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astaroth1357 · 4 years ago

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Demigod MC Series: Athena

So. I have to deal with the virgin goddesses… By mythos, there really shouldn't ever be children of Artemis, Hestia, or Athena (yes, Athena was a virgin goddess). PJ got past that by making it canon that Annabeth and her siblings were born from cracking open Athena's skull (yes, that's also more or less the canon explanation). They gloss over it real quick but I remember, Rick. I've always remembered and that mental image has haunted me for years...

I can't, in good conscience, ignore the history around Athena's worship (call it an academic restraint) but I REFUSE to do the skull thing. So, since I make the rules here, I'm going with magic adoption. They still get magic powers, they're just more human than demigod. Cool? Cool.

Demigod MC Series: Intro, Aphrodite, Hermes, Hades, Dionysus, Demeter, Athena

Lucifer

The human that popped out of the portal seemed to have enough sense not to attack everyone in the room for a change, but even Lucifer could tell that was more of a strategic choice than for lack of ability...

Their very existence was highly unusual… and quite worrisome. He wasn't even aware Athena could have "children" of her own, but apparently she had been taking in some particularly bright humans to raise and train like her own...

Unbeknownst to him, a surprising amount of human scholars, diplomats, and generals have her to thank for their trade… and that alone should speak to the level of intrigue at play here.

Was this an accident or Athena's attempt to plant an Olympian spy in the Devildom too…? Either way, he didn't trust them from the get go…

Look, Lucifer isn’t stupid. Athena is a goddess of Wisdom and War and war happens on more than just the battlefield…

Since they've shown up records have been going missing, official documents keep getting misplaced, and he swears that there's some kind of bug in the student council room...!

It's infuriating watching the MC suck up to Diavolo when he's almost certain that they're running their own agenda behind the scenes! And he can't prove any of it!! They cover their tracks too well!

Lucifer has one of those corkboards covered in newspapers and string in a secret wing of the Castle - 100% dedicated to just tracking the MC's activities…. The longer they're there, the more obsessed he becomes...

He swears between Simeon, Solomon, and MC he feels like a shepherd wondering why the sheep are growling… The Devildom has never been in more danger than it is right now... Send help.

Mammon

To be honest, he kind of thought that they were just going to be Satan 2.0 but that's not really true.

They're more than just a book sponge! Though they do read, like a lot. Let’s just say from one schemer to another… Game recognizes Game.

They come up with plans and ideas soooo fast, it’s insane! Honestly, there are times where he has a new money-making plot and he just brings it to the MC first to run it over.

Nine times out of ten, not only do they sniff out any problems but they have a solution for him in a matter of minutes! His scheme game has been on point since they’ve shown up!!

They’re also even better tutoring than Satan is, so he’s even managed to get a couple A’s for the first time in his life! Lucifer actually told him he was proud (which he secretly recorded and now uses as a ringtone much to his brother’s regret...)

So yeah, he likes them... buuut that doesn’t keep him from thinking they act a little weird sometimes...

Mammon: *points to a unused tower close to the RAD building* Over there is the Tower of Sorrow. We use it for storage.

MC: Ah. Interesting… *starts writing in a notebook, muttering* It may need a few minor tweaks but the location is defensible...

Mammon: *stops* Ya say somethin’?

MC: *looks back up* Nope! Say, you’ve been to the Castle a lot haven’t you? Do you know any good ways in?

Mammon: Uhm… Why do ya want to know that…? *starts looking around for Lucifer*

MC: In case of emergencies. I like being prepared. 🙂

Mammon: Look, I don’t know what Lucifer might’a told ya…

MC: I’ll pay you a thousand Grimm for it.

Mammon: Well shit, ya want those maps with or without color?

... Yeeeah, that’s pretty weird… But it’s probably fine. I mean, as long as they keep giving him money, who’s he to complain? 🤷‍♀️

Leviathan

Also thought that they’d be a lot more like Satan but was pleasantly surprised that they were into more than books.

What else did they like exactly? Military strategy!!

It’s been a looong time since he’s been able to talk to someone who’s actually interested in all the battles he’s fought, both in the Celestial Realm and the Devildom, and their curiosity is kind of flattering...! Not a lot of people take his strategic prowess all that seriously anymore...

Plus, they are the BEST partner to have any turn-based strategy game. Hands down. He once got stuck on a level of D-COM for weeks until the MC walked in and mopped the floor with the AI!! They have a serious head for probability and tactics.

The House once made the mistake of letting these two be on the same team during a Hell Game and they absolutely demolished the competition. Mammon didn’t even get a single shot off before half his team was lost to a rigged paint grenade… It took a whole day to clean up…

However, Levi’s also noticed some odd things about the human… He likes that they’re interested in his past but maybe they’re a little… too interested?

Levi: -and that’s how we defeated the Four Horsemen before they escaped from Purgatory.

MC: Wow, Levi that’s seriously impressive!! *furiously scribbling on a notebook*

Levi: Well t-thanks… 😅 But, uhm... are you writing that down…?

MC: Hm? Oh no, just doodling. *they lift up the notebook to show a bunch of cute little sketches on the page… and not the magic-based invisible ink all over them…*

Levi: Oh you draw too? Can you do fanart???

MC: Eh, sometimes. But say Levi, can you tell me about your naval ranks again? I’m still really curious… *gets the pen ready again with a smile*

Satan

Oh, it's been a long game of cat-and-mouse between these two… and unfortunately, it’s been pretty addicting too.

He honestly had every intention of tricking the human into making a huge mess do he could bother Lucifer, but at every turn they proved just a hair too clever for him...

He once gave them a cursed book to “lend” to Lucifer, but they saw through it the moment they touched it and lifted the spell before handing it over.

He rigged a podium to spray glitter during one of Lucifer's speeches but the MC disconnected the trigger mic before he even got on stage. It was pretty dang frustrating...

At one point he got so desperate that, just as a test, he tried to trap them in the House's Music Room. Fortunately for them, it only took a few minutes to work out an escape. They even passed by him in the hallway with a wink!

It's confounding! It's infuriating!!

...and it's so damn sexy... He should be furious but he’s just in awe!!

Add on that they know their art, literature, and multiple different crafts thanks to the tutelage of their adopted mother and that’s it. He’s finished. This boy is in love.

Truthfully though, a part of him is 90% sure that they’re also gathering state secrets… Like, they’re watching Barbs and Diavolo far too close for comfort - but he just can't bring himself to care. 🤷‍♀️

The MC could walk into his room one day and say, "Hey, do you want to help overthrow the monarchy with me?" and he dreads it because deep down he knows that he wouldn’t say no…

Take some notes, kids. Some bad influences get you to drink or do drugs. Others pull you into a centuries long conspiracy to destabilize and topple rival realms from within… But he has fallen for their brain hard. Devil help them all…

Asmodeus

They’re pretty clever, he’ll give them that, but uh… Are they a little off to anybody else?

Asmo is a charmer by birthright so he has a bit of nose for when someone’s just a liiittttle too nice… Not much of a nose mind you, because he can be thrown off by compliments himself, but enough to think that the MC might be a little too… “kind” for their own good...

First off, who wants to spend that much time with Levi?? They don’t even seem that interested in anime! They just keeping asking him for old war stories…

Then all the sucking up they do to Diavolo and Barbatos? Look, he gets it. Diavolo is a delicious piece of man-hunk and his butler could give him a lesson or two in sweet-talk (and he has), but they seem to be just a little too… nosy.

Of course, Asmo’s suspicions disappear pretty quickly after they start to spoil him with spa nights and beauty secrets they picked up from “casual research” into the subject.

And you know, get a little Demonus in Asmo and start massaging his back? Oh, sweetie he’ll sing like a bird!! … with gossip. Singing with gossip.

Asmo: So I’ve heard that Lucifer has been spending more time at RAD than usual… His whole club is talking about it, they think he’s meeting with some witch!

MC: Hm, is that so? *works on a knot near his shoulder blades* What do you think?

Asmo: Ooh~! Right there, MC! *purrs and lays his head on his arms* Well come on, this is Lucifer we’re talking about! I’m sure he’s just working.

Asmo: Hmm... though come to think of it, I think I heard him asking Barbatos for the spare keys to the Tower of Sorrow…

MC: Oh really? Huh. *works out the knot and gets up* I just remembered that I left some papers with Satan... I’ll be right back.

Asmo: You’re going already??

MC: *waves him off quickly* I’ll be right back, Asmo. *hurries out the door to do totally on-the-up-and-up things… surely*

Beelzebub

Honestly he doesn't like this one… But not for the reasons you'd expect.

He agrees with everyone else that they seem a little shady, but Solomon and Simeon are too so it's not like that's anything new... 🤷‍♀️

No, no. He dislikes them because they're the person who FINALLY figured out how to keep him from eating all the food in the kitchen!!

Turns out that the trick was to put a teleportation charm on the fridge door that would send all the food away if it’s opened after a certain time of night…

And where does it go? The Purgatory Hall fridge. And where does the Purgatory Hall food go…? The HoL fridge…

It doesn’t sound so bad until you remember that it means half of their fridge is now Solomon’s leftovers…. 🤢

After they put the same kind of spell on the pantry, it was all over… He couldn't get midnight snacks from the House anymore… Everything was contaminated by Solomon…

The MC is a nice enough person, he doesn’t have a lot of complaints about them, but he wants them to leave. Now. This is inexcusable… He’s so hungry… and he doesn’t want to die by “goulash” or whatever Solomon calls his latest culinary catastrophe… He’s still too young for death… 😓

Belphegor

In a way, he absolutely could not have asked for a better person to help him get out of that attic.

… In another way, he got one of the worst possible people to try and kill... Like. They saw through his scheme sooo fast…

How was he supposed to know that the human had training in body language and sniffing out lies???

Getting the door open was a piece of cake for them. They knew enough magic to undo the seals and just rummaged around Lucifer's stuff long enough to find the key to the door. He could not have found a more competent individual for a break out, really.

It’s just… well he didn’t expect to go from locked in a room like a prisoner to tied up in enchanted rope, still like a prisoner but now mobile. 😑

They even used his own hug ruse against him! They caught his wrists when they got close and tied him up before he could shake them off...

Admittedly, it wasn't exactly the best look for them either - what with walking Belphegor downstairs to the others like a one-man-prison-caravan but they're as silver-tongued as they are sly so they talked their way out of it beautifully…

And like hell was he going to trust them after that!! And not even Beel liked them so something had to be up...

Well, you want a detective? Look no farther than Belphie (no seriously, it’s in the canon). He can put things together pretty fast when he puts his mind to it and watching the MC for a while gave him enough proof to work off of...

He always knew that, humans were bad news and the MC just proved it to him all over again. They are bad news, bad bad news and they’re going to-!

Overthrow… Diavolo…? Is that what he is getting from them…? Huh…

Wait a second, MC. You might just have him interested… 😏

#you say athena mc is smart #i say athena mc is spy #because where better to use your smarts #in war #obey me #obey me shall we date #shall-we-date-obey-me #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me demigods

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reinerispretty · 4 years ago

Note

I love your writing 🥺 Can you do a Sokka imagine where the reader is a firebender so Sokka doesnt take well to her joining the gaang at first, and they always bicker/ throw sarcastic comments at each other and the gaang is so sick of it! But one day they are forced to be alone together (they go on a mission?) and sparks fly n they kiss or something 😳 they return to camp and the gaang is like... ok why r u guys tolerating eachother and u guys r inseparable and super couply from then on!

hi!! sorry i’m just now getting to this!! i like to put lots of effort into my requests so i wanted it to be the best it could be :D hope you enjoy!!

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(Y/N) had always been very proud of her firebending. Not everyone in the town she had grown up in were benders, so being able to bend one of the elements was a great honor. Because of her powers, she was on track to join the Fire Nation military. These plans changed of course, as soon as she met the Avatar and his friends. She had helped them escape capture and joined them on their adventures. They were all pretty hesitant about her joining, but eventually Toph vouched for her by saying that she wasn’t lying when she told them all she had ever wanted was to help people.

(Y/N) had been traveling with their group for a few weeks and was slowly starting to build friendships with the other members of her group. Aang absolutely refused to learn firebending from her, but watched and laughed as she made little dragon puppets out of fire after dinner. She and Toph became fast friends, as they both had a similar wit and nonchalance about life. Katara took a bit to fully warm up to her, but (Y/N) was relentless and eventually they could exchange pleasant conversation as they cooked dinner. Even Appa licked her when she brought him hay, and Momo had started sharing his berries with her. The only person who didn’t like her at all was Sokka.

“I don’t want a firebender joining us,” He had said pointedly when she first joined the group. He had been outvoted, of course, and now whenever (Y/N) did anything, he had something to say in return. If she arranged the sleeping bags, he complained about their positioning. If she made dinner that night, he complained about the taste. It seemed like he went out of his way to make her feel bad.

Initially (Y/N) had tried to understand. The Fire Nation had hurt his people, so it was only natural that he was apprehensive toward her. But then his words started to hurt. One day, he had mentioned that she had betrayed her own people, so it would only be a matter of time until she betrayed them, too, and (Y/N) had had enough. She threw her bowl of soup to the ground and stood up. “What’s your problem?” She demanded.

“My problem is with you,” He spat. “You’re Fire Nation, you can’t be trusted.”

“Don’t you think that if I had even thought about turning you all in to the Fire Lord, I would have done it already?”

“I don’t know what goes on in your little spy brain!”

“I know what goes on in your brain: absolutely nothing!” She let out a frustrated scream and turned on her heel, marching into her tent. The rest of the group stared at Sokka awkwardly.

“She’s such a piece of work,” He grumbled, sipping on his soup. “Can you believe her?”

Over the next few weeks, whenever Sokka said an insult toward (Y/N) she’d shoot one right back. If he wanted to be a pain in her side, fine. She’d be one in his, too.

“You sure your twig arms can handle that firewood?” She asked him as he brought wood for their campfire.

“Hey, at least I’m doing something. What, are you too busy plotting how to take over the world to help?”

Their conversations were just insults and sarcastic quips, and eventually the rest of the group started to get sick of it. One night, as they sat at dinner, (Y/N) and Sokka were bickering because they had been forced to sit beside each other. Toph drove a piece of earth between them and flung them in opposite directions. “Would you guys quit it!” The girl shouted. “I only have four out of the five senses and you guys are driving them all crazy!”

“Sorry, Toph,” (Y/N) apologized, brushing herself off. “You know how he is.”

“Me?” Sokka exclaimed. “Toph, you know how she is!”

“You arrogant, good for nothing--”

“Ow!” Aang shouted, clutching his foot. The group stopped to look at him. “Ow, ow, ow, I think I stepped on something. My foot really hurts!” Katara rushed over to take a look and furrowed her brows.

“I don’t--”

“Oh, Sokka,” Aang sighed. “I don’t think I can go on that mission with you tomorrow, my foot just hurts too bad!” He gave Katara a big wink.

“Oh, of course!” She said, finally getting what Aang was trying to do. “I have to stay here and help Aang heal. I’ll need Toph’s help, too, so (Y/N) is the only one who can go on the mission with you.”

“I’d rather go alone,” Sokka said, crossing his arms.

“Please, how are you going to defend yourself if you don’t have a bender with you?” (Y/N) asked with a roll of her eyes. Sokka balled his fists and stormed off to his tent, mumbling angry, incoherent sentences. (Y/N) yawned and retreated back to her tent for the night.

“I’m not really injured,” Aang said.

“Really?” Toph deadpanned. “Couldn’t tell.”

“I just wanted a break from the two of them. They’re always fighting!”

“Who knows,” Katara said with a smile. “Maybe the trip will bring them closer together.”

The next morning, (Y/N) and Sokka begrudgingly walked side-by-side to their mission. They were doing a stake out of some Fire Navy ships to see what kind of weapons they were storing on them. They climbed up to a tall hillside, where they could comfortably watch the ships. As long as they were quiet, they wouldn’t bring any attention to themselves.

Sokka’s plan was to stay there for a full twenty-four hours. Every time (Y/N) thought about being around him that long, she nearly gagged, but she had to swallow it down because she knew this mission would be for the greater good. Hopefully, there would be more watching than talking.

They set up their tents behind some rocks so they would not look suspicious. And then, they sat. And they sat for a long time. (Y/N) was growing increasingly bored, just watching soldiers go in and out of the ships. She sighed, laying back down on the grass.

“What exactly are we looking for?”

“Nothing.” She propped herself up on her elbows.

“Excuse me?”

“We aren’t looking for anything. Well, not anything specific. I just want to know what kind of weapons they’re using so I can write to the Mechanist to create better ones for us.”

“So...we’re just going to watch?”

“Do you not know what a stake out is?”

“I do! I just didn’t know it was going to be a full day of doing absolutely nothing.”

“Look, if you don’t want to be here, fine. You can go back to the camp. I can handle myself.” (Y/N) scoffed.

“I’m not leaving you here alone, Sokka.”

“Then I suggest you stop complaining.” (Y/N) rolled her eyes and reached into her bag. She pulled out two sandwiches and laid them beside her. “What are those?”

“Food,” She said, sliding a sandwich over to him. He took it suspiciously. “It’s not poisoned, you dummy. I got up early this morning and went to the market so I could make stake out snacks.”

“Oh, thanks. I guess.”

“You’re welcome.”

They sat in silence for what felt like a lifetime. (Y/N) watched the soldiers intently and had even made up backstories for some of them. The smaller soldier was named Lee, and he was a fiesty little fellow, but he was a new recruit. He had good ideas, but no one really wanted to listen to him because he lacked authority. (Y/N) sighed as she watched him talk to his commanders. Poor Lee.

“I recognize that one,” she said suddenly, pointing at one of the soldiers. “He and I went to training camp together one summer.”

“Oh, so that’s your friend. Great.” (Y/N) furrowed her brows.

“I never said he was my friend.”

“I just assumed, since you were both all ‘Go Fire Nation!’“ He sarcastically pumped a fist into his air.

“You make a lot of assumptions about me for someone who doesn’t know me.”

“I know exactly who you are. You’re a spoiled girl from the Fire Nation who wasn’t satisfied with her life and only wanted to join us to run away from your probably mean family. You don’t want to make change, you just wanted an out.”

“That’s not true at all, Sokka. I grew up poor. Dirt poor. And when I say that I mean it, because the floors of my house were literally dirt. No one asked me if I wanted to join the Fire Nation military, they told me I was going to. I was brought up my whole life surrounded by people who told me how great my nation was. If everyone’s telling you something and you have no reason to believe otherwise, you start to believe it. I know I’m not perfect, but I’m really tired of you thinking that you know who I am.” She pulled her knees into her chest and tucked her chin on top of them.

Sokka sighed. The sun was setting behind them. “It’s obvious I don’t like the Fire Nation. They’ve caused a lot of pain to me and Katara and to thousands of other people. So when you joined, I guess I just projected that anger onto you.”

“I understand. But I’m not the entire Fire Nation.”

“I know, it’s just hard to separate the two sometimes. I can literally see the Fire Nation inside of you. You’re decisive and strong and stubborn--”

“I’m just going to focus on the first two. You really think those things about me?”

“I mean, yeah. I’ve seen you talk your way out of fights but also kick some major butt. As much as I hate to say it, you’re pretty cool.” (Y/N) smiled and opened her mouth to respond, but her eyes widened as a giant fireball plummeted toward them.

“Look out!” She shouted, tackling Sokka out of the way. They both grunted in pain as they hit the ground.

“How did they even see us?” Sokka asked. He grabbed (Y/N) by the hand and led her up the hill. They abandoned all of their camping stuff (as it was currently on fire) and ran down the backside of the hill, away from the Fire Navy ships. (Y/N) spotted a cave and pulled Sokka inside. They both leaned against the cool rock, breathing heavily.

“Well, so much for the stake out,” (Y/N) said. Sokka laughed.

“We’ll have to wait here for the night. The ships are supposed to leave at dawn tomorrow, so we can travel back to camp then.” (Y/N) nodded. The sun had fully set behind them and the cool chill of night was setting in. She shivered. “I can get a fire going,” Sokka said, and began to collect the debris that was scattered around the cave. (Y/N) giggled.

“Sokka, I got it.” She kicked some leaves and sticks into a pile and kicked a flame on top of them. They sat across from each other with their backs against the cave walls.

“So, how’d you know you were a firebender?” He asked. (Y/N) shrugged.

“I think I started coughing fire one day. My family expected it though. My father had been a firebender.” She pursed her lips and stared at the ground. “He was sent to fight in the war. He didn’t end up coming home.”

“I’m so sorry,” Sokka said quietly. She shrugged.

“I feel torn about it, you know? Because he fought for hatred and injustice, but I also never got to find out if he supported the war or not. The Fire Nation doesn’t really care if you want to fight. They make you do it anyway.”

“I always wanted to fight, ever since I was little.” Sokka said. “But now while I’m living my dream, I see how nasty it actually is and understand why my dad didn’t want me to.”

“Well, you’re a pretty good fighter, so I’m sure he’s proud of you.” Sokka smiled.

“I’m sure your dad is proud of you, too.” (Y/N) grinned. “Listen, I’m sorry for being so mean to you. I guess I was projecting feelings on to you that I had towards the Fire Nation, and it wasn’t fair. But in my defense, everything you did just made me mad. Like the way you cooked soup, or how pretty your eyes were, or how nice your laugh sounded...” Sokka trailed off, a blush appearing on his cheeks. “I said that all out loud, didn’t I?”

(Y/N) nodded, trying her best to contain her smile. “Alright,” Sokka said. “You can just kill me now, I guess.” (Y/N) burst into laughter.

“It’s really okay, Sokka. I’m sorry for being mean to you as well. Everything you did made me mad, like how you constantly teased me, or how cute your ponytail looks, or how funny your jokes were...”

“You...you really think my jokes are funny?” (Y/N) nodded before sliding to sit at his side. “Can I try something?” (Y/N) nodded again. Their faces were just inches apart and she could tell the fire was dying by the dim glow it left on Sokka’s cheeks. He touched her own cheek with his hand, before pulling her close and slowly connecting their lips. (Y/N) felt her face grow hot, but she still let her eyes close and reveled in the feeling of his kiss. They stayed like that for a while, long after the fire went out.

When they returned to their friends the next morning, they walked hand in hand. Aang and Katara’s mouths dropped open and Toph stamped her feet on the ground. “There must be something wrong,” She said. “Are they...touching each other?”

“Hey, guys!” Sokka said, a bright smile on his face. “Aang, how’s the foot doing?”

“Uh, pretty good,” Aang said, pretending to lift his foot as if it were injured.

“What’s um...going on here?” Katara asked.

“Sokka and I had a pretty good stake out,” (Y/N) said. She let her hand slip from his. “I’m gonna get started on lunch.”

“Alrighty,” Sokka said before planting a kiss on her cheek. He sighed happily as he watched her walk away. “Aang, I really have to thank you for pretending to hurt your foot.”

---

Permatag List!

@musicalkeys , @aroyaldarknessblr

#writing #sokka x reader #atla #avatar the last airbender #katara #aang #sokka #zuko x reader #aang x reader #toph #iroh #zuko #azula #momo #appa #fanfiction

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ephemeral-afterlight · 5 years ago

Text

Mourning at Midnight

(UwU so Hey. i’m back with some more trash)

Word Count: 7480

Summary: It’s scary, in a way, how in moments like this one, Logan feels as if his consciousness floats away from him, leaving behind only a wave of white-hot, searing anger that drains out of him just as quickly as it comes. There’s sleet running through his veins, and his brain has frostbite, and his fingertips are numb in the face of the ringing resonance after his outburst. The pain comes next, a simmering heat blistering below his fist until it’s coated and red and the beginnings of a bruise are starting to form. He can’t help but stare helplessly in front of himself, eyes burning and filling and blazing with how much they beg to close.

He doesn’t want to look up, to face the suffocating silence that’s fallen over the room. He doesn’t want to see their faces, their disappointment, their anger, their contempt. He wants to yell. He wants to sleep.

Logan sinks out.

Warnings (could potentially be small spoilers, nothing too big, but if you don’t have any triggers I’d suggest you skip reading this!):

There are no u!sides in this, nor does anyone have malicious intent, but the other main three (Virgil, Patton, Roman) and Thomas, to a lesser extent, treat Logan unkindly (not on purpose) and don’t realize their errors. This will be resolved! Just… not yet OwO

Being ignored/talked over

Mental/emotional breakdown

An unidentified illness with symptoms including: [extreme persistent nausea (lots of mentions), vomiting (once), bile, weakness/weariness, shaking, lightheadedness, double vision (once), headache, body aches/pains, breathing difficulties]

General negativity including: [self-doubt, self-deprecation/depreciation, feeling worthless or unloveable, self-hatred]

Anger management/temperament issues

Unintentional self-harm (not anything like c-tting, Logan gets a bruise as a result of an angry outburst)

Separate small, vague allusion to self-harm, but it’s not outright and not detailed in the slightest. Could be read as not even talking about self-harm

Potentially triggering descriptive imagery (metaphors and similes to describe how a character feels or percieves a situation, not anything that actually happens) including but not limited to: [glass, sharp things, blood, injection, live wires, loud noises, screaming, general mentions of pain, masochism, sound torture, knives/blades, wounds, drowning/suffocating, pressure]

Temporarily unresolved tension between Logan/Deceit/Remus and the other sides/Thomas (there will be a happy ending in the next fic, though, don’t worry!)

A few vulgar threats of violence (somewhat explicit, be careful) to the other sides from Remus (out of protectiveness; Remus means well but he does Not express it in a healthy way) that is not carried out or even humoured

Remus’ morning star and descriptions of its destructive capabilites

Loceit as a romantic pairing (for now…. UwU)

Sympathetic “dark” sides

That should be it for warnings! Let me know if I need to add anything!

A/N: So! This is finally done :D !! I’ve been working on it on and off for the past week or so, and although I know it could be way better, I think this is where I’ll keep it! This is technically a sequel to my other fic Tea at Twilight and it takes place in the same universe, and although you don’t need to read that before this to understand the story, I strongly suggest reading that first to get more of a feel for the dynamic!

This is inspired by @illogicallyinclined and her absolutely amazing Disaster Trio™ headcanons/au, and was prompted by this post so I just started writing! I meant for it to be a bit shorter, but of course my brain would Not let it go, even despite my ADHD, executive dysfunction, and massive amounts of writer’s block.

This is also unfinished! It is the second of three main works, all happening chronologically in the same universe. The first one is Tea at Twilight as stated previously, then this one, and there will be a third and final installment added to finish off this short little trilogy! I’ll be adding this to the series on AO3, so when the final fic is up, it’ll all be together for an easy reading experience. It is also possible that there will be other small fics in this universe (UA, as has been recently coined) that operate outside of the timeline of the main story, so be sure to watch out for that!

Thanks to Jay once again for creating these lovely headcanons that haunt my dreams every night, and for inspiring me to get back into my writing groove despite a writer’s block that’s lasted for over three years! Hope this isn’t too terrible, Jay! ilyy <333</p>

Also, a huge thank you to @illogical-anxieties for being such a good cheerleader/enabler! You really do help to keep me motivated and on track (and keep my ADHD in check), which is probably why this was even able to become a full-fledged story rather than a WIP to be buried where unfinished fics go to die T~T Love you tons <3</p>

(If I’m being honest with myself, this is just an excuse for me to live up to my IRL title of “Living Thesaurus”, coined by a friend many years ago and has since spread around to other friends and family. My title is thriving, and I suppose that means I should actually have proof of it, so there’s that.)

(Cross-posted to AO3)

(Read Part 1 here)

He can feel it building.

There’s far too much left to be desired when it comes to frustration. The natural helplessness that makes way for anger when you try so hard to do something or be something for someone and you’re pushed down by anything and everything between ignorance and antipathy. The fear that nothing you can do or say will ever be good enough. The buzzing, ticking, pinpricks upon pinpricks of heat injected into you until your blood and heart have been replaced with glass, fragile as a crumbling stone wall. It’s not as if he hasn’t had his outbursts before, spurred on by the familiar sharp pulse of rage that courses through him in a split-second whirlwind. It builds inside him, and he can feel the pressure in his limbs expand until it feels like his muscles are being squeezed out of existence and then he snaps like a rubber band that’s been pulled too taut. He’s not in denial of the fact that his impulsive, blinding reaction when met with frustration is not okay, and only detrimental to the demeanour he’s trying to retain. He knows it’s childish. He knows it’s immature, and pathetic, and wholly invigorating, at least until the adrenaline has worn off and he’s in the aftermath of his knee-jerk reaction to the tension coiled in his arms and legs and head.

It doesn’t mean that Logan is particularly in control of it though, despite his self-awareness being far above the level that most people with anger management issues are at. Maybe there’s a certain quality to it that allows for growth; it’s not as if Logan stays angry, or that he wants to hurt people. He loves the others, painfully so (as much as he loathes to admit it), to the point where he’s so desperate for their approval that he tampers down his passion, that spark that used to drive him to learn and speak and be happy just to avoid being cast out and abandoned, alone in the way he never wants to be. He wants to find a way to temper the fall into those dark, consuming waters, a way to mute the buzzing and ticking. He wants to seal those exposed live wires and release the tension to the point where he never lashes out ever again. He wants to, and he doesn’t know how to, and that fact infuriates him in an ironic, endless cycle of self-imposed and self-directed enmity.

Logan still thinks on this often, even now, wracking his brain for solutions to problems that realistically won’t be solved as easily as he wishes they would. Excerpts and quotes and data and statistics from many different studies about anger and temper management and irritability and everything in between seem to figuratively run amok through his brain, a screaming crowd of witnesses to the chaos and failure found in his ability to filter through the nonsense and come to a satisfying conclusion, any conclusion at all. He notices how his fingers tremble as they slip into the handle of his coffee mug, endures the dull ache in his mid-to-lower back from falling asleep at his desk for the majority of the day under the guise of work so important he holed himself up in his room to complete it. He ignores the way his head pounds, how he feels so dizzy that he might fall over and pass out any second from lightheadedness. He suffers through the loud conversations between the other three that are typical to the dinner routine that Logan cannot deal with today, not with this headache poking at him like figurative needles in his head.

When he senses the summons from Thomas stirring up the familiar but nonetheless odd ticklish sensation on the back of his neck, Logan can feel the tension knot up his muscles, and the combination of the two just makes him want to growl in irritation. The others, having also felt the summoning, seem to get impossibly louder, ringing and stinging and singing in his head. He still persists, despite the fact that he knows he shouldn’t be out doing anything today that’s likely to exacerbate his sickness, because Thomas is important, more so than Logan himself. No matter how much he wants to hole himself up in his room and sleep the day away, his host needs him, so Logan simply forces his mask of indifference to melt into steel. He refuses to budge, not for the first or last time, and he rises up in the real world standing straight and rigid and as put together as he’s always expected to be.

When he’s finally settled into his usual spot, as still as he can possibly be to not exacerbate the roiling nausea disquieting his stomach, he’s able to take in the other four arranged in their usual positions in Thomas’ living room, already having begun a conversation that Logan has missed the premise of entirely through his all-eclipsing, obfuscating malady. His vision doubles, like broken fractals of glass reflecting onto themselves, and then it pulls back together, merging back into something visible, something manageable.

“Well, I’m sure Danny likes you, too! You just gotta ask him, kiddo!” Patton exclaims, high voice pushing through the heavy, suffocating cotton in Logan’s ears, and the words snap the bespectacled side to attention. He needs context, needs to know what they’re talking about, needs to be able to help for once. Maybe he has to endure the bad to be able to put out the good, and this is where the climax is, the top of the rollercoaster at such a high altitude that oxygen is thin and dispersed before he shoots down the tracks in a rush of fresh air, relieving and calm and sanguine as he’s finally able to ground himself. A shiver runs through Logan’s body, between his shoulder blades and down his hip and through his leg, and his eyes flutter under the weight of consciousness. It recedes, the flow is ebbed, and his head clears to a more sustainable level.

“Oh, that’s so boring, Padre! Thomas should hire a band to play! And we can rig up streamers and confetti and there can be a cake and dancing and a party to celebrate!” Roman crows, throwing his arms and hands up into his signature pose to match his full, booming tone. Patton squeals, clutching his cardigan in his hands to pull excitedly at the sleeves as he bounces giddily on his feet. At the suggestion, as the polar opposite to Patton’s reaction, Virgil grimaces, hunching over even further in his jacket as he protests with every way he can think of that the situation could go wrong. Unsurprisingly, Roman takes personal offense to it and refutes Virgil’s points with the same intensity and fervour that’s been present in himself and his interactions with the anxious side since day one. Logan sort of understands, can infer that they’re discussing how to ask out Danny, a new friend of Thomas’ who has very quickly turned into a crush. In that case…

“If I may interrupt? While I don’t share all of Virgil’s worries, I do agree with his position in regards to the fact that there isn’t a need for such extravagance. It might embarrass Danny, for one, and for two, there are many ways such an excessive venture could backfire, such as technical difficulties or general human error. The idea is, while exciting, frankly outrageous,” Logan says, his role as the voice of reason renewed once more. It’s his job to sift through the conversations they have and get to the important parts, and he likes his job. He’s good at micromanaging, mediating the chaos, good at storing information to sort and consider and veto and bolster. It’s how he operates, how he copes. “We can think of something else to–”

“Oh, shut it, Pocket Protector. We all know you don’t care about romance, but this is important! Thomas wishes to find love with the second most handsome prince in the world! After me, of course,” Roman exclaims, in that boisterous, self-aggrandizing way of his, the way that hides his real insecurities he buries so deeply in himself he doesn’t know how to find them again. Oddly enough, it’s not Roman’s defense mechanism that throws Logan off, it’s the way that Logan stopped talking almost reflexively to allow the other side to finish his statement, as if the prince’s words were more important than his own, and it speaks as testament to how much Logan’s been conditioned (or maybe he’s conditioned himself all on his own) into putting everyone else before himself, even when it hurts him or Thomas. Logan is ignored in the face of his implicit trust, and he hates that even as it pours salt in the open wound, he finds himself taking a depraved, spiteful comfort in the familiarity of it all.

“That’s not what I–”

“Awe, c'mon, Logan! Thomas deserves to have a happy relationship and someone he can live out the rest of his life with! Doesn’t that sound nice, to grow old together with someone you love? Isn’t that romantic? Oh, it just makes me so warm and fuzzy thinking about it!” Patton interrupts, hands clutching each other over his heart as he swoons. Logan knows Patton doesn’t mean to be rude, but he still can’t help but be a little hurt by it, especially since he’s now been ignored twice consecutively. He’s just trying to help, and if that means reigning in Roman’s exorbitant ideas that border on egregious at times, then Logan knows it must be done. Although he encourages Thomas to seek a relationship to improve his mental health and provide more financial stability, there is a limit to how much he can disregard himself and others in doing so, and that doesn’t mean that Logan is the bad guy for pointing that out. He knows that. He knows that, so why does the dismissal still feel so sharp in his chest?

“Yeah, romance is cool and all, but what if it doesn’t work? What if Danny actually hates us? What if we ask and he laughs at us or says no and then we’ll be standing there like an idiot and then he’ll never wanna talk to us again because he thinks we’re pathetic and stupid and–”

“Hey, now, don’t be such a Debby Downer, kiddo! I’m sure it’ll go just fine! We’ll just ask him. The worst thing that can happen is he’ll say no, right? Shouldn’t we give it a shot?” Patton consoles before Virgil can go into a spiral. Although his well-meaning reassurances are meant to be comforting, his voice just grates on Logan’s ears, tinny and hollow and misdirected.

“That’s what I’m afraid of!”

Logan wants to keep listening, he really does, but the noise is rising to levels where it’s too much to handle. He’s already sensitive from his illness, but the discussion that is very quickly turning into an argument falls in pulses through his head, sound torture to the broken, hopeless masochist. He’s barely holding onto himself at this point, consciousness like a dangling thread that swirls and dances and twirls with even the tiniest breeze, a hint of movement sending it shivering and quivering as it spins. It wouldn’t take much for the thread to fray from the weight pulling it down, or to saw through it in a clean slice that leaves it floating feather-light upon air currents, petals spiraling to the ground.

Petals. Flowers. Thomas could bring Danny flowers! It’s perfect! Danny is especially predisposed to gardening, and he frequently talks about different flowers and what they mean based on the type and colour. His interest in botany could make this a sweet gift, to show that Thomas pays attention to what Danny enjoys, and can be the perfect segue into asking him on a romantic outing. Yes, this could work! It would appease Roman’s inclination to classic romanticism while still being practical and not unreasonably expensive, give Patton his ideal relationship fantasy (and a “warm and fuzzy feeling”, apparently), and allow Virgil a little more breathing room, so-to-speak. This is something they all should be agreeable towards, and that confidence is enough to supply Logan with enough energy to push past his lightheadedness and offer a solution. He’s proud of himself for taking the others’ feelings into account, something he knows he’s not always been the most proficient at, and for coming up with a compromise that will likely satisfy everyone’s wants and needs.

“What about bringing him flowers?” Logan asks, pleased and antsy as he feels hope well up in his chest. He doesn’t push it down this time, and he thinks maybe, just maybe they’ll finally listen to him, that they’ll tell him that he did well, that he’s being considerate and maybe even say thank you–

“How would you even know, Roman? It’s not like we just go out and hire mariachi bands every Saturday!” Virgil says with furrowed brows, and Roman huffs in indignation, and Patton sighs as he looks between the two of them, and Logan’s words fall on deaf ears. They didn’t even hear. They didn’t listen. They didn’t care they didn’t care–

“Uh, hey, Virgil, what if–” Logan tries once more to speak, nausea rolling angrily in his gut, head spinning dizzy round and round and round and round and Virgil flinches.

He flinches. Because of Logan.

Virgil hasn’t been afraid of any of them for a long time. Sure, in the beginning, when they fought one another on nearly a day-to-day basis, there would be a moment before he could pull on his figurative mask that a flash of fear would go through Virgil’s eyes, and the sadness kept within wouldn’t subside even when he growled and snapped and blustered whichever side had the misfortune of picking a fight with him during a time where his first instinct was to keep away the pain and longing and loneliness the only way he knew how. Over time, that flash of fear dulled, morphed into something more manageable, more trusting. The sadness never really went away, but it was met with warmth, a soft contentedness that danced in his eyes when he realized he had a family to turn to. He hasn’t been afraid for a long time. And yet, he flinches away from Logan, just from him speaking.

Is he really that bad?

Does even simply the sound of his voice have such a negative association for Virgil that it prompts genuine fear and discomfort? Has he really scared Virgil that much? What did he do? How can he fix this?

Maybe he shouldn’t.

Logan’s felt disconnected from the others for quite a while now. He loves them, of course he does, but he doesn’t feel like he fits. He’s the metaphorical jagged puzzle piece, the one that should snap into the final vacant space but is so broken beyond repair that it doesn’t fit quite right. He wants to belong, to feel at home whenever he’s with them, but he doesn’t. He yearns for the acceptance that Virgil earned, the support that Roman is held up by, the respect and adoration Patton seems to acquire so casually and naturally that it’s like he doesn’t even have to try. Logan wants to be like them. He wants to be loved, but… that isn’t really his place, is it?

Love is not an inherent thing. It’s something that’s earned, by doing good things and being important enough to someone that they give it freely. It’s something Logan doesn’t understand, but despite that, still desperately, painfully yearns for. He wants to be loved, the way he loves the others. He wants to be a part of their famILY, to have that implicit trust in each other that only comes from acute, profound, deep-seated love. He wants that fondness directed towards himself, that devotion borne from hapless, radiating appreciation. The humbled esteem, the maudlin, theatrical longing, the passion and yearning and helpless, acquiescent love that bursts from the seams in a manner that will never diminish or fade. He wants that. Badly. And he’s finally ready to accept that he will never have it. He’s okay. He’s okay. He just needs a moment. He just needs to breathe.

The others must have continued with their arguments long ago, seemingly unaware of anything outside of themselves. Logan supposes he shouldn’t really berate them for that since he often falls victim to getting lost in debate as well, but something is wrong with Thomas, going by his expression and demeanour and the logical side can’t ignore it anymore. It’s highly unlikely that the other three will come away from themselves for long enough to notice, and it doesn’t sound like they’re anywhere close to coming to a conclusion amongst themselves, so Logan is perfectly fine with bearing that responsibility upon himself to check up on his host and make sure he’s okay. He’s the most important one here, after all, and it’s Logan’s job to help him, guide him in his life and decisions.

“Thomas? Is there something wrong?” Although the words come out clear and precise as usual, Logan’s throat burns, and he can barely breathe. He wants to sleep, he wants to sleep, but Thomas needs him, and that doesn’t happen often nowadays, so Logan does nothing but wait impassively. His host bites the inside of his cheek, then sighs as he stares off at the wall, lost in thought. Since he says nothing, the logical side assumes he will continue to say nothing for a few more moments, and decides to give him a once-over to gather more information and any possible context. Thomas’ eyebrows are furrowed, and his posture far from adequate. His expression is troubled, and his arms are crossed loosely, a pointer finger scratching at his elbow unconsciously. There is no obvious cause for his confusion and/or upset in himself or anywhere in the room, apart from the current dilemma, but he was fine before, so something must have changed to distress him now. Logan cannot ascertain what Thomas needs simply from observing him, so he concludes that the best thing for him to do is wait.

So he does. And he does so for a minute, two, five. Every second that ticks by feels like a needle is being shoved into his eyes, his brain, his legs, his everything and it takes more effort to stand than he’s used to. Breathing is difficult, but that isn’t exactly a new development, so at least he knows how to ignore it. Eventually, ten minutes pass with only the sound of the other three arguing in the background, and it doesn’t seem like Thomas is really all there. Although the action makes him want to throw up, Logan shifts forward, moving out of his usual spot and into Thomas’ own. He still doesn’t acknowledge any kind of input outside himself, so Logan lays a hand on his host’s arm gently, which snaps him out of his trance in a slow, unhurried kind of way. Thomas gives him a glance when his logical side sighs, tampering down any audible signs of his nausea in a manner that is unbeknownst to the host, but returns to staring at the wall without a second regard.

“Thomas?” Logan murmurs, bile rising in his throat and shoving his hidden suffering even closer to the forefront of his mind, as though it hasn’t been there all along. It’s hard to think, through all of the white noise and weary irritation and the tiniest sliver of hope that he crushes immediately, but thinking is his job, and he needs to help. “Are you alright? You can talk to me.”

And then Thomas is shrugging him off, turning away as he tells him he should “just stop” with piercing words, that he “can’t do anything to help”, and the rejection feels like a metaphorical knife has been shoved into his gut. Logan can feel the pain and the heartbreak and the insecurity materialize into a cold blade, twisting and twisting just to make him hurt more. Logan is ignored for the fourth time today, by the person it hurts to come from the most, and he can feel the sun whipping and screaming in his chest. His breath is stuck, sucked down into his throat, a sharp pain localizing in his neck, and he can’t help but bring his hand up to rub at the spot with trembling fingertips as he unsteadily lurches back to his regular spot. The others don’t notice, of course, or if they did, they don’t care. Then the nausea he’s been fighting against surges like a violent wave at full force, drowning him and the hurt is forcing its way into his mouth, his throat, his lungs, and he can’t breathe–

His fist flashes down from his neck to the banister, punching the railing so hard it echoes in the reverberation created from his vicious, angry snarl.

It’s scary, in a way, how in moments like this one, Logan feels as if his consciousness floats away from him, leaving behind only a wave of white-hot, searing anger that drains out of him just as quickly as it comes. There’s sleet running through his veins, and his brain has frostbite, and his fingertips are numb in the face of the ringing resonance after his outburst. The pain comes next, a simmering heat blistering below his fist until it’s coated and red and the beginnings of a bruise are starting to form. He can’t help but stare helplessly in front of himself, eyes burning and filling and blazing with how much they beg to close.

Logan sinks out.

There’s a very short window of time where the logical side rushes into the en-suite bathroom after rising up in his bedroom, trembling legs aching with exhaustion. Barely a second passes between him falling to the floor and emptying the meager contents of his stomach into the toilet, the bile burning in his tender throat as a reminder of his failure. The floor is cold and hard beneath him, ridges of tiles pressing unrelenting into his knees through his wrinkled jeans. His head spins, unbalanced as it whirls through itself, words and thoughts and ideas that mean nothing and everything simultaneously existing hollowly in a falling echo. There is pain, and aching, and soreness, and exhaustion, and Logan wants to sleep.

It’s hard to rise to his feet, head throbbing and knees shaking as he wipes the spit from his mouth on a folded square of toilet paper. The pain nags at him, persistent and irritating in its attempts to shut Logan out, almost clear in a way that belies the foggy haze blanketing his nearly incoherent thought process. Marking a clear vantage, a faultline to anchor onto is no easy task, and all Logan wants as he stumbles over to his bed is a landmark to pinpoint and find his way back to. He careens toward the mattress once he’s close enough, finally letting his legs give out underneath him when he’s as near as he can bear. It’s so difficult to stay upright in stiff misery, pangs and twinges of sharp pain coursing through his limbs and his back as his muscles are forced together under pressure.

In another familiar, frustrating bout of anger that seizes his breath before it can escape his lungs, Logan shoves his fingers in the knot of his tie, yanking it forcefully even as the motion jerks his own head forward uncomfortably along with it. His fingers run down the length of the fabric, and it falls apart at the end of its cycle, much like Logan has, and he snaps his arm back to chuck the dark blue, silky length to the ground in a motion that does little to relieve the rage built up inside him.

He can feel it building. The buzzing, the pressure, the glass in his veins running on shards. He feels the pinpricks upon pinpricks, the fire burning in his lungs, and the stone crumbles, and tumbles down, and he’s like a rubber band pulled taut.

He cracks, shrill pressure in his knuckles and head and torso, and nothing happens.

Then Logan hears the telltale squeak of his door swiveling on mildly rusty hinges, and a familiar voice echoes right through his bubble, shatters the stone wall like a bulldozer running at full speed, and then the wetness spills over his lashes and over his stony, impassive face.

“Oh, Lo,” Deceit murmurs, sad and tender as the breath rushes out of him and Logan can’t do this. He wants to throw out his fist in a wide arc and pummel the wall next to him until his knuckles are raw and bloodied and bruised beyond repair. He wants to scream until his throat is torn and his voice is gone, lost in the uncaring, empty void that coldly swallowed up his passion. Happiness has never seemed further away, and he knows he deserves it. But then he remembers all of the times where the pressure in his limbs and the buzzing in his brain forced him to lash out, to hurt others, and he thinks that maybe it’s okay for him to hurt right now to even the score. With the last of the metaphorical wall around him in tiny pieces, fragments of a life he never wanted to live but he desperately fought to keep, he lets his guard down for the first time in years.

Logan’s face crumples under the weight he’s burdened his being with, body immediately drooping under the heaviness that he’s forced himself to fight through. He finally submits, and the tears come in an endless stream over his cheekbones, itchy and hot and terribly, mindlessly relieving. It feels so good to finally let the negative emotion he’s pent up inside him out, to fall out of his cage he’s lived in high above a swirling ocean of release and fear and freedom. And he’s so, so lucky because he has someone to save him from the fall.

Deceit’s kneeled down in front of him, wiping away the tears as they fall with uncharacteristically degloved thumbs, and Logan can feel the smoothness of the scales twisting and trailing down his fingers. Every so often, Deceit’s pointed thumbnails catch lightly on the skin of Logan’s cheek, and it just causes him to cry harder. The vulnerability in the room is palpable, a wispy breath of worry and insecurity and trust trailing over their skin, blanketing the room in a warmth that runs even warmer when Logan reaches up to gently lay his hand over Deceit’s own. He shows his appreciation through tactility when the words he so desperately wishes to say are lost in his throat, blocked by the barrier that separates his newfound submission and the part of him that’s still clinging to the feeble grasp at acceptance he craves so dearly.

Logan can barely tell what’s in front of him through the kaleidoscope in his vision, but he doesn’t really need to see to throw himself forward off the bed and bury himself in Deceit’s chest, of whom lets out a surprised noise but doesn’t hesitate a single second in wrapping his arms tightly around the other side. He strokes Logan’s back comfortingly and offers him whispered reassurances through the heart-wrenching sobs and broken, croaky whines that disappear into his cloak, hand coming up to cradle his head in the overwhelming reflexive instinct to keep the logical side safe and happy. It feels like a dagger has gone through Deceit’s chest at the knowledge that Logan has been suffering for so long and hasn’t been able to let it out or just simply be held, the self-preservation that is at the core of his function as a side going off like alarm bells with every sniffle. Logan curls into the first person who’s ever offered him physical affection and emotional safety, and his fists clench the fabric at the snake-like side’s shoulders as tightly as he would if he were to never, ever let go.

Logan is out of breath even as his heart begins to calm, beating and beating in his ribcage and in his lungs. The lump in his throat prevents him from speaking, but he figures it’s okay to not be heard audibly, just this once, and speak with his actions. Although he doesn’t know what he’s saying when he pulls back and wraps his arms around Deceit’s neck, laying his face in the crook of other side’s neck like a small child would, not really, he hopes that his intent still comes across in some sort of intelligible, hopeful way. Deceit seems to take this as a request, a promise, and slides his grip to a point where he can hoist the smaller side up in his hold, carrying him just like a parent carrying their kid to their bed after they fell asleep during a visit to a friend’s house. This situation is much more loaded, stained with impurities and unsure withering, but it’s just as raw, just as real, and Logan finds himself feeling safer than he ever has before.

At some point, they end up on the bed, Logan having been manhandled into a more comfortable position for both of them, which is laying across Deceit’s lap without ever having let go of his neck. The logical side feels small and vulnerable, something that he would normally hate, squash down, bury so deep within himself that he doesn’t even have to acknowledge it. But honestly, right here, right now, he’s so goddamn exhausted, and forcing himself back into the state of repression he’s been in for so much of his life would take too much of a toll, more than he already has on himself. The wetness rolls down his cheeks, bold, blue precipitation falling in droplets onto his skin and the fabric of Deceit’s cape, sinking and spreading and thinning out into airy nothingness. And the nothingness enraptures him, pulls him in even as he breaks and whimpers and spills wisps of forgotten feelings into empty space, at least until his bedroom door opens once more with a loud click, because nothing Remus ever does is truly quiet.

“Hey, are you guys having a sexy party without me? How c–… are you… crying?” Remus asks, suggestive tone split and watered down into something confused, and surprised, and angry. The younger twin kicks the door shut behind him with his foot, more out of muscle memory than conscious forethought, something that stands with nearly every action Remus executes. Logan turns his head wearily, not lifting it from where it rests on Deceit’s collarbone. The latter of the two takes that chance to clear away some of the tears that didn’t get absorbed into his clothing, hoping that since the stream is slowly dispersing, his cheeks will stay dry this time. Remus slowly approaches, body tense and eyes piercing as Logan’s face is wiped off for the nth time, offering no other sounds or words as he crouches down to examine how the bespectacled side’s skin is rubbed red and sensitive.

Logan just whines softly, stare falling to the bedsheets, observing nothing in particular as he tries to figure out why words are failing him. Something that’s such an intricate part of himself, the communication of thoughts and ideas and knowledge that defines so much of who he is and how he exists, it’s dwindled and diminished into nothing. Deceit seems to understand, he always does, and reads him so perfectly it’s a wonder the two didn’t become closer in the beginning, with how much they truly are alike. A scaled hand makes it’s way up to Logan’s head and cards through the soft, disheveled hair there, scratching lightly at his scalp in a motion that seems to draw the aching tension caused by his distress out of his body, leaving his muscles to relax and melt into the chest that holds him upright.

“Something happened before I came in here. I assume it has to do with the others,” Deceit murmurs into thick, heavy air, stale with shame and tired hopelessness. Remus’ eyes flick to Logan’s own, actively searching for some sort of confirmation or denial. There’s a beat of silence, and Logan’s eyes flutter in a fatigued attempt to stay awake, and the nausea creeps its way into his stomach once again like a predator stalking its prey. Deceit repositions himself quietly, pulling the smaller side impossibly closer, as if he knows that he’ll need the added comfort. With his body squished into a protective embrace, and his tie laying flat on the floor below, forgotten and scorned for what it represents, Logan swallows hard around the sharp block in his neck and nods through his nonverbal affliction.

At the minimal admission, something in Remus’ eyes darkens, bathing the bright craze that typically resides there in something hateful, and vicious, and dripping with chemical absolution. He shifts away, rolls onto his haunches in a way that doesn’t read as entirely intentional, as though he’s been physically forced back with the weight of the confession. There’s so much there, in the way his breath comes out shallow and gravelly and low like a beast biting and snapping at the bars that contain it, fighting against the cage it’s locked inside. Nostrils flare, and jaw sets, and fists clench white as bone, and Remus straightens up to his full height, intimidating and looming and dangerous.

“Who?” he spits, venom coursing through the single word in molten streams. It’s a protective fire, serious in a way Remus rarely is, and the storm in his eyes and aura only becomes more turbulent and intense and solid as he reaches behind himself to slowly seize his morning star from where he keeps it at the ready. Pulling it to the front of him is an unexpectedly slow event, yet still ferocious in its quiet, cold fervour. The silver weapon swings in a steady arc around the side of Remus’ body, catching the dim light in a threatening glint, the gleam alluding to its deadliness in a way that’s almost unexplainable. The spiked mace finally comes to its resting point, hovering in the air just beside the fierce side’s leg, unassuming and ready to drive its way into an unlucky antagonist’s skull.

“I’ll cut their fucking throats. I’ll rip off every single limb from their bodies until they’re nothing but a pile of flesh and blood. They’re gonna pay for this,” Remus snarls, each threat bathed in acrimony and malice and choked by fury ripping through the tempest. Logan stares through misty eyes, half-lidded and concerned but too out of it to muster much of a coherent thought. Thankfully, Deceit is still there, soft and warm and well-equipped to deal with Remus and his behaviour. The snake-like side sighs, reaching out to just barely snatch up a frilly black sleeve, tugging him closer and meeting surprisingly little resistance despite the rigidity of the tallest side’s posture. Each breath from Remus comes out like a bullet, brisk and arduous and punctuated by a pang of impermeable guilt.

Even as Deceit motions Remus to lower himself onto the bed in front of them, the latter of the two is still apprehensive, terse movements and restless eyes that flit between anything and everything they can to avoid stagnation. It’s almost fearful, in a way, primal in its aptitude to think, and cultivate, and vindicate a wrongdoing that was never his fault or responsibility in the first place. Logan hates that they need to save him, hates that he doesn’t truly believe they actually care. There’s a level of certainty with himself and with others that the logical side hasn’t reached yet, and it feels too close and yet too far, kept obscure and secluded and almost clandestine in the way it’s ostensibly unreachable.

With the help of Deceit’s hand to guide his way, Remus slowly lets go of his morning star, tossing it to the side with a pensive, trembling swallow. It clatters to the ground, metallic clang resounding in vibrations, tilde-shaped waves that bounce off the façade and yell out to one another. Muted shrieks upon perfect, flat, neutral paint, sepulchral oscillations attacking the drywall.

“You can’t hurt them. I know you’re angry. I am too. But hurting them won’t solve anything, Rem, you know that more than anyone,” Deceit says meaningfully, smiling in a way that’s sad and distant but caring and compelling and relaxing for the tension wrapped so tightly around the three of them. The snake-like side lifts the hand that’s not in Logan’s hair and reaches out to grab Remus’ own, firmly but gently as he squeezes his fingers in a way that reassures, and consoles, and reprimands, not unkindly. He admonishes, and breaks that anger and frustration, and builds up positivity and alleviation and reprieve from everything that allows that buzzing, ticking, those pinpricks upon pinpricks. His care and concern washes over you, paternal in a different way than Patton operates, and it’s why Deceit is so comforting to be around. He manages a respite from vexation, a refuge in sanctuary, discreet freedom for the flawed, defeated dreamer.

“I’m mad. I’m mad that they hurt you, Lo-Lo. I want them to feel the pain you’re feeling,” Remus mutters, frigid and defeated, head bowed and gaze distant in that transparent manner of his that easily broadcasts all of his thoughts and feelings and wishes. Logan feels the pride welling up in his chest without even realizing it, quietly delighted at the progress Remus has made in being clear and forthcoming with his emotions and impulsivity. A weary grin makes its way onto his face, predictably aggravating the soreness in his cheeks, yet he finds himself indifferent to it, unperturbed by the plight that’s ravaged his body for the day, and probably longer without his notice. He wants to reassure the younger twin, to smile and laugh and brush all of it off, but his eyelids droop, and a pathetic mewl is the only thing able to escape his lungs. Of course, since there’s something Logan wants to say, Deceit somehow knows how to communicate it, just as prompt and courteous and perceptive as always.

“We can talk about this later after Logan has slept. Don’t worry too much, Rem, and don’t do anything stupid. If you get angry again, please go to your paints instead of your legs,” Deceit instructs, more of a suggestion than a demand, but he hopes Remus will listen and be mindful anyway. The latter of the two bounces his leg anxiously, grumbling unintelligibly under his breath as he stands up in one swift, fluid motion. As Remus makes his way over to exit the room, Logan nudges Deceit’s hand with his head gently, trying to bring his attention back to the massaging motion that ceased sometime during the conversation. The snake-like side’s eyes flick downward to meet the smaller side’s own half-lidded, teetering gaze, and he huffs a laugh after a moment of searching. Logan doesn’t know what he finds, but he realizes that he doesn’t really care that much about worrying over every little interaction anymore.

Remus finally turns and glances back as he swings the door open, brows still furrowed and shoulders still hunched, but simply shakes his head and leaves. The door closes much softer than before, thankfully, so as not to be too harsh on Logan’s migraine, an unusually conscientious thought from someone that rarely shows consideration to the needs of others that the logical side appreciates that much more. As the sound of Remus’ footsteps slowly fade with his retreat down the hallway, the two of them left are bathed in silence, one that is marginally less heavy and thick than before.

A small while passes afterward, only punctuated by soft breathing and light scratching noises from nails trailing through messy hair. Logan feels like he might pass out any minute, what with the comfortable, quiet understanding the two have come to rest at, but some part of him says to wait, to push through the mind-numbing exhaustion for just a little while longer. That part of him is probably just being considerate toward Deceit, who Logan can’t imagine would be very comfortable with another side falling asleep on him and laying on him for an extended period of time, but he figures that it’s a good of a reason as any. It’s not about him feeling like a burden. It’s not.

Eventually, Deceit must start to get tired as well, or maybe he’s sore from Logan’s weight on his legs, so he sits forward, apologizing quietly for disturbing the peace, and he moves them into a more comfortable position. The new arrangement is far more snug and cozy than the previous one, Logan thinks drowsily, as his head hits the pillow across from Deceit. They lay there on top of the blankets but make no move to pull them up, just content to stare lazily at one another in the dim, ambient light cast by the desk lamp in the opposite corner of the room.

“Why?” Logan finally asks, and although he loathes disrupting the silence, he needs to ask. The words are scratchy in his tender throat, a charcoal whisper on a steel canvas that scratches and sketches away with nothing viable left to keep through the wind that blows the dark dust off the surface. “Why are you helping me? Why do you care?”

Deceit just hums, sending Logan a weak, distracted smile. He mulls over the words, tossing about the meaning and possibilities in his head and on his silver tongue, rushing in an uncertain river through valleys of golden sand.

“I am self-preservation at its core. I exist to keep Thomas safe and healthy and thriving, and that also means you and the other sides by extension. But… it’s not just that. Even though I feel physical pain whenever one of you or Thomas is hurt, I specifically want to help you because… I care about you, Logan. I love you, and want to see you healthy and happy. I haven’t really been doing a good job of that lately,” Deceit mutters, gaze somewhere on their shared pillow, and there’s a quality to his tone that’s bitter beyond the line of frustration. Although Deceit doesn’t expand on it, doesn’t offer up a single clarification despite the heavy air and his resigned demeanour, Logan gets it. He understands, and he wants to prove him wrong.

So he does.

And that comes in the form of surging forward, fighting against the current, the pinpricks in his stomach and shoulders and abdomen, disregarding the exhaustion for just a little while longer so that he can let Deceit’s lips meet his own. Logan’s so close he can feel the shocked rush of air leave Deceit’s nose, feel the vibrations through the air as his body trembles in fear and anticipation and relief. The other side eases in, sinks closer, closer, and finally moves his lips in a careful, emotional dance that leaves Logan dizzy and breathless, for entirely different reasons that have plagued him for the past day.

“Lo,” Deceit breathes, low, wanting, and he pulls back to give Logan a chance to catch up. A scaled hand comes up to caress the logical side’s cheek, a soothing, cool balm for the raw skin beginning to heal there. “I didn’t… I didn’t think…”

“I love you,” Logan breathes, the words he’s refused to say, to acknowledge, to confront welling up through his throat and for the first time, he lets them spill out. The dam has broken, debris left to descend and submerge in the depths of the sentiment crashing through in a roaring, passionate rapid at the narrowest point yet. The words come, and they don’t stop, and Logan almost can’t believe how right they feel on his tongue. “I love you, I love you, I–I love you so much, Dee.”

Logan is like a rubber band, pulled taut and still and trembling under the pressure. And maybe he’ll split, shoot apart, torn in two pieces that will never fit back together again. But maybe he won’t. Maybe instead of snapping in half, he’ll snap back, and that thought alone gives him a quiet comfort that he’s not used to allowing himself. He’s waiting, hoping, and he’s okay enough for now.

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straywithmestay · 5 years ago

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Your Hero

Pairing: Han Jisung x Reader

Genre: Fluff

Superhero AU

Warnings: Copious amounts of fluff and just Jisung being Jisung.

Summary: Jisung, although being a superhero who fights crime on a daily basis, can’t help but be nervous in front of the love of his life. I mean, who wouldn’t go weak in the knees for that smile?

A/N: Hello! This is my first reader insert ever so please forgive how awkward it is. I’m so used to writing in the third person that the second person seems like an alien script to me. Superheroes make me weak in the knees but that just might be Jisung. Also forgive my terrible superhero names - I could not think of one for the life of me.

Jisung ran his hands through his hair as he ran down the crowded streets - it wasn’t the best start to the day. First of all, he had overslept after his night patrol since Felix and Changbin refused to go with him, meaning it took longer; then he went to the wrong place that wasn’t the meeting place. Being a superhero wasn’t easy but seeing everyone smile when he saves the day - that makes it all worth it.

He sucked in a deep breath as he strode into the coffee shop. There she was in all her glory - Y/N L/N. Jisung had met several weeks prior from a mutual friend of theirs setting them up (though he is pretty sure that Chan will never let him live down the fact he bumped into a bin and then apologized to the bin when he first introduced them). “S-Sorry! I-... I didn’t have the-” He started before being interrupted.

“Don’t worry! I just got here! I thought I was late!” You bursted out with a dusting of red, shyly fiddled with your fingers. “I-... I took the liberty of ordering you an iced americano… I-Is that okay?” You gingerly held out the drink with a small awkward smile. Jisung felt his breath catch in his throat at the beauty in front of him. Your H/C hair framed your face and your gorgeous eyes stood out like gems to him, sparkling with life.

“Jisung?” You mumbled - you could have sworn he had mentioned he liked iced americanos. Wait - maybe he wanted a hot americano. Jisung snapped out of his daze, grabbed the drink and took a large gulp before choking on it and gasping from how it had caused a sharp pain to hit from the coldness. “I-It’s my favorite!” He wheezed out as you peered at him.

Jisung heard a giggle escape your lips before it morphed into full blown laughter and he swore that in your laughter, he heard wedding bells. He straightened himself up and smiled, “Let’s sit down.” You reached for his hand and led him to the seat you had saved, where some snacks laid on the table, a little neglected. Y/N was a gift from the heavens and Jisung was sure of that the moment she pushed a few brownies towards him.

You brushed the strands of hair out of your face as you took a bite out of a fresh croissant. Jisung stared as you continued to eat, allowing him to take in your whole face. The rosy cheeks he just wanted to squish, the cute nose he wanted to boop, her luscious lips that just seemed to beg to be kissed. Jisung couldn’t help but soften at the sight of you.

“So, how’s your work?” You ask, after noticing his daze. The man stiffened - clearly being pulled out of his daydream. “Uh, Chan said that the track is almost ready… I just need to add some finishing touches.” He mumbled, wringing his hands. Jisung hadn’t told you anything about the song in detail as he promised you would be the first to listen to the finished version. He racked his brain for some conversation starters - “H- How are your classes?” Jisung almost physically cringed at his stutter. This was the third date and he couldn’t stop getting so nervous. Thankfully for him, you paid no heed to his nervousness. “They are okay - Mrs Choi keeps talking about her husband but what’s new?” You giggle as he tips his head back and groans, “She kept talking about her chiwawa and how it pissed on her rug in my class.”

The butterflies seemingly escaped Jisungs’ stomach as the conversion began to smooth out and flow freely. The more he spoke with you, the more he was sure - he really wanted you to be his girlfriend. Now the problem was: how does he go about asking the question. The two of you continued to exchange jokes and stories (one that stood out to you was how Jisung mentioned how Changbin had wanted lucky charms for breakfast only to notice that there were no marshmallows and how it turned out Felix had picked them all out for his bowl).

Suddenly, screams rippled through the coffee shop as a villain rampaged on outside. Jisung’s eyes flashed with fear and worry. He turned to you and grabbed your hand, pulling you out of your seat. “Y/N! Go! Follow the villain evacuation order! I’ll join you in a bit!” Jisung quickly made a break for the bathroom where he pulled out his phone and dialled one of his team mates. “Bring my costume! I’m at the cafe on a date! I di-!” He didn’t get to finish as Felix only seemed to yell a simple ‘Got it!’ before ending the call, leaving him to wallow in the bathrooms in his worry for Y/N.

Jisung wasn’t the best with people in general. He would break out in a sweat. He would stumble over his words. He would accidently snort at a stupid joke. But Y/N made him feel special. You never mentioned how sweaty his hands were when you held them nor would you laugh at how he had to start the sentence 3 times before being able to say it properly. Jisung was completely enamoured with your sweet demeanor and heart of gold. No matter what mistake he made, you would forgive him with a smile that shone like the stars.

Jisung looked up to be met with clothing. “Get changed quick, Quake! He has a power over making air walls!” He heard Felix - or known as Dragon as his hero identity - yell before running out to combat. Jisung slipped on his costume and pulled on his mask. He jumped out of the stall and ran outside to be met with an image that made his heart sink into his feet. Y/N in the villains’ arms with a knife poised at the jugular. Tears stained your face despite putting on a brave face.

He felt the anger bubbling away in him as he stormed over. Without hesitation, Jisung clicked his fingers and two earth walls slammed into the villain with a third thin wall snaking its way to knock the knife out his hand. Dragon leapt back from helping civilians and kicked The villains’ back before making his way to secure some handcuffs on him for a trip to the station. Jisung, as Quake, broke out of his anger and let the walls sink back into the ground.

Fear fueled Jisung as he ran to you. From the corner of his eyes, he noticed people crowding. Being a superhero wasn’t just about protecting people - it was also about keeping a public image. Jisung waved to everyone. “I’m glad you are all okay! I’ll be taking her to the hospital! Thank you for your continuous support!” He yelled, waving before being met with a deafening cheer from the crowds. He grabbed you with desperation and immediately leapt away to a secluded area where you could talk.

Jisung cleared his throat. “A- Are you okay ma’am?” You stared at him. A gasp escaped your lips,“Quake…” He slowly felt his cheeks heat up behind his mask as your face turned into one of pure awe and admiration. A wave of gratitude washed over you as you attacked him with a hug, chanting your thanks. “Umm.. I- I have to tell you something…” He murmured as he pulled away from the hug.

You smiled shyly, “C-Can I take a guess?” Jisung was taken aback. “Uh… I see why not?” He mumbled, wringing his hands behind his back as he peered down at you. Taking a deep breath you met his eyes, “A-... Are you Jisung?” He felt his heart sink. You’d never love him now. You would be in danger all the time. Jisung sighed. He pulled his mask off with a disheartened look. A rush of adrenaline filled you as you held his face and quickly planted a shy peck on his lips. “Wh- What?!” He gasped, touching his tingling lips. “I’ve always loved Quake - the amazing super hero but… I love Jisung too! And to think they are the same person!” At his lack of reaction, regret started to eat away at you. You broke eye contact and whispered, “I-... Is it too early to say the ‘L’ word? D-Did I read it all wrong?”

Jisung felt all the emotions welling up in him and suddenly pulled you in close to make sure you wouldn’t see his glazed eyes. “I- I love you too... But I'm scared….” His grip on you tightened, I’m a hero and that means if someone sees us together…. T- they could…” Jisung trailed off, unwilling to accept the truth. You stroked his brown locks that were a mess from wearing his mask, “Look. I can look after myself and… I’d do anything to be with you.” Jisung pulled back, “You love me as Jisung?” You giggled, placing a kiss on one cheek. “Of course!” You replied. He grinned, “And you love me as Quake?” You mirrored his grin and placed another kiss on the other cheek, “I do.”

Jisung gingerly leaned in. Your eyes fluttered shut as you felt his warm lips pressed against yours. You held his cheek as he pulled you close, pressing your body against his - desperate for your touch, almost as if you’d disappear if he let go. Jisung felt you smile into the kiss. This was what he would fight for. This is what he would try to protect. This is what makes it all worth it. He pulled back, breathless and full of joy. “Would you be my-” He started only to be cut off with a ‘yes’ and a fervent kiss from you which was happily reciprocated by the brunet.

You were sweet as honey to him. You were the air he breathes. You were the stars that shone in the dark. You were the reason he wanted to make it safe out of the fights. Jisung pulled back and stared at your blushing face. He was going to fight so he could go home to your arms.

He’ll be your hero.

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wojtekbc · 5 years ago

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D&D Session 7 Player Summary.

When last we left our heroes... Having forced the Warbreed’s hand, the party fought Heavy Cavalry 2274 and his lackeys in an even fight so to avoid unnecessary slaughter. With their leader dead, the Warbreed soldiers turned and left the town, leaving the party to recuperate for a few days before moving on towards Octin, following their third and final contract. The sun has set by the time the party arrives in Octin though the town is still busy; people are running around the streets, setting up stalls, hanging decorations; all signs might potentially maybe sort of point towards a huge festival, and we haven’t missed it. The party make their way to the Affable Undulate to rest up for what is surely going to be a fun day full of party games and definitely no shocking backstory revelations. Over dinner, Shura tells Ellenwae @xynnos a plan most devious discussed with Naoise on the road to Octin @bluethegirl ; that Orc Juice we stole from the Warbreed camp is a military grade amphetamine, we don’t need too much of it, and it seems like the exact kind of thing any soldiers would probably love to have in their back pocket. This goes back and forth for quite some time; the ethics of selling an addictive substance are brought up, questions of who to sell it to are pondered, ways to make sure Naoise doesn’t end up selling it to the public are jokingly discussed... the decision is reached that the party will sell it eventually, keeping some vials for Ellenwae to get maggoted in an orchard and commune with spirits or something, but we will wait until the end of the Super Happy Fun Fun Time coming around tomorrow. Our big buddy Otis walks over to the table and tells the party that our employer has finally revealed herself to be one Guinevere Greysteel; name not ringing any bells for the 1 person who reads these and isn’t playing? She’s some sort of relative to the wizard our dearest monk fucking brained but a week ago. She requests to meet us, and we all decide that it’s a good call but not until we’ve had our party time. Apparently there’s a wedding happening between the daughter of the local dickhead noble Fabron and some woman from the east called Ellavara; Naoise drinks heavily at this news and spends some of this downtime writing a song detailing just how much of a prick Duke Fabron is. Room shenanigans are had; it’s strange how D&D inns always have enough beds for the party -1. Naoise and Rowan @krunk-mcdunk vie control of the double bed to themselves whilst Ellenwae sleeps on the floor. The party’s up bright and early to seize the day, but not bright and early enough to catch Jawbones (Jawbones!) @darkseldarine or Cerna @pantographicclone leaving the inn; Jawbones had the decency to leave a note with little hearts and a smiley face, at least. She’s off visiting an old friend! Cerna’s off doing something horrible and occult, probably! One hearty breakfast later and the party is off to beat peasants at their own games. Ellenwae starts this adventure off by following the sound of a crier looking for contestants to catch the lady of lace. Ellenwae, in his off-white robes laced with living plants, is probably quite surprised when it turns out to be a greased pig to be chased through the streets, but to his credit he’s still down for it. A bolt ahead of the pack and a failed attempt to charm the pig start the race off, but all cunning plans give way to the need to grab the pig, which Ellie tries and fails as some burly peasant dude manages to pull it off. Oh well, definitely one way to start the day off! Next up on the list of things to do is prove to the locals that Shura is greater than any champion they could throw at him by way of arm wrestling competition. Now, ya boi was prepared to rage, or go through multiple competitors, but it was unnecessary. The champion came out, Shura shook his hand, they started and the match was over in seconds. It was pitiful. Now winning and leaving a crowd shocked is great by itself I’ll give you that but what’s even better is winning, leaving a crowd shocked, and being given a fucking magical greataxe for winning. Shura almost gave it away though, because as a player I thought with a name like “The Axe of Gonzo” it was just a regular greataxe. Off that the lads head towards a fighting pit where some sort of ‘master’ has set himself up and is accepting challengers. Naturally, our hyper-lethal Monk jumps at the opportunity to crack skulls so Rowan jumps in the pit and squares off against the Master of Gators. Before the fight even begins, the dude looks at Rowan with the hooligan party in the crowd cheering her on and asks if she has ever been to Ravenhome; seems like news of our exploits precedes us. The fight is a tough one wherein the prick keeps grabbing and biting Rowan while she slips from his grasp and continually cracks him with her staff until on her last legs, she manages to take the bastard down with a palm. The built Monk hits the ground in the pit, and as Rowan’s hand pulls back from the strike, the tattoos follow. Ink crawls up Rowan’s arms to her shoulders and sets in place as two alligators sprawl out across shoulder, chest and bicep. Rowan of the Shadows, Mageslayer, Master of Gators, She of Many Titles. We cross the town to get Rowan something to drink and what the fuck is this? A parade? With the two women to be married? Why has Naoise ran down an alleyway and come back as a different person? Why did Ellavara do a triple-take at Ellenwae? What the fuck is happening? Let’s uhhhhhhhhh discuss this back at the bar later on because this is DEFINITELY not the kind of thing we should avoid. What better way to celebrate than a drinking contest! What better drinking contest than 95% ABV goblin hooch! That’s fucked! Everyone tries, and surprisingly Rowan is the only one to finish. She truly is the strongest of us. The party decides the best place for Naoise to drop her scathing political criticism diss track is in a market square with a massive fucking crowd, so that happens. Guards eventually show up, musketeers eventually show up to blockade the guards, people start chanting the song; it’s all quite a lot. Pleased with the work, the party move on to the opera. It was probably something about a prostitute dying of consumption; Shura definitely cried. BACK TO THE INN! EVERYONE! QUICK! SNACKS AND BEVS UPSTAIRS POST HASTE! MEET IN THE ROOM WITH THE DOUBLE BED IN 2 MINUTES! WE HAVE SHIT TO DISCUSS! The party sit down to finally have a talk. It’s unavoidable now. We’ve been travelling for a couple of weeks at this point but there has never been a time so dire to actually figure out who the fuck some of us are. Naoise doesn’t want to start so Ellenwae drops some of his past; he was exiled when he refused a marriage, and his goddess isn’t...alive? It’s theory, sure, but Ellenwae was dead, and Fayenna brought him back... but Monarchon addressed the goddess when talking to Ellie, so perhaps there is a dormant, primordial, pagan goddess slowly waking up and using Ellie’s body as a catalyst. He’s the first to speak her rites in eons, that much is certain. Suddenly, covered in twigs and dirt (and blood) it’s Jawbones (Jawbones!). Uriel managed to show up for a bit! Much rejoicing was had! “Well, after that, I’ll start us off; Hi, I’m Shura! What’s your name?” “My name isn’t Naoise.” Naoise the bard was Marcella the soldier not too long ago, but she abandoned her past life by faking her death for reasons yet unrevealed, leaving her wife and child in the east, her wife being one lady Ellavara. As she is right now, Naoise does not want to return to who she was, for this is the life she chose, yet she knows this arranged marriage is something that must be stopped. So, as adventurers are wont to do, the party plans to crash a wedding. Jawbones goes downstairs because she’s a local and looks completely normal when she’s not wearing a jawbone around her neck and carrying a massive fucking bow, because we need someone to figure out where the bride is staying. Naturally, Jawbones leaves her little mouse friend Piper with Ellenwae. See, out of character we were laughing at the fact the mouse is about 8 years old as Ellie casts Speak With Animals. We weren’t ready to find out Piper is a Wizard who has been trapped in the body of a mouse for almost a decade and has had no one to properly speak to since Ellenwae. What the fuck. What the everliving fuck. What a fucking session. I might edit thoughts on to this later but it’s pretty late.

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fmdtaeyongarchive · 5 years ago

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↬ my long night is not over.

date: early 2019.

location: seoul, south korea.

word count: 2,019 words, not including lyrics.

summary: n/a.

notes: creative claims verification. depression tw. like, this entire thing is about ash’s depression. not proofread because i wrote this all in one night and i’m just throwing it into the queue before i get some sleep lmao.

days off didn’t come often. when they did, ash had a habit of finding some way to fill his time anyway. it had been trained into him, almost literally, not to let a spare moment go to waste since the age of thirteen, and it was hard to ever fully knock that insistent voice out of his head that told him he needed to be busy or he was wasting his life away.

a day off where he didn’t have plans to do any work was unsettling. he’d been laying in bed for hours in an attempt to feel relaxed, but he couldn’t stop his mind racing when there was nothing else to keep it busy. yet, he couldn’t seem to will himself up to do something to waste his time. it was as if his thoughts were weighing down on his chest and preventing him from rising out of bed and forcing himself out into the world like a useful human being. he could recognize, despite his own irrational need for action, that it was odd that he felt his value so intrinsically linked to whether he ended the day with something accomplished when he worked from before sunrise to after night fall every other day of the year. his skin itched with restlessness, but his limbs refused to move, like they were too heavy for his body to lift.

it wasn’t a physical weight. he wouldn’t be getting torn to pieces at the next fitting he had to go to. it was a purely emotional weight, and ash had felt it before. it had been a while since it’d been this hard to fight, though. it may have something to do with his promotions for “untitled, 2014” coming to an end. singing that song on stage every day, multiple times a day, had worn his emotional nerve endings ragged and it made sense that they didn’t want to be exposed to the elements outside of his bed that could fray them again. it’d been a risky move on his part to agree to beat himself up in front of an audience and on camera so consistently. he didn’t have any regrets about it, but some hidden part of his psyche must and it was punishing him even more now by setting off the other parts of his psyche that he didn’t want to venture into the dark and cavernous depths of.

years ago, these episodes of heaviness hadn’t come like this to weigh down on his chest and mind. back in elementary school, he couldn’t remember ever experiencing the feeling, at least not enough to stay in his mind a decade and a half later. as much as he’d like to blame it on bc as he did most of the problems in his life, he couldn’t draw a direct connection to them to make it a fault of theirs either. he hadn’t started feeling this way the day he’d stepped into bc entertainment as a trainee. it wasn’t something in the air of the training building that had done this to him. the times he’d felt it the most often had been since then, but something told ash it would have grown worse as he got older anyway. no longer seeing the world through the eyes of a child was an inevitability regardless of his career path and seeing the harsh scope of reality made it harder to want to crawl out when he was stuck in a ditch like this.

the first time he’d felt this way, he’d been grocery shopping with his mom back in san francisco. his mom was busy piling their items onto the belt to check out and ash’s mind was left without something to distract it and keep the clouds from sweeping in. a feeling of dread had expanded in his chest like a rapidly filling balloon. as vast and wide as the feeling seemed to be, his insides felt completely and utterly empty at the same time. he’d sat in the backseat of the car on his way home from the grocery store so his mom wouldn’t notice the hot tears that wanted to spill out of his eyes. he couldn’t figure out why they were there in the first place. he wasn’t sad and it didn’t feel like it normally did when he wanted to cry. he was numb. suddenly, hopelessness was the only emotion he could reach out and grasp in his palm, all the excitement of life killed on impact like insects on a car windshield. even the idea of exiting the vehicle instead of letting his body rot away within it had felt so utterly pointless. his body would rot somewhere some day anyway.

it’d been such a strong feeling, or rather, a lack of feeling, that ash had never forgotten that day.

the sensation had come back time and time again since then. when he was twenty and the feeling had been constant for months to the point of driving his manager to force him to seek help for it, a psychiatrist had assigned a name to it and ash had wondered why it had taken so long for someone to notice and label it. it explained a lot, ash had discovered when he’d done a search into it beyond what he knew from media. the antidepressants had helped some after trying out a few different options. it was walking a delicate tightrope of what he needed and what bc needed once management knew he was on medication. if he gained weight from it or it impacted his ability to perform, it’d need to be abandoned immediately. that had made it a challenge to find one that helped without unacceptable side effects, but ash had found a variety that worked well enough as time dragged on and the fact that the feeling wasn’t ever going to fully leave him alone sunk in.

no medication could stop him from having days like this completely. “they can’t cure you. they’re to help make it more manageable,” as he’d been told, and any optimism for such days to be in the past had vanished.

so why was it still so painfully unmanageable on days like this?

_______________________________________________________________________

days passed before ash felt up to getting to work in the studio, and even once he did, he had to force himself to ease back into it. the weight never wanted to leave that easily, even after it’d dug its claws out of him enough to let him breathe. friends and colleagues dropped by the studio here and there and it wasn’t easy to smile all the way to his eyes just yet, especially not after long days of trying to do his best at public appearances, but he could press keys on a keyboard to create chords and that was something that could be celebrated as a small victory as long as he wasn’t faced with too much at once.

the simple piano melody came to him as he sat for hours in the studio. it was mostly a succession of chords and nothing too show-offy, but it wouldn’t fit his mood if he did show off. he didn’t feel like he had a few days earlier, but still, he felt like whispering, not shouting from the hilltops. there was no point in trying to write something upbeat when his brain wasn’t ready to expend the energy necessary to go there yet.

the next day, the strings came into the composition. he made a mental note to ask if bc would be able to provide him with real string recordings if the song was ever completed and given the green light for release. he couldn’t see it ever being a single as it was, without a climax or likely much of anything resembling a hook, but maybe it’d be nice to use somewhere in the middle of an album track list one day in a spot that called for something a bit delicate in its closeness to ash’s heart.

the composition wasn’t much, but it was nice on the ears even without vocals. he let the song exist in a purely instrumental form for a while, considering its use as an interlude or outro on a future album. it was cinematic in an understated way, like the score of an animated movie during the scene where the main character was reflecting. they’d be staring into a pool of water for heavy-handed metaphor and there would be fireflies dancing in the dark night around them as a symbol of hope. there wasn’t much hope in his heart writing the song, but the idea of that use of the track brought a dull smile to ash’s face nonetheless. he’d never considered composing scores for movies. he should give that a try one day.

_______________________________________________________________________

he came back to the track several weeks later, with pages of lyrical scrawls he’d gotten out while busy with his work schedule. for the moment, his chest wasn’t so leaden, but it was too familiar and lasting a feeling for him to forget what his really bad lows were like just because they’d passed for the moment.

the world keeps rotating. it’s getting dark alone. my blank mind. there’s no song i want to sing. i want it to be quiet now.

simple rhymes came together into verses and a chorus to be sung lethargically over the music. he’d record his vocals later on when he could decide the best delivery without faking his emotions, but in their content alone, there was a tone to how they should be sung.

the lyrics were a mix of reworded thoughts he’d scribbled down and his own additions as he sat in the studio but they came together like an aimless stream of conscious, perfect to represent the headspace he wanted to convey. it was the closest he could get to writing them when he wasn’t able to. he wasn’t able to pull himself out of the pitch black dark for the sake of creating something, but he could put into words what he’d felt later. they weren’t beautifully poetic, but neither was life most of the time. simplicity didn’t have to mean an absence of meaning. ash had learned that.

he’d written similar songs before. off of his first album, “pause” had been near and dear to his heart for the way it bared parts of him he’d been expected to keep hidden. he had no idea how much the depth of his struggles had been received, but it was having it out in the world that made it cathartic more than how other people felt about it. this track could hopefully bring more peace to him in knowing that some songs could come purely from his heart in a raw way that bc entertainment couldn’t take away from him. if they ever approved it, they’d monetize it and slap a pretty album cover on it with ash smiling or seducing the camera, but that would never take away the truth within the songs he’d written from such an integral core of himself.

when ash had started, he wasn’t so sure what he wanted to accomplish with the song. was his purpose merely to get his thoughts and feelings out onto paper so that they didn’t have to keep floating around in his head? or did he want to selfishly indulge himself by using his keyboard and paper in place of therapy he didn’t have time for in his schedule these days? it hadn’t been clear at the beginning, but once the words were written out in front of him like a poem, he realized that he hoped his own stream of consciousness would be something someone else could relate to. maybe it wouldn’t be the song to save anyone’s life or brighten their whole day, but there were times when knowing there were other people who had felt the same way was the only semblance of comfort that could be found. ash hoped he could be that. no matter how much his music had to become something else to please other people, he hoped this piece could be something else: a song not to please anyone, but to speak to someone like him.

#depression tw #fmdverification #&& queued #almost done with album verifications! hallelujah

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gumnut-logic · 6 years ago

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Gentle Rain (Part Nineteen)

Title: Gentle Rain

Warm Rain Series

Author: Gumnut

1 – 4 Mar 2019

Fandom: Thunderbirds Are Go 2015/ Thunderbirds TOS

Rating: Teen

Summary: Sometimes it is so gentle, you don’t realise it is happening.

Word count: 3000

Spoilers & warnings: Virgil/Kayo, Scott/OC, Gordon/Penelope, spoilers for Warm Rain up to this point in the timeline.

Timeline: Six months after ‘The Proposal’, almost a sequel.

Author’s note: For @scribbles97 And here we are, the last chapter. There will be an Epilogue full of important stuff, I’ve started it. Also, those of you who follow me on Tumblr will have already read the first Tale of Gentle Rain – I kinda jumped the gun and didn’t want to officially publish it until I had finished this fic…which is pretty close now. So, there is more to come. Thank you ever so much to @scribbles97 who has helped me through this entire fic. Also thanks to @i-am-chidorixblossom and @the-lady-razorsharp who have also answered my frantic calls at various points in time – this fic was a nerve-wracker and I can be really insecure at times :D I would also like to give a massive thanks to all of you who have cheered me along the way. Your comments and feedback have kept me going. It makes it so much more purposeful to write if I know what I’m writing is being read and super bonus if it is being enjoyed. Thank you so, so much ::hugs you all madly::

Disclaimer: Mine? You’ve got to be kidding. Money? Don’t have any, don’t bother.

-o-o-o-

Waking in hospital was not her favourite. She had done it many times in her thirty years and none of those events had been pleasant.

She could smell the hospital around her.

A frown. Vague memories of faces, words, it seemed like dreams, all leading back to that man from International Rescue.

A pair of blue eyes.

Scott Tracy.

She woke with his name on her lips.

And he was the first thing she saw.

“Em?” His voice was soft, tentative, and the hope in his face so strong.

“Hey.”

“Hey, yourself.” That smile of his still turned her insides to jelly. “How are you feeling?”

How was she feeling? A quick physical check and she found herself surprisingly good. “Good. I’m good.”

His smile widened.

A snuffled snort echoed through the room. She frowned. “What?”

Scott stepped back and she came eye to eye with Kayo sitting on a couch in the corner. The smirk on her face was amusing, particularly considering the man asleep in her lap. Virgil was snoring softly, curled up rather awkwardly on the too small sofa, still in his uniform. His baldric and toolkit were draped over the back of one of the chairs.

“Is he okay?”

Scott’s smile was reassuring. “He’s fine. Just tired. Stubborn idiot refused to go home.”

“Why?”

He frowned and she realised that he, too, was still in his uniform. “You don’t remember?”

Remember? A blink. “You caught me.”

“Yes, I did. But you were injured.”

Injured? Her brain didn’t seem to be functioning at full capacity. “How?”

His brow furrowed immediately. “You had a laceration on your leg. You lost a lot of blood.”

“I did?” She reached down and peered under the covers. Her left stump was swathed in bandages. Another frown and she forced her mind to think.

Scott speaking to her calmly, but firmly. Strapping her in. She had flown in a Thunderbird. Thunderbird One. Thunder was right. It had roared. So, so fast.

Then the hospital. Perth Hospital. Again.

Scott holding her. Her blood on his hands.

Worried blue eyes.

She shook herself. She must be on something. She was foggy.

“The bridge? The people?”

“We saved as many as we could.”

Virgil snorted again.

She frowned at the man as Kayo stroked his hair. A glance at Scott. “Why are you here?”

His eyes widened and his expression closed suddenly and considering their recent history she realised exactly how that might have sounded.

A blink. “No, you idiot. I’m talking about the broken arm, leg and ribs, not to mention the hole in your side that was stitched up a few weeks before Christmas.”

“Uh.” Now he looked uncomfortable, almost like a young boy who had just discovered he was in trouble.

Her foggy mind still wasn’t registering properly, but it still managed to calculate recovery times. She rubbed her eyes. “And what about Virgil? You know, the man who recently died.” In the corner of her eye she saw Kayo tense.

“It was necessary.” His stance straightened. “Besides, we had backup.”

“I noticed. But that didn’t seem to exclude either of you from the rescue.”

“There wasn’t time-“

“Exactly! You haven’t given either of yourselves enough time!”

Those blue eyes flared. “And what exactly did you expect me to do? Sit back while you fell off a bridge?”

And there it was, the blatant self-sacrifice that was going to kill these men. “You had back up! Let them do their job. Stop risking yourself.”

“I couldn’t leave you there.” It was quiet, but the words were firm.

She stared at him. “Your health is worth the risk, Scott.”

“Yours isn’t.” He glared at her. “I will not risk you.”

“Me? What about the other hundred or so people?”

His lips shut closed and he didn’t answer. Blue simply stared at her.

Her eyes widened. “You didn’t...”

“How could I not?” And suddenly he was so much closer.

“Oh, for goodness sake, kiss her already!” There was a thump and a groan, and they both looked up to see Virgil rolling off the couch. The man was obviously stiff as a board. “Have at it, I’m getting coffee.” And without a glance at them, he stumbled from the room, dragging Kayo with him. Kayo did grin back at both of them, however, her eyes sparkling.

Em frowned. “Are you sure he’s okay?”

Scott smiled. Oh god, that smile. “I thought you’d be familiar with Virgil Sans Coffee by now.” But he was leaning in and that smile touched her lips. As always, he was warm, his energy burning, reaching out and drawing her in. A brush of his tongue on hers and he released her. She didn’t want to let him go.

His smile became hesitant. “I believe I owe you an explanation.”

“Regarding your habit of flashing hot and cold?” God, honestly, she only wanted him to kiss her again. His hot was so hot. Screw it. “I’ve just had a major traumatic incident. I’m injured, and I’m pretty sure I’m high on pain meds. Can we save it for later? I’d really just like to you to kiss me again.”

His grin was as gorgeous as his smile, and god, when he wrapped his arms around her and took her lips with his, all the cares in the world could wait until later.

-o-o-o-

Em was only in the hospital for a few days, but in that time, she managed to have every Tracy march through her door plus Kayo and her uncle.

Uncle Crispin arrived with Sally Tracy along with Alan. Alan was looking a little green around the gills and the description he gave Kayo of what her uncle and his grandmother had been doing on the plane was enough to turn Em a little green in sympathy.

There were some things that you just didn’t want to know about the generations above you.

Uncle Crispin gave her the third degree on what had happened. This was quickly followed by him cornering Scott the moment he walked through her door on the way back from a meeting with the GDF.

“And what are your intentions with my niece, Tracy?”

“Kip!”

“Uncle Crispin!”

It was hard to tell who was more offended, Mrs Tracy or Em.

But Scott didn’t back down. He took a step towards her uncle and looked him in the eye. And he could. Not having seen Scott standing to his full height, Em hadn’t realised he was that tall. Though slimmer in youth, he could match every one of her uncle’s many inches. Wow. “And what are your intentions with my Grandmother?”

“Scott!” Okay, Mrs Tracy was the more offended.

Em glared at the both of them. “If you two gentlemen do not stop alpha strutting in my hospital room, I will ask both of you to leave.”

Scott’s response was immediate, probably feeling like he was already on probation and didn’t want to blow it. He backed down, but she didn’t fail to notice that he stepped immediately to her side. She rolled her eyes at that.

Uncle Crispin glared at him, but also backed off, stepping back beside Mrs Tracy.

“Now, Uncle Crispin, this is my business. While I appreciate your protectiveness, I find it rather ironic that you are attempting to protect me from the grandson of your paramour, and the leader of International Rescue, an organisation you greatly admire. You have a model Thunderbird and figurines, for crying out loud.” She turned to Scott, whose eyes were bugging out a little at her last statement. “And you, give your grandmother a break. Uncle Crispin is a great guy, I can promise you that. Stop snarling at him.”

Neither man commented, merely exchanging wary glances. God, men!

The tableau was interrupted by Virgil waltzing in with a get-well balloon tied to a blue teddy bear. Every face in the room turned to him. He stopped in his tracks and blinked. “Did I interrupt something?”

Em couldn’t help but smile. “No, nothing of importance.”

His eyes darted back and forth between his eldest brother, Uncle Crispin, Em and Kayo. “Okay, good, because Scott bought you a get-well bear.” He strode up and plonked it on the edge of her bed.

“I did?”

Kayo elbowed her brother. “Yes, you did, because that is what good boyfriends do when their girlfriends are in the hospital.”

There was a silence for a moment and Em stared at Virgil. The engineer smiled at her.

“Yes. Yes, I did and I do.” Scott said the words, but looked a little stunned.

Em bit her lip, but couldn’t help grinning at his expression. She picked up the bear. It had blue eyes and a perpetual smile. Reaching out a hand, she snagged Scott’s and pulled him towards her. “Thank you, Scott. It was a very kind thought.” And she was grinning up at him.

He rolled his eyes. “You’re welcome.”

“Can I give you a thank you kiss?”

She couldn’t help but grin at the grin that immediately split his face. He bent down and, oh, oh, thank you. Thank you, indeed.

The bear was dropped to the bed covers and one hand was in his hair, the other on his shoulder feeling the flex of muscle through his shirt.

“My god, I’m surrounded by a bunch of lovebirds. Okay, that’s it, I’m making a point of being somewhere else for some time. Em, get better soon. Enjoy...my brother.”

Scott broke off their kiss just in time for her to see Alan shudder. Mrs Tracy grabbed the youngest before he could escape and said something quietly to him Em couldn’t hear before kissing his cheek. Alan rolled his eyes and stomped out of the room.

Em had a grip on Scott’s shirt and didn’t want to let go. Virgil was grinning ear to ear. Kayo had a smirk on her face. Mrs Tracy was smiling. Uncle Crispin, surprisingly, wasn’t glaring, but was thoughtful instead.

Scott was staring down at her in amazement.

She grinned. “Can I say thank you again?”

Virgil cracked up laughing.

-o-o-o-

Escaping from hospital did not equate to escaping from the Tracys. Kayo, despite being heavily involved into the investigation surrounding the bridge bombing, found the time to accompany her back to her apartment. Virgil had declared her hoverscoot deceased and promptly acquired her a new one. Her protest at the cost was met with a flat-eyed stare, and yeah, billionaires, money no object, yada-yada-yada.

It was a relief to slip back into a hoverscoot. The hoverchair from the hospital was just clunky and cumbersome.

While Virgil packed the car, she took the opportunity to sit down with Kayo for a moment in her own loungeroom. “I want to thank you for everything you’ve done for me. I can’t believe...” And she ran out of words.

“Em...” Kayo held up her hand. “Trust me, we are equal on all scores.” Virgil stuck his head in the door and grabbed two more of the small bags she had hastily packed and disappeared again. Kayo smiled just a little, her voice quiet as she stared after him. “We’re equal.”

“If there is ever anything I can do for either of you. Just ask.” She reached out and grabbed the woman’s hand. “Please.” She tried her best to covey how much it all meant to her.

Kayo turned to her and tilted her head a little. “If you do the same.” A small smile. “I hear rumour that is what friends do.”

Em couldn’t help but grin just a little. She felt like a teenager swapping friendship bracelets. The thought was just ridiculous.

But it meant so much more.

“Oh, I’ve got something for you.” Kayo reached into her pocket. “You should keep this on you at all times until Brains can set you up with something a little less conspicuous.” The security officer handed her the IR comm she had worn in New Zealand.

Em stared at it. “Are you sure?”

Kayo arched an eyebrow. “I’m sure.”

Em held it in her hands, the embossed IR logo catching the light. “That is something I’ve been meaning to ask. I left this behind in Wellington. How did you know I was on the bridge?”

“I planted a tracker in your hoverscoot.” There was no apology in Kayo’s expression.

Em stared at her. “What?”

“You became an IR concern. I needed to know where you were.”

“Why?”

“We are primarily a rescue organisation. However, our technologies are advanced and there are people out there who will do anything to get their hands on them. You know this, it has already affected your life drastically.”

“You think they might use me to get to you?”

Kayo shrugged. “Maybe. Possibly. There are a range of vulnerabilities in the equation. The tracker was to protect you and IR. In this case, we knew you were on the bridge and could act accordingly.”

“Is that what happened? Were they after me?” Her heart stuttered at the thought. To be honest, she had already considered some of the dangers involved. It was obvious. She had lost her family to a man who had wanted what the Tracys had.

Something flashed in Kayo’s eyes.

“No, a group has claimed responsibility. Lunatics. Don’t worry. Penelope and I are working on it. We’ll find them.” And Kayo stopped there, obviously unwilling to reveal anymore.

Her apartment door opened again and Virgil walked back in. “Anything else? I think I’ve about covered my rehab for today.”

Em mentally shook herself and smiled.

-o-o-o-

The stop at her apartment was exactly that, just a stop. She needed assistance and the doctors had only released her with the reassurance that she would have company.

So, bags packed and loaded, Kayo flew her back to Tracy Island, and she found herself in the same room she had spent Christmas. Cecil arrived to attend to her every need. The man was a like a clone of Gordon Tracy, though taller and skinnier. A ray of sunshine who never stopped smiling.

Scott bounced back and forth from the island every day, horribly busy, both with the GDF and the Thunderchick squads. Then a tsunami in Japan took every hand IR had available.

All the brothers came back from that pale and dead-eyed.

She caught him before he could escape to his room.

Even though she was prepared for it, it still hurt when he brushed her off. “Em, I’m tired. It’s been a long day. You should be resting.” His natural reflex was to lock it all up and process it alone, the same way he had when Virgil collapsed.

She hadn’t missed Virgil beelining to Kayo. Hadn’t missed her wrapping her arms around him, his head dropping to her shoulder in pure exhaustion. Her leading him away to their quarters.

Scott had glanced at them while removing his baldric and dumping it on the couch before throwing himself down beside it.

She steeled herself. “I’m fine. It is you who needs the rest.”

He looked up at her and the exhaustion and pain in his eyes broke her heart. Reaching out, she ‘scooted forward, dropping the ‘scoot directly onto the couch and took him into her arms, lying his head on her chest.

He resisted at first, his muscles tense, and she was forced to wonder how long it had been since this man had been comforted. She knew a good percentage of his history, had seen the care he doled out to his family, but who cared for the carer? Virgil, most certainly, but he would ever be younger.

Em would ever be older.

She pulled him tighter, running her fingers through his hair, and slowly his arms crept around her and returned the embrace. He didn’t fully relax, no doubt that would take time, but his breathing evened out and he rested his weight on her.

“I love you.” The words came out unbidden. She didn’t mean to say it, but it was said.

His reaction was immediate. He sat up, pulling away a little and staring at her.

Em felt the blood drain from her face. “I’m sorry, I-“

And he was kissing her, his strength pulling her close. His tongue begged entry and she let him in, as he crushed her against him. His cologne was overlaid with sweat and dirt, he desperately needed a shower and a shave, but he was in her arms and loving her in his own way.

She didn’t expect the words, not yet. If there was one thing she had learnt over the last few months, it was that Scott Tracy had a large family, but ultimately, he had been alone for a long time. As alone as she had been.

It was going to take time.

The kiss broke off, his breathing heavy, eyes glistening in the evening light. “Em...”

She reached up and placed a finger across his lips. “You don’t have to say anything.” He kissed her finger, his breath hot on her skin. “I will only ask you for one thing.”

His eyes widened in an expression very similar to the last time she had made such a demand of him.

“Ping me. Come to me. Seek me out.” Her fingers drifted into his hair and she leant forward to kiss his forehead. “I’m here. You are not alone. You don’t have to say anything, I won’t force you to talk, I promise. Just be...with me.”

It was all she could ask.

He stared at her for a moment, words bouncing about his eyes, but none finding his mouth. Eventually he drew her into his embrace, a soft kiss to her jaw, her cheek and her lips. There was no smile, no charm, no Commander of International Rescue, no big brother.

Just Scott Tracy.

He dropped his head to her shoulder, exhaustion in every line of his body. Em stroked his hair and just held on.

-o-o-o-

FIN.

#thunderbirds are go #thunderbirds #thunderbirds fanfiction #virgil tracy #scott tracy #kayo kyrano #em harris #virgil/kayo #scott/em #scott/oc #warm rain #gentle rain

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imagining-supernatural · 6 years ago

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Triple-A: Eye of the Storm

Part 2 of Triple-A

Summary: When you and Sam started dating, you never though that the shared history of both dating the same man at different times would become something you would have to actively deal with. After all, Gabriel died before either of you ever met. But 2018 seems to be a year full of surprises…

Word Count: 2344

A/N: I’ve had a super busy few weeks, and the next semester (my very last semester EVER and then I have my Master’s!) starts tomorrow, so I have no idea when I’m going to be able to write. I hope I’ll be able to get something out every week or two, but don’t expect too much

Tracking down your ex-boyfriend who happened to be an archangel everyone thought was dead and also had a romantic history with your current boyfriend and still refused to help save the world… Just a normal weekend in your life, right?

Well, that’s what you were trying to convince yourself of anyway.

You and Sam were fine. Things shifted in your relationship a little, but you were still solid. It didn’t make your trip to find Gabriel any easier, though.

What was usually a normal run to a nearby fast-food joint on a hunt turned into one of the most nerve-wracking events of your life. Every step you took outside of the hotel room sent your brain on the fritz. You could run into him anywhere. And without Sam by your side, you had no idea how you would react. Would you punch him? Freeze? Start crying?

He’d faked his death and let you believe it! What kind of a monster did that?

So the entire half hour you spent outside the hotel room definitely had you looking over your shoulder and around every corner.

But you made it back to the hotel without any arch-angel sightings. Throwing the door open, you burst inside. “I’ve got everything and they even had pie for you D—”

Gabriel.

He was sitting on the couch.

In the hotel room.

In the flesh.

Not dead.

“Y/N. Looking lovely as ever.”

“Gabriel. You’re looking… not dead.”

“You always knew how to make a guy feel special,” he said, tossing a wink your way. As he tried to push himself up, he winced in pain.

Without thinking, you dropped the bags of food on the table and made your way across the room, crouching in front of him, next to where Sam was on the chair. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he tried to wave you off.

But you were having none of that. A glance at Sam was all it took for him to explain everything that happened while you were gone.

“Look, I ‘preciate your concern. But, seeing as how you don’t have any of my grace, and I’m getting the strangest feeling that there’s I’m not entirely welcome here anymore, I must bid you a fond ad—Oooo.” Any attempt he had to leave shriveled up when he couldn’t even stand up. “Yeah, nope. Maybe after, uh, a little siesta.”

And you watched as he flopped back onto the couch and nearly immediately fell asleep.

With wide eyes, you looked from the snoring angel to Sam. “He was really going to just leave again? Just like that?”

Dean awkwardly cleared his throat and jerked his thumb over his shoulder towards the kitchenette. “I’m gonna, uh, go eat. Leave you two to, uh, whatever.”

Sam rolled his eyes at his brother before sliding off the chair to sit on the floor next to you. Without words, he pulled you into his arms, resting his chin on top of your head. “Hurts, doesn’t it?”

And it just hit you how Sam already had to watch Gabriel disappear. Back in the bunker after the fight, he watched Gabriel literally vanish before his eyes. You wrapped your arms around him, hoping to pass along whatever comfort you possibly could.

Words weren’t your strong-suit even at the best of times. But times like this? Well, sometimes there was only one thing to say and that thing was: “Fuck.”

“You can say that again,” Sam whispered.

“Fuck,” you repeated, voice muffled by Sam’s chest. Slowly, you eased your face away and reached up to lay your hand along his cheek. “What the fuck has he done to us, Sam? It’s been almost a decade and he just shows up and we’re… I don’t even know.”

“We’re not going to let him leave until we talk to him,” Sam decided then and there. “We both need closure. And we’re going to get it whether he likes it or not.”

Just the idea of a conversation with the ex you thought was dead made your anxiety roll in in waves. But you pushed it aside for the time being and pecked Sam on the nose with a playful grin. “I like it when you get all bossy.”

“Mmm.” The sound came from the couch and you both looked over in time to see Gabriel groan and roll over until he was looking at the two of you. “So do I. Can’t say I expected the two of you to get down and dirty. I kinda like it though.”

“Aaand that’s my cue to leave,” Dean broke in from across the room, the paper bag crinkling as he picked it up. “Shoot me a text when things aren’t so… awkward.”

“Thought you needed a siesta,” you mumbled, pulling away from Sam just enough to face Gabriel, but still stay under the warmth of Sam’s arm.

“With you two yammering away right next to me? I’d have to be dead to sleep through that.”

“Apparently we can’t tell the difference between you being dead and alive, though. You can’t blame us, Gabriel.”

“Gabriel? What happened to Gabe, sweetcheeks?”

Nearly a decade of mourning and loss bubbled up and flipped the coin from love to anger. “Gabe died back in that hotel, didn’t you get the message? Sam and I sure did.”

He groaned over-dramatically and sat up. All of your cells urged you to help him sit up, cringing at his pain. But you withheld. After all of the pain he’d put you through the last decade, he could suffer a little bit now. “You know that—”

“Don’t give us bullshit excuses. We don’t know anything about you, apparently. I would’ve thought you would have at least given me a—a—a sign or something. A badly written poem in the mail. A few rubber ducks showing up in my truck or under my pillow. Something.”

“And now that you’re back, you just keep leaving,” Sam said softly, squeezing your shoulder.

Those brown eyes you fell in love with so long ago jumped between you and Sam and a rare blanket of sobriety fell over them. “Didn’t think you’d want me around to ruin whatever you two have going on here. Seems like you’re doing just fine without good ol’ Gabe.”

“Nothing you could do or say could ruin what Y/N and I have.” Sam’s voice left absolutely no room for misunderstanding.

With soft eyes, you looked up at Sam. “Yeah. We’re solid. But that doesn’t mean we’re not hurt. We both loved you. At different times, sure. Before either of us met, yeah. But we both loved you. And you left us both. That’s not something that just being together can fix.”

“That’s something only you can fix,” Sam finished for you.

The angel, for the first time since you’d met him, seemed at a loss for words. That just meant that you had to spur him into action. Trick him into speaking. Play a trick on the trickster, as it was.

“Unless,” you started hesitantly, “You never loved either of us. In which case, Sam and I can deal with that and you can lea—”

“Sugar-lips, that’s crazy. Why would you even think that I never loved you?”

“Never thought that. Just needed you to start talking. So, Gabriel. Start talking.” And once again, he clammed up. He never was good at the emotional shit. So you sat forward, slipping into your interrogation mindset. “Fine. First question: If Asmodeus hadn’t ever taken you prisoner, would you have ever come back? Or would I die thinking you were dead?”

“I kept tabs on both of you,” he finally said. “Before Asmodeus. Wanted to make sure both of you nuggets of joy were safe and happy.”

“Anyone else?” Sam asked, earning a questioning look from Gabe. “Is there anyone else you kept tabs on? Anyone else who deserves to know that you’re alive?”

“Oh. No. You two… Well, you both know how special you both are.”

This was too much right now. Seeing Gabe so unapologetic about his faked death but hearing him say how special you were… it was tearing you in two. Some time and space might help. So you squeezed Sam’s hand before sliding out from under his arm and stood up. “Not special enough for you to stick around though, I guess.”

Sam stood as well and you gave him a tight smile. “I’m gonna get some air. Call if you need me.”

“Call if you need me,” he replied.

“I will.”

You’d just turned around when Gabe called your name, grunting as he stood up. “Y/N, wait—”

The second his hand reached out for yours and brushed your skin, you couldn’t hold back. Just one more kiss. That was all this was. Sam would understand.

Unable to stop yourself, you turned and pressed your lips to Gabe’s. His words stopped cold in his throat. In the few seconds it took for him to react, you were already pulling back. He chased your lips until you pushed at his chest. Even then, it took a moment for him to open his eyes. When he finally did, you chose your words carefully.

“I don’t know if you’ll still be here when I get back. If you’re not, I’ll deal with it. If you stay… Just know that I don’t expect anything from you anymore. But I do expect more from myself this time around.”

“Y/N, I—”

“Gabriel,” Sam cut in in a low voice. The angel heard the warning note and backed off. Sam slipped his hand into yours and tugged your attention to him. He jerked his head toward the door. “C��mon, I’ll walk you out.”

Without another glance at Gabriel, you let Sam lead you out into the hallway. “Sam, I’m sorry I kissed hi—”

“Don’t apologize, Y/N. I’ve been wanting to either kiss him or punch him since he showed up tonight.”

What did you ever do to land such a wonderful, understanding boyfriend like Sam? “Well, if either one happens while I’m gone, let me know. I’d love a good story tonight.”

He raised an eyebrow, letting a tone of amusement crawl into the conversation. “The story of how I kissed someone else while you were gone?”

“The story of if the kiss helps you figure shit out or not. It didn’t help me. I’m just—”

“Confused?”

You nodded. “But just about Gabe. Not you. Never about you.”

Adoration filled your heart at the half-grin that fell onto Sam’s face and he pulled you closer. “Mmm, I’m not sure I believe you. I think I’d better kiss you to see if that helps me figure shit out.”

“Happy to help.”

*****

It was amazing what alcohol could do to a person. Just a few hours ago, you’d been confused and angry and happy all at once, but a few hours in a bar with Dean and suddenly you were feeling great. Whatever happened back at the hotel room, you could handle.

Because you were drunk.

And you could handle anything when you were drunk.

“I think we overdid it,” Dean whispered as he unlocked the hotel room door.

“Nope! This was just what I needed. And tomorrow, I can babysit Triple-A and you can take Sammy out to get drunk. After spending a few hours with Gabe, I’m sure he needs it.”

Before opening the door, Dean leaned against it and looked at you with a half-smile on his face. “I think I was the one babysitting someone tonight.”

“That last shot was your fault, mister.”

For every two shots you took, Dean only took one, so he was much less drunk than you were. In fact, you might say he was barely tipsy. Damn him and his alcoholism raising his tolerance.

He just shook his head with a chuckle. “Whatever. Sam’s probably asleep so…”

“Shhhh,” you said, holding a finger to your lips, preparing to reenter the room without waking anyone. Dean opened the door and ushered you in.

In the low light streaming in from the window, you noticed a lump on the couch. To Dean, you whispered, “Looks like triple-A stuck around.”

“Triple-A?” Sam’s voice came from the other side of the room. The room spun a little as you looked over to see him sitting on the bed with the light from his laptop illuminating his face.

“Asshole Arch-Angel,” Dean answered, steering you over to Sam with his arm around your waist. “She’s a little too drunk to keep saying that, so… Triple-A.”

“It’s Dean’s fault I’m drunk,” you slurred, falling onto the bed next to Sam and immediately pressing your face against a pillow while pressing yourself against him as much as possible.

He just grinned and patted the top of your head. “I’m sure it is. Hey, Dean? How much?”

“I…” there was silence while Dean presumably thought back over the night. “Six? Six shots?”

“And a fucking hurricane.”

“Right,” Dean said brightly, remembering the first drink you had. “Because your life was in such disarray it was like you were in a hurricane.”

“But Sam’s the eye of the storm,” you mumbled, body starting to shut down now that you were on a bed.

“I forgot how cheesy and poetic she gets when she’s drunk,” Dean said, shuffling around the room. Your eyes were shut which meant that the world was slowly fading out and your brain only caught and processed snippets of the rest of the conversation.

“—He’ll stick around for—”

“Are you sure that’s the best—”

“—called us a bunch of morons, so…”

“Don’t know how you two—”

“—love each other so it makes it simple.”

“Sam?” You mumbled just before you lost consciousness.

“Mm-hmm?”

“Love you.” It took all of your energy to shift enough to press a kiss to his jean-clad thigh. “So ducking much.”

“So ducking much, huh?”

“Damn autocorrect,” you replied, giggling at your joke.

“For fuck’s sake,” Dean muttered, seconds before you were dragged into dream-land.

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goforwardgreenwriter-blog · 6 years ago

Text

The Worm Reads: Empire of Storms, Ch 71-72

These goddamn chapters are so long I want to d ie

The Queen of the Fae was exactly as Aelin remembered. Swirling dark robes, a beautiful pale face beneath onyx hair, red lips set in a faint smile

Of course Maeve is also drop dead gorgeous. Somebody gotta put a cap on the amount of beauty in SJM’s novels, it’s becoming too much.

With [Maeve’s] attention elsewhere, Lorcan took up a place at Aelin’s side—as if they were somehow allies in this, would fight back-to-back. Aelin didn’t bother to say anything to him.

I mean, Lorcan being on your side gives you a much better chance of rescuing Elide, but sure Alien, be like that.

That ripple of Lorcan’s power the day Ansel’s fleet had closed in … [Aelin]’d known it was a summoning. The same way she’d summoned the Valg to Skull’s Bay. She’d refused to immediately explain Ansel’s presence, wanting to enjoy the surprise of it, and he had summoned Maeve’s armada to take on what he’d believed to be an enemy fleet. To save Elide.

This seems kinda weird to me? Elide has stated to Lorcan numerous times that she’s on Alien’s side, so wouldn’t Maeve consider her a threat and an enemy? Why would Lorcan summon her to save Elide, then? But whatever, the less time we dwell on shitty writing, the quicker we get this shitshow over with.

Elide was trembling; every bone, every pore was trembling

Every pore??? Lmfao is SJM just giving up at this point?? She can’t shoehorn in sexual references when her protag is confronting the villain so she wants to just get it over with.

Lorcan betrays them and Alien is shocked, but like... why are y’all surprised Lorcan was literally only with you guys for Elide, he has no reason to like anyone else in Alien’s group of jackasses.

Flame danced at Aelin’s fingertips. No. Her magic had been emptied, still hovered near burnout.

Maeve kick her ass please I am begging you, wipe the fucking floor with her

Maeve returned Aelin’s smile. “(...)Of course, the fools didn’t realize that when you had drained yourself on their armies, I’d be waiting. You were already exhausted after putting out the fires I had my armada ignite to tire you on Eyllwe’s coast. It was a convenience that Lorcan gave your precise location and saved me the energy of tracking you down myself.” A trap. An enormous, wicked trap. To drain Aelin’s power over days— weeks.

Alien’s tiny mind is fucking blown by this but no fucking shit!!! You’re a dumbass who thinks wasting her magic on shooting fireworks out of her ass is a good idea, of course someone would notice and take advantage of you!! Does Alien even have a goddamn brain???

“The armada was a precaution. Just in case the ilken didn’t arrive for you to wholly drain yourself … I figured a few hundred ships would make for good kindling until I was ready.” To sacrifice [Maeve’s] own fleet—or part of it—to gain one prize … This was madness. The queen was utterly insane.

I mean. Maeve is an evil bloodthirsty monster, but she’s way smarter than any of these dumbasses. Honestly, I’m starting to root for her. She figured out her enemy’s weakness and used it against them, which is more brain power than Alien is capable of.

Flame slammed outward, red and golden—just as a wall of darkness lashed for Aelin. The impact shook the world. Even Manon was thrown on her ass.

Love how SJM tries to make this showdown all ~epic and uhmayzing~ but then throws in Manon falling flat on her ass. The rivalry between Maeve and Alien is barely developed so I’m hardly excited for Maeve to kick Alien’s ass. Makes me wish I could be reading Death Note instead, now there’s a good power play between rival characters.

Lorcan grabs Elide while Maeve and Alien duke it out and he tries to get her to run.

[Elide] would not. She’d sooner die than flee like a coward, not when Aelin was going to the mat for all of them, when—

Going to the mat? Wtf??? Yes I know it’s an expression of struggling/fighting until defeated or victorious, but this completely threw me out of the story when I read it. This is a (supposedly) medieval setting, and this saying just seems out of place in this setting.

A whip of black sliced into Aelin. She went down. And Elide thought the impact of Aelin Galathynius’s knees hitting the sand might have been the most horrible sound she’d ever heard.

Elide was literally enslaved in a tower and abused by her uncle but seeing some stupid queen she barely knows getting the shit kicked out of her is the worst thing she’s ever witnessed. Okay, SJM, okay. Elide deserves so much better than to be reduced to a fangirl to splooge over Alien.

Aelin crawled backward, blood sliding from her right nostril. Dripping on her white shirt.

*clenches fist* fragmentsssssss. A comma or the word and would’ve sufficed better there.

Aelin tried to rise. Tried, but her legs had given out. The Queen of Terrasen panted, fire flickering like dying embers around her.

I’ll admit, I rather like the symbolism of the embers dying out around her, highlighting how she’s utterly failed and gotten her ass whooped. Very nice.

Fenrys and Gav roll up to the party while Maeve continues to beat Alien. I know it’s cruel to say, but I’m rather enjoying Alien getting her arrogant ass whooped after unfairly winning literally every confrontation with no effort in this novel.

But Maeve let the darkness around Aelin part. She was curled on her side, bleeding from both nostrils now, more blood dribbling from her panting mouth.

Considering she’s getting whipped and stabbed by black magic, I think she should be bleeding from actual wounds than having just a nosebleed lmao. Maeve starts grilling Gav.

“Did I or did I not tell you to execute Lorcan on sight?” “There were … circumstances that prevented it from happening. We tried.” “Yet you failed. Am I not supposed to discipline my blood-bonded who fail me?” Gavriel lowered his head. “Of course—we will accept it. And I will also take on the punishment you intended for Aelin Galathynius.”

NOOOOO I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD SJM IF YOU KILL OFF GAV FOR ALIEN TO LIVE I WILL FUCKING FIGHT YOU

So Maeve kicks Gav out of her court and dishonors him, but he lives, thank god. If Gav ends up dying in this series I’m gonna have to have a long angry chat with SJM. Gav basically disappears for the rest of the scene even though he’s right there? Whatever spares him from the agony of this shitty book I guess.

Elide splooges about what a badass assassin Alien was and how she’ll wait for the right moment to strike, before Maeve removes all of Alien’s weapons for that exact reason. My sides hurt from the fucking cackling I did at that. Can’t believe I am about to stan Maeve, but she’s a ruthless, badass, calculating villain who is capable of thinking about things other than sex. Nothing but respect for my evil queen.

“What a powerhouse you two would be—[Aelin] and Prince Rowan. And any offspring of that union …” A vicious smirk. “You and Rowan could rule this continent if you wished. But your children … your children would be powerful enough to rule an empire that could sweep the world.”

Ungh, c’mon Maeve, I know you’re just fucking with Alien, but don’t make me read that garbage. Can’t wait until there’s a sequel series to Thr0ne of glass about Alien’s goblin kids being even more uber powered special snowflakes than their mother. C’mon, you know SJM would.

“It was so easy to tug on the right psychic thread that day Rowan saw Lyria at the market. To shove him down that other path, to trick those instincts. A slight altering of fate.” (...) Maeve said, “So your mate was given to another. And I let him fall in love, let him get her [pregnant]. And then I broke him. No one ever asked how those enemy forces came to pass by his mountain home.”

Great, so Lyria was nothing but a plot point to get Ratlin together now? Fuck off SJM, stop reducing your other characters as nothing but plot points for your precious OTP. Lyria deserved so much better than this.

“[Rowan] took the blood oath without question. And I knew that whenever you were born, whenever you’d come of age … I’d ensure that your paths crossed, and you’d take one look at each other and I’d have you by the throat. Anything I asked for, you’d give to me. Even the keys. For your mate, you could do no less. You almost did that day in Doranelle.”

Lmfao I love how one of the main selling points fans use for this series were “it depicts love accurately, Alien has more than one love interest!1″ and SJM fucking killed any chance of using that as a positive of the series hahahahaha I am actually fucking dying. Chaol, Dorito, and Sam didn’t mean shit because her one true love was Rowboat all long. Couldn’t have written a shittier plot twist if I tried, SJM, hats off to you. That deserves a slow clap.

Maeve ignored [Elide pleading]. “Well? When did you know [Rowan was her mate]?” “At Temis’s temple,” Aelin admitted, glancing to Manon. “The moment the arrow went through his shoulder. Months ago.”

Nothing turns me on more than my abusive boyfriend almost dying by an arrow to the shoulder. I know, I know, the mating bond in AC0TAR is different than the ones in T0G, but still.

Maeve shrugged. “If it’s any consolation, Aelin, you would have had a thousand years with Prince Rowan. Longer.”

Go tf off, Maeve!!!! I’d read an entire book of Maeve just ripping Alien a new one tbh

Turns out Alien is due to Settle in five years or so. What a relief, SJM’s precious Mary Sue won’t ever have to grow, god forbid, old and ugly! Phew, really dodged a bullet there!

Maeve calls out Cairn, the asshole dude Lorcan brought up many chapters prior.

A handsome, brown-haired warrior walked toward them from the cluster of escorts. Handsome, if it weren’t for the sadistic cruelty singing in his blue eyes.

So is he handsome or not, SJM? These two sentences are so contradictory. Maeve gives Alien a choice whether to come willingly or to refuse and let Elide be dragged along. Alien is a selfish shitlord, but she cares about Elide despite barely knowing her, so we all know which she’ll probably choose.

Next chapter, finally, holy shit that one was so long I had to skim most of it.

Aelin’s body hurt. Everything hurt. Her blood, her breath, her bones. There was no magic left. Nothing left to save her.

It’s funny how this is framed as we’re supposed to feel bad for poor Alien but I’m laughing my ass off. Act like a little shit, get hit, Alien.

Aelin simply nodded at the Fae Queen. Her acceptance and surrender.

Surprise, surprise. I’ll at least give Alien a little credit for considering the safety of somebody else besides herself or Rowboat’s Fae peen. Man, the bar is set pretty low, eh?

And because she had won, Maeve even loosened her power’s grip on Aelin’s bones. Allowed Aelin to turn to Elide and say, “Go with Manon. She will take care of you.” Elide began crying, shoving away from Lorcan. “I’ll go with you, I’ll come with you—”

Wtf Elide, no, you’re smarter than this!!!! Alien is sacrificing herself so you can be free, you run and get Alien’s comrades and then you have a chance to free Alien afterwards!! Goddamnit SJM you’re making me repulsed by Elide because all she is now is a tool to fawn over Alien dhfkhfksdh I'm so goddamn mad

Aelin’s soul splintered as she saw the iron box the escorts now carried between them. An ancient, iron coffin. Big enough for one person. Crafted for her.

Oof, so there’s the coffin bit I’ve been hearing about. Can’t really say I’m sorry for Alien. Yeah I know that’s mean, but she’s a massive unlikable selfish asshole who gets everything handed to her without her doing any work, so forgive me for not feeling bad when she finally gets a good deserved kick in the bottom.

“And tell Rowan,” Aelin said, fighting her own sob, “that I’m sorry I lied. But tell him it was all borrowed time anyway. Even before today, I knew it was all just borrowed time, but I still wish we’d had more of it.”

Again, good concept, just wasted on an absolute shit tier ship. Someone write an AU of this but with a good ship, yeah? And, y’know, rewrite most of the plot so it makes sense.

Maeve lowered the mask and drawled to Aelin, “Rumor claims you will bow to no one, Heir of Fire.” That serpentine smile. “Well, now you will bow to me.” She pointed to the sand. Aelin obeyed.

I shouldn’t be enjoying this as much as I am, but ahhh feels so good to read Alien get taken down a peg or two after being so irritatingly arrogant! Feels good, feels organic.

“Take off your shirt.” Aelin tugged her shirt out of her pants and slung it over her head, tossing it in the sand beside her. Then she removed the flexible cloth around her breasts.

So.... a bra, essentially? Is she wearing a bra? Or was SJM unsure of whether or not medieval women wore bras and was like “Ehhhh I’ll describe it as just a cloth, that way nobody can point fingers at me for shitty world building!”

Aelin didn’t fight as [the Fae warriors] each gripped her by an arm and hauled her up. Spread her arms wide. The sea air kissed her breasts, her navel.

Man, given how there’s only a few chapters left, this may be the last unnecessary focus on a female character’s breasts we get in this novel. And it’s right before our main character endures a harsh whipping. Oh SJM, you never disappoint.

Cairn halted. [Aelin] felt him studying the tattoo on her back. Rowan’s loving words, written there in the Old Language. Cairn snorted. Then she felt him revel in how he’d destroy that tattoo.

Evidently, SJM never learned what nuanced characters are. Cairn whips Alien some until Maeve orders them to chuck Alien into the iron coffin. Manon peaces out with Elide, and I hope SJM lets them run away with Abraxos to a better novel.

Time—[Aelin] was grateful Elena had given her that stolen time. Grateful she had met them all, that she had seen some small part of the world, had heard such lovely music, had danced and laughed and known true friendship. Grateful that she had found Rowan. She was grateful.

Another good example of good concept that’s wasted on a shitty character. This should be breaking my heart, but it’s about Alien and I fucking hate Alien more than almost any other fictional character. So alas, I’m left just feeling hallow and tired.

So Aelin Galathynius dried her tears. And did not fight when Maeve strapped that beautiful iron mask over her face.

Seems odd Alien would describe what is essentially an object meant to torture her as beautiful, but alright. We’re almost done folks, buckle up for the final leg of this shitstorm of a journey.

#the worm talks #the worm reads: eos #anti sjm #anti tog #anti eos

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gamebird · 3 years ago

Text

My brain is very busy this morning. Maybe writing will help me sort things out.

I have a headache. I haven’t been sleeping well. I read yesterday that’s a standard side effect for vaginal hysterectomy patients and takes 6-10 weeks to resolve. I’m at 3.5 weeks. :( Also, I’m confused why vaginal hysterectomy patients have this as a known side effect but other forms of hysterectomy (laparoscopic, and whatever the fancy name is for cutting open your belly) don’t.

Oh well. I should take an ibuprofen but they’re in the other room and I haven’t gone in there yet.

There are flies everywhere. So many flies. Outside, mainly. Our cat has done a stellar job of killing the indoor flies and we’ve done okay at limiting their entry. But I found our ancient stash of flyswatters and think I’ll recruit the kids into mandatory fly-slaying. We put out fly poison crystals weeks back and have been refreshing them, and although there are plenty of dead flies, there are more live ones.

Today is my daughter’s 15th birthday. She had her party yesterday, so we had 5 extra teenagers here yelling at each other. They had a good time. Two of them were my sister’s daughter (?) and friend. At the beginning of the party, sister’s daughter said she was nonbinary she/they. Fine. About halfway through, they were trans he/him. Okay. Whatever. Friend was male throughout, though looked like born female and wearing a binder. But the pronouns were easy to keep track of with him because I didn’t have to change them halfway through, plus I’d never met them before so it wasn’t changing any past perception.

These two are 12. At 12, my daughter was telling me she was no longer asexual (as she had said she was at 11), but she still never ever wanted to have kids. I told her ‘yeah, cool, this is a fantastic entry point for me to tell you all about birth control’ which she didn’t want to hear but got anyway. Months later, she said she’d changed her mind and might want kids, but she didn’t want to ever be pregnant. We talked about adoption, blended families, mentorship, etc. When she was 13, she was a lesbian. When she was 14, she was bi. Some months back she decided she was pansexual.

Clearly, she’s going on a journey of figuring herself out. So here’s my sister’s kid, 12, figuring themselves out and (as far as I can tell) trying out being trans. Me: ‘Great, whatever, let me tell you about the rules for Spades!’ and we all had fun playing cards. My sister is (so far) adamantly against ‘that trans stuff’. I’m not sure how to tell her, as her little sister, that I think she should just back off, let it go, provide support, and let her kid figure themselves out. Maybe they won’t stay trans. Maybe they will. But fighting them on it is just going to make them double-down on the forbidden identity. I’m also not sure if I should wade in to her business and say anything at all. Some months back, my daughter noticed hers was self-harming/cutting and I reported that and it seemed to have gone well - she’s getting therapy and they’re more sensitive to pressures at school now.

That went well, but being trans is harmless. On the other hand, kid reports my sister fought with her over the trans stuff. I have no details, but I imagine my sister simply refusing to respect pronouns on a child she gave birth to and has raised as a girl for 12 years. There’s some, like, inertia there.

I’m tired and my head hurts.

I’ve been publishing a chapter a day on Integration recently, but as of today I’m out of completed, ready-to-publish chapters. The next one is half-done and then after that it’s yet to be written. I’d struggled with writer’s block last month until last week I finally trashed the 6-8 chapters I had and rewrote them, stealing only the bits I wanted to keep and tossing most of the plot included in them. I had a choice between kinky/ooc and less kinky/ic. My original version was kinky, but from the comments I had on the fic, that wasn’t the audience I had, plus it didn’t mesh well with the dozen non-kinky chapters the fic started with. Anyway, there will still be sex, possibly Andy/Booker/Nile threesome, but it’s going to be yet slower to get there as I take longer to maneuver all the characters into position. Also, getting Joe and Booker to be okay with each other is more involved than I initially thought.

We have plans of watching some European football game today. My boyfriend will root for England. I think I’ll root for Italy out of respect for Maneskin and Luca Marinelli.

Jeez, my head hurts. Okay folks, I’mma gonna go get an ibuprofen.

#me

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12-99-30 · 4 years ago

Text

July’s Expenses

July always seems to go by the fastest. Four weeks pass so quickly, it leaves me such a short amount of time to spend with people before they leave for college. I remember this time last year I would be waking up with anxiety knowing there was an impending loneliness that would overwhelm me once my friends left home again. UVA was the only thing in my mind, spending too many hours visioning a future that would never unfold. It’s weird to think that those thoughts consumed my me. I feel free from what felt like literal chains to broken dreams. It’s proof that time really does heal all things, even the intangible and impossible.

---

I spent this month running and returning. My relationship with running has always been on and off, a bit more problematic than most. My body always seemed to break after I would make substantial progress.

Shin splints, IT band issues, tendonitis on my feet. They seem like excuses, but trust me when I say I kept pushing until l I realized the cost was too much to pay in the long run.

My mom always told me that some people just weren’t made to run. That I didn’t have a “runner’s body” or the athleticism like my sister to be good at it. But I no longer wanted to accept that truth for me.

I established a routine. Before each workout, I made sure to roll my hamstrings and calves. I stretched my hips and rolled out my ankles. I did strength training days in between to make sure I was strengthening the muscles that could support longer runs. I always ran a minimum of 3 miles, but aimed for 4-5. Each day, I returned to my running shoes and I ran. Though there were days that the pain told me to stop, I honored my body by stretching and eating well. Took necessary days off, but always came back returned. I think it’s easy to get discouraged by numbers, especially when certain weeks I ran longer and faster, while others seemed to be slower than I began.

D-- tried to convince me that I was capable of running 3 miles at a sub 9 pace. Even though I was faster than before, I scoffed at him in disbelief. I truly did not believe I was built for that lol. I could barely run two miles sub 9. The thought of running 3 seemed far out of reach, but he believed that there was just a mental wall I needed to knock down. I remember having knee pain that day, and decided to go easy, but after seeing that I was running two miles at 8:30 min/mile, I refused to let myself slow down. I end up running 3 miles at an 8:17 pace. We also manage to run 6.23 miles together (my longest non-stop run ever). In hindsight, these numbers seem small and tangible to me. When they say running is a mental game, I think that’s the race I am constantly competing with myself. The mental game of returning to the track and not stopping until my goal is reached. I crave the burn in my chest and the gasps for air after a victory lap. The endorphin rush unlocks another level of my brain that silences the voices that tell me I wasn’t made to be a runner. No one is born to be anything. I think you get to decide that.

I spent this month saying “Yes” to my dad more. The minivan is filled with thick, musty air. There is always an ingrained odor from the nylon seats that makes me feel slightly nauseated, but the van is where I spent most of my pre-teen years. From practice to piano lessons, from long distance trips to college visits. The passenger seat is where I felt safest next to my dad. I don’t sit there as often anymore; not since I turned 16. As I grew up, my agenda fit less time to be driving around with him.

However, this day I decide to venture for the search of a birthday bundt cake. As we sit in the parking lot of a shopping center, waiting for our Starbucks coffee, he says something to me.

“I realize since you guys are becoming adults... I guess I can start doing things for myself,”

I laughed at him, “like what?”, knowing that even if time had allowed it, he would still spend it being our personal Uber drive and ATM.

“I could go to Asia! Or buy my own condo. I’ve never had a place for myself where I was just responsible for myself.”

I sit quietly as I meditate on his passing words. After he graduated college, he immediately bought a place for my grandmother so she could stop renting apartments. When he finished paying her townhouse, he married my mom and bought the house I live in today. I think about all the soccer practices he took us to. The kiss-and-rides and drop-offs. The time he spent a Saturday evening dedicated to driving to UVA to pick me up early when I wanted to get home in time for Sunday service. All the expensive restaurants and traveled places before I even turned 18 that he hasn’t seen until he was 50. I think about his loyalty to other people and how he never had a moment to act on his own behalf. He has never known a life where he could be selfish. As we start to gain independence, I didn’t realize that parents lose their part in our lives as well. My dad’s newfound independence overwhelms him. What is it like to not be needed? So I’m learning how to say “Yes” more. “Yes” to grocery store runs and “Yes” to aimless car rides. “Yes” to the evening walks and “Yes” to the small errands. For a culmination of “Yes”’s will equate to a lifetime of moments that make us less dependent on them as parents, but more dependent as friends. The time I have left with my family is dwindling each day as I reach new stages of my life. My dad is far from perfect (literally so many imperfections), and there is a history to him that I’m learning and wrestling with. But he never fails to put on his best as a father.

I spent this month showing gratitude for my journal and pen. I finished reading 1984 by George Orwell and Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. Though I have many thoughts on both books (contact me for a book review lol), I’ve come to cherish the freedom of writing. For writing is the craft of thinking, and I am immensely grateful to have the ability to wonder, question, and understand. It’s an act of independence and liberty. The chaos of wrestling and confronting your own thoughts can only be done through jotting down the ideas that run through your head, and challenging yourself to think beyond it. As Coates puts it, “Writing is a confrontational act with my own innocence; my own rationalizations... Teaching myself how to ruthlessly interrogate the subject that elicited the most sympathy - myself.”

I spent this month trying to reconcile with the past. I won’t get into this one too much. Mainly because it’s something I’m still navigating. It feels like a bruise that I purposely keep hitting because I need something to remind myself of the pain that got me here in the first place. Trust is placed in God alone, no longer man and their empty kisses and sweet words.

I wish my monthly posts were more organized. It seems as though there is no central theme of my life anymore. If you read all of this and make it till the end, just know I appreciate you wanting to know my scattered assortment of thoughts that occur over a month. To better days ahead.

*** An excerpt from my journal that encapsulates my feelings towards July ***

07/05 Now feels like forever. We talk about forever as if it’s ours. How easy it is for us to talk about tomorrow when today feels so long. Do we really know what we want when we’re this young? What about the version of ourselves when we’re 25? So much can change and so much can happen. Forever isn’t ours, it’s His. Open to His creative interpretation. Tomorrow always comes and each day passes with grace. So much can change so fast.

#posts

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lesmotsincompris · 7 years ago

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Thoughts on Game of Thrones S07E07

It’s over. It doesn’t mean we won’t hear about the show anymore, as mainstream media tends to make a huge noise over every little rumour for the upcoming season, but at least we now have some distance between ourselves and a new episode of GoT. Let’s enjoy it.

I’ve heard that the critics are back to praising the show, which surprises me but also doesn’t. On the surprised side, I’ll give that this was better than S07E06, but it was still far from a good episode overall. On the unsurprised (but disappointed nevertheless) side, people praising GoT despite all the inconsistent characterizations, plot contrivances, awful dialogue, and shoddy worldbuilding isn’t exactly new. If this season was the breaking point for only a handful of people, I’m already happy.

We had an extra long episode and I have no idea why. There was a lot of stalling, especially in the King’s Landing subplot. It’s amazing how D&D can put useless crap on screen and actually relevant events and character development offscreen. Priorities.

I’ll probably post a season review at some point, but for Sunday’s episode here’s what I have:

King’s Landing

I’m gonna be honest: I watched this episode yesterday and I barely remember most of the dialogue now. This isn’t a very good effect for one of the most relevant gatherings in your entire series, but that’s hardly the first time one of the show-exclusive “big moments” didn’t work for me.

Part of the reason for that is the conga line of contrivances that led to this meeting. The removal of Aegon’s storyline from the books left Daenerys and Cersei to fight each other, with the septsplosion last season and the show-only Lannister poverty making the odds even worse for Cersei. To give the Lannisters a chance, D&D had #TeamDany coming up with stupid plan after stupid plan. Even so, they still have two dragons and the bigger army, while Cersei’s Golden Company is a Narrow Sea away; they could have ended the war in this episode if they wanted to. Why didn’t they try this instead of a truce?

You can argue this would weaken their forces against the army of dead, except: a) Dany accepted the idea of a truce even before she was fully convinced of said army’s existence; b) they should know better than to trust Cersei Lannister. Despite Cersei’s inconsistent characterization (Lena Headey is a goddess doing wonders with that character), I think we can all agree that nobody expected her to suddenly work for the good guys. The characters don’t know Cersei had her own pet zombie, but we do (and apparently everybody around her, since she keeps calling him Ser Gregor?) so the presence of the wight is hardly a game changer.

Other than that, there was a lot of walking and stalling and characters restating the same things they said before. Not very exciting. Though I legit enjoyed Qyburn’s necromancer bonner when he saw the wight.

But see, here’s a problem: we got more emphasis on secondary characters like Qyburn, Bronn, or the Hound than more important characters like Daenerys or Brienne. The Hound in particular got a lot of screen time this season and there was some heavy CleganeBowl foreshadowing, because of course D&D would do CleganeBowl. That’s why I keep calling the character “Hound” and not “Sandor”. What’s even character development. Or themes.

Brienne of Tarth said “fuck loyalty”. What’s next, Sansa Stark murdering a man out of revenge and smirking at the sound of his screams? Oh wait...

What is Euron still doing in the story? There was a lot of teasing that he would be worse than Ramsay, but for the moment we got nothing. He’s Littlefinger 2.0: a shadow of his book self, damned because the showrunners don’t know what to do with him and can only think of stupid subplots to keep him around for some mysterious reason.

Cersei and Tyrion meeting is another evidence of how talented Headey and Dinklage are, yet the scene accomplished very little in terms of storytelling and characterization. The show barely explored the emotional consequences of Tywin’s murder for Tyrion, nearly dropping this entirely after season five, so it’s hard to feel it when he claims to hate himself for it. Shae got it even worse and her murder was forgotten altogether, something that I should have seen coming back in season four when they Greedo-ed her death scene.

It’s hard to believe Cersei would pass a chance of killing Tyrion, even without the valonqar prophecy. Why did they do this? It makes Cersei even more inconsistent (they’re certainly not gonna redeem her character or anything) and makes Tyrion’s plot armor even more obvious. This was the show that seven seasons ago would have responded Tyrion’s “give him the order” with “Ser Gregor, kill him”, followed by Tyrion dead. Ned and Robb Stark did not die for this.

Speaking of Ned, I can’t stand those references to R+L=J (A?). Seriously, guys, this isn’t clever, especially not in a show with so many dick jokes. We got it the first ten times.

Jon is an essentially good character in the books, but the show is trying to make him a saint. A dumb saint, of course, because again being honorable and honest is framed as stupidity and cleverness is something evil. Just a reminder: Ned Stark lied too. In fact, one of his biggest lies became this show’s hero, but I don’t expect D&D to notice that.

I still don’t know wtf they want with the Cersei pregnancy subplot. Cersei and Jaime seemed to have broken up for good, but we thought that before and we were wrong. Particularly when Cersei became the personification of Jaime’s worst nightmares, performing the act that he broke his vows to prevent. But hey, nothing stands in the way of true love, right?

Speaking of true love, the show romance of Jon and Daenerys is finally a worse love story than Twilight.

Things I legit enjoyed: the snow falling in King’s Landing. A bit sudden, but still a beautiful sequence.

Dragonstone

Everything about Theon was infuriating.

First we had more fellating of Jon, with both him and Theon stating their characters and motivations. This is lazy writing, pure and simple. If the audience isn’t already aware of Theon’s identity conflict, D&D have done a poor job as writers and this scene won’t fix it.

Here’s another thing: as much as I love the Starks, Theon doesn’t owe them anything. He wasn’t a bastard or a ward, he was a hostage. He was taken to Winterfell specifically so Ned could kill him in retaliation in case Balon did anything stupid (something he was likely to do because Balon).

Plus we already had Theon realizing the Starks were his true family back in season… three? Four? This shouldn’t come as a huge revelation, and least of all from Jon. What’s the emotional significance of Theon and Jon’s relationship in the show? This moment, if we needed it, should have happened with Sansa or Bran, two Stark kids he had an actual on screen relationship with.

Worse, how does Theon claims his place among the Ironborn? With toxic masculinity! The fight scene was overly long, entirely unnecessary, and terribly offensive. I missed the whole kick-in-the-crotch thing and I’m glad I did because I might have thrown something at my TV. D&D have a repulsive track record in dealing with trauma and PTSD, and Theon’s in particular, but this was a whole new level. Mutilation and torture aren’t funny and shouldn’t be used as a joke. I can’t believe I have to actually say this!

Ugh, fuck this show.

Winterfell

I have to confess actually I enjoyed the Winterfell scenes, despite everything that led to them.

Again the show is damned by the poor foundation they establish for their big moments. Yes, watching Littlefinger exposed by Sansa is almost wish fulfillment, but there’s no reason this shouldn’t have happened earlier this season other than the writers really, really wanting to save it for the last episode. In order to achieve that, they came with the stupidest subplot of the entire series, putting Sansa and Arya against each other for reasons you can find only in the most insane and misogynistic posts on Reddit.

There’s no way to take this back. We have no indication that Arya and Sansa were pretending to fight this whole time and a few clues that they weren’t, so in the end Arya still threatened to rip her sister’s face off. This is disturbing and I refuse to ignore it. Yes, having the two sisters finally bonding is nice for a change, but nothing will give me back the brain cells that I lost watching the Winterfell plot this season.

Again women bond over murder, but at least this time they did it better: a public trial, with all of Littlefinger’s crimes listed, a clean execution, and no smirks of empowerment.

There are also minor nitpicks, such as Bran’s visions now counting as evidence, the fact that nobody had any reaction to Littlefinger’s crimes or execution, Sansa calling herself stupid, or the old “one Stark sister couldn’t have survived what the other did” debate. Get out of fuckin’ westeros.org forums, D&D!

Everybody misses Ned, but not Catelyn. Or Robb. Or Raccoon.

On a boat/Dornish lush forest

Boatsex did not live up to its hype. This was supposed to be the culmination of Jon and Daenerys’ feelings for each other, and… well, now that I phrase it this way, it was: it was just as bland and forced as all of their interactions this season. I thought I would remember Team America’s sex scene and I wasn’t disappointed with myself.

The editing was kinda weird too, jumping straight to some auntie fucking, with a seemingly jealous Tyrion lurking and a Robot-Bran voice over completing the creepiness. Okay.

So. The R+L=J revelation. There’s so much wrong with this scene I would need a whole essay tearing it apart. In fact, I may actually write one later this week. That’s how angry I am. A little preview, then.

We often speculate what show events will be or won’t be in the books in some form. Stannis burning Shireen or “hold the door” are likely to happen, though under very different circumstances. R+L=J is one of such events, and we know this revelation will happen in the books too. Among all fan theories, this is the strongest, considered canon by most readers.

It won’t happen in the books like this. There’s a lot about this scene that directly contradicts canon, both book and show. Maybe D&D don’t realize this because they’re hacks, but that hardly makes things better. This isn’t the first deliberate change to the source material, of course, but it’s one of the easiest to avoid and one with terrible implications.

First things first: Robert’s Rebellion didn’t just happen because Rhaegar abducted Lyanna, it happened because Aerys murdered Rickard and Brandon Stark when they demanded answers on this abduction, and then requested Ned and Robert’s heads. In doing so Aerys gave the middle finger to the entire feudal contract in the worst possible way, so he had to be removed. That Lyanna and Rhaegar loved each other doesn’t change this in the slightest. The Rebellion was still entirely justified.

So. Love. Maybe Rhaegar and Lyanna loved each other, but how long did it last? The murder of Rickard and Brandon Stark is show canon too. At some point Rhaegar learned about this, because the fight at the Trident happened. You know, Ragger was such a great guy that he decided the best course of action was to leave a pregnant Lyanna isolated in a tower and go fight defending his mad father. All of that is also show canon, by the way.

At what point did Lyanna learned that her father-in-law murdered her father and brother? Was she in a baby-making mood after that? If she never learned, it’s also bad because Rhaegar knew, and then we have rape by omission. If she did learn, at some point she became a prisoner in a tower.

Even if somehow there’s an explanation for all this that makes Rhaegar come out as a good guy, there’s still the fact that he was a 20-something, married and with two children, and the fuckin’ crown prince. There’s a huge power imbalance in their relationship, so in the best case scenario we have a dubious consent.

All that is to say: don’t romanticize Rhaegar and Lyanna. Don’t romanticize because Rhaegar was a douchebag and even if Lyanna was on board in the beginning, at some point she deeply regretted this.

Not happy with that, the show was also extra cruel with Elia Martell. It’s almost ironic, given that show-favorite Oberyn Martell gave his life so that the suffering of his sister Elia was acknowledged. D&D didn’t learn their lesson.

Before Rhaegar ran away with Lyanna, he and Elia had two children, one of them a boy named Aegon. This was also established in the show, including Aegon’s name. Aegon was the heir to the crown, but dissolving the marriage between Rhaegar and Elia means disinheriting him and his sister, thus removing House Martell from the succession line. Quite shitty, huh? It doesn’t even make sense politically, since Rhaegar would lose the only major house supporting him. I can’t see what he would gain with that, we have no indication he hated Elia and his kids that much, and Targ polygamy was a thing the show could totally have used if they really wanted Jon as a legit child. Oh no, but he must be a child of monogamous true love.

Worse, he must bear Aegon’s name. Why would Rhaegar have two children named Aegon? That’s just plain stupid. I can’t help but think they wanted this so Jon could bear Aegon the Conqueror’s name, a name fit of a true hero. Not honorable nice foster father Jon Arryn, no. That’s not heroic enough.

When I watch a bad show, I like to play a game: what’s the worse thing they may want with a scene?

With this one I got: they want to romanticize rape, erase a woman of color and her children, and turn Jon into the most cliche fantasy hero possible, precisely the type of character ASOIAF goes out of its way to criticize. But as much as this last part infuriates me, the first two are still more offensive, and frankly dangerous.

Fuck you, D&D. Fuck you with a Valyrian sword. I’m done with tolerating your unfortunate implications.

There’s something rotten in fantasy if we still cheer this kind of narrative.

Oh yeah, and the Wall fell. It was pretty. All very predictable too. The only thing surprising me in this show is how gross it can be to give us the most white-centered, male-centered cliche fantasy story possible. Maybe it is all about cocks in the end.

#antigot #anti got #got hate #got negativity #got criticism #personal: watching things

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