#and truthfully i NEVER want to know or be privy to that knowledge

[bandsanitizer]

I don’t ever want a tell-all from any one direction member ever and I never want to ever fully know their experiences or how it affects/affected them but gosh do I wonder

[itsyourchoicedevotionals]

An Atrophied Muscle

“When Simon saw that the Spirit was given when the apostles laid their hands on people, he offered them money to buy this power.” Acts 8:18NLT

Simon could see— every time the apostles laid hands on believers and prayed, these same people would begin to speak in new languages— tongues. Instantly, they became fluent in a language they’d never learned. To Simon— amazing. All his witchcraft training hadn’t taught him anything regarding this gift of tongues, he wanted to buy this ability. Therein lay a problem, Holy Spirit isn’t for sale, nor are His gifts. 

Early 1990s, crazy things began to happen to me. I’d be talking to a total stranger and suddenly in my mind I saw something happening to a child. Instantly, I’d knew— this child I saw was attached to this person I was talking to. When I spoke about what I saw, people became frightened. How did I know ‘this?’ Why did I know ‘this?’ Truthfully, it frightened me too, because I didn’t know what to do with what I was seeing.

I was slightly like wildfire, not knowing when this gift of the ‘Word of Knowledge’ would happen, nor what to do to be effective with this. My thoughts were, ‘if I was in ministry, like preaching, I could use this gift at the altar times.’ But instead of nurturing the gift, I pushed it away. Slowly, the ‘knowing of privy knowledge’ ebbed away. Little did I realize that I was pushing Holy Spirit Himself away too. 

For many years we went to a small church where the pastor was embarrassed by any person speaking forth a message in tongues, and then interpreting. I’d operated in that gift from receiving Holy Spirit. He kept telling me that anything I had to say was to be used in my devotionals, it didn’t ‘fit’ his sermon. Finally, I told Holy Spirit to not speak through me, we weren’t wanted at the church. 

Later, when I’d be in places which allowed tongues and interpretations, Holy Spirit gave me nothing. I’d grieved Him by remaining quiet, not speaking forth what He wanted to say. “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.” Ephesians 4:30ESV. There’s been a lot of repenting taking place  in my heart before God for shunning Holy Spirit. My closing down Holy Spirit had brought me to a dangerous place, in that I could barely even pray in tongues anymore.

Then I discovered something. Every gift from God demands faith to operate in the gift. The less participation in the gifts, the less faith remains in the life of the Believer. It’s like an atrophied muscle because of lack of use— we could tape our left arms into a sling by our sides for six months. That left arm would atrophy and become useless. Don’t use it and lose it. Same things goes for the gifts of Holy Spirit.

Praise be to God, “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1John 1:9NKJV. Each gift Holy Spirit gives is for free, otherwise, it wouldn’t be a gift. When we confess our sin, the price of faith is restored— we only then have to believe we’re worthy to receive what can’t be purchased.

Is a gift atrophying in your life? Will you repent and use this gift of Holy Spirit before you lose it? It’s your choice. You chose.

LET’S PRAY: Sovereign God we repent for neglecting, of being ashamed, or quarreling against Your Holy Spirit and all He wants to do with and through us. Help us please to regrow our faith and demonstrate to the world what You want them to see, in the name of Jesus Christ I pray.

by Debbie Veilleux

Copyright 2023 You have my permission to reblog this devotional for others. Please keep my name with this devotional, as author. Thank you.

[levi-my-beloved]

I'd like to request a headcannon with Levi and fem reader where she has an invisible (physical) illness that only few in the scouts are privy to (Levi, reader, Erwin, and Hange probably). So she puts on a good front to her squad, but requires extra care behind the scenes.

Levi with a terminally ill s/o

Warnings: conditions based incredibly heavily off Huntington's disease, death, grief, angst, fluff

Word Count: 1.6K

A/N: anon this was such a sweet request ;^;. soft caring levi is best levi. as mentioned in the warnings, the reader's condition is heavily influenced by Huntington's Disease, so I thought it only appropriate to put the NHS overview to help spread awareness. All information is available on the NHS website, as well as how to help those with this condition.

You learned from a fairly young age; Life. Isn’t. Fair. It’s a fact you’ve grown up with. The diagnosis was too late to help your mother, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway. There was no cure, and no way to stop the progression. You were aware of the 50% chance of inheritance, and honestly, with your luck, you didn’t hold out much hope. Life isn’t fair.

So you showed no surprise when spells of dizziness and occasional stumbling slowly introduced themselves into your day to day life. The small part of you that still held onto the hope of living a long life, despite your position within the Scouts, was brutally extinguished the day you forgot about a crucial training session with your squad. But you were stronger than this, and you wouldn’t let your illness stop you from being a good soldier, and an even better captain.

Only a few knew about your condition. Commander Erwin had been made aware the moment you joined the training corps, and he was more than willing to accommodate if ever you needed a break or a moment to yourself. Hange was possibly the most knowledgeable when it came to your illness. Their extensive research meant they were able to offer you as much assistance as you needed, despite you hating being babied. You hated needing anything. You’d never needed anything before, and just because you kept walking into tables and dropping pens or cups didn’t mean you had to be escorted everywhere. It was infuriating.

The last to find out, and possibly the hardest to cope with sometimes, was Levi. Your partner Levi. Your lover, Levi. You’d asked Erwin to keep it a secret. Begged and bargained with Hange to keep their mouth shut. You wanted to tell him yourself. You didn’t want him to find out through word of mouth, especially not from his two closest friends. But you wanted to tell him when you were ready. Whenever that would be.

But the man wasn’t stupid. He’d noticed a change in your demeanor. He’d noticed you looking forlorn. You were always present with him, but never there. He’d noticed your looks of hopelessness, your lack of interest in things that used to excite you. Levi knew you like the back of his hand. He loved you for god’s sake. Pair that with being incredibly perceptive and it wasn’t long until he sat you down on the edge of your shared bed one evening and asked you to tell him, truthfully, what was going on.

You fell silent, unable to maintain eye contact, knowing that if you did, he would easily piece together the truth himself. But his soft, concerned face could only be ignored and avoided for so long. And with his whispers of “Please, talk to me.” and “I can’t help if I don’t know what’s going on.” you found yourself recounting the story of your mother’s death, and how her condition had been passed down to you.

“So… that’ll happen to you?” he asked quietly, keeping your hands held tightly within his, knuckles draining of colour as he squeezed your palms. Whether it was for your comfort or his own, he couldn’t tell. You still refused to meet his gaze, but the small nods of your head was enough to tell him everything.

“Yeah,” you responded a little bluntly, subtly shifting your head so you could somehow hide the tears in your eyes. Why hadn’t you told him sooner? Why didn’t you just bite the bullet and fucking tell him? In reality, you knew exactly why. You were scared. Not of your condition, you refused to be afraid of that, but you were scared of what he would think. What he would do. You knew he’d been hurt in the past. Knew he’d lost so many people close to him. Would he try to distance himself? Would he break up with you out of self preservation? You wouldn’t blame him. He has so many protective layers over his heart, and he willingly opened them up to let you in. Guilt twisted in your gut as you stood, fighting back the sudden urge to stumble forward. You weren’t about to hurt him further by making him end things with you. You could at least do him the favour of ending things yourself.

“It’s probably best if we uh– stop. Seeing each other, I mean. I don’t really know how… how long I have. It was something like eighteen years for my mother but uh, yeah I don’t really know if that’s set in stone or anything so–”

“Shut up.”

You blinked, whirling back to face him, wide, teary eyes struggling to focus on his hunched form. Taking a small step back, you fumbled to find something to say. Apologising seemed like a bad idea. You knew he didn’t want your remorse, he never did. But the moment you saw your reflection within Levi’s own tear sparkling eyes as he raised his head, was the moment you broke. You promised yourself you would never cry because of your situation. You refused to let it get the better of you like that. But people break their promises all the time, especially to themselves.

That was the first time you’d openly sobbed, Levi wasting no time in crossing the short distance you’d put between you and wrapping you in a tight, protective embrace. His own eyes squeezed shut as if to prevent his soul from shattering. Your muffled sorrow broke his heart, and he wished he could do more to help you. He would switch places with you in a heartbeat. He would take all your pain and terror for himself if he could. But he knew that was impossible. Knew that someday, he was inevitably going to lose you.

“If you think I would allow you to go through this alone you’re wrong. And if you think for one fucking second I’m going to let you go, you’re wrong. I don’t care if it’s one year, five years or eighteen years. We have the time we have. I want to spend it with you. Idiot.” you didn’t think you’d heard anything sweeter. Clutching onto his now tear-stained bed shirt, you nodded into the crook of his neck, where you’d made yourself safe. A small, stuffy chuckle escaped your slightly swollen lips at the heartfelt nickname, all your fears melting away along with your mental barriers.

“I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you, I was just–”

“Nope. I don’t want to hear it. Just… just let me hold you for a minute,” you couldn’t quite see the way the tips of his ears burned slightly with the request. You couldn’t see how his cheeks tinted a rosy pink with the vulnerability. You just circled your arms around his waist, tightening your grip as he buried his nose in your hair, inhaling your freshly shampooed scent. “I love you. So much. No illness is ever going to change that. Ever.” you weren’t used to this Levi. Sure, he showed you affection behind closed doors. And of course he’d held you and told you he loved you, but you weren’t used to how raw this felt.

“Promise?” it felt almost childlike to ask, but you just needed reassurance. With so little constants in your life, you didn’t know what would happen if you lost him, both physically and emotionally. You didn’t know what you would do. A broad hand gently cupped the side of your neck, tilting your head up to look at him, blue hues flickering back and forth between your own widened pupils. A soft, understanding smile pulling at his lips.

“Promise.”

One word had never brought you so much comfort, and you were thankful he’d sat you down and made you talk to him. You wouldn’t have lasted long without telling him anyway.

Levi became a little more protective over you after that day. You didn’t mind. Honestly, you found it sort of sweet. Your squads would often train together, so he’d send you inquiring glances every now and then to make sure you were okay. You’d more often than not respond with a fond smile and a confident nod. Only a few times has he seen your smile falter, and excused himself from the conversation he was having with Erwin to briefly take you inside. Erwin’s gaze would be followed by a nod of approval as Levi guided you back into the barracks.

“Feeling?”

“Dizzy, lightheaded, and like I want to fucking stab Fredrik if he opens his stupid fucking mouth again,” you were never a particularly combative person, but your sudden irritability had been a surprising symptom Hange informed you of one day. You always thought your mother was just going through menopause, not that she was feeling the effects of her disease.

Levi told you to sit, planting a soft kiss to your forehead before disappearing off and returning with a glass of water. Taking a seat next to you, he carded his hand through your hair, making sure you took steady sips rather than large gulps. You’d found your dizziness was easier to manage when you didn’t inhale every last drop in a single knockback.

“Better?”

“Yeah. Better. Thank you,” you leaned against his shoulder, chest warming as his cheek rested against your forehead.

“Anytime, Brat,”

Overall, no matter what you were going through, and what you were feeling, Levi Ackerman would always be there. You dreaded the day you couldn’t speak his name properly. You dreaded the day you’d be bed ridden, unable to properly sit up or walk by yourself. But you knew he would be there for you in those times as well. He promised.

[ruthlesslistener]

hiraeth? not sure with who so whomever you think fits

Ooooooo I think I know who 

...

The hardest part of being alive is the knowledge that you cannot return to the simplicity of the past. 

It is new to the sensation of the wind on its mask. It is new to the concept of freedom, freedom from the shackles of being the Hollow Knight, the Pure Vessel. 

It, weak as a babe from years of endless warfare, is new to the simple concept of being able to stand when it wasn’t told to, to respond to things that were not encoded to command its attention. Its sister sits by its nestside and plays songs on her weapon that sing of a time before the endless pain, the searing light, and it-  

And it aches.

It aches all over, in body and mind and shade. Truthfully, it would be better if it did not know why it was in pain. (Truthfully, it would be better if it felt no pain at all, if it were naught more than a cracked mask laying in the ruins of the kingdom it had been born to protect, destroyed for its failure, as it should have been). But it has been hiding from the truth for long enough to be intimately aware of the flaw marring it, the flaw that cost the lives of the many below. 

It wants to go home. 

(Sometimes, when it buries the tip of its mask beneath the sheets to stave off the flickering light of the lumaflies, it likes to pretend that it was still just a hatchling in the egg, curled up dead under the waters of the Abyss. Fractal-notions spin through its mind like soft little tufts of caterpillar-fluff, burning on the wind.)

A ridiculous notion. The White Palace was never a home. It was not a home for the very simple fact that it should never have been alive enough to see it as one, for that was not the intention. It should not be privy to this ache, this longing, this broken desire to curl up and wait for the pain to end, weak and helpless. It was the Hollow Knight, the Pure Vessel.

(And it was a monster, as She had spoke when She had carved Her sigils into its chest, and it hurt it hurt it hurt-)

But there were times when it was a home, even if it was not a home that it belonged to. Times where the servants buzzed with the joy of spring festivities, tying up baubles and flowering wreaths while the hallways bubbled with laughter. Times when singers came and warbled tunes about tragic lovers and the bravery of fierce knights in silver-blue words that shiver-ached all the way down through the souls of everyone around it. Times when a very small spiderling raced through the corridors, shrieking with laughter, and it watched its father and mother and its jailers-to-be playact a family that should have never existed.  

It should not feel.

(They were all dead. They were all dead they were all dead they were all dead and that was its fault.)

It should not think.

(Sister is so tired now, so cold and cruel and distant. She has been sharpened into a weapon as it was, when she should have been given light and love and life, and there are parts of her that are gone that can never be recovered. She is as Father was before the Sealing came, even as she hisses curses in his name everytime she tries to stitch together the ruin of its worthless flesh.)

But it does, it does, it does.

It wants to go home.

(But it is the reason that there is no home.)

It wants to go home. 

...

Link to the writing challenge prompt list! :3

[wannabe-fic-writer]

Natasha Romanoff x Reader : Prove Me Wrong

Summary: She can trust you, even if she doesn’t know it yet.

Warning: 18+ Mental Health, Mentions of Death, Mentions of Violence, Mentions of Domestic Abuse, Smut

y/ht - your hometown

Chapter 3

****** 

You can’t lie and say you weren’t a little scared. 

It’s been two days since you confronted Natasha about missing her sessions and your mind has been reeling since then. 

Perhaps it worked, or maybe your timing had changed, but you’d ended up seeing her around more. You would feel her eyes lingering on you when you passed by her. 

She didn’t spend too long around you, just yesterday the two of you were in the kitchen together and before you could muster up the courage to say “morning” she was gone. 

Today is Friday.

The second you wake up you’re blinded by the sunlight pouring through the windows. Had you not kept yourself up last night with anxious thoughts of today you would’ve taken the intrusion like a champ, blinking through the pain of the light, and jumping up with fervor.

But since that’s exactly what you did, you grimace at the light, and fall back on to the bed. You sling your arm over your eyes to secure the darkness around you and let yourself lay there thoughtlessly for a moment. 

‘Miss Y/L/N you have a scheduled appointment with Agent Romanoff in one hour.’

Damn you for inputting your schedule into F.R.I.D.A.Y’s system.

“Thanks F.R.I.D.A.Y.”

A single minute ticks by and you fling yourself out of bed.

The shower you take helps to ease your state of mind, but you’re not fully relaxed until you take your first sip of tea. As usual, the warmth of it does wonders to your body and you hum in enjoyment.

Feeling like you’re now ready to face whatever is about to happen, you leave out of the kitchen.

When you enter your office you startle. 

Natasha stands at your filing cabinet, back facing you, as she fingers through a manila folder. 

“Stark made sure to put everything in here.” She comments, making no move to look at you.

Heart still pounding, you think of a reply,“ that’s what he said.”

The woman’s shoulders bounce when she scoffs,“ still playing at that huh? Do you think I believe that you didn’t read this?”

Your prolonged silence makes her finally look at you. She takes in your incredibly comfortable looking outfit, gaze lingering on the fuzzy animal designed socks, then snapping up to your face to see nothing. There was no expression there, just you watching her as she does you.

“Help yourself to any of the snacks in the cabinet or the drinks in the fridge,” you step around your chair to the other filing cabinet to pull out the empty notebook you had intended to use for her sessions,“ and feel free to make yourself comfortable Miss Romanoff.” You gesture to the couch against the wall.

Deciding not to let her intimidate you, you sit in your chair and stick your feet underneath you. All the while Natasha continues watching you.

Truthfully, with the knowledge that she’s already made up her mind on you, you wonder what’s making her watch you so intently.

When the woman moves to stand behind you, the hairs on your neck stand up. Goosebumps erupt, not in a sexual tension kind of way, but in a ‘she could kill me right now and I’d be helpless’ way. But you aren’t scared.

She leans down, arms crossing as she rests against the back of your chair.“ I don’t trust you Y/L/N. I don’t trust someone who doesn’t have a dark side.”

You shake your head,“ you don’t trust me because you don’t know me.”

“I think I do.”

“Tell me.”

Finally she walks around you. Instead of sitting on the couch, she sits on the coffee table directly in front of you.

“You were born in y/ht, father wasn’t around so your mother moved the two of you to New York. You went to a fancy little school in Brooklyn and had doors opened for you all throughout your academic career. Since you were born with your empathic abilities you automatically felt like you should help people so you majored in Phycology and Sociology and became a therapist after you graduated.” 

Listening intently to everything she says almost makes you laugh, but you know she’s serious and you don’t want to insult her in anyway.

Sitting forward, you lean on your knees,“ it seems you didn’t extend to me the same courtesy I did you.” She quirks a brow.“ Anyone can read my file Miss Romanoff. That doesn’t mean you know me. They’re facts of my life sure, but that’s not who I am.”

Before you indulge her clearly curious mind, you sip at your tea, slightly enjoying making her wait.

Natasha isn’t stupid, you never even began to think that. She prides herself on knowing things so of course she looked into you before you even entered the building most likely. But as you said, a file can’t tell you who a person is.

“My name is y/f/n. I was in y/ht. My dad was around, always drinking and waiting to kick the crap out of myself and my mom, which resulted in me sleeping in a locked closet to avoid his anger. When I turned ten my mom finally left him and we moved to Brooklyn.”

She would never admit to being shocked by that but you feel that she is. 

You continue,“ I did go to a fancy school but not a single door opened for me that I didn’t open myself. My powers manifested right before I enrolled in school, so when I got there my brain lit up like a power plant and I had no idea what to do about it. I struggled to get through school every day because it was too much to feel everyone’s emotions all at once. Which means my grades were shit for a long time.

I just barely made it through school and lucked into graduating. I didn’t learn how to handle my powers until college. Also, I became a therapist because I know if I had someone to talk to growing up I would’ve felt a hell of a lot better and decided that I’d like to help people in the way I hadn’t been. And for the record, I don’t use my powers with my patients unless given explicit consent to do so.”

Her mind is full of thoughts. She’s processing everything you’ve told her and trying to understand how she had missed all of that. 

Natasha has been learning how to read people her whole life. She’s mastered the ability to conceal her true emotions behind what she want’s people to see and thought she knew how to detect when someone else was doing the same.

Apparently she wasn’t that good at it. Or she is and you’re just really good at hiding.

The sound of a plastic wrapper opening grabs her attention and she looks at you.

You bite into the sweet little pastry before looking at her,“ oh did you want one?” 

She shakes her head.

Chewing and swallowing, you speak up again,“ you didn’t know because I didn’t want you too. I’m here to help the team, they all have more than enough going on, they don’t need to be feeling guilty about unloading their issues on someone who’s had a shitty hand as well. Besides I’ve worked past it and I refuse to let that define me.”

“I imagine it’s not easy to take on their emotions as well as your own.” She acknowledges.

“Nothing I can’t handle. And it’s worth it regardless of it’s difficulty.”

“Tony brought you in, I take it you worked with him before then?”

You shrug,“ we’ve spoken off the record a couple of times. I met him through Pepper who was my previous patient.” 

She nods, just barely looking intrigued by that. 

It’s quiet between the two of you for a while.

In said time you finished your tea, ate yet another snack, and reorganized Sam’s files(the man had taken it upon himself to put them away after your last session and started reading them, of course he didn’t put them back in the proper order).

Just as you’ve decided to go get some more tea she speaks up.

Her eyes had been on you this whole time, only now they lock with yours,“ you should lock your filing cabinets. It’s careless to leave them open for anyone to get to.”

“They are locked. Only myself and the patient who the cabinet belongs to can open it. Fingerprint scanners are on the underside of every handle.” 

She narrows her eyes at you,“ how’d you get my fingerprints?” 

You don’t answer, just giving her a smirk instead.

No, you can’t answer because you don’t know where they really came from. While talking to Tony about securing the files you’d obviously thought keys but he said that was too much and that he’d “handle” it. 

Somehow he got the teams fingerprints and yours. But you shouldn’t have expected anything less of the genius billionaire.

“I’m going to get some more tea, if you plan to stay, would you like something?” You ask, stopping with your hand on the door.

Natasha nods,“ tea.”

When the door shuts behind you, you release a breath that you felt like you’d been holding the whole time. You drop your head, looking at your shoes as you think.

You don’t think she’s playing at any angle, in fact you know she isn’t. But you also know she’s avoiding.

You can be patient though. She’ll run out of things to ask you and if not you know exactly how to gain control of a conversation. 

Deciding you didn’t want her to come find you lingering outside the door like a weirdo, you walk away. 

Tony, Steve, and Bucky are in the kitchen when you get there. 

“T, glad you’re here, I need a coffee maker in my office.” 

He looks from Steve to you,“ I was wondering when you’d ask for one. Thought you were a robot for a minute there.” 

You roll your eyes, greeting Steve and Bucky instead of replying,“ morning Steve, morning Buck.” 

“More like afternoon but hey.” Bucky says.

Eyes wide, you look to the clock on the wall. It is indeed two in the afternoon. There’s no way you were in there that long with Natasha. You swear it was much shorter than that.

“Everything okay?” Steve asks, noticing the frown on your face.

You nod,“ just lost track of time.” 

Tony scoffs,“ Romanoff givin you a run for your money huh.”

“I don’t discuss my patients Tony.” 

No one misses the fact that you’re fixing two cups of tea though and that does make them wonder how you’re doing with Natasha.

While she hadn’t spoken to you she obviously talked to her team so they were privy to the way she felt about going to see you. Steve was worried that she’d be less than nice to you and Tony just knew she wouldn’t take to you too well.

He also knows you so he was sure you would get to her eventually.

Once you’re finally finished up you smile to each of them and leave out. 

Entering your office this time, you partly expect her to be gone. So you’re just barely surprised to find her resting against your desk, flicking through the notebook you were writing in for her.

“I’m consciously deflecting in order to avoid addressing my traumas.” Her gaze flickers up to you,“ and what traumas do you think I’m avoiding Y/N?”

You move forward, stepping lightly, until you stop in front of her. Handing her a cup of tea you tilt your head a little,“ you tell me. While some people know exactly how to push trauma away, almost avoiding it completely, you accept yours and use it as motivation.”

 A small, adorable hum leaves her lips as she sips the tea, but it’s quickly forgotten when she looks at you with those piercing green eyes. It’s clear she want to hear what else you have to say, but you’d much rather she talk.

“Miss Romanoff, I can only observe you and make my own conclusions but I’d much rather know the truth. And only you can tell me that. So I’m listening, whenever you’re ready to address the issue.” 

With that said, you smile softly, and go to sit on the couch. Your actions cause Natasha to raise a brow. Admittedly she’s not sure why you chose to sit there instead of your own chair.

Simply put, you did so for her to feel comfortable. It’s clear Natasha feels comfortable when she’s in control and you’ve deduced that she doesn’t feel completely in control with you. 

Giving her your seat is your way of handing her control. You’d learned that while the seat doesn’t mean control in itself, usually the person sitting in it(you in this case) drives the conversation. That’s how patients feel, in the beginning at least. It’s all mental really but it’s the best you can do.

Cautiously, Natasha sits in your chair.

“I see nothing wrong with being motivated by the past.” She starts, her eyebrow quirking challengingly.

You shrug,“ neither do I. I’m motivated by my past. But objectively speaking I believe your past is holding you back more than it motivates.”

“And let me guess, you can’t tell me how.” She smirks as if she’s won something.

“Nope,” you pop the P in the word and smile back.“ But that’s because I don’t know anything about you. We both know the only way that’ll change is if you trust me. And that will only happen if you keep coming to see me.” 

When she stands to leave you’re expecting it.

“You know Miss Romanoff,” she stops at the door to look at you,“ I may not have dealt with issues such as the ones you and your team have presented me with, but I am qualified to do this job. I find it slightly offensive that you don’t trust me to.”

Just like before your words leave Natasha thinking that she has definitely misjudged you. And she’d be lying if she said she wasn’t intrigued by you.

******

taglist: @username23345 @muffliat-o @nat-km-mh @aaron-despair @natasha-danvers

[willow-salix]

New chapter is up. You can read the previous ones here.

The man could only be seen in profile, the room he sat in so dark that you could make out nothing of his features, even his voice was carefully neutral, leading them to believe that he was using some kind of voice modifier. 

It didn't matter to them who he was though, just that he was the one paying them ridiculous amounts of money to follow his instructions to the letter. They never questioned the reasons behind their clients instructions, it wasn't their place to, they were just there to do the job. 

                                 ***

He could still picture the scene perfectly, even though he tried to avoid doing so. No one wanted to be reminded of the day their world had come crashing down around them and changed forever. 

She had been everything to him, the only family he had ever known and truthfully the only family he had ever felt he needed. She had never remarried, nor had he ever known her to even go out on a date. Her whole world had revolved around him. 

He had gotten used to the taunts, the sneering chants of "mama's boy, mama's boy" every time he had broken down in tears, the bullying getting to be too much. It hadn't been his fault that he didn't have the latest fashions on his feet or the newest phone in his pocket, his mother worked long hours in a job she hated just to keep the roof over their heads and just enough food in the cupboards to fill their bellies. 

But they had been happy, she had been the very best mother that a boy could ever have wanted. Caring and kind to a fault, cherishing him above all others. She had never blamed him for ruining her life or for holding her back from the things that she would have liked to have done had he not existed. She had showered him with love and affection. 

He had only asked her once where his father was, but the sadness in her eyes had made sure he never asked again. 

"Your father was a good man," she had smiled. "And I loved him very much. “

"Then why did he leave us?" he had asked with all the innocence of childhood, not knowing just how painful his question would be. 

"He didn't leave us, Bayi, he died." 

"I want to know all about him, Beguk," he had demanded. His mother had laughed, she had the sweetest laugh, like the tinkling of a bell, and ruffled his hair, kissing him softly on the forehead. 

"When, you're older, Bayi, when you're older."

But he never got a chance to ask her again. A fatal seizure from undiagnosed Epilepsy had made sure of that. 

He'd walked home from school for lunch, it being cheaper for him to eat at home, and found her in their kitchen, her right arm blistered, the now cold and empty kettle beside her on the floor. 

The doctor had said that her dizzy spells had been far more serious than she had ever believed, although lack of funds had meant that she had never visited a doctor, 

She had been cremated with little ceremony and he had become a ward of the state, spending the years between 8 and 18 as an orphan with no known family. 

The day after his eighteenth birthday he had been called into the office of the orphanage that had been his home for the past ten years. He was handed a box of his mother's belongings, a small amount of money and the keys to a room in a hostel and was instructed to pack his meagre belongings. 

He was on his own. 

He had spent his first night alone with nothing but the bare essentials in his room and a box of memories. In it he had discovered things about his mother that he had never known before, finding her birth certificate and his, her passport, a number of letters from her to her family, all returned unopened, and two from the man that his mother had loved so much along with a picture of his heavily pregnant mother and the man who had fathered him. 

                                  ***

"You have your orders, you know what to do. You will do everything in your power to bring International Rescue to the scene, and when you do, we shall be watching them. We know the mistakes of the past made by those who wished to bring about their downfall, they thought too small. The world is bigger than just their operation, they are just the tip of the iceberg, but they are one of the  biggest cogs in the wheel, but by no means the only one."

Twelve faces on twelve screens nodded their understanding. 

"You will not engage, you will not attack, you will simply observe. Many a battle has been lost through underestimating your enemy. These and the coming months are nothing but a fact finding mission. I want to know everything about them, even the things you may deem insignificant. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer, and we shall be keeping the closest of eyes on them. Do you understand your orders?"

Again they nodded. 

"End transmission." 

The screens went dark as he cut the feed. 

                                ***

"I don't care! I'm not listening!" 

"You have to care, because it's a fact! You can't change it, it's been this way for over fifty years!

"Fifty years? Is that all? Just because a bunch of scientists and astronomers suddenly decided it doesn't count?" 

"I'm one of those astronomers!" 

"And I don't care! I don't give two shits what you and your little space buddies say, I refuse to acknowledge it." 

Selene stomped through the lounge from the sleeping quarters, John following closely behind. 

"You have to care, because you're wrong!" 

She spun around to face him, both of them seemingly oblivious to the fact that they had an audience, and a very captive audience at that. They had never seen Selene and John argue like this, John never yelled. 

"Ha! And I say it again, ha! Because that's what I think of your opinion. You say it's wrong, so that's the way it has to be. What you say goes. You always have to be right."

"I always have to be right? Have you met yourself?" 

"I have, and I'm fabulous. You on the other hand, are annoying."

"What are they arguing about?" Gordon whispered to Scott, who shrugged. 

"I'm annoying? You're the one arguing scientific facts based on what? Come on, give me one good reason. Just one." He crossed his arms, bestowing a glare on her that had beaten down untold numbers of unhelpful officials and rescuees over the years, but had zero impact on the love of his life. 

"I have one very good reason."

Scott and Gordon actually leaned closer, waiting to see what her one good reason was, even Jeff had put down his tablet to see what all the fuss was about. 

"And that is?" He couldn't think of a single thing that could be a valid argument. 

"I refuse to piss off the Lord of the Underworld."

"Must be something to do with the wedding," Scott whispered back to Gordon, "some pagan thing? Weddings can make anyone stressed."

John blinked. Had he heard her right? 

"Can you repeat that?" Because I don't think I heard you correctly."

"Oh you heard me, you just didn't want to listen. I know you." 

"The reason you give for arguing that Pluto is a planet is that you refuse to piss off a god?"

Scott burst out laughing, he couldn't hold it in any longer. 

"That's right. I am not prepared to risk it. Hades is a fair god, even though he gets a bad rap, but I'm still not willing to tell one of the big three that he's been demoted. Pluto is a planet, it's a forgotten planet, but a planet none the less and nothing you can say or do will change my mind."

"I have proof!" 

Selene waved her hand dismissively. "And I don't want to see your proof. It's boring and I don't care. You do you, boo."

"It's a dwarf planet, a dwarf. There is scientific proof, it does not meet the the criteria to be classified as a planet."

"Did you just say that Hades is too small to count?" The shocked look on her face was hilarious to behold. "You keep your little scientific knowledge and I'll keep the favour of the one that will decide my fate when I die. You wanna be stuck in Tartarus for eternity, go for it. Me, I'll be living my best afterlife, I'm going straight to the good times, baby!"

"Did you really need to emphasise that with a hip swivel?" 

"Yep," she popped the P loudly. "I'll need me a new husband by that point because he'll have let Cerburus eat you." She bumped her hip against his and walked away. 

"We are not done with this discussion!" 

She flipped him the bird, not looking back. 

"Give it up, bro. You're never going to win against her," Scott commiserated. 

John flopped down on the couch with an exasperated sigh. "I'll never understand that woman, never."

"Welcome to the world of women, son, "Jeff added.

"How can she argue with facts?" 

"Because women have their own unique logic that we are not privy to and never will be," Jeff answered. "Let me bestow upon you the wisdom my father once told me."

All three sons gave him their full attention, ready to partake of his genius. 

"Women don't care about facts, they deal in feelings and they are ruthless, often bringing out their greatest weapons."

"And they are?" 

"Tears, breasts and the withholding of sexual favours. Most of the time it's not worth arguing with them, but if you insist on being an idiot, protect your balls."

Gordon howled with laughter, Scott joining in a second later. 

"Thanks for that, Dad. Remind me again why I'm getting married?" 

"Nothing to do with me, son. I wasn't even here when you asked her, that's all on you."

"I'm beginning -" John's comm beeped. "Yes, EOS?" 

"Hello, John, you said to report anything where International Rescue might be of use. There is a breaking news report on almost every channel, though we have not received any calls for it as yet."

"Thanks, EOS, keep monitoring for me."

Jeff was already moving to turn on the holoprojector. 

"Early reports can not confirm the origin of the explosion that rocked the Clifton Mall in San Diego, and police are unwilling to comment on the possibility that it may be counted as a terrorist attack. Local rescue crews are on the scene and doing all they can to help the walking wounded as they await permission to enter the building as well as out of area teams as back up crews. "

They all watched as the camera panned away from the news anchor to show the devastating scene. Flames were licking at the roof of the building, or at least what was left of it, smoke billowing out of ragged holes that had been blasted outward. What looked like hundreds of people milled around, dodging between or climbing over piles of rubble, some standing out as emergency services but others were obviously civilians. A sea of people in torn and bloody clothes, their desperate screams and wailing sobs could be clearly heard as they searched frantically for their lost family members. 

"Selene! Alan! Virgil!" Scott yelled, already running for his launch chute, not waiting for Jeff to issue the order. 

All three arrived around the same time, rushing into the lounge from various directions, skidding to a halt when they saw the news.

"Gordon, Alan, let's move," Virgil ordered, his booted feet thumping the floor as he walked. 

"I'm going too," Selene announced. 

"No you aren't," John insisted, grabbing her arm as she passed by. 

"Who made you the boss of me?" she snapped back, shaking off his hand. "There are families down there and if there's anything I can do to help them, I'm going to be there."

"Now is not the time to start another argument," Jeff stepped in. "You're both going, it's all hands on deck for this one."

"But won't you need me help here?" John asked, clearly worried about both his system and the state of the rescue.

"Your Grandma can help, and we have that computer of yours-"

"EOS," John interrupted, "her name is EOS and she's far more than a computer."

Selene took his hand, their previous argument forgotten, giving it a quick squeeze. "Babe, we'll do this later, come on, we don't have a lot of time."

John nodded, accepting the wisdom of her words, but he didn't look happy about it.

Together they followed after Gordon and Alan to get suited up.

[flightfoot]

We’re the Same Ch. 6

AO3/FFN

The Hawkmoth confrontation at last!

Disclaimer:  This is a Lovesquare fic, with Identity Reveal, Hawkmoth Reveal, and Hawkmoth Defeat. It is NOT a salt fic.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“You remember the plan?” Damian asked.

Adrien, Marinette, and Ducard nodded. 

About an hour after he’d left Ducard, he’d seen reports that Ladybug and Chat Noir were running around Paris. Deciding that this probably meant they were done talking for now, he’d met up with them again. 

Ladybug had yelled at him about kidnapping them and stealing their Miraculous. He’d just stood there, bored. He’d had worse.

His mouth twitched as he suppressed a smile, thinking of when she asked about the position she and Adrien had found themselves in.

“And another thing!” she yelled, clearly trying to get out all her pent-up frustration and anger before they faced Hawkmoth, “you had no right putting us on top of each other like that!”

Chat looked hurt, eyes dropping to the ground, tail drooping.

Ladybug noticed immediately. Her voice softened. “I’m not complaining about the result, just that he put us in a somewhat intimate position like that without even knowing us, much less with consent.”

Chat perked up again, his tail doing a happy little twitch, and he nodded, agreeing with her.

Damian sniggered.

Ladybug scowled at him. “And what’s so funny?!”

“Ducard and I DIDN’T position you two on top of each other,” he said. “Both of you were a few feet away from each other, backs against the wall.”

Ladybug’s eyes furrowed. “Then how-”

She stopped.

And groaned.

“I crawled into his lap I’m guessing?” Ladybug said, resigned.

Damian nodded, still smirking.

She sighed. “I really shouldn’t be surprised. When I was little and stayed in Maman and Papa’s bed, I’d apparently end up sandwiched between them regardless of where I started out. Papa used to call me a heat-seeking missile.”

She glared at Damian again. “You’re still on the hook for everything else though.”

Damian leaned back, waiting for her to finish berating him. He’d survived Pennyworth’s lectures. This? This was nothing.

“What’re you smiling about?” Marinette asked him suspiciously.

Damian ignored her, checking the cameras instead. “Gabriel’s in the dining hall, so we should have a good window right now. I just started looping the cameras. We’re invisible starting… now!”

The four of them quietly snuck from Adrien’s room to Gabriel’s atelier, Damian quickly picking the lock. Child’s play for a former member of the League of Assassins, or a Robin for that matter.

Damian made his way over to the portrait of Emilie, pressing the sequence of buttons he’d captured Gabriel using to access the massive underground chamber.

He wanted to know where the second sequence he’d seen Gabriel enter on the cameras would lead, but now wasn’t the time. While he suspected that it had something to do with the other secret room, the one he’d been unable to gain access to, he couldn’t be sure. Even if it was, he didn’t know what to expect to find. He could handle anything Hawkmoth threw at him, he was sure. But his companions? Maybe not.

Plus…

He looked over at Adrien.

Truthfully, Damian didn’t need to visit that underground chamber again. He’d seen most of what he needed to for now.

But Adrien DID. 

He hadn’t asked, but… he needed to see his mother.

If Damian had a beloved family member he thought was dead, but turned out to be merely asleep, no force on heaven or earth would have been able to stop him from seeing them. Hell, when he’d discovered that Grayson had faked his death, had reunited with him - well, Damian didn’t initiate hugs often. 

But that day? He’d taken a page out of Grayson’s book and glomped him.

(Not that he’d tell anyone ELSE that, and if Grayson ever brought it up he’d just claim he must have memory loss in his old age)

When proposing entering the chamber, he’d justified it as having the kwamis take a closer look at Emilie, see whether they could glean more than he could. Which wasn’t a lie - they may be able to figure out what was going on with her even when he couldn’t - but it wasn’t the main reason. They could go back and examine Emilie after defeating Hawkmoth. 

He wasn’t going to make Adrien wait that long.

No one had questioned his proposal. Probably because everyone agreed - even if no one stated the true reason out loud.

The elevator activated. 

The four of them looked at the small hole in the floor that had opened up, then disappeared.

“...I thought maybe there was some sort of visual distortion with how small that hole looked,” Ducard said.

Damian grimaced. “Nope.”

“...This is gonna be cramped, won’t it?”

“Yep.”

And that’s how the four of them ended up crammed together within a circle maybe two feet in diameter, heading downwards.

While he had a feeling that Marinette and Adrien were enjoying being so close, he’d really rather not be shoved up against them.

Luckily, the elevator expanded slightly as they moved downwards. It was still cramped and small, but more “sardines in a can” and less “Grayson playing Twister”.

As they descended, the cavern opened up around them, the lights coming on.

A sharp intake of breath came from beside him.

Damian looked in the direction of the noise.

Adrien stared forwards, eyes fixed on the distant capsule.

When the doors opened he stumbled out, quickly regaining his balance, and dashed towards the pod where his mother lay.

Marinette ran after him, seeming to not want to let more than a few feet separate her from her partner.

He and Ducard hung back, as Adrien reached his mother.

SHE WAS HERE.

He ran his finger over the pod, fighting back tears. Just a few feet away, his mother lay, ALIVE.

Frantically he glanced around, searching for a button or switch or something to open it.

“I’ve got this, kid.”

He glanced up.

Plagg flew out, entering the pod’s control system. A few seconds later, it opened.

There she was.

Trembling, he stretched out a hand, fearful that she would dissolve into mist.

What if she was an illusion?

But - no.

He touched soft skin.

She was cool, but- she didn’t feel dead.

His head snapped up, and he opened his mouth to ask-

There was no need. 

Plagg flew around Emilie, Tikki joining him as Marinette caught up.

“She’s definitely in a magical coma,” Tikki announced after a few tense seconds. “Caused by using a broken Miraculous I’m guessing.”

“Can… can you wake her up?” Adrien asked hopefully.

Tikki shook her head. “If it was that simple, Nooroo could’ve done it.”

“Then… how can we heal her?” he asked.

He desperately wanted her to be okay. To have her RIGHT HERE and still lose her…

He bit back a sob. 

“I’m not sure yet,” Tikki replied. “The last time this happened, I wasn’t privy to the details on how the victim was woken up.”

“But they DID wake up?” Adrien asked.

She nodded. “Unfortunately, the people who held that knowledge aren’t around anymore.”

“Even…?”

She shook her head, cutting him off. “ALL the people.”

“So it’s hopeless after all?” Adrien asked, heart falling.

He KNEW it was too good to be true.

“No. It’s not.”

Adrien turned around.

Robin looked at him, eyes weirdly gentle. “I know some people, many of whom are skilled in magic. Maybe none of them know the method that was used to wake up the other victim, but I bet at least one of them can come up with a way to bring her back.”

“You sure?”

He knew he sounded plaintive, like a small child asking whether the family dog would be okay after being taken to the vet for a severe injury, but at that moment, he felt like a small child.

He just… he just wanted his mom back.

Robin shook his head. “Nothing’s for sure. But I can give it my best shot. She WILL be taken care of, whatever happens; THAT, I can promise you. And this time, she won’t be hidden away. You’ll be able to visit her while I try to find a cure.”

Adrien bit his lip, tears filling his eyes.

There was hope.

Not much, but more than he’d ever had before.

Marinette placed a hand on his back, giving him a soft, sad smile.

He leaned against her, melting into her touch.

Most of his world may have been upended. But his partner was still here. 

An alert sounded from a device Robin was holding, the same one that had displayed the feeds from the cameras Robin had installed. He checked it, eyes widening.

“Down below, NOW!” 

Wait, what?

He didn’t get a chance to ponder it further. 

“Tikki, Spots On!”

Ladybug grabbed him and jumped off the edge of the railing, hooking her yo-yo on one of the supports. Before they descended out of sight, he saw Robin hit a button on the capsule, sealing it once more.

Adrien blushed. They did this kind of thing all the time as Ladybug and Chat Noir, but up close like this untransformed? He felt vulnerable, but… kinda in a good way? He knew that she was more powerful - WAY more powerful than him like this, but also that she would never hurt him. That she’d care about any discomfort he showed. That she’d never take advantage of him, or try to get him to do something he didn’t want to do. That she’d protect him.

He didn’t need to put up barriers with her to protect himself, didn’t need to pretend to be okay when he wasn’t. Not now.

He buried his head against her shoulder. Ladybug adjusted her grip, pulling him closer so she could stroke his hair comfortingly.

He fought back a purr. They needed to be stealthy now, and a purr might be a giveaway.

But damn was it tempting.

He felt a soft tap on his shoulder.

He lifted his head reluctantly.

Robin had apparently had the same idea Ladybug did, having fired a grappling gun at one of the supports. His friend had done the same thing, though she’d actually managed to find a small ledge to stand on.

Robin activated the display on his device, zooming in on one particular screen - the one pointed at the elevator shaft.

Someone was descending.

Adrien’s stomach twisted.

Hewasn’treadyhewasn’treadyHEWASN’TREADY-

Gabriel Agreste, fashion mogul, magical terrorist, and his FATHER, stepped out.

Adrien stopped breathing.

Eyes locked onto the display, he stared as his father strode to the pod.

To his mother.

Footsteps sounded overhead.

Adrien flinched, convinced that somehow his father would hear them. Would charge down and-

And do what?

He shuddered. Before this, he thought the worst he could do was yell at his friends and bar him from seeing them.

Now? Now he was worried his father would flat-out MURDER them if he thought it might help with his goals. He’d never seemed overly concerned with how dangerous his akumas were before after all, and didn’t give a crap that they were kids.

Oh no, wait. He DID care, but only because it made it easier to sneer at them about how weak they are. 

He really didn’t give a damn about anything or anyone outside of his goals, did he?

*kaCHUNKwhirrr*

Adrien shuddered as he heard the pod’s door open. Right now, his father was looking at his mother. His mother, who he’d been able to see and visit all along. Could have taken HIM to see her.

But he hadn’t.

“There were some new superheroes today.”

Adrien gasped slightly, restarting his breathing. Hearing his father’s voice - hearing HAWKMOTH’S voice - down here? Made it seem more real to him.

“Robin, from Gotham City, and some new girl, both riding atop a massive beast. Any one of them would make good prey for my akumas, though one seemed more susceptible than the others. There was much turmoil in young Robin, a deep undercurrent of guilt. I just need to figure out how to bring it to the surface, and I’ll have my most powerful akuma yet.”

A deep undercurrent of guilt? Robin was just a kid - he wasn’t even certain he was old enough to be in collège, he was so small. Heck, he still had baby teeth! What could’ve happened to him that made him feel so guilty?

He looked over at Robin, gauging his reaction. Robin had gone stony-faced, holding himself rigidly.

Adrien had a sudden urge to give him a hug. He may not have been too happy about being kidnapped - though he’d never regret the sleepy cuddles that’d resulted from it - but right now, he just wanted to tell Robin that whatever he was feeling so guilty about, it was okay. 

“Oh, Emilie… I miss you so much. My last plan may have failed, but soon, soon I will succeed and bring you back to us. I will destroy Ladybug and Chat Noir and take their Miraculous!”

Destroy.

That sounded an awful lot like ‘kill’.

“Until then, I’ll look after our son. He’ll never truly be happy until you come back. Everything I do, I do so we can be a family again.”

He- he thought- and for that he threatened MURDER- for HIS SAKE?!

For his HAPPINESS?!

NO.

“Plagg, Claws out!”

“No!” he heard Robin hiss.

He knew he shouldn’t do this.

That he should just sit still and quiet.

But hearing him talk about destroying - about KILLING - him and Marinette?

And that it was all for his and his mother’s sake? As if they wanted this - As if it EXCUSED this?

He’d sat quietly and done what he was told his whole life.

Now that he could fight back? When his father was THREATENING the people he cared about, and claiming it was for his sake?

He couldn’t hide any longer.

“Wha-? Nooroo, Dark Wings Rise!”

As Chat propelled himself onto the walkway, a light flashed over his father.

Leaving Chat facing Hawkmoth.

“How did you find this place?!” Hawkmoth spat at him, tapping on Emilie’s pod, sealing it shut.

“Because you’re an idiot.”

Chat glanced back, seeing Ladybug and Robin swinging over the railing. Briefly he wondered where Ducard was, then dismissed the thought. She was Robin’s friend, anyone who could keep up with him could probably take care of themselves.

 Robin continued, “Honestly, did you really think NO ONE would notice that the floor plans didn’t match the actual Manor? You wouldn’t have lasted a week in Gotham.”

His father scoffed. “This will be your undoing. You think that mere CHILDREN can defeat me? Or did you return for another beating?”

“How. Dare. You.” Ladybug hissed, looking like she dearly wished she was Kryptonian so she could murder his father with eye lasers.

“...Why.”

His father frowned. “Excuse me?”

“WHY?!” Chat yelled, clenching his fist. “Why would you DO this?! HOW could you do this?!”

“To bring her back to me,” His father gestured at the pod behind him, “I would do ANYTHING.”

Chat gritted his teeth. “She would HATE what you’ve done. Hate YOU. Mom wouldn’t want this!”

He froze.

OH NO.

“...Adrien?”

He didn’t answer, just intensifying his glare in response.

“You would let your mother stay like this? How ashamed would she be of you, of her SON, who should love her above all else?”

Ashamed?

No…

NO.

She wouldn’t be… Mom wouldn’t be… she cared. She was a GOOD PERSON. There’s no way she’d go along with father’s plans! 

She- she wouldn’t be ashamed of him… right?

Guilt gnawed at his stomach. 

He glanced over at Ladybug, still glaring daggers at Hawkmoth.

Even if she was… he couldn’t betray his friends. Couldn’t endanger people.

He may be a bad son. 

But he just… couldn’t do that.

His father rushed forwards suddenly, driving his cane into Chat’s stomach.

All air left his lungs as he was flattened on the floor. 

Leaving him motionless, unable to scrape together the energy to do more than twitch.

His father loomed over him, glaring down, angry and disappointed.

“GET AWAY FROM HIM!”

Ladybug barreled into his father, sending him flying. 

Leaning down, she took Chat’s hand. “Don’t listen to a word he says. Don’t let him reverse the roles. HE’S the bad guy, NOT YOU. You hear me, Chat? NOT. YOU.”

He teared up, giving her a quick hug.

Wait.

Why wasn’t his father attacking?

“TOUCH HIM AGAIN AND I’LL KILL YOU!”

*sning* *sning*

Chat watched as Robin swiped at Hawkmoth with the long metal claws he’d just extended from his gloves.

Ok, how did ROBIN have retractable claws while he didn’t?!

Hawkmoth dodged most of the blows, though a few connected.

Mere metal couldn’t pierce a Miraculous-made suit.

But it didn’t need to.

Chat narrowed his eyes.

At first glance, it looked like Robin was simply swinging wildly in a rage, attempting to hurt Hawkmoth as much as possible. But looking closer, most of the blows were just below the neck area.

Right where the Butterfly Miraculous rested.

Unfortunately, his father realized it too.

He jumped back thirty feet, far out of range.

Cursing profusely, Robin attempted to follow him, firing off a zipline, swinging himself closer to Hawkmoth.

But to no avail. His father simply jumped out of range again.

Chat staggered to his feet, Ladybug slinging her arm around his shoulders, propping him up. “I’m- I’m okay. We have to-” he sputtered out. 

He glanced behind Ladybug.

“MOVE!”

He threw himself and Ladybug to the side, rolling them out of the way of Hawkmoth’s attack.

But that didn’t save him from the follow-up hit.

His father slammed his cane into Chat’s back. “You’d go this far for HER, for some girl, but not for your own mother?!” he sneered. “These friends of yours… they only want to drag you down, use you.”

Ladybug extracted herself from Chat’s embrace and threw her yo-yo, attempting to lasso his father. He knocked the yo-yo aside. “If Ladybug cared for you, she’d use her Miraculous and yours to revive your mother!”

He kicked Ladybug to the floor, leaving both her and Chat groaning. Slowly he walked towards Chat, seeming to savor the moment. “Oh Adrien… I gave you everything you could need. I raised you to be perfect. I gave you tutors, let you build your brand and influence by allowing you to model for me, even allowed you to hang out with your so-called friends, so long as they weren’t proving harmful to your education or reputation. I see now that was a mistake. They’ve poisoned you. The son I knew would never have done anything to endanger his mother. Would have obeyed his father.”

Chat turned over, attempting to crawl away - both from his father, and from Ladybug. 

His father was targeting him. If he could lead him away, then maybe His Lady could flee, get away long enough to come up with some sort of plan. 

Besides his… his father couldn’t really- he knew he was awful, but he’s his own son! He’d- he’d-

“Stop,” he forced out, attempting to put as much distance as he could between him and his father. His father stared down at him with cold, hard eyes. Same as he always did.

He reached for Chat’s hand.

“CATACLYSM!”

The black, destructive energy surrounded his hand. His father cursed, grabbing Chat’s wrist tightly enough that it felt like it was leaving bruises, lifting him off the ground.

A light dawned in his father’s eyes. He grinned.

“You want to keep the ring? So be it.”

He pressed a button on his cane, opening the top.

Chat watched, horrified, as an akuma fluttered out.

“ADRIEN!” 

He looked to the side. Ladybug ran toward him, a polka-dotted bag in her hand.

She was too far away. She wouldn’t be able to get to him in time.

She didn’t have to.

A figure dropped from above.

The butterfly entered Robin’s left glove.

“Well, this is unexpected,” his father mused. 

Robin clutched his head. “GET. OUT.”

“You believe that no one will forgive you for your past actions, that you’re irrevocably tainted, incapable of washing the blood off of your hands.” his father crooned. 

“Shut up…” Robin gritted out.

Blood on his hands? The kid hadn’t even hit puberty yet. 

What the heck was Robin’s past like?

“Your mother had you killed, your father and brothers only tolerate you because they don’t know the true depths of your evil.”

“YOU. DON’T. KNOW. ME.” Robin screamed.

“But I understand. I can help you. With my help, you can erase everything wrong you did, undo all harm. You won’t have to worry about the rest of your family abandoning you anymore, and finally you can be free of the guilt.”

“I… I don’t…”

Robin sounded… lost. Confused. Like a small child, wandering around looking for something, anything familiar to cling to.

From what his father was describing, it was no wonder. Seriously, what the HELL had this kid been through?

“Just bring me Ladybug’s and Chat Noir’s Miraculous, and I can help you fix EVERYTHING.”

“I…”

*THWACK*

A red-and-black spotted bag rammed down on Hawkmoth’s head, using Chat’s staff as a handle. 

Which normally would probably be as effective as using a plastic bag on Robin had been earlier.

...Except that Ladybug had apparently learned from that and decided to do more than just temporarily blind Hawkmoth for two seconds. 

Namely, by using the make-shift butterfly net to scoop up several of the soon-to-be-akumas in it first.

And with his father already having his mouth open to continue monologuing…

He coughed and sputtered as several butterflies invaded his mouth.

Taking advantage of his father’s distraction, Chat quickly rolled to his feet, reaching out and touching Robin’s glove with his still-active cataclysm.

The glove disintegrated, freeing the akuma.

Ladybug quickly caught it in her yo-yo, before attempting to wrap it around his father again.

He stumbled back, spitting out butterfly wings - but still managed to just avoid the string.

The butterfly brooch pulled away, seemingly on its own.

His father froze, as Hawkmoth was replaced by Gabriel Agreste.

“Wha-” 

He tried to snatch the brooch out of midair where it floated, but it darted away.

The brooch zoomed off. His father tried to run after it, but Ladybug was having none of it. For the third time, she tried to lasso him.

This time, she succeeded.

He crashed to the floor, cursing.

The brooch floated towards Robin.

Ducard flickered into view, holding the Miraculous.

Oh.

So his memories of her appearing out of thin air weren’t delusions; she could turn invisible.

She must’ve been sneaking around the entire battle, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.

Shakily he walked over to his father.

He glared up at him, sneering - but with a hint of fear in his eyes.

Only a couple minutes ago his father had loomed over him.

Now their situations were reversed.

Looking down at him like this, he didn’t seem like the powerful, terrifying figure he’d been moments before - had been for most of Adrien’s life if he was being honest with himself.

But now? He was just a guy.

He wasn’t some overwhelming force, overshadowing everything Adrien thought or did. 

Nor a looming threat over all of Paris, waiting to prey on any negative emotion, any moment of sadness, anger, or fear.

He was just a man.

He always had been.

“Well?” his father spat. “Are you really going to do this, my son? Leave your mother in a coma? Strike back against me?”

“Stop calling me that,” he hissed. “DON’T call me your son - not after this. You never cared about me as a person, as your son - just as your property. You didn’t ‘allow’ me to model for you - you mandated it. I didn’t want to ‘build my brand’ - just have friends, go outside - be a regular kid! But that wasn’t something you cared about so it didn’t matter to you. 

And you’ve been doing the same thing as Hawkmoth! I love Mom, I want her back - but the price would be to submit someone else to her fate. I can’t do that. Even if I didn’t know them, someone else would still pay the price. Whether they were close to me personally, they still matter.

But not to you. You only place value on those you consider to belong to you. And even then only when they do what you consider ‘acceptable’. Everyone else is just… just tools for you to get what you want, or obstacles to get in your way!”

He turned away. “I won’t be your tool. Not anymore. I’m not yours.” 

“How COULD you! I gave you everythi-”

*CRACK*

Chat whipped around.

Gabriel lay on the ground, unconscious. Robin standing beside him, fist still extended. 

“What? Did you really need to listen to him rant on anymore?” Robin asked.

Chat shook his head. “No, I- thank you.”

 His Miraculous beeped twice.

Three paw pads left.

“Claws in.”

Light flashed over him, Plagg leaving the ring.

Adrien pulled out some cheese for him from his inside jacket pocket. 

Watching Plagg devour the cheese wedge, his stomach seized as he thought of something. 

“I’m- I’m going to have to give you back,” he stammered, his face green.

Plagg paused his eating. “What nonsense are you talking about? I thought we settled this before. I’m not leaving. You’re stuck with me, kid.”

“But - I don’t have a choice now,” his eyes watered. He fought to keep them down. He had a feeling that if he started crying right now, he wouldn’t be able to stop. “He knows I’m Chat Noir. He might not be able to do anything himself, but what’s going to stop him from just telling everyone? Even if the media refused to air it, he’s bound to run into people in prison he can tell.”

“He won’t tell anyone, because he won’t remember.”

Adrien turned towards Robin, worried. “You knocked him out so hard you gave him amnesia?”

Robin scoffed. “No. If I tried, he’d probably end up in the hospital for brain damage. I know of an organization with a special tool that can erase memories like that.”

“...Should I ask whether this is legal?”

“No.”

“Is it safe at least?”

“For this? It shouldn’t cause him any harm. There’s not much to make him forget.”

He breathed out. He was still trepidatious, but… well, some part of him wanted to trust Robin. And if it came between Gabriel’s safety and Plagg’s safety? (And he wasn’t going to kid himself, Plagg would try to follow him even if he gave the Black Cat Miraculous back to Fu.) He would choose Plagg.

Ladybug put a hand on his shoulder. “Adrien? Are you- of course you’re not okay, who would be? But…”

He shot her a small smile. It felt false. “I’ll be fine.”

Her eyebrows creased. She looked even more worried, but didn’t press the subject.

Ducard walked over to Ladybug, handing over the brooch. “I’m guessing you know what to do with this?”

She nodded. “We’ll make sure the Miraculous goes where it belongs,” she said, taking the piece of jewelry and stowing it in her yo-yo.

Adrien wasn’t sure how he felt about that. It was so… final. He kept on believing that in a minute he might blink and be back where he was, with Hawkmoth leering over him, winding up to hit him.

But… the brooch was gone now. He couldn’t just… wake up and grab it. It was out of his reach, even if he did wake up unexpectedly.

It just seemed unreal.

Ladybug retrieved her Lucky Charm, throwing it into the air. “Miraculous Ladybug!”

The ladybugs swirled around them, repairing what little damage had been done.

The raw ache in Adrien’s body disappeared. He hadn’t even realized how much he was still feeling his father’s beating until it was gone.

A ringtone sounded from his father’s unconscious body. Adrien blinked.

Mechanically he walked over, looking at the caller ID.

Nathalie’s face greeted him.

He stared numbly. In the excitement, he’d forgotten about her.

Robin checked his monitoring device. “She’s in Gabriel’s office, heading over to the painting.”

Heading over to-

His stomach seized.

She definitely knew.

He’d assumed she did, but-

“Everyone, HIDE!” Robin hissed.

Ladybug’s earrings beeped. He glanced at them. Only one dot left now.

She cursed, dragging his father into the foliage before crouching down herself.

Adrien followed her lead, crouching down beneath a bush.

“Spots off,” she muttered, detransforming.

The yo-yo string that had been wrapped around his father disappeared, leaving him limp on the ground.

Adrien froze, staring at him.

Marinette was right there, within easy reach if he woke up. 

He wasn’t moving beyond the slow, soft rising and falling of his chest.

But- what if he was faking?

He shook his head. No, no. Robin had knocked him out himself. And while his way of making friends was… questionable, his skill was not.

So why couldn’t he stop seeing images of him waking up? Of him grabbing her by the neck while she was looking away? Ripping her earrings out, and-  

His train of thought ground to a halt, refusing to contemplate what his father might do if Marinette resisted.

“Breathe, kid, breathe,” Plagg’s voice whispered. 

He took a breath, letting it out slowly.

Still, he couldn’t help staring, looking for the slightest twitch of movement.

*whirreeee*

Until the noise started up, that is. 

He looked over to the elevator, tensing. He wanted to keep watching his father, but with danger on two fronts…

*clunk*

The elevator landed, its doors opening.

Nathalie - his father’s assistant, the woman who’d been mostly parenting him since his mother... disappeared, who he thought might even become his stepmother - stepped out.

Hawkmoth’s accomplice.

She looked around. “Sir? You didn’t answer your phone, are you- AAAH!”

Tripping seemingly on thin air (though Adrien suspected it was rather more solid than that), she faceplanted onto the floor.

As she struggled to get back up, something seemed to be pinning her in place. 

“Wha- who-?”

Robin jumped down from where he’d been hanging, retracting his grappling gun’s line.

“This is assault!” Nathalie spat. “I don’t know how they do things in Gotham, but-”

“I don’t think anyone’s going to protest taking down Hawkmoth’s accomplice,” Robin sneered. 

Fear flashed across her face. Still, she did her best to maintain her composure. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Robin rolled his eyes. “Right. You just HAPPENED to wander down to Hawkmoth’s lair, filled with the butterflies he uses, Gabriel’s comatose supposedly-dead wife, while calling for Gabriel.”

She glared at him as best she could while face-down, pinned to the ground. “Our lawyers will hear about this.”

“You do that.” Robin put one of his gloved hands over her face. Within seconds she stopped struggling, going limp.

“You can come out now,” he called out.

Adrien emerged from the bush. He looked over at Marinette, making sure she was well out of Gabriel’s (potential) reach, before walking over to Nathalie’s prone form.

“What did you do to her?” he asked slowly. Intellectually he knew that Nathalie had helped his father, had helped Hawkmoth, but… right now, it was hard to see anything but the woman who’d taken care of him for the past several months. Even knowing what she’d done, he didn’t want to see her hurt.

“Same thing I did to you and Marinette. She’ll wake up in a few hours.”

“Wait, you had that stuff still on hand?”

“Of course I did. Why wouldn’t I?”

“Then why didn’t you use that to knock my father out?”

“I wanted to punch him,” Robin said simply.

Adrien opened his mouth… and then closed it. He couldn't really deny that sentiment.

“What now?” he asked instead.

Robin looked at him. “You two can head home. I can take it from here.”

Marinette stalked up, seeming like she was about to protest… and then glanced over at Adrien. Her face softened. She looked back over at Robin. “DON’T hurt Nathalie, and make sure to give Gabriel back after wiping his memory. They’ll need to stand trial. And if you find the Peacock Miraculous, give it STRAIGHT over. No tests, no funny business. Got that?”

He glared at her a moment, but nodded. Ducard cut in, “I’ll make sure you get the Peacock back, don’t worry.”

She stared at them both, as if searching for their intentions, then nodded. 

Turning towards Adrien, she gave him a small smile, putting her arm around his shoulders. “Come on kitty, let’s go home.”

Home…? Where…?

With her.

She meant going home WITH HER.

Shakily he drew in breath. “Yeah. Let’s go home.”

His father might be a monster.

His caretaker might be an accomplice.

His mother might be unconscious. 

But he still had people who loved him.

He still had places to call home.

[draw-you-coward]

Three things he was jealous of and one others envied about him, for Ikael?

3 + 1 ask meme

thank you very much for this! i quite like how it turned out :)

ao3

If Ikael were to make a list ofbits of him he wished he could replace with bits of other people, he fears itwould be unending. Not because he can think of countless things, but because nomatter what, there would always be something.

And he’s had ample time to thinkabout… quite a few somethings.

~*~

They are in Amaurot. Thancred isstanding there, arms crossed, calm and confident like none of them are. He is ablaze of white in Ikael’s Light-clouded vision; a beacon of protection withblurred edges.

Ikael cannot make out his face withoutsquinting, and even then his expression is only an outline. He tells Thancredthis, tacking on a question, and Thancred nods and lets Ikael reach out with tremblingfingers.

“I just do not know how you canbe so put-together,” Ikael whispers at him as his fingertips ghost over thefaint creases under Thancred’s eyes. “But I appreciate it. I really do.”

“Someone has to be sure of whatwe’re doing.” Thancred’s words should be smirking, but when Ikael touches hismouth, it is set in a flat line.

He is right; none of them are sure,and so he has risen to take up the task. Because of this, Ikael says, “I thinkI am going to die.”

Thancred’s jaw beneath Ikael’s thumbtightens. It unclenches after a split second, no doubt because Ikael’s touch isseeking and sensitive, but he tucks the reaction under his heart regardless.

Thancred says, “And I say youwill not. As I said, someone has to.”

Ikael closes his eyes, althoughit does not make much of a difference, and hugs Thancred. He is hugged backtightly, strong and secure. Ikael says, whispers, breathes—“Thank you.”

He wishes he could believe what inThancred does. He wishes he could believe in himself.

~*~

Really, Ikael, Thancred hadsaid to him once, in a reassuring and somewhat placating tone, I neverdevoted that much time to my aethercraft studies. I feel foolish next to Y'shtolaand Urianger as well, you know.

Thancred is a damned liar, Ikael hassince decided.

It has been two bells. Two.Bells. Ikael keeps going back to Urianger’s kitchen to stress-bake more mini-pastries,and the three—the three—scholars in the living room that are the source ofhis trouble are consuming all of them without a hint of irony.

“But it is the information thatis stored in the runes.” Y'shtola is punctuating her words with excitedjabs at what is, in Ikael’s opinion, a boring, somewhat ugly stone slab withsome scribbles on it. “That such small things imbued with such littleenchantment can hold so much knowledge…”

She shakes her head, her sharp featureseasing in awe. Urianger nods sagely, holding up a finger as he prepares his verboseaddition. Thancred is watching with that particular expression of his that saysthat he is pretending not to pay attention or care about what is being talkedabout, but is in fact paying a lot of attention and cares very deeply.

“Verily, I understandeth now whythine findings in Rak’tika hath granted thee such zeal,” Urianger says. “Thelight of learning doth shine in thine eyes like a beacon, my dear lady.”

Ikael makes a face at a wall,rolling his eyes. No one notices; they aren’t paying attention to him.

“Charming words from a newly-charmingman,” he hears Thancred say in the background before he tunes their voices outand goes to check on the tea. The shining copper kettle toots pathetically athim. Ikael stares at it balefully.

“Sometimes I feel like the onlypeople that understand me are you and me, Tootoo,” he says.

Toooootoooo, the kettlesays back. Ikael gives it a sigh and a little pat.

When he returns to the livingroom to serve the now-famous faerie tea, it is to an odd sort of atmosphere. Y'shtolais smirking a little, Urianger looks, if Ikael would ever dare to attribute theword to him, almost smug as he settles into his armchair, and Thancred isadjusting his choker and… Is he blushing?

“Uh, tea’s ready,” Ikael says unnecessarily,laying the tray down on the table.

Thancred clears his throat, quickand polite. Ikael stares at him.

“Thank you, Ikael,” Y'shtola saysdemurely, some hidden amusement in her voice the source of which Ikael is notprivy to. “Come sit with us; I think we can all agree it is best if we switchsubjects to something more, ah…”

“Anything!” Thancred interrupts. Heclears his throat again. “Er… what about that coeurl of yours, Ikael? Is she doingwell?”

He smiles, all friendly lying teeth.Ikael keeps staring at him.

~*~

“No, really, your tail is sofluffy!” Ikael runs his fine-toothed comb through the fur once again, gently separatingthe strands that have clumped together. “I wish mine grew out like this.”

“I-is that so? Well, I’m… I’mflattered! And I… I think your tail is quite perfect the way it is, Ikael.”

G’raha’s face is turned away fromhim slightly at this angle, but Ikael can still tell from the flush creeping uphis neck and the twitching of his ears that he is embarrassed. Ikael coos athim, squeezing the base of his tail gently to calm him.

For some reason it doesn’t seemto work, but Ikael stops paying mind to G’raha’s reactions, narrowing his focusto his combing. The poor dear had tripped and fallen into a mud puddle andgotten his tail so terribly, terribly dirty. Ikael is sympathetic.

“I will lend you the oils I useto clean my tail,” he says. “And—you say you do not have any?—I will look forlong-furred blends in the market and get them for you. Now, there is a specificorder and process to this, G’raha! You have to do it correctly or it will notwork; I will help you.”

He stops combing to wag hisfinger knowingly, and then starts to push out the dried mud with his fingers; thispart he has reached is too matted to comb. Poor dear, Ikael thinks forperhaps the seventh time.

Still. If Ikael hadgorgeous soft fur like this, he would take extra special care of it. Hewould spend all of his money on it too—he has quite a bit now, because he hasbeen away from the marketplace for a while, and he is itching to spend it all.Oh! Mayhaps he can buy things for G’raha’s tail and treat it as if it were hisown. Yes…

“Thank you, Ikael, that is… beyondany length I would expect you to go to for m—for my tail.” G’raha ducks his head,ears dipping. Ikael hums at him—poor dear.

“No problem!” he says amicably. Hedoes not know why G’raha is acting so self-conscious, but he hopes he will notbe like this for too long. After all, this is the least Ikael can do.

~*~

Thancred is at a loss insituations like this.

Y'shtola is hiding her gaze fromhis, holding her arm with hunched shoulders and a lack of confidence that isjarringly unlike her. Thancred does not like it—she should never be this upset,and curse that damned Ascian for making her so—but he does not… know what to doabout it.

He knows what to do with Ikael,but Y'shtola is not Ikael. And neither is Thancred, as much as right now he wisheshe were. Ikael would know what to say, what to do. Would know how to comfortwithout stepping over any unsaid boundaries, would say the right words andsound more genuine than Thancred could ever hope to.

For a while Thancred was jealousof this in a bitter sort of way, but he feels nothing but shame for that now. Heregrets the biting feeling in his chest he used to have when he would see Ikaelgive affection—to Ryne, mostly—so easily, so instinctively. All he hasto do is smile and she lights up. All he has to do is hold out a hand and Thancredhimself turns to him like a flower starved of sunlight.

That part should terrify him,honestly. But it does not.

He steps forwards, never moreaware in this moment than he has ever been of the distance between himself andanother person. Y'shtola’s face turns towards him, and Thancred extends a carefulhand, says, “May I—”

“Yes,” Y'shtola replies quickly,before he can finish his sentence. Thancred’s superficially teasing smile is cutout by his relief, and he pulls her to his chest before their eyes make contact—howeverunnecessary that may be.

She is tense, but she… relaxes, Thancredthinks. He is too busy noticing how this feels, how different Y'shtola’spresence and form both are to Ikael’s. The ties on the back of her dresscriss-cross over her bare back, exposing it, and Thancred wonders for a strangeand guarding second whether Runar has ever held her like this, touched that bareand defenseless skin.

The thought causes him to strugglewith the very weird urge to… offer her his coat or something, so he says todistract himself, “You know, you’re not that much shorter than Ikael.”

It is probably the wrong thing tosay. Y'shtola stills for a second, then replies in a decidedly flat tone, “Yourpowers of observation never cease to amaze, Thancred.”

Her head is remarkably close to Ikael-hugging-head-height.Thancred eyes her furry white ears as they twitch and fall lax, a thoughtcreeping up on him.

As if she can sense it, Y'shtola starts,“Don’t you dare—”

Too late. Thancred scratchesbehind one ear playfully and lightly at first, not wanting to risk her wrath. Y’shtolatenses once more, but then she melts into him with a quiet, almost vulnerable sigh,and Thancred tries his best not to show his shock. He had never expected that shewould allow this level of intimacy from him—but he quickly adjusts, tighteninghis arms to a more comforting pressure and rubbing the base of her ears ingentle, circular motions that he knows Ikael at the very least likes very much.If Y’shtola is letting down her defenses, no matter how unexpected, Thancred isnot going to take the matter lightly.

“You are… very good at this,” Y'shtolamumbles into his shoulder, sounding somewhat surprised herself. Thancred makesa noncommittal noise.

“I am just doing what I do with Ikael,”he answers truthfully. “You aren’t going to cry on me now, are you?”

“Ah, never mind,” says Y'shtola. “Yourmouth ruins what your body has accomplished. Hmph. I am certain you are used toit being the other way around.”

Thancred’s rubbing hand stills.She has to know what she sounds like, she has to. But he cannot check tosee if she is smirking or not, with her head angled inwards like this. Which is…probably something she is aware of. Is she doing this on purpose? Thancred feelsas if she is.

“Unfortunately, myself and mylackluster abilities are what you have to depend on right now,” he decides toreply, matching her dry tone. “But if you want me to stop…”

He makes as if to move away, and herhand clenches briefly and tightly in his coat. Smiling privately, Thancred readjustshis arms around her.

Y'shtola’s head bows furtheragainst his shoulder. “… I hate you,” she mutters after a tired second.

Thancred presses his lips herhead, light and brief. Something in that gesture—the sheer meaning of it—makeshis heart hurt for a second, as the longing he had had to tug her close to himand hold her forever after she had fallen in the pit resurfaces and floods himwith the strength of a tidal wave. He closes his eyes, opens them, inhales deeplyand pulls back on the exhale.

Thancred is not different from Ikaelin how much he cares. Because he cares deeply. So deeply, so much thatit hurts. Sometimes, it feels like an ache in his chest that will never leave. Thancredcan never not be aware of it, so strong are the feelings in his heart.

But maybe Ikael can teach him howto be better at showing it.

~*~

[homenum-revelio-hq]

Welcome to the Order of the Phoenix, Charly!

You have been accepted for the role of non-biography character GIDEON PREWETT with the faceclaim of Sam Heughan! We really enjoyed your discussion of Gideon’s personality, especially in relationship in the differences between Gideon and Fabian! We think Gideon’s level-headed outlook will be a great addition to the Order. We are so excited to have you as part of this roleplay!

Please take a look at the new member checklist and send in your account within 24 hours! Thank you for joining the fight against Voldemort!

OUT OF CHARACTER:

NAME: Charly (he/him)

AGE: 27

TIMEZONE: GMT+1

ACTIVITY LEVEL: I will usually find time to be online and do replies once a day, or at least every other day. I work full time atm and sometimes have activities on the weekends but I always do my best to maintain a steady activity

ANYTHING ELSE: I’m not the biggest fan of images of hardcore gore. Descriptions are fine, I just don’t like to see it. Not really a trigger, though, more like a strong squick I guess.

CHARACTER DETAILS:

NAME: Gideon Prewett

AGE: 30 (which is I think what was put down by Fabian’s mun and which I’ll go with as well, considering they’re twins)

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY: 

Cis-male, he/him, bisexual. – His own gender identity isn’t something Gideon thinks about a lot. He’s always felt comfortable as a man. He is aware of the imbalance of power and influence between genders that many in his society view as natural and even necessary.He’s aware that he has definitely won the privilege lottery and tries to be mindful of it. But he is very sure of his gender identity and very comfortable the way he is.

His sexuality isn’t exactly a secret, at least he’s never made an effort to hide it. However, he also never actually came out to anyone. He only assumed people knew and if they had an issue with who he chose to go out with, they’d tell him directly. He’s had very few relationships in his life – he’s dated exactly one woman and one man. Both were relatively long-term relationships and he never treated one of his partners differently than the other. It never occurred to him, that he should have to come out to his family first before introducing them to a partner that wasn’t a woman.

BLOOD STATUS: Pure-Blood

HOUSE ALUMNI: Gryffindor – Gideon ultimately ended up a Gryffindor, if only just because Fabian came first in the alphabet and was therefore sorted before him. When Gideon put on the hat, it took an awfully long time debating whether Gryffindor or Ravenclaw was the better fit for him. In the end, Gideon wasn’t going to be separated from his twin, and asked to be put in Gryffindor.  

ANY CHANGES: None

CHARACTER BACKGROUND:

PERSONALITY: 

Gideon has always been known as the clever one, the over-achiever, the workaholic. From the moment he was born he was told he was special. The first-born son, the heir. He was never just a child he was the projection of his father’s high expectations. And Gideon, in his eagerness to please, did everything he could to fulfil them all. He was expected to perform exceptionally in school – he did. He was expected to find a well-respected job right out of school and make his father proud – he did. He was expected to always be well-mannered and courteous – he was. Expectations are the common thread in his life and Gideon lives in constant fear of being unable to fulfil them.

If it weren’t for Fabian and his good influence, Gideon would likely be a tight-lipped bore who wouldn’t know fun if it punched him in the face. It was definitely growing up with Fab and his sometimes outrageous ideas that led to Gid not tightening up to become exactly what their father wanted him to be. He’s still the ‘somewhat more responsible twin’ and more level-headed than his brother. After all, someone has to make sure they get out of whatever his brother cooks up alive. But Gideon, too, can let loose. In fact, he himself has been the instigator of trouble more than once during their time at Hogwarts and he has always had quite a talent for pyrotechnics. Yet, he somehow mostly managed to escape the consequences of their trouble-making. After all, he was the good boy.

As the oldest of three taking responsibility for others comes naturally to Gid. He enjoys being a source of safety and comfort to his friends and family and will offer his care to anyone who might need it. Helping others is something he’s good at, accepting or asking for help himself not so much. He’d rather be someone elses anchor than admit that he, too, is struggling. In offering himself up like this, he often takes on more than he can handle and it’s only a matter of time until he has no energy left for himself and it will all become too much to bear.

A lot of Gideon’s personality is exclusively outwardly. He’s learned how to present himself, how to hold his head up high and smile just right so that people believed what he wanted them to. That he is sure of himself, that he has all the answers, that he is unafraid and doesn’t falter. Ever. Gideon has been taught to be a leader, that he should be someone others can look up to and trust. That’s all he wants to represent and yet, most of the time he doesn’t even trust himself.

While he’s generally warm and kind towards his friends, Gideon suffers from haphephobia and will never initiate touch himself. It isn’t something he advertises however so he will bear it and suffer through a hug or a hand touching his own simply for the sake of not appearing callous or impolite. The only people he freely allows and even welcomes touch from are his siblings, young children and occasionally, his father. Those who have known him for a few years now would know that he used to be different, used to freely hug people even if they were only fleeting acquaintances. This change in his demeanour is a more recent one. But whatever has caused it is likely something only Gideon knows.

Gideon is afraid. Afraid of failing, of losing control, of his own inadequacy. He hides it well behind reassuring words and carefree smiles and an off-hand joke or two. But the crippling anxiety keeps him up most nights, thoughts racing and reliving all those brief moments in which he might have made a mistake. Any mistake, small as it may be is a failure on Gideon’s part, a fuck-up that if not immediately resolved, will haunt him for weeks. Everything he does needs to be perfect he needs to be perfect or else everyone he loves will turn away from him.

Conflict and communication isn’t something Gideon is good at. He can be judgmental and rash at times, and has a habit of making other people’s issues his own to the point where he oversteps. And if he’s confronted about his mistakes he recoils and falls silent instead of facing the problem and fixing his mistake with an apology. This, too, comes from a place of fear. Rather than resolving an argument with a conversation, any criticism sends Gideon into another spiral of paralysing anxiety and obsessing over his mistakes. The fact that people are willing to forgive and move on after he finally got himself together enough to apologise baffles him every time.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY: 

Through everything he’s experienced he’s always had Fabian at his side and without him, Gideon is sure he would have drowned long ago. They’re a unity. Most people know them only as GidandFab, not as two separate people even though the twins couldn’t be more different. Fabian may be the only person who can see through all of Gideon’s bullshit and calls him out on it. He’s the only one Gideon will admit his fears too, will admit to being scared at all to. Fabian is the one person Gideon can stand being touched by without his stomach twisting into knots. He’s protective of both his siblings, but Fabian more than anyone else. He is after all his other half. It may be selfish, but Gideon would always put his twin’s safety and well-being before that of any other person no matter who they are. The idea of losing his brother is worse than anything he could ever imagine and with the war, that fear is ever-present.

He has nothing but respect for admiration for his little sister. Molly is the strongest person Gideon knows and oftentimes he wonders how she does it all – the war, being a mother and caring for so many others who need it all while maintaining an energy level that is almost superhuman. More than once he’s offered to move her and her family to a safe location out of the country, at least until the war is finished. But she always refuses. And he really cannot blame her knowing, that he himself would do the exact same thing if their roles were reversed. But it is another heavy load to carry to keep her and her family safe and out of harms way. Gideon knows however, that it would be pointless to argue with her and he respects her wishes.

His relationship with his parents has always been a complicated one. It was easier while his mother was still alive, but he could never shake the feeling that he was treated differently than his siblings. Was granted more privileges but at the same time judged much harsher. He never doubted the love his parents had for him, but especially with his father he often felt like he had a much harder time getting his approval than Fabian or Molly did. Oftentimes, his father’s affection towards him was tied to Gideon’s own achievements and as he grew older, the expectations also got higher and the praise grew sparse. And that, even now as a grown man of 30, is really all Gideon wants – his father’s praise and approval.

But maybe also because he was the oldest, and because his father, despite the glory days of the noble house of Prewett being long forgotten, still held on to those last shreds of their aristocratic origins, Gideon was privy to knowledge and insight into his family’s affairs his siblings weren’t. His father was always honest with him, answering all of Gideon’s many questions truthfully and never sugar-coating how badly their financial situation or the political climate were. While his siblings were blissfully ignorant, Gideon knew just how much harder it was with every passing year to maintain their old family seat. How much his mother worried about money and his father about the looming war.

Gideon wouldn’t have expected it in the least, but his mother’s death brought him and his father closer together. Both of them dealt with their grief on their own and in silence, preferring to look after Fabian and Molly than giving themselves time to heal. In a way, Gideon thinks, his father leaned on him during those first few months, letting Gideon deal with anything that had to be settled - the will, the belongings, even the funeral. They have a silent agreement nowadays, to protect Fabian and Molly first and see that they make it through the war. Even if it’s at the cost of their own lives.

OCCUPATION: 

Unspeakable and Magic Researcher at the Department for Mysteries – Back at Hogwarts Gideon was never satisfied to only repeat a spell until he knew it by heart and perfected the performance, he wanted to know what was underneath. How did it work, who had invented it, where did magic come from? Those were the questions that kept him up and in the library long after most other students had long retired to their common rooms. He wanted to know the origins and mechanics of magic so he could one day be one of the people who invented new spells. Already during his time at school, Gideon started to experiment with words and movements to see if he couldn’t invent some himself. Without the proper training and tutoring however, little of what he attempted was actually successful. Most of the time nothing ever happened. However, there was one incident in which the 6th year boys’ dormitory in the Gryffindor tower almost caught on fire after which Gideon was prohibited from any further unsupervised experimentation.

After graduating Gideon managed to get into a Ministry research program for experimental magic. The first couple of years barely paid him anything but he learned more than he ever had in all his years of Hogwarts together. After completing his training, Gideon worked on a team that created household spells for a while. Not exactly what he’d dreamed of, but it paid the bills. It wasn’t until a year ago that one of his former instructors approached him with an offer: there was to be a new division within the Department of Mysteries and Gideon was to be a part of it. When he heard what exactly this division was researching, Gideon was filled with unease. After all, by this time the war was already raging all around him. And what he was offered was nothing short of a placement as a researcher for the newly created Division for Experimental Magic Warfare. Gideon was uncertain but the higher-ups in the Order were quick to make the decision for him. Gideon was to accept the job. He was to do as he was told and keep his head down. And he was to report back with everything he worked on that appeared suspicious.

It’s a dangerous situation Gideon has gotten himself into. The smallest mistake could raise suspicion, and it’s almost certain that sooner or later he will encounter his own work in the battlefield fired right at him or someone he loves. He can only hope that when that happens, he will be one step ahead.

ROLE WITHIN THE ORDER/THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ORDER: 

Mid-Level - It wasn’t Gideon who was first approached to join the Order but his brother. Yet, wherever one twin went, the other would soon follow and so they joined together. Gideon was initially much more doubtful than his brother. Unlike Fabian, Gideon never had any dreams of heroism and adventure – he’s much too pragmatic for that. He joined because he was unsatisfied with how the Ministry handled the threat. He believed in a much more offensive and less careful approach and the Order seemed to have the same ideas.

He started out as a simple foot soldier, of little use off the battlefields due to his lack of influence and insight. Only recently has he felt like he’s truly been contributing to the cause as a spy within the Department of Mysteries with access to some of the Ministry’s most secret research. He’s in more danger than he’s ever been before, but it also fills him with a sense of pride. More than anything else he wants to contribute something meaningful, something that might change their outlook on the war.

As someone with a somewhat large family Gideon has everything to lose and he knows that with everything he does and every risk he takes he puts them at risk as well, especially his brother. It makes him only more determined to fight.

Gideon doesn’t mind being a criminal and a vigilante. His involvement in the Order is nothing he’d ever publicly advertise of course, and he keeps his true opinions about how he thinks this war should be fought carefully to himself. But in all honesty, as offensive as they are, they’re still not offensive enough. In these times law or honour don’t matter anymore, only survival and victory. An eye for an eye.

SURVIVAL: 

How is he still alive? Gideon doesn’t know. He shouldn’t be at this point. While he’s always thinking on his toes and carefully calculating his next three steps he’s not one to shy away from the frontlines or stick to the back on the battlefield. He should have died three battles ago. Sometimes he thinks it must be dumb luck. Or his unwillingness to die without his brother by his side. He refuses to go down without him and since Fab is somehow still alive so is he.

In public Gideon keeps his head down. Plays the role of loyal ministry employee and keeps his opinions to himself. It’s what’s wisest and what the Order asked of him to ensure he’d be able to keep this job.

Gideon has a small flat in Central London which he loves dearly as it’s been his first flat ever but he’s appeared on the Death Eaters’ radar one too many times and the longer he procrastinates moving somewhere safer the more dangerous it gets. Still, Gideon needs stability and the idea of moving every couple weeks isn’t one he finds too appealing. Yet he can’t put it off much longer if he wants to continue to stay alive.

RELATIONSHIPS: 

His brother has been and always will be the most important person in Gideon’s life. But neither of them can deny that their relationship has been strained for a while now. Sometimes Gid has a hard time reading his twin. Sometimes he can’t get a hold on him for days on end, throwing him into another spiral full of anxiety and panic and ‘what if something’ s happened’s. He’s well aware of his brother’s self-destructive habits but as of yet unable to take action without greatly invading Fabian’s privacy and breaking his trust. What he can do is to silently watch over him and hope to be able to prevent any greater damages in time. Gideon isn’t an idiot; he knows that he’s co-dependent to the point of potentially suffocating Fabian with his own inability to survive without his twin. And maybe, he tells himself, that inability is even what caused Fab’s drinking in the first place. Nevertheless, he’s determined to fix their relationship – and his brother – so they can go back to the way they had been before the war.

With the majority of his friends Gideon has taken the role of caretaker and substitute big brother. It’s what he knows, what he’s good at, what fuels him. He honestly enjoys being a shoulder to lean on and a source of strength and comfort. His door is always open, and he has an extra set of blankets and fresh sheets ready at all time just in case someone might need a place to stay for a night or more. He’s the kind of friend that will remember you mentioning your favourite brand of biscuits in an off-hand comment and then keep a pack in his cupboard just in case you might decide to visit. And at the same time, he’s the kind of person who knows everything about his friends but at the same time gives little information about himself. He’ll always answer ‘I’m great, thank you’ to a question after his well-being and make it sound honest enough. He rarely reveals more than superficial details of his personal life preferring to keep the focus away from himself in fear of someone digging a little too deep and realising that he is in fact far from the confident, charming man he pretends to be. People need him to be a rock and a safe haven, not just another construction side.

The war has forced them all both closer together and further apart it seems. Trust is dangerous these days, letting anyone too close could hurt you terribly in the best case scenario and get you killed if you’re not careful. And at the same time the trauma of the war has them huddling together and looking for comfort now more than ever. Gideon is almost obsessively cautious about letting new people into his life, but has made a habit of checking up on everyone of his friends and fellow Order members, even those who are just fleeting acquaintances, at least once a week. He keeps track of people, has to know where everyone is to sleep at least a few hours every night. As scattered as they are and with the lifes they’re living, someone has to see that no one’s left behind. It’s a reassurance for himself, and just maybe also for the others to know, that if someone fails to check in, if someone goes missing, he’ll notice.

OOC EXPLORATION:

SHIPS/ANTI-SHIPS: 

Difficult. Gideon isn’t someone who will just flirt and jump into bed with someone. He needs to feel secure and safe first before he can even start opening up to someone. His last relationships have always crumbled under his inability to share and express his true emotions very well. His aversion to being touched isn’t helping much either. A relationship and someone he can trust and confide in is something Gideon desperately craves. But any attempts at getting closer to someone have always failed in the past few years and it’s weighing hard on him.

In his day to day life Gideon is someone who needs to be in charge always. Not being in control is something that fills him with crippling anxiety. And yet, in a relationship, giving up that control is exactly what seeks. He want’s someone else to take charge and just let him float safely for a bit. But communicating those needs isn’t something he’s ever done before.

I don’t have any anti-ships for Gideon. I will literally ship anything if the chemistry is there and it makes sense. For some reason I do like the idea of him having a bit of a crush on Kingsley Shacklebolt, which is probably simply projecting because I have a crush on Kingsley. He has that calm aura. I think Gideon would be very attracted to that.

WHAT PRIVILEGES AND BIASES DOES YOUR CHARACTER HAVE? 

Gideon is a white cis-male pure-blood. He’s pretty much as privileged as they come in their society. And while his parents raised him and his siblings with constant reminders that their blood status isn’t worth anything and that it’s their character that defines them as people, they were far from perfect. Growing up Gideon couldn’t help but notice that at least his father treated him differently than his siblings and that being the oldest son but him under more scrutiny but also at a certain advantage. He often wondered if he was taken more seriously simply because he was the first-born.

It was mostly his sister Molly who taught him to think about his own privileges by sharing her own perspective with him and ridiculing him whenever she thought he was acting like a ‘typical man’. He’s grateful for it and tries to be more aware of his own actions and mannerisms but doesn’t always succeed.

He’s wary of werewolves and other shapechangers but only because he knows way too little about them. He doesn’t find them revolting or disgusting, he’s simply careful. If he were to find out about a friend of his being a werewolf, he’d be surprised if not shocked and have a million questions, but ultimately it wouldn’t change anything about them as a person.

Gideon has never had a long enough conversation with a muggle to have anything other than curiosity for their life-style. Again, he doesn’t know enough about them to form an informed opinion. But he knows that killing people simply because of their culture differing from your own is all kinds of wrong and horrible and he will not stand for it.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO? 

To be completely honest, I wasn’t actively looking for a roleplay. Amos, who currently plays Fabian, and I used to play the twins for a long time in other rpgs and somehow clicked from the very beginning. He very subtly advertised this rpg to me and told me how great it was which made me curious. After checking it out I really wanted to join because I love the concept a lot and also play Gideon again. What I’m especially looking forward to is the outlook. In Canon marauder rpgs the twins always due of course so you’re ultimately playing a doomed character. This can be great for those of us (and I’m definitely one of these people) who love nothing more than pain and angst. But I found that I’m really excited and curious about playing Gideon with a chance of a future. It gives the whole experience a sense of hope.

PLOT DROP IDEAS: 

My main goal is always character development through the differing relationships Gideon has with other characters. How are the people around him going to influence him, how is he going to influence them? This is very general of course. More specifically, I’d like to see people digging deeper and getting under Gideon’s skin, be it in a positive or negative way. I’d like to undo him.

I’d also like to see how the situation at the Department of Mysteries develops, if Gideon is able to withstand the pressure, if he’s able to continue flying under the radar and gather information without being found out. And I’d like the Order to put more pressure on him, maybe demand more of him as it continues. I want to see how long it takes before he breaks down.

ANYTHING ELSE? I hope you’re on board and want me because this is a really cool place J

EXTRA FOR NON-BIO CHARACTERS:

This section is only if you are applying for a character that does not yet have a biography written (i.e. a character not listed on the character page). Essentially, any Marauders Era character can be applied for, so long as they can realistically fit into the plot and add substance to the roleplay! It may be a good idea to send a message to the main before you do this so we are all on the same page.

PAST: Gideon never doubted that he was lucky. He had a happy childhood, a loving family and, most importantly, a twin. He never quite understood how singletons could function properly but then, they never knew what they were missing either. Growing up Gideon was, in most respects, the epitome of a good boy. He fulfilled most of his parents’ expectations – worked hard in school, got good grades and, as far as they knew, rarely got into trouble. Back then he was carefree, blissfully ignorant of the tension building and the looming war. As he grew older and more aware of the issues so deeply rooted within the society he called his own, he found that he couldn’t just turn his head and pretend not to see the injustice many of his classmates suffered through on a daily basis. Gideon knew he had to use his own privilege to take a stand, he just didn’t know how. As much as he tried to help out and speak up, nothing he did ever felt like it was enough. It wasn’t until his brother was recruited by the Order and simply dragged him along with him, that he found a way to truly make an impact.

PRESENT: After graduating, Gideon’s curiosity and dedication secured him a spot in a training program for magical research and from there on brought him further and deep into the Department of Mysteries where he researches new ways of magic currently unheard of. Every day brings new risks and challenges and the fear of being found out as a spy for the Order is his constant companion. It’s what he wanted, though, isn’t it? He makes a difference. The intelligence he’s gathering is valuable and the research he’s able to do with the resources he wouldn’t have anywhere else could potentially aid the Order in the war. At the same time, he never knows who he’s actually working for. He can feel the pressure of countless expectations and responsibilities piling up and he knows, it’s only a matter of time until he’ll break under the weight.

FC CHOICES: Top choice: Sam Heughan. Other choices: James McAvoy, Sam Claflin

[thefaithletters]

Confronting Our Values: To a Troubled Muslim Community

Dearest whose trust in the Muslim community has been lost after an immensity of love,

On this day, nearly fifteen hundred lunar years ago, our Prophet Muhammed ﷺ was born. His birth changed history. His legacy, and our religion, was built on the foundation of our Prophet's character before he received revelation: honesty and trustworthiness. 

Yet, our ummah is plagued by corruption, deceit, manipulation, and hypocrisy. These qualities are in every human society, to some extent. It's normal that some Muslims will have these qualities (after all, most Muslims don't choose their religion but rather treat it like cultural inheritance). But to find these qualities in the ones who have put themselves in positions of being entrusted to revive the message in the hearts, of people, who are elevated for that role, and who are privy to the spiritual hunger and thirst of vulnerable people --that is among the greatest fitnahs.

I am concerned about how desensitized we are becoming to news of this nature. I notice it in myself, and I see it in friends: a spiritual fatigue that doesn't want to be spoken about. 

And it breaks my heart.

When there's a lack of consistency or agreement between two beliefs (or values) or a belief and behavior, the mind enters a state of cognitive dissonance. This state of unrest feels heavy and unsettling, and people are naturally motivated to alleviate this discomfort by changing their behaviors, adopting a new belief or idea, seeking new information that offers an alternative paradigm, or deciding to reduce the importance of one of the beliefs or values that are in disharmony. This seems like the state of the majority of young American Muslims today. 

The more dangerous trend I see emerging is what I consider spiritual fission. In this state, people can no longer identify or point to the countless directions in which their faith has been shattered. It's a chaotic state, and it's too uncomfortable to confront directly so it naturally leads to numbness and apathy regarding anything religious or an inability to engage with such topics deeply.

Our religious institutions and spiritual leaders are largely responsible for the young generation's disconnection from their mosques and communities (parents play a significant role, too, but that's a topic for another time). It's stories like the ones that came out recently that have caused many people deep despair in spiritual communities. 

We are all flawed people. The issue isn't that a Muslim committed a major sin or was fallible to his desires. The real issue is the lack of truthfulness in how it's handled by many involved. Deceit is what erodes trust, and trust is the foundation of faith and community. When it is revealed to a spiritual leader and the community members who closely work with him in a leadership capacity that he is no longer able to uphold his responsibility, the right thing to do is proactively step down and acknowledge a struggle and need for improvement.

Of course, none of us have heard of this type of honorable handling of such situations happening in our communities (I really hope I'm wrong here). Why? Money and ego. 

Sadly, many of our spiritual leaders are financially reliant upon their image and reputation as people of God among the community. This means that a religious leader who becomes exposed for a betrayal of his position may suddenly lose all his income and face an overwhelming fear of instability and anxiety about the future. So the survival instinct kicks in (especially if family is involved) and the man no longer sees the moral and ethical layers of the situation. 

Money and religion should never mix. Easy to say, complex to implement. I know. Yet, necessary and true, nonetheless. 

Another primary reason so-called spiritual leaders don't step down or come forward truthfully when they've betrayed their positions of trust is probably that they don't want to lose their status in the community. Being a celebrity imam can become so ingrained into someone's identity that it becomes almost like an addiction to attention or power. This is also connected to a larger societal shift in values (studies show an upward trend of youth who say they want to become famous). It's even more connected to the shift in values hierarchy we have as a larger Muslim community. Authenticity, truthfulness, integrity...those are all secondary to knowledgeability, charm, and "success." 

Until we become a people who hold honesty and trustworthiness among our highest values, our leaders will continue to reflect us. 

As we continue to remain obsessed with image and reputation in the community independent of actual virtue or character, we continue to cultivate a culture of hypocrisy and double-lives. People only hide the sins that aren't yet accepted by the community. It's only a matter of time before the scope widens. 

I have nothing juicy to say about the recent news regarding Usama Canon. Like many of you who had only love and admiration for Usama Canon and the community he founded, this week's news have been tough for me. I participated in Ta'leef's Refining the Core program earlier this year and met Usama Canon in 2016 when he came to Maryland to give a talk. He was one of the few people who took the time to answer a question I had with careful consideration and respect. I left that talk feeling a sense of hope. And then when I started learning about Ta'leef and participated in their community, I continued to carry with me the hope for our community to be healthy, respectful of all people, and authentically striving for goodness. For the good that he's done, and if this in fact his way of acknowledging the harm he's made and making amends, I pray for his wellbeing. And if this is Ta'leef's uplifting of accountability and honoring their positions of trust, I pray for their success and healing. 

Like many, I wish I were surprised by this. Sadly, I know this kind of stuff happens. I’ve witnessed misconduct and heard about it from friends. I’ve tried to speak up about the betrayal of authority and unhealthy behaviors, but the disappointing reactions I got were discouraging. I talked to the spiritual leader who I had witnessed inappropriateness from, and his response was gaslighting. It was a complex and spiritually fatiguing experience. In the end, I just removed myself from the community. Though I didn’t experience abuse, my faith was deeply tested and my heart hurt. I almost lost my religion. I was lucky to be able to notice and protect myself from anyone taking advantage of me. I can’t imagine the pain actual victims endure, and it saddens me that the community cares more about the celebrity abusers than the “nobodies” who are abused (often the most vulnerable members of our communities who don’t have powerful families, financial resources, or impressive professional titles).

I've had my faith and hope in this community shattered a few times, and every time God somehow found a way to remind me that there are still beautiful people out there who are true seekers. They aren't the ones with the followers and fans and financial ties to their religion or spirituality. More often than not, the modern-day companions of the Prophet (the ones he referred to as his brothers and sisters he hadn't yet met) are those who keep their good deeds concealed and remain patient in the face of oppression. Their words aren't tweet-worthy and there are no fun perks to being their friends. They treat their family members and parents better than anyone else. They are known for their honesty and trustworthiness. On the day our Prophet Muhammad ﷺ was born, I pray we are all able to take a moment to be truthful with ourselves about the state of our hearts. Where are we not truthful? What steps must we take to embody more honesty and trustworthiness? Where is our faith hurting? How are we in community? What are our own hierarchies of values? How can we be better believers?

Salam.

P.S. I share these thoughts selfishly because they continue to occupy my mind. I release them here so that I no longer carry the burden of their release. I’m not spiritually superior for writing this. Most know my deep struggles with my faith.

[dyinglightroleplay]

𝐁𝐀𝐒𝐈𝐂𝐒.

NAME : Davey Ariel Gudgeon RELATIONSHIP TO THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX : Ally / Informant AGE / BIRTHDATE : 18 Years Old / born 7 May 1961 at 4:10pm IDT ZODIAC SIGN : Gemini ( sun ), Scorpio ( moon ), Scorpio ( rising ) EDUCATION : Hogwarts Graduate ( Slytherin House ) BLOOD STATUS : Muggleborn

𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍𝐒.

✧     Alastor Moody ( platonic ) ✧     Frank Longbottom ( antagonistic ) ✧     Bilius Weasley ( wild card )

𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐒𝐄𝐄𝐍.

In Diagon Alley.  They’ll learn of the Battle of Hogwarts as the rest of the Wizarding world does.

𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐓𝐔𝐒 : 𝐓𝐀𝐊𝐄𝐍.

PLAYER : Mod Rivka FACECLAIM : Ezra Miller URL : @goodgeon​

𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐋𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍.

TRIGGER WARNINGS: BIOLOGICAL ESSENTIALISM, ABLEISM, NON - BINARY PHOBIA / BINARY APOLOGISM, SEXISM, ANTI - SEMITISM, ALLUSIONS TO THE SHOAH, DRUG USE

ZERO / RISING. * How is your character perceived by others?  What mask do they wear, and is there more than one?

Davey is a person comprised of many, many layers, not all of which are shared with all people.  To say they were mysterious would be a misnomer --- --- truly, they're a pretty quick study, just don't tell them that --- --- but they are . . . complicated.  They're easygoing, affable, in possession of a quick and scathing sense of humor and an equally vicious wit ; they're difficult, they're petty, they can veer straight into condescension and self - isolation if given the slightest provocation.  They're a show - off, certainly, and they're a know - it - all, too.  They are many things, they are many, made up entirely of a rainbow of facets they flit between from day - to - day depending on their mood, surroundings, relationships, and desires.  ( Does this manifest with a hefty handful of flakiness, too ?  Sure it does.  Alongside a loyalty that's selective, hard - won, and blood - deep. )

Throughout their life, Davey's experiences have asked them to form a particular set of armor, a beautiful, well - maintained shell they've created for themselves to safeguard what they care about most : their Self, their soul, the body that carries them through the world.  A childhood spent learning to trust themselves, despite what others would seek to tell them, built the scaffolding of teenage years spent aggressively reclaiming that energy, outright refusing to budge along or to reduce themselves to accommodate anyone, even in situations where, objectively, they likely should've.  Their reaction to being told they're too much, too feminine, not masculine enough, what are you wearing, what's wrong with you, are you a boy or a girl ? has become to double down, and their reaction to similar taunts about their blood status or disability or family is the same --- --- they've created a life in which any barb aimed in their direction simply plinks off the chestplate of the armor they've spent so long forging.

Davey was raised to never apologize for who they were, told from childhood by their family that what they are is perfect, is priceless, is hard - fought and deserving of defense.  The discovery of their magic and their acceptance to Hogwarts did nothing to challenge this, although the sudden realization of the sliding scale of indifference to HATRED that Davey's blood status fostered once at school certainly did.  But rather than quail beneath it, rather than dim themselves, Davey only got more proud, louder, BRIGHTER, something that made them just as many enemies as friends as they passed through school.  For every student who looked down at them, for every slur thrown their way, every judgmental look, Davey took it and added it to their armor.  And this pride doesn't stem simply from the dawning knowledge of the war rising up outside the castle's walls ; Davey would be proud of who they have become no matter the climate.  They've spent too much time feeling unwelcome in their body to waste another second.

And Davey doesn't have the privilege of living in only one world, either ; they leave Hogwarts every summer to return to their family home in London, as equally a stand - out in their family's community of Orthodox Jews as they are walking the castle's halls.  They could allow all of this to dull them, but they don't.  Instead, they just burn brighter.  But that shouldn't be mistook for extroversion, either.  Davey keeps their circle of genuine friends small --- --- they gravitate toward others on the fringes, the misfits, the loners, the people for whom life has been made hard through no fault of their own, and they are willing to lay it on the line for them.  That's what their parents taught them, from a young age, a story born from millennia of persecution, from scant decades separating them and so, so much death : there is no honor in neutrality, no goodness in standing by simply because what's happening does not directly affect you.  This is what drives them, it's what makes them difficult right alongside what makes them so, so incredible --- --- Davey will never, has never and won't ever begin to go down without a fight.

ONE / THE SUN. * Choose one to explore : what about their personality, general preferences, sense of self / ego, or fundamental traits attracted you to them?

Davey has really presented me the opportunity to indulge in a lot of my Very Favorite Meta Concepts in this universe : I've always had a massive soft - spot for investigating how ' Muggle ' religion and culture intersect with the magical world, how muggleborn children adjust to life at Hogwarts and to life with powers, how the global history and political climate of this time period influence these students coming of age inside a private, closed community locked in a secret war, how disability and difference present and are handled by the wizarding community, how gender and sexuality are examined by a group of people who know that the world has never, will never, be binary or black - and - white.  They're really a neat reason to delve way into a lot of these ideas that I've been kicking around as long as I've been a fan of this medium, and truthfully, I've never really had the chance to stretch my legs - and - creative - muscles with a character that's essentially an OC, before, and there's no time like the present, right ?

Geminis are people of many talents, sometimes disjointed but always insatiable ; adaptable, excitable, and open to whatever the world has to offer them, their investment can sometimes be overwhelming, particularly for people who are unprepared to have their worldviews challenged.  A Gemini Sun inspires an unstoppable force, trading flexibility for fire, tact for speed.  They're flexible, mercurial, and often polarizing, and can shift sharply between being charming and outright off - putting.  Their Scorpio Moon intensifies this, opening a well of emotional sensitivity, fostering vulnerability right alongside an everlasting ability to form and hold grudges based upon mistreatment.  STUBBORNNESS and hard - headedness becomes a dominating trait, only magnified by the rising sign's indication that darkness must be faced head - on in this lifetime, rather than excused or ignored.  Concerned most with the soul, Scorpio rising encourages a life that doesn't dwell in the negative, but seeks to abolish it, by any means necessary, even, sometimes, to the person's detriment.

Gemini is also aligned most closely with Hod ( הוד ) the eighth sephira of the Kabbalah Tree of Life, which houses the ten attributes through which G-d reveals themselves.  Hod is the act of submission to obstacles, not in surrender, but rather to overcome : its astrological significance weighs heavily upon Gemini's often aggressive shoulders, warning of times when battles can be fought by simply leaving them behind.  Hod is also thought to be where the truest form of magic is available, and is closely associated with intellectual pursuits, ritual, and the act of breaking concept into smaller pieces for specific mastery.

I really am leaning into duality here as well : Davey's entire existence is politicized --- --- Jewish, disabled, muggleborn, non - binary.  They exist in a space they've made for themselves, a space they've more often then not had to TAKE BY FORCE.  Their perspective on blood supremacy, on this war as a person who was born entirely outside it is so interesting, and I want to see where it goes ; Davey's family fled Occupied France, they were raised by Jews who survived an atrocity that would've seen them eradicated, the concept of some stodgy old group of in - bred idiots convinced of their own mythical superiority isn't a totally new or groundbreaking thing for them.  In a lot of ways, Davey's a wildcard this way : they're neutral, not because they don't have strong opinions, but because they do, because they lie outside a pre - established order of things in a world they weren't born into.  Davey is . . . far too radical for groups like the Order, and I doubt they would've accepted an invitation even if they'd received one, because in their mind, caution is synonymous with inaction.  They have a unique perspective, informed by their family's history, by their people's history, and the understanding that plotting something as simple as the Loss of a Leader by no means fosters a victory, by no means untangles the tendrils of hate that allowed that leader to take power in the first place.

Davey hardly trusts his Order - adjacent friends, sparing that for the closest few muggleborns he considers to be nearly family.  Davey doesn't consider themselves wixen as much as they consider themselves a person with magical abilities, in fact they hold very little affinity for the greater magical world.  And while they aren't privy to all of the Order's dealings, obviously, their anger runs deeper and burns hotter, born from a place of exclusion rather than anything particularly righteous.  I want to see Davey's arc take them to confrontation with --- --- and hopefully, eventual understanding alongside --- --- witches and wizards who believe that Voldemort's death brings the end of blood supremacy.  I want Davey to continue their life - long refusal to be cowed, refusal to be quiet, refusal to shut up and go along for the ride, refusal to be pushed aside ; they come from a very, very long line of people who should've been dead, they aren't wasting time letting their life or their rights languish in anyone else's hands but their own.  The Ministry, the Order and its supporters, the Death Eaters, even the blessed true neutrals who can't be bothered to care : none of them are on Davey's side.  For them, there isn't growth or protection in joining ; I want to see them get proved wrong, or maybe get proved right.  The distinct separation between Davey's worldview, seen from beneath the oppressive lens of day - in, day - out institutionalized and INBORN blood supremacy and hatred, and that of half - blood or pureblood wizards for whom this war has become more about defeating an enemy is vital to this.

TWO / THE MOON. * Which color would you associate most strongly with them and the emotions that dominate them?  Describe however you’d like.

NEON.  Buzzing signs and the black - lit smudges of a blotter sheet, a rainy city’s night reflected back in puddles disrupted by quick steps in patent - leather boots.  Hallucinations and their accustomed heaviness, the soft - edged weight of exhaled smoke and candlelight, unnatural pinks and reds crawling from flowerpots in a greenhouse that could make any child fall in love.  The brilliance of blood against white teeth, fuchsia lipstick against stubble, satin, silk, leather, velvet, something sumptuous and traffic - stopping worn with all the impenetrable confidence of chainmail.  Spell - pops, spell zings, the heat of magic and how it always feels just the smallest bit of a miracle, the brilliant - blue of a withering patronus and the rainbow’s worth of charms and hexes yet unmastered.  Loud prints, pasted - up posters, glow - in - the - dark and glitter and the wash of bar - room bathroom halogen light.  The sunset flare at the end of a cigarette, at the end of a joint, at the tip of a match held to a braided candle bearing witness to Havdalah.

THREE / MERCURY. * What is this character’s area of expertise? Where do they excel?

Davey is a gifted Herbologist ; they took to the subject overwhelmingly well at Hogwarts, and count Professor Sprout as both a tremendous influence and a friend.  They’ve gone out of their way to combine Muggle sensibilities with magic, and alongside acting as a drug dealer ( ' florist ' was the slang term of the day ) for both the Magical and Muggle communities in London, Davey spends their time experimenting with new ways to grow marijuana plants and synthesize other psychedelics, as well as cultivating various expensive, rare, or otherwise uhhhhh illegal plants to sell to potioneers or anyone else in need of such ingredients.  They tend to test most of their experiments on themselves, especially to ensure they're safe --- --- their magical physiology affords them a bit more protection and durability than their muggle family members, for example --- --- but they also have a habit of asking their magical friends to test the final products, free of charge of course, as long as they allow them to hang around and see what happens.

[aidanchaser]

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets: Everyone Lives

Table of Contents beta’d by @ageofzero

Chapter Fifteen Aragog

Lily Potter enjoyed being a teacher more than she had expected. Though, that really wasn’t saying much because she had expected to hate it.

Patience was not something she considered her strongest suit. She frequently lost her temper, and she felt like she spent so much of her time frustrated at James or Harry or Sirius, or even Remus. But after a tea with Minerva, she’d been reminded not only of her patience and tenderness as Head Girl, but also that James was an especially trying case, and she shouldn’t judge herself harshly for losing patience with him. The fact that they had been married thirteen years was truly a testament to her enduring patience.

That gave her a bit of courage, and while she did find herself perpetually frustrated with her first and second years, she never lost her temper. And she found that she thoroughly enjoyed her N.E.W.T. level students.

She hadn’t considered the fact that her name alone bore a lot of weight with the older students. They would have been between four and six during the Wizarding War. They would have heard her name and Harry’s name all throughout their childhood. They were old enough to know about some of the more gruesome battles, and young enough to be curious about the details.

It wasn’t the praise or awe they gave her that she loved. It was the way they were so eager to learn Defense from her. They trusted her knowledge of the Dark Arts based on her personal experiences, and they wanted to know what she knew. She found that was her favorite part of teaching, and on the days she wasn’t teaching N.E.W.T. classes, it was much harder to get out of bed.

Being separated from James was also much harder than she had expected. She’d thought he was being dramatic by complaining he’d only see her once a week. Truthfully, without Harry at the house, she’d grown quite bored and irritable. She’d been more than ready for a change, and she had to admit there was a small part of her that had been ready to leave James behind when she began teaching.

But of course, within the first two days she missed him more than anything. House hunting that weekend in Hogsmeade had been the highlight of her week, and she wrote to him daily. Sometimes twice a day. He wrote to her just as frequently.

Today, however, she was more than glad she’d taken Lockhart’s teaching position. She couldn’t imagine leaving Harry and the rest of his classmates and peers in this school with only Lockhart standing between them and the monster that lay hidden in the Chamber.

He’d brandished his wand as Dumbledore left, saying they were sure to be rid of the beast now that Hagrid was leaving, but Lily felt unsettled in her stomach. She was glad she was here to stand with the other teachers and protect the students, even if she did dread re-teaching first years a Lumos Charm for the fifth time that month.

Monday, however was not a day for first years. She actually had her favorite class — the sixth and seventh year N.E.W.T. students — right after breakfast. She put on her usual purple robes and headed down to breakfast. She stared a moment too long, however, at the empty Headmaster’s seat, until Minerva sat down. They exchanged small, weary smiles.

Since Minerva was filling in as Headmistress in Dumbledore’s absence, and still teaching her Transfiguration classes, Lily and Severus had picked up a lot of the extra work that needed to be done. They organized the patrols for the professors and prefects, and they made sure students were safely in bed and not too terrified to sleep. Lily tended to go back and forth between the Towers, and Severus stayed near Slytherin and Hufflepuff’s Common Rooms, so they did not see each other too often.

But when they could see each other, she tried to be friendly. So far, he hadn’t made it very easy.

They’d been paired together on patrol that first night after Hermione Granger had been Petrified. James had been paired with Gilderoy Lockhart, and while he seemed to have mixed feelings about being paired with the wizard who’d cost his son all the arms in his bone, he hadn’t said a word about Lily and Severus. Unfortunately, Severus had said enough words to make up for it.

Lily wondered if her friendship with Severus was only pleasant in hindsight. She believed they had been very good friends for many years, but they’d taken different paths in adulthood, and she didn’t know if they were able to repair that fracture.

Lily and James had discussed Severus over the years. A long time ago, Lily mentioned trying to repair her friendship with him, shortly after Harry was born, and James eventually came around to the idea. He still hadn’t been entirely convinced — “I don’t trust him or like him, Lils, but I do trust and love you, so if you think it’s a good idea, then sure,” — until Professor Dumbledore had made it very clear that he trusted Severus. James had been all about making friends with Sev after that.

Lily wondered if she ought to be offended that her husband trusted Dumbledore’s judgment over her own, but then again she would trust Dumbledore’s judgement over James’s without hesitation.

So since they both agreed it couldn’t hurt to try to repair their relationship with Severus, Lily tried to make friends with Severus, especially during those first few days when she missed James the most. She really just needed a friend. Things went wonderfully that first week. They exchanged greetings at meals, he stopped by her classroom twice to make sure Fred and George Weasley weren’t causing her any trouble, and they even had tea with Hagrid one afternoon.

But when that first Saturday rolled around, and she mentioned she was going into Hogsmeade to look for a small cottage for her and James to share on weekends, Severus had turned cold. Now he barely spoke with her, and when he did it was usually to make a snide comment about James.

She wondered what he’d expected. That she would leave James and stay at Hogwarts with him? That their friendship would be just like it used to be? She’d become a different person over the last fifteen years, and she’d hoped Severus would want to get to know her as that new person. She wanted to share the last fifteen wonderful years of her life with him. She wanted to tell him about the first time Harry rode a broom, or the time a griffin wandered into their backyard and James and Sirius thought it would be a good idea to wrestle it and she and Harry had come home to a house covered in mud. She wanted to tell him how scared she was about the future, but every time she mentioned James or Harry, Severus would close up and become incredibly sharp with his words.

She’d learned to avoid talking about James in front of him, but it made her heart break. She felt like their new friendship was an illusion constructed of glass and colored light that could shatter with the barest touch. It didn’t feel like a friendship at all.

With these heavy thoughts, she arrived to her first class.

A few were scribbling down the final sentences of the essay she’d assigned over the weekend. Leo Nott, unsurprisingly, had his neatly rolled and tied with a yellow ribbon. It was sitting on his desk, ready to be handed in. He was the most studious Hufflepuff she’d ever met. His seat, however, was empty. He was hovering over Anne Scrimgeour’s desk, making teasing comments while she hastily finished her essay.

The only student not either anxiously finishing their own essay or anxiously helping a friend was Percy Weasley, who sat quietly at his desk. Penelope Clearwater’s remained empty beside him.

Lily gave him an encouraging smile and called the students to their seats.

“Essays forward.” As the students hastily tied ribbons around the scrolls, or added Qwick-Dry Sealing Wax to them, she asked, “Who wants to tell me one of the advantages of the Fidelius Charm’s protections?”

Leo raised his hand. She nodded in his direction.

“You can’t be found by anyone who doesn’t already know where you are.”

“Very good. That is, essentially, the point of the charm. Point to Hufflepuff. How many people can be privy to the knowledge of a Fidelius Charm?”

Miss Smythe answered, without waiting to be called on, “Seven.”

Lily raised her eyebrows, and a Gryffindor boy named Christian said, “As many as you want, Helena.”

Helena turned around in her seat to glare at him. “Seven is the most stable number.” She looked back at Lily. “Isn’t it, Professor?”

“True, seven is a healthy number in most spell work, Miss Smythe, but Mr. Thelborne is correct. The Fidelius Charm is actually not affected by the number of people who know of the secret.”

Leo Nott raised his hand. She knew he was going to say exactly what the class needed to hear, so she pointed to him.

“Anyone can be a part of the Charm, but seven Secret Keepers is the highest stable number of Secret Keepers.”

“Very good! Another point for Hufflepuff.” Lily said with a wide smile. “Now, someone tell me the drawbacks of the Fidelius Charm.”

Leo Nott raised his hand, but instead, Lily chose to call on Anne Scrimgeour.

Anne hesitated a moment before finally answering, “If something bad happens to your Secret Keeper, all your Secondary Keepers are made Primary Keepers.”

“Unless you’ve established an order of Secret Keepers, yes. Very good. That is the worst drawback of the spell, and why keeping your numbers limited is so important.”

Marcus Flint raised his hand, and though Lily was sure he had nothing useful to say, she tried to make a policy of never ignoring her students.

“Yes, Mr. Flint?”

“What if you made someone the Secret Keeper on your house, but the house caught on fire, and you couldn’t put it out, and your house would burn, and no one would be able to help you, because no one could see your house because it was under the Fidelius Charm. Then you would burn to death. That’s a drawback, right?”

Oliver Wood tried very hard not to laugh. He succeeded in looking like a very angry tomato with a twitchy mouth.

Lily turned her wand over in her hand. “Yes, that is technically a drawback to putting the Fidelius Charm on a house, and making its location the secret no one can know.”

Marcus grinned. “So if I wrote that in my paper, do I get full points?”

“If it’s in legible English,” she said, “then yes. Now everyone push your desks aside, it’s time for some wordless spell practice. I don’t want to hear a single Leviosa.” There was some groaning, but no verbal spells as the students cleared the floor to make space for dueling.

After her N.E.W.T. class, she had her Hufflepuff O.W.L. level students, who were their own kind of stress, very different from her first years. It wasn’t their fault that the biggest exam of their lives couldn’t be postponed because of the Chamber of Secrets. And the Hufflepuff and Gryffindor students were her most stressed students. She spent more time reassuring them that everything would be fine than she did actually reviewing exam content. She intended to be on topic today, though she would have to be gentle with her fifth year Gryffindors at the end of the day. Their anxiety over what had happened to Hermione Granger would still be fresh.

Reviewing with the Hufflepuffs proved to be difficult, not because they were weary and scared, but because Gilderoy Lockhart decided second period would be a perfect time to help out.

He had a habit of coming in and out of classes, careful to choose the ones where some of the girls were still loyal to him, and Lily could not actually force him out. Even though she was the teacher, Gilderoy Lockhart was still on the grounds as a consultant for her class, no matter how much she might wish he wasn’t. At least, after class, she forced him to be useful by walking her students down to History of Magic.

She had the second-year Gryffindors for her third class. They were far more subdued than they had ever been as they walked into her class, escorted by Professor Sprout. As they sat down, she noticed Harry was avoiding her eyes. She didn’t blame him for being upset they’d told him to leave the Chamber of Secrets situation to the adults.

With the class so glum, she assumed no one would be in the mood to learn a Tickling Charm, so she decided to review the Melofors Jinx. She dared a few students to cast it on her, though only Neville Longbottom, after much cajoling from Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnigan. managed to make any change: her face became as orange as a pumpkin, with an odd texture to it that was not quite flesh, not quite pumpkin. She laughed and turned her head back to normal.

At the end of class, she walked them down to History of Magic, and made sure the last class, her fifth year Hufflepuffs, made it safely to their Charms class, since Professor Binns was not a suitable escort. He might be enough to chaperone the students, but convincing him to break from his routine was truly impossible.

She had second-year Hufflepuffs for her fourth period, and they were a little more excited about the Melofors Jinx than her Gryffindor students had been. Hannah Abbot and Ernie Macmillan were whispering quietly to each other when they walked in, and it continued throughout the lesson. Ernie kept glancing at Lily, but Hannah kept pulling his attention back to her. She knew Ernie and Hannah were close with Justin Finch-Fletchley, so she let them be until after class.

As she escorted the class to their fifth period, she told Hannah that if they needed to speak to her about anything, they were welcome to ask.

Ernie frowned and Hannah shifted uncomfortably. “Thank you, Professor,” Hannah finally said.

Ernie, unusually, said nothing, and took Hannah’s hand as they walked into Transfiguration.

Lily reviewed Dark Creatures with her Gryffindor fifth-years, and thankfully Gilderoy Lockhart did not show up to make a performance during this lesson. She thought it might be because Gryffindors were more prone to spontaneous hexing than Hufflepuffs were.

After dinner, Lily escorted the Gryffindors back up to their tower. Again, she noticed Harry wouldn’t look at her, and neither would Ron. Harry wasn’t just upset with her; he and Ron had something reckless planned.

Lily left them without saying anything. She had a few hours to figure out what they were up to, and there would be plenty of teachers and prefects on patrol to catch them.

She wrote her usual letter to James, assuring him that she and Harry were still fine. She told him she had not yet heard from Dumbledore, but she did ask James if he would like to invite Lockhart over for tea during the week, if only to keep him from hovering in her classroom and boasting about the monster being vanquished.

She had her usual cup of evening tea as she graded her N.E.W.T. class’s essays on the Fidelius Charm. As unusually shy as Anne Scrimgeour had been in class, and for finishing her essay at the last minute, her grasp on the charm proved to be thorough. But Anne tended to stress over charms, Lily had noticed. Anne was one of those rare witches with a remarkable grasp on theory, though she struggled at actually producing strong Charms. Her Jinxes and Hexes, however, were a completely different story.

Marcus Flint’s, though riddled with sarcasm, humor, and absurdly morbid examples, was also accurate enough to receive an E. Oliver Wood’s was full of sour remarks about the cancelled Quidditch match, and all of his examples included Ravenclaw team captain Roger Davies meeting a violent end.

At the least, grading her N.E.W.T. student’s essays was entertaining.

Around midnight, she heard a knock on her door. She assumed it was Severus or Minerva, come to put her on patrol.

She was surprised to find Ernie Macmillan and Hannah Abbot standing outside her office.

“What are you two doing out of bed?” But she was not about to send them back down the hall on their own, so she let them inside.

“You said we could ask you anything,” Ernie said.

“Of course, but at midnight, when you’re supposed to be in your dormitories is not really the best time, don’t you think?”

“I think it’s an emergency,” Hannah said.

“Did you ask Professor Sprout?”

Hannah shifted her feet. “She sleeps very heavily. And we thought… because you’re the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher….”

“Is it true you know what Petrified Justin?” Ernie asked.

Lily bit down on her tongue. “Who is saying that?”

“We heard Harry say it to Ron in Herbology today. He said that the teachers knew what the monster in the Chamber of Secrets was.”

“Is it a spider?” Hannah asked.

Lily took a deep breath. “We don’t want you to worry about the Chamber. I know, especially when your friends are hurt, it’s hard to sit by and let someone else take care of it. But we want you to focus on your studies and let your teachers handle this. Can you do that?”

Ernie didn’t answer.

Hannah shook her head. “Justin is our friend. We can’t do nothing.”

Lily was not exactly surprised. Harry was very much the same way, except she imagined Harry would’ve lied to her, instead of being honest like Hannah. She wondered what Harry was doing right now to help Hermione.

“Did Harry, by chance, say anything else today about the Chamber of Secrets?”

Hannah and Ernie exchanged another glance.

“That was the other thing,” Hannah said slowly. “We didn’t want to tattle.”

“But I think we should tell you,” Ernie said quickly.

Lily knew Ernie very much liked to tattle. He liked thinking of himself as having an adult’s authority, and when he wasn’t treated like he had an adult’s authority, he went and got an adult’s authority. She noticed it more when he and Harry were younger, and Ernie often tattled on Harry or Fred or George. But in these last few months at Hogwarts, she thought he’d gotten better now that he had his own friends, and didn’t have to compete for attention. Apparently he’d gotten better enough that Hannah Abbott could persuade him to keep quiet.

“I honestly believe you should sort your own troubles out,” Lily said, “but if you think Ron and Harry are going to do something dangerous, please tell me.”

“They’re going to the Forbidden Forest,” Hannah blurted out.

Lily highly doubted Ron was willingly going into the Forbidden Forest. “Did they say why?”

“The spiders,” Ernie said. “Harry pointed at the spiders, and Ron said they couldn’t follow them just yet.”

Lily could very well ground Harry for an eternity. If he had been in front of her right then, he would have been done with Quidditch until he graduated from Hogwarts and he would have lost all summer visiting privileges.

She wondered if she could’ve prevented this by telling Harry what was in the Chamber of Secrets. She wondered if it was better to tell Harry everything. But he was only twelve, and there were things twelve-year-olds did not need to know.

“I’m very glad you told me,” she said slowly. “I’ll walk you back to your dormitories and take care of Harry and Ron.”

As soon as Ernie and Hannah were safely behind the barrel near the kitchen, Lily stormed up to the Gryffindor Common Room. She woke up Minerva McGonagall and together they discovered Harry and Ron were not in bed.

After convincing Dean and Seamus to get back in bed, they knew they had to go to the Forbidden Forest.

“We won’t catch up to them if we walk,” Lily said as Minerva led her outside the castle onto the grounds.

Instead of starting for the Forbidden Forest, Minerva started towards the Quidditch Pitch. “We’ll be taking the Slytherin team’s brooms.”

Lily wondered if that was the most effective course of action or if Minerva really just wanted an commandeer a Nimbus 2001.

“I don’t really fly —”

“The ride will be simple. The brooms are very well designed, and you’ll need to come because I couldn’t possibly fit both boys onto one broom.”

Lily swallowed hard as Minerva handed her a Nimbus 2001. It was a smooth handle, unlike the brooms she’d tried to ride when she was in school. She remembered her fifth date with James, when he’d offered to teach her to ride his broom. It was top-of-the-line then, advertised as a maximum of two knots per handle, and fifteen percent twig loss. She’d been thrown to the ground so hard, she’d woken up in the infirmary.

“It can tell when you’re nervous,” James had said. “Next time, you just need to relax a bit.”

The next time had been after the war, when Harry was learning to fly, and James had insisted they take Mommy-and-Son Flying Classes together.

“Learning to fly a broom is an important skill,” he’d told her. “It’s like — like when you tried to teach me how to ride an un-motor-bike.”

Except James had never actually learned how to ride a bike, and Lily had only gotten the basics of flying. When she tried to play Quidditch with her boys — Sirius included — she was good for little other than launching fake Beaters at them. And even that required she take a hand off her broom, which made her shaky.

She took a deep breath as she mounted the broom, trying to remember James’s advice from their date. Shoulders straight and relaxed. Hands back a little. Little farther. Now kick off.

She followed Minerva as fast as she dared towards the Forbidden Forest.

“How will we find them?” she called over the wind.

Lily was answered with a high-pitched scream that had to be Ron Weasley. Minerva dived sharply towards the forest. Lily followed at a more reasonable curve.

She and Minerva landed in a small clearing next to Harry and Ron, surrounded by huge spiders. Lily stifled a scream similar to Ron’s.

“Mum!” Harry shouted. “What are you doing here?”

Ron scrambled onto the back of Minerva’s broom without being asked to, and she took off the moment he was straddling the handle. Lily wondered if it had been Ron or Minerva that actually took off.

“Get on!” she shouted to Harry.

Harry climbed onto her broom and shouted, “Depulso,” but it bounced off the spider. Lily didn’t have time to correct him on how to fight an Acromantula.

“Wait!” he said before she could kick off. “Fang!”

Harry grabbed the collar of the enormous boarhound and pulled it onto the broom, hanging over the middle. “Mum! Take off!”

She wanted to scream at him and cry all at once. She threw an Incendiary Jinx to keep the spiders from coming any closer.

“Harry, I can’t fly this with a dog!”

“Then you hold the dog!” he shouted back at her and climbed onto the front of the broom.

Lily put Fang between her and Harry and bit back a scream as Harry kicked off. They rocketed into the air and it was all she could do to keep one hand on the dog and the other on the broom.

Her heart was hammering when they touched back down on solid ground outside the castle. Fang went bounding off to Hagrid’s hut, howling desperately.

She wanted to shout at Harry, but she needed to collect her breath first. Minerva was already halfway through scolding Ron.

“— especially at a time like this!” she was saying. “You two could have been killed — would have been killed — if we hadn’t found you!”

“How’d you know where we were, Mum?” Harry asked.

Lily couldn’t understand why he was so calm. At least, he sounded calm. In the light of the half-moon, she could tell he was white as a sheet. Surely the spiders had terrified him as much as they had terrified her.

“It doesn’t matter how,” she said. “I’m just glad we found you in time. What were you thinking?”

“Hagrid said to follow the spiders for answers.”

“Oh, Hagrid said that, did he?”

“Yeah.” Harry adjusted his glasses. “And you weren’t giving us any answers, so we went to get them ourselves.”

He sounded so much like James. It was the same way Harry’d talked about smuggling a dragon out of the castle, and the same way James talked about running through Hogsmeade with a fully-transformed werewolf. They would do anything for their friends.

“Detention, both of you,” Minerva snapped. “From now until the end of the school year!”

“How are we supposed to serve those detentions if we aren’t allowed out of our dorms after six?” Harry asked.

Minerva, instead of being angered, considered it for a moment. “I suppose I’ll simply have to write to your parents and have them administer punishments as they see fit.”

“Mum’ll kill me,” Ron whispered.

Harry looked at Lily and she frowned. “For starters, that was the last time you’re ever flying a Nimbus 2001. I’ll be discussing with your father the rest of your punishment.”

Harry’s face fell.

After Minerva and Lily had seen the boys back to their dormitories, Lily asked, “Do you think we should tell them? About the… monster?”

Minerva sighed heavily. “I hope running into Acromantulas taught them a valuable lesson about going into the Forbidden Forest at night. I don’t think it wise for them to know what the monster is. Knowing Harry and Mr. Weasley, I expect letting them solve the mystery of what is in the Chamber will prevent them from trying to solve the mystery of how to fight it.”

Lily thought that Harry would be much safer researching in the library than hunting for hidden corners where the Chamber might be hidden. But still, she decided that if nothing had been found by the end of the week, she would have to tell Harry and Ron everything she knew.

[sextonsharpwinhalstead]

Chicago Med Review 4x03 Heavy Is the Head

It looks like Chicago Med is back to following it’s every other episode pattern. Last episode was the crossover, and, in my opinion, it was weaker than the premiere. This episode did NOT disappoint.

On One Chicago Day Brian Tee hinted that this was his favorite episode for Ethan to date and honestly, I can understand why. I wasn’t sure how they were going to play out the gun/dad hostage situation and truthfully, I was worried Med was entering bootleg John Q territory but the climax to that resolution was shocking! Like Med WENT there. They showed that guy blowing his brains out to save his son’s life, because profits matter more than patients (I’ll get back to that a minute). Every step, every decision, Ethan made he had to wonder if he was making the right call, handling things the only way he knows how. And he wasn’t without his critics.

April did not want him to immediately call the police and I can understand why. But he did, and the situation unfolded in a way he didn’t count on. To add insult to injury for whatever reason the writers have decided to make Emily mentally challenged cause some how she has no idea how to work a microwave and burned something which cause Ethan to fly-off the handle and yell at her. A move April caught and judged him on too. (Real quick are these two together? On a break? Or broken up?) I’m confused and so is Ethan. He snapped on her and to be honest, it was a valid assessment of the situation. April clams up when she is angry and frustrated instead of voicing her feelings about why she feels the way she does. But to be fair; that’s the writers’ fault. April has lacked agency since this show began. We don’t really know who she is. We know she’s stubborn, soft hearted, naturally nurturing, and bends over backwards for others but that’s not personality. Not really, it robs her of intellect, so we never get a rebuttal to Choi and we won’t; because they have no idea why April does what April does. Their inconsistencies don’t lend her to be a woman with nuanced thought who understands that every situation does not require the same response. That could be an answer to Choi. But like I said; it won’t.

In the end we got the same tired ass dynamics of her comforting him and us not knowing her motives or feelings about ALSO witnessing someone blow his brains out in front of them. Med do better by your women!

Let’s talk about the women in this episode because this was a heavily feminized episode if you didn’t notice. (Not necessarily executed in respect but women outnumbered the men 2:1).

First let’s start with Sharon and Gwen.

Did anyone else wonder when Stohl’s contract was up? He was gone two episodes later and in a sad new way that Med’s been doing lately his departure wasn’t even announced. In steps Dr. Lanik and out steps all protocol and common decency. I get the Lanik is Gwen’s “man” but when the hell does the COO start making the decisions she was making? The whole situation reeked and in my opinion a hospital would start asking why they needed Sharon’s position at all when nothing was put through her. Gwen is shaping up to be the Robert Haywood shaped hole in my canonical villain life. Cause she’s going to bounce out of this tragedy like it’s any other day and keep her on agenda. Watch. Lanik…I don’t know. He was shook. And to be honest he doesn’t come across nearly villainous enough to continue fostering the current climate in the ED.

Natalie, Elsa, and Daniel.

First things first. I was raised Christian for the first twenty years of my life. I don’t practice the faith anymore but when I did I never met any Christians as disillusioned as the ones Med writes. To be honest it’s ridiculous. There are few modern women, who are trying to have babies, who aren’t privy to what an ectopic pregnancy is. They are always fatal to the baby and almost always fatal to the mother if left untreated. There is no new way to be re-planted into the uterus and thus the pregnancy is not viable. I know Catholics who know and honor this too. So why they felt the need to go all the way there was lazy and took away from what could’ve been an even more impactful and frankly frightening story. Did Elsa misuse the machine, so she could fudge the test results and save the mother’s life? I’m leaning towards probably. Does Daniel have a fucking leg to stand when it comes to being manipulative when trying to control the outcome of situation? Y’all already know the answer to that question. The fact is that she didn’t bow down to the sage knowledge of Daniel Charles when he approached her in the dining hall. He assessed she was an intelligent woman who really didn’t care about patient medicine and already had her future mapped out. What Med still won’t do is allow her to be truly aloof about it. Elsa wouldn’t care if the patient decided to basically die instead of getting the surgery, she would’ve pulled an Okafor, shrugged her shoulders and walked out to find the next case. Natalie was there to play up the narrative of why what Elsa was doing and HOW she was doing it was wrong but, in all honesty, when the fuck has anyone on this show gave the patients the respect of their autonomy? Especially Natalie, but maybe she’s learned from past? If she had than they should have had her mention it (like with the orthorexic mom).

But this isn’t about that; this is about making sure that no woman on Med dares to be the smartest one in the room and it will punish any of them that attempts to own it too. The men on the show play God all the time and aside from Will none of them have gotten the jilting or stern wake-up call to cool it like the women have. Too many of the women’s arcs on this show prove they are either frauds, or indecisive. I don’t think Elsa is either, and it’ll be hard for Dr. Charles to find mistakes she’s made because her personality type is A, and those types don’t make mistakes.

The last woman I’m going to mention is Ava. Oh, how the mighty have been dragged to the ground. Did anyone else catch the way her eyes slightly watered with rage when she talked about advocating for Connor for the hybrid surgery room. Yeah…I’m calling it, she fucked his dad. All so he could kick her out of the OR. This is not what I wanted out of this character and it’s a disservice if they want her to be a fully-fleshed out lead (which they don’t). Ava is a prop for Connor and it’s an unfair and sexist storyline I’m frankly tired of. Also, how is going from an OR scrub nurse to a Charge nurse a demotion? I did appreciate the little Maggie tidbit of history. Maybe that’s how she and Sharon became close. Anyway, this story was secondary only to the growing size of Connor’s ego. Boy I miss season one Connor. This douchebag is the worst.

Finally, was the Halsteads story. I enjoyed it for several reasons; mainly leaving the hospital. I loved all the little Irish bits of history and culture weaved into the memorial. That saying “May you be in heaven a half-hour before the devil knows your dead” still runs a chill down by my spine. But they brought a light-heartedness to it that I appreciated. I personally do not see Will giving up the venue for the wedding and it’ll end up being some messy crossover event that’ll split the Halstead brothers further…only time will tell.

I will say this; the episode was good but I’m not sure who is wearing the crown that holds the weight.

[winglesscrows]

I’m Yours Ch. 5

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Merlin (BBC) I T I Merlin & Arthur I 37k WIP

Merlin had secrets, and Arthur knew nothing of them, until, slowly, he did.

In which Arthur slowly unravels the mystery that is Merlin, and begins to realize just how much he doesn’t know.

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“Sire,” Lancelot called to Arthur as they passed each other in the hallway. It was quite late into the afternoon, and Arthur was already thinking about dinner and rest. He had spent most of the day discussing politics with the council and his father, and his brain was slowly turning to mush. Politics weren’t usually something Arthur hated, but calculating how much grain should be given to each village based on the number of children, elderly, pregnant women and working adults, while factoring in the varying geographical circumstances of all of the villages, well, that wasn’t really one of Arthur’s favorite topics. However, Arthur was particularly fond of discussing infrastructure and was pushing the council to pass a suggestion to start work on a new road which would make travel easier for many from the outlying villages, who wished to come to the city for trading or other purposes. So far, they had more or less ignored him and his wishes for a new road.

Regardless, the point was that Arthur was tired, but Lancelot was always good company, “Yes?” Arthur answered, stopping to converse with his knight. There weren’t many people around them, only the passing servants who were getting ready to serve dinner for the inhabitants of the castle.

“I heard that you plan to have some knights escort Lord Agravaine on his travels,” the knight began and Arthur nodded.

“That is true, although I don’t believe that to be public information yet,” Arthur smiled, teasing Lancelot was always a little fun, only because he usually got the joke about three seconds later, and always looked slightly baffled when he thought he had done something wrong.

“Merlin talks,” Lancelot explained, a smile growing on his face as he had realized Arthur was joking.

“He does,” Arthur agreed, “It’s a bad habit of his.”

They both smiled, but Lancelot continued, “Regardless, sire, I wanted to request that I became a part of this mission.”

“Really?” Arthur lifted an eyebrow, “I think you are a bit too talented to go on such an excursion.”

“Perhaps, sire, but I want grow in any way I can, so what I came here to ask was if I could lead the mission. If that isn’t too arrogant of me,” Lancelot bowed slightly to show his respect, but Arthur beamed. He had planned on sending out some of the more… inexperienced knights on this little mission, but if it could serve to let Lancelot grow more comfortable in a leader position, then it would be excellent.

“That is a great idea, Lancelot,” Arthur said, not even trying to hide his smile, “If you are ready to lead, I think you would be very fit to do so. I’ll have a list send to your quarters of the knights available for your mission, and you shall choose five. I would also like you to write a short essay explaining your choice of knights.”

“You shall have it within a day, sire.”

Lancelot disappeared down the corridor and Arthur felt more awake than before. Lancelot was his finest swordsman, and a couple of years younger than sir Leon. When Arthur became king, Leon would be first knight, but Arthur was looking to incorporate Leon into a council position at some point. Leon wasn’t only a fine knight, but a skilled tactician and a naturally observant person. With many years of military service, Leon could prove very useful in the council, and when that time came - whether naturally or forcefully - Arthur would love for Lancelot to be first knight. Not only was he incredibly skilled and perfect for the job, but he wasn’t of noble blood, and when Arthur was king, he would remove the laws that prevented others like him to become knights. Having Lancelot as first knight would be a great example of status not mattering, but only what was in your heart. But more than just that, Arthur was happy that Lancelot was taking agency as a knight with much potential.

Arthur came back to his chambers with food ready on the table and Merlin tidying his desk. He was still not allowed to do everything that he wanted to, but at least he wasn’t complaining a lot about it. Merlin was in a good mood today, Arthur noted, as the sound of Merlin’s humming reached his ears. Arthur could only wonder why, because his servant was often in a good mood for trivial reasons (last time Arthur had asked, Merlin had simply said that he was happy because the sun was shining). Merlin didn’t acknowledge that Arthur had entered the room, perhaps because he hadn’t noticed as he was standing with his back to Arthur. The prince watched the back of his servant for a moment. One would hardly think that he was recovering from two serious injuries with the way he was behaving.

Other than Merlin’s humming, the room was silent - so silent in fact that Arthur could hear when Merlin went through the papers on his desk, orienting himself on what everything was so he could organize it correctly. It was only then that it occurred to Arthur how much he let Merlin be privy to. Merlin was free to read everything Arthur left on his desk, Arthur confided in Merlin when it came to matters of state, and he let Merlin advise him on whatever the topic of the month was. And somehow the realization only put a smile on Arthur’s face.

Arthur was also in a good mood today, and when Arthur was in a good mood, he liked to mess with his servant. Arthur silently snuck up behind Merlin, until he was less than an arm length away from him. He then brought his hands together to make a loud clap, and watched with delight as Merlin jumped and threw all the papers up in the air.

“Arthur!” He exclaimed, and Arthur burst out laughing at the sight of his servant, “Not funny!”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Arthur said between laughs, and then he slowly composed himself again.

“You are horrible,” Merlin shook his head, “Now I have to start over,” Merlin gestured to the mess of papers that now covered Arthur’s floor.

“I’m sure you’ll manage,” Arthur said and clapped Merlin on the back, “Now come and eat with me.”

“What?” Merlin said in disbelief and Arthur almost burst out laughing again.

“You heard me. You keep bringing up way too much food so I have to assume you eat everything that I don’t anyway. Might as well keep me company.”

Merlin squinted his eyes, trying to see if Arthur was joking (to be fair he had done that before), but then eventually pulled out another plate, cutlery and cup, and sat down with Arthur.

“Lancelot came up to me today,” Arthur said, studying Merlin’s reaction.

“Did he?” Merlin said casually, “What did he want?”

“He wanted to lead the escort of knights that Agravaine is taking with him next week.”

“That seems like a great opportunity for him,” Merlin said, and Arthur knew that if he hadn't known what to look for, he would never have known that Merlin was lying to him, or rather, deflecting from the truth (at least this time it was more in jest than anything).

“Don’t pretend you don’t know,” Arthur said and gave Merlin a little shove. Merlin smiled knowingly.

“I really don’t know what you mean.”

“Only three people knew that Agravaine was taking knights with him on his journey. I didn’t tell Lancelot anything, and I’m sure my uncle didn’t either, so who do you think let him know?”

“Probably Gwaine,” Merlin said and gestured into nothing, “He couldn’t keep a secret even if his life depended on it.”

Arthur shook his head, and Merlin smiled at him. One day, Merlin wouldn’t lie to him anymore, but Arthur could live with this. This was fine. Truly.

“You are close,” Arthur said slowly, “You and Lancelot,” Arthur didn’t know where he was going with this topic, but he was interested in knowing more about what made them such good friends. He was also quite interested in knowing what Merlin and Gwaine had in common that made them good friends, but Arthur didn’t think his brain was ready to wrap itself around that just yet.

“He saved my life the moment we met,” Merlin said, “Don’t really get better first impressions than that.”

“It definitely beats being called an ass.”

“Hey!”

“You’re still very close though,” Arthur continued, “You could have told anyone about the mission, but you told Lancelot, why?”

“He deserves it,” Merlin shrugged, “Besides, you look at him differently than you do at the others. Like you expect more of him. Thought I’d give him a hand, since you have high expectations.”

“Are you saying I’m hard to please?”

“Very much so.”

Dinner with Merlin was easy. There was no awkward silence, although they always seemed to have something to talk about.

"I've been wondering," Merlin said slowly, and Arthur rolled his eyes in jest.

"That requires thinking, Merlin, you think you can do that?"

Merlin groaned lightly and shook his head, "Honestly, Arthur, you're such an ass."

"I think that's well established by now, but what were you wondering? I am curious."

Merlin took a breath, perhaps to steady himself and Arthur braced himself for their conversation taking a turn.

"When I told you about Nimueh, you didn't question that I sought to magic for help," Merlin seemed resolute in his statement, "I simply wanted to know your thoughts about... everything I told you."

Arthur sighed. Were they really doing this now?

"I have a lot of thoughts," Arthur said truthfully, "But I suppose we can start with the magic. Honestly, I didn't think much of it," Merlin seemed surprised by this fact, and rightfully so. Arthur had grown up with a father who had beaten it into his skull that magic was evil to its very core, "When you told your story, I think it finally occurred to me just what you are willing to do to keep me safe – which I am not happy about by the way – and if I had had the knowledge you did, that I could exchange my life for someone I cared about, I would probably have done it too."

"But," Merlin pushed, "It's magic."

And that was another thing. Magic wasn't just illegal in Camelot and punishable by death, but just hearing the word sent his father into a frenzy. For a long time, Arthur had believed his father's words regarding the forbidden art. After all, he had only ever seen magic being used for evil. But slowly, ever so slowly, it occurred to Arthur why that was. Who would dare use magic to grow a plant, when it could get them killed? And who would shy away from it if they intended to kill the king? The idea of his father being wrong had been slowly growing, and evidence had slowly piled up. The light guiding him to safety as he had retrieved the antidote for Merlin. The magic that had cured Gwen's father. The keeper of the unicorns, Anhora. The druids going about their life peacefully.

And Arthur thought that in some ways, Morgana was proof as well. Morgana hadn't turned on them because she had magic, Arthur refused to believe that. She had turned on them because of how Camelot treated those with magic. Magic could do frightening things, but Arthur had to believe that it could do good things as well. When Arthur had thought Merlin's story through, it had made sense to him that Merlin wouldn't shy away from using magic. He hadn't grown up in Uther's kingdom, but in Cenred's. He had grown up in a place where magic was legal. So Arthur had not thought much of it when Merlin had told the story and when he had finally thought it through, it just made sense to him, so he had let it go entirely. To Arthur, the core of the story was that Merlin had sacrificed himself for him, and he wanted to avoid that Merlin would have to do it again.

"It was magic and I'm alive because of it, so there isn't really much I can say to that," Arthur ended up saying, and Merlin nodded slowly, perhaps processing Arthur's reply, "But maybe we should talk less about how you did it and more about why."

Merlin looked startled for a moment, before regaining composure and looking intently at Arthur: “I believe I already explained why. You can't already have forgotten, can you, sire?”

Arthur huffed, it was just like Merlin to make light of the situation. “Of course not. Do you really think so lightly of me?”

Merlin rolled his eyes dramatically, “I don't think you want me to answer that question, my lord.”

“But seriously Merlin,” Arthur said, getting back on topic, “You can't just... use yourself as a shield every time I'm in danger. Didn't it ever occur to you that I don't want you to die?”

“I...” Merlin hesitated, seemingly at a loss for words, “It's not that simple.”

“And why not?”

“Arthur, don't you get it? You have to live. If there's the tiniest chance that my life can keep you alive just a day longer, then I have to take it. You have no idea how precious you are. How important you are to this kingdom and its people.”

“Merlin, I understand well enough what my role as the future king-”

“No.” Merlin interrupted harshly, “Arthur. You don't understand. The actions you take. The decisions you make. Everything you do shape this kingdom and make it a better place. Look at your knights. Look at Gwen. Look at me . You give us something to believe in. Give us hope for a brighter future, because we know that you act out of the good of your heart.”

Arthur looked at Merlin in disbelief, “How can you be so sure? I ruled this kingdom for three months and it was overwhelming. It was harder than I could have imagined, and you must have noticed. You were with me every day. How can you have that kind of faith in me?”

Merlin forced a laugh, and looked at Arthur hopelessly: “You are an arrogant, royal prat, Arthur Pendragon, but sometimes I wished you were more confident in yourself.”

Arthur had nothing to say after that, and they finished dinner in silence.

“You didn't touch any of the chicken,” Arthur remarked as Merlin cleaned the table, “You need meat to grow muscle.”

“Ah,” Merlin said slowly, “I try to avoid meat. Not a big fan.”

“I would ask how a person can't like meat, but for some reason I assume that it's because you feel sorry for the animals?”

“Something like that.”

Arthur shook his head and it felt like they had never had that heavy conversation. The rest of the night felt normal.

And then came morning, and Arthur had to confront all the things Merlin had said the night before. Arthur wasn't sure if he wanted to see Merlin at this particular time. He wanted time to think, and it was hard to think about Merlin, when Merlin was there.

And whether by luck or design, Guinevere entered his chambers with breakfast, and while he was always happy to see her, he honestly couldn't say that he always got this delighted when she walked up to him.

“Merlin said he was behind on some chores, and I offered to bring you breakfast,” Guinevere explained, less to say why she was here and probably more to let Arthur know that Merlin wasn't slacking off on his duties. She was quite protective of him.

“Mind staying?” Arthur offered and pulled out a chair for Guinevere at the table, which she gladly accepted.

Perceptive as she was, Arthur hadn't even taken his second bite of breakfast before Guinevere asked what was troubling him.

“It's Merlin,” he said honestly, “He keeps getting hurt.”

Guinevere but her lip at that, and something occurred to Arthur. He had never asked her about the relationship between the servants, and certain knights and nobles.

“Did you know?” Arthur said quietly, “About sir Richard?”

Guinevere lowered her head as she answered: “I did, Arthur, I'm sorry I didn't tell you, I-”

“It's okay,” Arthur assured her, “Merlin told me that he made everyone promise to keep it a secret.”

“He's usually okay,” She continued, “There was a boy, once, about three years ago, the man he was waiting on would beat him every night. He almost couldn't walk by the end of the week, so Merlin stepped in. It was the first time, at least that I know of. We were all so scared for him, but there was nothing we could do. And Merlin, he was fine. At first we thought he was just putting up a facade, but we checked him. Barely a bruise to be found. He's not always that lucky, of course, but it's never... He's never...”

“I know,” Arthur said, “It's not your fault.”

“For what it's worth, I think you were right to kill him.”

Arthur looked at her, slightly startled, “That wasn't my intention.”

“I know. I know, but anyone who treats someone like Merlin so poorly, I can't help but think the world is a better place without people like that in it.”

“Perhaps,” Arthur said slowly. He wasn't fond of killing. And especially killing his own knights, even if what he had done was unforgivable.

“Be more confident, Arthur Pendragon,” She sternly, “It would suit you.”

Arthur smiled sweetly at her: “Merlin said the same last night.”

“Of course he did. He always gives the best advice.”

Guinevere left soon after, having other duties to attend to. Arthur regretted not seeing her more, but there was nothing he could do. Not as long as they had his father's watchful gaze on them.

Arthur stayed in his chambers most of the day. He had paperwork to do, and it wouldn't do him any good to put it off. Besides, it looked like it would rain, so training could wait until tomorrow. Arthur made it way past lunchtime before he finally heard Merlin clumsily making his way down the hallway – hopefully with some food – but he still wasn't in the mood to see him, so, mature as he was, Arthur hid in his own chambers.

From Arthur's excellent hiding spot, he could see as Merlin put down the plate of food at the table, and set the table for Arthur to eat, even if he wasn't there. He half expected Merlin to leave after that, but was weirdly surprised to see Merlin do his job and do a quick sweep of the room. Merlin eventually made it to Arthur's desk where his papers were still scattered, and Merlin looked at them for a while, perhaps contemplating if he should put them away or if Arthur would come back to it.

Merlin never got around to make a decision as someone entered the chambers. Merlin turned his attention towards the door, clearly expecting Arthur to walk in as he smiled, but his expression faltered immediately as he laid eyes upon Agravaine. His uncle closed the door behind him and looked around the room before addressing Merlin.

“Where is Arthur?” His uncle asked politely, but Merlin just sighed.

“I'm afraid I don't know.” (At least that wasn't a lie.)

There were a couple of seconds of uncomfortable silence, and Arthur swore he could cut the tension between them with his sword.

“I know you think that Arthur is your friend,” Agravaine finally broke the silence, “But he is a prince, a future king, and he cannot be seen taking advice from servants. I would advise you to hold your tongue and stick to cleaning his chambers.”

“Of course,” Merlin said, the fake respect back in his voice, “But you should know that I am very bad at doing what I am told.”

Agravaine took a couple of steps closer to Merlin, and Arthur found his protective instincts kicking in as he almost leaped out of his hiding spot to interfere with whatever was going on.

“Come on Merlin,” Agravaine pushed, almost intimidating Merlin (or at least he tried to, Merlin didn't waver in the slightest), “You can't possibly believe that you can advise Arthur better than someone like me.”

“Oh, I think anyone could advice Arthur better than you, my lord,” Merlin added the last part mockingly, “Morgana must really have hit rock bottom to allow someone like you to work for her. She used to be smarter than this.”

“Be careful with your accusations, boy,” Agravaine hissed, “You don't know what you're talking about.”

“Of course not, my lord,” Merlin bowed slightly, “I shall inform Arthur that you dropped by.”

Agravaine turned on his heel and slammed the door shut behind him. Merlin watched the door for a second, before casually turning back to Arthur's papers, which he began sorting through. Arthur could only watch his servant secretly as he went about his business as if nothing had ever happened – no, that wasn't true. Merlin was frustrated. Merlin was usually careful when handling paperwork, but he slammed documents on the table harder than necessary and his movements were more rapid than usual.

It had been perhaps ten minutes, when a certain piece of paper caught Merlin's attention. Arthur recognized it from his hiding place. It was a speech he had written only an hour ago about the new road he wanted to build. It was meant to sway the council and his father, since nothing else had seemed to work. Merlin read it through, and then sat down in Arthur chair and began writing all over the speech. Great. Now he had to start over.

Arthur was stuck watching – spying on – Merlin for almost an hour before the servant took his sword (presumably to clean and sharpen it) and left his chambers. Arthur silently slipped out of hiding and immediately looked at the speech Merlin had tampered with, only to find himself surprised by Merlin's work. Merlin had carefully corrected a few grammatical errors (errors Arthur had made entirely because he had been hungry), and added suggestions where he thought they were needed. At the bottom of the parchment, Merlin had added the suggestion to ask the citizens about the need for a new road in order for Arthur to prove its potential usefulness. It was a great suggestion that Arthur couldn't believe he had thought of himself, and he made sure to save the draft of his speech so that he may remember.

Arthur should have continued the paperwork or maybe even eaten the lunch Merlin had brought up for him, but once again his mind drifted to his servant and his uncle. At least now he knew that Merlin suspected Agravaine of working for Morgana, and logically Arthur knew he should be wary of such suspicions. Merlin had been right in the past and it would be wise to trust him, but the way the conversation had gone down made it seem like Merlin didn't have any evidence. It was almost like he had attempted to bait Agravaine into a confession as he had accused him of working for Morgana. And his uncle hadn't taken the bait, although his reaction was not what Arthur would have expected from him. And of course the effort Agravaine went through to try to stop Merlin's advice from getting to Arthur was quite suspicious in and of itself.

Arthur knew that he was putting it off, but it he felt conflicted about the whole situation. He was secretly hoping that Merlin would come up to him someday and give him the evidence he needed, but if there was no evidence to give, then what could Arthur do? Agravaine seemed to have his father's trust and without evidence, Arthur couldn't arrest him or tell his father that he suspected his uncle of treason based on the suspicions of his servant. It hadn't worked out for him in the past, and he doubt it would now. Especially as a family member was involved.

Tomorrow he would talk to Merlin, but today his mind needed some time to rest. Too much was going on.

Arthur didn't see Merlin that evening, his dinner brought up by some nameless servant and he went to bed trying not to worry about the people who could so easily kill him in his sleep.

Unfortunately, Arthur should have worried because he woke up to a stranger hovering above him, his eyes growing wide as Arthur stared back at him. He took hold of his dagger just as Arthur reached for his sword.

[todisturbtheuniverse]

50. Pentilyet?

A few months ago I reblogged a prompt list, mostly for my own reference, but one hopeful anon did drop this in my inbox…if you’re still out there, waiting, first of all, you have the patience of a saint, but second of all, I hope you like this little fic.

Also on AO3.

50. “I need you to forgive me.” 

Cassandra did best when shepracticed her words, and for this, she had practiced her words very well.

“No, this sounds toostiff,” Leliana said. It was late, and there were plenty of other thingsfor her to be doing, but in the name of friendship, she pulled a candle closerand crossed through the offending phrase as she considered a replacement. Andin the name of friendship, Cassandra felt overwhelming gratitude.

“I don’t want tosound…overly passionate,” she replied, because better to voice herconcerns now than to find later that she ought to have done so, and hadn’t.

“I think better to err on thatside than the other.” Leliana tapped the pen against her lips, her eyesunfocused, clearly deep in thought. “This other match is a matter ofbusiness, logic. It will appeal to what they really want most for Josie—love,companionship.”

“Is that what they want?”

“I have never heard you doubtso hard as you have the last few days.”

Cassandra’s stomach squirmed. Truthbe told, she never had doubted near as hard as she had the last few days.Her heart—and her mind, as well—were in agreement: Josephine did not want to betangled in this engagement to some lord she barely knew. It was some other,outside force, something that Cassandra had not been able to identify, whichtold her that it was better for her to bow out. To allow Josephine hermachinations to untangle the whole thing, if she could. To not interfere.

But at the same time, she could notforget the tormented look on the face that she had come to love so dearly. Thetears barely withheld, the hands that had nearly clung to hers even as theyreleased her. If there was anything she could do to free Josephine of that—ofthe pain and anxiety this predicament was clearly causing her—then she neededto act.

“I don’t want to put Josephineat odds with her family,” she said at last. “She’s…close with them.I would not jeopardize that.”

“Trust me,” Leliana said.“This will not jeopardize that.”

Cassandra cast a glance over theletter, the phrase that had been underwhelming, and they both lapsed back intosilence to consider it.

“And this will not jeopardizeus, either?” Cassandra ventured after a moment, because if the words werekept in her chest any longer, she thought they might crack her ribs wide open.

Leliana wrinkled her nose.“It’s a letter, not a duel in a Val Royeaux courtyard. Which you shouldstill consider, by the way. It would be swift. Lord Otranto cannot possiblymatch your skill with a blade.”

“Swift, yes. But Josephinealready made her feelings about such duels clear.”

“And you will not violatethem. Yes.” There was a grudging respect in Leliana’s face. “You arewell-suited for one another.”

Cassandra pulled the vellum back toher side of the table, picking up the other pen. “What about this?”

She squeezed the line in beneaththe crossed-out sentence, and then both she and Leliana bent over it to readthrough one more time.

Dear Lord and Lady Montilyet,

Please allow me to introducemyself: I am Cassandra Pentaghast, Seeker of the Chantry, and one of yourdaughter’s colleagues within the Inquisition. I do not write to you on mattersof business, however, but of matters that trouble my heart.

I am sure that Josephine’s letterswill arrive only slightly ahead of mine. You will have read by now that shewishes to untangle herself from the advantageous engagement you have arrangedfor her, as delicately as possible. I am not privy to those letters, so I donot know if she has given you reason, but I will provide at least one:recently, she and I have taken up a romance, and we do not wish to be parted.

I cannot offer the prestige,connections, or opportunities that Lord Otranto likely can. I do not considermyself lacking, but I have eschewed my ties to wealth in favor of a life ofservice. I cannot, in good faith, even ask for Josephine’s hand; I would notmake such a proposal without her knowledge, and our courtship is young, still.But I love her deeply, with my whole heart, and I would ask for the opportunityto allow that to grow and flourish.

I regret that I cannot make thisrequest to you in person, as would only be proper, but I know that the time Iam asking for may well be limited by our success here. In good conscience, Icannot leave my duty to the Inquisition. But please consider it my duty toJosephine, as well—to do everything in my power to secure her future, even asshe does the same for me.

Yours,

Cassandra Pentaghast

“I still think we really oughtto play up the Hero of Orlais business,” Leliana sighed, sitting back.“‘A life of service’ really does not do it justice.”

“Humbling myself a little bitin light of such a weighty request doesn’t seem like such a failing.”

“I suppose not. Write out thefinal, then, and I’ll get it there with the fastest bird I have.”

Cassandra pulled a fresh sheet ofvellum toward her and paused, pen poised, to look up at Leliana. “Thankyou.”

Leliana waved this off, but shealso said, “Consider us even,” in tones of great regret.

Cassandra did not track debts inthe way that Leliana did, but when she considered the imaginary tally, she didnot think that Leliana’s kindness could truly be repaid—regardless the outcomeof the letter.

Then, there was only the wait.

Cassandra did not dare follow theInquisitor out to the field for the duration of it; she did not want to riskthat she would be gone when Josephine received the news, any news. Lelianaoffered aid for this, too, convincing the Inquisitor that something very usefulbut not very dangerous needed to be done in Crestwood, and wouldn’t require theskill of anyone particularly prodigious.

“It will feel strange, you notcoming with me,” a voice remarked, and Cassandra turned in her seat to seeKatrina standing at the top of the stairs. “Leliana claims that thereisn’t anything awful waiting to gut me, but you really never know these days,do you?”

Guilt stirred in Cassandra’s gut.“If you would feel more comfortable—”

“No, no, no, I think youshould stay right here. Just in case something…happens.” Katrinashrugged; a coy smile played around her mouth. She could not ever hope to be asgood at lying as Bull; it was something that Cassandra had appreciated abouther from the very beginning.

“Leliana told you,”Cassandra said, even though she knew full well that Leliana wouldn’t.

“Told me what?” Katrinasaid, quite breezily. “No, I’m sure Leliana told me nothing. But I’m alsoquite sure that she and Bull have some kind of strange…spy competition…thatthey’re covertly running against one another. And perhaps some information thathe discovered in the course of this game won me a bet.” If she were abird, she’d have fluffed her feathers up with pride.

“Perhaps,” Cassandraagreed, very dryly.

Katrina dropped her attempt atairiness; her face grew quite serious, a semblance of the one she’d worn allthrough their trials at Haven. “I hope good news comes back, Cassandra.Truly. I know that it would make Josephine very happy. She doesn’t like thisanymore than you do.”

That much was goodnews, but still it pained her. They had not seen one another in a week, now,except for swift glances across the main keep, quickly cut short as one or theother hurried away.

“I would still follow you toCrestwood,” Cassandra said, eventually, “if you need me. Buttruthfully, I don’t think that you do.”

Katrina smiled at that, nothing coyor flippant but utterly genuine. “I’ll manage. And if I don’t, I’ll haveBull.”

She trotted off down the stairs;Cassandra listened to her go, calling out the occasional greeting as she passedworkers she knew. It warmed her, to see how the Inquisitor had come into herown. A reluctant kind of confidence, yes, but confidence all the same.

For the first time, Cassandrawished that she could borrow some.

The note, borne by one of Leliana’sfastest runners, came several days later, just when Cassandra was sitting downto sharpen her sword: Returnmessage from Lord and Lady Montilyet,it said. Just arrived.

Cassandra considered the merits ofwaiting, perhaps for Josephine to come to her and demand an explanation, butshe had never won a battle by running away from it. She stood, thanked therunner, and marched up toward the main keep, her heart pounding hard in herribs.

There were a few dignitaries,milling around the main keep, unsupervised by Josephine; when they caught sightof Cassandra, one or two made an attempt to catch her eye, but she kept hergaze fixed on the door that was her goal. Before any of them could make moreaggressive moves toward flagging her down, she was through the door andshutting it behind her.

She paused in that passage,listening. No noise came from Josephine’s office. She wondered if she had evenopened the missive yet, if she had even read it. If they had sent it before orafter Cassandra’s message had arrived.

She braced herself and knocked; shealmost forgot herself, almost called out Josephine’s name, and caught herselfjust in time. “Ambassador,” she said instead, just loudly enough tobe heard through the door.

There was a hurried intake ofbreath, but Josephine didn’t answer. Cassandra pushed through the door andentered, anyway.

Josephine stood at her desk. A nicebrass tube—with the Montilyet crest on it, in fact—had fallen to the floor ather feet. One hand held a letter, whose contents she couldn’t seem to look awayfrom; the other hand covered her mouth.

Cassandra had practiced the wordsshe would say in this moment, over and over again. I need you to forgive me, she’d thought she would say. For doing even this much without your knowledge, Ineed you to—

But instead she said, “I’msorry.”

Josephine did not look up, did notlook away from the letter and at Cassandra, instead. Hesitantly, Cassandramoved a few steps deeper into the room, passing the fireplace.

“You wrote to them,”Josephine said. Cassandra could not make out her tone, whether the quiver wasjust shock or anger—or whether it was grief, because the answer had been thewrong one. Whatever the wrong answer might entail.

“I wanted to make myintentions clear.” Cassandra didn’t move any closer. “I wanted themto know that there was an alternative.”

What did the reply say? Cassandrawas left in suspense, hanging desperately onto hope, but Josephine set asidethe first sheet of paper and held up the second. She finally looked atCassandra, her dark eyes sparkling with unshed tears, her fingers trembling.Cassandra recognized her own handwriting.

“Tell me if you didn’t meanit,” Josephine said, willfully, because she was willful;it was something that Cassandra loved about her. “Tell me if it was justa…a plot, to help me, if you didn't—”

“I don’t make a habit oflying,” Cassandra said. She might as well have chosen the duel; she wassweating enough for it, her heart beating hard enough for it. “Surelyyou’ve noticed I’m terrible at it.”

Josephine laughed; it sounded as ifit surprised even her. “Yes. I know that. You are.”

In case it bore repeating,Cassandra said, “I love you. And if an offering as paltry as that lettercould allow you to be with me again, then I would write dozens more and agonizeover every one.”

Josephine, still clutchingCassandra’s letter, ran forward to close the gap between them and threw herselfat Cassandra who, thankfully, was prepared for the unexpected and caught her.They had really only been forced apart for a couple of weeks, but it now feltlike much longer; how could Cassandra have forgotten how wonderful it was tohave Josephine in her arms, half-laughing, half-crying, and hiccupping in themiddle of all of it?

She wanted to press Josephine forwhat the answer had been, but she did not want to break such a lovely, sunlitmoment—and it could. The answer could.

“It was going to getdone,” Josephine said, drawing back just enough to look up intoCassandra’s face, her arms still around her shoulders, “and I could havedone it, but—oh, Maker, this is so much easier.”

“Then…?”

“They called the engagementoff,” Josephine said, smiling a little wildly now; it suited her.“Lord Otranto quite understood. Antivans are very fond of love stories.”

She rose up on her toes and kissedCassandra, still smiling, and Cassandra, filled with a very profound relief athow well it had all gone, wrapped her arms around Josephine and lifted her intothe air, kissing her back.

“I love you,” Josephinesaid, in the brief moments when they broke apart for air. “With my wholeheart—I could not have said it better.”

Cassandra did not think she hadever been paid so high a compliment.

[swiztothistay]

Open Letter to the Grey’s Anatomy fans, cast, and crew:

I’ve been a Grey’s Anatomy fan since 2005. I’ve had my Twitter account since 2009. I remember the ‘good old days,’ like in 2013 when Ellen Pompeo first joined Twitter and would tweet super random things and loved interacting with us. The Grey’s Anatomy fandom is (for the most part) an incredibly supportive community that I’ve generally enjoyed taking part in. I’ve met some of my best friends there. However, in recent years, particularly since 2015, I have noticed an increasingly negative side of that community.

As it stands right now, the Grey’s fandom on Twitter is an incredibly toxic environment and appears to consist of whiny, entitled teenagers who seem to think it’s acceptable to direct their complaints about characters and storylines to the cast, writers, and/or crew involved. Let me be very clear about this point:

It’s not acceptable. Period.

These are people who dedicate their lives to creating stories and characters for us as fans. They work 18+ hour days an awful lot of the time. Much of the cast has remained and continues to remain at Grey’s because of the fans. However, as of late, fans show absolutely no respect for these people and it continually astounds me how you treat them. You have all contributed to a fandom that has successfully alienated the cast and crew of a show you all claim to love. Caterina rarely tweets. Jessica doesn’t interact with any of you, and in fact unfollowed most of the fans she did follow. Justin avoided Twitter for months. Ellen can’t be asked 95% of the time, and I truly believe that this is a direct result of supposed “fans” either a) simply being incredibly rude [yet expecting respectful responses back?!?!], or b) complaining because storylines on the show aren’t going as you would like them to.

Recently, one fan (jokingly?) tweeted Krista Vernoff, who has only recently returned to Grey’s as an executive producer, that they would “burn down her house” if she didn’t do right by their 'ship.’ Threats like this are not a joke to these people – who have had to deal with incidents such as fans showing up on their doorsteps and calling their phones, for example. Fans like that have instilled fear into the hearts of this cast. You have no boundaries and zero respect for their privacy. The cast, though being celebrities, are everyday people like us. They are entitled to their privacy. You don’t get to demand access into their lives simply because you are a fan. Stop acting like it’s your God-given right.

To the many MerDer fans I know who have a tendency to slut-shame Meredith for being with other men since Derek: that’s simply not fair. It has been two years since his death for us as viewers, and longer in the Grey’s timeline. While I admit, as a diehard MerDer fan myself, it pains me to watch Mer move on, I think it’s important to realize that Meredith (and all widows) have every right to move on – on their timeline, and at their choosing. You wouldn’t slut shame a widow in your own life, would you?

To the many “fans” who once loved MerDer, once loved Patrick as much as they love Ellen, who now bash Patrick for leaving: you have NO reason to consistently bash a man who, despite your best attempts at denial, helped make Grey’s Anatomy what it was. For years, Ellen Pompeo and Patrick Dempsey were the face of the show. MerDer is a huge part of pop culture and even if a person didn’t watch the show, chances were they could identify MerDer, or at the very least Ellen and/or Patrick. Simply put, you don’t know what happened. No one, except the members of the cast who were on set at the time, know what happened. It’s likely we will never know. And, we are not entitled to that knowledge. Really, it’s none of our business. Shonda and the rest of the cast and crew are done talking about it. You need to be too.

To the fans who tweet negative things about a character simply to get a rise out of others: we all see how you do this and then play the victim when said character’s fans go on the defense. You just create more drama and add to the toxic nature of the fandom. It’s ugly. You try and then claim how “you don’t know me” and how “I’m a good person.” Well, do the rest of us a favor and show us that so-called good character through your ACTIONS. If your timeline is full of you calling other fans words I will not repeat here, it’s hard to assume you are a decent person. It’s really not that hard to keep your mouth shut if you don’t like someone or something. I’m guessing though, that most of your parents never taught you that principle of “if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say it at all.” However, the same goes for those who jump to the defense of their favorite characters - be respectful or don’t say anything.

To the MANY so-called fans who, for the past nine months, have consistently slandered Ellen Pompeo, who send her hateful comments every time she tweets about racism, who call her 'Ms. Reverse Racism’ (among other things), and then cry victim when Ellen responds in kind, congrats! You have created a culture where it’s seen as “cool” to hate the star of your favorite show, to tear her down, and to tear her fans down. It’s clear you also enjoy actively seeking out her fans who continue to support her and harassing them as well. You also have been caught tweeting hateful things to lay people who aren’t involved in the Grey’s fandom but have met her, and that is completely and utterly vile.

It is also quite evident to many of us that those who attack Ellen and call her a reverse racist do not fully understand the issue at hand. Ellen has three biracial children. Her husband is black. You cannot honestly think that, even as a white woman with privilege, it doesn’t strike fear into her heart that perhaps one day her husband might be caught in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong law enforcement officer(s)? That her children won’t experience racism and hatred on the playground or in class one day? A mother’s heart bleeds when her children are in pain. Ellen wants better for her children than what is happening in America today. She is 100% an ally and is on the right side, fighting against racism and discrimination every day – despite your extremely misguided opinions. She is also not wrong in that racism comes in many forms. It occurs at a systematic level, at a community level, at an individual level. The issue is FAR more complex than you all make it out to be – it is not, for lack of better words, a black and white issue. There are many issues at play here.

Yes, sometimes we have to educate those fighting on the front lines with us. Rather than attacking someone for using the wrong words, educate them. And by educate, that does not mean attacking them, calling them fat, calling them a white bitch, etc. As Krista herself said, you get more flies with honey than with vinegar. The way to educate your allies is with kindness, empathy, and respect. You also might have more success if you were respectful - rather than being disrespectful and expecting Ellen’s respect back. She is not a woman who respects those who disrespect her. Respect is earned. You are not automatically entitled to it. Don’t alienate your allies. Ellen has a huge platform and is using it to raise awareness of so many important social justice and environmental issues. And if you don’t like it, or if you take issue with which emoji colors she uses…there is a handy little unfollow button at the top right on her profile. There is also a block button, where you won’t be privy to anything she tweets. Make use of these.

In recent weeks, some of my own friends have left the fandom because they could no longer handle the toxic environment. For their own mental health and well-being, they had to leave. That’s sad. These people love the cast, they love the characters, but they no longer feel safe expressing that anymore. This feeling of not being safe has also come about as a direct result of “group chat” accounts, where multiple people have access to the same account. These people use these groups as a medium to publicly post their “jokes” - many of which are in fact harmful. Your group chat accounts aren’t cute. You can claim that the intent was a joke all you want, but that doesn’t negate the harm you do. You don’t get to say hateful things and then dictate how others respond, under the claim that “it’s a joke.” Be more conscious of your words, and how they have consequences, unintended as they may be. Truthfully, it is much easier to simply think about the things you say than to undo the harm, regardless of your intent.

Ellen, in her 2016 speech accepting the award for 'Best TV Drama’ at the People’s Choice Awards, said that “Our show is about understanding, and compassion, and tolerance, and kindness. And those are themes that we could all use more of.” Let’s make this fandom reflect that as well. Be kinder to the cast and crew and show them some respect. Be kinder to each other. Be more accepting. We all have different favourite characters and different reasons for having those favourites. We each bring different perspectives and experiences to the table. Let’s try to recognize that and create a culture of respect for each other. It’s perfectly fine to disagree on things. What’s not okay is to brutally attack each other, to treat each other with rudeness and hatred. At the end of the day, we all love the same TV show: Grey’s Anatomy.

Finally, on behalf of the 99% of the Grey’s fandom to whom 1% gives a bad name, I would like to extend my apologies to the Grey’s Anatomy cast, crew and writers for the behavior of this small group of fans who have overtaken our fandom and appear to represent us. There is a vast majority of fans who are incredible people that greatly respect and admire the work you all do. We are just outshadowed by the negative. It’s time for that to change.

Look what you made me do. Adriana (@swiftxgreys on Twitter)