#blah blah he's a bad person-would you say that to my first born son as he's sleeping on my chest?? no?? shut up???

[334iwatchshit]

unfortunately, they could never make me hate you Katsuki Bakugo

[connectionterminated13]

It does! eventually.

Don't worry I imagine William gets the shit kicked out of him for most of his existence in continuity. Except for like some minor events like House of M, He is just getting his cum up it's and enacting more pain in a never-ending cycle as William Does.

William is glad it was at least Henry. He feels more comfortable around Henry than he ever has with any other person. And he trusts Henry to keep them safe even though he does start getting a bit worried about that after the bite. And of course he still drills into each of his children to never ever speak of what they can do. When Michael first got his powers William sat him down and Told him horror stories about what happens to mutants when they get exposed. He didn't really have to do that with Elizabeth he just told her not to tell anyone and she didn't. As for Evan he didn't really understand what mutants were. He knew people hated them but he didn't really connect the idea that his family were mutants since William hadn't told him because Evan hadn't manifested his powers yet.

All things considered it wasn't a very good power. For a normal teenage boy it never came in handy for anything other than lighting up cigarettes. If he had tested around with it he probably would have found out that it doesn't have to be all his blood if he mixes his blood in with someone else's blood he can still light it up. But he didn't until he died and his power became near impossible to use. Yeah the fear that he might snap and hurt someone else is constant when Michael is running to New York. After all he's the violent bad kind now or at least that's what the world labels him as. But he takes solace in the fact that his power is so useless that he can't really do any real damage.

Poor charlie's born at a bad time to be A mutant in a bad place. Luckily for her she's able to continue to hide it for the rest of her high school years and for her first year of college. As for Henry he tries to be a good dad for Charlie and a good parental force for the Afton kids.

Henry's heart hurts for William every time one of his children die and his heart hurts even more when William tearfully explains how Michael's mutation made him go crazy and stuff. It hits him like a bag of rocks when he finds out the truth of what Williams been doing with his silly robot side business. But he doesn't tell on William since William explains why he's doing it and it's a very good explanation. And maybe William laid on a bit of his powers But it's fine Henry would have come around anyway. Michael looks bad and it doesn't help that He can get a little bit violent when fighting the killer robots. Mike is technically classified as an outlaw because you know burning down children's restaurants is a very not legal. And it's easy for Henry to believe that Michael is just violent and lashing out because like looking at him he doesn't look like the boy who He practically helped raise.

Exactly. People are fine when it's big giant stupid serious robots but when it's his funny little murder robots everybody's like "oh my God William that's horrible" "oh William your a monster" no one understands the art of making silly murder robots anymore...

Well he is Elizabeth is very very happy Being his daughter she said so often and he rarely even has to use his abilities or controlled shocker to make her say so. Getting Spring locked almost makes him wake up to his son's plight. It's hard to sell silly mode or robots when you're stuck in a robot... But he doesn't get a swift dose of reality until like the 2000s. I bet the whole no more mutants era (Summary is that blah blah blah blah scarlet witch gets mad makes it so no more mutants or born and a bunch of mutants get unpowered) hits him like a truck since it destroys his business plan.

Yeah being purple and rotting and smelling bad sucks so much. And the oh Michael still on some level hopes that maybe 1 day he will reunite with this family he is never known he knows it will probably never happen and he's accepted that. And inferno was an event where some lore Stuff happened and basically hell was going on in New York City for a bit because of some limbo stuff. I imagine that both Mike and Jeremy were glued to the TV the whole time and Michael was just sitting there saying every God in the universe that he didn't decide to go to New York

My Jeremy is always a religious man no matter where I put him... And yes how could he not at least take care of Michael for a little bit he may be a mutant but he is still a hungry person taking solace in a church. And over time he realizes that Michael is a lot more than just a guy in a church. Jeremy's actually the one to encourage Michael to try to stop his dad. And Jeremy's the one Michael comes home to every night after attempting that just. I think they are very very queer coated until they're allowed to be in a relationship in like the 2000s

Yup fire can kill him. Also probably drowning.

I would scream into the void about my X men AU if you all let me

[whump-town]

Was Hotch Abused?

I offer you my 2,300+ worded thoughts on the matter with episodes included. There's going to be lots and lots of talk about abuse so you're going to want to steer clear of that if that's something you're not cool with but for those of you interested... I give you all the proof I could think of:

Natural Born Killer.

In the eighth episode of the first season, “Natural Born Killer”, we meet Vincent Perrotta. His father was abusive but from the outside looking in, no one knew a thing. Perrotta started drinking at fourteen and committed petty crimes, as well as assault, for pleasure. Going as far as to kill his own father not too long after. But Perrotta is a monster and a psychopath so it’s clear we’re not supposed to sympathize which makes his interaction with Hotch so peculiar.

Hotch is our “Captain America”. A true neutral with an infinity for doing what’s right so it’s inconceivable to compare him to Perrotta and yet Hotch gives us some rather conflicting lines to dissect.

Before Gideon hands the interview over to Hotch, he spends a moment talking with the others out in the bullpen. The whole time he’s leaned back and he’s watching Morgan and Hotch. Now, at this point, we don’t know about the sexual abuse Derek Morgan faced at the hands of Carl Buford but there’s something about the way that Gideon spends the entirety of the conversation only looking at the two of them. Waiting for them to put together what he clearly already has and when Hotch does…

Hotch jumps straight into Perrotta’s profile, asking: “You grew up in a house that looked normal and happy, didn’t you Vincent?”, “But your father beat you every chance he got”

Perrotta excuses it with a shrug, “he smacked me around some, didn’t everybody’s old man?”

Abuse is a complicated thing and, often, abused children just don’t know what their parents are doing to them is abuse. It can be a subtle and outright thing but there’s an element of normalcy to it. The parent’s abuse is as habitual, as minimal as biting your nails to the child. Adults often can’t identify their parent’s past abuse.

With Hotch you learn that his lack of expression is often as telling as his expressions and as Hotch looks back at Perrotta, there’s something so sad about his eyes. His voice goes from loud, assertive to his whispered answer to Perrotta’s question. “No.” As if, well, maybe that’s a question he’d raised once too.

Perrotta doesn’t care about that though and he taunts “well, maybe if yours had you would have learned to fight”. But is it not more telling that Hotch didn’t make a sound? Perrotta got in several hits and the only sound Hotch made was when the wind was literally punched out of him. Not even when Gideon called to him and at that point, Perrotta did not the garrote around Hotch’s throat. That’s another thing mentioned before in the profile and something Hotch mentions to Perrotta directly. You learn to take the beatings, smile even. So, it’s just a little odd how little Hotch responded…

But that’s all nothing, you can take that how you want

Which leads us to the fateful, not everyone comment.

"You were just responding to what you learned, Vincent. When you grow up in an environment like that, an extremely abusive and violent household... it's not surprising that some people grow up to become killers"

That can’t mean NOTHING, there’s so much there but there’s something about Hotch’s subtle wording. The way he’s unconsciously slipped himself in there (a very real thing that people do) and he hasn’t even realized it. Doesn’t even know he’s done it until Perrotta pushes and he pauses, asks what Perrotta means. And the subtly of it, the way he doesn’t even mean to that says more than anything else.

“And some people grow up to catch them.”

It’s a super-specific comment to make. He can’t possibly be talking about Derek because he doesn’t even know about Carl Buford yet not to mention saying that about him would be incredibly rude if he were talking about Reid (and again, he doesn’t know about Reid’s childhood yet). So… that really only leaves him because JJ, Garcia, and Elle were not abused.

“P911”

In season two, episode two “P911” the team is hunting down a man trying to sell a young boy, Peter, on the black market. Kevin Rose is an underage boy “selling” himself on the internet while his abusive father has been in prison. I’ll let you just guess who it is that leads the team on finding out more about Kevin.

Your guess is more than likely right-- Morgan and Hotch. Now, we know about Morgan but come on. Nothing to say about it being Hotch who makes the emotional appeal?

The camera even follows his gaze, he’s crouched down (to appear non-threatening because he’s so close) and we watch his eyes take in the scars on Kevin’s chest. You can also note that while Gideon remarks that Kevin’s father was “always drunk, you never knew why he was hurting you, why he was so angry” both Kevin and Hotch look away from him.

AND FUCKING TRY AND TELL ME THE “some grow up to catch them” LINE WAS NOTHING TRY BECAUSE GUESS WHAT GIDEON SAYS? NO, NO GUESS--

Gideon: “At night you’d cry yourself to sleep hoping someone would come and save you”

And it’s HOTCH, HOTCH IS THE ONE TO SAY: “You have the chance to be the one who saves someone, Kevin. You can be the one who answers him, the one who stops his pain.”

PARALLELS PEOPLE THE PARALLELS

“Profiler, Profiled”

I bet you weren’t expecting this one, huh? But there’s something about people who faced trauma that makes it so perceptible to other traumatized people-- they sniff it out like coke to a drug hound. And, just guess, who it is that spends the majority of his time fighting with Morgan? Who knows (like I said about the bloodhound) immediately there is something Morgan’s hiding.

Hotch is angry, he’s upset that Morgan would hide anything. Mumbling about there being “larger implications” and how the team can’t have secrets. With the knowledge of exactly what that secret is it makes Gideon’s eye roll a little telling. Because it’s like they both know but neither will say. Driven home by Gideon turning the attention to Hotch, asking “would you want us profiling you?”

And again Hotch is the one to leap onto the abuse. The one to put the pieces together. Hotch’s anger makes no sense. He says he’s angry that Derek’s keeping a secret but the team has many, way too many. Over the years the team unwraps all kinds of secrets, he’s never angry then. So, it’s not about the implication of a secret at all. It’s what the secret is, like misplaced anger. Anger with himself may be leftover from his own abuse. But still…

Hotch lets Morgan escape. Knows exactly who and what Carl Buford is but all he tells the team is that “he won’t even speak about him”. He always knows how to find the abuse… like I said, a bloodhound.

George Foyet

I know you’re going to find this so fucking surprising but guess who also was abused? George Foyet was beaten by his biological father and his mother didn’t save him so he hates women (bleh, men are disgusting what’s knew).

Now, blah, blah, blah Hannah, I know you’re not about to say Foyet and Hotch are a lot alike-- no of course not. Don’t be silly. What I’m going to say is that they’re foil characters? They accent one another in an opposites sort of way. Foyet is a manipulative narcissist who doesn’t work well with others. Hotch is a guilt-ridden team leader who can’t let The Reaper’s case go. There are meant to be comparisons drawn between them. A good villain does that. George Foyet shows us that Hotch is not at all this removed, cool guy that we’ve previously assumed him to be. He cries in an alley because he blames himself when The Reaper kills a busload of people.

We see he has a rather compulsive nature. He never let The Reaper case go and has very personal ties in this case. Not even after Foyet attacks him, if anything it’s worse. He brings the case file home.

But it’s certainly interesting to see yet another “villain” with that same tragic abusive father and submissive mother come into play with Hotch. We’re nearing a point where it’s getting hard to call it coincidence (and according to David Rossi, there simply is not such thing).

Haunted.

In the second episode of the fifth season, “Haunted”, Hotch voice’s over a Dickinson quote: “One need not be a chamber to be haunted, One need not be a house; The brain has corridors surpassing. Material place.” These quotes are often cheesy, if not a little cliché, but given the premise of this episode is in exploring the ways in which a man’s traumatic childhood has left him now grappling for a truth he can not define… well, maybe we can say the writers were onto something here.

Darrin Call, debatably the Unsub of “Haunted”, was abused by an alcoholic father. We see several signs of it throughout the episode-- Darrin’s delayed speech & severe neglect that leaves Darrin in dirty, hole-riddled clothing. If what we see is not enough, the reports that the team is given on Darrin explicitly state that he was extremely physically abused. It is this abuse that leads to the PTSD that he’s diagnosed with.

As sad and disheartening as Darrin Call’s life is, overall it’s the sort of episode that is forgotten over time. When it’s placed right after the episode that viewers have to watch Hotch say goodbye to Haley and Jack then, who is Darrin Call when compared to the agony of watching Hotch show genuine weakness? After watching Hotch lay in a hospital bed, tears in his eyes wondering if his son will remember him? His fears become our own and after watching George Foyet disarm and mutilate the one guy we’ve been led to believe for five seasons is infallibly, unflinchingly never going to break… well, Darrin Call has it bad but our focus is elsewhere.

It’s on Hotch, right?

The guy who is coming back to the job after only a month (and a day) off to recover. Who Morgan worries might have PTSD but he knows they can’t easily measure because Hotch wrote the questionnaire, he knows all the right answers. Who we see has had new locks installed since the attack and has Foyet’s file sitting open on a table for easy access. Who hears Darrin Call’s life (worked the same job without promotion for years before getting fired, no wife, no kids, a hermit) and bluntly asks why Darrin hasn’t just killed himself.

And let’s just take a moment to break down that comment. Hotch, who in the episode previously lost his wife and child, wants to know why a man who is steadily starting to sound a lot like him hasn’t just killed himself.

And I don’t say “sounds a lot like him” lightly.

Darrin Call has PTSD. Hotch, more than likely, has PTSD

Here are some signs just from that episode: hostility (he yelled at Garcia over something very small), self-destructive behavior (he ran into Darrin Call’s father’s house without a vest, back-up, or telling the other’s what he was doing), and guilt (blamed himself for missing the eye twitching Darrin exhibited because of his years of antipsychotic use)

Darrin Call was abused… this marks the second HEAVILY implied time that Hotch has been compared to another man abused by his father

Vincent Perrotta was the first with that hard to forget the exchange

George Foyet and his notably exactly the same past as Perrotta

“Haunted” feels like it’s supposed to prove to the audience that Hotch is losing it. He distances himself from Morgan, leaving every room that Morgan is in. He doesn’t pick up Garcia’s calls after Darrin Call attacks his therapist. The only glimpse we see of the old Hotch is with Emily, pulled to the side, but his guilt burns and he even brushes her off. Shaking his head and turning his back to her because somehow he should have seen something no one else did.

Throw in Reid’s comment about Call “victims are often drawn to the scene of their first trauma” and we’re painfully reminded of Hotch’s apartment. A place you’d think he’d want to escape but didn’t. The man was stabbed nine times in his own apartment and stayed in that same place. Almost sounds like that statement could be applied to Hotch too.

A dash of Hotch’s own comment about where Call would go to in his confusion and he says “to what he knows”, even the importance of how that orphanage is “where he became Darrin Call”. Where does Hotch go? What does Hotch know? The job.

So… we tally now three total Unsubs that Hotch has this direct relationship with. Three Unsubs with abusive fathers and mothers who couldn’t protect them. Hmm… coincidence?

Brothers Hotchner

Supervisor Special Agent Hotchner is a master of hiding, that is undeniable. It’s hard to see anything behind those furrowed brows and impersonal suits and that’s likely for a reason. However, anyone with a little sibling can tell you that no one on this Earth can and will annoy the ever-loving shit out of you like a sibling.

But that’s not really important. Sean and Hotch don’t talk about their parents. At all. Ever.

Hotch says that when Sean was in the first grade he got sent off to boarding school. “I was the screw-up making bad choices”. Interesting enough of a statement to make but you throw in the rough ages of Sean and Hotch at that time and it’s a little more than just “interesting”. You have Hotch at roughly 14-15 getting into trouble just like Morgan did at that same age (coincidence???).

(now you can certainly look at Hotch’s parentification vs. Sean’s immaturity doubled with substance abuse problems but we’d be stretching. “The Tribe” touches on the parentification but Sean just calls it “the big brother” thing and tells Hotch that he’s not Sean’s father and it’s fine it’s whatever. Hotch is a bit pushy. That’s not new. Substance abuse can just be a problem, it doesn’t have to be bc they were abused but again… a little coincidental)

So... was Aaron Hotchner abused as a child? I certainly think so

[thr-333]

Could you possibly do one where Mari/Mari and marine is/are the daughter/son of the joker?

I actually planned quite a lot for this after you asked but could never get my thoughts to make something comprehensive so I give up here's what I got!:

-Twins are Joker and Harleys kids born before the two split up(and so help me they will split up this story needs gay aunt Ivy)

-As you might know, these two clowns have another kid; Lucy. Harley left Lucy with her sister when she was born. In canon, she thinks Harley is her aunt but I would say in this fic she learned the truth when the twins were also dropped off.

-So the twins grew up in Gotham with their aunt and big sister knowing full well who their parents are; as such they make the responsible choice to suppress every part of themselves that resembles them and constantly dye their hair in an effort to avoid looking like them. You know healthy coping mechanisms. -

-Naturally, Marinette has brown hair with blue eyes and Marion blonde with brown eyes.

-Their personalities are a bit different from Mismatch. 

-Marion is still a trickster and a trouble maker but this time around has Marinette fully involved and responsible for his shenanigans. He has a bit of a habit of talking to himself(or singing random phrases), sometimes in the third person; he hates when he does, so Marinette always tells him off. He’s always gets the impulse of dying his hair outlandish colors and will vehemently deny his favorite color is green.

- Marinette is crafty, both figuratively and literally. She’s smart, her mother is a doctor after all she can be manipulative to people that arent her(close) family to protect the ones she cares about. She has a deep-seated fear of becoming a trophy, an object to be put on display like her mother and so dresses the opposite and pushes away her love for fashion.

-They will always call each other Mari but if someone else tries they both answer its a nickname they strictly use for each other.

-In a world where Gotham exists it makes absolutely no sense that Gabriel wouldn't start his reign as Hawkmoth in Gotham(the place with the most negative emotions like geez) so that works out perfectly for the twins becoming heroes(Adrien can move to Gotham or be left in Paris to be kept safe your choice)

-Instead of the twins proving themselves by helping an old man up off the street they go a step further is beating up the thugs that try to rob him(all Fu’s set up of course). When they come home to find two mysterious boxes on their beds they make the only rational conclusion children of the joker would; it’s a bomb!

-Not wanting to get the police involved for obvious reasons they find the security footage(which gets the police involved in a different way) and start tracking down fu to see why he’s trying to kill him.

-And as you may recall at this point in canon Ladybug and Chat Noir are defeating an Akuma, well they're not here they’re off to beat up an old man so thats Batman’s job for the time being.

-The twins get caught up in the fight as civilians and are saved by Batman who immediately recognizes them(you don't think Batman has case files on all of Jokers hellspawn?) so that’s gonna be a problem later but never mind that for now~

-The twins track down Fu, who is wondering why they aren’t out fighting the Akuma. Long story short Fu comes back to the house with them and proves they aren't bombs giving them the miraculous.

-I’m a bit indecisive on the names. I thought Marinette would be Red Bug and Marion Black Cat(yes I know that names already taken I don’t care). But I thought Crimson Bug would work better because then their names would start with the same letters. Then I wanted alliteration like Black Bug and Crimson Cat but that obviously doesn't make any sense since Chats color is green not red-- then I realized it would be completely in character for them to call themselves that confusing everyone in the process so no one quite sure whos name is who(if you wanna write it go with whatever I just thought it could be funny)

-As for costumes Marinette's probably wouldn't be skin tight because deep down she really doesn't want to look like that but more practical armor or less form-fitting at least. Marion's hair turns green when he transforms something he freaks out about and Marinette's turns red(glowing or not either would look cool)

-So anyway they go off to defeat the akuma blah blah blah Batman seeing these two young untrained superheroes can only think of one thing: I have to adopt them. So that’s gonna be fun!

-Anyway they go back home trying to be sneaky and immediately get caught by Lucy: ”Don’t tell Aunty!”-- ”Oh I already know” (her names Delia by the way)

- So now the twins get a support system and a family that will look out for them unbelievable right? This support system immediately threatens Fu making sure he actually trains them and doesn't just set them loose on Gotham.

Anyway that's the end of my semi-cohesive plan and here's a vague outline for the fic:

1. Becoming ladybug and chat noir setting up adoption, and school(Bruce invites them to Gotham academy to keep an eye on the jokers children)

2. First day at school setting up Artemis(and by extension young justice), and own passions, Adrien is also at this school now so Marinette falls, Jason finds out falling in love with Marion

3. Becoming friends with Artemis, convinces them to give their passions a try, Marion runs from hood, some let me adopt you stuff also Jason's spite for Cat Noir

4. Skip a bit of time a few months or so, young justice need help Artemis suggest mari and mari, Marinette has a smackdown with batman about their heritage, at odds with young justice Artemis comes to their defense. Young Justice have an ‘oh’ realization on the job when Marion sings a lullaby to a scared child, now the young justice form the mari and mari protection squad

5. Doing ladybug and cat stuff batman approaches them again this time luring them into adoption with a partnership on finding hawkmoth, Red Hood and cat fight. Marion comes back all huffy and there's a scene with Lucy this time comforting them, Marion goes out to get air runs into hood marion bristles stirring Jason to meet him as a civilian, class come to visit, at odds with lila

6. Doing well at school even made a few friends when the Paris class come to visit completely under lila’s control, lila tries to slander the twins for not worshiping her only to out herself when she tells everyone they laughed at her(the twins never laugh), Jason also drops by further discrediting her, lila tries to throw their heritage in their face but they get support openly working with heroes as civilians, this little section ends quite happily with them being sort of accepted at school and batman tolerating their existence for not attacking the person who tried to make their life miserable

7. Time skip few years out of high school now, ladybug and cat are working well with gothams vigilantes widely considered part of the batfam even if no one knows each other's identities. As mari and mari they are doing good work mainly outside of gotham. Marinette is starting a fashion boutique with a little financial help from Wayne enterprises she also does costume design for heroes and villains, villains mainly because she can't stand their current outfits. Marion quite likes his music but isn't sure how he will feel in the public eye is great friends with Jason and the skip picks up with them officially starting to go out identities unknown. They are still hesitant about their identities in civilian life Marinette starting her business under a false name and Marion cant start his because of his heritage. Jason officially has to admit they are going out to the family is met with grilling by aunt and sister, joy by harley once she tries giving them sex advice they leave, his brothers tease and both are tense about Bruces reaction but he begrudgingly accepts. Are out as ladybug and Cat still snippy with hood but it’s not as bad they are closing in on hawkmoth. Go to hang out with young justice as well they aren't well-liked in Gotham but they’re fine with that(not really)

8. NOW things can go to shit joker finally has enough of them deciding to get a hold of them but I think it should be as ladybug and chat revealing their identities to the world. The twins are terrified rightfully so. Get saved now it’s weird between hood and marion, marion feeling betrayed Jason knew who he was and knew who his father was but still decided to date him and he just can't understand why. Adrien was so scared for Marinette and now they both have to work out why. Gotham is at odds the heroes they admire are born from a villain they fear. Bats are a bit weird feeling like they were tricked while also kind of acknowledging the twins are good people

9. Harassed in their everyday life now the twins go to young justice where they get met with awe for being established independent heros, bats there are acting weird but the twins say something to shift perspective leaving to let them mull on it. Jason tries to apologise saying he doesn't see Marion like that blah blah Marion has a breakdown asking how he can be anything but a villain. Marinette's having whiplash going from loved to hated and still dealing with the trauma of seeing her father. They snap. In public a big ol scene and they get akumatised everyone sees it, it’s on tv. Hawkmoth comes out to get their miraculous the batfam can’t beat him. He’s monolouging probing at their deepest fears when they snap back to reality realizing none of it’s true every part of them has worked to be good people and they are they don't hand over their miraculous beating the akumatizaton and beating hawkmoth while akumatised.

10. They are released from the hospital a few days later, getting hesitant recognition on the streets. It's not thunderous applause but it is something. Their family comes to pick them up, Adrien is crying to Marinette about not scaring him like that(her family took him in when Gabriel was revealed). Marion gets picked up by Jason they patch things over. They get accepted into the batfam and work as ladybug and cat for everything. Marion decides to start playing music and Marinette reveals her face to her fashion brand.

[aniseandspearmint]

OKAY let's TRY THIS AGAIN. Tumblr mobile crashed while i was typing a response. *grumbles*

So, the one that might get written, probably as a bullet point fic, is one where Feanaro dies and gets told the 'long shall ye abide in my halls Spirit of Fire blah blah blah-' Feanaro stopped listening once it became clear that he was being barred from re-embodiment til the dagor dagorath.

Except, here's where Namo screwed up. There are actually TWO ways to get out of Mandos, for elves. There's re-embodiment in a hroa that matches the one you wore before dying (or is changed in a way you would prefer) whereupon the elf is released into Valinor again. That's what most elves choose.

But, for those that were especially hurt, or for some reason cannot face being wholly who they were again, there is reincarnation. Being born anew, to new parents (or sometimes the same parents, Eru allowing), and growing up again. Memories may or may not return. But however it goes, the fea changes. They're never the same person again.

Namo's little speech did NOT say anything about reincarnation. Given who he was speaking to, I doubt he even considered it a path Curufinwe Feanaro, with his triple dose of pride and his briar like clinging nature, would EVER want.

But look, the thing about Feanaro is no one TELLS him what he will or won't do. It's part of what made him such a charismatic personality and a terrible King. He is The Spirit of Fire, and fire is an element of change.

He noticed immediately that Namo said nothing of reincarnation. And he really didn't consider it for a while. But then he watched things go down hill in the tapestries. He watched the first three of his sons throw themselves on elven blades to try and reclaim his silmarils. He saw two more of his children's tattered souls slip into Mandos after ANOTHER failed attempt at the only silmaril they had a hope of reaching.

And he considered.

And then he slipped through the doorway Namo never thought to bar against him. Because who would have ever thought The Spirit of Fire would give up his treasured blood for new, and his nature for another?

(Meanwhile, in crumbling Beleriand, survivors of Doriath prove they can be monsters too, and that hurting a child dressed in Feanorian red has far reaching consequences. Elrond finds out peredhel cannot, necessarily, control their fertility like a full elf might. And Feanaro is born of a bad situation, but is loved despite that. Because no one tells Elrond who he can and cannot love.)

This is only notes so far because i cannot for the LIFE of me figure out what to name the new reincarnation. Also some of the dramatic turning points are SO good in either direction and I don't know which way to go yet. Also debating giving him a cousin of exactly the same age (same circumstance) via a Caranthirion Erestor. idk

CROSSOVER IDEA;

Similar to the Rose story idea, an over zealous maia shoves Curufinwe Feanaro into the void where he gets swept up in the Path of Men and gets reincarnated.

As Tim Drake.

Because WOW are there some fascinating character parallels and contrasts.

Also I keep picturing the scene where the Valar have yoinked Tim into Arda. Where he's just pulled randomly into a room in a strange fancy place, with a few dozen very tall strange people, several of whom immediately try and grab him.

He's a BAT. This goes BADLY for them. Tim briefly makes eye contact with the tallest person in the room, a bemused redhead holding up his hands in a universal 'i am unarmed' way, before diving out the nearest window and out on a shiny tiled roof.

Aaaaand he's GONE. There is a feral Tim Drake lost in Tirion. No one knows what he's going to do, least of all him!

And Maedhros is like, looking down at the groaning guards and his uncle and his cousin who all got quickly trounced by a half grown (mortal) teenager and going, "You're lucky your only bruised, he was holding back on any lethal responses."

Because he would Notice that Tim could have killed some of them, but didn't.

IDK where it goes from there except Tim being the feral brat bat that he is and neatly avoiding all searchers while trying to figure out where the heck he is while not speaking a lick of whatever languages people are shouting at him.

Maedhros and the other sons are probably following his progress and discussing whether or not they should get in on the recapture attempts and then deciding, no, this is funnier, and if the child doesn't perceive them as pursuers they might have a better chance of coaxing him in.

And meanwhile, Tim's family is, of course, taking his sudden vanishing SO WELL. They are being SO CALM AND COLLECTED ABOUT THIS (sarcasm).

I’m trying to remember - are you the writer who collaborated with someone else on a ‘verse where Feanor was reincarnated as a woman named Rose who was abruptly yoinked to Valinor? I’ve been trying to find it, and I haven’t been able to locate it yet.

Asdfghjkl, yeah, that was me and @sparklecryptid the main posts are on their blog iirc.

[thefreakishmuffin]

Why Cinderella is actually a good Disney Princess (you guys are just mean)

Alright, nobody asked me to make this post, but here we are. I post whatever I want.

People over the past years have come to really dislike the older Disney Princesses. They see them as weak, submissive pushovers who always need a man to save them. But of all the older princesses such as Snow White, Aurora, and even Ariel, the one that I see get some of the most hate is Cinderella. And honestly, as a woman myself who is all for helping empower other women, I don’t necessarily think she deserves the hate.

People like to say that she is just a helpless damsel in distress who lets a man solve all her problems for her. That she never does anything for herself. And while I can see where people are coming from, I have to say that I don’t believe this is true. (And for those who are really salty about Cinderella, it’s obvious that all they know about her is from that one really crappy Cheetah Girls song).

Let’s start out from when Cinderella was born. She was born to a wealthy man and his wife, but his wife died very early on in young Cinderella’s life. And so her father remarried to Lady Tremaine, and she brought along her two young daughters, Anastasia and Drizella. 

(Look at the way she’s petting that cat. EVILLLLL!!!!)

But not long after their marriage, the father passed away. (I’m pretty positive Lady Tremaine killed him, but whatever). And so what did Lady Tremaine do? Without a man of the house having a hand in how things are done, and leaving Lady Tremaine as the sole head of the house, this gave her the opportunity to do whatever she wished with little Cinderella. And so she made her a servant in her own home.

You could argue that Cinderella was weak for letting herself become a slave in her own home, but you know what? The girl was like, seven. Maybe eight. So chill.

And so the years pass by and Cinderella is still serving her stepmother and two ugly stepsisters. And this is where I see people start to get upset. “She’s certainly old enough now! Why doesn’t she just leave?” Well, here’s why. This is all she has known. As far as we know, she has no other family or friends (outside of animals), out there in the world to go to. And even if she did run away, what do you think would happen to a beautiful young woman all alone on the streets in the mid 1800s? Any number of bad things could happen to her. And there is also the emotional abuse she has been though with Lady Tremaine. This woman has dominated this girl’s entire existence, likely making her feel trapped.

(Yo dude where do I get magic soap like that? That’s pretty dope!)

In fact, while we’re on the topic of Cinderella’s home life, I want to point out something. I think it’s important to understand that Cinderella was very much a victim here. She was a victim of emotional and verbal abuse by her stepmother and stepsisters. She was growing up in a really crappy situation. If she wanted to play the victim, she had every right to. She totally could’ve done that. 

But she didn’t.

Instead of sitting back and moping about how her life sucks and allowing herself to wallow in misery, she instead chooses to look on the positive. While she doesn’t like her situation, she makes a conscious effort to be positive. And honestly, I think the ability to be optimistic and joyful even through the worst of circumstances is a very admirable trait to have. One that I think we can all learn from. She had every right to be miserable, but instead chose to look on the bright side and find happiness in her everyday life, even if it was just a little bit here and there.

(*smiles like Flynn Rider* Guys I want a castle)

And then we get to the ever so important plot point of the royal ball. Wanting to be a grandpa, the king sends out invitations to every eligible young maiden in the kingdom to attend a huge ball so that his son, the prince, my find a future bride. Lady Tremaine, as the mother of some eligible young maidens, receives an invitation as well and reads it to her daughters. 

It’s here where people like to say that, “Cinderella only wanted to go to the ball because of the prince, and that’s a dumb, stupid reason.” But really pay attention here. I mean really pay attention. We see the stepsisters get all giddy and excited about the prince, but Cinderella makes no mention of him. Like, none at all. She, for the first time in her life, has actually been invited to a party, and a huge one at the palace at that! She’s not excited about the prince here, she’s excited about having the opportunity to go to a big party in a pretty dress. And you know what? If I had to deal with all her family’s crap for the past several years and never got a day off, I’d be pretty stoked too. It’s not until after she meets the prince that she actually gives a crap about him.

And then we get to the next bit of discourse I’ve seen a lot of people fight over. The Fairy Godmother, and how she swoops in out of nowhere and fixes everything.

(Sparkle baby SPARKLE!!!!)

I’ve seen people get really bothered by this part. Some people don’t like the Fairy Godmother, saying that she’s random and that her helping get Cinderella to the ball is, once again, making Cinderella a helpless damsel. But here’s how I personally view it.

I see this somewhat as symbolism as well as an important plot point in the story. To me, this is Cinderella getting rewarded for all her hard work. She’s worked day and night almost her entire life under abuse and terrible conditions, but has kept up a brave face, positivity, kindness, and grace through it all. But then people argue that, “Why didn’t the Fairy Godmother appear earlier when Cinderella was being pushed around for all those years?”

My response to that question is a quote from the Fairy Godmother herself, when she states, “Even miracles take a little time.” This means that good things will come to you in due time, when they are meant to come to you, if you keep your head up and don’t let yourself be weighed down by the world around you. The pumpkin carriage and dress were all rewards for Cinderella’s life of hard work and perseverance, and though we might not get our miracle in the form of some random sparkles, it can always come in other ways.

And then we have the whole scene at the ball blah blah blah...

And onto the next point the internet likes to whine about! Cinderella needing a...man to save her?

(Not gonna like, those looks painful to walk in. I can barely even walk in regular heels.)

Alright here’s the deal. The prince didn’t do anything. He sat at the palace the whole time. I don’t know where you’re getting this “she needs a man to save her” bullcrap, because it ain’t there, snowflakes. 

Around the end of the story, Lady Tremaine locks Cinderella upstairs in the attic, hoping that she’ll remain trapped up there when the Grand Duke comes a knocking with the glass slipper. I’ve seen people get upset about this, but seriously, what else was she gonna do other than ask her mice friends for help? Yes, she could’ve jumped out the window, but she was really high up and that fall likely could’ve killed her, if not at least horribly wounded her. But I do admit that she could’ve screamed really loud for someone to hear her. That makes sense and probably could’ve worked, but whatever. It’s Disney. 

And then people get upset that she went and married a guy who only seemed interested in feet, but you know what? Given the options of either remaining a slave to your abusive family, or living in a palace with the chance of becoming Queen one day? I think we all know which one we’d choose. (Also the prince actually is funny and gets a personality in the third movie...which is surprisingly really good).

(Waking up with flawless makeup and hair is #goals, to be honest.)

And there you have it. Cinderella, is in fact, a good Disney Princess. Now I’m not saying that she’s by any means perfect. But this Disney Princess brings a lot more to the table than just pretty looks and excellent cleaning skills. 

And if you still want to get up on your soapbox and scream about how she is an enemy to feminism, then I feel really sorry for you. Because she possesses some positive traits and qualities that I think everyone, not just women, should have. 

[lavendertwilight89]

Evergreen

IT’S HERE! IT’S DONE! THANK THE GODS!!!!!

This was something I originally just did a drabble on and then... well... ended up as an out of control monstersity of 26 freakin’ pages. It’s based off this original post and artwork by @heavenin--hell

Thank you to @superpixie42 and @sapphirestarxx as always for reading my dumpster work 

@dangerouspompadour this will be the universe your b-day gift takes place in

@dangerouspompadour @lemonlushff @willowandfog @cstormsinukagblog @keichanz @littlestuffstohide @clearwillow  @ruddcatha @hnnwnchstr @smmahamazing @wolverine1092  @inuyashaloverforever @xfangheartx @umacaking @bluejay785  @murdergiraffe @faulkner-blog

ALSO POSTED HERE ON MY AO3

ENJOYYYYYYYYYYYY

“What an arrogant, selfish, son of a–UGH! Like he has any right to say ANYTHING!!!!” Kagome seethed.

“Miss Kagome, the master means well,” Myouga tried to soothe the young woman about Inuyasha’s attitude towards her attire.

“You mean ‘means well’ as him being a crazy, overprotective, wordy, arrogant, prick?!”

“Miss Kagome, how much do you truly know about demons?” Myouga asked.

“Well as much as my research has told me, which unfortunately isn’t a lot compared to what I’ve learned just by being with Inuyasha for the past couple weeks. I mean, I just learned demons are actually in hiding when we had believed them to be instinct! It’s incredible! My actual professor is a demon!”

“Well, allow me to–ahem–share some things with you about inu-youkai in particular.”

“‘Dog demons’?”

“Preciously. That is the lineage of which my master Inuyasha is derived from.”

“Well I knew that from the way he snarls, growls, and basically barks,” she added rolling her eyes laughing at her own joke.

“Inu-youkai make perfect Guardians because they typically… find one person they wish to protect, and they latch on. They become overly protective of their uhm… ‘Chosens’, if you will. When Inu-youkai bred, their sons or daughters were often picked to become Guardians because their heritage made them perfect protectors. If they trained hard enough, they would be granted a member of the royal lineage to protect. There, of course, were other demons who also became Guardians such as ookami and kitsune.”

“But wasn’t his Chosen killed five-hundred years ago? Didn’t she seal him away? The guy doesn’t even know why… And why would he suddenly be so assertive in protecting me from a guy I happen to work with? I’m obviously not his Chosen or whatever. There’s no reason for me to have a Guardian. He just mistook me for her when I accidentally woke him up. Why is he still insistent he, I don’t know, follow me around like a guard dog? You just said they latch on to their Chosens, so obviously he’s just being crazy!”

Myouga sighed. He knew the young girl knew and felt more than she was letting on. If anything, she was just trying to save her young heart… The master was stubborn and after everything that happened five-hundred years ago, he couldn’t blame him. But he also knew his master was foolish, and Kikyo was not his actual Chosen… He could only hope his master could come to terms with his instincts before the damage he caused the poor girl was irreversible. 

Clearing his throat, he informed the young woman, “Youkai do not choose their Chosens; their Chosens are picked for them and I do not mean by the council. Just because they are given a royal member to protect, that did not make them their Chosen.”

“Wait, I’m confused–what–”

“Chosens are picked by a demon’s internal instincts, Miss Kagome. Once they have picked, they cannot let go.”

“I’m still confused; what does that have to do with me?”

“Sigh, you will learn soon, Miss Kagome. I am unfortunately not allowed to give any further information; I can only hope the master will be more forthcoming in time…” Myouga couldn’t give her anything else. Not until his master was ready. While the young miss was intelligent, he knew she had not caught the double meaning of the word Chosen. It had meant a mate, in the terms of youkai culture and for humans, a mortal a guard would protect. It was not Myouga’s place to tell the young woman that Kikyo had been his ward in a sense, but not his mate. His mate was Kagome and Kagome alone.

She thought quietly to herself on their walk to the museum to meet Hojo; she obviously had much more to learn from Inuyasha and she grew more determined in that moment that she would be pursuing that knowledge whether he chose to give it or not. It had been a couple weeks since she had awoken the half-demon. He was striking… handsome… daring… She bit her lip at the thoughts that his body stirred within her. It was embarrassing to be that attracted to someone she honestly didn’t know much about. But she also really admired him. Intellectually, he was a very fast learner. Stubborn. Quick to anger. Loyal. Ugh! He drove her crazy! What sucked was it sometimes was in a good way…

He had told her very little about his past. Bare minimum to be exact. She gathered from his experience of being sealed, he was very distrusting given that his last Chosen, Kikyo, claimed he betrayed her. She sealed him as punishment and when he awoke, she was gone—and Kagome was in her place. He mistook her for Kikyo because they looked so similar and he tried to just serve her, but she could tell how much he loathed it. It was rather annoying. 

After things had been cleared up and he finally realized she wasn’t his master or whatever he thought she was, he seemed lost. Distant. Irritable. He didn’t want to divulge more and basically always looked at her out the side of his eyes in a… securable kind of way. Like he was studying her. Anytime she asked him what was wrong he would grunt and turn away. That in itself was maddening.

Honestly, she felt bad for the guy; obviously something happened between Kikyo and him… maybe he was more than just her Guardian maybe they were…in love. She was what he referred to as his Chosen. 

But that was five-hundred years ago. Then again, to him it was a month ago. She resembled Kikyo, sure. Myouga even mistook her for the old priestess. That was probably half of the problem of why he couldn’t actually move on with his life. She was familiar to him but at the same time not. He made sure to rub her face in how unlike his former Chosen she was. Good. Fine. Whatever. She didn’t want to be like her anyway. She had been perfectly fine, living her life for the past twenty-three years without him anyway. She didn’t need to be reminded that she wasn’t… anybody else. She was Kagome; a student at the university, hand-picked by Totosai to explore the tombs to study the materials to prepare for her master’s thesis… She didn’t need to be anybody else for someone to fall in love with her.

Wait a—why did her thoughts go there?! They’d only known each other for a month! He hated her—yea sure, he protected her when those demons came alive at the museum, but he still felt it was his sworn duty to his master, Chosen, whatever Kikyo was to him. Sigh. She was pathetic. Maybe she should have just accepted Hojo’s proposal to be courted. She wasn’t getting any younger. She was too different from other women in this era anyway. The twenties were so...blah. She didn’t want to be a good little housewife. She preferred pants to dresses, research to makeup, and spoke her mind rather than kept quiet. Hojo might be what she needed to accept; but she definitely felt torn because now she knew what it was like to desire someone. To have some weird but magical pull towards someone she barely knew but couldn’t help wanting to learn everything about. But she knew that would never happen. He obviously had no desire other than to make her life and job a living hell. He… loved Kikyo. Kikyo was his Chosen. Not her. Not regular plain old boring Kagome. Just as Myouga said, ‘Chosens’ are picked by instinct. And his Chosen was gone.

What she didn’t realize as she was lost in her thoughts was someone lurking in the shadows behind her as she entered the museum to meet Hojo for the fundraiser. Someone who was not Inuyasha.

“What is wrong with that girl?” he asked himself, still sitting in the room where Kagome left him. Didn’t she realize by now he was supposed to protect her? Did their first run in at the museum teach her literally nothing?!

“Gods she’s just a–” he couldn’t finish that thought. The past couple of weeks had proven to him she was definitely not Kikyo. She was abrasive, vocal, assertive, annoying, stubborn, spoiled, quirky, kind, caring, beautiful–whooooaaaaaaaaa. And there went his thoughts again to a place he couldn’t go.

He exhaled in frustration. His instincts were all over the place. Five hundred years ago it was easier… Guardians were typically assigned a family to protect--specifically royal families or those who held important positions in the kingdom. Kikyo, the high priestess, and he were of similar age so he was placed with her. She required a full time Guardian due to her position in the palace. Her parents had been killed in one of the uprisings and she cared for her younger sister, Kaede. Kaede was still in training to become a priestess as well but lived in a different sector of the castle. He had grown to care immensely for the young woman. She was sworn to her duty. They were a fine match. Then all that crazy shit happened.

He felt betrayed. Hurt. But he was her Guardian. He was but a tool for her to use. While Guardians held their place by the ones they protected, sometimes more came out of it, other times they lived chaste lifestyles. Not every Guardian met their Chosen when they were assigned a family. He was but a half-demon. Not good enough for anyone or anything. He trained hard and proved himself in the trials to make his father proud since his brother had decided on a different way of life. The council had chosen him to become a Guardian because of all his hard work. It was almost unheard of that a half-demon made the selection. Not that half-demons were scarce. He, in fact, had been born because his father was placed with his own mother as a Guardian. But most had taken their places in the royal court with their families when that occurred—something Inuyasha didn’t want. He wanted a ‘simple’ life—to protect just like his father had.  

He passed all the tests and made the cut—then he had been placed with Kikyo and it was a good match; they worked well together. But that’s when things almost fell apart. Things he refused to think about, too fresh, too painful, took place and before he knew it, he was sealed away because of his ‘treachery’. But it was who had betrayed him. Then in a blink, he awoke and mistook Kagome for Kikyo.

He learned quickly they were nothing alike and her scent–Gods–that woman’s scent. It did things to him… things like the other Guardians spoke of with their assigned families when they found their Chosen. Like what his father said about his mother. They had referred to the ones they were assigned to protect as their Chosens—whether they were to mate with them or live a companionable life with them. His father’s Chosen, his mother, turned out to be his mate. It had been such a scandal because he had already mated with his brother’s mother. But the other demons understood, humans did not. 

His mother left the royal family to be with his father and they moved to live with the regular citizens. This had been one of the reasons he desired to take his place as Guardian—to prove his father had not dirtied their blood or soiled their name as the Taisho clan. 

When he met Kikyo he had thought she was beautiful. Refined. Poised. He had only thought that after they had met, they would probably grow to fall in love like others said. His father explained it wasn’t like that though. Inuyasha equated the mis-hit due to this human half. But now, he knew. He knew exactly what his father meant all those years ago. He had literally been slapped in the face and had his instincts take hold and never want to let go of that beautiful scent that was Kagome. To always be with her—someone who he had now sworn to protect, not out of duty, but out of desire. To love, cherish, and mate with her… Fuck. His mind and heart were literally at war. It wasn’t fuckin’ right.

To top off his emotional and instinctual angst, his fuckin’ chosen is out now with another male. Hobo or whatever. Yea, she said it was to gather information. Yea, Myouga was with her. Didn’t mean she had to show that much skin. Even though that teal dress was beautiful, her bare back was so alluring, her hair pinned up, her neck calling his name to bite and suckle. Mark. Dammit. He guessed to be fair… he had been avoiding her. Ignoring her to the best of his abilities anyway. After the shit in the past, how could he allow himself to get close to someone else? To be that vulnerable? It may have been five-hundred years for everyone else, but it had only been maybe a month for him… 

How could he even bring himself to open up such a sensitive topic? Let alone pour out his heart to a mortal who likely would look at him like he was crazy? Say, “Oh hey, I know you just learned demons are real and shit, but they also know their Chosens by scent and you’re it. You’re meant to be with me. Let’s go fuck.” Yea. Right. She’d probably push him back in the tomb and close the fucking door saying to hell with her research.

His eyes widened as he took in a scent of someone familiar, someone from his past, but someone he had also never met. He could sense a demon nearby. KAGOME!

He took off running down the street, forgoing his charm to change him into his human form. He needed his claws out and ready for whatever dumb bastard that thought they could attack his Chosen; they were gravely mistaken!

Son of a bitch! He froze at the entrance of the museum. He recognized this scent… It belonged to some other mortal Kikyo had a decent amount of contact with; likely someone who had been in the infirmary. Inuyasha’s guardianship wasn’t needed in that area according to Kikyo. How could they have survived this long—as a mortal—and especially if they were in that sick area being treated by the high priestess?

 “Miss Kagome, come this way! Let’s go meet with the financial coordinator!” Hojo took her hand and led her through the crowd.

“Miss Kagome,” Myouga whispered.

“What is it?” she whispered back.

“Be very aware of your surroundings… We are not alone.”

“What do you—”

“Miss Kagome, meet Mr. Naraku Onigumo. Mr. Naraku, this is Miss Kagome Higurashi,” Hojo said as he stepped aside to allow them to shake hands.

“Hello Mr. Onigumo, a pleasure,” she extended her hand to which he took. A sudden shiver ran through her body and she felt nauseous, so much so, that she almost dropped his hand in what she could only describe as revulsion… fear… emotions she did not commonly have towards strangers. But above all, the thing that bothered her was the smile he gave her when she trembled. It was dark, sinister, and while it was quick enough to where Hojo hadn’t seen, it was foreboding enough to make her want to excuse herself. She swore she could see images, almost like they had met in a past life. Ancient… clothing like Inuyasha wore when he was released from the tomb. The sinister smile and an evil cackle rung in her head. Why was she seeing these things? 

“Miss Kagome, I’ve heard many great things about you from Mr. Hojo. I am truly honored to finally meet you.”

She felt Myouga tugging at her hair that was pulled up and it gave her an odd sense of comfort, knowing he too, felt the ominous presence coming from the gentleman in front of her.

“That’s always nice to hear!” she laughed nervously. Her thoughts immediately went to Inuyasha—wondering where he was and if he would make it to her on time. But she couldn’t figure out why her brain thought she was on a timer or why she directly wanted and needed him. She really wished she had asked more about being a Guardian and how they were summoned…she swallowed. Could he possibly sense if she was in danger? 

She swore his eyes flashed red as he took a step closer to her making her take an instinctive step back. Smiling uneasily, Kagome tried to remain calm. He chuckled and put his hand around her back ushering her to go with him, “Come, let us get a refreshment and talk over some ideas I have. Mr. Hojo, please accompany us.”

Swallowing hard and trying to steady her breathing, she reached up so as to scratch her head to the naked eye, but dislodged Myouga and tossed him towards the door. She hoped he knew exactly what she meant since she couldn’t voice to him to go find who she needed. But considering he didn’t cry out or leap back on her shoulder, she assumed he got the message.

 Inuyasha followed the scent and ended up in the dark abandoned part of the museum. He looked around and was heavily confused on what was going on… It was like he was being lured there, like a distraction. But he needed to try and find the danger before it found Kagome. He had to protect her! His instincts were roaring to eliminate the threat then to find his Chosen. His mate. 

He jumped quickly when he smelt the change in the air and was able to dodge a wind blade that crashed into the tile floor. Landing ten feet away from where the blade hit, he glanced at where it came from and saw a woman dressed in modern clothing holding a fan—dark red eyes, hair drawn up in a ponytail, khaki pants, suspenders, a pink and magenta swirled shirt, and whoever it was, she reeked of that scent he recognized.

“Who are you?!” he yelled angrily.

“We heard the mutt was awoken. I’m shocked you aren’t with your master though…”she teased tapping her fan on her shoulder appearing bored.

“What!?”

“My master is probably doing what he did five hundred years ago to your former master…” she taunted.

“Stop speaking in riddles!” he snarled leaping to snatch her, but she gracefully jumped away and landed where he originally was before she had struck him.

“Tsk tsk tsk. Oh Inuyasha, you are a fool.”

“How the fuck do you know my name?”

“I’m not surprised you don’t remember me as I, technically, wasn’t born before your imprisonment. But you met my master, or at least, your ‘Chosen’ priestess did. She nursed him back to health. He fell in love with her kind heart, her position, her power. He began to lust after her and the better he got, the more he desired her. But she denied his proposal, claiming she preferred a life of solitude with her Guardian, just as a priestess should,” her voice sang.

Inuyasha was now growling but didn’t move. He needed to hear what this bitch would say next. She was speaking about Kikyo. Their past. What did she know?! Did she know why Kikyo thought he had betrayed her?!

“So, he sold his soul to the demons who wanted to destroy the palace. They ate him and he became my master, Naraku. He deceived your priestess and made her believe it was you, who betrayed everyone. He made it seem like it was you who killed the royal lineage; it is why she sealed you within that tomb. It was you who damned all of the youkai into total submission. It was made to be that youkai and humans could no longer coexist, making youkai go into hiding. You made them have to conquer the human lands, one by one. 

“And your priestess finally learned the truth of the deceit after fifty years. She was mortified that it was actually not you and she tried to unseal you but the spell was too powerful for her weak old body. She died next to your tomb, cursing the man she had married because she thought her only redemption of claiming you as a Guardian was to pray her descendants could do better… but then she learned Naraku was the one who killed everyone. Hahahahahaha! They always say karma is a real bitch.”

Inuyasha felt like his entire world collapsed. Myouga and Totosai had filled him in as best as they could on the details after he was sealed but he had not expected that…

He knew the royals had all been killed; their entire existence was wiped out within a night. He had been sent out by the king for another assignment away from the kingdom to forge a treaty with another area ruled by a half-demon and his bride. Kikyo had to remain there, tending to the sick and while he was unhappy with his assignment, he could not disobey the king. 

When he returned Kikyo was furious, screaming incoherently, pushing him away and refusing to be in his presence. She lured him down into the crypts of her home and then sealed him saying that he would regret the day he ever deceived her…

Myouga said after his sealing, the monarch dissolved. The humans rebelled and the Guardians who were still alive were forced to flee. His father had taken his mother overseas to be safe and start a new life. No one knew what became of his brother. 

It had to be a lie. “You’re so full of shit! You’re just trying to distract me!”

“Well, obviously. But I can assure you, I was telling you the truth with my little ruse. How does it feel knowing that you failed your priestess, and you’re about to fail your real Chosen,” she laughed, disappearing in a gust of wind.

“Son of a—”

“Master Inuyasha!” Myouga cried. 

“Myouga!! Why the fuck aren’t you with—”

“She sent me to get you! An old ancient demon named Naraku is the head financial coordinator and—”

“GodDAMNIT!” he growled taking off in the direction where Myouga came from. “You are gonna tell me everything I missed! I mean it! EVERYTHING! That fucking wind bitch said that the downfall of the royals was because of this Naraku, someone Kikyo cared for and he blamed it all on me!!”

“M-Master! We must save Miss Kagome!”

“You’ll fill me on the way or I’ll squash you and you won’t live to see how the next five hundred years turn out!”

“Very well master… what you heard was true. I—I tried to get here sooner but as a flea I can only move so fast. I heard what Kagura had told you. It is all unfortunately true. Naraku tricked the empire to believe you had killed the monarchy. It caused mass hysteria, chaos, and corruption. Naraku was able to take control of the rebellion, as a priest and promise that the Gods would bless his heirs that he would make with the high priestess. Kikyo married him and bore him sons and daughters. She learned the truth and was able to clear your name before her death, but had been unable to revive you. She had her daughter help her with a spell to help release you once your real Chosen, your mate appeared. The thing that could unlock your tomb would be her blood.”

“Why?!”

“So that you could be happy master! So that you knew it wasn’t a mistake that nothing ever happened between you and her! She knew how much you tried to care about her, but she knew that you were not destined to be together. While she loved you and you her, she knew she was not your mate. Grief overwhelmed her for all the pain that she caused because she had lured you into a life to live without your Chosen. The idea that she sealed you without even hearing your side of the story destroyed her. She knew then she had to correct her mistakes; she used her powers to see your real mate--and found her in the future. She saw the future you could have with her. That is why she changed the seal to open.

“You know that it is Miss Kagome who you are destined for! That she is your Chosen! Your mate!I think she even knows it to be true too, master! You just have to talk to her! She could sense the evil Naraku was emitting! It was like she remembered!”

“Why does that bastard want her?!” he snarled his eyes tinging red.

“Ma-Master…” Myouga saw his master losing control. 

“Answer me Myouga!”

“Because he knows she’s a Chosen. Your demonic Chosen. He knows it was she who was able to release you from your slumber. He plans on taking her away like he had done with Kikyo…”

Inuyasha didn’t reply as he raced to where the fundraiser was being held—he had to get to Kagome. He had already failed Kikyo and he felt like a piece of him was torn out. But if he lost Kagome before he even got to tell her what an idiot he was—he’d die. He would take his own life if it came down to that. He. Would. Not. Fail.

 Kagome felt like she was going to be sick as she was ushered out onto the balcony. Hojo had tried being helpful and offered to grab their drinks while they got to know each other before discussing the projects Naraku wanted to sponsor.

“So… tell me Miss Kagome. Any suitors I should be aware of?”

“Beg pardon?” she asked, trying to hide the revulsion in her voice. 

“Hahaha, oh Miss Kagome. What are you thinking about?”

I’m thinking about a way to get your sleazy hands off me… “No one of concern,” she offered.

“Obviously someone who is distracting you. Tell me about him,” he said as he wrapped his arms around her coaxing her to dance lightly to the music that they could hear from the banquet hall.

Trying not to tremble, she swallowed, “He’s just a…friend. We haven’t known each other long.”

“Ah, but it sounds like you’ve grown very fond of him. You know how the saying goes, ‘love at first sight’. I knew from the moment I gazed upon my wife. She initially did not accept my courtship, but I was able to convince her.”

“Hmmm,” she hummed. Maybe she was just imagining things. He said he was married. But, she just couldn’t shake this feeling of utter disgust as he tried to pull her closer. It was too intimate. It was like…“What is your wife’s name?” 

“Kikyo.”

That was all she needed to hear before she pulled away making him snicker. Her heart was beating frantically like it would burst out of her chest. She knew that name—Inuyasha’s former Chosen. How did this-this-this man know!

“So, he mentioned Kikyo, did he?”

“Who are you?! How do you know Inuyasha!?”

“You’re a feisty one,” he said as he raised his hand and snapped his fingers. The lights turned out and everything went silent. Kagome looked inside and saw everyone had passed out. What was going on!?!? She turned back as she heard him approach her again and took a step back again.

“What do you want!?”

“For Inuyasha to suffer,” he said, grasping her forearm harshly. She swore she felt her skin burn at his touch--she cringed and sucked her breath in to keep from crying out.

“Why?! What did he do to you?!” she demanded trying to pull away from him again.

“He stole the heart of the woman I loved.” She paused knowing he was likely talking about Kikyo. So she had been correct; Kikyo and Inuyasha were in love. It hurt… But she couldn’t explain why—it wasn’t like they were together or anything. Their time had even been five-hundred years ago. But still, she was, as crazy as it sounded, jealous.

“That doesn’t… Sometimes that can’t be helped… But-but even so! You just said you married her!”

“I did.”

“Then why—”

“As high priest, we had to restore the royal lineage that Inuyasha destroyed,” he said, smirking, his hand on her arm finally made her cry out. His touch was actually burning her—it wasn’t just that she was imagining things—he was actually harming her.

“Inu-Inuyasha didn’t do anything!” 

“How would you know? You weren’t even there. He killed all the royals. You heard the tales from Totosai and Myouga, did you not? They, of course, wouldn’t betray their master by divulging such information to a weak human.”

“That’s a lie! Inuyasha would never—”

“Oh, but he did my dear.”

“Stop!”

“LET GO OF HER!” Kagome turned her head to see a very angry and ferocious Inuyasha striking down onto the man holding her arm captive.

Naraku let out a cackle as he dropped her arm and disappeared into a giant purple fog as Inuyasha picked her up and jumped back. She swore she was hallucinating. She had to be. Within the last month, things had gotten out of hand. Maybe she should have considered checking herself into an insane asylum or something.

“Are you alright?” His gruff voice questioned.

“Y-yes,” she said breathily.

“Well well well, if it isn’t the half-breed himself,” Naraku remarked as he appeared on the museum’s rooftop.

“You must be Naraku…” Inuyasha growled, tightening his hold over Kagome’s body. Kagome finally had a moment to take him all in. His eyes were red, bright blue irises in place of his beautiful gold, purple jagged marks on his cheeks, fangs that dipped out of his mouth—what happened to him? Why had he transformed again? She was in too much shock to say anything—too much to do anything but rest in his arms as she idly traced the arm Naraku had burned. She felt nothing. But she knew she would once the initial scare wore off—she did her best not to look down at it to delay the inevitable. Instead, she kept her gaze fixed on the half-demon holding her in his arms and clutched his shirt with her injured arm as best as she could.

“That I am; it’s a pleasure to finally meet the disgrace in person.”

“What the fuck does that mean!?”

“I already filled in young Miss Kagome on what occurred five-hundred years ago. How you killed all the royals and that waswhy the Lady Kikyo sealed you away for all eternity.”

“Shut up!”

“Now now Inuyasha, it’s ok to be a monster. Kikyo fell in love with you just as she did with me. Obviously, she had a taste for things that were vile. Tell me, did she ever allow you to hold her at night? Allow her into her sweet--” he was cut off when Inuyasha was suddenly in front of him, swiping down with his claws snarling menacingly at him. Naraku laughed maniacally as he egged the half-demon-turned-full into battle.

Kagome had almost been dropped on her ass. Not that she could blame the guy--the love of his life was more or less defiled by this disgusting thing of a man that was prancing around on the roof. It still didn’t help her heavy heart. She heard footsteps come from the ballroom and she glanced to see two figures--a child with white hair, wearing a white dress, eyes as blank as unending darkness, carrying a mirror, and a woman who wore slacks and brightly colored shirt holding a fan. Kagome almost wished her life would go back to being the way it was before she met Inuyasha. Almost. The excitement would maybe kill her, but she honestly felt more alive than she had ever thought possible.

She stood and felt her hair fall from her tightly woven crown in the process, now trailing down her back, swaying in the wind. “Who are you? What do you want?”

“Run Miss Kagome!”

“Myouga?!” she looked down at her shoulder to see the flea that just appeared.

“That is Mistress Kagura, a wind sorceress and the child is Kanna of the void. She steals souls!”

“Souls? You must be joking!” Kagome tried to reason with the flea.

“I wish I were, you must try to escape until my master fends off Naraku!”

“I don’t need Inuyasha’s help,” she replied stubbornly.

“Miss Kagome! Now is no time to be stubborn!”

“He’s busy avenging Kikyo; I’m going to have to handle this on my own.” She looked around trying to find some form of weapon but had no luck. Maybe she could try to lure them into the museum so she could use one inside. Oh she was so going to be fired…

“You have a fire in you; a fire just like Kikyo’s,” Kagura spoke as she tapped her fan on her shoulder. “I will enjoy putting it out.”

“What do you even want with me?!” Kagome demanded.

“I’d thought that would be obvious at this point,” she said flicking her fan open and swinging it so the wind blades would strike.

“AIIII!” Kagome screamed dodging as best as she could. She jumped and swung herself away landing roughly on her stomach. Looking back at them, she quickly got to her feet with Myouga’s persistence to run. She took off and heard another swish of the woman’s fan as the crazy woman laughed at her struggles. Kagome jumped and landed on her back and thankfully the blades cut through the windows. 

Covering her head as the glass fell and rolling onto her stomach to cover herself more, she felt some of the chunks fall onto her back. She tried to remain calm. As calm as one could be with someone attacking them, that is. But she knew she had to keep her head level and focus on her objective; currently it was to stay alive. Fight. 

She stood once the glass stopped shattering on the ground around her and took off running into the building. Gasping, she tried not to stop as she saw all the people who were attending the event lying on the ground motionless. 

“Wh-what--Myouga! What’s wrong with them??”

“I told you Miss Kagome! Their souls have been taken!”

“Ugh! I don’t--Gahh!!!” she screamed as something grabbed her ankle swinging her down onto the ground breathlessly. She looked and saw Hojo above her with a blank look on his face.

“Hojo?! What are you doing!? Let me go!”

“And where would the fun be if we let you run?” Kagura laughed as she entered the ballroom.

Kagome struggled to push Hojo off of her so she could get to the next room. One room away. One room and she could get something to fight these demons. Muttering an apology, she kicked him as hard as she could in the gut causing him to roll off her. She stumbled getting up and again when she felt his hand grab her dress.

“Dammit! Get off!!” she yelled, kicking his wrist in a nerve to make him release his hold. She heard her dress rip slightly as she scurried off quickly. 

She barely made it through the towering archway as more wind blades struck.

“Miss Kagome! Quickly! The bow!”

“What??” she asked, covering her head as bricks and stone crashed down around her from the overhead. She screamed and tried to keep running even though she felt some of the stones falling upon her. Realizing she didn’t have time to argue or question Myouga, she rushed and felt the pull of the bow behind the glass frame on the far wall. She ripped the bottom part of her dress off and wrapped it around her arm. Punching as hard as she could, she shattered the glass that encased the ancient bow. Throwing down the torn rags, she uncovered her arm and grabbed the bow.

It pulsed in her hand. Pulsed. She swore to the Gods it did. It was… speaking to her. She had to have been going crazy at that point. Probably blood loss. Pain. Who knew. But either way, she felt the overwhelming urge to turn around at that moment. She swung holding the bow in front of her and squealed when she saw the wind blades heading straight for her. Unable to do anything, she held the bow tightly in front of her hoping and praying it would take the blunt of the blows as she squeezed her eyes shut. When she felt nothing, she peeked through one of her eyes and saw she was being covered in a weird purple-pink shield. 

Gasping she saw the demon with the fan narrow her eyes in anger. “Kanna,” she said with purpose.

The little demon with white hair raised her mirror and Kagome felt a shift in the world as she fell to the ground feeling suddenly cold.

 Inuyasha was in a fit of rage and felt like he couldn’t pull himself out. His body was no longer his own. All he could see was red. All he felt was underlying unadulterated blood lust. All he could do was attack. And there was nothing and no one that could stop his animosity as he attacked Naraku--sending blow after blow from his claws towards the fucking disgusting rancid demon taunting his every move... 

Suddenly, the thought occurred to him--why was he allowing him to attack so freely? He began to hear her--Kagome’s cries and he smelled her blood. His body froze. He felt like a building fell on him. His demonic aura almost dissipated at the thought of her being hurt because he had…

Fuck. He dropped her. Dropped her on her ass to attack the asshole who lured him away from her. He was so pissed off she had burns on her from the devil, that she had been screaming, that she had been left unguarded---he let him goad him into leaving her taunting him about how he defiled Kikyo! Fuck!! That wind bitch!!

“Ahhhh, just realizing that your replacement for our beloved Kikyo is in trouble? I will not permit you to leave. You will suffer the way I suffered when Kikyo cared for you. You will lose your humanity and become a mindless creature bent on destroying the world until you are begging for sweet death.”

“You and I are nothing alike! We are NOT the same!” Inuyasha yelled, his demonic features retreating as he was able to restore some of his head. His inner demon must’ve backed off knowing the blood lust was what got them in this position to begin with. Dammit all! Kagome!!!

“I think that we are more than you’d care to admit,” Naraku taunted as he finally released his attack; his body transformed into the ugliest fucking shape Inuyasha had ever seen. Wooden tentacles shot out and started to surround him. Inuyasha thought it was child’s play though. This was beginner level stuff from when he had begun his training to become a Guardian. Why was Naraku, a demon who had lived for countless centuries, so weak?? So unskilled?

After dodging  Naraku’s advances and swiping a few more attacks of his own, he noticed the tentacles were being reabsorbed back into the ugly fuck’s body. He growled and snarled angrily realizing he was playing with a goddamned puppet!!!

“Son of a--can’t you fight your own battles?!?! You have to use fucking tricks and others to fight for you?!? How cowardly are you!?!?”

“Goad me all you like, Inuyasha,” Naraku laughed maniacally. “Your time is almost up.”

“What does that mean?!?!” Inuyasha demanded. 

Before Naraku answered, he felt a supreme amount of reiki soar towards him. He jumped out of the way in time for it to strike down Naraku as the sick bastard continued to laugh. All that was left of him was a wooden doll with a black hair wrapped around it. Inuyasha recognized that power. He stood tall and turned slowly to face the person he was fearful to see.

He saw the haunting silhouette of the woman who trapped him in his tomb--the woman who sealed him away. But after the smoke from the ferocity of the arrow cleared, he saw Kagome holding the bow. Her dress was torn up, she had scratches and bruises all over her body, the burn still present on her forearm, her hair was free of the updo she had worked in earlier that evening… She was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. He was too entranced with her to realize there was something wrong.

“Ka-Kagome--” he took a step towards her about to say more when she pulled back on the string on the bow creating another reiki fueled weapon in the shape of an arrow. “Kagome?!!”

“You… betrayed me…” her voice was weird. Devoid of emotion even the words she used stung. They were the same ones Kikyo used on him five-hundred years ago before she sealed him away.

“Kagome! I’m sorry! I lost control! I was coming for you!” He was shocked when she released the arrow again that propelled straight towards him. He managed to clear it but only to have several more projectiles flying towards him. What the fuck was wrong with her?! Why was she so mad?! He trusted her--

That’s when it dawned on him--it wasn’t her. Kagome would never… She couldn’t. She wouldn’t. Kagome wasn’t Kikyo. He leapt towards and noticed her blank eyes as she swung the bow to hit him again. Before she could pull back the string and renotch another spiritual arrow, Inuyasha grabbed her bow to pull it out of her grasp. He had not expected the hand that was off the bow to swing and blast him with reiki. Screaming from the agonizing burn he jumped back away from her.

“Damnit!”

“Something wrong, Inuyasha?” Kagura laughed.

“Grrrrr… you again. What did you do to Kagome?!!”

“Nothing. Just told her the truth.”

“What ‘truth’?!”

“That you are in love with Kikyo--even though she isn’t really your mate. Kagome was a little upset to say the least. Kanna was able to open her mind and help her learn the spiritual techniques of her ancestors.”

Kagome restrung the bow and took aim at him again. He whimpered, unsure what to do, on how to save her. Fuck. He was about to fail again!

“Master Inuyasha!”

“Myouga!” Inuyasha huffed as he jumped away from Kagome’s new onslaught of attacks quickly grabbing Myouga up and tossing him on his shoulder.

“They took her soul and are controlling her, Master!”

“How the fuck do I get it back?!” 

“I--well--uhm--” Myouga stammered.

“Dammit Myouga! Get lost!” Inuyasha yelled as he threw the flea from his shoulder sensing the oncoming arrow he wasn’t going to be able to dodge without being in the direct path of another. He cried out in pain when the arrow struck his chest. But then suddenly vanished just as quickly as it struck him.

Panting, he was able to sit upright uneasily but looked up to see Kagome’s form shaking. Her hand that wasn't clutching the bow trembled the most, her chest heaving. She was fighting.

“KAGOME!”

“Ya-” she breathed. If it wasn’t for his demonic hearing he probably would have heard her strained voice.

“Kanna--what’s wrong?!” Kanna stepped forward and looked down at her mirror. Inuyasha could see clouds of white escaping while the mirror shook and he heard slight cracking sounds. He took the cue and leapt forward grasping his shoulder to hopefully keep it  from absorbing all the shock from when he landed. 

“Kagome! Fight it! I know you can!” he pleaded as he placed his hands on her upper arms. He wanted to embrace her, hold her, promise her everything would be ok--that he would save her, that he would protect her always--confess his love for the strange girl of the future era and admit he had grown overly fond of her. That he loved her, not Kikyo. That what he felt for her didn’t even compare what he felt for his old Chosen--who was just a Chosen… not his mate. 

Those feelings weren’t just formed because he could sense his demonic half claiming her as his mate. Yea, her scent drove him wild. Yes, she was fucking gorgeous. Strong, fierce, mouthy, but she was kind. Accepting. She gave him a home when she didn’t have to. She fed him, cared for him, helped him learn about the things that changed over the centuries. Her desire to help him belong, help him be able to be on his own if he wanted. The idea she offered to help him find a place when he was comfortable, or even offered to get him one and she would just check up on him, help him from a distance if he'd be more comfortable that way… she was just so amazing. How could he not--how could anyone not fall in love with a being like her?

She was so interested in his past. Kagome actually wanted to listen to him talk. It wasn’t just her filling the void. She treated him as an equal--not just as a Guardian. 

He couldn’t lose her! He refused to lose her! While he could fight a battle physically, he couldn’t fight it spiritually. This fight was hers--one of which she seemed like she was holding her own at. He had to encourage her--even if that meant he had to cross a line. He pulled her into his arms and pressed her face into his chest. 

In a drunken haze one night, she had admitted she liked how he smelled--like a forest. Pine trees. Musky. Something so… “Inuyasha” as she put it. He knew his own scent. He was surprised she was able to discern it so quickly. 

She had cuddled up to him and played with his ears.  It was so awkward because he was still in denial over her being his Chosen but he couldn’t resist her charms. He loved being in her company. Being in her attention. His body being touched by her.

“Please Kagome, I know you can do this--I believe in you,” he buried his nose into her hair trying to calm his raging anxiety. He couldn’t lose her--he just found her. The woman that had begun to heal his heart--he fought it for so long… But in that moment when he actually thought he would lose her--he couldn’t. He’d die if he lost her. Kikyo already passed on--his only real friend. His first friend. Kikyo's death hurt him, but he could move on. The love they had was more platonic--his love for the young woman locked in his arms was indescribable. 

He felt her grasp his shirt and he felt her falling; his arms kept a tight hold on her small body to keep her upright, “Inu--” she said strained.

“That’s it--I’m right here! Fight!”

“Kanna! Do something!” Kagura hissed.

“The mirror…” Kanna whispered.

“Fine! Dance of Blades!” Kagura yelled, swinging her fan at Kagome and him. He leapt out of the way, protecting her head by pressing his hand to the back of it as he kept a firm hand around her waist. He continued to dodge until the blades stopped when he and Kagura heard a large crack in the mirror. 

Inuyasha landed just as the white clouds burst from the mirror and soared through the sky. One shot towards him and Kagome making him almost dodge before Myouga yelled, “No! You must allow Miss Kagome to reabsorb the soul! She has summoned it!”

“She what?!” Inuyasha exclaimed as he felt her soul slam back into her body. He held on as he felt the pressure surround them. Once it seemed like her body fully absorbed, he felt her pulsate--like her soul was seeking something out now that it had returned to where it belonged.

“Inu…yasha…” she said slowly. 

Inuyasha sighed in relief but kept his hold on her, and tightened it slightly, “Kagome.”

Kagura scoffed, “How romantic--” She was cut off when another arrow went skyrocketing towards her and Kanna. Kagura quickly summoned a feather from her hair and they were lifted up into the sky making their get-away.

“Damnit! Get back here!” Inuyasha yelled.

“They are of no consequence--they are but tools of Naraku,” Kagome said coldly. It made him stiffen. The way she said it. The way she… He turned back to face the young woman and was met with deep blue eyes. Deeper than usual. Calculating. 

“Ki-Kikyo…?” he said in shock. 

“Hello, Inuyasha. It’s good to see you again.”

 Kagome felt cold. Stiff. Empty. Something was wrong. She had managed to get the bow hadn’t she? She had...deflected their attacks. Or at least she thought she did. She opened her eyes and was met with a beautiful woman--long flowing straight black hair, deep navy blue eyes unlike her teal ocean blues, they looked oddly similar, but somehow also so different. 

Gasping from fright, she looked around and was surrounded in darkness. Fuck! She had gone crazy! She finally cracked. Yep. That was the only rational solution. 

“You have not gone crazy, Kagome,” the woman in front of her said.

“What?! How did--”

“We are inside your mind. Locked. The demons you were fighting took your soul.”

“Who…? Oh! Those demons! But--”

“I know this is all new to you… but you remember. Some of your previous life--” the woman placed a hand on her cheek closing her eyes and sent images into Kagome’s mind. Images of a past life--

“Are you--Are you Kikyo??” The woman smiled in response. 

“I am. Your ancestor. And your previous life.”

“You are Inuyasha’s Chosen,” Kagome gaped at her former self. She was so beautiful. Refined. Proper. Kagome felt somewhat disheartened. No wonder Inuyasha couldn’t stand her. She would never match up to her. Kikyo smiled softly in return, a comforting smile as if she knew what she was thinking.

“Not in the way you are referring, young one.”

“What--”

“I am not, and was not Inuyasha’s mate. I was merely a priestess with a Guardian. A Chosen who needed a Guardian in the palace.”

“But he said--”

“He did care about me. And I, for him. But, not in the sense you think. We resigned ourselves to a life of companionship. I felt romantic feelings for him, but I knew it was not the same for him. I was not his Chosen--his Chosen mate. It would never have worked for us in the way you are thinking of. I was too tied to my duty to the kingdom. He was tied to restoring his family's honor and the love he felt for me was friendly. Not at all romantic. But it was okay for both of us just to resign to live side by side.”

“Just the way he talks about you…”

“Do you not have a friend you speak highly of? A friend you miss? A friend who you grew up with and you had to go your separate ways?”

Kagome thought of her best friend Sango and how they grew up together, lived together throughout college... then she met Miroku. He was a great guy, with great ambitions, and he really worked hard to gain Sango’s attention. He really made Sango his world and proved to her time and time again how it would always be her. And well, the rest was history. They moved for his work to the States and Sango happily followed. They kept in contact and Kagome visited as much as she could. 

“Yes…” Kagome said sadly.

“I know you have had a lot to learn recently. That this life can seem overwhelming, but I can assure you that it is a part of your destiny. That this is the way your life was meant to be.”

“But why--”

“Because you are Inuyasha’s mate.”

“I’m--what??!”

“You know this is true.”

“I-I--” she trailed off and pondered what Kikyo was telling her. 

“Think Kagome; you know this to be true. There is a force that is driving you to him. Even now--” They were interrupted when they heard a muffled yell. “He needs you.”

“N-no. I-I’ll--You need to help him! I-I can’t. I don’t know how--please--”

“Call out to him.”

“What??”

“Call out to him, Kagome. He’ll hear you and help you push through this darkness.”

Kagome focused on the outside of this void. She tried to project herself--the only thing that felt right, the way to get herself out of there. Her body felt like an unmovable wall. Something was moving her like she was a puppet. Only rather than being attached to strings, she was being moved by a remote control.  

She felt a large amount of power leave her as she heard Inuyasha yell at Myouga before he cried out in pain. Doing the only thing she could think to do was try to draw back what left her when she came back into her body. She tried to speak and it felt like she’d ran fifty miles. Gasping and panting, she tried to push through only to feel a heavy lump in her throat as she tried to voice his name as he called for her--”Ya…”

That was all she could get out before she was snapped back into the darkness with Kikyo. She cried. She was pitiful. Inuyasha deserved better. She was useless--hopeless. She knew nothing.

“Please… Kikyo please help him.”

“Kagome--”

“Please!!! You have to help him! Save him!!!”

“What if we cannot switch back?”

“I’m willing to die for him, Kikyo! Please!! I’m untrained and-and-and I can’t let them use me to destroy him!! Please!!! I know he’ll be happy! I know he loves you even though you don’t think so! I won’t make him choose! Please!!!!”

“As you wish, Kagome,” Kikyo sighed defeatedly as she disappeared from Kagome’s view. Kagome could still the tingling of power as Kikyo fought off the demons. She heard Inuyasha talking to her--soothing her. He really was kind. She was sad she gave Kikyo another chance, but she also realized their time had been short because that Naraku creep deceived them. It was only right. Kikyo was wrong. Kagome wasn’t Inuyasha’s mate. Kikyo was… and that was okay. When you loved someone, you let them go to be happy. That was the only way Kagome ever loved Inuyasha--unconditionally. 

She heard Inuyasha say Kikyo’s name and she had to remind herself this was her choice. Still, it didn’t lessen the quake in her heart.

 “Kikyo… where’s Kagome?”

“She--she wanted me to help you. She does not know how to use our power. Her desire to save you sent me into her body.”

“Is she your reincarnation?”

“Ironic, isn’t it? That I was not your mate, but Kagome, my ancestor, my reincarnation, is…”

“You know?”

“You are free, are you not?”

“So what Myouga said was true…”

“Indeed.”

“It--it’s safe now. Are you going to let Kagome come back?”

Kikyo shifted uncomfortably, lowering her eyes, “I believe I know the answer to this--as she is your mate. But, we have so much history. So much to discuss… Is that girl more important to you than I am?”

“I’m sorry, Kikyo. She is. While I get we didn’t get closure or whatever, I need her back.”

Kikyo looked up and smiled softly, “She’s already changed you.”

“What??”

“You have a more kind look in your eyes. Softer. You held me, or rather her, without reservation. Trust was never our strong suit even though you were my Guardian. Yet, you allowed yourself to get close to this girl within weeks, have you not? Even when she was attacking you, you automatically knew it was not her. In the past, you were more reversed and never voiced your opinion unless asked, but here you demand to see the young woman again. Even when you know that would mean my ultimate end.”

“...I--” He honestly didn’t know how to answer. Thinking back, he had been trying to push Kagome away. Keep himself from getting close to her. But obviously Kikyo, in some dormant part of Kagome’s soul, could see he failed. That he changed in spite of his stubbornness. “I’ve grown to care about her. A lot. I don’t think she feels the same, but it doesn’t stop my desire to be with her.”

“Why’s that?”

“You just said it--it’s been a couple of weeks. Things are different in this age of time, Kikyo.”

“Love never changes, even in time Inuyasha. And that girl--she does care for you deeply; she cares enough to risk imprisonment within her own soul.”

“She what?” He was shell shocked. His ears twitched. Did he hear her correctly??

“She sacrificed herself… She wanted me to help you. She didn’t believe she was your mate.”

“I--Kikyo I can’t lose her! I just found her!”

“Call to her--she can hear you. We both could as her body was being dragged around by the demons. It was what made her gain control to stop the arrow from purifying you.”

“Kagome!” he called as he clasped onto her arms. It was eerie having Kikyo’s stoic stare gazing back at him through Kagome’s eyes. That was one thing he cherished about Kagome; she never hid her emotions and was always upfront about when he pissed her off. What made her excited. What made her sad… He never wanted that fire within her to ever be extinguished. “Kagome! Come back!! It’s safe now!!”

Kikyo continued to look at him and slightly looked saddened--like she couldn’t hear Kagome’s response. 

“Don’t you fucking say anything--” he warned Kikyo.

“Inuyasha! Language!”

“Kagome,” he pressed on, uncaring of Kikyo’s reprimand. “You can’t honestly believe I don’t need you! I was never myself with Kikyo! I couldn’t be! I was just her Guardian--not her mate! I’m sorry I was such a dick! But it’s you I need! Kagome!!!”

“Keep trying Inuyasha. Don’t give up,” Kikyo offered him. She obviously could see he was clearly distressed.

“Kagome--come on! I--I know I was a jerk. I’ll be honest! I’ll talk. I’ll tell you anything!! Please--I need you Kagome! I--this sounds crazy but, fuck Kagome, I love you! I love how wild your hair is in the morning, I love how you speak your mind, I love how caring, accepting, and open you are! The way you breathe in your coffee and sigh, the way plop down on the couch next to me after a long day, even the way you sing songs non stop while you clean your house, are things I can’t get enough of. Your love and care is unconditional! Kagome--” he was out of options. Kikyo didn’t budge. The face of pity was what finally sent his demon into a frenzy. It was going mad at the idea he would never see Kagome again. It was angry he had been a shit mate and pushed her away--that he was the reason she left. 

“Kagome! Fuck! Kikyo! What the fuck do I do?”

“She can hear you, Inuyasha. I do not know why she is not emerging. She may not be able to… I warned her of this.”

“There has to be a fucking way!”

“Master Inuyasha!!” Myouga called from the ground below them.

“Myouga,” Inuyasha said, still highly anxious.

“Master! The Lady Kikyo is correct! You must call to Miss Kagome!”

“What the fuck do you think I’ve been doing?!?!”

“Master--you are so dense! Tell us! When you lost control of your demon the night of your awakening, how did Miss Kagome get you back to your senses?”

Blushing at the thought Inuyasha stuttered, “F-fuck! I don’t wanna force myself on her!!” He thought back to that day that felt so long ago--the day she awakened him…

He was so disoriented when he had awoken. She looked so similar to Kikyo--it made sense now. Kagome was her descendant and her reincarnation. They always said fate had her own plans. Fate was the creator of irony. After Kagome explained repeatedly she was not his Chosen, that he was not her Guardian, and that she was ‘Ka-Go-Me’, Totosai finally revealed himself. The jackass. Still had been up to no good and plaguing his family with his overbearing intrusive presence. 

Totosai left Myouga with him to explain things that happened over the centuries as he then explained to Kagome who Inuyasha was and who they actually were. Totosai left and Kagome apologized, after hearing Myouga explain things to him--about his sealing, about the change in time, about the death of Kikyo. She offered to help him--not leave him alone. He deserved a second chance and she would happily be his friend outside of her research project. She even humored herself saying they could learn from each other and once he was on his own feet, he could live alone. He was not amused; he was edgy and mad and frustrated and devastated, and--and--horribly confused. 

Kagome--her scent called to him in ways he never knew was possible. Her body, her figure--it made his mouth water. Her eyes that sparkled like the ocean peered into his soul. Her voice sang a unique song that seemed to calm his heart, his demonic instincts--but his human ego was utterly pissed off. He couldn’t help but be a straight asshole to her. How could this mortal be trusted? His own Chosen locked his ass up in a tomb for five-hundred fucking years! Someone he had trusted with his life, cared for deeply even though they weren’t…

OH. FUCK. The realization of everything came crashing down like a waterfall; Kagome was his mate. Those thoughts circled his head as he realized with his awakening, his aura had shot out powerfully. Not completely his fault--it was the part of the spell. He noticed his senses picking up movement, scents, and worse, youki. He pushed his thoughts about her being his mate behind him and pressed forward to the matter at hand.

He ushered her to follow but she was hell bent on leaving. She admitted the day was odd enough and she hadn’t planned on trying to get more attention. The problem was by the time they made it upstairs, they were surrounded. Things were awakening and those things wanted to eat. Souls. Flesh. Whatever they could get their grubby little hands on. 

Inuyasha was still feeling the effects of his sealing. It took far longer to beat off the low grade demons and it awakened his demonic state when he heard the dumbass girl cry out when he didn’t make it to her in time. 

The next thing he knew outside of the lust for blood underneath his claws, the drive for sheer power, and the desire to find his mate and rut her into submission was Kagome. She had her body pressed intimately against him and she was kissing him--hard--embracing him fully. Her hands had cupped his cheek, breasts were pressed against his chest, her legs flushly between his own as her lips covered his own. He wasn’t really sure what the fuck happened. Once she broke loose she looked around and sighed in relief. She apologized profusely explaining someone must’ve heard them fighting with the rogue demons and came looking. A security guard or something. Since Totosai had said demons were hidden in this world from humans, she had to think fast of a way to hide and make his snarls and growls stop. 

What had floored him was she apologized to him for forcing herself on him. A demon. A half-demon. She apologized to him for making him uncomfortable. Not the other way around. The fact she even got so close--his demon purred in contentment until it wanted more. It made Inuyasha withdraw from her. He was scared of the feelings he was being plagued with. Obviously she took it as disgust. Or that he loved Kikyo. Shit. He was already the worst mate. But his anxieties had been justified at the time. Now--now they are what drove his mate within herself. Fuck.

Kikyo continued to stare at him, whether or not she knew what transpired between him and Kagome those weeks ago, she offered no words of comfort or disappointment. 

"Master! The Lady Kikyo will not see it as such! That is not her body!"

"It may not be her body flea but it's her consciousness! I--uh--"

Kikyo giggled, flustering Inuyasha more, "Oh Inuyasha, I understand there is no meaning for this kiss towards me; I know it for Kagome.”

“God! You guys are just assholes!” he added as he blushed. “Is.. I know you said Kagome can hear us… is she saying anything?”

Kikyo shook her head, “She has remained silent. I sense her emotions. But she has not spoken to what she is hearing. I’m not sure if she is being receptive or not. It’s possible she thought you would be happy to see me again and shut down.”

“I don’t know why she’d think something so fucking stupid! So you’re telling me she can’t hear anything?!”

“I am not sure Inuyasha. I know we could hear you from inside the void when our soul was taken by the one known as Kanna. There is no reason to raise your voice to me in such a way.”

Inuyasha narrowed his eyes and exhaled in agitation, “Listen Kikyo, I am not the same guy as I was five-hundred years ago. You said that yourself. Kagome has accepted me for who I am. I’m not gonna just revert back to being your guard dog--I’m Kagome’s Guardian now. Do you hear that Kagome?!” He grasped her arms harshly. Pleading that she felt it deep down inside herself. “I’m more me with you than with Kikyo! You better get the fuck back here because I’m not gonna hide who I am! I’m happy with you Kagome! You are the one I’m meant to be with. God I hope you’re fucking listening because I’m not gonna to repeat this! Damnit! Woman! Grrrrr,” he growled, finally pushed to the limit and dropped his lips to hers in bruising force. This had better work…

 Kagome tried her best to keep things muffled--she didn’t want to hear Kikyo and Inuyasha’s reunion. The sweet nothings he’d whisper to her ancestor, the confessions of love, and the intimate position they probably were embracing in… God. If she could sink further into herself, she would. She would happily accept death if it would make Inuyasha happy. 

Was she pathetic for thinking that? For giving up? Was it technically giving up? She said she would help him learn to be able to survive on his own. Her staying here would void that promise. But she would be giving him Kikyo--someone she knew he cared deeply about. That was a better gift right?  

Kagome heard him yelling something about being stupid--her hands were still clamped over her ears but his shouts was loud enough to make it through her barriers she placed over her heart. Did he think she was being stupid? Foolish? Whatever. He didn’t have to tolerate her anymore anyway. Her despair fell off of her in waves. 

Why did Kikyo tell her to think about her feelings towards him anyway? She knew she was his mate? She knew she liked the guy… okay, obviously she was in love with him. Sacrificing herself proved that little tidbit. But--what were mates?

Myouga hadn’t elaborated very much. Just said that there were two different types of Chosens. 

Kikyo said she was different from the type of Chosen. Whatever that meant.

Were mates--well duh, they had to be a demon related thing--a ‘mating’ thing? That’s how zoologists described animals reproducing. Why would Kikyo say they were mates?

Was she saying they needed to ‘bang’ it out? Not that Kagome was opposed--but God forbid if that ever got out that she had sex out of wedlock. Then again, maybe it was normal for Inuyasha’s time? She couldn’t imagine he was in uhm… ‘mint’ condition. But then again, anytime Kikyo came up, he got a sour look on his face and she had dropped the subject. But Inuyasha was too good looking to be turned down. Sighing, Kagome declared she would do more research about five-hundred years ago and demonic breeding… if she ever got out of the darkness. 

She heard more yelling and she was starting to get even more upset. This jackass couldn’t appreciate anything she did for him! Typical! What an asshole! What was his problem?! He had Kikyo! He had Totosai and Myouga to help him adjust to the time. One little promise of sticking by him shouldn’t mean so much to the guy. God. Jerk.

Her heart began to flutter rapidly when she swore she heard him say something about being his mate. But everything was muffled and distorted. No way she heard him correctly. That was when she felt an odd sensation on her lips. Clearly she was going mad… he wasn’t kissing her. He was likely kissing Kikyo…

But her soul kept fading in and out--or in and out of her consciousness. Whatever the darkness she was in. It was hard to describe or know what was going on. She finally saw him. Fuck a duck. He was kissing her. Her. Well--scratch that--he was kissing Kikyo but it summoned her back. Unknowingly and unwittingly. Damnit!

Gasping she gained his attention and his eyes opened. His bright amber eyes bore into hers. She knew she was blushing madly as he pulled back and said her name breathily.

“I-I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to come back!”

“Wh--What?!!?” his gentle caring eyes turned angry. “Why are you saying it like that?!!?”

“You--you were kissing Kikyo and I--I--I don’t know but I came back out of the darkness!”

“Duh! That was the fuckin’ point, idiot!”

“UGHHHHHH! You’re so frustrating!!! Can’t you appreciate anything I try to do for you?!?!”

“Who said I wanted Kikyo back?!!?”

“You!!”

“When!?!” he said, gripping her arms tightly.

“Uhmmm…” Well come to think of it, he never voiced such a desire… “Okay, maybe not out loud, but you did with your actions and insinuations!”

“And you know what? That is my fault. You’re right. I’m a shit mate for making you feel unwanted but I had a lot to process in the past couple of weeks! Give me a fuckin’ break!”

“Well of course it is and--wait--what?!?!” 

“You heard me, wench.”

“N-no… wait--uhm--” she stammered as she looked away blushing.

“Uh uh,” he said, grabbing her chin with his fingers pulling her back to face his intense eyes. “I admit I fucked up; I almost lost you, Kagome. But tell me why in the seven hells you thought it would be a good idea for you to sacrifice yourself to allow Kikyo to come back.”

“You’re in love with her--and I--” she swallowed thickly the ‘L’ word that threatened to escape her lips and pressed on, “care about you. I wanted you to be happy--even if it wasn’t with me.”

“That’s the dumbest thing I think I have ever heard. That includes the time you told me you rode in a metal cart machine to work and that if it crashed it would kill you.”  

“Inuyasha--”she warned.

“Kagome--I tried to tell you that Kikyo and I were not in love. I was just her Guardian. That’s it. We obviously didn’t trust each other. That’s not something that can’t exist between mates. Tell me--do you trust me?”

“What does that have to do with anything?? Of course I do!”

“Why?”

“I--uh--” she trailed off really unsure how to answer the question. Why did she trust him so undyingly? When she awoke him in the museum, she held no fear of him. She even bossed him around and asked him fifty billion questions. Just like he was an old friend of hers she hadn’t seen in forever, not a five-hundred year old demon who could have easily killed her. 

“Exactly. You just do. You know I would never harm you,” he breathed, his face oddly close to hers as his hands somehow found their way into her hair. His fingers brushed through it lovingly, making her sigh shakily.

“I-it could just because I’m a descendant of Kikyo’s.”

“Your theory doesn’t hold up Ka-Go-Me. Kikyo didn’t trust me.”

“But--she learned the truth didn’t she??”

“Doesn’t mean she trusted me. She just knew I didn’t commit treason,” he found a particular stand he had fingered through fascinating to her relief as he looked away from her. His body in such close proximity made hers hot even though her dress had seen such better days. She needed a moment where his eyes weren’t glued to her. 

Closing her eyes, exhaling again before speaking, she whispered, “I’m sorry. Were you two able to…?”

“No. But I made my peace with it. She knew the truth; I didn’t need an apology or an explanation. Not really. I just needed you back,” he admitted.

Her eyes shot open and relocked with his, “What?”

“You need to start listening; it’s probably why you end up in so many fights,” he smirked.

“Listen to what!? You’re making no sense!”

“You are my mate, Kagome. My Chosen. Not someone I have to protect--but someone I want to--someone I need to. Not for the sake of honor, but for the sake of living. If you ever died--I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. I wouldn’t be able to survive. The fact you were almost sealed away inside yourself… it was enough to make my demon stir and almost emerge and go into another killing frenzy.”

“Like earlier? When Naraku said that awful stuff about Kikyo?”

“I was already transformed because your life was in danger. Being that enraged and pissed off about your safety, seeing he had burned your arm, I was easily baited into fighting with him. He had wanted to drive us apart. The fucker nearly succeeded too; I left you unprotected and vulnerable while I tried to exact revenge for Kikyo and myself. I screwed up. Big time. I don’t deserve your forgiveness.”

“There’s nothing to forgive though, Inuyasha. I understand,” she said as she stroked his cheek.

“See? I don’t know how else I can prove to you that you’re my mate. You know it deep down.”

“I… I guess I just don’t totally understand,” she said softly.

“Mates--it’s hard to explain because I've never had one. Myouga knows more than I do--speaking of the useless asshole--where are you?!” he called.

“Right here, Master! Didn’t want to interrupt such a tender moment.”

Welp, that was embarrassing--she turned six shades of red but Inuyasha secured his arms to wrap around her as he held her close. She took the opportunity to bury her head into his shirt and prayed maybe the ground would swallow her up.

“Myouga,” he warned.

“Sorry Master!”

“Can you beat it? We can talk later.”

“Did you want to know the full details of mating though?”

“I think I can handle the easy details asshole, can you just get the fuck outta here??! Go make yourself useful and make sure the other people in the building got their souls back or whatever,” he yelled, swatting Myouga from his shoulder followed by a terrorized scream.

“Sigh, you didn’t have to be so mean,” she chastised.

“Yea, yea, you didn’t have to live with him five-hundred years ago.”

“Anyway,” she said, clearing her throat, hoping maybe he’d release her. Okay that was a lie--she never had felt so at home or safe being next to him. Or rather, in his arms. But she wasn’t very comfortable with intimacy. It was highly taboo. The idea just made her face light up further.

“Yea… mates are--to demons, they are uhm… Fuck, I hate having to explain shit. But you need to know. It’s like a husband and wife thing with humans. But it’s permanent. There’s no going back once a demon has mated. Their souls entangle and their lives get--shared I guess? I’m not clear with all the details and specifics, just the general idea of everything. I just know that it’s a rather large commitment.”

“Okay,” she replied softly.

“What?”

“I said okay; as in, okay, I’ll be your mate.”

“Kagome--you can’t just agree to it not knowing--”

“You’re right though. I--I think I’ve always known. Just how easily I came to trust you, offer you my home without thinking about how uhm--improper it would be, how I turned down Hojo--”

“YOU DID WHAT!?!? THAT LITTLE FUCKER--”

“--just everything makes sense as to why I’ve lived my life the way I have by now. How I ended up with a demon professor and boss--it’s just… it makes me happy. Knowing I actually do belong.”

“You’re--you’re crazy you know that, right?”

“Yea, I get that a lot,” she smiled brightly up at him.

He leaned his head down to rest his forehead against hers, “I’m not gonna mark you--to be my mate yet. I want you to be sure--to know all the details, okay?”

“Sure...whatever you want to make you feel better.”

“Stupid, it’s to make sure you do.”

“Whatever, don’t kid yourself, we both know you’re nervous about this,” she teased.

“Well yea! I’m not gonna listen to you bitch the rest of our lives about how I fucked over yours.”

“Inuyasha,” she warned.

“Keh, don’t worry about it--I’ll listen to you complain and whine about anything else.”

Rolling her eyes, she scoffed and he laughed. LAUGHED. “What have you done with my Inuyasha?”

“Wench,” he warned teasingly. “Let me just tell you how seeing you back in your body has given me a whole new take on life. What’s that saying? ‘Separation makes the heart grow fonder’? The fear of losing you, I just--I swore I would be honest with you. I know we may have a war coming up with this Naraku freak but--I--”

“I get it, Inuyasha. I understand. I feel the same.”

“Do you?”

“I love you, Inuyasha. I--I don’t know how, why, or when it started… but I do.”

“I--fuck it--” he cut himself off by grasping her face and pulling her back into a fierce kiss that she excitedly returned. Even though his tongue traced her lips and she opened her mouth, accepting him and even returning the gesture as she sought to scrape her tongue against his fangs, the kiss remained tame. It was hot. It could have easily made her forget her virtues and what he wanted, but she held herself back on what little thread she could.

“Mmmm,” she hummed as he pulled away.

“I’m serious about waiting. I--I would like to court you. If you’ll allow me.”

“We can work out all the details later,” she smiled softly.

“Deal,” he said, sealing their agreement with another kiss.

[eschercaine]

My rant about Catelyn Stark (towards Jon Snow):

As we know at the beginning of ASOIAF books, Jon is introduced as Ned Stark’s bastard son and the same age as Ned’s true first born son, Robb. Catelyn resents Jon because he is the living, breathing proof of her husband’s infidelity. And perhaps, she also hates him because she could not give her husband a Stark-looking heir, and out of her five children, Arya is the only one who looks like her father.

“She might have overlooked a dozen bastards for Ned’s sake, so long as they were out of sight. Jon was never out of sight, and as he grew, he looked more like Ned than any of the trueborn sons she bore him. Somehow, that made it worse.” -- Catelyn II, AGoT

I think some people will say that she is not a cruel woman, and she let him live in Winterfell, blah blah blah. Remember, Catelyn tolerated his presence for Ned’s sake. (I really wonder what would happen if Jon stayed at Winterfell instead of going to the Wall.) When Ned decides to go to King’s Landing, Maester Luwin told the Ned and Catelyn that Jon wants to go to the Wall, and she informed them that she wouldn’t have Jon here (instead of having him as one of Robb’s trusted ally/bannerman in the upcoming war). This just means that with Ned going on the South, there would be no one else to object regarding of what she wants do regarding Jon. She wants Jon gone.

Jon (to Bran): “I’m going North to the Wall. Uncle Benjen is waiting. We have to leave today, before the snows come. Don’t die. We’re all waiting for you to wake up, me and Robb and the girls. Everyone…”

Catelyn: “He was my special boy. I wanted him to stay with me. I went to the sept and prayed seven times to the seven faces of god that Ned would leave him here with me. Sometimes, prayers are answered.”

Jon: “It wasn’t your fault.”

Catelyn: “Jon?”

Catelyn: “It should have been you.”

I don’t care if she said that out of grief for her son. Her, wishing Jon had fallen instead of Bran? that says “cruelty” to me. She cannot just hate a motherless child just for existing, or wished him to die. Even IF Jon is Ned’s son, the fault lies within Ned. Also, if she’s that kind, remember that she groomed her eldest daughter, Sansa into becoming Catelyn 2.0 (until reality gets Sansa b******-slapped in the face), while her youngest daughter, Arya, who is the exact opposite of her sister, had a closer kinship to Jon that made it easier for Jon to love her back.

Then… fast-forward to Robb before the “Red Wedding”. Robb wants to legitimize Jon because he needed a male heir to take over if he died. At this point, Robb had no sons, both of his trueborn brothers are believed to be dead, Arya was assumed to be dead, and Sansa was in the power of the Lannisters. If Robb died, the Lannisters would take control of the North in Sansa’s name and it’s likely that most of the Northern lords would oppose this, creating a war within the North, which is the last thing he needs.

Robb needed to have an heir, and Jon was the only immediate relative who he knew to be both alive and free. Jon wasn’t exactly free, because he swore an oath as a man of the Night’s Watch, but Robb was confident that he could make a deal with the Night’s Watch to get him released from his vows, and he has no other options.

Of course, there’s another reason to this. It’s pretty clear that Robb and Jon have genuine affection for one another. They see each other as brothers, even though Catelyn has always treated Jon more like a threat. The fact that Jon has never been treated as an equal seems harsh and unfair to Robb, and it is something he’d like to make it right. Robb trusts Jon to take over for him, should the worst happened.

Robb vs. Catelyn (Family vs. Power): Robb accepts Jon as family and Catelyn does not. From Robb’s prespective, he’s ensuring that his family remains the power in the North. From Catelyn’s prespective, he’s handing over his family’s power and holdings to an outsider.

Catelyn is one of my least favorite characters. She may not be a bad person as Cersei, Tywin, etc., but she’s a flawed one.

(IF... the speculations are true that Jon is really Rhaegar and Lyanna’s son, I wonder how Catelyn would react that Ned is really faithful to her all this time, and the bastard child she resents so much is actually her nephew?)

[kyberled]

send me  ‘ hc ‘  + a word and i’ll write a headcanon about it regarding my character. || ACCEPTING

Anonymous asked:

Hc + Parents

Braig doesn’t know his biological parents. It’s probably best that he never does. He’s much better off with the Jedi. I’ll talk a bit about his biological father, his biological mother, and then some of his thoughts on the situation.

His biological father, Eadric Alden Claermoore, is a General in the Grand Army of the Republic, a rank he carried over from a lifetime spent in the Republic’s Navy. He made that rank his life after everything else fell away. The Claermoores were a military family. They always were. This goes all the way back to the Ruusan Reformations, but carried on in various ways since then. Government positions, naval positions, and now back in the Grand Army. Yes, it’s the naval branch; no, he’s not Force-sensitive. He is, however, exactly the sort of awful person you’d expect from someone who defines himself by his rank and his wealth and only barely - if ever - acknowledges the nepotism that went into it. 

He never wanted children. He figured he’d have to have one eventually, to carry on the name and all, but he never wanted one. Like most other things, it felt like a duty. An obligation, rather than a privilege. He was that sort of person. He also wasn’t too concerned about it, as his younger sister, Adarine, had children, but first-born this and patriarch-that and blah blah blah. ‘You know how it is’. Most people who know him thinks the war might be the only thing he ever loved, as it reaffirmed his status. That’s not entirely true. He loved his (ex) wife. Shiv brought out the best in him, people would say. Most who knew him had never seen him relax, let alone smile, until she came around. Shiv wanted kids. He agreed on one. He figured that was a good enough compromise. He also figured he wouldn’t necessarily have to be that involved with the more ‘difficult’ parts of parenting. Read: The actual parenting part. He figured he’d pick up extra duties to make up for the ‘loss of income’ (as if he needed it) while Shiv stayed home with their baby. 

It probably could’ve worked out, if their kid wasn't born Force-sensitive. But he was. So, of course, the Jedi took interest. Shiv said no, Eadric said yes. The Jedi figured they’d just keep an eye on them and try to educate the new parents on what the Force meant for their son. Just so they could fully think over their options and decide what was best. Then Shiv went to provide aid to a planet in the Outer Rim. When she didn’t come back, she was declared KIA. Eadric, quite rightly, decided he can’t raise a child by himself. Yes, he could have asked family or friends to help. Yes,he could have left the baby with the nanny droid he owned that was already looking after it. He could have. 

He didn’t. 

In his defense, he was trying to think of the long-term consequences. Nanny droids don’t work forever. And the boy was Force-sensitive; he needed to be trained by people who know what they’re doing. And, logically, he’s right. The Force is too dangerous - and draws too many dangerous people - for a lack of training to be even remotely safe. And - not that Eadric cares anymore - Braig is legitimately happy with the Jedi. So it really is the best choice. Of course, Braig was actually far too young to be given to the Order at the time. From what I can tell, kids are usually passed on to the Jedi at over a year, maybe even three. Braig wasn’t yet a year old. The young knight who’d been sent to do a wellness check/update hadn’t been prepared to take a baby. Eadric, in essence, handed him Braig and then locked the door and went back to work. He considered it like ripping off a bandage. The Jedi saw this as a cause to Not Panic, But Get Very Concerned At A Rather Fast Pace. He eventually just figured he had no choice but to take the baby back to the Temple and ask for advice. 

When Shiv showed up, not dead and very mad about why her baby was gone, things went sour fast. To make a long story short, they’re divorced now, and he hasn’t seen her in over a decade. He tried to explain his thought process to her. Tried to make a case for himself, and why this was best. She didn’t agree. It was a nasty argument. Eadric never really got over it. He never really got over her. Over the years, his understanding of the situation shifted from ‘this never would have happened if I’d kept our child from the Jedi’ to ‘this never would have happened if he hadn’t been born Force sensitive’ to ‘this never would have happened if he hadn’t been born’. Eadric lives alone now in the fancy surface-level Coruscant residence that’s run in the family for generations. The sort of place money can technically buy, but you won’t ever have enough money. He exists as living proof to the old adage, ‘wealth cannot buy happiness’. He’s a bitter, angry old man who’s devoted himself to the militaristic ideals that the Claremoores have lived by - regardless of who calls the shots. When the Republic becomes the Empire, he stays as an Imperial officer. He doesn’t see a problem with it. The strong prevail.

End of discussion. 

Then there’s Braig’s mother. Dr. Shiv Kiera Whelan is not a product of money and breeding, like her ex husband was. She’d come from the mid-levels of Coruscant. Not the glitterati, but high enough in the city to see what she might one day be able to achieve. Her family was loving and close, even if they were stretched thin financially. She was a middle child. She had an older brother named Cor, an adopted sibling the same age as her named Shina (shee-nah), and two younger sisters named Reni and Tel. They lived in a somewhat cramped apartment with their parents (Braig’s grandparents), Olan and Ama Whelan. They worked in factories across the street from each other, and met by chance - their love story bloomed over the course of many shared lunch breaks and continued throughout their marriage. Theirs was a hard life, and they did what they could to give their children better, while still making sure they knew the truths of the world. Shiv was the first of her siblings to attend higher education. She decided on medicine when she was young; you see a lot of need for it in the mid to lower levels. It’s what she felt was her calling. So she studied hard, saved up, worked herself to the bone. Loans and scholarships became her best friend (aside from her siblings). 

On a planet of trillions, medical care is always in high demand. Shiv took to it like a duck to water, finding her place among medical droids and scanners and sutures as if she’d always been there. She expanded her horizons by not only taking what her colleagues often deemed ‘charity cases’, but also offering medical aid off-world to military operations. That’s how she met her future (ex) husband, actually. A naval scrape that went badly but could have gone worse. His family opposed the marriage, hers didn’t care as long as they were happy. And, for a while, they were happy. It could have worked out great. They’d discussed kids, come to their agreement, and Shiv was excited to be a mother. She’d always liked kids, and they were well off enough that she could take some time off to be at home with the baby, and have nurse droids to help. It would be simple. 

It should have been simple. 

If it was, we wouldn’t be here. Shiv is like her son in more than looks; his self-sacrificing tendencies are both nature and nurture. People needed help. A skirmish between warring factions in the Outer Rim, it happened all the time. Shiv had plenty of experience doing field work on planets where that was often the best they got, and, much as she loved her baby, she’d gotten a bit stir crazy. It’d be fine, she’d go out for a week or two, give people some help, stretch her legs, and come back before the nurse droids even needed to be recharged. Unfortunately, bad intel comes for us all, eventually. It wasn’t just a skirmish between local factions. It was a fight between spice cartels. Nobody was entirely sure which cartels, once the dust settled. Some said the Black Sun, some said the Pikes. All reports said the medic camp was wiped out. Shiv along with it. 

Now, of course, Shiv wasn’t dead. She was in very bad shape, yes, but not dead. She got lucky. See, when you get a reputation for giving help to those who can’t afford it, they remember. A lot of those people gather at the Outer Rim, and a lot of people talk. A doctor that helps anyone, regardless of credits, is a good thing to have around, so Shiv got rescued by some of the ‘charity cases’ she’d taken over her life. It was a while before she was fully lucid, a while later that she was able to make contact and get back to Coruscant. By the time she got there, her son was gone. 

The real tragedy is that, if given enough time, she probably would have agreed to it, herself. Given time to think it over, given more conversations with the Jedi to learn more about them, about what the Force meant for her son, given the extra years she was supposed to have to come to terms, she probably would’ve agreed that the proper training was necessary for him. She didn’t get any of that. 

She just came home and he was gone. 

As you can imagine, this led to a terrible argument between herself and her husband. Eadric tried to justify his decision by saying he thought she was dead, and, either way, he’d been looking out for their son’s best interest. He was where he should be. Shiv, who was already dealing with one major trauma and frankly didn’t have time for another, was furious that he’d given her baby to ‘a cult’ (despite the Jedi not being anything of the sort). 

If you were to talk to Shiv now, she’d tell you she was divorced, though there was never any formal proceedings; Eadric just doesn’t talk about his personal life. Whereas Eadric will tell you he never had any children if you ask, Shiv will talk about who she hoped her son would be, and the injustices that face him now in the life he must live. Their opinions have grown to differ so much that they’re on different sides of the war, as well. Eadric stayed loyal to the Republic, and continues to serve the Grand Army. Shiv felt as though the loss of her son opened her eyes to the Republic’s corruption, and as such, she’s since offered her allegiance and her medical prowess to the Separatists. She hasn’t been to Coruscant in years, and the two of them - Eadric and Shiv - haven’t had any contact with each other in even longer. 

It should go without saying that Braig doesn’t know his biological parents. He doesn’t particularly want to, either. He knows, from records, where he’s from, and he also knows he came to the Temple far younger than he should have. As far as he’s concerned, there are a few potential reasons for this:

The first is that his parents were unable to care for a child. Given that he knows they were from the upper levels, and ergo well-off, he finds this unlikely. The second is that something happened to them, they had no relatives able to seize custody, and the Jedi took him in rather than having him float around the system for a few years. This is unlikely, as the Jedi keep tabs on prospective families, but it’s possible, and, if it is the case, it’s not worth looking into. And the last option he could think of is that they just didn’t want a kid, and again, that doesn’t merit looking into. He knows who his family is - who raised him, who cared for him, who taught him, who stood by and continues to stand by him every day of his life. That matters much more to him than blood.

[aarongoldenwrites]

So, I watched Prince of Egypt on Wednesday night to celebrate Passover. Then, I noticed some people watching it to celebrate Easter, which, okay, fine. It's not like you're holding a seder and it is an excellent movie.

But along the way, it occurred to me that part of our responsibility to God and one another is to share the Passover story with others.

So I'm going to do that now.

My way. With a certain degree of fidelity and a certain degree of irreverence.

You have been warned.

Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat happens. Jacob went to Egypt, blah, blah, blah, the children of Israel settle in Egypt. Problem is, the land of Egypt is currently under the conquering foot of the Hyskos, so when the Jews helped the ruling class they helped the conquerors because those were the people in charge. The Hyskos were predominantly a sea-people who had also invented chariots and they terrorized the Mediterranean. We think they might have been Mycenean or a proto-Mycenean culture. A couple hundred years go by. Some Jews leave Egypt and matriculate to the Sinai or further north, to Canaan. We'll come back to them later.

The Egyptians have learned all about chariots and are now better at them than the Hyskos. They politely ask the Hyskos to leave, wait five minutes, and then use chariots to kill as many of them as they can run over. The rest show themselves out. “Eh, not our problem,” says the Jews. They were wrong.

And so four hundred years of slavery begins. The Egyptians use the Jews to build their homes and their temples and their statues and other structures, but not the goddamn pyramids (which had been there since the first dynastic age and this is about the middle of the second). The pyramids at this point were covered in limestone, which meant you could see them from freaking anywhere during the day and made navigating the desert a little easier.

What were the pyramids for? Well, other than being a shining beacon for land navigation, they also had some cool uses for astronomy and astrology. The Egyptians were big believes in astrology, with thirteen astrological houses (the Greeks would later condense it to twelve, because they had a thing about the number thirteen). So, with all this astrology going on, some Egyptian priests start warning the Pharaoh that the Jews might revolt. “Well, they're already revolting,” the Pharaoh says, and everyone laughs because the Pharaoh just told a joke and he is considered to be a literal god.

Anyways, they come up with a theory that someone will be born on such-and-such a day, under this astrological house or maybe that one, and will probably be a firstborn child, and that person will lead the Jews to freedom. “Screw that,” Pharaoh says, “Who will do the laundry or weave our fine linen? Do... do people expect us to change the nappies of our young?” A simple solution is reached: every firstborn male child (because a female leader? Hah!) of a given sign will be taken from their parents and relocated to the Nile, where they will be eaten or drown or probably both. Any parents that resist will be beaten and probably killed, which is okay because we're only slaves. This happens every few years. For four hundred years.

A woman named Yocheved (pronounced “Yocheved”) is born. She will later be voiced by Ofra Haza, and if you don't know you Ofra Haza is you should youtube her and listen to her sing; you're in for a treat. If you don't know who Yocheved is, she's Moses' mom. Moses' mom already has two kids: Miriam and Aaron (I'm named for him). Miriam gets out of danger of death by Nile by being a girl, and Aaron gets away from it because no one cares about Aaron (there's some thought that he's the second son of a previous marriage, and that Miriam was born of that marriage, too. Moses is the first son of the most recent marriage or the result of a not-wedded sexing, which might have been an Egyptian lover or the result of her being a sex slave, because we know that happens when slavery is a thing). Yocheved has been around a bit, and she takes her baby in a basket to the Nile because the Egyptians sometimes let parents do this – it was easier than killing a slave that someone important might like. Yocheved has sneakily made the basket buoyant, so it floats down the Nile and into the Pharoah's palace. Pharoah's wife finds the basket with the baby inside and decides that she's going to keep it because it's clearly a gift from the gods. They name the kid not-Moses (Yocheved gave him that name).

Miriam had a job working in the palace doing menial jobs like doing the laundry, weaving linen, and changing her secret brother's nappies. And if a slave is calling the young prince “Moses”, well, what does that mean, anyway? Silly slave.

Moses grows up with his brother, Ramses. There's no expectations for Moses, as he is an adopted child and cannot inherit anything, but Father-Ramses has big expectations for Son-Ramses and we're going to get some inter-generational trauma here based in vicarious living, good intentions, and cultural bias. Shall we do the thing? Moses is put in charge of some military efforts up north and to the east. He organizes some raids against people living in the Sinai and brings back slaves. Father-Ramses is pleased, but his big plan was to separate the brothers and give Son-Ramses a chance to mature. Son-Ramses is put in charge of some temple shit and does pretty okay.

The two brothers reconnect. Son-Ramses is named Pharaoh-to-be and no one is shocked. He awards Moses with one of the slaves that was taken by Moses, a woman named Tzipporah (pronounced “Tzipporah”). Tzipporah is an actual badass and escapes. Moses helps through inaction and, along the way, discovers he might be Jewish. Miriam is able to show him his basket, tell him what happened to his mother, and otherwise prove that this particular prince of Egypt is actually a Jew. Moses' reaction is so bad you'd think he was listening to Alex Jones. Father-Ramses finds Moses and negs him. “You're not like those other Jews,” says he. “They're only slaves. We feed their kids to the Nile. We did it just last week, you can still see some of the pieces floating in the water. See the red bits?”

Moses is not doing so well and wanders around a bit. He sees an Egyptian taskmaster having fun whipping some Jew to death. Moses grabs the whip and kills the taskmaster. The other taskmasters are ready to respond but Moses is a prince and they know they have to respect his authority so they do nothing. Moses freaks out and it becomes public knowledge that Moses is a Jew, so they banish him and Father-Ramses has Moses' name expunged from the records, and sets a law that not-Moses' name shall not be uttered on pain of death. Father Ramses says his adopted son's name again on his death bed.

Moses flees across the desert with almost nothing. He makes it to Sinai and comes across three lost Hyskos harassing three children. He uses “I'm a Prince of Egypt, bitch!” and it's super effective. The Hyskos run away. Moses pulls a Wesley from the Princess Bridge – he has no strength and falls down. There's a well right beside him, so why not fall into that?

Moses is pulled out of the well by Tzipporah and the kids. Tzipporah recognizes him and kicks him back in, because this is SINAI~! The kids explain that he chased off the Hyskos, though, and then she helps Moses out of the well and takes him home. Her father, Jethro, is one of those Jews that wandered away from Egypt back when and settled in Sinai. Moses is invited into the tribe because why not? It's just the sort of getaway he needs to find himself. He finds he enjoys being a shepherd and finds himself working for Jethro and the tribe, tending sheep. He tries to put his past behind him. Moses falls in love with Tzipporah. She also falls in love with him. Jethro is delighted by this. “What's not to love,” says Jethro. “He's a prince!” He presides over the wedding.

A sheep Moses is tending gets lost. He follows it to a bush that happens to not be burning despite being on fire. “Moses,” the bush says. “I am here,” Moses says. The proper nomenclature is “he nae ani”, for those wondering how to respond if God ever speaks to you. They have a chat where God tells Moses to go back to Egypt and Moses says that's not going to happen. Moses is arguing with God, though, so there's a good chance he's going to lose and go to Egypt.Edit or delete this

He loses and goes to Egypt. Moses brings his wife with him, and part of his deal with God is that he gets a security blanket. In this instance, that means his brother, Aaron, who he barely knows. Miriam ends up playing matchmaker and also gives Moses a place to stay while he's vacationing in Egypt, which is nice of her. You can always count on family.

So, remember Father-Ramses? He's dead now. Son-Ramses has taken over. Henceforth, he shall be referred to as “Ramses.”

Moses, Aaron, and Tzipporah go to the palace. Ramses recognizes Moses and welcomes him home because they do love one another. The priests point out that Father Ramses has Moses' name erased from history and he exiled. Ramses goes “No worries, this is my bro, bro. We'll call him by his slave name, and slave name bro cannot be tried for any reason. Word of Pharaoh, y'all, this is, like, a law now.”

And it was.

Moses needs security blanket Aaron to be there before he presents his case: “Um, God spoke to me and said to let His people go.” “Did he?” “Yes.” God turns Moses' staff into a snake because that's impressive. The Egyptian priests respond by doing the same thing, so Moses' snake eats their snakes and then becomes a staff again. Moses looks at Aaron and repeats the let my people go thing. Ramses is not impressed and decides to make the Jews' lives harder.

God turns all the water in Egypt to blood. The Jews get water, but if the Egyptians try to drink it, it becomes blood. The Egyptian linens are all bloodstained and also they are suffering from dehydration, so now the slaves are lacking off like they're the working class during a coronavirus outbreak and the Egyptians are the 1%. Moses approaches Ramses and promises this will end if Ramses will let the Jews go. Ramses thinks about it, drinks some blood, and says 'no.'

God calls frogs. Everywhere there are frogs. Everywhere there are frogs. They are in your bed. Your bathroom. Your linen drawer. Your clothing. Your hair. Frogs. Frogs everywhere. The Jews do not have this problem. Moses approaches Ramses and promises this will end if Ramses will let the Jews go. Ramses thinks about it, eats a frog, and says 'no.'

God calls lice. You'd think they frogs would get them, but the frogs leave them and the Jews alone and the lice are also not bothering the Jews. The Egyptians are shaving themselves everywhere to try and deal with the lice. It is not working well. Moses approaches Ramses and promises this will end if Ramses will let the Jews go. Ramses thinks about it, scratching his bald spots, and says 'get out of here.' The Jews get super excited when they hear. The blood becomes water. The frogs go away. The lice vanish. The Jews pack up what little they have and get ready to leave, but before the bread they're baking can rise Ramses changes his mind. “Who will do the laundry?” Ramses demands. The Jews are forced back to work.

God summons flies. Flies clouds so thick they block out the sun. Flies in such numbers that you can't tell day from night. You open your mouth and choke on flies. They cannot be escaped. They do not bother the Jews. Moses approaches Ramses and promises this will end if Ramses will let the Jews go. Ramses thinks about it, chokes on some flies, and says 'no.'

God inflicts disease on the domesticated animals of Egypt. They begin to wither and die, providing more breeding grounds for more flies. The stink is unbelievable. Livestock used and cared for by Jews are fine or recover, but those owned by Egyptians pus and scab and blister and peel. Moses approaches Ramses and promises this will end if Ramses will let the Jews go. Ramses thinks about it, cradling a crocodile that used to eat Jewish babies, and says 'no.'

God uses boils on the Egyptians. It is super effective. Egyptian flesh begins to blister and burn and peel. It hurts. It itches. You scratch and you bleed. The Jews are not affected. The blood soaking your linens is now your own. Your skin is rotting if you are Egyptian and there is nothing you can do. Moses approaches Ramses and promises this will end if Ramses will let the Jews go. Ramses thinks about it, his fingers sinking into his flesh, and says 'get the hell out of here.' The Jews get super excited when they hear. The flies go away. The livestock recovers. The Egyptians heal without scars. The Jews pack up what little they have and get ready to leave, but before the bread they're baking can rise Ramses changes his mind. “Who will weave our fine linen?” Ramses demands. The Jews are forced back to work.

Okay, so up until this point, the Egyptian priesthood has been waging magical war on Moses, and Moses has been responding in kind and kicking all kinds of ass. This is a forty-day magical duel, with a bunch of smaller plagues, hexes, and curses. The priesthood has done their best to match Moses plague for plague, and this is where they fucking fail. Why? GOD CALLS GIANT BALLS OF FLAMING ICE FROM THE SKY. We're talking treasure chest-sized chunks of ice that are also on fire. They slam into buildings and people, freezing what they touch, while the fire spreads and consumes everything that isn't frozen or Jewish. The Jews are fine. A little panicky, maybe, because it's clear God is done fucking around. Moses approaches Ramses and promises this will end if Ramses will let the Jews go. Ramses thinks about it, standing in the Nile where he will not be on fire, and says 'no.'

God calls locusts. Demon locusts. Cicadas. They make THAT sound and also eat all the stores of food that the Egyptians have, and all their fine linen, and bite the Egyptians, and they're everywhere, and the priesthood has failed, and maybe Ramses should listen this time and do the thing. Moses approaches Ramses and promises this will end if Ramses will let the Jews go. Ramses thinks about it, then asks Moses to repeat the question over THAT sound, and whimpers 'no.'

SO GOD PUTS THE SUN AWAY. The Jews still have light, but the Egyptians cannot see it, cannot feel it. There is no light or warmth, and the torches they steal or protect begin to gutter, their light seething down to nothing. Moses approaches Ramses and promises this will end if Ramses will let the Jews go. Ramses thinks about it, alone in the dark, and says 'get the fuck out of here.' The Jews get super excited when they hear. The fires go out and ice thaws. THAT sound stops. The sun comes back. The Jews pack up what little they have and get ready to leave, but before the bread they're baking can rise Ramses changes his mind. “Who will change the nappies of our babies” Ramses demands. The Jews are forced back to work.

See, Ramses remembers he has a child. Moses has a nephew. And that nephew questions Ramses' commitment to sparkle motion, and by sparkle motion I mean Egypt. They need to make Egypt great again, and maybe the best way to do that is to take the Jewish firstborn children and adults regardless of sign and put them in a camp called the Nile, where they will drown or be eaten. And he tells this to Moses and Moses understands and begs – he begs his brother not to do this. Ramses promises a wail will rise out of Egypt in the morning that is like nothing anyone will have ever heard before or ever hear again. Ramses decides to kill every firstborn Jew in his kingdom. They're only slaves.

Moses tells the Jews to cover their doorframes in lamb's blood. He does not tell them why. The burden of foreknowledge is his alone.

God visits every Egyptian household and claims every firstborn male, a mockery of Pharaoh's threat. God takes the adults. God takes the children. The only firstborn he leaves is Ramses. Every other firstborn male dies. All of them.

Moses approaches Ramses. There are no words. What could he say? What comfort could he give his brother? How should he mourn his nephew? There are no words. Ramses whispers “Go.”

The Jews are not super excited when they hear. They are terrified and heart-broken, but they also possess enough pattern recognition to not bother with waiting for the bread to rise. They leave with unleavened bread (matzah), gather what they can carry, and go. Some of the Egyptians want to go with them, and they are welcomed. Moses leads the Jews to the Red Sea. The Jews are not sure where they want to go, but God tells Moses that he intends to return them to Canaan – they just need to make a stop in the desert first. God has told Moses what he has to do but Moses is reluctant after that whole mass murder thing. He cannot help but feel that he is responsible.

Ramses is torn by grief and anger. There are others that are likewise torn. He tries using the power of his gods and the priests to call back his son from death. His son is still dead. His son is still dead. He is Pharaoh. He cannot let this stand. The chariots are gathered. All the Jews will die. They ride.

The Jews are wondering what to do next when the Egyptian army starts racing towards them. A HURRICANE OF FIRE comes out of the Red Sea and creates a wall of flame between the Egyptians and the Jews. God tells Moses to do the thing. Moses does the thing.

The Red Sea parts, allowing the Jews to pass from Egypt to Sinai. As the Jews approach Sinai, God lets the wall of fire dissipate and presents Ramses with a choice: stay here and let the Jews go or die. Ramses believes he is a God, so he decides to charge with his whole army. As the Jews are pulling out of the water, they notice the army coming for them. The waters begin to close. Moses calls to God: “My brother spared me from his wrath, please do the same for him.” The Egyptians are crushed by the Red Sea – every single chariot is destroyed and all their riders are killed. Only Ramses survives unscathed, tossed by the waters back to Egypt.

In heaven, the angels sing God's praises. “Who is like you, oh God, to have freed a nation in bondage? Who is like you, oh God, to have stood against one nation to free another? Who is like you, oh God, to have fought evil directly-” But God silences the host. “The Egyptians were My children, too,” God says, and weeps.

Gods leads Moses, and Moses leads the Jews into Sinai. They hook up with the other Jews and begin making their way up to Canaan. Moses tells everyone they need to stop for a bit – there's a thing he's gotta go pick up. “My father-in-law can teach you how to stay alive in the desert,” Moses says, and Jethro smiles because he can. Moses leaves Aaron in charge and heads up a mountain.

God gives Moses the Ten Commandments. “Why ten?” Moses asks. “I'm trying to keep this simple,” God replies. “What happens if people disobey?” Moses asks. “From Me? Nothing,” God answers. “And what happens if we do obey?” Moses asks. “The world will be a better place,” God says.

“I AM THE LORD THY GOD.” Simple. Straightforward. The creator of everything and the person and place and thing who can worship or not as you choose. “THOU SHALT HAVE NO OTHER GODS BEFORE ME, NOR SHALL YOU MAKE ANY GRAVEN IMAGE OF ME.” This one's a little more complex. It's not “thou shalt have no other gods.” It recognizes other gods, but claims that those gods are part of the creation that God is. God is everything. There is nothing that God is not. By making a graven image, you would be trying to simplify an understanding of God and lying to yourself about what God is. Do not do that. “THOU SHALT NOT TAKE THE NAME OF THE LORD IN VAIN.” Don't talk with God's authority. You're a mortal, I'm a mortal, the best we have are guesses. Is God there? Does it matter? Don't claim authority that isn't yours. “REMEMBER THE SABBATH DAY, KEEP IT HOLY.” Take a day off. One day out of every sevem, just relax. “HONOR THY FATHER AND THY MOTHER.” Be good to your parents. They're trying their best. Keep your promises to them and try not to stress them out too much. “THOU SHALL NOT MURDER.” Don't just go out killing people. You can defend yourself and your family, sure, but wholesale slaughter just leads to more killing. Chill out. “THOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY.” So, bigamy was a thing back then, but we don't often talk about how that worked all ways. The real thing being talked about here is going behind people's back to have sex with someone; it's effectively don't lie about sleeping with people, be open and honest about intimacy and the needs of all involved. Honestly, it makes things simpler and would have saved Isaac and Jacob a world of misery. “THOU SHALL NOT STEAL.” Don't take stuff that's not yours. Try and get it back to who owns it if you can. “THOU SHALL NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS AGAINST THY NEIGHBOR.” Don't start shit. Don't spread rumors and gossip. Just be up front with people. It's not hard. “THOU SHALL NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR'S SHIT.” It's basically spouse, house, and stuff. Don't compare yourself to other people, because you're not other people. Your metric of success is going to be unique to you, so try to live to that. Living to other people's expectations of what success looks like is only going to make you miserable.

“Simple, right?” God says. “Yeah,” Moses says. “What else you got?” And God has Moses provides a long scroll, some ink, and a silver pen. Then Moses writes the first Torah.

“This is tricky,” Moses says. “First, I die in the second book, and there's five of them. That's a little weird.” “Sorry about that,” God says. “Are you?” “No.” “What about all these other rules?” Moses asks, pointing at books three, four, and five. “A bunch of people are going to sit around getting drunk and formalize them,” God says. “But you're dictating them to me now,” Moses says. “Doesn't that make them the Word of God?” “No,” God says, “It just means I know what they're going to say in the future, because I am them in the future and I am you now and I am here now. All of these things are true at once.” “These books feel like a contract,” Moses says. “They are,” God confirms. “You set the terms of what our relationship is. I've given you the Commandments. The rest is up to you.” “No punishment for breaking them?” Moses asks again. “The only punishment is the world that comes from breaking them,” God says.

“What about the afterlife?” Moses asks. “What about it?” God asks. “What happens there?” Moses asks. “Don't worry about it,” God says. “I do worry about it,” Moses says. “The Egyptians had a whole book of the dead thing going on, and all the other religions have something to say about it.” “I'd rather you focus on what you do while you're alive,” God says. “That's what matters.” “Will we be rewarded in the afterlife for things we do here?” Moses asks. “No,” God says. “Then why be good?” Moses asks. “Why indeed?” Gods says. “Our Covenant is one you have to choose. It will not be easy. The point is to live well and try to make the world better than you found it. There's no special punishment or reward for either doing so or failing to do so.” “So, we're just trying to make the world better for everyone?” “Choosing to, or not. And you'll be surprised how many people won't get that.”

So, Moses finishes the Torah and grabs that and the Commandments and heads down to find the Jews have created a Golden Calf and are worshiping that. Moses loses his shit and thrown down the Torah and Commandments, destroying the calf. “Are you fucking kidding me?” Moses roars. “God literally just went into a nation and fought that nation for you and you decide to worship a fucking statue? Fucking Abraham sorted that one and... and... do you know nothing?” And Jethro says “They don't. They barely remember who they are, and we tried to tell them, but...” “Okay, listen,” Moses says, glaring. “I'm going back up the mountain. Jethro, Aaron, Tzipporah, Miriam, you guys start teaching everyone how to read. I'm going to go get our history and then I'll be back. Try not to worship anything else until I get back.” “Right, right, but we're thirsty,” some people say, so a very angry Moses hits a rock with his stick and causes water to spill forth from it. They start praising Moses, who does not correct them as he stomps back up the mountain.

“You should have told them I did the thing with the stick and the rock and the water,” God tells Moses as Moses gets back to writing. “They're going to think you did it with magic or something.” “They already think I do all the things,” Moses says. “You know how that ends,” God says, and Moses weeps because he does.

Moses comes down from the mountain. He presents the Commandments and the Torah. There's plenty of time to talk about the contents of both as they walk to Canaan. The Jews learn their history – the learn about Abraham's rebellion, Isaac's betrayal, and Jacob's children. They learn to read and to understand that they have to choose to be God's people and that it is an ongoing relationship, a promise to be good to show the world what it could be. They discuss and they argue and they learn how to kvetch and by the time they reach Canaan's borders they have chosen to be Jewish, have chosen to be Israelites. And then Moses says “I can't go with you.” “What?” asks the Jews. “I can't go with you,” Moses says. “You know this. You read the story. I can't be your parent or your shepherd – you all need to figure this stuff out, and you can't do that if you're expecting me to fix all your problems.” And the people that still thought that Moses had created water with a magic stick shuffled their feet nervously. “This isn't your fault,” Moses said, looking at them. “It's time to move forward, if that is your choice.”

And it was.

[bae-leth]

Hey, hey, if you’re doing headcanon requests then I absolutely wanna hear your headcanons for Dimitri and Felix back when they were kids. How they met, how their relationship was like growing up, that kinda thing!

crawls out of bed.

did you say…. felix and dimitri??? Oh…..oh gosh. it seems like…. my hands are moving of their own accord …. you have Awakened me, anon….

(disclaimer: JKSDJHF THIS GOT SO LONG, I GOT REALLY CARRIED AWAY,,, OH DEAR)

Felix did not want to be Dimitri’s friend at first.

Dimitri was so… excitable. Constantly smiling, horribly popular, and so happy. Felix felt tired whenever he so much as looked at the young prince.

Why would he need the prince as a friend, anyway? Sure, he’d be a useful connection, but Felix couldn’t see how exactly he was meant to approach him.

Flattery? False affections? Lies? No, thanks. So much effort - and for what? He’d much rather stay away.

So when the king holds a social gathering for all the nobles in the kingdom, and all the other noble kids decide to flock around the prince and completely block off the food table, it’s safe to say that Felix is annoyed.

He just wants the sandwiches, but noo, the prince has to attract a fanclub? And leave him hungry? Fantastic.

So he just stays back and sulks. All he wants is some food so he won’t starve, but’s stopping him? Oh, that’s right. The prince! Grrr.

Felix’s parents try to get him to socialise with the others, but he’s having none of it. He hasn’t had much luck with friends before (something about his moodiness? They called him moody -) and he doesn’t need them now. He prefers to be alone, you know?

So he escapes from the ballroom (without any food :( ), and ends up in the castle gardens to contemplate.

(What’s with this weird twinge in his chest when he thinks about friends, anyway? It’s annoying. He doesn’t like it.)

Just as he’s about to doze off on the garden bench, Felix is suddenly jerking upright, because he’s hearing the tell-tale sounds of wood clashing with wood.

He follows the sound, somewhat apprehensively, and who does he find? None other than the prince himself, slashing away at a training dummy with ferocious determination!

Felix is actually kind of impressed at his stamina (read: kind of. Only kind of) and ends up watching him for quite some time - that is, until Dimitri spots him and waves him over.

Felix goes ‘ABORT ABORT ABORT HE FOUND ME’ in his head, but stays put as the prince marches over to him.

Dimitri: Hello! I haven’t seen you before. :D Would you like to spar with me?

Felix, internally: LET ME SHOW YOU HOW IT’S DONE

Felix, externally: Sure. I’ll beat you anyway!

So they spar, and for some reason, Felix really wants to impress the other boy. So, once he finds an opening, he rushes forward with all his strength…

… and he hits Dimitri so hard he stumbles and falls awkwardly, with a sickening crunch and a cry of pain.

Felix is internally panicking. Like, PANICKING.

Dimitri is suppressing tears on the floor, and Felix is just standing there, frozen, going “OH GOD I KILLED THE PRINCE?? AM I GOING TO GET EXECUTED??? IS HE OKAY???”

The guards rush over when they hear Felix yelling, and they take the prince to the infirmary. Felix gets the scolding of his life from his parents, but the pounding in his ears means that he barely listens to them.

His real fear is what’ll happen to him when he sets foot in the castle again. He’s only a kid, but they’re going to banish him, aren’t they? Is he going to find the prince dying? Dead? 

He’s doomed, so utterly doomed -

This is literally the most he’s ever messed up, ever -

Before he knows it, he’s being brought before the king. The king is stern and intimidating, and as coolly as Felix tries to conduct himself, he’s still a child, so he’s quaking.

Dimitri is sat next to the king, arm in a sling. Hey, at least he’s not dead? Still, he looks so impassive…

The king asks him what happened. Not aggressively, but just in a low tone. Felix takes a deep breath, and prepares to apologise profusely and maybe try to salvage his own life

when, out of nowhere, Dimitri cuts in, and proclaims that it was all his fault.

Dimitri: Father, it was me. I tripped and fell. Felix was only trying to help me, I promise!

Felix: ??? (WHAT ARE YOU DOING????)

The king asks them again, but Dimitri persists, and finally the king relents. He gets up, tells his son to be more careful, and tells Felix to enjoy the rest of his stay.

Felix is just like ??????!?!?!?!?!?!? now. Why on earth would Dimitri cover him? He literally broke his arm!

Felix expresses this when they get out of earshot of the throne room.

F: Why’d you help me out back there? I don’t even know you!

D: What do you mean? You’re my new friend - of course I had to help you :D (don’t worry about my dad, he’s a big softie really, he just looks like that when he scrunches up his eyebrows, blah blah blah blah blah….)

In the middle of Dimitri’s rambling, Felix shortcircuits, because???? ‘Friend’??? ‘NEW friend’??? What??? WHat?? Wha-

Felix can’t wrap his head around it. Dimitri wants to be his friend?? Genuinely?? Even though he knocked him to the floor???

(Why does this make him feel so warm??)

Felix decides he should at least say thank you. So, he goes out, makes (yes, makes) an entire batch of sweets, and yeets them at Dimitri the next time they see each other. 

Dimitri only smiles widely, and eats three of them in one go, telling Felix that they’re delicious, and when is he making more? He knows someone who’d love them, and he wants to eat more too, and -

Felix smiles, too, and from then on, a beautiful friendship is born.

They become as thick as thieves, and they run off everywhere. The guards hate them.

In their childhood years, Dimitri’s usually the one who’s dragging Felix toplaces. Not much responsibility yet = more fun!

Felix has to chase after him to make sure he’s not hurt. He’s still kinda wary after the sparring incident, and since Dimitri is as reckless as a boar, he’s resigned himself to making sure his new friend(!) doesn’t go off and lose an eye, or whatever.

Lots and lots of winter activities!

One time, Dimitri convinces him that they’re totally skilled enough to make their own toboggan. (They’re not.)

They make one that’s tiny, and Dimitri says that they can both go on it together, because it’ll be much more fun!

(They crash into a boulder instead, but hey, at least no one’s crying this time?)

They enjoy ice skating, too. Ingrid and Sylvain get dragged along to these - Ingrid is terrible at balancing, but Sylvain is surprisingly great at it.

Faerghus’ Christmas markets are the best thing ever. Authentic hot chocolate, tons of colourful stalls, snow falling thickly and late into the night, faint music ever present in the distance… When they’re open, the duo spend lots of their evening free time there.

Snowball fights. So many snowball fights. They come in afterwards tracking snow throughout the entire castle, and the maids want to cry.

Over time, Felix realises that he is really, really enjoying his friendship with Dimitri. A lot. A bit too much? No - this is fine! This is fine, and he couldn’t be happier.

(ofc, he doesn’t express this out loud, but Dimitri seems like he knows, so…? maybe he doesn’t have to???)

However, as they get older,  Dimitri slowly realises that he has take on more responsibilities and get into Proper Prince Mode in order to win court favour. He’s not cute and smol anymore, and the court won’t take too kindly to him if he continues ignoring his ‘duty’ forever.

Felix understands. He’s the son of a Duke, how could he not?

It doesn’t mean he likes it, though. He hates it, actually. Anything that’d change Dimitri’s beaming grin into a worn and weary expression is something that he’ll hate with a passion.

So! As Dimitri becomes more solemn and more withdrawn, taking on more princely duties, Felix eventually goes ‘fuck it’ and decides to go ham. He’s only a noble, not a prince, so it shouldn’t be that much of a deal.

He’s doing it not only to make Dimitri smile genuinely again, but also because he knows that the prince is bound to look better next to him in comparison. Two for the price of one!

(NOT THAT HE’D EVER TELL ACTUALLY TELL DIMITRI THIS. SSH. FOR ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES, FELIX JUST LIKES BEING AN ASSHOLE)

Dimitri becomes the one having to put up with Felix’s tomfoolery and chase him down every time he decides to do, well, anything.

Felix starts to challenge everyone. Ambassadors’ sons, counts, foreign dignitaries … Dimitri is just there going ‘NOOOOOOOO’ and pulling him back by the collar.

Felix is also super straightforward when he’s talking, which Dimitri needs, because he’s the type to make the other person feel marginally better even if their ideas are terrible.

Dimitri: The trade routes you’re proposing aren’t too bad. There might be some improvement needed, but on the whole, they are actually -

Felix: nah they suck lmao

Felix is constantly looking for more daring things to do. Constantly.

F: What would happen if I stole those drumsticks?

D: Felix, no

F: FELIX YES

No matter how hard Felix tries, though, Dimitri gets more and more stressed anyway. His duties pile up and up, and the looming weight of the crown makes him more anxious and self conscious, even though he’s trying his best to exceed the expectations placed on him.

Felix sees this (age 15 or so) and is like. Bitch. Bitch no. Bitch not again. BITCH

So he ups his game, and starts dragging Dimitri back to their favourite haunts - the ones they didn’t have time to go to anymore. NO MORE STUDYING FOR THE PRINCE.

They spend long Faerghus winters doing Everything. Once, they made a snowman in the shape of a particularly snobby Leicester noble and nearly got their heads chopped off for it (he really was ugly, okay??)

Felix gets yelled at constantly for distracting the prince, but does he care? No. Not at all.

(The guards love them, just because they’re so entertaining.)

One time, Dimitri offhandedly tells him about another noble boy their age who was giving him trouble. He’d called him weak and pathetic, and unfit to take the throne, and something else that Dimitri doesn’t want to disclose.

Felix takes one look at Dimitri’s sad smile (that - that bastard made him believe it?) and his mind goes blank. He spins on his heel, and walks off without a word.

He comes back half an hour later sporting a bruised lip. Later, news arrives that the other boy was found bawling in the kitchen, with two black eyes.

Dimitri berates Felix for it for ages (“Why would you do that? I told you it was nothing!”), but he’s touched, too. Felix takes all the blame in the ensuing outcry, and gets aptly punished, but he doesn’t regret it. The guy was a right prick. The black eyes probably make him more attractive now.

Felix openly calls Dimitri a boar in court. His parents sport thunderstruck expressions every time, but Dimitri just beams.

But yes… Felix always makes sure that Dimitri is happy. He covers it up with a lot of insults and snark, but he’s always got his best interests at heart (even though he’s terrible at showing it.)

Before they go to the Officers Academy, Dimitri tells him that he knew what he’d been doing the entire time, and really appreciates it. 

He then goes on to say that Felix is the most precious friend he’s ever had, and he wouldn’t trade him for the world.

… with that exact wording. My god.

Naturally, Felix gets embarrassed. “Why are you so sappy?” he grumbles, cheeks pink. Then, Dimitri hugs him very hard, and Felix goes FUUUUUUUU and short circuits because sahgdsag this is the nicest hug he’s ever gotten????? It’s really nice?????

Of course, he’s not telling Dimitri any of this. Instead, he pretends to be annoyed and punches the prince in the shoulder, before they start to discuss what the future has in store for them.

[talkingismylifewrites]

So I saw in one of your replies you came up with a mob boss au. Would you ever write it and put it on A03 cos I would LOVE to read it. Also please say John's the mobster who's like "if you mess with Roger you'll die" so a rival gang kidnap Roger to blackmail John. But then Roger turns out to be trained in combat and beats the shit out them all and escapes and when John hears he's just like "I fucking warned you not to mess with him!"

okay this is a) a long time coming and b) was born from me watching all of narcos in like...a week

in fact, it legit started with me texting lo “maybe i’ve been watching too much narcos but.....” 

okay so our story begins with the knowledge that roger’s dad ran the mob

like roger is his heir and his son and his dad is the Big Kingpin

john’s dad is a shitty little lackey who has waaaaaaay too many debts so he grew up in the mob?? but lower ranks

and john sorta started getting involved when he was like 10 or so bc no one looks twice at the nicely groomed white kid right? and his dad was Desperate

and like he and roger had this whole Star Crossed Lovers shit bc a) roger was Not Allowed to be Gay and b) they weren’t ever supposed to have even met like completely different pay grades

BUT roger overheard him arguing with his dad over a better way to do a job that would be less dangerous and way harder to track but he got brushed off with a “the boss is always right you don’t argue john it’ll get you killed”

but rog was like.... shit no that’s WAY better

and ended up dropping a few lines to find out who this kid is cause... he’s smart and smart goes far right

like u gotta look Out for the smart ones, he knows that, his dad taught him that

(with backhands and cruel fists while teaching him chess, that one night in the barrel when he fucked up a simple plan when he was 13...)

(like rog is smart he’s just not Great at compartmentalization. so his plans start out great but go off the railed as he gets excited/pissed off) but like johns smart he picks up when he’s suddenly being tailed and is like Ok What Did I Do to one of them

and the guy panics and takes him straight to roger who is like..... how did u fuck up a simple tail, Jesus Christ

but yeah like he and john end up having a sort of clandestine friendship of sorts? in which roger essentially brings half baked plans to him and john Fixes them

which sorta turns into mutual pining

john is like this is my angry mob boss son best friend and roger’s like this is my evil genius best friend who kills people

but yeah basically roger’s dad keeps beating him when things go wrong, even if its not his fault

John is observant okay he was noticing the direct correlation between roger “getting jumped” and plans going wrong

So when it’s one of his??? That goes tits up (and tbh it wasn’t even like a bad screw up they just had a witness who was taken care of the next day) and roger like slinks into Johns apartment/office with the break down for John and his eyes is swollen completely close and he’s got a fat lip the size of a strawberry John immediately is ready for murder

And roger never admits it’s his dad???? who’s beating him???

because Taylors Should Be Better

Because why would he? It’s embarrassing but also it’s happened his whole life it’s expected of a mob bosses son (think the Baba Yaga scene in John wick 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻)

which then turns into john pounding him into the mattress and promising no one will Ever land a hand on him again when he turns up one time with a battered to hell face because something went Wrong on one of the plans (which. extra emotional effect bc it was one of johns)

and like a month later roger’s dad is mysteriously found shot dead

cuz John mentally is like okay. Plan Ides of March is a go. Moving it up three years he’s getting taken out tomorrow

And John KILLS ROGER’S DAD IN COLD FUCKING BLOOD

the only??? person??? roger would EVER take that from is his dad

like johns heard the stories about roger taking out men twice his size yeah? but roger never has any defensive wounds on his hand

John knows that roger can and will defend himself

He’s seen him in action

But he never raises a hand against his dad when he straight up could kill him with one hand tied behind his back

so john figures it out and a month later roger’s dad is dead 

and now they need a leader?? another boss

and they look to roger, but roger is like no

he knows himself well enough, he is not strong enough in terms of planning and plotting, he’s a good action man but not strategist

that’s john

so roger steps aside and is like john is going to run the show

obvi there’s a power void and there’s basically civil war but with roger’s ruthlessness and john’s genius they fucking take all the little fractions down and they take them down HARD

john sits on his throne with roger standing over his shoulder, knuckles bloodied and grin wicked

and everyone knows if you fuck with roger??? you fuck with john

and vice versa

once, roger got shot on a mission and it was like, the one time?? john loans him out for a plan that wasn’t his

and he’s fine it’s just a graze but John and him in their bathroom and Johns like hyper focused on cleaning the wound and he furious and harsh and is like you fucking dumbass did no one teach you to duck?? You fool you dumb piece of shit

and roger just gently cradles john’s face in his hands and lifts his head to look at him and kisses him so gently and he’s like it’s okay, i’m fine, i’m here

and john’s like you are never going on any raid or plan or anything that i have not PERSONALLY vetted 

the next day, the guy who’s plan it was is sniveling and apologizing on his knees in front of John and Roger; it was an accident, he says

and johns like “it’s okay. i understand, these things happen.”

and then just blank eyed shoots him in the femur

“these things just happen, you understand?”

roger just smiles from behind him, doesn’t even flinch in the aftermath

john and roger rule with an iron fist until one day things go tits up

and roger ends up taking the fall for john, and he gets sent to jail

john, in retaliation, goes on the warpath

Because he’s totally turned around the family business they’ve gone more corporate and it’s more like s legit business now?? They still kill people and rob and shit but they’re not monsters or criminals

And they give money back into the neighborhood and shit and donate to charity and kiss babies blah blah blah

But the authorities are like we need to show our strength against these villains so Rogers looking at like 25years to life

And John just kinda is like okay cool I can fix this

And it’s the biggest campaign ever he’s got the best lawyers on retainer he’s blackmailing people left and right he’s buying witnesses and finding loopholes like he’s fucking working the system and he’s gonna get roger out even if it kills him because in his eyes it was His Fault

Roger is like your honor clearly there’s been some sort of mistake

Because the only thing that places him there is a grainy cell phone video and a witness that’s not exactly clean

So like the case isn’t solid

But it’s enough for a trial like most of it is circumstantial

And John is like I would kill the whole world for you and Rogers like sounds excessive but same

the difference between roger and john is that john would kill the whole world for roger after sitting down and planning the whole thing for several weeks. roger would kill the whole world for john and not remember doing it after (though still probably not regret it)

Roger would act first think later

And John would be like oh I planned it all out two years ago in the shower

Just in case

so roger gets sent to jail and john just...looses it

like he has to get yanked off of miami when the verdict is read of two years sentencing because its not technically miami’s fault??? its just shitty

and meanwhile, roger is getting dragged off to jail and he’s like don’t worry, babe, it’s gonna be fine

(it both is and isn’t)

roger shows up in jail and within a week he’s running the joint, he’s got lackeys and he’s paid off the guards and its basically a vacation

meanwhile john is just burning his competition to the ground, he’s making people rue the day they ever crossed him

(they TOTALLY get conjugal visits that last longer than uhhhh usual)

bc you betcha ass they’d be So fucking possessive of one another. like roger rules that prison with an iron fist 

anyways, miami appeals on the basis of circumstantial, and he basically proves that legit ANYONE else could have done it and this is clearly railroading and obviously roger is innocent

and after 8 months, he walks

when he gets out???? john is there to pick him up

they drive off to a safe house outside of the city and they had wicked crazy dangerous hot sex and its just insanity

and when they come back??? 

its like people know to just flee when they see them

john, mob boss and kingpin, and roger his dangerous and beautiful second in command 

also freddie is roger’s bff, miami is their lawyer, and crystal is roger’s bodyguard who always gets into more trouble than roger but he once took a bullet for roger so he’s chill

ps anyone tries to kidnap roger??? gets dealt with a) by roger and if roger manages to let them get away then b) john. you’d rather be dealt with by roger, and not john

[thegeminisage]

5 headcanons for Arthur, Merlin, Morgana, and Gwen

ANON I LOVE YOU thank u

im doing these in reverse order bc i wanna save the best 4 last

GWEN:

i think she genuinely enjoys taking care of people. it’s a role she’s forced into a lot - she takes care of her dad, elyan, morgana, uther, even merlin and arthur once in awhile, even HUNITH - but i think she’s the kind of person who finds genuine fulfillment in doing that kind of thing (she picked FLOWERS for morgana just because), and if she hadn’t been the blacksmith’s daughter she would have made a fine apprentice to gaius herself

she’s a better rider than you. and arthur. and elyan. and morgana. and everybody

we never hear word one about gwen’s mom but i like to imagine she died just before gwen and morgana met (which i’m assuming happened shortly after morgana came to camelot) - and gwen, who had just lost a mother, could easily sympathize with morgana, who had just lost a father and was somewhere new and unfamiliar - and that’s why they became such fast friends

gwen is probably a few years older than morgana - i like to think she was morgana’s maidservant from the start, but i don’t think they would have let her be a maidservant to the king’s ward at age 10, so maybe she’s 3ish years older - not so much older she strays into big sister territory, but old enough to do the job required of her

nobody among the knights/guards really knew what to make of gwen or arthur’s feelings for gwen because she’s ??? just a serving girl ??? like they didn’t dislike her exactly and they respected arthur’s choice for the most part but they also didn’t know anything about her and couldn’t see why the fuck arthur would make such a stir over her when it would be so much easier not to. this changes 100% after gwen’s shenanigans with smuggling leon out of camelot; leon comes back singing her praises like ok ok i GET HER now y’all ain’t gonna believe how she got me outta that cell and on leon’s word (and because she’s elyan’s brother and he’s a knight now too) everybody else warms up to her too

MORGANA:

this is practically canon but she’s a lesbian, obviously. gwen was the first girl she had a crush on

this isn’t a headcanon exactly but i wish bbc merlin had had a better budget because you know who deserved a black cat familiar? morgana. like, aithusa made a wonderful foil to merlin’s relationship w/ kilgarrah and i would not wish aithusa’s fate on any creature let alone some poor innocent cat, but also, the IMAGERY...it could have been so good

this is also sort of canon but i think she dresses expressively, hence the goth look after she goes evil. @dellesayah​ & i joke about her “evil girl eyeliner” in season 3 but honestly look the way the girl wears 100% black in s4 and s5 i think the eyeliner was her own private expression of her inner angry goth post-poisoning when she still had to be wearing those colorful dresses to fool everybody into thinking she was the same good girl morgana in s3

same age as arthur. idk why most fics have her being older - tho i admit her being older but still not being able to inherit the crown is a VALID source of her rage - but if she was born w/ magic is makes the most sense for her to have been born after the purge started, aka after arthur. i guess it depends on when you think uther cheated on his wife lol. but i never really thought of morgana and arthur as having like an older/younger sibling thing - to me they were more like twins, so definitely within a year of his age, whether it’s slightly older or younger depends on how you feel that day i guess

wintertime birthday. i think arthur has a summertime birthday (more on that below) so it makes her a nice balance to him in that way

MERLIN:

the Most doting son ever. i imagine he had a few difficult teenage years (being a warlock and all) and that he still gets himself into trouble out of sheer stupidity sometimes but aside from that he was probably really well-behaved for the most part just because he didn’t wanna make his mama sad

autumn birthday, since we went there with morgana (to complete the quad in Balance, gwen’s would definitely have to be in the spring)

ok i know colin morgan had to like put on a nice “proper” english accent for the show because katie mcgrath didn’t have one but in my heart merlin sounds like a HICK (whatever the ye olde englishe/modern british version of hick sounds like, he’s it) and his accent only gets worse for all the time they’re at ealdor. like arthur THOUGHT it was bad he probably picked on merlin about it all the time but he had NO IDEA how bad it gets! none! and EVERYBODY in ealdor sounds like that except somehow EVEN WORSE! gwen and morgana think it’s UTTERLY charming but arthur is SO GLAD to get back to camelot and away from all that nonsense! and so then ok when they meet balinor in s2 (who speaks like a normal human being) he listens to merlin talk for 5 minutes and IMMEDIATELY knows exactly where the fuck he’s from. #hicksrepresent

merlin SAYS and BELIEVES he understands magic should only be used for great deeds blah blah blah but when he gets overworked and short on time, yeah, that armor’s gonna be polishing itself while he works on 4 other things at once - he just gets better at not being caught. it’s a great deed to keep arthur’s armor in peak condition, right? arthur says he’s a terrible servant but actually being magically aided he winds up being like...really good at his job, once he gets into the swing of it. he’s just fucking insubordinate always 24/7

*** ****** no i will not be taking constructive criticism

ARTHUR:

he knew they lied to him in 2.08. he always knew. canon evidence supports this in 4.03 he says “i lost both my parents to magic” listen to me he ALWAYS KNEW!!!

canon also semi-supports a summertime birthday - i read somewhere once that they made it a point to only show camelot in spring thru early fall so they didn’t have to explain why there wasn’t snow on the ground. arthur’s coming of age ceremony (which i assumed either followed or preceeded his birthday) was in the middle of season 1, which would have been mid or late summer, hence: arthur is a summer baby.

i really like the gay!arthur headcanon but i also think he and gwen have incredible chemistry and i really like their relationship so like...maybe gay with one genuine exception. also that boy EMBODIES internalized homophobia :( poor lad

fond of DOGS and sometimes HORSES but refuses to show it because that’s not very manly of him. he’s too into hunting to truly be an Animal Person but since you don’t hunt dogs or horses generally he has a very very secret soft spot

the writers didnt do this on purpose but in my heart i believe the reason he was willing to risk SO much to save mordred in 1.08 was because of what he did to that druid camp from 4.10......like at first yeah he tries to be hard-hearted about it & just do his fuckin job but i think once his conscience was tripped he couldn’t stand to see a druid kid die again under his watch for no good reason. he’d’ve never agreed otherwise, not even for a kid. he wouldn’t have ratted morgana out but he wouldn’t have helped her either

(send me a character & i’ll give you 5 headcanons)

[allisondraste]

Writing Deliciously Evil Characters: A Meta Post

Recently in a discord conversation, I was discussing some feedback that I have gotten on my longfic, regarding my portrayal of the odious Rendon Howe.  Arl Howe is a classic, stereotypical “mwahaha” type of villain, which is not the standard in Dragon Age where the Wardens are Grey and the villains are Greyer, in that most of the bad folks aren’t doing bad things for the sake of doing bad things (e.g. Loghain, Meredith, Solas), but rather because they believe what they are doing is “right.”  Howe, on the other hand is a man who betrays his closest allies in the first of what would be a series of awful vies for power during the Fifth Blight that would eventually lead to his death and the destruction of his family.  He’s not the only character who does evil for pleasure/power/personal gain (think Livius Erimond, the Grand Duchess, Corypheus, Danarius blah blah blah).  However, the feedback was about Howe, so I’m going to reference him throughout this post.

Essentially, I have received a number of comments in which people have remarked something to the effect of “The way you write Howe makes me hate him even more.” I love this feedback because that was the plan all along and it’s the equivalent of someone saying “The way you write [insert widely beloved popular hero character here] makes me love them even more!”  I love love love villains, and as much as I am in the camp with everybody else wanting to stab the man in his slimy, weasley guts, I also love writing him.  In my personal opinion he is actually a very good villain, and I’ll go into why in a bit.

For those of you who haven’t encountered my meta posts before, I’m not a writer by trade.  I am a mental health professional, and my background is in psychology.  So when I make posts about “writing” some type of thing, I typically focus on the psychological components of why certain things work for characters, why others don’t, and how to make a character’s actions realistic and true to who they are as a person. That being said: I do speak about sensitive things in my posts, and this one is no different, so I will be putting the rest of this post behind a Read More.  If you are triggered by the mention of trauma and abuse, violence, and mental illness then I would caution you to take care of yourself if you choose continue on!

What is Evil?

If I were to ask you to give me the name of someone who is “evil,” I would bet money that the people everyone lists would be what society likes to coin “psychopaths” or “sociopaths,” and these are individuals who are callous, cruel, and lack consciences, anxiety, and empathy.  They are your serial killers and super villains.  Your unarguably bad, awful, evil people. They were always evil.  Born evil. Raised evil.  They eat, sleep, and breathe evil.  Concentrated evil flows through their veins. They probably also hate puppies and babies.  You all get the picture.

First of all, this is not only an inaccurate understanding of what standard human evil is, but it is also an inaccurate and romanticized view of psychopathy/sociopathy (the words are actually interchangeable, people just like to pretend they are different).  The media loves itself a juicy slice of psychopath.  It’s why we have movies about Ted Bundy and why Discovery ID is a thing. However something that is so incredibly important to note is that regardless of how an evil person presents, “evil” as a thing, a behavior.  It is  not a personality trait, but a societally motivated response. People are not evil; they do evil.  Someone  may be born with a diathesis, or predisposition to do evil things, and then be influenced by environmental factors to enact those evil things, but nobody in the world is born evil. Not. A. Single. Person. In fact, as the Stanford Prison Experiment, conducted by Philip Zimbardo (who also has a wonderful TED Talk  on the Psychology of Evil), shows ANYONE under the right circumstances can do evil.  The Stanford Prison Experiment is actually an excellent example of why the Templar Order is the way it is!  When people of equal standing are placed in a position where one group has perceived power and authority over the other, and when the guilt is diffused across a “group” rather than placed on a single person, horrible things can happen. In fact, more evil is done by groups of people than individuals for this very reason.

I originally had a much longer explanation about how society causes evil, but the post ended up being long anyway and this was unnecessary (but, if you want a post about that in the future, feel free to hit up my inbox or otherwise just check out that Zimbardo talk linked here).  

My point is that in order to write compelling villains it is important to understand what drove them to reach the point of atrocity they have reached, why they do as they do.  A villain who you cannot answer those questions for is going to fall flat.  Disclaimer: I am not suggesting that you excuse a villain’s actions or make apologies for what they do.  Evil is evil regardless of intention, however, knowing the explanation for the behavior can help you capture it in a story.

Why Villains Fall Flat

If my readers are anything like me, then there have been times in the consumption of media that they encounter a really awful bad person who you just kind of feel “blah” about.  They are supposed to be your protagonists’ mortal enemy, but their defeat falls flat and feels empty and anticlimactic.  Sometimes in the horror genre, authors take the “telling less” approach regarding their villains because that increases the “oooh” creepy feeling that they want to have.  This is actually really really effective for a horror film.  It is not so effective when writing action/adventure, romance, etcetera.  Why? I think that it can be pretty well summed up by the following quote by existential psychologist Rollo May:

“Hate is not the opposite of love; apathy is.”

Essentially, in order to truly hate a villain and to be both disgusted by their actions and thrilled by their defeat, you have to care about them in some way shape or form.  You have to be invested in their “origin story” and/or care about someone who is closely tied to them or affected by them.  It’s why Rendon Howe is such a good villain, and why playing the Cousland origin and meeting his children makes you hate him even that much more.  When you play the Cousland origin, you get to see the Arl through the eyes of someone who doesn’t know that he is bad.  Rendon is aloof, but ultimately respectful and he seems to have the implicit approval dear old dad (they were war buddies after all! Fought in the rebellion together!!).  Then, he has the family murdered in their sleep in a premeditated act of sheer ambition.  We get to see the death of a young woman and her son, and watch as Warden Cousland leaves her parents behind to die.  It’s tragic, it’s all Howe’s fault, and it’s effective.  Then you have this opportunity to meet Howe’s eldest son Nathaniel who is so bitter and full of rage that *you* the “hero” destroyed his family.  He can’t fathom his father doing something evil enough to warrant what happened to the Howes.  He was never that bad!  He just got caught up in politics!  He picked the wrong side in a war!  He tortured prisoners because the country was at war!.  His bedroom was  next to the torture dungeons because politics and war! I’m not saying that Nate has the most accurate view of his dad -- the man certainly wasn’t winning any father of the year awards, after all, a fact which Nathaniel eventually comes to realize (“maybe I shouldn’t defend the man who found the screams of prisoners to be soothing bedtime ambient noise” -- okay I’m exaggerating so sue me).  What I am saying is that in  listening to Nathaniel speak about his father and his family, we learn more about Howe, his life and his motivations.  We realize there is nothing more than a man behind all that evil, a man who has a family (and a family in which the other members are actually good and decent at that) and we are able to see that maybe he could have been good had things gone differently for him.  Again, it’s effective.

What Causes People to Do Evil?

As I mentioned before, just as with greatness, people are not born evil.  Evil is something that people have thrust upon them, and it is honestly really tragic if you look back and see all of the individual steps that led to a person becoming the villainous bastard you know and love to hate.  There are many different reasons a person might do evil things, but it typically falls into the theory we psychology nerds call the “diathesis-stress model,” which posits that certain people are born with a “diathesis” or a predisposition for a certain type of behavior.  In the case of an evil person it might be that the person has an irritable temperament or ambitious, selfish, narcissistic, aggressive, deviant, manipulative, etcetera tendencies.  When these people are placed under a stressor (such as, but not limited to: abuse, trauma, modeling of crime or deviant behavior, desperation, loss, etc.), the darker sides of those qualities comes out.  

NOTE: This is not to say that everyone who has these qualities and undergoes a stressor is going to become evil.  This is not to say that abuse/trauma/etc. causes evil.  In fact, most people who are traumatized do not go on to traumatize others; however, if you look at everyone who has done evil, almost all of them have done so because they grew up in an environment where such evil was the norm, and they learned nothing better.  They are people who were pushed by desperation.  They are people who ultimately have a story that is not “Oh, they’re just bad.”

Evil is the perfect storm of nature and nurture that, unfortunately, some people are not able to escape.  

Sometimes, it’s easy to care about villains because their intentions and motivations are very overtly stated.  For example:

Loghain is motivated by a very rational fear of the Orlesians and Cailan’s closeness to them.  We learn all that Loghain’s family went through during the Orlesian occupation, what happened to his mother.  We also can toy around with the possibility that his decision to quit the field at Ostagar was less obvious treason and more obviously pragmatic.  This of course doesn’t justify anything he does (you know, like striking a deal with the magisters to sell the Alienage elves into slavery or allowing Howe to, uh, torture people, what have you).

Meredith - See my above discussion of the Stanford Prison Experiment, but also consider her temperament and the trauma she was exposed to as a child with her sister who had magic and caused the death of 70 people including her family.  Is it okay that she abuses her power and abuses mages? Hell no… but we have motivation.

Solas - *sigh* Don’t make me do this one.  We get it. He has to RIGHT the WRONG. It’s his DUTY.  Cool story, still evil. (disclaimer: I love Solas. Ma vhenan. But I look at him with a critical eye when I choose to love him.  That’s important.)

Sometimes the motivations are not so clear.  I’m not particularly inclined to care about Corypheus other than I’d kinda like for him to get away from me with that demon army.  I don’t really give a flying duck about Erimond other than he is, as Cole so succinctly puts: an asshole.  There are lots of characters like that, and honestly it’s good to have a few of them sprinkled about a bit.  They’re not particularly fun to write or compelling to read (in my personal opinion), but hey! Your mileage may vary.

And now we’re back to Howe (Maker help me I never thought I’d be doing a  meta post about this awful man, but here we are).  He, and actually most if not all the minor villains in DAO, is actually really good despite his motivations not being so blatantly obvious as Loghain’s or Ulfric’s or any of the others you face in that game.  When he says, “I deserved more!” at the end, without further thought about the topic, it’s easy to say “God what a power grubbing weasley little snake of a man,” or a “cold codfish arse,” as one of my friends aptly described him.  However when you look at his background… it’s not so simple as all that. Just a few notes:

According to the lore Rendon has two fathers: Padric, who disappeared with the Wardens never to be seen again and who Rendon never forgave, and Tarleton who had no sense for loyalty and sided with the Orlesians in the rebellion and was ultimately hanged.

Young Rendon, despite his parentage chose to join the Rebellion with his besties: Bryce Cousland and Leonas Bryland.  At some point, he becomes injured and is no longer able to fight.  He is cared for by Leonas’ sister Eliane, who would later become Lady Howe.

There seems to be a lot of strife between Howe and his wife’s family, so much so that Eliane’s parents were even cold and critical of the Howe kids, Nathaniel in particular (maybe because he looks the most like Rendon, who knows?).  He expected to receive some of the Bryland wealth, but that did not happen (likely because he did not actually love his wife and Eliane’s family had no great love for him.  As far as marrying a Howe in Thedas, it would be much like marrying a Greyjoy or a Frey or a Bolton in Game of Thrones.  It’s not a family anyone particularly wanted to be associated with)

It is likely that Howe became very insecure and upset by the success of his friends, even resentful of them.  Handsome Bryce, his promotion to Teyrn,  and his Pirate Wife.  Leonas and his lovely [wealthy] family.  It made him miserable, and accompanied with all of the things that had been modeled for him by his family… it was not much of a stretch for him to go darkside.

So…What Was The Point of this Allison? Why Have You Written This Hellishly Long Post?

1.) I wanted to.  It was fun for me. This is how I spend my free time apparently.

2.) I wanted to provide some basic pointers for writing believable, but undoubtedly bad villains, and I felt like it needed context.

The Tips...Get On With Them Already. Please. We’re Begging You.  TL;DR!

1.) “Evil” is not a personality trait, it is a behavior.  People are not born evil.  They are led to do evil.

2.) Romanticized psychopaths/sociopaths are boring.

3.) In order to develop hatred for a character, you have to make the audience care about them, and the ways to do so are endless.

4.) Evil is the combination of a predisposition to do bad things plus some catalyst that causes someone to go darkside.  Nature and Nurture working together to make a twisted thing.

5.) Grey villains are abundant and very cool. Their motivations cloud their morality.

6.) Not-so-grey villains are also abundant, and can also have the potential to be very cool or the potential to be glorified Scooby-Doo villains (“And I would have gotten away with it too if it hadn’t been for you meddling WARDENS”)

7.) The line between a compelling “mwahaha” and a bleh “mwahaha” lies in the character’s backstory and motivations.  It lies in the audience caring in some way, shape, or form about that person.

8.) Rendon Howe is a character who, in my honest opinion was done right.  People loathe him.  He’s absolutely detested. Why? Because he’s a “cold codfish arse”? Maybe.  I posit that it’s because we have enough information to care about him.

Thank you for coming to this TED Talk, you all have been wonderful.

[ellana-ravenwood]

How to tame a Wayne - Batmom x Batfam

Just a fluffy little fic written quickly. You know what that means guy, two fluffy stories in a row ? I wrote extremely angsty shit to come so, yup. In any case, I hope you’ll like this little thing, and as usual, feedbacks = life :

You can find my masterlist here : @ella-ravenwood-archives

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To say the truth, and despite appearances...You were, and always had been, an extremely anxious, insecure and worried person. 

You had the bad habit to often compare yourself to “more successful” people that had a style of living, a work etc etc that weren’t even related one bit to yours. Apple and oranges. 

You always overthought everything, and to this day was still feeling bad for being rude to that guy that one time ten years ago. 

Your brain kept you awake late at night, wether it was thinking of a comeback you could/should have said when that girl was a bitch to you out of utter jealousy (being Bruce Wayne’s wife brings a lot of those) or about something more important like : “will your sons ever be truly happy ?” and such. 

You were always afraid you weren’t enough, that Bruce was wasting his time with you, that you weren’t a good mother to your kids, that you didn’t have talent enough and blah blah blah. 

You hid it well though, so well in fact that even your own husband and sons didn’t know how you always questioned yourself. 

You didn’t want them to worry about you...another thing that came with your insecurities, you were always afraid to bother people around you, even if clearly, that wasn’t the case. 

Bruce knew when you started dating that you were quite insecure about... everything really. That your past, your childhood made you that way, as you unfortunately encountered a lot of verbally abusive assholes. 

But he thought things were better now, that you didn’t have any of those worries anymore...It even made him feel good, to know he was one of the reasons why you felt like this now (the other five reasons being called Alfred, Dick, Jay, Tim and Damian).. 

He worked so much on showing you how amazing you are, on showering you every day with sweet words and care, on making sure that you knew that for him...You were perfect. 

And for his sake, as he already had enough on his plate and genuinely thought he helped you get rid of all your insecurities and such, you kept everything secret. 

Besides, you weren’t CONSTANTLY on the verge of an anxiety attack. Sometimes only....Hum hum. 

Alfred was the only one to know the extend of all that. To know the truth. And for some reason, to him ? You were never scared to tell him how you truly felt. 

When things were overwhelming, when you wanted to just cry and roll in a ball, when nothing felt alright...You always told him everything. 

And he was always there, with a cup of warm tea and your favorite food, listening and making sure to help. 

Sometimes, it was telling your sons to leave you alone. Sometimes, it was scolding his master to take some time off. Sometimes, it was scolding you for being too harsh on yourself. 

But always, it actually made you feel better. And worthier. 

You felt guilty sometimes, to still feel like you weren’t good enough for your family when they constantly told you you were the best. 

You felt like you kinda dismissed their cute compliments and love, when you just thought you were worthless but...you couldn’t help it. 

Sometimes, you just felt too anxious and such, and it was a daily work to try to overcome this problem. You were actually pretty good at putting on a face for a few hours at a gala, trying to ignore your social anxiety. 

And after years of practice...There was a reason your sons and husband thought you were completely fine and all (and to be honest, it was better that way, because if they ever heard that you weren’t feeling confident...They’d make you cringe too much with their constant compliments and such). 

Yes. You were a woman full of insecurities, worries and anxiety...But you weren’t always like that. Oh no. 

Sometimes...Sometimes you knew you were good. You knew what you were doing, only you could do. 

There was actually one thing, one talent that you just knew nobody else had.

And it was your ability to “tame” a Wayne. To make any of them go from a “I’m very angry and wanna bash someone’s face in” mood to a “I need cuddles, please hold me and do not let go” mood. 

It was a different technique with all of them, but oh you had said techniques down to a millimeter. It was extremely effective, and every time, made you feel good about yourself, that you could make them feel better instantly like so...

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

Bruce was the easiest to sooth. 

Because he was the one you knew best too. And because he trusted you fully. 

Everyone has their little quirks, preferences and outlooks that they hide from someone until it’s safe to reveal them. Safe to the point where they won’t start walking backwards with an apologetic look and a stumbling excuse whenever they realized they said too much...

You reached that point with Bruce long ago. 

And so you discovered the secret to disarm his anger almost instantly.

With him, when he was genuinely angry to the point of being restless and wanting to hit everything in the vicinity...There was only one sure technique to work. 

First, you had to reach him, which could be difficult when he’d pace back and forth in his cave, fuming. 

You’d approach him carefully (a punch was easy to accidentally go your way in those times...), and he would turn to face you aggressively...But when he’d realize it was you, who was coming closer, he’d hold himself still a bit. And in a fraction of second, worries would replace the anger...What if he had hit you ?

But then, he’d get furious again. But would let you come closer, knowing what you were about to do. 

Every time...Every time he promised himself it wouldn’t work. That he was too angry for it to work. That he needed this anger to fuel his motivation. That the reason why he was angry could never be tamed by...

But he was wrong each time. 

Because it always worked. 

No matter how many time he’d tell you to leave him alone, to go away, to not get in his way, that it was none of your business. No matter how harsh and cold he’d get towards you...You’d still come to him. 

And here, faced with all his height and darkness. Here, in front of him, to his most intimidating...You wouldn’t back down. 

Because he needed this. He needed you. 

Still angry as ever, Bruce would avoid your eyes as you’d direct your hands towards his temples and...Would rub them in circle tenderly. 

It was as easy as that. 

Sometimes, it could take a little while, with him just staring at you angrily, not faltering. His eyebrows creased and a dangerous frown upon his face.  

It wasn’t very encouraging but...you’d keep massaging his temples, determined to wash it all away. 

And eventually...he’d visibly relax under your soothing touch. Collapse under it. 

There was some kind of magic about you really. 

You just needed to be there, touch him, not say a word and...anger just left him. 

And he couldn’t do anything about it. He couldn’t stay mad, even if it was an important issue. And in the end oh...oh was he grateful for you. 

Because when he was angry, he could never think straight.

Before he met you, he took so many bad decisions while angry. Said and did all the wrong things. So your touch...your touch was salvation. 

He didn’t have to be incredibly angry for you to do it. 

You could, for example, just be at a gala and he would be so tired of being fake and having to smile and talk to people he despised...and in a calm moment, you’d rub his temple lovingly, he’d close his eyes and let escape a small sigh of relief, and suddenly, all energy would go back to him. 

You’d also use it when he was tired, but refused to sleep. You’d rub his temples, until he closed his eyes and realized he was too exhausted to do anything...

Usually, this would end up with him sleeping on top of you, while you caressed soft fingers through his hair and across his back. 

You discovered that magical temple touch after almost two with him. At first, whenever he was angry, you’d try to reach to him but it would always fail, and you’d end up both hurting each others...

Of course, you’d make up very quickly, and never shy away from apologizing.

But being angry at each other was never your style, and you both suffered from your fights. 

Fortunately it was a time where you didn’t live with him yet, so you still had both a way of isolating yourselves and dealing with things on your own but...It wouldn’t do for long. 

And then one day, after he made love to you and told you he needed to leave soon for his night patrol...he fell asleep on you as you were rubbing his temples, hair and back. And he never went to said patrol (for the first time in years he unintentionally skipped it, as he was asleep). 

That day, something was born in your mind. An idea. You knew he stayed because he felt utterly comfortable but maybe there was a specific reason ? 

You tried to remember everything you did that night, blushing a little bit in the process and...Could it be that simple to just be this gentle rub ? Him wanting to get off of you but you insisting it felt safe and warm when he stayed on ? And your fingers going through his hair, across his back, rubbing at his temples ? 

The next time he got angry, you tried your theory, ignoring his harsh and cold words toward you, and just went to  him and...reach to his temples. 

And here it was. One single simple trick. To solve everything. With your sons, you had different ways of soothing him, but him...Just this touch, and he felt calm and relaxed, more than he ever felt before. 

With him, it was the only thing needed. As long as you could reach him, as long as you were there...He could calm down. He could think straight, his head clear.

And it always made him crave for you to be near him. Alfred loved that talent of yours, because one of his main goal was for the man he raised to be happy, and it seemed like when he went from anger to wanting to snuggle with you...He was somehow the happiest. 

It impressed everyone around you really. 

There was that one time especially, where Bruce was incredibly angry at Superman for something he did at the League, going off on his own and risking his life and everyone else’s (including those of his sons and wife)...

It seemed like no one could stop him as he argued with Clark, and things were escalating quickly when you called for him...He turned around saying “What ?!” a bit aggressively, and as you rubbed his temples, turned into a love sick puppy who almost forgot he was in public and just wanted to cuddle with you. 

Leaving the entire League gaping at you two, shocked. They never saw the Batman go from 100 to 0. They saw the opposite happen often but...Wow. 

To this day, so many of them are sure you’re a metahuman that can affect people’s feelings somehow ! 

Superman was still quite angry but one glare (the famous Batmom Glare) from you and he calm down instantly too (he would never admit it, but you scared him sometimes...). 

Yes. You could always calm Bruce by your mere presence and touch. 

You were magic. 

You were his magic. His relief. His everything. 

And just with one brush of your fingers on his temples, could tame the wild beast he could sometimes be. It was the only thing working. 

...Oh, actually, there was another way you could relieve him of some frustration. But that wasn’t quite anger, only the temples rubbing worked on that, and that was R-Rated and most of the times happening in your bedroom (most of the time). 

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

Contrary to popular belief, you son Dick would get angry often, and he had a very agressive way of doing things. He also held the grudge too much. 

People viewed him as that guy who always smiled and see things in a positive light. Who would literally laugh in the face of danger and after some acrobatics, would drop a witty punchline and get his way out of any problems. 

But the truth was...Well, the truth was that your son, your little Dickie Grayson, was extremely short tempered. 

There was even a moment, in his teens years, where he would be almost constantly angry. At his dad, at you, at Alfred, at everything in the World. 

And during that time ? The only way to calm him down, was to get mad in return. To get irrationally mad, in fact...There was another thing you had a talent for, even if you never realized it. 

You were a good actress. And acting as if you were super mad was easy. 

Of course, you wouldn’t get mad at him, nope, that would be counter productive, and just be a lot more yelling. No. He’d get angry and you’d suddenly follow him. 

He’d get angry at Bruce for not doing enough, or doing too much, of not being compassionate enough or anything really, just to have a reason to yell at him. 

And you’d come barging in, and start getting angry over the slightest thing too, over such ridiculous things that Dick’s anger would vanish and he’d just watch you, bewildered. 

Then you’d stop, turn to him and be like : “Being angry and yelling doesn’t resolve anything my boy. Stop. Take a moment. Chill. Think. Tell your father what you want calmly, your point will come across better. Yelling and being unreasonably angry just confuses and anger your interlocutor more, therefor, everything can end up in a messy fight...and you and your dad ? You don’t listen when someone else is yelling at you, you just get angrier and angrier so...Relax”. 

And the way you would get angry over everything when he got like that made him realize that...yes. Getting angry wouldn’t lead him anywhere. 

Besides, he couldn’t help but almost laugh when you’d yell things like : “I’ve had enough of everything, why is this floor on the floor ?! Why is this wall so straight, but the roof ain’t ?! Why is salt so salty ?! And chili so spicy ?!”, because it was really ridiculous, and though his reasons to be angry were real, even if sometimes he lost his cool way too fast over not so important things...You’d make him realize that making a fuss about it wouldn’t make him win the argument. 

Wouldn’t make the one he was angry at understand. Or the things he was angry about disappear. Bitching about mosquitoes wouldn’t solve his problems about the fact there was mosquitoes. 

But still, even if he wouldn’t get angry-yelly, he would still get utterly mad sometimes, without being able to control himself, no matter how hard he tried ! 

In those instances, you’d flick him on the nose, or spray him with water like you’d do to an unruly cat, and it would get him by surprise and he would listen to you. 

You discovered that he often got angry over injustice (he resembled Bruce a lot, to be honest), things that were quite out of his control. But he would also get angry when his pride was hit (like his early relationship with Batgirl, when they were kids, wasn’t the smoothest because of how much she teased him..). 

In a word, he was short-tempered. And that’s just the way he was. When you were around, you always tried to calm him down by having fake tantrums, and such. 

But when he was really really angry over something real, not just because indeed he was short tempered...you’d be there in another way. 

You’d let him lash out at you. Yell. Scream. Throw and break things. And then when it felt like the right time, you’d go to him and just hold him against your heart, and he would instantly go from “I want to burn the World” to “I want my mommy to hold me forever”. 

You’d hold him for hours on end, just so he could calm down. Hell, you held him, when he was a kid and tried to get away from your grasp to throw more things, resisting and taking his kicks...until he’d calm down and return your hug. 

As a grown man, he wouldn't kick so much anymore, even at his angriest, he could never hurt you...But he still had the bad tendency to run his mouth, to say things he didn’t mean...It was alright. 

You were there anyway. Ready to take in his change of heart, his change of mood, his silent apologies and just...hold him. 

You were the one advising him to write a journal, to write his frustration. It always worked with you, and damn it worked with him (mentioned in this story : And when I’m gone… )

It was quite funny really, how sometimes you could see him scribble angrily in his notebook, breaking a few pens on the pages.

Of course, as he grew older, you and him made up strategies to get rid of his anger. One of the most efficient one ? You elaborated it when he left for Bludhaven, and you wouldn’t be there to help sooth him, to take the heat of his anger and then handle his cuddly regretful self. 

First, he had to continue writing in his journal. Things he was thankful for, and things that frustrated him. Then, whenever he felt a surge of anger, whenever he thought he’d loose his tempter...He should go in a room on his own. Plug in some earphones. Put the volume of the music to the max, grab something to act as a mic and...Give the performance of his life. 

It’s strange, and it took away all his anger, when he danced and lip sync as if he had lost his mind. 

To be honest, the reason it soothed him that much, is because it reminded him of nights spend just you and him, when Alfred was in the cave monitoring the BatComputer, and Bruce was out fighting crimes, and you were going crazy. Eating to much ice cream. Putting the music too loud. And dancing and singing horribly, forgetting about all your troubles. 

When you weren’t there, it was extremely effective, this technique you made just for him, because it felt as if you were actually there...but of course, it was easier when YOU were truly around. 

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

There was an angry Jason pre and post his death. 

Before he died, he was just a kid, and the way he got angry reflected that. 

He would get angry at rich people he encountered during galas and such he had to attend, because of how clueless and sheltered they were, or how they thought they were better than those who had no money...And you’d calm him down by teaming up with him to mock them. 

To give them a sarcasm and wit fest. 

You came from the same background than Jason, and you understood his frustration in those instances so would always find a fun way to take his mind off of it, even if it meant laughing at someone’s expense (usually, said someone would be an asshole anyway so...all fair and game). 

He would get angry because teachers in school would treat him unfairly just because he was the great Bruce Wayne’s adopted son. 

And knowing his background they’d always try to provoke him into doing something bad, even if that kid had the best grades in the entire class ! Some teachers in those fancy schools were utter rats. 

Instead of going to the teachers and making things worst, you’d just tell your son, when he was angry because of this, to be the better man and just accept their provocation, to ignore them...It was a sure way to infuriate them without incriminating him. 

And you were right. And oh the satisfaction to not fall in their trap and make them angry in return, was enough to calm Jason down. 

He’d get angry at silly things. 

Like not being able to open that cookie box and stuffs like that...Pre-death Jason was a sweet boy, and would only get angry over things that didn’t matter that much, making it very easy to sooth him with some jokes and ruffling of his hair. He would realize fast that getting angry because Dick ate his Chinese left over was a bit ridiculous in the end, dad and mom would just get more Chinese ! And Dick would have to watch without eating !! (Or not...). 

Making him laugh was easy, and he craved love so much that he’d just calm down and cuddle you. 

Post-death Jason though...When he came back...

When he came back he simply wasn’t the same anymore. 

The pain of feeling like his father had let him down, like his father didn’t care enough to rid the world of that psychopathic clown...

The pain of feeling like you had let him down too...And Dick...and Alfred...

The pain of feeling like he just had lost another family. 

He was constantly angry. 

And there was nothing you could do about it. Nothing. 

Jokes and smiles didn’t work anymore. 

It took you a long time before you realized that the only way for him to stop being so angry all the time was to...let him. 

Let him be angry. Let him use up all his anger resources, until it all dried up and he was ready to come back. To feel something else. 

It hurt. Damn it hurt so bad to see him in such pain, and to see your Bruce too, suffering to no end because of this. It hurt that you couldn’t do much. That he didn’t want you to do anything. 

It hurt. 

Until one day, it almost didn’t. 

Until one day, he snuck into the Manor to stole some of Alfred’s cookies (Alfred knew about this and always left some ont he kitchen counter because of this). And you were there.

And not at your best. 

You were tired and sad, because both Dick and Bruce got hurt, and Tim was taking all the work without you being able to convince him to slow down. 

You were over everything, thinking too much and more anxious than ever, so done with life...One of those burrito blanket moment you know ? And there came in Jason, and you were tired to argue. 

You didn’t want to argue anymore. Didn’t want to feel only his anger. But there, as he saw your state, he...couldn’t help it. 

He wanted to still be angry, but he wanted to make you feel better more. 

And so he sat next to you. Ate cookies in silence. And somehow, things ended up with both of you crying in each others’ arms. 

And this is how you found your new technique to counter post-death Jason’s anger. 

You weren’t particularly proud of it, but if it could help him...Well you’d do it. 

Each time your son was angry (often at his father), you’d take an exaggerated sad look, and he just couldn’t resist you. He knew what you were doing, but...he couldn’t get angry when you were sad.

He wanted you to be happy. Just like you made him so happy when he was younger...Just like you still made him happy as you proved him you still loved him, no matter what. Proved him you’d always be there. 

And so his anger would disappear instantly, and he’d just sigh and goes to take you in his arms. Worked every time. 

And it was very sweet to see, according to Bruce, who was ever so impressed by your talents to soothe any of them from “I. AM. GOING. TO. DESTROY. EVERYTHIIINNNNG !!!!” to “I’m a hurt puppy, please take care of me”. 

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

With Tim, it depended on the level of anger. 

You actually made a scale for him, as he was the most complex one when he was highly irritated. 

The thing is, most of the time when he was angry, he didn’t really show it. 

He would isolate himself, and sulk. Overwork to the point of exhaustion. Pass out on his computer with a cup of coffee in between his fingers. 

And he would just stay in a constant state of annoyance, until he forgot because he was too tired to think straight...And you hated that. 

Because it wasn’t healthy, and the kid was already stressed enough as it was. No need to add some unresolved anger on that. 

On your scale from 1 to 72 (it was precise, but it was mostly another way to sooth your son, to amuse him with your antics...You’d tell him : “you’re between 4 and 9.8 right now, I suggest ice cream as a cure !”, and he couldn’t help but smile at the weirdly precise and yet broad way you’d calculate his “anger”), 1 to 15 was this type of anger. The one where he would just leave. 

And when he was between 1 and 15, it meant you had to go annoy him a bit more, and force him to do something with you, so he could come back down. 

It would usually mean drinking a lot of coffee and playing video games until your eyes hurt. And as soon as the controller would be in his hands, he would instantly stop brooding and transfer all his pent up emotions towards the screen. 

When he was between 1 and 15, you’d just usually do something with him, eat and drink junk food, and it was enough to get him back to normal and want to be near you. 

When he was between 16 and 38.3, he would voice the fact he was unpleased (he genuinely actually said “You displeased me” more than once to Damian).

 “Funny” enough, this numbers on the scale would almost only happen while he would fight with one of his brother. Or his girlfriend, Stephanie. 

He would crease his eyebrows in a cute way, straighten up, kinda mimicking his father’s demeanor, and would tell them off harshly. 

He’d never yell, he would always stay calm, and it was almost scarier. 

In those instances, you’d let him and whoever he fought with, wether one of his brothers or Steph’, figure things out for themselves. 

Because sometimes, he needed to handle stuffs himself, and given the fact he rarely got angry, when he did, it was for a good reasons (at least angry at them). 

You’d only intervene if it was getting too petty and out of hands (so...actually pretty often), and would calm ALL of them by promising some cookies and a good movie (yes, it was that easy when they were all starting to yell at each others). Your aura calming them instantly, for reasons even them weren’t sure to understand. 

It was like you saying : “enough” took all their anger away, and made them realize they were fighting over something utterly stupid. And so when Tim was between 16 and 38.3, he either figured things himself and calmed down like this, or you’d intervene nicely but firmly and it was the end of it (and since he was often right in getting angry, he was the one allowed to come and demand cuddles from you). 

When he was between 38.4 and 50, that was anger towards his dad, mostly. He would shout at him and telling him what he feels. 

It wouldn’t be pretty. Sometimes Bruce would deserve it, in that case you would just go to your boy and calm him down with a hug. 

Sometimes, Bruce wouldn't deserve in, and in that case, you’d go to your boy and calm him down by scolding him harshly and making him understand that lashing out on his father wasn’t the solution to get rid of his anger. And then...Then you’d give him a hug. 

And finally, when he was between 51 and 72...It was a state he rarely was in. Absolutely furious. Out of his mind with anger. And it would often sprout in him in dire times...Like the day Bruce was thought to have died. Or Damian’s death. The day his parents were murdered in front of him. Or when he thought Steph’ was gone...

It was anger at himself, to the point he could hurt himself by punching object and such. To the point he wanted to hurt himself. 

It was anger at the World for being such an asshole. 

It was...Anger in its purest form. 

And in those moments ? In those moments he needed you more than ever. Needed you to approach him slowly, while humming a song you used to sing to him as a child. 

Needed you to reach to him, still humming, and turn his face to yours. Not say a thing. Just sing. And slowly wipe his tears away. 

Needed you to cradle his head in your arms and hug him tight. And to only let go once he would stop shaking...

He just needed his mom, in those moments. 

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

Damian needed air when he was getting angry. 

He needed to not be in a closed space. To move. You discover that the first time you saw him actually angry. Not just annoyed. Angry. 

He was angry at his father for not letting him go on an important mission, but letting Tim go. Refusing to understand their age difference and such. 

He was throwing a proper tantrum and you got enough...You took hold of his arm, and ignored all his “UNHAND ME WOMAN !!”. Your relationship at the time was still fresh, but damn you weren’t about to let a kid rule things. 

He was trained to be a killer, but he was still a ten year old kid, and Bruce had trained you too, and dragging him to the forrest behind Wayne’s Manor, though it wasn’t easy, was manageable. 

You got him out in the forrest, ignoring his yells and such, and stopped there. Released him. He was pulling on your hand so much that he fell flat on his butt.

At first a bit confused, he was about to resume his bitching when...

-Scream. 

You told him. He looked at you, puzzled, and you could tell it was an expression rarely seen on his face. He asked : 

-What ? 

-Go ahead. Let it go. Scream your lungs out. 

There was a small silence, before he continued : 

-I don’t understand. What’s the point of this ? 

He didn’t even notice that his anger was already starting to subside. 

You said, with a wide smile that made his heart flutter without understanding why (it was because he loved to see you happy, and your smile was soothing, even at that moment already, before he called you “mom”) : 

-Oh ? The point ? Well...it’s very freeing. Here. Look. 

You took a deep breath and, the loudest you could, screamed : 

-FUCK EVERYONE AND EVERYTHING !! 

You yelled, and the look of shock on your son’s face was enough to know you were on the right road to sooth him, to calm him. It was also hilarious.

First, he couldn’t believe you swore in front of him (Alfred hated when you did that), but second and most importantly...He couldn’t believe you were encouraging him to do it too ! 

You looked at him intently, and stopped him from leaving. 

It was obvious you weren’t going to let him go until he screamed...And so, reluctantly and angrier than before, he started yelling.

To his surprise, it was...indeed really freeing. 

He yelled and screamed, kicked trees and tore away grass, he..kinda turned into the cutest little human-tiger ever (it’s what came to your mind as you saw him lash out...it was adorable). 

When he calmed down and collapsed on the floor, exhausted, you thought it would be good to remind him that he’s not the supreme controller, master and proprietor of anything and everything around him. 

That everything can’t always go his way, and that in life, a lot of times, people will tell him “no” (well, that wasn’t really true, he was a Wayne after all...but for the sake of stopping his little fits, you had to make your point !). 

You tried to show him that he couldn’t do just as he wanted, and get mad when it didn’t work out, or when someone told him he couldn’t do it.

You made sure that he’d know to always stand up for himself and not accept authority blindly, oh no, you could tell people to “fuck off” sometimes (Alfred’s ears were tingling). But you couldn’t just be mad for not having things your way.

This was the first time you saw him angry, and the first technique you found to calm him down. The most efficient one. 

A few times, you saw him fight with one of his brother, or friends (Jon mainly), and he would go out in the forest to yell and kick trees (he hurt his ankle once, and called you...you gave him a piggyback ride back and he fell asleep on your shoulder, too damn cute). 

But this was for mild anger. For when things just weren’t going his way and he felt frustrated. You never told him to stop having those fits, just to not take his anger on everyone and just go and scream his frustration. 

It would usually end up in him coming back and clinging to you because he felt ashamed to have lost his temper so quickly and wanted reassurance. You’d happily obliged. Hell, sometimes, he’d even give you that “look”, that meant : “I’m about to loose it”, and you would go with him out, to scream with him. 

But again, this were just childish tantrums, mild anger and general frustration. 

He had another level of anger. The one that turned him into a fury. The one that made him lost all constructed thought and that made him want to turn to violence to chill. 

The one that would make him bash criminals’ heads in, getting reprimanded by his dad to not be so rough with low-lives and getting even angrier ! 

To counter this kind of anger ? It took you longer to find than to counter his tantrums. Actually, you were desperate to find a way to calm him down in those moments when one day, after a particularly rough day he had....

He lost it. 

Damian got extremely mad and no one could calm him down. He was destroying half the cave, out of control, ignoring his father’s stern voice, his brothers trying to calm him down and Alfred trying to too...When, out of frustration, you yelled at him : 

-What do you want from us ?! 

He stopped breaking things to turn to you, tears in his eyes, and he choked up on his words, not able to say it. 

But you understood. 

Bruce told you he got mad because they saw Talia and R’as, and the latter told Damian he only let him live to serve his purpose. 

He got angry because the people who were suppose to love him used him, and though maybe his biological mother loved him in her own twisted way...it was just too much, for a ten year old boy. 

And so he lost it. 

And there, as you lost your temper to and asked him what he wanted...He turned to you, eyes filled with tears and unable to speak. 

And you understood. 

Love. Care. To not be used. To be his own person, and not “something” created to “rule the world”. To not let his past define him. To make his dad proud. To make his brothers proud. To make Alfred proud. To make you, whom he just started to call mother (which is why seeing Talia fucked him up even more), proud. But most of all...

To be loved. For what he is. For who he is. To feel loved. 

And as he was about to resume his fury, you went to him and held him tight against yourself, running your fingers through his hair quite like you did to his father and...It worked. 

Instantly. 

He collapsed in your arms. Wrapped himself around you, wouldn’t let it go. 

And from that day on, whenever his anger was too much for his little body to hold, he would skip destroying everything and would just come clinging to you, not letting go, not caring if people called him a “mama’s boy” because you soothed him beyond all measure. Because he needed you more than anything. Because he needed you to let go of his pent up anger, of all the bad things from his past...

Besides, being a mama’s boy ? It was hardly something he was embarrassed about. Cause like, hello ? He had the best mom ever. 

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

Yes. You were their stress relief. 

The only one who could understand them, and act accordingly. 

The only one who knew how to actually “tame” a Wayne. 

And even if you had no other talents (which wasn’t true), you’d be fine with just that. With just being able to get your boys, husband included, from “extreme anger” to “putty”. 

FIN.

__________________________________________________

I wrote that in half an hour while I initially planned to spend a few days on it so it could actually be good, but I never had time, got mad/frustrated (fits with the theme) and just...Wrote it fast. I won’t bother you with my problems so I’ll just say : hope you enjoyed it even if...Yeah. Not even have the energy to be harsh on my own work. So. Thanks for reading, and if you wanna leave some feedback it’d be very appreciated. 

[elizabethrobertajones]

14x07 watching notes

In Which It Is Now Completely Apparent Which Of Buck And Leming Are Writing A Scene At Any Given Time

or

A Tale Of Lizbob Being Tormented By Toddlers

Hello it is 3:32am and I am awake from a dream of what the episode might have been (plus side: overt Destiel motel room sharing, downside: Jack accidentally killed Dean) because my tantruming toddler neighbour who just moved into the haunted house next door was screaming, and threw something at our adjoining wall. At 3am. So I'm not exactly well-rested and I'm kinda pissed, which isn't the best combo for a Buckleming episode, but when you wake up with a scream and a thump, you aren't going back to sleep for a lil while :P

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Kudos to the rest of the writing team, we're 7 episodes in and I've thoroughly forgotten Nick exists. I've just been assuming he was caught, featured on a true crime program, and is already gone and locked up for the new murder and likely solving of a cold case.

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Ahahahaaaa the opening of the recap is "when it comes to killing you, I'll be the one to do it" so that's ominous. As you might tell, my psyche is utterly wrapped around this whole Shakespearean tragedy of Jack vs Dean, and perhaps they're not gonna murder each other today but the constant reminders they're living in a murder or get murdered delicate thematic plot balance is exactly the sort of thing that we need to have hanging over their dynamic, as well of course as being the start point of their relationship to show how far they've come and how much they've changed and now love each other and how just last episode Dean got in his "fine i have a son now" episode a season or two later than everyone else and just in time for it to be "so now you bonded with him of course he's caught Doom because you can't have nice things for literally a single episode and this is your fault for bonding with him, Dean"

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This recap is designed to wound me, a Jack fan and lover of how TFW loves their son

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Ew, it's Nick. The first time in my life I've been tempted to skip at least a lil of the recap.

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Imagine how tight it would have been to just do a 10 second "here's Jack" recap and cut to the action

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and the action includes an episode without Nick stealing time from the boy

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You know i spend exactly 0 time speculating on how Eugenie might write her personal fave bits of the episodes but if you had to throw together "nick is now a serial killer ritually murdering priests on a satanic bender" then that would have been a pretty close thing to what I could have come up with as distilled Buckleming essence. (gross)

There's a vague continued overlap of the human!Cas arc with the parallel to the open of 9x03 and the general aesthetic of season 11's Lucifer's satanic rampage bender thrown together but you know what that's more meta than this arc deserves and my boy is sick

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OH NO CAS IS THE ONE WATCHING OVER HIM ABORT ABORT

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His grace looks pathetic. Maybe he's trying not to wake Jack up. Maybe he doesn't have a whole lot left.

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That's not helping, Cas

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ANXIOUS PARENTS OUTSIDE HIS ROOM

I bet Cas sent them away because they were hovering

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Dean this is not what happens to kids, stop trying to kid yourself that this is like having a regular demonic toddler

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Man am I glad I do not have kids right now both because I don't have to worry about them and also because they scream and throw stuff at the walls at 3am

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Dean angry at Cas cuz he's worried about Jack oh no oh no oh no look at these stressed parents. Cas is forced into the doctor role because he magic but he is just as stressed as they are and tensions are high, and then the boy starts convulsing

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Oh my god they snapped, they are actually bringing Jack to an emergency room. This is horrifying and kind of a trip to imagine what they're going to tell any authority figures about who this guy is and what their relationship is to him.

Do they remember that he has barcode fingerprints and probably is gonna be Medically Weird just as default?

(Alex is 29 like me and Misha is early 40s and Jimmy is canonically a year older than Misha for some reason, so at a push Cas could be his dad and have made some very early mistakes but the boy is biologically only like 10 years younger than them on average... JACK looks another half that at times but this is a hospital so idk if "smiles like a toddler" "early teenage adorableness" is a good measure of age)

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(I'm stress-typing)

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"His full name, please"

All 3 dads look at each other baffled.

Sam goes with Jack Kline, which, a season and a bit later, is the first canonical use of it as Jack's surname

They're cautious about using Winchester, understandably, but it's a nice reminder that Kelly is family too and as the dead parent, naming Jack in tribute to her should have been something they were doing all along (like, season 13 all along), especially as he even visited the Klines earlier this season. Sam being the one who thinks to do this is nice because he's the most dad-aligned to Jack in a traditional sense when it's come to raising him (Cas got the pre-birth role as the traditional father role) and Cas obviously had the strongest connection to Kelly before that but this isn't a moment about her so much as these 3 stressed dads.

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LOL Date of birth. Sam wins another point for knowing it, while Dean makes back and forth guesses on '99/2000, making Jack 19 or 20, which would at least mean any one of them could have fathered him and chopping 10 years off Alex's age to compromise between look and feel.

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Given Jack's symptoms the nurse should have been a lil more concerned asking about trips to West Africa or other likely Ebola places lately. (This may be poor timing on the show's part but isn't there a fresh outbreak right now?)

(Oof I googled it and there's "Congo Ebola outbreak 2nd worst in history" articles dated 6 hours ago... Maybe a bad year to write haemorraghic diseases for fun and also how comes no one is talking about this in the news and it's all blah blah brexit... Have we just stopped fearing it now a few outbreaks have shown it mostly stays contained in African countries so now they can just suffer it on their own? I'm making a 4am donation to relief efforts)

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*returns from the doctors without borders website* anyway back to the fictional sick white boy

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And his very stressed dads

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I have no idea how much of this is medically accurate but I feel like this is particularly dramatised to match hospital visits people have experienced which did not involve bringing in a stumbling, feverish, person who is having seizures and coughing blood

it's still objectively sad to see TFW lined up all stressed out and Cas and Dean holding hands while they stare through the giant window

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The doctors aren't wearing masks even though he has been COUGHING BLOOD

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sheesh this entire hospital is in quarantine now

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Nick saying he was "getting hammered" the night of the murder isn't super subtle

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Cas aggressively still trying to watch over Jack even though they won't let him in the room. Dean paces and talks about ghouls in the middle of the hospital to let off stress.

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Cas goes to watch over him in person while Sam and Dean have a personal chat. This is awful D:

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I appreciate the sentiment of busting Jack out before they pay the hospital bills because they're running out of medical options and need to turn to magic ones, a la every dramatic event ever in their lives except that one time Dean broke his leg and Sam was too out of it with the Hallucifers to sell his soul to make it better, but if Jack's in system shutdown wouldn't at least keeping him with state of the art equipment mean things like transfusion and machines that keep him propped up?

Mind you his bloodtype is probably, like, X evil negative or something Bucklemingy

It's in his DNA... He might be cute but he's still  born of their episodes and wacky non con ideas... It was gonna catch up to him eventually D: You can't outrun it forever!!

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I accidentally hit a button and 8x02 started playing on VLC

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"DEEEAN" Cas shoves him through the portal out of purgatory, credits roll, this was officially the weirdest episode ever.

(No I didn't watch the whole thing, I was literally paused on the last shot from where I was about to gif it last night when I fell asleep)

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Sam already called Rowena... Smart cookie

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obligatory yell at Cas shedding the coat to put on Jack so they don't walk him out in a hospital gown

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Oh my god Jack's so sick he's white as a sheet and being carried out by 2 of his dads and he still has a lil well of snark to be like "fine we're leaving" to the doctor.

"There's just no talking to him when he gets like this"

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We're at the promo scene and I'm still not 100% sure after sleeping on it that Rowena definitely did not have the Book of the Damned, and that she hadn't been able to make off with it at the end of season 11, never for it to be seen again, because she was very much in the process of stealing the Black Grimoire in 13x22, but this does, I guess, make sense in regards to which book would serve Jack better, and Mittens tried her best to convince me that Rowena plausibly did not have it because the Winchesters did... I'm still suspicious because I really did just assume that she took it and the implication was we didn't see it because SHE had hidden it, and from a line in a Buckleming episode as well. And either way around her showing up with it makes sense that she had it but I'd have occam's razor'd it that she stole the obvious books at the obvious times and not that 13x22 became a BotD heist on top of everything else :P

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Jack is up and about!!

He's using a more gravelly voice and it's actually a really hot voice and for literally the first time the Alex/Jack divide (gulf) in my head that one is my age and hot and the other is a 12 year old is a bit shaken. I mean Jack's canonically now supposed to be around 19-20? Which explains why he has a "wooo spring break" attitude when we see in the promo he snaps and wants to go to Vegas.

They grow up so fast.

Anyway considering he was in total organ shutdown a lil while ago it seems a night's rest has done him well if he's wandering around the bunker

Can't tell if we swapped writers or what... well, it seems like it's possible given Jack's fluctuating sickness, which of course could just be a plot thing but also a mark of the inconsistencies in Buckleming episodes. It's still odd to me that in the filming process it didn't occur to them that Jack might not at least sway on the spot at little, but he's really standing there like a little trooper, upright and talking confidently.

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And betraying to Rowena that his dads like her and say nice things about her behind her back, which is catastrophic for them. How dare. You're damaging the foundations of their relationship.

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*cough cough*

"Bollocks"

Yep, her heart has softened, Jack won her over in record time, and she's just thinking about that time she adopted a wee Polish lad and loved him as her own because Jack is genetically engineered to be a blank slate son version of a Mary Sue. You take one look at him and he is Your Son in whatever way will most harm you.

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Good grief I wish Crowley was still around to see what HILARIOUS overlap with Gavin we'd have wrung out of Jack's main superpower.

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Cas offering his grace to stabilise Jack on the spot. Halp. It's more important to him that his son lives by miles, that this isn't even an internal debate for him. In a way, obvious that Cas would be like this as a parent, in another, Cas just offered to give up his grace live on TV

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Rowena shoots down the obvious solution (oh and thank god that for once the show actually even references obvious solutions) and starts talking about how we need archangel grace and as soon as she says that I think "oh, Michael" and Dean starts to come over weird with a wooziness that makes me wonder if that was timed for the audience "oh there's one out there right now" and why would DEAN be personally affected right thiiiiiis second..............................

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When they go on spring break together we're getting right to the murderin

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I mean SOMETHING is up and Dean's right now having his own weird moment as Rowena talks about how Jack will now have a fluctuating set of symptoms for the sake of the plot so

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It's possible this is just his internal POV emotional reaction to bad news because this is what happens to me when I hear it but I suspect Dean is a lil more healthy than me in the first place so doesn't verge on passing out whenever a catastrophe happens regularly. And also Sam and Cas aren't similarly struck with physical symptoms at the news their son is dying.

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Ya know, Buckleming, or probably Eugenie specifically which makes it all the worse, writing this woman taking a call in a dark alleyway, then not being terrified to be approached by a weird man and on top of that stopping and turning to invite him to join her in the club... this is the kind of thing where they're writing someone going against all natural instinct that it's bad characterisation for someone we've literally never met before just to put her in danger.

I mean at least they didn't make Nick stab a random woman (and a black woman at that to add to their overall awful stats)

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I like how Jack's just decided Vegas or Tahiti are places you just kinda go to die... I mean I don't know what he's learned about them but it all has to be absorbed through the media in his most innocent way. I feel like there's something very sweet about whatever he thinks you do in these places of reputed sin and blaze of glory live fast die young lifestyles, but also utterly tragic. Consumptive tragic hero but with a twist of the reckless and dangerous later tropes of... It's 5am and I can't think but like. Vegas. Drugs and gambling high life style tropey films and books from the American tradition.

And of course it's Dean (who utterly fits into this trope and even has yearly Vegas trips with Sam since discovering his psychic powers back in season 1 and also lives a blaze of glory mindset) who brings him the deadly glass of milk (film trope about innocence but also like, people dying) and a sandwich loaded with salami. Dean went all out to make that for Jack - a couple of episodes after sending a woman off to "make him a sandwich" and regretting it as he spoke, we see the yank the cloth away reveal of Dean's nurturing side where he is the caregiver who shows affection through food and will go to the trouble of making his boy a delicious sandwich.

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"Nice." See? He's Dean's son and Dean approves his choice of places to die. "You sure this is the best time?"

"Pretty sure it is," Jack says, backpack on, already almost out the door. He's found a brown corduroy jacket which is both unlike his beige jackets and suits from the rest of his life aside from the blue apocalypse world one, and also very very much like Sam's iconic season 1-2 brown corduroy jacket that he mostly stopped wearing although I think was the one Dean wore in 4x01 as one of its sporadic dwindling appearances, if I'm not wrong.

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I probably am but either way, it's a change to darker colours, something Sam-associated to fit the gap of this smol dangerous dying kid Dean has to deal with, and puts Jack in thick earthier tones, thicker clothes to ward against the cold of death, and dressed more like TFW than normal as he usually has quite a distinct child-like version of their clothes.

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Jack's concept of life and mortality is fucked, possibly because he was a functioning being after a day or two of gathering his thoughts and starting to come to terms with asking deep philosophical questions about himself, so in a way discovering he only has a couple more weeks to live is hardly anything. He's a fucking mayfly.

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Ugh it's now solidly 5am and I am clearly not going back to sleep so I give up, I'm finally getting coffee. The rest of the notes will be maybe a wee bit more coherent :P

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Anyway kettle thought: due to Jack and Dean's murder or be murdered relationship (lordy how is this the only way you relate to fatherhood, my guy?) I kinda suspect that Dean's about to abscond with Jack without even telling dad 1 or dad 2, because he is dad 3 and that's totally cool and he's a responsible adult, but,  you know, woozy and doomed while Jack is also consumptive and doomed. BAD COMBO.

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I charge you with grounds of diminished responsibility due to mutual murder narrative doom

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"I'm done being special. Before my life is over, I want to live it"

Okay remember in season 1 episode 14 where Dean was like "LOL WE SHOULD GO TO VEGAS BECAUSE YOU ARE PSYCHIC"? and I referenced that like 5 minutes ago so you should, obviously I've only ever been able to headcanon the reveal of Vegas Week in season 7 (Dabb episode, take a shot) dates back to that and is one of their between episode activities which makes sense that since they only started travelling as adults together in the canon of the show (and Sam 1 year older than drinking age) that it might as well have been when they started the tradition?

Well Jack here is reacting like Dean would have if HE were the one in Sam's shoes in 1x14, and being the fun lil brother who actually would be like fuck it let's go to Vegas and see how psychic I am in the casinos! In the context of season 1 Sam is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too angsty and tragic to do anything other than come across as a stick in the mud who thinks Dean is joking and they're gonna carry on being tragic and hunting monsters instead. Dean in season 2, episode 9, also wanted to fuck off and go have fun when Sam's scary destiny got too much for him to carry, and that was when he was locked in the murder or save him vow from John's last words, which is a similar burden to the narrative bind he's in with Jack.

Jack, all of his fathers' son, finally shows up as the god damn first person to take his doom sensibly and actually want to fuck off to Vegas, and that's demon!Dean levels of fuck it.

Incidentally I half-suspect that Crowley, who has billions of dollars and once bid the moon in an auction (hi I watched 99% of 8x02 yesterday and 1% of it just now) probably was steering demon!Dean waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay carefully around the thought of wait a minute I have an extremely rich and powerful sugar daddy and no responsibilities... VEGAAAAAAAS.

Like, any time Dean started to form the thought, bam, naked triplets show up in their room.

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Anyway Jack's busy being tragic, talking about wanting to get a tan (Beach now linked to something to do before death) or see a hockey game (oh shit we forgot Adam) or get a parking ticket (oh so that's why Dean  murders him)

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"And when it's all over... die."

Dean looks over his shoulder, mind made up to abduct the boy and take him joyriding

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"So that's your plan, huh?"

"I don't want to waste time arguing"

"Did I say I disagree"

jack, this is Fun Dad

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I know, the concept is completely radical and you've never seen Dean be fun but trust me.

Even with your very, very limited options, Sam has literally had 3 episodes about how he's Scrooge, and Cas is... Cas. But Dean is legitimately fun dad when you get him on a good day. Trust me.

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No one's speaking to Rowena??? How wild.

Poor thing is never going to get her mega coven

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Dean (who has rocked up already wearing his jacket) spaces out as Sam starts blahing on about the culturally appropriative shaman Ketch has located.

Same, buddy

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At least Dean isn't lying to them about stealing Jack. Somewhat. Not the whole Vegas plan.

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Jack smiles at Sam and Cas in a kind of way that somehow conveys in its entirety "this may be the last time you see me but I'm cool with you NOT seeing me die of coughing my lungs up and fun dad has this covered and we've always had a weird death cult about our relationship anyway so I'm okay with it and you guys were the best dads but now fun dad is going to take me out back and shoot me where you can't see and I love you bye"

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"Why don't you drive?"

Jack is like ?!?!?!?!? D:

EVEN ON HIS DEATHBED he hadn't figured this would ever happen

It's the make a wish foundation :')

This is, of course, the ultimate sign of Dean loving you and caring for you in Dean's own special way of not telling you he does but showing it with a gesture of absolute confidence and letting you in, and in the vast annuls of the show dates back to the second ever episode where Dean let Sam drive at the end for all of 1 shot (seriously, they've swapped back by the long shot at the end of 1x02 where you can't see them in the car but the prop drivers are definitely doing a generic Sam in the passenger seat Dean driving routine for stock footage :P)

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Anyway Dean loves Jack enough that he's letting a kid who does not know how to drive learn to drive in the Impala, like he and Sam did.

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I can see Alex sweating bullets about being seated next to Jensen in the beloved Impala and having to mess up turning it on... never mind the fact that both Jensen AND Dean will murder him if he harms the car, and being murdered on both levels at once is spiritually unsettling and he will probably end up an unquiet ghost.

And yet, the glee at being behind the wheel of this legendary gal

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TRAGIC NYOOOOOM

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"It's like I'm you! :D"

"No, it's not! :D (but with implied murder)"

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"THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER"

Look if he survives this, you're creating a speed demon who will want his own classic car

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And then you'll have to teach him how to maintain it

oh god

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But yeah, non-toxic parenting in the John Winchester As He Could Have Been style.

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At least as long as Dean is in the Make A Wish mode and not back to tragic murder mode

And that wooziness that he may or may not be associating with no sleep and too much stress suggests this isn't going to last as a Fun Day Trip For The Boy

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"Cas are you sure you want to handle this alone?"

NO HE NEEDS A HUG HIS SON IS DYING

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Sam, go hug him, you need a hug and your son is dying.

Also, of course, you mutually need each other in this instance and Sam is reaching out to Cas with presumably the intent that he wants to be in on it but is asking as if just concerned about Cas

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Cas, being Cas, has somehow deduced that Dean is "taking this particularly hard" despite the fact all three of them are Concerned Dads and CAS WHAT THE FUCK are you doing being selflessly concerned about DEAN and sizing up his emotional state when all three of you are wrecked and your son is dying?

You literally have 3x the sitting at his bedside holding his hand moments of any of them and montaged the heck out of the concern at the start of the episode

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I remember way back someone wankily made a chart of how often people talked to Dean about stuff and other people talked to each other about Dean, and Sam is now crying about Dean beating himself up over being mean to Jack at the start of season 13 and regretting it, so this entire conversation is Sam and Cas man paining at each other about how much man pain Dean is in.

I say with no wank in my heart, just sheer horrified amusement at this data point if they still are hate-watching the show and being horrified about how Sam never gets stuff for himself etc (I mean. He and Cas both have had extended chunks of seasons about them parenting Jack and this is Dean's time to come belatedly to what the two of them already had)

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Cas finally says "son" a season and change after Jack was wandering around calling him "father" and Sam doesn't seem inclined to disagree that this is how it feels for all 3 of them.

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Obviously he's crying about Jack and it was just the context above that made it look like he was crying about Dean and I always knew that, I'm not a monster, I'm just deflecting because owwwwwwwww this hurts

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HUG EACH OTHER YOU DUMB FUCKS SO I FEEL BETTER

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Cas walks off instead and Sam finally after 1000 years discovers how Dean feels when Cas does that when he was angling to come along and they miscommunicated and didn't say what they meant. Except Sam wanted to come out of mutual Dad Angst comfort while Dean normally wants to go with Cas places so he can hold his hand.

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Jack's so proud of himself for being able to drive.

"Born with a wheel in your hand"

He literally stole the Impala from you when he was 7 months in the womb

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Dean is like, we could get you laid? And Jack is like. Nah. I have a better idea.

No idea what right now but he still doesn't wanna bang anyone

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Ugh a Nick scene. Tag yourself I'm the old tyre in the foreground

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Is this the house from Family Remains aka the self-admitted worst episode of the show by Kripke and Carver's explicit design

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I am going to puke Jack wanted to go on a fishing trip with his dad

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There were spoilers about them doing this but I repressed it the fuck down and lied to myself that Jensen was randomly teaching Alex to fish on set because I didn't want to think about Dean doing this with Jack because oh my god someone has taken my heart and gouged it out with a rusty spoon.

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Also: someone design Jack a t-shirt with a witty slogan about fishing rather than hook ups. Like, dude bro fishing culture but in a world where you're as likely to get dumb slogans about not wanting sex as you are for it making you a babe magnet

"I'd rather be fishin" is a thing people get on mugs for the workplace but we could start with this sentiment and play

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ALSO AS I MENTIONED I WATCHED 8x02 IN THE LAST 24 HOURS AND DEAN NEAR RIVERS SUCKS. We also have 10x01 and Daniel the fishing angel (who was the pizza man from Monster Movie, see above: slogans about fishing, pizza man innuendo, we got a thing going here) who was happy on Earth just fishing and enjoying the planet and not wanting to go back to Heaven, in a very heavy metaphor for Cas to deal with, as the angel who once compared free will to teaching poetry to fish. Lots and lots to unpack here, when we turn this into a Dean and Jack father son bonding moment and throw in Dean's peaceful dream of fishing in 4x20 that Cas interrupted. Fishing is about peace and idyll and comes as a temporary respite in this show. Traditionally, also, of course it's a sport of patience, and a classic father son bonding activity as the long stillness allows for both manly silence and sharing beers in peace, but also talk if they want to open up a conversation.

For Jack, it's an overlap of both Cas and Dean parental stuff, Cas's issues with angelic nature, where he wants to be, WHO he wants to be (just OFFERING to give up his grace to save Jack) and then with Dean we have more classic human cultural tropes but none less painful for Jack's nature and relationships. Especially throwing in that this was his choice and Dean is indulging him completely here.

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John may or may not have taught them to fish but I feel like it may have had a "so you are dying in the woods" aspect to it rather than for peace and bonding. BOBBY taught Sam and Dean some basic woodsmanship so he was more likely to be the father figure teaching them to fish if anyone did.

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Okay so obviously I typed that just after clutching my heart at the reveal and hitting pause, as Jack immediately goes on to say that John DID teach Dean how to fish and that it was his happiest memory of him - and it comes as a surprise for the expectations (like, that the above paragraph now stands as what I would expect of canon if I was only taking from it and not as an actual writer of the show being allowed to insert new details in which challenge us about the characters, which is where I find the line between fan fic and original fiction really is when it comes to characterisation... Anything out of left-field and you have to tag it as an AU version or explain why instead of just writing it as taken for granted).

And it's unexpected in the sense that it is such a peaceful thing and above all I think the message is that Jack intuited from whatever Dean said about it that it WAS a happy peaceful memory of John which stood so much at odds with the rest of his life. Filed under as well the thing where Mary started talking about how nice John was to Sam and Sam recoiled in confusion until Mary clarfied it was her John, not theirs. Good memories of a gentle soft John are alarming, and yet perhaps this is a way to really confront and exorcise his ghost more than anything - the sort of funeral servive memorialising of the good with the bad and working through it to come to peace in a different sort of way that lets the wounds heal and the anger leave those scars.

"It was how you said it. I could tell." He's such a smart cookie and I think that often takes Dean by surprise in the sense that Jack has been very shrewdly watching him and learning from him and absorbing anything and everything he does, which unfortunately gives him the ability to cold read Dean like very few people do, seeing past the layers and bluffs and into Dean's core.

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Jack just murdered Dean by saying if he doesn't make it he wouldn't miss Tahiti or the Taj Mahal or implied going to seedy bars and hooking up, he'd miss more time with Dean.

I mean that's not a literal way to kill someone but you should see Dean's face. He's been shot.

And again, it's a metaphor for what you want from life for DEAN to absorb, the prompt that his family is right here and he doesn't need to chase pleasure outside of them, that hook up bar nearby their home base where he never strikes out, that's irrelevant to the family he has built and it's been put in the subtext of what Dean goes after that's empty pleasure when he has this core family unit around him, by the way Jack has also rejected it and is explaining to Dean the real meaning of Christmas.

Of course, this all gets a bit weird unless you account for the fact he has an angel wearing a trenchcoat made of husband material waiting back at the Bunker because the chronic singleton life otherwise probably ought to account for an outlet for Dean like a hook up bar if his happy ending is a platonic family bond so, you know, end the show 10 minutes from now with everyone happy and alive and not dying, and all Dean's learned is they're 3 dads, one son, a mom and her AUBobby, but he still has unused romantic potential and for seasons and seasons they've been trying to close the door on him seeking out random hook ups in the subtext of what Dean WANTS vs what he thinks he can have. This frank conversation about what Jack wants from life before it's all over is once again ignoring fleeting human connection for the family bonds he values above everything.

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"I've had a good life, Dean" the other reason they're having this sentimental conversation by a river is because Jack is a fucking mayfly and I hate this

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@ Dabb please never make me see Cas driving this car ever again

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Why are you irritating Cas like this. First boring holy fire oh it must be thursday followed by the indignity of making him sit on a pouffe? Listen, when Cas gets irritated he gets snarky and then people die because he snarked them to death. I saw it he did it to the Empty. And Lucifer in 13x12. And Kip.

I just feel sorry for Cas. Why can't he go on fishing trips with the boy. Oh no he has to sit on a squishy pouffe that won't let him be intimidating so that he can cure the boy even though Jack's already decided he's gonna die and will probably Ophelia himself into the river at the end of the fishing trip.

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Sergei is basically like "Have you tried turning it off and on again"

Nephilim have a reboot button on the back of their neck, if you get a paperclip and poke it in there.

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At least Sergei is so... whatever he is... I can't even tell who he is supposed to be offensive towards :P I guess with the name, I lean Russian, and then he has world esoterica and occult nonsense in his caravan...

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The real question is how does he know anything about Nephilim and why hasn't Cas asked that already.

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LOL he has a vial of Gabriel grace just lying around. Of course, because Gabriel was just offering it up to everyone.

Considering how he was exploited for it by Asmodeus there's a weird tinge of retconning his own abuse by saying he was going around giving it to everyone before Asmodeus ever bought him and started stealing it on the regular.

Still, it IS awfully tempting a fix to have Uncle Gabriel help Jack out from beyond.

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/distantly: "I'm not dead!"

sometimes I can still hear his voice.

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It's way more likely Shit Goes Down and this is lost but then Cas has learned what to do with archangel grace to fix Jack just so long as they can pin down Michael and grab his instead.

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But I guess in that circumstance at least once again Gabriel gave them part of the answer from beyond the grave as he did in season 5.

("Still not dead!!")

shush Gabriel. The show wants us to think you're dead and my complete disbelief in that doesn't change anything for now.

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Except that maybe Gabriel came back, is fine, but has been removing his grace and selling it in the here and now while claiming not to be Gabriel and that he just haaaappens to have it and because he has no grace he could just be any old guy who happens to have an endless renewable resource of archangel grace secretly on tap to sell to fund his life of laying low. Sergei even says HE got it as part of keeping Gabriel hidden.

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I'm kind of assuming Sergei isn't Gabriel unless he offers Cas kielbasa

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I mean unless later I get a bonus cookie for immediately assuming Sergei is Gabriel based on the holy fire he just happened to have prepared and how similar it looked to Gabriel being trapped in 5x08.

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On the other hand this may be the first time this season but pointing at literally everyone and going, that's probably Gabriel, will get old and also dock me cookie points the more wrong guesses I throw out there. Still, this one has pretty strong evidence, from messing with Cas to making him say "Porn stars"

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To, um, having Gabriel's grace

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Okay so Sergei gives Cas all of this out of the goodness of his heart and a "you owe me" and I AM wondering if that's a Buckleming special because remember in 8x19 where they were like hi we need to go to Hell immediately, and Ajay was like sure, I will take you to Hell and this episode is even titled after me so clearly I am an important character who *stab stab reaper dying noises* wow look I guess we don't have a bargain after all despite me saying you owe me but then Crowley just maaaaagically made it so you never had to find out what a reaper would want in exchange for taking you to Hell off the books.

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Also fuck you I never got to finish my pizza

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While I've been typing some random ass justice for Ajay screed, Nick has revealed a flashback to 14x02 where it turns out his neighbour said it was a cop who he saw coming out of the house. I literally went back and checked the episode and that wasn't in it, so perhaps it's a new flashback for here, fleshing out that conversation and revealing more for us, and changing the narrative of what Nick's up to, but honestly who cares enough about all this... I was double zoned out for flashbacks I'd already seen for a side story i don't care about

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Wow, Nick, demons killed ya family. Could have told you that.

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Aw, Dean brought Jack home. No dying out in the wilderness for you, clearly Cas phoned up before Jack could work out his plan to fling himself into the river.

Also Nick has taken up too much of this episode so there's no room for complicated twists and turns, if Buckleming are banned from introducing too many of them.

It's incredible how subdividing them so Eugenie writes all the Nick stuff and Brad writes the rest has elevated the parts of the story we care about to pretty much passable, give or take whatever Sergei was and who he was offensive to aside from the whole concept of calling yourself a shaman because you travelled the world collecting occult stuff in a sort of Aleister Crowley way.

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'cept you can't namedrop Aleister on this show because both Alastair and Crowley have stolen too much from him.

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So you get a knock off Sergei instead.

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Jack hasn't been having as many of the supposed fainting fits that had everyone dogpiling him as I thought - maybe that's next episode too. Could have had one at the start but that doesn't seem enough to be a repeated annoyance of Alex's life :P

Anyway I was just going to comment on his sweater but that thought hopped in there first wondering if the spell was about to knock him flat, as he's sitting on a chair instead of safely in bed.

All the more dramatic for flinging yourself around if the spell messes you up

(honestly if the spells don't work, and they took him out of the hospital, how much of a bizarre commentary is this on trusting modern medicine and vaccinating your nephilims?)

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It's 7:20 and my neighbours are yelling again

At least being awake since 3 meant I got a bit more peace and quiet than normal. I feel gross but I may go to yoga just to not be stuck in this room with such awful screeching on both sides of me >.>

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Oh I can tell Sergei is Gabriel, he put the grace in a gold container instead of the silver ones

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I'm sorry for the expenses, Zerbe

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I wonder if they use her products on the show and I'm gonna go on my dash and find her beaming about a specially commissioned shiny gold grace that she made for them :P

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"Here, hold this bottle of your uncle's essence"

".... okay I understand how weird that sounded on hindsight"

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I love the idea of Jack's grace now being fuelled by Nice Uncle Gabriel who felt kindly towards him, even if this can't be a permanent fix, it changes his internal make up just a bit so that he symbolically has his grace stolen by his shitty bio father but the power only came from him in the first place and there was all the hoo ha about if Lucifer as his father made him inherently evil. Now whatever happens to Jack, he's had a grace transplant from a suitable donor, very much like a parallel of say he needed a kidney transplant and his 2 viable donors were his shitty deadbeat dad who gave him the kidney condition in the first place and his nice dead uncle who happened to have been an organ donor and was the only other one with the same type (if Lucifer's was X evil negative, then I guess Gabriel's is like X tricksy negative which has enough receptors to be a compatible transfusion, while Cas has like, Z dumbass positive grace and no compatibility)

And Gabriel is a beloved character who proved his kind feeling towards Jack even if they had very little bonding overall, he clearly cared and there was an immediate sort of uncle-y kindness about him in relation to Jack (just the comment alone about identifying that Jack liked shiny things and magic tricks is very much how uncles view small children who they may watch and entertain but not in the end have parental responsibility for), which is hilarious to me because Gabriel deeply reminds me of all 3 of my uncles on my mum's side, who are all 3 different shades of trickster god in their own right, and he always has reminded me of them, and now the show has sort of made Uncle Gabriel his new legacy.

I mean. I love it to bits.

It's not a sacrifice FOR Jack like Cas would have given up his grace, but it's still a part of him passed on to Jack.

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I am very very aware that like me running my mouth about John (ironically the name of one of my uncles) while hitting pause, I've stopped while Jack is looking up with glowing eyes and he's almost certainly about to spew a fountain of blood across the room and fall on the floor. But I like that the grace even interacted with him and lit up his eyes and unless he physically barfs out the grace to I'm sticking by that ramble.

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Cas smiled!! That's the once per season and we already hit it at episode 7, woe betide us

This does look, however, like the scene where they were all looking on from the door so... blood spew in 5 4 3 2 1...

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DOGPILE THE BOY

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Er, I mean, help him

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God I would not want Jared to dogpile me, the man weighs literally as much as an actual moose

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Uhoh Sergei made Cas mad

I mean

he made him sit on a pouffe, this was always coming

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What do you mean Eugenie can't let Lucifer go wow what a shock

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*kicks a pebble*

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Ah, here's the concerned dads scene. I'm just going to let that be a balm to my soul while Dean laments ever taking Jack out to have fun.

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"You made him happy. You did more for him than any of us"

1 dude you tried, 2 you took him on hunting trips and had fun already this season so he got his Cas Time before he died like he wanted 3 just fucking abduct him wrapped in a duvet and go fishing in the dead of night if you have to, trust me, he'd love it and your family is such a mess he wouldn't even think it's weird.

I mean you've literally absconded illegally with him before, what's a trip up to that beach where he was born and some fishing gear really going to cost you with annoyance from Dean

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"What can we do?" "Watch over him," Rowena says with Cas in the background, and continues to carve me out with a rusty spoon

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"As he dies"

Nah he'll be fine shut up Rowena D:

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*whimper*

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Well that was a very good episode if you act like me and pretend that none of the Nick stuff happened at all.