #Good Omens #Ineffable Husbands #Human AU

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peterpparkrr · 6 years ago

Text

(Alex Standall x Reader): Mercy (pt 10)

Summary: After you heard the tapes you broke up with Alex because you thought that he was still in love with Jessica. But when you find out that he tried to commit suicide you take a look back at your relationship and realize you may have made a mistake.

A/N: This one’s uhh...intense, so, get ready for that. I apologize in advance.

(pt 1) (pt 2) (pt 3) (pt 4) (pt 5) (pt 6) (pt 7) (pt 8) (pt 9) (pt 10) (pt 11) (pt 12) (pt 13)

The next day wasn’t much better. There were still whispers and stares as you walked around school but people had already started to move on to new gossip and drama, specifically about Bryce and the fact that Marcus had called him a rapist. Compared to the past few days it seemed relatively drama-free and you were starting to think that maybe things were finally going to start turning around.

However, when you got home from school your mood quickly changed when you walked into your room.

Everything was a mess. Your room wasn’t necessarily the cleanest but this. Someone had destroyed your room. Everything was on the floor. All of your clothes were pulled out of your dresser and closet and littering the floor. The books on your bookcase were pulled off their shelves and a majority of them were ripped to shreds. Everything from your desk as emptied out. Your lap was smashed on the floor as were all of the pictures frames you’d had. Your sheets were stripped off the bed and looked like they’d been ripped to shreds as if by an animal.

You walked through the mess gingerly and when you got to the bed you noticed there was a piece of paper laying on top of your mattress. You opened it up to only drop it quickly when you realized the message on it was written in blood. In harsh, bold letters it read “you talk you die bitch”

“Alex,” You cried when he picked up after you fumbled to dial his number, “Someone, someone broke into my house-my room, ohmygod Alex they destroyed everything,” You manage to get out.

“Are you hurt? Are you safe now?” He asks, clearly alarmed, “I’m on my way over, I’m texting Zach.”

“I’m fine, it’s just-please get here soon-I don’t know what to do,” You tell him.

“Is anyone else home? Did they do anything to the rest of your house?” Alex asks.

“No, everyone’s gone still, I don’t think my parents will be home ‘til late. I don’t think they did anything else, everything else seemed normal when I walked home.”

“Okay, okay, should you call the police? You need to call right? Should you call my dad?” Alex asks.

“No!” You replied quickly as you stared down the note you still had clutched in your other hand, “No… I can’t call the police, no one can know that this happened,” You tell him.

“(Y/N)...” Alex replied slowly, “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I-I’m fine, Alex, I can explain it when you get here, it’s complicated…”

“Okay, we’re pulling up to your house right now, everything’s going to be okay, we’ll come up,” He tells you before hanging up the phone.

A minute or so later you heard grumbles and you could tell Zach was helping Alex get up the stairs to your room. You quickly wiped at your eyes and turned around just was they made it to your doorway.

“Jesus Christ,” Zach muttered as you stepped over to them and wrapped your arms tightly around Alex, hugging him as tight as you could.

“(Y/N), oh my god,” Alex says as he squeezes you as hard as he can, “Thank god you’re okay.”

“Who would do this?” Zach asks as he looks around in disbelief.

“I don’t know,” You reply, “but, uh… they left this,” You tell them as you grab the note off of your bed and hand it to Zach. They both read through it and share a glance before turning back to you.

“We’ve gotten similar notes,” Zach tells you, “Not just us, Jess got one too, and Clay got driven off the road, it has to be someone trying to keep us quiet during Hannah’s trial, we think it’s Bryce or someone he’s paying to do it.”

“But no one knows I’m testifying, I only told you guys and my parents,” You tell them.

“I don’t know, I guess someone found out somehow,” Zach replies.

“But this is insane, who would do this just to keep (Y/N) quiet during the trial, what could she possibly say that would be so bad that Bryce or someone would do this to her?” Alex asks.

“I have no idea, but (Y/N), you need to tell someone, you need to talk to Alex’s dad.” Zach insists.

“No! If I tell someone then who knows what this person will do next? Bryce could destroy my whole life, my future, if he wanted to,” You argue.

“At least tell your parents,” Zach pushes.

“Are you kidding? They’ll make me call the police, they’ll make it a whole spectacle,” You tell him, “No, we need to clean this up, no one but us can know that this happened, not Jess, not Clay, none of the others.”

“(Y/N)-”

“Come on, we have a few hours and my parents will never notice the difference, trust me, I can’t deal with this on top of everything else.” You tell them, “Please.”

“I’m in,” Alex said as he squeezed your hand reassuringly.

“Zach?” You ask.

Zach glances between the two of you, before rolling his eyes, “Fine, but I’m only doing this because the two of you are going to fail on your own.”

“Okay, can you go grab the trash bags? They’re under the kitchen sink downstairs,” You tell Zach before turning to Alex, “And uh, we can just sort through everything I guess. See what’s salvageable.”

“You mean I don’t get to just sit and look pretty?”

“Well you’re obviously going to do that while we work,” You quip back, laughing slightly before turning towards your room and feeling the smile slide off of your face, “Can you bundle up my sheets? Those are goners, I’ll have to go find some new ones in the closet.” You tell him as you crouch down to get a closer look at the books strewn across your floor, “God, I’m gonna have to throw out almost all of these.” You comment as you pick up a cover that has been completely detached from its pages.

When Zach comes back upstairs with bags you all get down to business and start filling them with every belonging of yours that is beyond repair. You ask each other questions about certain items and whether or not something is ‘too broken’ but other than that you don’t make any effort to have a conversation and neither do the boys.

Eventually, you have several bags full of your belongs and the rest of your room is empty but clean.

Most of your clothes were just thrown around and you’ve rehung or refolded them and they’re all back in your closet and dresser. Your photo frames were destroyed but most of the pictures were fine so you left the pile sitting on your desk, as a promise that you’d go buy some new ones eventually. Your bed had new sheets and blankets on it now, but they were basically the same ones you’d had before, thanks to the fact that your mom had duplicates of just about everything in your house, just in case.

You and Zach took the bags down and out to your trash can and when you were finished you all sat around your room, exhausted physically and emotionally.

“I should head home,” Zach said after a while, “I’m supposed to look after May tonight and after I walked out of the field dedication thing today I should probably get home on time, my mom is already mad enough.”

“God, I still can’t believe that your mom wants you to defend Bryce,” You tell him with a sigh.

“Yeah, well she doesn’t know the truth,” Zach replies, “You ready to go, Alex?”

“Actually, I can drive him home, you can head out,” You reply quickly.

“Alright, I’ll see you guys tomorrow,” Zach replies

After a beat, Alex turns to you, “You’re not kidnapping me? Are you?”

You grin, “No,” You tell him, “Unless you want me too,” You offer as you stand up and move over to where he’s sitting on the bed.

“Maybe,” He replies as he lays back on your bed and pulls you down to lay next to him.

“Well, if it were up to me you would never leave,” You tell him truthfully as you snake your arms around his waist, “I just- I can’t be alone. Not now.”

“You’re not getting rid of me anytime soon.”

“Promise?”

“Swear it,” he says as he links his pinkie with your own, “Never.”

“I love you,” You tell him softly. “I love you more.”

#13 reasons why #13 Reasons Why fanfic #13 reasons why fanfiction #13 reasons why imagine #13 reasons why reader insert #Alex Standall #alex standall x reader #alex standall imagine #alex standall fanfiction #alex standall reader insert #zach dempsey

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theclaravoyant · 7 years ago

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What do you mean by “persistent rejection of nonviolence in media” I mean I understand media as a whole but this is a superhero/spy/action-adventure show where taking about. It wouldn’t be any of those without “violence” persay, we’ve seen superhero shows without “violence” normally aren’t popular DC’s Powerless for example

Hi there! Thanks for the ask (regarding this post). My feelings on that are a bit complicated and gets into a lot of philosophy and stuff but I’ll do my best to explain what I meant by that particular line in that particular context.

So, re the violence and genre thing, I’m actually on the same page! I’m not expecting violence to completely disappear from our screens, or even decrease that much. I’m not opposed to it as a concept and in fact, I actually like it! I love this genre. I really do. I love kickass fight scenes, I love how visually satisfying they are, and I love MANY examples of violence and badassery being liberating and powerful. I’m not opposed to the existence of violence in media at all, even though it is glorified to some extent and blah blah blah, that’s a Whole Thing. What grates on me is how often nonviolence is thrown under the bus. Not the absence of violence, I mean nonviolence, eg, forgiveness, redemption, and restorative justice (that is, healing through coming to an understanding and fixing a situation, rather than seeking vengeance or punishment). (and which, imo, are especially important in these kinds of genres).

Characters’ willingness to forgive is very often treated as naive, or weak, and all the characters who ‘recognise that the world is a terrible place’ are the ones that know better. We can see this very clearly with Fitz eg at the end of Season 1 where everyone is warning him about Ward, for example. This willingness to forgive is often trained or drained out of a character as a series goes on and characters lose their innocence. Typically there will come a point when it’s Really Important that this particular bad guy dies, rather than being stopped any other way (said other ways being rarely discussed, and sometimes other perfectly good options eg ICERs are taken off the table for no reason) and the ‘naive’ character ‘steps up.’ Sometimes, a character will demonstrate forgiveness only for the bad guy to throw it back in their faces and for something to immediately happen (typically, they fall off something and die) that means they meet their violent end anyway but the hero’s hands are clean. (this happens a lot in Disney, and Doctor Who). That’s a little closer to the nonviolence I’m talking about but because of how common it is as a narrative device, I still consider it cheating: it’s a way for the writers/narrative/moral to be violent and punishing without the character having to take the blame.

Willingness to forgive is also often treated as unjust. People who have been wronged, abused or oppressed in some way are expected to want vengeance on the person who wronged them. Fighting back, injuring or killing one’s enemy is portrayed as a powerful, freeing move. I’m not saying it can’t be - I love me some vengeance/emancipation stories - but what I do not love is when a character (especially the victim) says “hey, maybe we shouldn’t actually kill the person who wronged me” and other characters, and/or fans, respond with cries lamenting their naivity, or Stockholm Syndrome, or other ways of expressing concerns that basically say “aww, poor baby doesn’t want to kill their oppressor? that’s okay we’ll do it for them / coach them through it” or “how can you not want to kill them, something must be wrong”. Again, we saw this with Fitz re: Ward, and also when he hesitated about killing Aida. Jemma noticed this hesitation, but her reaction was not clear. Many fans, however, went nuts going “omg!! he’s still the Doctor, he’s still in love with Aida because he doesn’t want to kill her!!” when really he might just… not want to further the saga of horrible things with another murder? when what Aida wanted was actually quite simple? maybe he thought that the situation could be resolved without anyone having to die?

(and this was another one of those times, though not so hypocritical and slightly more literal than usual, when a mysterious force of divine judgement took Aida out rather than any of the heroes, let alone Fitz, having to do it. also note that Jemma’s visually satisfying but in the end meaningless (”I just really wanted to do that”) violence against her (by shooting her indestructible body multiple times with a machine gun) has been endlessly praised, while Fitz’s hesitation about killing her is treated as naive and part of his victimhood, and is also often used to ship them rather than like……… in regards to him simply being a good and compassionate person who doesn’t want unnecessary death).

Nonviolence is often portrayed poorly too, which doesn’t help. It’s almost always raised, but often in a way that it is designed to be shut down. For example, “we don’t kill people, unless it’s REALLY important, like now (and that time, and that other time, and-)”, and don’t forget the good old “if we kill them, we’re just as bad as they are” OBVIOUSLY YOU’RE FREAKING NOT. so another character comes along and talks the hesitant character out of that funk, or takes care of the danger for them, because don’t be ridiculous of course X bad guy deserves to die (and/or because the Good Character believes they are protecting the victim character by taking the blow to their own soul or whatever by ‘doing what’s necessary’ kind of thing). Another one of these that shits me is blood-family obligation. “of course they did all these horrible things to you, but you have to forgive them because they’re family”. That’s shit. as is “forgive them because you don’t actually have the power to fight back, so you might as well.”

Basically what I’m saying is, I’m all here for what can be a powerful and freeing experience of violence and even revenge. I’m not opposed to that existing. I’m opposed to alternatives to those kind of stories, and characters who don’t want that, being constantly shut down, punished and infantalised. Forgiveness and redemption (*real, earned redemption, which a lot of TV also fails hard at) takes a lot of courage and compassion and I hate seeing it treated so badly. If characters can free and heal themselves through violence they should be able to free and heal themselves through peace too. What I’m sick of is violence being treated as the only or the best way, and for learning violence to always be seen as an empowering character arc, even when it is not.

We can see this again with Fitz, in comparison with his fellow agents. Daisy, for example, became an agent as part of finding her place within Shield, and her powers help her to do that role even though she could if she wanted to be quite violent with them. Notably, her powers are also emphasised as a positive and powerful part of her identity, and also being capable of creating beauty as well as used as a weapon. This is a storyline where accepting violent or potentially violent elements into her life was empowering and/or brought with it other empowering elements such as her found family. Jemma also, while she has less of the identity aspect going on, somewhat willingly picked up a weapon when she was feeling defenseless and wanted to stop needing help. Though she was reaching out from a dark place, she is now better able to protect herself and the people she loves and she did it by making a choice. While less positive than Daisy’s, this is also a storyline where she has grown in some way through learning violence. (and notably, by choosing it - at least in-universe, though because violence is so favoured by stories and genres like this it was unlikely to go any other way in the grand scheme of things).

Then we have Fitz, whose current noticeably-high levels of violence (he did have some violent encounters etc beforehand, but these are repeatedly identified as more severe/brutal) come directly from his experience in an alternate universe of sorts where he was abused as a child, raised as a violent and ruthless man, and became a top hydra scientist/torturer. He had no agency in that storyline being done to him, with his memories and the love of his life replaced and his entire life trajectory forcibly rewritten. He had no agency in his escape, or determining what he took out from it, he simply remembers that life as well as his real one. The best he has in terms of agency in dealing with it is “learn to use it to your advantage/under your control.” Currently, this is being treated as an empowering thing - he has a tool now, and it is great when he uses it properly. However, given the origins of this violent side, and the fact that the best anyone can do is say that he should make use of what he’s been left with from a horrific experience they otherwise haven’t dealt with much (they’ve dealt largely with his guilt, not with his trauma), to me that is not empowering. To kill Aida before Fitz, her main victim, could decide or verbalise what he wanted to do about her is not empowering. To have the level of brutality of his violence repeatedly shock and worry other characters who know and love him, and yet for the characters and narrative to insist that it’s part of his character now and that he should accept it, is not empowering. (particularly given the uncomfortable parallels between this and his disability acceptance/~recovery arc earlier in the series). This is an example of a storyline in which I believe nonviolence can and should be explored, but because nonviolence is consistently undervalued and poorly treated I don’t think that’s going to happen and that frustrates me.

That’s… basically what I meant. Hope it helps!

#leo fitz #aos meta #aos speculation #aos s5 #feel free to #ask me stuff #aos spoilers #restorative justice arcs 2k18 #abuse mention #Anonymous #long post

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