#but yeah anyways this is the very interesting outcome of putting a perfectly good well-meaning character in such a grim setting

[godslittlesadge]

ONE good thing that v*ilguard did for me is giving me the idea of tyranny being a mirror to benevolence because i am so stealing that for cornelius

[asterekmess]

Did you ever watch Buffy? The first episode where Anya was introduced was titled "The Wish" and all I can think about is if Scott McCall had ever run into a pure Sidhe where they offered him a wish. Instead of, "I wish Buffy had never come to Sunnydale." It would be more, "I wish I was never bitten to become a werewolf." But just like all feaye tricks, the outcome is more, his Dad ended up with primary custody rather than his Mom and he was forced to leave BH. And then Stiles ended up more friends with Heather and others. And while Scott's life is worse, when he tracks down the others he finds all of theirs are greatly improved.

I think about it a lot and how Scott never really dealt with the consequences of any of his actions, everyone else did, and how an episode or mini-arc could have fixed a flaw in the show's design. I mean, we were already dealing with a lot of Celtic lore, why not someone from the Sidhe courts?

I have no idea why this took me so long to answer, so apologies for that. <3 I did watch buffy! I've seen all of it, and all of Angel as well. XD

I remember 'The Wish' episode, and whoooo boy it gave me chills. I loved how big the butterfly effect was, how something that seemed so small, something that Genuinely seemed to be the cause of a lot of problems in Sunnydale, ended up being so important to how things had progressed. Because, yeah, you would think Buffy not coming to Sunnydale would be a Good Thing, right? Sunnydale didn't have all of these insane issues before she arrived. It was quiet, and nothing big or scary ever happened. Her arrival matches perfectly with when everything started going absolutely nuts, so whatever selfish ideas Cordelia had, her thought that Buffy not coming to Sunnydale would be a good thing, makes sense. Except that, as she finds out, she's entirely wrong. Buffy's arrival was a lucky coincidence, or fate, whatever your taste leans toward. She showed up right as things started going nuts, and she kept it from going SO MUCH MORE NUTS.

Now, moving on to TW, it is a fascinating mix of being the Exact same situation, and the exact Opposite. I'll add a Read More, cus' holy god is this a lot of Rambling.

Because Scott wishing not to have been bitten...yeah, the bite Did improve things. But it improved things for him. He would absolutely regret making the wish, just like Cordelia did, because he would realize how many good things the bite had brought with it. BUT, conversely, he would have to realize how many good things the bite had brought for him, not for other people, and how their lives either wouldn't have been affect, or might've even Improved without him being bitten. Without the bite, Scott wouldn't have gotten on first line, period. His health issues made very clear in the five minutes he had them that any kind of stamina based sport was just out of the question for him. If he is unable to walk through the woods at a moderate pace without needing to grab his inhaler and stop against a tree, he just plain cannot play lacrosse for two or three hours of running at high speeds and working a bunch of muscles in his upper body. He likely wouldn't have gone out with Allison, because he would have no convenient way to get her attention. Furthermore, he wouldn't have the extra senses that both impressed her on the lacrosse field, and told him about her 'family dinner' the night of Lydia's party. (I've discussed this before, but... While it's true, Allison would have still brought him the dog; that dog would likely have attacked him, and his chances with her would have been shot in the foot when they both got in massive trouble and he likely had to go to the ER for stitches or something. Without Allison or first line, he wouldn't have started hanging out with the 'cool kids,' and quite frankly, wouldn't have had anyone to help him study for the classes he was struggling with. It's true that he also wouldn't have had werewolf things to worry about, or even a girlfriend to distract him from homework, so maybe that wouldn't have been such a huge issue, but still.

If we look at other people's lives and how They would have been affected by Scott not getting the bite...well, let's talk about that.

Stiles didn't get on first line because of Scott, or because of a werewolf bite. Or even because of the werewolf bullshittery occurring in town. He was put on first line because of his abilities, and even after being taken OFF first line for missing the game, he was put Right onto the field in the next game, chosen OVER other players who were perfectly viable options. Which means, he still would've ended up on first line. Allison wasn't interested in dating before she met Scott, and part of her draw to him was based on how 'different' he was. He knew things she didn't know how he could know, he had a weird ability to calm a furious, injured dog, and he had charisma that was ALSO gained from the bite, since being on first line made Scott Much more self-confident. If she didn't end up dating him, it's likely she wouldn't have dated at all. Which would mean no hiding from her parents, no strange conflicts of interest, AND, interestingly enough --depending on her involvement in the murders, etc that would still be occurring in town--no night in the school that would scare her bad enough to ask Kate for extra help and tip her headfirst into hunter training. AND, even if she DID still end up getting those lessons from Kate? There would be no bitterness to fuel her behavior at the end of season 1.

Allison was Traumatized after Kate showed her Derek on the grate. She was horrified, and didn't know what to do about it, and while we can ramble all we want about the morality of her not confronting her family (whom she's just discovered is willing to electrocute people) about it, the fact is that she pushed the thoughts aside to stop freaking out and went to that dance. Where she found out Scott was a werewolf, and was So fucking Betrayed that she was willing to help Kate catch him and Derek. No Scott, no betrayal, no willingness to help Kate recapture the miserable man who'd been chained up in a basement.

If we go back to that specific night, and try to unfold the events from there if Scott hadn't been bitten, things get a little complicated, but I'll take a few artistic liberties. Scott isn't bitten. Presumably, he just happens to get out of the woods in time, or he gets caught with Stiles by the sheriff, or doesn't go to the woods in the first place. These all change the possible outcomes of that night. If he hadn't gone in the first place, and Stiles went alone, would he have been bitten instead? Would Scott have been dragged into all of this anyway, but without the protection and boost of being a werewolf and cured of his asthma? If he weren't the one bitten, and he saw everything Stiles gained from it, would he still have such a hatred for the bite? Or would he want it, like Erica did, to cure him and make him powerful and cool? But, let's assume Stiles doesn't get bitten either. The second half of Laura's body still hasn't been found, and Stiles has no reason to fear running back into the preserve the next day, and no real punishment from his father as far as we can tell. So, does he go back to look again? If he did, he would run into Derek, because Derek would still be there after retrieving Laura's body himself. He would see Derek and still recognize him, and from there, things might spiral, still involving Stiles in the supernatural, and it's likely Stiles would try to involve Scott, and Again we get hit with "Would Scott want the bite, if he hadn't gotten forcibly bitten in the first place?" The answer is probably yes. He wanted to be cool, and popular, and on the lacrosse team. He wanted everything being a werewolf gave him. BUT if we're looking at this wish as similar to "The Wish," then no matter what, Scott won't be bitten. He'll be transported to a new world where it just never happened, and he'll be human, and forced to watch everyone around him be just plain different. Scott not being bitten would isolate him from Stiles, if Stiles got involved in the spn anyway. We SAW how Stiles cut off his other friends once the spn starting getting in the way. He and Harley? We have no clue how close they were. They were close enough for her to tease him about his crush on Lydia, for her to wander up comfortably to the locker and talk to them. And he cut her off as soon as the werewolf stuff hit. What if he cut Scott off? To protect him, if nothing else, like he did his own father. Once he realized the danger involved, I doubt he would be willing to put Scott in harm's way.

So, Scott would not only lose first line, lose his girlfriend, lose his popularity, lose his health and strength and heightened abilities, lose his 'importance' to the goings-on of Beacon Hills, but he would also lose Stiles, who seems to have been his only friend, unless he also had a relationship with Harley.

Okay, I've rambled enough about the what if's, so let's talk about the Reason why this wish would go so badly for Scott, in such a different way than it went for Cordelia. Cordelia, first off, wished that someone Else would not have/do something, rather than wishing for herself not to have done something. She watches how fucked up the world gets, and how much worse her life is without Buffy around to save the day. Scott wished for Himself not to have done something (even something passive, like 'get bitten') and would have to watch how fucked up his world gets, and how far behind he would fall. The other's lives might not necessarily get better, because Peter is still on the loose, and the hunters are still there, etc etc, but they would still Progress, while Scott would stay stagnant.

And WHY is that? Because Scott isn't important to the story. It DOESN'T start with him. That's the Whole Point of his character. He is supposed to be the 'everyman' who gets dragged into crazy shit and becomes integral to things that he wasn't ever meant to be a part of. The guy who wanders into becoming King or 'The Hero' that will save the world, even though he's just a small lad from a tiny town, whose highest prospects were "get on first line."

He was NEVER supposed to be Buffy, or if he was, it was done Very Badly.

But Beacon Hills WASN'T a quiet town before Scott was bitten; however much he might've said 'nothing ever happens in this town.' It was FULL of bullshittery and magic from the very beginning. There was the fire, and Paige, and the blinding of Deucalion, and the death of Alexander Argent, and the Nogitsune in the internment camp nearby. All of these things were around So much longer than Scott's bite, and they'd been affecting the world that whole time too. Because yes, in Buffy, the master was There before she was, but he was literally rendered inert by the situations he was in. And the things he'd done happened Centuries before, not six years. There is a difference. Sunnydale was Not Known for the insane number of weird deaths. Beacon Hills was. And aside from the Nogitsune, every single fucking thing that happened in Beacon Hills, was attuned to the Hale family in one way or another. Deucalion's blinding occurred during a meeting on Hale land, because Talia was known as a wise leader, etc, in the area and other wolves flocked to her. Deucalion biting Argent seems unrelated (if you even believe Deucalion did that, despite being a fucking pacifist before Gerard blinded him), but again, it occurs just a couple hours away from Beacon Hills, which is Hale Territory. The one who plays the Buffy role here? Who shows up at just the right time, and launches themself against an endless wave of evil, with slightly enhanced senses and a thorough need to do good and not back away from things that 'aren't they're problem'? The actual hero who is somehow tied to everything going on in ways even they don't understand? Was Derek. The guy who entirely unwittingly allowed Julia Baccari to survive, because he was trying to be merciful to his first love. Who entirely unwittingly was manipulated into giving up information that let a hunter kill his family. Who followed his sister back to town after six years of just trying to survive in New York, fell into a fucking tragedy, and decided to stop the bad guys anyway, even though he knew he didn't stand a fucking chance.

And as annoyed as some might get. The 'everyman' who stumbles onto the set and accidentally becomes integral to the saving of the world? The one whose ambitions are small and who expectations are smaller? Who is misunderstood, and has abilities that aren't recognized or appreciated, that doesn't really fit in, but tries their best anyway? The literal Angel to Derek's Buffy?

Is fucking Stiles. The son of the sheriff who just could not let it go when he discovered there was something funky going on. Who hung around on the edges, even though he wasn't really wanted, because he needed to help. Who ended up saving Derek's life over and over, and becoming so important as to be Derek's anchor? Who literally WENT DARKSIDE and HAD TO BE NEARLY KILLED, even though Derek didn't to kill him???

I know how it sounds, but JD SAID he took inspiration from Buffy. The issue is that his parallels are between DEREK AND STILES, and BUFFY AND ANGEL. Respectively.

Derek might act like the broody bad boy, but it is STILES' mentality that matches Angel's behavior, and it's Derek who matches Buffy.

I'm so fucking off track. Scott would be miserable if he ever managed to get a wish and used it to keep from having been bitten. And it would be sad. I would feel bad for him, had I watched something like that happen. Seeing him realize that most of the good things he had, he only got because of the bite. That Stiles would still be on first line, that Lydia and Jackson would still be the popular kids. That Allison wouldn't know he existed, or if she did would avoid him entirely. That Jackson would never have been turned into the kanima in the first place. That everyone else would move on and up in life, and he would still be standing at the bottom step. Because it wasn't his actual limitations that were holding him back, it was his refusal to accept them, to work with them, and to just plain stop Envying Everyone Around him, and start living his own fucking life instead of trying to steal other people's.

Scott wishes he were Cordelia, and I promise that would backfire too.

[ragsweas]

Hobbit Fic Rec List!

MODERN AU!

Hello! I always wanted to share a gigantic list of awesome works in Hobbit fanfic, but realized they are too many. So let's start small. A few modern AU that everybody has to read!

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How to fall in love in 100 days by Kytanna

As their lives intertwine, Thorin, Bilbo, and their nephews learn the meaning of finding a family, love and the hard path towards healing. All, over the course of a hundred days.

A lovely piece with all the cuteness and fluff.

Softer Strokes by autisticalistair

Thorin is a well-known artist living a secluded life in the Swiss Alps. Bilbo is a former history professor living in a trauma rehabilitation centre after a devastating accident that took his parents lives. Through a mutual friend, Bilbo finds himself in Switzerland, and Thorin finds himself with company for the next few months, and neither of them are prepared for what that will bring.

I'll never say 'I love you' by JustReadingMaybeWriting

Bilbo is a veterinary student who one night saves the life a handsome but wounded man. Bilbo should have called an ambulance. If he had called an ambulance, he wouldn't be in this weird mess. He certainly wouldn't be falling in love with the man he saved, who can't seem to leave him alone.

This one's a bit dark, but I love it.

painted blind by nasri

The last time Bilbo stepped foot in Aberdeen it was with a broken heart and a bachelor’s degree. All things considered, this time isn’t so different.

Plan B by Drenagon

Plan B: an alternative strategy; a contingency plan, devised for an outcome other than the expected plan.

Or, sending an unqualified temp to act as Thorin Oakenshield's PA because no one qualified can put up with him.

(He'd say they can't meet his standards. Of course he would.)

Meet Bilbo Baggins. He just became Plan B.

One Modern!AU I always wanted to read and this is just it! It's amazing!! And the whole COmpany is there!!

A Land Far Away by Prollyaghost (Callmerin)

"If we were in a different time or place, this story may have begun with ‘once upon a time’, or even ‘In a hole in the ground, there lived…’ But as it so happens, we are in this time and place, in the outskirts of London, where there are no ‘once upon a times’ and the only holes in grounds lead to sewage tunnels. There does happen to be, however, a man who has dedicated a great deal of his life studying these ‘once upon a time’s. He is an English teacher, enjoys afternoon teas with homemade raisin scones, and he most certainly does not believe in fairy-tales.

His name is Bilbo Baggins, and that last bit about him is about to change."

Bilbo Baggins, an English teacher who has never been outside of England, suddenly finds himself thrust into an adventure when a strange man named Thorin Oakenshield requires his help to fulfil his father’s dying wish. Turns out studying the niche topic of the ancient, fictional society of dwarves was more useful than his parents could have imagined. Plunged into a forgotten land, Thorin and Bilbo must find the mythical Arkenstone, before the legends of the past come back to haunt modern society.

Okay, this one's a WIP, but damn the premise is super interesting and honestly can't wait for the next update!

Nothing Gold Can Stay by perkynurples

Bilbo Baggins led a rather peaceful life, thank you very much, until an old acquaintance decided to turn it upside down, and he found himself agreeing to take a job that’s… let’s say not exactly up his alley, and might eventually cost him a little more than his treasured cozy lifestyle. Who would have thought tutoring a slightly menacing monarch’s more than slightly overbearing nephew could prove to be such an adventure?

This is one of the fics that does not need an introduction. No matter how many times you read this, it isn't enough. And we all love Fili and Kili here.

What to do When Your Cat is an Asshole by lily_winterwood

“You have a cat?” asks the face on the screen. “Yes. His name’s Smaug, he’s orange, and he’s an asshole. Aren’t you, Smaug?” Surly Food Provider glowers at me, which, of course, I am immune to. “Aren’t you a little asshole?” I don’t see why he needs to call me that. My butthole is perfectly licked, and it smells wonderful.

The AU where Smaug is Thorin's asshole cat. Written for the Bagginshield Unexpected Anniversary.

This one's small, and hilarious and even better if you imagine Benedryl Cucumbersnatch narrating the whole thing

No Ordinary Love by badskippy

Bilbo and Ori have been best friends since they were ten years old and tragedy brought them together. Now, a new job, a sudden rainstorm, a chance meeting and budding romance with a burly, handsome stranger will not only alter their lives, but set in motion events that will change everyone around them, and reveal how lies, deceit and assumptions can leave deeper scars than the ones that can be seen.

WIP, unfinished, but damn was this an interesting tale. For anybody who loves angst, go give it a read!

Remember Me by thehistorygeek

Bilbo Baggins and Thorin Oakenshield are destined to suffer. In every life they live, in every age, in every era, they meet, and this meeting brings back all the memories of the lives that have come before. But every meeting serves also as a death sentence, for once they have met, one of them is doomed to die soon after, usually tragically and prematurely. They remember nothing of their past lives until they meet, and once they have there is nothing that can be done to stop their fate.

For anyone obsessed with Reincarnation and/or History, this is it.

A Remover of Obstacles by MistakenMagic

"Dis often chided her older brother for being a misanthropist. She did it so often it had become a term of endearment. It was true that Thorin struggled with people; he struggled to form and maintain relationships. Dr. Grey had diagnosed him with this and Thorin hadn’t the heart to tell him this wasn’t a symptom of his PTSD, it was a symptom of his personality. He exercised a sense of apathy with almost everyone he met… But Bilbo was different. Thorin actually found himself wanting to know more about him."

Another fic that DOES NOT need an introduction. I have read it thrice and every time the emotions are still the same. Trigger Warnings, but damn this is all worth it.

An Unexpected Meeting by what_am_i_even_doing_tho

This is the chronicling of the modern day shenanigans of Bilbo Baggins, who is an absolute gay disaster, and Thorin Oakenshield, who is unashamedly enamored. Aka, the modern Bagginshield AU that no one ever asked for but they're getting anyway.

green and gilded by nasri

The next time he visits his parents there are flowers left in the grass, pressed back against the gravestone. They are yellow and white daffodils, plain and wilting.

“Who’s been to see you?” He asks, taking a single photo of the flowers with their drooping stems and curled petals and the wet winter grass that surrounds them. His mother would call it kind, his father might say it's curious, and Bilbo takes another petal to tuck into his pocket.

You know those stories that you read once and then they never leave your head? And somehow your whole life begins to revolve around that one story? Yeah, this is it. Spoilers in tag and I would suggest you read before advancing cause many people do not like it, but even if you are not in that group, just give it a read. This story deserves all the reads.

Bran' New Suit by pibroch (littleblackdog)

Andrew's description had been sufficient to recognize him— a riot of honey brown curls, short in stature, a well-favoured face with expressive features— but it hadn't quite been enough to prepare Tom for the sharp, almost painful tug in his gut at the sight of the man. They had never met before, to the best of Tom's recollection, but there was something eerily and inexplicably familiar about him all the same.

One of the first Modern AU I read and dauym...you won't get it until the end but then...it's fun.

Under New Management by frostyjack

Fili's life is pretty good -- he's doing well at university, he gets on well with his uncle and guardian Thorin, and he's never likely to know what it's like to be poor or unwanted. Then Thorin takes in a foster child -- Kili Oakenshield, a long-lost relative whose past is a total mystery. Suddenly, Fili's life gets a whole lot more complicated. But maybe it gets better, too.

Lots of trigger warning for this one, but when the end comes, you'll know it's all been worth it.

One-Sided Conversations by northerntrash

"Thank you for listening," Thorin said, getting to his feet. "I hope to be able to return the favour, one day."

The man on the bed didn't respond, but since he'd been in a coma for longer than Thorin had known him, that wasn't entirely surprising.

(Not Quite) Prince Charming by manic_intent

The problem, Bilbo would later tell Gandalf in aggrieved irritation, was not so much the unannounced visitors, oh no, but the fact that due to the lateness of the hour and sheer merciless fate, it came to be that at the respectable age of forty, Bilbo was being introduced to a real, live king while wearing striped pyjamas and fluffy slippers.

The Making of a Story by northerntrash

When Bilbo finds a case of old family photographs, he becomes determined to find the original owners: what he does not expect is to become quite so involved in their lives, or that those photographs should prove quite so important.

Misunderstandings and other obstacles for love by ylc

This series dammit! It's amazing, and the dynamics you would ask from a Modern AU.

Candle Glow and Mistletoe by euseevius

Bilbo and Thorin have been married for six months now. The thing is, Thorin’s family doesn’t know this. And because pretending to be just friends for the three weeks you’re going to spend at the family cabin is so much easier than telling the truth, that is what they will do.

(Of course Bilbo has his own ideas of how believable it is for a grown man to bring a friend to spend Christmas with his family. That’s why they make a bet out of it.)

For days you need to just laugh at these two idiots.

The Lost Kingdom of Erebor by Twisted_Barbie

AU. The Lost Kingdom of Erebor is shrouded in myth, likened to the heavens and compared to Atlantis. Until an archaeological discovery unearths that which was lost and awakens the Mad King from his cursed eternal rest.

Not a happy ending, and mysterious and you need to give it a read. Just, do it. It will all be worth it.

Of Palaces and Ruins by livelongandgetiton

Slow burn. Bilbo Baggins is a half-baked archaeologist who has put his dreams of adventure on hold to teach secondary school. Thorin is the grandson of a politically powerful figure in the historically rich and deeply isolationist country of Erebor. When he flees conflict and corruption in Erebor to settle in London, he finds his hands full with two young boys. Gandalf meddles, and Bilbo signs on as a personal tutor for the boys in hopes of getting a foot in the door to archaeological work in Erebor. He soon discovers that Thorin is a tough nut to crack. As Bilbo takes care of the boys he and Thorin grow closer, and secrets about not just the brooding stranger, but the mysterious country and politics of Erebor begin to unravel. It turns out that Bilbo isn't leaving adventure behind, after all.

WIP, updating. JUST READ IT!!!

Write Me Down Easy by lucyraebrown

Bilbo Baggins, a simple man with a wish for something more than his life teaching high school English, is obsessed with a famous author by the pen-name Oakenshield. Although he knows the future is dim for his chances of finding out about the man behind his favorite book, it's reassuring to know someone has the same thoughts about the world.

WIP, updating. It's mostly fuff and happiness, so yesss...feed your inner Bagginshield!

Show Me My Silver Lining by BiSquared

Three years after the hostile takeover of his grandfather's record label by one DJ Smaug, lead singer Thorin Oakenshield is ready to give up on his dreams, even if his band isn't ready to give up on him. If Thorin can convince talent scout Bilbo Baggins to sign them, they might just have a fighting chance. Of course, this is the night when Thorin gets stage fright.

The music industry AU no one asked for.

Love-In-Idleness by perkynurples       

Taking Bilbo Baggins, a successful movie actor who is only just getting used to the perks and intricacies of becoming A Face People Want To See, and putting him together with Thorin Oakenshield, with his very traditional (read: slightly backwards) ideas about what constitutes Real Art and Real Talent, might very well be viewed as just some clothead’s idea of a joke. But there are jokes, and then there are carefully calculated risks the size of controversial reproductions of classic Shakespearean plays - for Bilbo, it is the chance of a lifetime to prove himself to all those who have ever deemed him too one-dimensional to even attempt stage, while Thorin has the opportunity to get out of the rut that’s been hindering his career for so long now, and shine in a role worthy of his talent once again. That is if the two learn how to share the same space for more than ten minutes without wanting to tear each other’s hair out. The course of true love never did run smooth, after all…

Did I read this in one go? Yes I did. Did I fall in love with Bagginshiled all over again? Yes I did.

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And that's the list folks! I hope you guys have fun reading all of these nice fics! (And all the bagginshield angst/fuff)

[implexedactions]

My Little Ember - Enji Todoroki

Platonic!Yandere!Enji Todoroki

A/N: Okay, I’m late. I missed a lot of due dates. This isn’t even beta read. I’m sorry. I am so sorry. But here it is anyway!

This is Yandere content, and as such, one should be cautious of viewing this if you have certain triggers.

“Wake up, my little ember~ Did you have a good rest?”

 You blink your eyes open and look around. You are in “your” bedroom, a cruelly comforting place. A room in Enji’s giant mansion, covered in pastels and various kid-friendly entertainment. The nicest cage money could buy. 

 Enji’s hand rests on your shoulder. A warm presence on this otherwise cold day. Your eyes flicker up at the cyan ones looking compassionately down.

 “Uhh, yeah, it was fine, Enji…”

 Enji sighs and rubs his hand against your shoulder. 

 “I told you, kid, call me dad.”

 “But-”

 Enji raises a warm finger to your lips.

 “Come now, enough of that. I’ve let you sleep in long enough; it is already 7:30 am. I have been cooking breakfast in the kitchen for you.”

 You look away dejectedly.

 “I’m not hungry.” 

 “Hush, you need your breakfast if you want to grow big and strong like your old man!” 

 He promptly lifts you out of bed with just one arm, shoving you over his shoulder. You don’t fight back, instead just lying there, looking at the upside-down room. 

 Humming a tune, he carries you out of your bedroom, and into the empty mansion that you both share—pristine white walls and furniture, broken up with the odd child-proofed edge or photo-frame. 

 He abducted you four months ago and ever since seemed to be treating you as his child. Everyone who saw Endeavor knew he probably didn’t have a stellar home life, but this was absurd. 

 He walks down the stairs to the first floor, walking through a massive living room.

 “Enj-uhhh, dad?”

 Enji hummed with delight as he kept walking, you swaying up and down on his shoulder, getting slightly dizzy.

 “Yes, my little ember?”

 “Do you think I-uhh, we, could go outside today?”

 Enji stops in his tracks, his grip on you tightening and warming. Not noticeably, but enough. 

 “...Ember, I am not too sure if that is a wise decision.”

 Of course. It hadn’t worked the other 50 times you asked, why would it work now?! Why was it so hard for you to find ANY time away his watchful eye.

 “What a fucking surprise…”

 “Hey!”

 He pulls your now shaking form off his shoulder. One hand around your waist, one around your head as he brings you in front of him, hovering off the floor. His eyes are thin, a scowl on his face. You feel his hot breath coming from his nostrils. You have never been more scared in your life of this man.

 “Do not use that foul language, Y/N Todoroki. I will not tolerate it. Do not make me discipline you.”

 “I-uhhh, sorry…” you stammer out, avoiding his gaze. 

 His hand moves your head and forces your eyes to meet his disappointed ones.

 “I have raised you better than that, haven’t I? Apologise properly.”

 “Uhhh,,,Sorry, Father, that I, behaved inappropriately…” you say, staring into eyes that only villains are privy to.

 His face warms and he pulls you in for a hug. 

 “Apology accepted!”

 He places you down on the floor, but keeps your hand in a vice-like grip.

 “Now! We can’t leave those pancakes waiting, can we?”

 Enji  pulls you along, almost causing you to fall over a few times to keep up with his faster gait. He walks into the kitchen,and the smell of pancakes fill the air. He places you down on a seat, grabbing a plate and putting some pancakes on it, before serving it to you. You detectedly pick at the pancakes, staring out the window. It’s an overcast and cloudy day, might rain later. Enji seemingly notices this. 

 “Feeling melancholy, oh sorry, I meant, are you feeling sad??” He pries, softly bumping you with his elbow to get you to pay attention to him.

 “You kidna-” You got to interject, but get interrupted. 

 “I have something that might cheer you up! Look at this, my little ember!”

 Enji reaches over to grab the wet batter, he pours a bit into one of his cupped hands, and after putting down the container, presses his other hand over it. After a few seconds, he pulls apart his hand to reveal a potato-shaped pancake with imprints of his hands on it, perfectly cooked. 

 You fail to look impressed, to which Enji sighs. 

 “You will find it more interesting when you have your own quirk, I bet!”

 “...You realise I’m quirkless right?” You’ve been quirkless forever, you weren’t thrilled about it, but you made do, or you did, before this deranged hero kidnapped you.

 “Do not worry, my sweet little cinder. You are just a late bloomer. Your powers will come in soon, I guarantee it! You are a todoroki! It is in your very nature!”

 “But I-”

 “You might even get a fire quirk like your old man! Imagine how much I could impart to you! Are you not excited?!”

 “No, not rea-”

 “You will go to UA of course, but that might be putting the cart before the horse, champ. We should think about primary school before that...”

 Wait, what? Ignoring the fact that he’s trying to enrol you in primary school, this would mean you’d get out of the house, and presumably, to a teacher, who’d figure out you’re not a kid, and are in fact, being held against your will. 

 “I’d love to go to school Dad!” you cry enthuasatically, desperate to get out of the house.

 “Ha! You’re certainly eager!” He saddles up beside you and pulls you into his side, tussling your hair. 

 “Although...School seems a bit dangerous, looking at UA and what happened with sho- maybe instead, we could try a different approach, my little ember.”

 “But I’d really like to meet oth-” You need to force this issue, you can’t let him shut this issue down like this. This is your one chance to get outside the house.

 “Hmmm! How about instead, you use packet learning for general education, and well, we will cross the hero bridge when we get to it. Heh, maybe I could teach you about being a hero and intern you myself if you try to get your hero license! Would that not be fun, your old man teaching you how to be a hero?”

 He presses you into his side more, face pushed against his pecs, preventing you from speaking. It’s meant as a sort of hug, it mainly just hurts quite a bit. 

 “Just know I love you no matter what the outcome is, okay? Powers or no powers. Hero or no hero. You’ll always be my little ember!”

 Despite your flails and protests, Enji carries you to the couch, sitting you down next to the TV. The sun has risen fully, becoming mid-morning. 

 “Alright, kiddo. Want to watch some cartoons? How about that backyard science one? We could try to replicate, er, repeat,  the experiment later?”

 “Could I-er, we, watch that detective movie? I saw an ad for it, it looked interesting?” The issue is gone now, he will only deflect any questions, you’ve tried MANY times to get that to work. Might as well get SOME enjoyment out of this day. 

 “Hmpfh, you saw an advertisment for that movie? I need to monitor what you watch more often, that is much too dark for a young mind like you! Let me put on that science show…” 

 Enji goes to grab the remote, but you slap it out of his hand.

 “Stop this! Stop pretending that I’m your child! Stop trying to coddle me!“

 Enji goes to touch your shoulder, concern plastered over his face, hiding something sinister. 

 “Don’t fucking touch me you creep! Everyone knows you fucked up your first chance at a good family life, and this isn’t a fucking do over, you abusive, coddling, tormentor!” 

 Enji sighs.

 “And I was having such a nice morning too.” 

 Enji’s face grows dark as he stands up from the couch, before turning around and bending down to your level. Fast hands pinning your shoulders to your side, keeping you in place as an intimidating and vilanous look takes over his face. 

 “I will give you 5 seconds to apologise, and just maybe, I, your FATHER, can find it in my heart to lessen the SEVERE punishment you are getting, kid.”

 “1”

 “I’m sorry! Please! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it!” 

 Enji’s face contorts into a smug smirk as confusion takes over yours.

 “2”

 “W-What? But-I’m sorry! Please listen to me!”

 You thrash useleslly against the hands holding you in place, desperate to try and escape his gaze. Reduced to a whimpering and crying mess as you think of the ‘discipline’ your father will inflict.

 “3”

 “Please! I said I’m sorry! What more do you want from me?!”

 You’re on the edge of hyper ventilating as Enji stares you down. His hands are warming up, grip tightening, only causing your thrashing to become even stronger. Your attempts to break free don’t even budge him an inch.

 “4...Do not make me count to 5...”

 “Please! Enj-Father! I’m sorry! I’ll do whatever you want! I’ll eat those pancakes! I’ll play along! Please, don’t hurt me!”

 Enji’s smug smile and piercing eyes will haunt your dreams.

 “...5. I thought I had raised you better than that, my little cinder. Oh well, time to-”

 Lightning and thunder interrupts the countdown, an ear-splitting crack emanating from outside the sealed house. Enji jumps to cover you, as you yelp, the already anxiety inducing conversation ruining your nerves so much a lightning strike scares you. Immediately, Enji’s menacing demeanor melted away. 

 “Oh, I thought it was a villi- nevermind.”

 Enji looks down at you. Your form is shaking, tears spilling out of your eyes. Looking both catatonic and extremely wound up, as you fail to comprehend your surroundings, simply mumbling to yourself about punishment and forgiveness.

“S-Sorry. Forgive. Forgive m-me.I-I-”

 “Do you see, my little ember? The threat of punishment WAS the punishment.

 His hands pulled you into his broad chest, shushing you and rubbing warming hands up and down your back. You keep on crying, your turbulent emotions entirely out of control, not knowing how to react. You feel like your sanity is so fragile, anything will break it. You simply focus on a spot upon the wall, and nothing else. 

 “It is okay, ember. It is just thunder. I will protect you.”

 “...not scared of thunder...” you mumble. He chooses to cocoon you further with his massive body, noticeably warming himself up to protect you from the potential cold.

 “You do not need to lie, little one. I am not expecting you to be perfect, okay?”

 He pauses, mulling over his next words. 

 “I am only expecting perfection from me.”

[darkacademicfrom2021]

The Dark Team (part 13)

<<Previous part Masterlist   Next part>>

(Taglist: @lucywrites02, @louieboo87, @the-departed-potato, @jesuswasnotawhiteman, @idontknow296, @beksib, @spythoschei, @geekwritersworld, @whatafuckingdumbass, @mysticunicorn7 @shadowolf993 @toe-vind-ek-jou @joscelyn02, @t00-pi, @irwxnhugsx )

Warnings: creepy man, hungover (alcohol mentions), abduction mentions.

Chirping birds woke you up as the light hit your face. It was a slightly sunny morning, you could see. A cold one, too. Your head ached; yesterday’s wine was stronger than you’d think. You remembered very little, and the hangover weighed on your feet as you tried to stand up. Soon, that weight redistributed up to your head, dizziness almost throwing you back in bed.

With much more effort than before, you got up and walked slowly to the kitchen, glancing around. Last night, a sticky kid fell asleep on the doorframe. You chuckled and decided to not wake him up. Loki was nowhere to be found; must be sleeping in his own room, if he had one by then.

An ibuprofen and some cold water later, you checked the time. It was so early; six in the morning. You decided to get working already; maybe someone on the team was awake. If not, you could at least take things off your to-do list for the day and get time free at noon to play videogames with Peter, or help him with that Lego Stark Tower he has been trying to build for almost two weeks now. A nice walk in the park to get some fresh air until some coffee shop opened; that’s what you needed.

The streets were emptier than you’d imagine, and then you realized it was saturday. Peeping in, a coffee shop next block was already opening, and people were lining up to get in. You made sure to have brought money and a laptop with you, and as you reached your pockets you realized you had your suit on, under normal clothes. Well, at least I’m prepared for anything now. Even a sunday morning in a lovely coffee shop, you thought, laughing to yourself. If Tony saw you like this, he’d recall that word he says you inherited from him. Paranoid. But no, Stark, I’m just hungover. Good to know your first instinct once you get up off bed is to suit up. Tony'd be proud. And a little disappointed, too.

You got a table far from the window, wall behind your back making sure nobody could eye your laptop. Once you were settled in and your coffee was getting cold, you started working. You were so glad you were out of the public eye, so you could afford yourself all of these outside activities. Sounded stupid, but if you were to have dinner with Sam, or Steve, or Thor, you’d have to also deal with paparazzis all night long. Actually, in dining out with Thor, paparazzis would be the least of your problems.

“Hey”, greeted Bucky from the other line. “It’s so early, what are you doing up?”.

“Buck, it’s already ten”.

“Oh”, he said, and you heard a sliding curtain by his side. “Oh, there it is. Sunlight”.

“Why are your times all twisted?”.

“We stayed up until five”.

“Doing what?”.

“Let’s say the mini bar was not so mini”.

“Oh my God”, you laughed, and checked for your work on the laptop. “At this point, I think the only one who didn’t get drunk last night is Spidey. Ah. Listen, I’ve arranged today’s plan, and it has to go right or else you can get abducted again. And we don’t want that, okay?”.

“I’m not sure what we’re supposed to do now. Didn’t we already get the stick?”.

“That’s the point, there’s more… you know, bottles hanging around” you lowered your voice. The coffee shop was almost empty, but just in case, you kept it under your breath. “That’s why you gotta get into Hydra’s last base again. Do not go alone”.

You instructed Bucky and then he tried his best to put you on speaker to the rest of the team, but failed. None of them could actually figure out how to do it; Steve was even less familiar with cell phones, and Thor… well, not even elaborating on him. The only Asgardian who seemed familiar enough with Midgard’s technologies was sleeping soundly on the compound. You had to explain the plan thoroughly another two times individually, and then finally hung up and got to work, sending them coordinates and turning off Hydra’s hacked security cameras.

Once they were already in, you had not much more to do. At least for a few hours, they’d be completely submerged in there, and your help wasn’t needed anymore. You still planned for some outcomes and didn’t even notice the man standing in front of you.

“Excus…”.

“OH... my God”, you gasped, taking yourself off your hyper focused state. The man chuckled. His teeth, yellow, seemed like he didn’t know anything about dental hygiene. His clothes were perfectly cleaned, though, in a tidy office-type suit; but his hair was hidden by a peaked cap that barely let you see his eye expressions. Very weird looking. Hard to read. Just now unemployed? Dressed like that to get attention? You frowned and closed all tabs, opening a fake account of email and some cheap online magazine. “What do you need?”.

“Can I sit here?”.

“No”.

He smiled weirdly and manspreaded in the chair you told him not to sit in. You sighed and rolled your eyes.

“What are you doing?”, he asked.

You ignore him and keep pretending to read your mails, eyeing how many people were in there too. It was getting fuller than before. If he wanted to steal your laptop he’d have to do it in front of all of these people, and cross the whole coffee shop. He wasn’t planning on stealing. You made a security copy of all the files anyways.

“You have pretty eyes”.

You ignored him again, but now understood his intentions. God, people could be so shameless sometimes. You literally told him to go away. You’ll repeat it, just in case he would actually listen this time.

“Go away”.

He chuckled and stayed in place.

“I just want to talk, sweetie”.

“Sure. I’m not interested”.

“You have a boyfriend?”.

“I have a very strong fist”.

He got closer, leaning on the table, and lowering his voice said “You’re working on the supersoldiers mission, yes?”.

You froze. Suddenly, the creepy man was a bigger threat than you’d anticipated. Your hand hovered over the gun in your pocket, holding strong eye contact with him.

“Who are you?”.

“What do you have in your pocket?”, he teased.

“Wanna find out?”, you threatened.

Looking over his shoulder, an all-too-familiar fifteen year old hid behind a pile of coffee cups from the bar counter, holding his breath to not laugh. You sighed and broke the tension.

“Funny. Very funny. I almost shoot you, you know”.

“That’s not a very good instinct”.

“Not an instinct, I truly wanted to shoot you”.

“You sure were, pancake”, he said as he transformed back into himself, still in those ugly clothes covering half his face. As he looked down to himself, he frowned and changed his clothes to an Asgardian armor. “But your mortal bullets would be no more than a caress to my skin”.

“Let’s give it a try, shall we?”, you cocked your gun, joking. He laughed, and Peter got increasingly nervous as you played with your toys in a public and safe place, surrounded by civilians. “Don’t worry, Pete, it’s fake”.

Peter sighed in relief as you clarified and put it back in your pocket, and Loki smirked, knowing perfectly well you just lied.

“Why don’t we get something to drink, too, mr. Loki?”.

“Yeah, whatever you want, kid”.

“Not a kid”.

“Apologies. Actually, can you order it? I’m afraid Midgardians don’t usually take kindly to my presence”, he asked. Peter nodded.

“I do, mr. Loki”.

"What?".

"Take it kindky".

Loki smiled and raised his eyebrows, a bit confused. Muttered an “I’m glad” and instructed him to get an americano, while you packed your laptop in the backpack.

"How's the incognito working out for you in your shiny armor?"

"Better than before. At least now I'm comfortable while getting the same bad looks I always get anyways".

"Shapeshifter can't manage to hide, how ironic", you said, giving him one of the new earbuds, with an attachable mic. "Since you have good strategy plans and you sort of know what you're doing, work with me".

"I thought we were already working together. You know, in this stupid thing called The Dark...".

"Yeah", you interrupted him, rolling your eyes once again. "From behind the scenes, I mean. This is so you can listen to whatever my earbud hears. Don't bite your tongue if you have any inputs, I'm running out of solutions".

Your phone rang again as you were getting up.

“Yes?”.

“It’s all gone to trash, y/n. We need a new plan, I can’t find Buck anywhere. What’s your backup?”, rushed Steve’s voice. It sounded like it was from a public service phone, and the static didn’t let you hear Steve’s surroundings. Loki looked at the floor, concentrating. He didn't find anything either, and was too far away to read his mind.

“Wait. What do you mean you can’t find him? You were supposed to keep an eye on him so he doesn’t get kidnapped again”, you said, opening your laptop again and looking for Bucky’s location. He didn’t have it on him.

“Yeah, that’s what I meant with ‘it’s all gone to trash’”.

“Okay, don’t freak out. Where are you?”.

“Hydra’s last base, top of the buil…”.

“Hold up, I have another incoming call”. You put him on hold and see who’s calling. It was Bucky, this time. You sigh out of relief. Peter watched you two concerned while approaching you with two coffee cups. You gestured to him to not talk, and Loki had started to type things in your computer. “Buck, where are you? What happened?”.

On the other side of the line, you didn’t get a specific answer. You heard muffled noises that you still couldn’t quite figure out what they meant, and more than one person behind the phone.

“Buck, you there?”, you asked once again. Bucky’s voice filled the silence with a heartrending scream of agony. You almost dropped your phone, and your heart beated to the speed of light. Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. They have him. “Buck!”.

“Three hours”, called someone, probably one of the Hydra butchers. “You have three hours”.

“Three hours for what?!”, you tried to hold them on the line while tracing the call. It was from a specific coordinate, nobody could get there unless they teleported. Luckily, you had the perfect person for the job. Loki looked at you quizzically.

"Do we not have better people on it? Can't Stark go?".

You returned to Steve’s call, while thinking about some other alternative than taking you three there (including Peter). “They have Bucky. Location’s very far away from where we all are, so you try to get out of there and go to Asgard with Thor; they’ll try to kidnap you too, and Hydra’s resources are global. No, don’t argue, you screw up, now you do exactly as I say”.

“Do you think they’re the same that hijacked the ship on the first part of the mission?”, asked Loki once you cut the call.

“They might. We have to go get him, there's no other way. The rest of the team comes back tomorrow and they can't leave”.

“No, I have to go”, said Loki. “But I’m supposed to stay with you two and make sure you’re not endangered, and I’m sure if I leave you here all alone, you’ll try to come by your own means”.

“Which means”, you added, “if you take us with you, you can make sure we don’t endanger ourselves”.

“This is a terrible idea”.

“But the only one so far”, you convinced him. “Pete, feeling like going on a dangerous mission?”.

“Hell yeah!”, he said eagerly. Loki was not very fond of his enthusiasm.

“I can do this”, you assured him. “Do you trust me?”.

“Yes”. He didn’t hesitate. “But I don’t trust them. You two will stay behind me facing the danger, alright? Nothing of wanting to play heroes”.

“Got it. Let’s suit up, fellas. Bucky’s waiting”.

[the-duke-of-nuts]

The Battle Over Wine

 After 3 months I’ve finally gotten around to finish writing one of the Loceit headcanons/prompts as a oneshot! This is the first fanfic I’ve ever written that’s in actual sentences and not in script form so forgive the MANY grammar mistakes and shitty plot for I am terrible at writing and don’t know how spacing works on Tumblr (*cough* Betas hit me up *cough*) ANYWAYS literally nothing in this makes sense but it’s fanfiction so roll with it. Hope you enjoy I guess!

Prompt/Headcanon by the amazing royalty of Sanders Sides headcanons/prompts @imma-potatoo: Janus and Logan constantly battle over which wine is better (they are both wine moms) Janus says red wine, Logan says white. They can and will get into hour long debates over this

Pairing(s): Loceit, Background Dukexiety

Word Count: 2,400

Warnings: Alcohol, Arguing, Blood mention (Nothing major just comparing the color to wine), Remus being Remus (Let me know if there's anything else)

It was a typical day at the mindscape for the Braincell Gays. They had just finished filming a video with Thomas about helping him with his mental health and his overworking issues. Janus thought both of their inputs and solutions were a success and decided to have some celebratory wine with Logan.

"Today was a success, wouldn't you say darling?" Janus said wrapping his arms around Logan's waist. "I must admit, today was pretty satisfactory, especially since we both helped Thomas with his dilemma and we were both actually listened to for once." Logan replied wrapping his arms around Janus' neck. Janus smiled and pressed a quick soft kiss against Logan's lips to which Logan of course reciprocated. "I say this calls for a celebration." Janus said. "What did you have in mind?" Logan asked, curiously. Janus smirked and summoned two empty wine glasses "I think you know~" "Ah yes, how can I forget your traditional celebratory wine." Logan playfully rolled his eyes. 

"Oh you know you love it".

 "You're correct about that." Logan chuckled.

 Despite both of them having "serious" and "professional" demeanors around the other sides they enjoyed the little moments where they can actually goof off and make each other laugh and smile during their alone time.

 "So, what will it be for the menu for today my love? Will it be the best and most savory of flavors of Roscato red wine, or are we feeling a little fancy and want to celebrate with champagne instead?" Janus asked. "Oh, well I was thinking we should have something far much more adequate like white wine." 

The sound of glass shattering immediately followed after Logan’s response,

 "I beg your pardon?" Janus stared in disbelief trying to process what his lover had just said. Logan, his darling, the light of his life, his beloved, had just disrespectfully claimed that WHITE wine was better than red in his own home! Well, their home and the other sides' home but that's besides the point! This is wine they're talking about here! "Well, I thought I made myself clear but I shall repeat myself, I said that I was thinking we should have something much more adequate than red wine which I suggested white instead." 

Janus took a deep breath in trying to keep his composure

 "Starling?"

"Yes Janus?"

 "You know I love you right?"

 "Of course I do, you show and tell me everyday."

 "Well you're making it reeeeeal hard for me to want to show and tell you right now." 

"Why? Is it because I was simply stating facts that white wine is much more superior than red?" Logan crossed his arms raising an eyebrow. "Those are NOT facts those are lies! Red wine is much more tastier than white wine!" Janus argued. "Yeah, if you have a figurative bitter tooth! Red wine is way too bitter and the sweetness isn't as flavorful as white wine!" Logan argued back. 

"Y'know considering the fact that we have to deal with 4 other nincompoops in this damn house you'd be glad that red wine is stronger than white!"

"Janus, just because red wine contains more ABV than white wine doesn't make it the better beverage!" 

"Oh says who!?"

 "The literal personification of LOGIC and literally anyone who isn't you!"

 "Okay you know what? That's it!" 

Janus has had enough of the ridiculous bickering and decided to take matters into his own hands by summoning himself, his darling nerd, and all of the other sides back in the same exact courtroom him and Patton were in trying to convince Thomas to go to the wedding or callback. 

"We're going to settle this debate once and for all!" Janus dramatically pointed at Logan. "Janus, this is ridiculous! Who exactly are we defending for this to be a courtroom scenario!?" Logan glared at his lover. "Ourselves and the law of wine!" Janus declared. "What the hell does that even mean!?" An annoyed, confused Virgil yelled from the jury box sitting next to Remus and Patton. "Hush Virgil the adults are talking." Janus said not taking his eyes off of Logan.

"We're the same age!" 

"ENOUGH chit chat and questions." Janus made Virgil cover his own mouth growing tired of his complaining and faced Roman "Now, your honor would you kindly read off the charges please?" "Oh, we're doing this again, well alright let's see here uh, The state of Logan Sanders yadda yadda yadda, Janus, prosecuting for the state of Logan Sanders, under oath, information makes that Logan Sanders... Count one: Unlawfully and disrespectfully claimed that one alcoholic beverage was better than the other. Count two: Has terrible taste in drinks but better taste in men. Count three: Being too damn attractive for this world. Count four: Making Janus break two perfectly good wine glasses. Count five: Unlawfully not participate in self care by leaving his books all over the floor whenever he falls asleep while doing heavy research when he's supposed to be taking a break causing Janus to place a bunch of bookmarks in said books and put them away for him." Roman read off the charges Janus summoned him. 

"And how exactly were those last four charges relevent?" Logan asked. "Because they are and you know it! Your honor, continue." Janus said. "Being so charged, Logan Logic Sanders, how do you plead?" "Not guilty." Logan said deadpan. "Count six for being too confident in that answer." Janus coughed out. 

Logan rolled his eyes and shook his head, he didn't know who was more dramatic, Roman or his lovable self care wine loving snake.

"To make this quick and effective we're going to skip the other nonsense and get straight to the point by giving our UNBIASED views to each person and have them decide to see if Logan is truly a horrible wine 'expert'." Janus said as he arrived at the front of the courtroom 

"Alright, fair enough. Prosecution, your first witness." 

"I would like to call Remus to the stand!"

Remus appeared in the witness stand and immediately stood up and was about to jump over it and run "I can't go back to jail!" "Sit down Remus you're not going to- Wait what do you mean back?" Janus looked at him after doing a double take. "Nothing! So uh what's the question?" Remus immediately sat back down trying to change the subject. 

"Alright Remus, red or white wine?" 

"That's it?" 

 "That's it." 

"Alright, uhh hmm..." 

Remus thought about it thinking of the possible outcomes that could happen if he chose a certain answer. Janus noticed him struggling to make a choice and had an idea and smirked 

"You know Remus, if you're having a hard time deciding, just putting this out there, red wine looks like you're drinking blood and I think you enjoy that thought VERY much~" Remus gasped and instantly became excited by the thought "OOH! You're right! I could even add bone shaped ice to give it that realistic crunching sound!" "Objection persuading the witness with a biased opinion." Logan said. "Overruled. It's not really persuading since we ALL know my brother actually enjoys anything gruesome like that regardless." "I sure do!" Remus cackled at Roman's statement. 

Logan sighed a little frustrated, this was going to be harder than he thought.

"I think I rest my case your honor." Janus smirked and blew Logan a kiss as he walked back to his table to sit down. Logan blushed and shook his head to quickly snap out of it and walked to the front and cleared his throat as he adjusted his glasses and tie 

“Remus."

 "Nerd."

 "You enjoy pranking and getting on Janus' nerves is that correct?"

 "Yes that is VERY correct." Remus snickered. 

"And you despise when he forces you to partake in proper hygene as well as making you eat actual ingestible foods unlike deodorant and other non edible items?”

"Yeah."

 Remus crossed his arms hating remembering the times Janus would force him to take a bath and purposely safety locking the cleaning supplies cabinets just so he had no other choice BUT to eat regular food. 

"You also are not how they call a 'lightweight'?"

 "Nope!" 

That was a lie. Remus could drink three cups and he'd already become a drunk chaotic mess.

"Okay, so hear me out here." Logan started and Remus leaned forward becoming interested in what he was about to say. "Remus, white wine is clear therefore you can always "pretend" that you're drinking water so Janus doesn't question it for self care reasons nor harass you about it." 

Remus went wide eyed at the realization and wagged his finger at Logan. "You... I like you... Keep talking."

 Logan smirked, he got Remus right where he wanted him and continued. 

"Also if you were to spill it there would be no noticeable stain therefore making it impossible for Janus to become upset."

"Wow, you make some VERY compelling points Four Eyes."

 "Objection! I don't appreciate you persuading my son with your biased statements by using me as examples." Janus interjected. 

"Janus, Remus is not your son!" 

"You're right, my apologies. I don't appreciate you persuading OUR son with your biased statements by using me as examples."

 Logan rolled his eyes and shook his head not wanting to bother arguing with Janus about his logic. 

"I believe I've made my points your honor." Logan walked back to his table. "Alright, can I go now?" Remus asked. "Almost Remus. We just need to know your final answer, then you may leave and sit back down with the other two." Janus answered. "Okay umm on one hand I very much LOVED Jan's point about how red wine looks like you're drinking blood buuuut I would have to go with Nerdy Wolverine on this one and choose white wine because I enjoy pissing Janus off." 

"Yes!" Logan whispered victoriously to himself. 

"Oh you rat son of a bitch of course you would-"

 "Language!" Patton interrupted. 

"English."

 "Spanish! Now you!"

 "German. No! We're not doing a word association game!" Janus yelled frustrated. "Aw, what's the matter my charming smooth scaled serpent? Realizing you're losing against Logic?" Logan smirked. "NO and don't you dare flatter me using snake related petnames when you're looking like that in a suit!"

 Logan smirked at Janus' flustered expression, "Alright, then bring out your next witness then." "I will! Remus, you can leave now." Finally!" A relieved Remus announced as he summoned himself back at the jury box. Janus summoned Roman to the witness stand wanting to get straight to the point. 

"Roman?"

 "Yes Janaconda?"

 "You're the romantic one out of all of us correct?" 

"Oh my god you already know he is just get to the point!" Virgil yelled from the jury box slowly losing his patience even more. "Since you are an expert on the matter, would you mind sharing with the court which wine do you think is more romantic on a date?" "Oh that's easy, obviously red wine." "Interesting, care to elaborate?" Janus smirked and glanced at Logan. "Of course! Imagine having a romantic candle lit dinner under the stars or a picnic date watching the sunset, red wine gives those beautiful moments of being with your beloved partner a general relaxing and romantic atmosphere and it also tastes marvelous with various different foods. I'm actually quite surprised Specs didn't side with red wine considering it's good for digestion." Roman stated. "Wow, you really ARE a romantic expert! I don't think I have any further questions." Janus smirked and walked back to his table. 

Logan went wide eyed there's no way he can convince Roman, his answer was obviously clear but it's worth a shot. 

"Roman, have you ever considered white wine being just as “romantic” as red?" 

"Not really no."

 "Okay, well uh it can because-"

"Logan, I know you're trying here but trust me I know what I'm talking about. Don't get me wrong, white wine is just as delectable as red but I'm gonna have to side with Janus on this one." Roman interrupted and summoned himself back on the judge chair. Logan sighed and walked back to his table, he knew by the amount of confidence in Roman's answer there was no convincing him. "Fair enough..."

"Alright, Prosecution next witness?" Janus decided to summon Patton in the witness stand next and smiled innocently clasping his own hands together "Patton~" "Uh I know this is probably a really bad time to bring this up now but um I don't really drink wine so I don't really have an opinion..." Patton blushed a little embarrassed. Janus sighed frustrated and put his head down on the podium and summoned Patton back in the jury box "Of course you don't." 

There was only one person left and that person was Virgil, it was 2 out of 2 and his choice would be the one to officially break the tie and put an end to this illogical ridiculous debate trial. 

Janus summoned Virgil in the witness stand " Alright Virgil, what do you think cause I'm sure we all know you don't have an important input." 

"You wanna know what I think!?" 

Virgil was fed up and snapped his fingers causing him and the other sides to appear back at the house and summoned two glasses of wine, one red and the other white. He shoved the glass of red wine in Janus' hand and the white wine in Logan's

 "I think the two of you dorks-" 

"Dorks. Whale penises am I right guys?" Remus interupted snorting. 

"-Should actually ACT like you both have a braincell and never debate about something as stupid as this ever again!" Virgil continued angrily. "Maybe the reason why they both don't have a braincell anymore is because they both fu-" Virgil interrupted his boyfriend from finishing his inappropriate sentence by covering his mouth and dragged him out of the room. Roman and Patton followed them not knowing what else to do. 

The Braincell Gays stood in awkward silence holding their wine glasses realizing their silly little arguement was stupid after all. 

"Truce?" Janus asked raising his wine glass. 

"Truce." Logan smiled and raised his glass as well. 

They both clinked their wine glasses together and drank their wine happily enjoying each other's company and soon made it up to each other by agreeing to have a self care day together the next day.

[calpalirwin]

Waiting Game

Request: Heyy! I have a request but if you find it odd you can not write it. Anyways. What if ash chase the reader for a time then finds out she doesnt want to be with him cause she wants to wait till marry... you know... what would be his reaction. Thanks 💖

A/N: There is nothing wrong with waiting, just like there is nothing wrong with not waiting. Your sexual experiences are yours to have whenever you are fully ready for that (or not have them at all, it’s your call), and you have my full permission to throat punch whoever doesn’t respect that. 

Word Count: 1.8k

And away, and away we go!

__

Ashton was usually the type of man to take “no” for an answer. He usually had zero issue brushing off the occasional rejection and going about his life. It wasn’t like it was hard. Sure, it stung in the moment. But in his opinion it was better to have tried and got shut down, then to have never tried at all. That, and usually he never saw the person again, which definitely helped in putting the moment of brief embarrassment behind him.

Then he had met you, and what he would usually do went out the window.

“Hey, can I get you a drink?” a slightly accented voice asked.

“No, thank you,” you said, turning in your chair to look at the stranger. He was tall, and you assumed well-built if the way his jacket strained against his arms and shoulders was anything to go by. His brown hair was perfectly slicked back aside from a few strands that curled stubbornly across his forehead. His golden green eyes drank you in, as his tongue poked out to wet at his lips. Your fingers gripped the underside of your seat to hold yourself steady. “I-I’m good,” you stammered, heat rising to your cheeks.

The man giggled. “Well… alright then. But uh… if you need a new drink later on… come find me, yeah?”

You were sure your ears were turning pink with how warm you were growing under this man’s attention. “I… will keep that in mind, barkeep,” you said as an attempt at flirting.

The man giggled again. “It’s Ashton, actually. And not a barkeep. Or bartender, or whatever. Just a man hoping you’ll let him get you a drink, so he has an excuse to talk to you.”

“Ashton? Hmm. Pretty.”

“Bet it’s not as pretty as yours.”

“Oh, what a line!” you laughed. “You must be quite the charmer, Ashton.”

“Yeah what you didn’t see was me talking to myself in the mirror, working up the nerve to talk to you. But uh… I’ve probably taken up enough of your time now. I’m uh… over there,” he jerked a thumb backwards at a table where a small group was seated, nursing their drinks, and laughing at something someone had said, “if you change your mind about that drink. Anyways…” he drummed his hands against his thighs, “yep… Enjoy your evening.”

It was a brief encounter that Ashton would have shaken off just like anything else. But fate had the two of you running into each other again a few days later.

“Guys,” your friend Sierra introduced, “This is Y/N. Y/N, these are the guys.”

Two of the blondes, and one of the brunettes nodded, muttering hellos and nice to meet yous, while the fourth man stood there with a slight smirk, like he was privy to a joke no one else was in on. When Sierra murmured something about getting drinks, and making the rounds, the group disbanded, leaving just you and the stranger who was less a stranger and more a familiar face. “I knew your name was prettier than mine,” he commented.

“No you didn’t,” you told him.

“Yeah, I did. I said that I bet my name wasn’t as pretty as yours. And I was right. So, how do you know Sierra?”

“College.”

“Oh, that’s very cool.”

“You don’t sound like you believe that,” you chuckled slightly.

“Well… I mean, college wasn’t my thing. But I have a great admiration for those who were able to do it. I’ve heard it’s not easy.”

“Neither is becoming a successful rock band at such a young age.”

Ashton’s cheeks turned pink as he rubbed at the back of his neck. “Heh, thanks. I guess we all pick our hard.”

“That we do.”

“So… Can I get you that drink, now?”

“The kitchen’s right there,” you pointed out.

“Yeah, I know. Strong, independent woman. Capable of getting her own drink. But asking to get you a drink is a lot less scary than asking you out to a drink.”

“Oh, so I scare you?”

“Me? Scared of you? No,” he waved his hand dismissively, scoffing. “You do make me nervous though. And I can’t figure out why.”

“Mmm, let me know when you do, yeah?” And with that, you started to walk off, in search of getting yourself a drink without Ashton’s help.

You’d only taken a few steps, when he fingers wrapped delicately around your wrist. When you turned to look up at him in silent question, astonishment on your face, he immediately let go. “Sorry… But… I’m gonna kick myself if I don’t at least ask. So… would you want to go out for coffee, or something sometime? With me?”

“I-” you started. There was no way to dance around the question now. It wasn’t that you didn’t want to spend more time getting to know Ashton. It was that doing so meant running the risk you ran every time you got close to somebody: losing them because they wouldn’t understand. And with Ashton being your best friend’s boyfriend’s bandmate, that meant that Ashton wouldn’t be someone who faded out of your life when the inevitable happened. The fallout would always linger, tainting everything.

“Don’t date people you don’t know?” Ashton supplied his own answer to your hesitation.

“Something like that. I’m sorry, Ashton.”

He raised his hands in surrender, “Hey, you don’t have to apologize, or explain yourself to me. I just knew that if I didn’t at least try, I’d regret it. No hard feelings. Friends?” He offered you his hand.

“Friends,” you smiled, shaking his hand in yours, and breathing a sigh in relief. Bullet dodged.

~~~

For the next handful of months, that was it. Ashton’s head spun with curiosity of the what ifs with you and him, but he kept those thoughts to himself in favor or respecting your answer. Until one day it slipped without him meaning for it to.

You were laughing so hard it was one of those laughs that was silent, your mouth hanging open, tears forming in the corner of your eyes, doubled over in your chair as you fought for breath. “See?” Ashton giggled more at your reaction than at the joke that had been shared. “If we were dating, it’d be like this all the time. Me making you laugh this hard.”

Your next wheeze ended with a sharp intake of breath. “Oh…” you sighed, straightening up in your chair, the moment of hilarity gone in an instant.

As the cloud of awkward started to wrap around the two of you, Ashton scrambled to fight it off. “I- I shouldn’t have said that. Sorry. Ignore me. That was… Sorry. Actually… I’m not all that sorry. And I know that I should be. I know that I should respect your answer. And I do. I really like that we’ve been able to become friends. But part of me is still wondering, and I can’t seem to let that go. And correct if I’m wrong, but I think it’s because I get the feeling that you didn’t want to tell me no. That part of you wants this too, but won’t give into it for whatever reason. And if I’m wrong, I’m wrong. I’ll shut up, and I promise this will be the last time I bring up something about us being more than friends. I’ll do that, I swear. But… God, I really don’t think I’m wrong here. Am I?”

You shook your head sadly. “No, Ash. You’re not wrong.”

“Then… why? Was it because you didn’t know me before? Are you waiting for me to ask again? Should I ask again? Or do we just pretend I never said anything because I probably sound like the world’s biggest cunt right now?”

“I-” you sighed. “It’s complicated, Ash. Would I like to go out with you? Yes. I would. But you don’t want to go out with me. You think you do. And I’m flattered by that. But, you’re not going to like going out with me. Maybe not right away. But eventually. And I’d rather just avoid that fallout.”

“Why wouldn’t I like going out with you? I like hanging out with you now. It’d be the same thing wouldn’t it?”

“It’d be exactly the same thing.”

He gave a short chuckle of confusion. “I’m not getting what the problem is.”

“I’m a virgin, Ashton.”

“So? There’s more to relationships than just sex.”

“It’s not for lack of interest, Ash. It’s a personal choice. Like… I’m waiting for marriage.”

“Oh. So when you said it’d be exactly like it is now, you meant exactly exactly.”

“Yeah. And before you say that you’re cool with that, let me just say that, yeah, you might mean that. For now. But eventually that’s not going to be the case. Eventually I’m gonna be the prude girlfriend, and you’re going to pretend it doesn’t bother you, even though it does because you’ll see that as a reflection of yourself rather than a choice I made for myself years ago. And those inklings of doubt will turn into resentment, and we’ll implode.”

“I get that that’s happened to you probably just the right amount of times for you to not only expect that outcome, but also refuse to see any other outcome. I’m not saying that it won’t be hard… Wrong word choice… Like, I’m not expecting it to be easy. Nothing worth having ever is. I’m choosing this hard, Y/N. And if you don’t want to choose it with me, then… Well, that just really sucks. But for what it’s worth, we already said what we’d be if we were in a relationship with each other. We’d still be us. Still be this. So, I still don’t fully understand your hesitation to keep doing that. But I don’t need to understand it to respect it. So…” The nerves overtook him then as he drummed his hands against his legs. “I’ll uh… see you around, I guess.” He stood up, tongue clicking in his cheek as he wondered if he should add anything else. “Oh! And please, don’t feel bad like I know you want to. I just need a minute to let this go. See ya, Y/N.”

“Wait!” you called out after he took a few steps.

“Hmm?” he asked, looking at you over his shoulder.

“You promise me it won’t be any different than now? That we can just laugh and have a good time? That a relationship doesn’t have to mean sex?”

“Promise. I want you, Y/N. Not sex.”

“If you’re lying, I will never forgive you.”

“When have I ever lied to you?”

“Never…”

“Exactly. So… Can I kiss you? Or is that off the table, too?”

The glint in his eyes and the slight smirk let you know he was joking, so you didn’t feel too bad for shoving his shoulder. “Kissing is fine, weirdo.”

“The word you’re looking for is actually ‘boyfriend.’”

__

Tag List

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[anomalocariscanadensis]

so. Blindsight. bleak as hell. i think the whole “everyone’s being extremely subtly manipulated by intelligences beyond their comprehension with precise results” thing is... well, it’s a compelling premise once, but i’ve already read Echopraxia. it gets kind of tiring the second time around, and i don’t really think brains work like that. but the aliens are very alien, and the whole thing with the first contact protocol was cool.

an interesting thing about siri’s relationship with chelsea is that he tries to not act like a chinese room in it - he tries to actually be himself with her - and it falls apart because himself just completely sucks ass and can’t interact with people. if he’d been a true chinese room he could have done whatever was necessary to get the best outcome, but he doesn’t. some bits were relatable but thankfully not the “explaining through evolutionary psychology why our relationship is doomed” sort of thing, jesus

the rest of this is going to be various nitpicking disagreements i had, because it is indisputably that sort of book.

vampires are obviously rather ridiculous, just too many convienient things all in one place. the crucifix glitch, obviously, but also, how do you evolve multi-generation hibernation that fast? when you must eat one singular species, and failure to hibernate means you completely wipe out your obligate prey and make your territory uninhabitable? and the longer you hibernate, the fewer generations per timespan *to* evolve in? i’d accept this sort of thing in a book that didn’t have a list of scientific citations at the end but it just doesn’t fit as well

the rationale behind Technology Implies Belligerence seems simply wrong. Sure, if you have all your needs perfectly met you don’t need to develop more technology, but the more extreme the competition, the less leeway you have to set up long-term things and the less free time to spend on idly thinking up new ideas rather than directly competing. I’m fairly certain if you tried to track it, you’d find most technological progress throughout history comes from societies with less day-to-day competition due to surpluses, etc.

Rorschach actually kind of proves this - their whole “sit around generating ATP anaerobically for thousands of years” strategy doesn’t work if you get eaten halfway through

Since Rorschach didn’t attack the humans until after they’d hit it with a probe that it actively told them not to do, it might just be wrong in-universe. Who knows?

there’s a lot of questionable evopsych, but I’m not sure how much the book itself puts stock in evopsych, vs. just Siri as a character putting too much stock in evopsych.

he does get called out for thinking he’s objective when he’s just projecting his own opinions onto other people

also one of the main conclusions he draws from evopsych is “every heterosexual relationship is doomed” (nothing to say about gay relationships, naturally) which seems obviously false enough that I’d suspect it’s a personal bias to the character

but it’s the sort of book where i’m not sure if that even counts

EDIT: i misremembered part of it, he was wrong about Bates plotting to mutiny. i remembered thinking she’d mutinied when her drone fucked up Sarastri, but forgot that she later confirmed it wasn’t her. so yeah i think the really dumb evopsych stuff can mostly be chalked up to Siri being biased

the consciousness as parasite thing is obviously an interesting sci-fi premise but i don’t actually buy it, at least not for Earthly life

chimpanzees do actually pass the mirror test, apparently

my personal experience is that, when i focus on it, i have a lot of really quick pseudo-conscious thoughts before they pass up more slowly into full consciousness, but not all of them end up getting into consciousness. i’d be surprised if consciousness didn’t serve the purpose of, at minimum, taking the good bits of unconscious thought and reinforcing them so they get stored better.

Blindsight’s perspective on consciousness does seem to have language being a product of genuine consciousness, because Rorschach can’t do it. but how the fuck else are humans supposed to communicate, besides language? Maybe you can theoretically have intelligence without consciousness, but if it’s necessary for language then I don’t think you get complex human societies without consciousness, even if they’re individually more efficient.

vampires seem to be able to do language which is a bit weird if they’re not really conscious? but also, like, they can’t do complex societies because they’re so individually territorial, so that’s an enormous disadvantage anyway. i suspect they’d have died out even without the crucifix glitch.

“you don’t need consciousness to do math/science/whatever because of a few anecdotes of people waking up having dreamed whole theorems” is completely unconvincing. like, okay, how much of the work did they do consciously beforehand? how big of a leap was the dream, how complete was it, how much did they have to do consciously to make it rigorous? how often do people wake up with incorrect ideas in their heads?

this sort of thing was more plausible with the Bicamerals in Echopraxia because they were basically magic. applying it to actual humans falls rather short.

also I think his evolutionary reasoning in his “dodo” analogy isn’t quite the right line of thought for the point he’s making. Consciousness, as he frames it, is an extra energy cost for no real benefit which persists only because we’re not facing enough selection pressure to weed it out. But the dodo lost flight because it was excessive and useless for its island, which is the exact opposite situation.

A dodo analogy would be appropriate if consciousness was useful when facing unexpected problems but useless on earth due to human dominance, so we evolved out of it

a better comparison might be the Irish Elk, which is often thought to have gone extinct due to its enormous antlers. Its antlers were way too large to be beneficial to survival, but they persisted and grew bigger over time due to sexual selection. then the argument becomes that consciousness makes you more likely to get laid but is actually bad otherwise. still questionable, but at least fits better

[osakaso5]

Minami Natsume Twelve Hits! Rabbit TV Part 1: Twelve Hits!

Part 2 | Part 3

Haruka Isumi: "RADIO STATION Twelve Hits"?

Torao Mido: Ah... Isn't that the radio show IDOLiSH7 was on last year?

Minami Natsume: TRIGGER and Re:vale also participated in it.

Toma Inumaru: That's right! And we're gonna be on Twelve Hits! this year!

Torao Mido: Hmm.

Toma Inumaru: Why dont you look more interested!?

Torao Mido: It's not like we haven't done a bunch of radio shows before, right? If anything, you're a little too excited.

Toma Inumaru: Hold on... This is Twelve Hits! we're talking about! The famous radio show practically everyone in Japan’s heard of!

Toma Inumaru: It's been on air ever since we were kids, so you've got to have listened to it at least once, right?

Haruka Isumi: Nope. I like RabbiTube better, anyway.

Torao Mido: Haha, you're such a modern kid. Not that I've listened to it, either.

Toma Inumaru: You've gotta be kidding me!

Minami Natsume: I've listened to it. It's a monthly broadcast that has a new host each time.

Minami Natsume: I even appeared in it once when I was still a child actor.

Toma Inumaru: Seriously, Mina..!? That's awesome..!

Toma Inumaru: I've sent a couple messages to it, but they never got read on air. ...So you've already been on it, huh..!

Minami Natsume: Oh dear. If you open your eyes so wide, they'll fall out.

Minami Natsume: Though I must say, I like being gazed at so intensely that it might result in your loss of sight.

Haruka Isumi: Eek... Don't say scary stuff like that..!

Torao Mido: I see. In other words, this radio show is amazing enough that some people would even sacrifice their precious eyes for it.

Toma Inumaru: ...Ahem. In any case, we've got a really cool job ahead of us!

Toma Inumaru: The shows from last year were a lot of fun, too!

Torao Mido: You listened to them?

Minami Natsume: So, you listened to them.

Haruka Isumi: You did?

Toma Inumaru: S-should I not have..? Why are you all looking at me like that!?

Torao Mido: No reason.

Haruka Isumi: No reason?

Minami Natsume: No reason in particular.

Toma Inumaru: You three always work together perfectly at times like these...

Minami Natsume: I was simply commending you for having a genuine interest in even the hosts   who weren't your friend, Nanase-san, without so much as gathering intel on them.

Torao Mido: Hmph. Nothing we could've done about that. Toma wants to be friends with those guys. Probably because he's not satisfied with us.

Haruka Isumi: Torao, stop sulking like a little kid. He's not gonna understand that you want him to pay more attention to you unless you tell him.

Torao Mido: I'm not sulking. I was just pointing out that he goes on and on about people other than us.

Toma Inumaru: ...I just thought it looked fun, the way they were giving each other requests for the show... I kinda wanted to try it, too...

Toma Inumaru: Listening to them made me think about how fun it'd be to do that with you guys!

Torao Mido: Oh..?

Haruka Isumi: Hmm..?

Minami Natsume: So, you want us to complete requests for you.

Toma Inumaru: That's right! Some of them could get pretty crazy and extreme, but it just seemed like something members of the same group do together!

Haruka Isumi: Yeah... I guess Tenn Kujo seemed pretty happy when he got a request from his little brother.

Toma Inumaru: Yep. So you did listen to it, after all!

Haruka Isumi: Huh? Ah..!

Haruka Isumi: N-no I didn't! I just happened to hear it from a car radio on my way somehwere.

Toma Inumaru: If you already know what the show's like, then that makes things easier! Apparently we'll also get requests from the listeners.

Toma Inumaru: Make sure to come up with good ones!

Minami Natsume: Very well. You'll answer anything, won't you?

Torao Mido: Feels nice to be on the asking end of a relationship for once.

Haruka Isumi: Let's rebel like we always do, even on radio! 

- - - -

Toma Inumaru: Is everybody here? Our next radio host's Mina. Let's get working on those requests!

Minami Natsume: Thank you. I'm hoping none of your requests will bore me to death.

Toma Inumaru: Hey, quit putting so much pressure on us.

Torao Mido: What, are you that insecure about your request, Toma?

Toma Inumaru: Nah, I just get nervous when Mina's expectations are high...

Haruka Isumi: You're so lame, Toma. Can I go first, then?

Torao Mido: Haha. Our youngest is taking the lead again. Sure, go ahead.

Haruka Isumi: Hmph. It's your fault for being slow.

Haruka Isumi: ...Minami, reply to my RabbitChat message immediately.

Minami, Toma, & Torao: Message..?

Minami Natsume: Er... You haven't sent me any new messages...

Haruka Isumi: I don't mean right now, I mean during the show! That's my request!

Minami Natsume: Why during the show?

Haruka Isumi: You're too slow to reply! And sometimes you straight up leave me on read.

Haruka Isumi: I figured you'd care more if I ordered you to reply on live radio!

Minami Natsume: Oh dear. You could've just asked, you know.

Torao Mido: Don't you wanna take this chance to ask for something more special?

Haruka Isumi: I-I'm fine with this! My turn's over!

Toma Inumaru: Huh, you guys must message a lot. What do you usually talk about?

Minami Natsume: We do. He tells me about fun things that happened to him at school.

Minami Natsume: The other day, he sent me pictures of an adorable snake plushie. Apparently he, Izumi-san, and Yotsuba-san had stopped by an arcade after school...

Toma Inumaru: Oh, so they were playing the claw games. That sounds fun, Haru..!

Torao Mido: Hey, Haruka. How come you didn't send me anything?

Toma Inumaru: Are you seriously gonna get hung up on that..?

Haruka Isumi: I just thought it looked kinda like Minami... That's it!

Minami Natsume: Hee hee, thank you. I'm glad you're having fun with your friends.

Haruka Isumi: T-they're not my friends!

Haruka Isumi: Anyway, you need to start messaging me more!

Minami Natsume: Oh my. I appreciate your passion.

Haruka Isumi: ...Hmph.

Toma Inumaru: Okay! I'm next!

Toma Inumaru: Can you binge a bunch of food?

Minami Natsume: ...Binge?

Toma Inumaru: You emptied all those   bowls when we had that shoot at the ramen  place, remember? I wanna know how much  food a skinny guy like you can eat!

Minami Natsume: I'll eat when I need to, but I'm not sure if  I want to test my limits...

Haruka Isumi: ...Would it even be any fun to listen to him eat?

Toma Inumaru: ...Ah.

Torao Mido: Haha, he's got a point. You need to remember that this project's audio only.

Toma Inumaru: Well... You could still do a food report! You can describe a food just fine, can't you?

Minami Natsume: Sigh... Not another food-related project.  

Toma Inumaru: Huh!?

Minami Natsume: You must be very fixated on food for some reason.

Toma Inumaru: N-no, I'm not! I just thought it might be nice..! And there's no guarantee that you'll end up with my request, anyway!

Minami Natsume: Hmm...

Toma Inumaru: D-don't gimme that look... H-hey, Tora!

Torao Mido: ...I'm not gonna help you out of this mess.

Haruka Isumi: Loser...

Minami Natsume: ...Hee hee. You're clearly plotting something. Now I'm curious to see what your request will be like.

Toma Inumaru: L-let's move on! Go ahead, Tora!

Torao Mido: Sure. I'll wrap this up nicely.

Torao Mido: As for my request... You're gonna have to wait until the broadcast to hear it.

Minami, Haruka, & Toma: ...What?

Haruka Isumi: What's that supposed to mean?

Torao Mido: It means my request will be a secret unless he ends up getting it.

Torao Mido: We don't have any reason to care about predetermined outcomes.

Torao Mido: What you get and how you respond is all up to you, Minami.

Minami Natsume: ...Haha. That's so typical of you... Or all of us, rather.

Torao Mido: Isn't it exciting?

Minami Natsume: Yes, very.

Toma Inumaru: I hadn't thought of that. Just remember that you gotta have a request ready by the broadcast, okay Tora?

Torao Mido: Yeah, I'm just getting started. 

Haruka Isumi: Getting started with what? Is it really that complicated?

Torao Mido: Wait and see.

Minami Natsume: Each of your requests were so unique that I doubt I'll have any leeway to be bored.

Toma Inumaru: Well, duh! This is our radio show.

Torao Mido: I hope we won't have to be bored listening to you, either.

Haruka Isumi: Go wild.

Minami Natsume: Just who do you think I am, exactly?

Minami Natsume: My performance will be top-notch, as always. 

End of Part 1.

[miss-choco-chips]

Good influence, bad influence.

Tim is one of those, and he gets the other one. Guess which is which. Ft a murder kitten, two oblivious birds, a divorce-preventing baby and a murderous mother.

(Thanks to @the-quiet-carrotcake who helped me think this through on chat and gave me ideas (THANKS BABE), and tagging @animemangasoul because they understand my need to ALWAYS include Kon when writting about Tim.

This sat on my wips for so long now, so I’m not even proofreading it. Just take it away, please)

-----.-----

-Are you sure I can’t just stab her?

-Really sure.

-How much?

-Like, 100% sure.

-You told me once it’s impossible to ever/

-...be 100% sure of something, I know. Which is how you know I mean it now.

Damian puffed his cheeks. Tim was sure that, in his mind’s eye, he looked dignifiedly annoyed. In reality, it was adorable. But since Damian currently held his right hand hostage, and was probably holding onto his dagger inside his pocket with the other one, he didn’t want to risk pointing it out. He just tugged him away, swimming through the masses, as Damian had called them upon entering the ballroom.

-But why not? 

It was as close to a whine a sound as the kid could make, which upped his adorable factor another notch. 

-You’d get blood on your suit, for one. And then, my mom would kill you.

A little shudder at the mention of Janet Drake, though the kid composed himself quickly- I wouldn’t let a single drop fall on me, cousin. I’m not an amateur.

Since Damian would have used another, more offensive word not so long ago, Tim ignored the pointed look he got when he said ‘amateur’. Also, the use of modern slang was something he was painstakingly drilling into him, so he was quiet proud when it bore fruits.

-Also, you’d draw attention to ourselves. And that woman didn’t even do anything worthy of such a reaction.

-She dared touch me! Treated me like, like… like a kid!

Pointing out that he, in fact, was one wouldn’t go well, so Tim’s mind offered an alternative route. 

-You don’t know? -he blurted out, feigning surprise. Damian looked up at him, eyes squinting suspiciously, and there, very well hidden (but not enough he didn’t notice) a little hesitancy.

-Know what?

Tim let go of the little, calloused hand, and placed both of his on the slimmer shoulders, bending down a bit to be face to face with his charge for the night. The blond wig and round glasses weren’t enough to hide Damian’s almost aristocratic features, but they sure managed to misdirect someone about his bloodline. No one would be able to tell he was Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul’s son, which was kinda the idea.

It had been a chore, to put the disguise in the proud boy, but Tim had been the one to achieve it when he dressed it as a training exercise: they had to make it through the party without its host, Mr Wayne, recognizing him.

Easy peasy, or so he had told mother when he assured her she could go make business with aunt Nicole and leave them be. He hadn’t calculated… well, other people.

-About Mrs Stingdom’s homeland.

Damian was too dignified to look over his shoulder at the lady in question, but Tim could see he wanted to.

-She’s a gothamite -he pointed out, because as Tim had suggested, he did his homework about who was attending to the party. A bit, at least. The story of so many boring socialites was too much to bear.

-She married a gothamite -he explained, doing his best to look stern about Damian’s apparent misinformation-. She’s actually from another land, which is why she pinched your checks. In her culture, it’s a sign of utmost respect towards people under ten years old who are still considered to be superiors, despite their age.

It sounded far fetched, even to his own ears, but he was playing into Damian’s social incompetency and his arrogance at believing himself above all others, which is why the kid nodded slowly after a few seconds, eating the whole lie in one bite.

His bespectacled eyes bore into his, brows furrowed. His hands went to Tim’s, still on his shoulders, a little unsure.

-Should I expect more of this… cultural difference? So I won’t be underprepared, should anyone else wish to pay me their respects in a new manner?

Sensing a chance to prevent a future stabbing, Tim was quick to nod. Mom was going to be so proud!

----.----

A little later that night, a new issue arose. Since Tim was pretty busy handling the seven year old, he had to forgo his usual Wayne-party routine, which was basically to find one of the sons and hide with them for the rest of the night.

Of course, neurotic bastards like them wouldn’t take a change in routine go like that. Because Bruce has instilled paranoia and curiosity on them like Alfred did with manners, and sadly, the last one’s teachings rarely showed up.

-Timmy! Here you are. I was worried, since you never approached us. Aww, who’s this kid? You made a friend?

He groaned internally. Dick, and behind him he could spot Jason, eyebrow arched at the novelty of Tim not looking for them immediately. He wanted to, thrived in the chance to spend even a few minutes with his idols, but duty calls, and his mind didn’t like the possibles outcomes would Damian and the Waynes meet.

-Hey, Dick… Jay. Good evening -he smiled politely, hand clutching tighter Damian’s. Don’t notice, don’t notice, please don’t notice.

To his immense relief, none of them seemed to find anything noteworthy in Damian’s face, which… was also kinda disappointing, despite him wishing for it. Like, yeah, the wig and glasses were good misdirect, but really? He would have noticed the similarities with Bruce despite them, and those two were supposedly detectives…

-Stop being so formal, kid -grumbled Jason, big hand making a mess of Tim’s styled hair. He would have complained, but… Jason’s voice and hand, okay? He was a weak teenager. Don’t judge him- Know ya since y’were  half that heigh, and lighter than my jacket.

Tim’s hormones ignored the comment on him being small, and  focused on the mental image of the mentioned jacket, most likely leather and well worn. 

…This was so not the time for  fantasizing. 

A tiny, calloused hand slapped Jason’s away, which promptly changed the mood.

-Don’t touch my cousin, you/

But Tim had prepared for this outcome, so his own hand rose just as quickly to cover Damian’s mouth.

At the word ‘cousin’, both heroes looked very interested. Tim was under no delusions, well aware Bruce and each of his adopted children had made their own background checks on him and his entire family, so they would know Damian’s claim to familiarity to be a lie, but they also couldn't really call them out on it without making it obvious they investigated him.

His head was already hurting for all the social maneuvering he had to do to keep out of trouble, and now, adding two concerned birds and one murderous kitten, it was even worse.

This was going to be a very, very long night. But both mom and Nicole had asked him, so he wouldn’t try to get out of being a (as) good (as possible) role model.

---------------.----------

Tim winced, muscles locking in a poor attempt at not showing it. From the look Conner gave him, at the other side of the room where he was being chewed out by Lex, he failed miserably at hiding his pain; which, in turn, enraged his mom even more.

-What. Did. You. DO?!

The hand not currently held by his mother went to his ear, protecting it from the almost demonic screech. He could see Auntie Nicole doing the same, sitting with Damian on the couch, sharing tea and cookies as they watched the whole show. The nine year old showed a surprising amount of sympathy towards Tim’s injuries, for someone who had been harshly trained since birth and had recently begun a career as vigilante (not that Tim was supposed to know about it, though). Or was it pity because of mom’s rage?

-You told me no tights and spandex! Never said anything about a mask and a hoodie, and Conner and the guys really needed my help with strategizing -he defended himself, because even if he shouldn't know about the waynes being heroes, he had been Conner’s friend since he found and subsequently freed him from Lex’s secret lab, which in turn warranted mom’s rule against heroing that he had just broke-. And don’t yell at me, I can hear you perfectly fine.

-I’M NOT YELLING! -she lied, tightening the bandage, scowl growing in power-, AND MASKS WERE IMPLIED AS A NO! Also, what are those if not thighs?

-Skinny jeans!

-They are indecent, that’s what they are!

On the other side of the room, Kon seemed to be having a less exhausting time than Tim. Lucky bastard, Luthor had less experience in parenthood, hadn’t yet reached the Scolding Mastery level.

-Hey! Auntie Nicole dresses like that -he points to the woman, who raises an eyebrow- and you don’t tell her anything! Look at her cleavage, you can almost see her bellybutton! 

-Leave me out of this -asked the woman, taking the teapot to refill Damian’s cup; he, in turn, handed her the cookies platter.

Ignoring her best friend, Janet snapped again- NICOLE ISN’T MY STUPID FOURTEEN YEAR OLD SON, WHO IS NEVER SEEING THE LIGHT OF DAY AGAIN!

-What light of day? This is Gotham, we don’t have sunlight anyway. And I’m not stupid, my IQ is higher than everyone’s in this room.

-IT SURELY LOOKS LIKE YOU ARE FROM WHERE I’M STANDING, HERE, RE-BANDAGING YOUR ARM!

Tim sighed, locking eyes with Conner in solidarity; or he wanted to, but the smug bastard’s scolding was over and he and Luthor had joined the Al Ghuls in their tea party.

-Come on, mom. This’ but a scratch.

-YOU GOT SEVEN STITCHES!!!! I can’t believe this.

She barely got her son out of vigilantism by monitoring his Wayne-Interaction and threats of boarding school and then he went and befriended a group of teen heroes and threw all her hard work straight to the trash. No, he skipped that part, he went directly to the dumpster and burried her good intentions under a pile of shit.

But really, she couldn’t very well make him entirely responsible of this, not when he got carried away by Conner’s ‘do the right thing’ speech. And Conner had came into their lives because of…

In blind rage, she finished her patch job on her son’s arm and turned in a flash to face Lex, whose face went quickly from amused to scared.

-WHY DID YOU THINK IT WAS A GOOD IDEA TO HAVE A KID WITH SUPERMAN?

Sensing she was done with him, Tim went to sit by Kon, who moved a bit on his individual couch so they could share it, though it was a very tight fit.

-Clone -he corrected helpfully, TTK bringing Tim his coffee cup closer.

-Did I stutter? And I wasn’t talking to you, was I?

Nicole seemed like she was having the time of her life right now- So hey, listen, between you and LITERAL SUPERMAN, who was the one on the receiving end when you pictured yourself having a kid with him? Like, who was getting it? Because, pal, odds aren’t in your favor, you know.

-Don’t be stupid, dear -huffed Janet, looking at her friend’s green eyes and calming don infinitesimally- If he was actually getting it, he wouldn't have resorted to having his kid to get his attention.

-IT’S A CLONE, AND I ABSOLUTELY DIDN’T MAKE HIM TO GET THAT ALIEN’S ATTENTION! He’s my enemy, not my lover, what is wrong with you people.

-Am I a divorce-preventing baby? -asked Kon to Tim, raising an eyebrow. The other kid just shrugged.

-Looks like it. Not like Uncle Lex had any other way to keep Superman from leaving him…

-I’m right here.

-I know, Uncle Lex. I love you, but you need to rethink your choices. If the man wants to go, let him go. Kon doesn’t need any brothers. I can’t deal with more of him, one is more than enough.

[anika-ann]

Hands Too Cold, but Heart of Gold - Pt.9

The Secret

Pairing: Steve Rogers x reader, (one-sided Matt Murdock x reader)

Word count: 2600

Summary: Avenger!reader AU, love triangle. You went on a date with Matt aka Daredevil. The outcome is… interesting to say at least and strange to be more precise. And while you don’t want to talk about, Nat clearly does. Well... like you have a choice here. 

Warnings: some awkwardness, swearing, light angst, and tons of fluff... and Natasha being the sneakiest sneak to ever sneak

Story Mastelist

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You were sitting in your room, dully staring at your wall, the scene replaying in front of your eyes over and over again. Well, not really; you hadn’t seen much at the moment.

Everything had been great. You and Matt had gone to a date – a dinner date, the most classical date of all and he had been wonderful. He had been a gentleman, pulling out a chair for you, which had been a little ridiculous, given the fact that at least to untrained eyes, he had been the one that needed help, but you had thought it was sweet. The food had been good, the wine as well and the conversation flew surprisingly easily for two people who had recently beat up someone together as their first meeting.

Matt was nice, sweet, funny, smart and… very objectively attractive. When he had taken off his glasses as the restaurant had started to empty, you had been reminded that he was also objectively cute.

Then you had left the restaurant, the night air pleasantly refreshing, his hand on your elbow for guidance and possibly more and about a half of a block from the Tower – which you had considered a safe distance for avoiding Tony’s sniffing around – you had said your goodbyes and kissed goodnight.

Matt was a fucking amazing kisser. His lips were soft and as smart as his talk, perfectly balanced closed-mouthed kissing, nibbling and teasing and— and for some reason, it had left you completely unfazed.

It had been awkward. Incredibly so. You had kissed him back of course, but quickly had said goodnight once more and the only reason why your heart had been freaking out in your chest had been because you had thought you had been a total freak. You were spooked to death, trying not to run the last metres to your place.

You had attempted to sneak into your room, but of course you had run into Steve; you managed to tell him that the date had been nice and once you reached the safety of your bedroom, you locked the door and leaned your back onto it, sliding down.

What the fuck was wrong with you?

That had been two days ago. You practically refused to leave your room. Natasha had come to check up on you and so had Steve – twice. You cowardly hadn’t opened the door and had said you weren’t feeling very well. You hadn’t lied. You had barely slept, thousands of different thoughts in your mind, tiptoeing around one single topic.

For some reason, you hadn’t fallen for the incredibly charming man women and men would kill for. There simply must have been something terribly wrong with you.

You whined, burying you face into your pillow for the thousandth time in the past few hours.

A beep announced a received text. You whined louder, expecting it to be from Matt; every single one of people who had your number lived in the tower except him.

It was Matt indeed.

Can I call you?

“No,” you muttered, planning on throwing your SIM card away. Opening the phone, you realized what a ridiculous creature you were. Such a coward.

You took a deep calming breath with zero effect and dialled Matt’s number yourself. You could do this. When you heard Matt saying your name through the speaker, you were positive that you couldn’t.

“Hey Matt,” you breathed to the phone, your quiet voice shaking.

“Are you okay? You sound… tired,” he noted with concern and you huffed out a laugh. That was one way to put it.

“Uhm… yeah, I am. A little. You? How are you, Matt?”

You found yourself genuinely caring about how he was. You cared for him. And when you thought back to the mission…. Why the hell did you feel the way you did? Or rather didn’t feel? What had changed? Why were you… broken?

“Oh. Okay. I guess.”

“You guess?”

“I… I wanted to talk to you. It would probably be better in person, but… I want to give you an easy escape route,” he muttered nervously.

You heart skipped a beat. Shit. Here it came.

“O-okay. What is it, Matt?” you asked, feeling bad for playing dumb.

“I… I wanted to— to say I really enjoyed our night out-“ WHAT?! “-it was great.”

You gulped, panicking even more than before. Oh fuck. Matt liked the date. Probably liked the kiss and everything. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck-

“You okay?”

“What?!” you shrieked, horrified you cursed out loud.

“That’s a no to the okay question then-“

“No! I mean-“ you blurted out, you fist hitting your forehead too lightly. God, you wished you could just bang your head against a wall and knock yourself unconscious. Come on, coward, out with it. “Matt, I gotta tell you something.”

“Alright. So tell me,” he encouraged you gently and you mentally screamed. He was so nice to you and you were about to be a total bitch. Again.

“I… I loved our date night. I did. You were so amazing, you are amazing and there must be something seriously wrong with me and I hate it, because I just don’t understand why— why-“

“Why the kiss felt like kissing your brother?” he offered silently and you whimpered out loud as he caught up. He didn’t sound mad, but of course Matt wouldn’t be mad, he was so fucking nice (and deadly as Daredevil) it hurt.

“Incredibly hot and skilful brother-“

“Skilful, huh?” he hummed, light teasing in his voice. Great, now he was being cocky, trying to cheer you up.

“Matt, I honestly doubt I’m the first person to tell you you’re an amazing kisser.”

“Touché. But thanks anyway.”

You would swear he understood what you were saying, but he would make you say it in plain English, wouldn’t he?

“I’m so sorry, Matt. Any woman would be lucky to have you, hell I swear I would be lucky to have you, it’s just… I don’t know. I swear I don’t know,” you whispered miserably, resisting the urge to hide you whole face in your hands.

“Hey, don’t worry about it-“ Excuse me? “That’s not something you can turn on and off— poor choice of words, sorry-“

You giggled involuntarily and absolutely inappropriately.

“You can’t control that, Gerda,” he said softly, the same tone he used when he was navigating you through keep-Steve-cold-and-alive mission. “It’s why I called. I… suspected you were torturing yourself over it a little.”

Wait, hold a sec-

“What do you mean you suspected-“ Oh fuck. OH FUCK. “You could tell. You could tell with your freaky senses, couldn’t you?”

Oh, wow, this was whole new level of awkward.

“Yeah, kinda.”

“Oh my god, someone just kill me already.”

“Gerda. Calm down. I’m not mad.”

“But I am! Jesus, I really should just dig myself a hole to crawl into and die-“

“Stop with the blasphemy and especially with the talk about dying,” he growled and you jumped at the threatening tone, immediately obeying.

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you already said that…. Do you think… do you think we can meet again? Not now, not this week, or yes, whenever you would want to. I like you, Gerda. If you let me, I would like to be your friend.”

You almost choked on your own spit. The idea was likeable for you in a way, but it would be incredibly unfair to him.

“You sure, Matt? I mean… that’s… I’m not being too full of myself, I swear, but…”

“But you know what it’s like to fall for someone and be by their side only as a friend?” he offered kindly and your jaw fell. Come again?

“What? I’m not sure-“

“Really, Snowflake?”

You blood ran cold at the addressing, your heart positively stopping this time. That wasn’t— wasn’t-

“You told me you loved him, Gerda.”

“Yes. And that he was family,” you added, panicking. Yeah, okay, so you had a stupid crush on Steve that was lasting embarrassingly long, but that would go away and— alright, you had no idea someone had noticed that.

“Yes. And you weren’t lying, I could tell. But I think we both know it wasn’t the whole truth.”

You turned into a statue with the loudest heartbeat on Earth. In the silence of your room, it felt like the sound was ricocheting off the walls, coming back to you. You loved Steve, that was no news, sure, but… but… never mind. It didn’t matter, because even if you did love him more than as a family, he didn’t, so— so that didn’t change a thing about the possibility of your inability to momentarily fall for another man.

You groaned loudly, falling back into your pillows.

“And finally, the blind man opens her eyes…”

“Shut up,” you muttered, caught between too many emotions to recognize either of them.

“Talk to him, Gerda. You deserve to be happy.”

“Excuse me?”

“…you know he loves you back, right?” Matt asked matter-of-factly and you wondered when the heck had you slipped in the shower to hit your head hard enough to come up with this craziness of a dream.

“Matt. You’re being really sweet, but please don’t make up stuff like that-“

“I’m not making up-“

You whined again, pulling the phone as far from your ear as you could. This was not something you needed to hear now. Or ever. False hope sucked.

Two loud knocks interrupted your misery.

“Hey, it’s Natasha, can I come in? You’re okay in there?”

“Matt, thank you for being so cool about all this, but I gotta go. I’ll call you – or you call me when you feel like it, it was good to talk to you, bye.” You hung up before he could say a word. For once, you welcomed the interruption and actually walked to the door, unlocking it.

Please, tell me we have a mission. Preferably without Steve, because right now I won’t be able to look him in the eye.

You met with Natasha’s worried gaze. “You okay? You sounded a bit…”

“I was on the phone,” you explained shortly, your tone indicating how much you didn’t want to talk about it.

“Okay. Uhm… are you ready to talk about you two days isolation? Are you sick? Because JARVIS can tell you weren’t sick.”

“Fucking AIs.”

“Sorry, madam,” the AI sounded from above and you yelped. Right.

“It’s fine, J.”

While you were talking to the AI, apologizing to someone who had no emotions thus probably couldn’t be offended, Natasha invited herself in and seated herself on your bed. For the first time, you noticed she had brought two glasses of red wine. You grimaced.

“Yeah, sure, come in, Tasha,” you noted sarcastically and she smiled innocently.

“Thanks. So… wanna talk about boys?”

You opened the door you had managed to close just before she asked that stupid question.

“Not really. Thanks for the visit. Door’s this way”

The spy rolled her eyes and sighed. “Come on. You were on a date and unless you were… taking care of yourself whole two days, too stunned to leave your room-“ Jesus, Tasha.. “-it’s didn’t go well. So. I’m all ears.”

You eyed her as if she just announced you were about to be a subject of torture. Which wasn’t exactly inaccurate. You closed the door again. “It was nice, okay?”

“Uh-huh. But?” she guessed and you let your shoulders slump, heavily seating yourself next to her. She offered you a glass and you just shook your head. You hadn’t really eaten in the past two days and drinking on empty stomach was never a good idea. She set the glass on your nightstand either for later or for herself. “Too much tongue?”

You looked at her deadly serious expression and you couldn’t help yourself. You just burst out laughing, the loud noise hurting your own ears after your time alone. The corners of her lips twitched.

“You really wanna know?” you checked and she wiggled her eyebrows. “No. Just the right amount of tongue. If I could take a guess, he took kissing as an elective in college.”

“Whoa, okay. So why are you making that face and why did you shut everyone down? Including Steve?”

You bit the inside of your cheek – it wasn’t exactly a secret you and Steve were really close, but… well. You really didn’t want to think about Steve now.

“I don’t know,” you said, realizing it wasn’t the truth. You knew. You were just having troubles to admit it and come to terms with it. “I… it just wasn’t there. I mean… Matt’s amazing. Like… I-would-pay-him-for-being-my-date-again amazing, but… the spark was missing. Which possibly means I’m frigid, but…”

Natasha covered your hand with hers – you didn’t even realize you were clutching the sheets.

“You know that’s not true, you’re not an actual Ice Queen,” she teased you lightly, but with the genuinely caring tone that made you realize that the whole team was already so much more than your team.

You had considered that before, but this very moment… you were paying more attention to your emotions than ever; which made you discover another thing. They were all your family. And family trusted each other.

“I guess I’m not.” She smiled at you, handing you the glass with no objections permitted. You chuckled and sipped the crimson liquid. “You know, you don’t need to get me drunk to make me spill all of my secrets. I told you about Matt rather willingly.”

Natasha grinned and sipped her wine too. “Oh, good. I need you sober.”

You narrowed your eyes suspiciously. “Why?”

“Later. Since you told me about Matt, is it time to tell me about Steve too?”

You choked on the next sip of the wine, utterly shocked at the words. Natasha’s reflexes saved your carpet when taking your glass away.

“What the hell, Romanoff?!” you rasped, another cough fit hitting you. She wasn’t impressed.

“Please. You could as well have the ‘desperate pining’ and ‘clearly platonic cuddling’ signs above your head.”

You were speechless, staring at the redhead, tears from the coughing fit blurring your vision.

“Don’t look at me like that. So I know you love him, it’s not a big deal,” she exclaimed with a shrug as if she was saying what the weather was tonight.

“Why does everyone keep telling me that?!”

“Everyone?”

“Well… you’re only second today, not that it makes me feel any better,” you mumbled, running your hand down your face.

Who else knew? Did Steve know too? The thought made you nauseous. What if he knew but never said anything, because he didn’t want things to be awkward between the two of you? Oh god, oh god…

“Huh. Gotta say that guy really is perceptive. I mean, he barely met you and Steve.” She sounded genuinely impressed. You hid your face in your palms, muffling another whimper that escaped your lips. “It’s not that obvious. I mean… I know about at least one person, who is perfectly oblivious. Otherwise he would have actually had the balls to tell you that he loves you back.”

Natasha’s tone was rather flat, informative, but you had learned to recognize the nuances in her voice. You could tell she was telling you something huge, yet, your mind was very slow with realizing what each of the words meant and what they meant together.

Then you finally made some sense of the sentence. Except you didn’t. You looked up, baffled.

“I— I’m sorry. I think I already had too much wine. Could you repeat what you just said?”

A smug smile appeared on the spy’s lips as she pulled out a flash drive from her pocket.

“Have a laptop lying around here somewhere, Snowflake? We need to process some evidence.”

────── ·❆· ──────  

Part 10 (final)

────── ·❆· ──────  

Tags:  @mermaidxatxheart​, @murdermornings​, @elisaa-shelby​ @ask-hellbent-tweek

────── ·❆· ──────  

Last part ahead... and not to spoil a thing, but yes, you can expect enough fluff to drown in it ;)

[ghostmartyr]

SnK 125 Thoughts

Things Eren’s Plan Has Made Better:

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.

.

.

Open, infuriated communication between people living under fear of imminent death! :) :) :)

This chapter makes me laugh. Almost nothing good happens within its pages, and it’s delightful. Eren’s stated intention of killing off the outside world is actively disrupting even the imitation of peace every society in this universe has.

He’s fighting for the protection of Paradis? See all these dead Paradis people who were just minding their own business. See also all these living Paradis people who are minding their own business into a civil war.

He’s ending the Eldian cycle of titanization? Nope, still got the inheritance problem to work out, and if the rest of the world dies, that just means nine people are forever going to be killing each other over it.

There is nothing in this chapter that is worth any of the carnage Eren has inflicted.

So I can’t wait to find out what it’s really about.

There’s a bad plan, and then there’s this.

No part of the world is untouched by Eren’s decisions, and even the people he’s claimed to be interested in protecting are actively suffering from what he’s done. Unless Eren’s sanity is such that he is pursuing a future where there is no one but him and a pile of bodies, there is no outcome here that he’s said he wants.

Which is good, because it means that we’re not done.

If this were a video game, and Eren was a character inside it with an open strategy guide, his choices would be the mark of a player looking to pick the worst possible ending.

[Eren] enters a farmhouse for the night, looking for shelter. [Eren] is discovered, and met with a warm meal.

[A] Say thank you for your meal.

[B] Throw the potatoes in the kind, elderly housewife’s face.

[C] Kick the table over and murder her young children.

[D] Commit omnicide.

Eren wants the D, so any other possibilities are out.

Paradis isn’t safe. Eren and Zeke invited global scorn at an international event.

Paradis isn’t safe. Eren woke up thousands of titans who remake the landscape by going out for a stroll.

Paradis isn’t safe. Every citizen living on the island has their own thoughts an opinions on what this is, and if they vocalize them the wrong way in front of the wrong person, they’re being subdued with violence.

Plus, at this point, the rest of the world doesn’t even know the titans are coming. The only people who are going to spend their last time on this planet in hours (days?) of petrified fear are interned Eldians, who are screaming warnings at everyone and getting beatings back. At best.

Eren announced his plans to every Eldian. They, unlike their non-Eldian counterparts, are privileged with knowing exactly how they’re going to die, and how little everyone is working to prevent this outcome.

If killing the entire rest of the world does work out, Eren’s actions have made it so that the people who have grown up in internment camps spend their last days even more miserable than they were to begin with.

Naisu.

As Pieck and Magath discuss, there is no way to stop this. Everyone on Paradis is in shock, starting fights, or pulling dying people from rubble. Staring out at the horizon in horror. There is nothing anyone alive can do about this.

Submit, and be free. It’s over.

Or fight and die.

That’s always the case in this world, isn’t it? Fight against insurmountable odds, and fall with your pride intact, or decide that this burning world is a good place to rest.

The remains of Marley’s military giving voice to that offends my sensibilities, somewhat. Magath actively pursued lighting this fire. Without his assistance, this never could have happened. The fact that he thought he was only scapegoating Paradis and eliminating his country’s military hierarchy so he could take control does not particularly make it better.

But the will to fight doesn’t belong to only people with squeaky clean morals. This, unfortunately, is not a story where only the protagonist side gets to have good philosophical views.

Landing Magath on yet more pages of this manga. Cheers.

And of course, we have the turnaround where Floch, a member of the Survey Corps, is now arguing that the fighting is done now. While there’s still titans roaming the world, causing death.

He’s never been a very good Scout.

“What’s so bad about submission...?”

Submission, Floch, is bad because it leaves fucks like you having the last word. It leaves people who smile about genocide because of how it improves their lives free to spread that poison and think that this kind of atrocious violence is a good thing.

The man Floch claims to speak for has never known how to submit to anything.

Eren’s love of the world, and of freedom, is not isolated. He doesn’t want his freedom. He wants freedom as a concept to reign. Humans are born free, and anyone who tries to disagree with that doesn’t matter. That’s been his view from the start. That’s the startlingly intense perspective that has him killing people when he’s nine.

The Paradis Eren’s current choices are making is not a Paradis worth fighting for.

So what do we get? Paradis finally, truly being the last bastion of humanity on the face of the planet? A rebellion of thought rising to object to the ideals that led to this tragedy? A final chapter where our heroes have the chance to save one island from itself while the rest of the world burns?

That’s awfully limited.

Not to mention that there are always survivors. People on the outside would always live, and they would always remember what’s been done to them.

Really, nothing done here has changed anything.

“In the worst case... we’d have to repeat the last two thousand years of conflict surrounding their power. All on this tiny island.”

Humans in this world are not particularly good at avoiding the worst case scenario.

One particular human appears to be actively pursuing it.

None of his supplied reasons currently support this being a good plan.

The only thing Eren will get out of this is death, and his public statement is against that--for Paradis.

Paradis has not been excluded. It’s just going through a more specialized kind of death than the rest of the world is getting.

So in conclusion for this part of the post, everything Eren has done has made the world worse, done nothing to progress his stated goals, and is just such a collection of bad ideas that a valid explanation is that Eren has completely lost his mind and there is no logic moving this train.

That being a boring story, we’re looking down the barrel of some hardcore Reveals to liven things up.

Bon excite.

I’m not going to bother with chronological order this month because why, but also because I think there’s a good chance I’d forget to mention Hange and Levi if I waited until the end.

So. How ‘bout that Hange and Levi. Both being alive.

Genuinely, the most surprising thing to me about this is that Hange not only located a horse, but somehow found Levi some quality bandages before he started bleeding out. How that has turned into finding it in their best interests to approach Magath and Pieck remains to be seen, but I guess the Marley-Paradis dream team is not as dead as it should be.

Like. I don’t disagree that stopping Eren is a priority.

I just really have no interest in forgetting that Marley is The Worst. On the whole, I think the manga’s been rather good about balancing the humanity of the characters with their vile chosen actions, but. I like having a clear focus of hate, and don’t feel a need for them to be further humanized?

Especially when, as Bad as all Eren’s actions are, MARLEY THREW THE FIRST DOMINO AT THE HOUSE OF CARDS, SPARE A SECOND TO THINK ABOUT HOW THAT FUCKED UP PEOPLE BESIDES YOURSELVES YOU FUCKING ASSHOLES.

They can share The Worst crown when Eren steals it. That works.

Anyway, yay Hange and Levi. They join the realm of the officially not dead.

Like Falco!

Hell. Talk about awkward. Connie and Falco are both easily identifiable through their hearts. Connie’s has just been through a few more brutalities than Falco’s. He’s worn down and bitter, whereas Falco still as his eternal fount of optimism going for him.

Sasha’s dad is right; Connie will hesitate. It’s in his nature. He’s found the one thing in the world he can bring back from this war, and he’s desperate for it, but Falco is a little boy, awake and thanking him.

Connie joins the Survey Corps back when it’s a death sentence. He doesn’t run away from the hard things. He fights and protects his friends, and that’s done nothing except break him down into someone who’s considering killing a child to save his mother.

I don’t think there’s much suspense in Connie’s eventual choice. That’s not to say that Falco’s free from danger (even if Connie decides against it, deciding against something after you’ve put too many of the steps in motion... yeah), but it isn’t even a full chapter before Connie’s being confronted with the nature of his work (protecting people) and the nature of this choice (killing person).

However, there are a bunch of people wandering around on horseback in the middle of nowhere. We’ve got Connie and Falco, soon to be joined by Armin and Gabi, as well as Hange, Levi, Pieck, and Magath.

None of them are going to wind up near the walls. All the tension will have to be derived from their interactions, but what’s there? Hange, Levi, Pieck, and Magath have the most reasons to throw down, but also the most experience to know that maybe it’s time to talk. Connie’s future decision is practically written in stone, so why bother taking Falco out into the boonies? A dramatic reunion between him and Gabi isn’t going to do much we haven’t seen already. Quality bro moments for Connie and Armin? We could have done that back anywhere.

We have a cast divided in terms of geography, but not much else. Only Floch’s gang is perfectly fine with what’s going on here. Everyone else is in favor of figuring out a way to fight it. Throwing a bunch of pairs out in the woodlands when none of them are going to be fighting seems like wasted panel space.

tfw massively secret reveal in the woods like whoa and it’s a race to bring it back to the rest of the cast and explain that not all hope is lost and things are magically better

I sense a plot.

Hopefully this part of it involves less dead children.

Also, it’s impossible to tell because non-populated Paradis always looks the damn same, but there’s a chance that any number of the horse groups could be near Historia.

She gets a whole mention this chapter.

Almost like someone cares about her.

That’s two separate people in two chapters.

Whoa.

But also there’s the whole setting sun thing, and sitting outside doing nothing but glaring at the sun is a patented timeskip Historia activity. So maybe now she’ll finally have something to do.

No one else really has that, admittedly. It’s all a lot of watching Eren’s plan, thinking, “gee that’s bad,” and dealing with the fallout of who is already dying thanks to Eren’s plan. Everyone is very busy, but not providing constructive solutions to anything except pulling people out of buildings.

Based on the world as it is explained to us, there is nothing anyone can do against Eren.

Manga please. Please give me the explanation that changes this. We know it’s there.

But yeah, that creates a very anticlimactic dead space where everyone’s solving the problems in front of them, and shrugging at everything else. What else is there, really?

I think I’ll be in the minority when I make the comment that this chapter brought back more of my pity than disdain for Floch.

He’s a crappy person doing crappy things, and someone should probably shoot him in the head sooner as opposed to later. That would not be a bad thing to have happen. He’s invested in raising an empire that no one in the world needs.

He’s also alive through freak chance that left him the sole survivor of a suicide charge, and when he managed to bring his commanding officer to the people who could save him, and bring some sense to the chaos, his actions are invalidated.

Many things could be solved with Floch if he ever was implied to feel a fraction of empathy for people not himself.

That said, it’s... very glaringly obvious that this is his radicalized response to trauma.

The volunteer he kills is left with a mangled hole in his face.

That’s how many of Floch’s comrades die in Erwin’s last charge.

For their pride and obligation as Scouts, and their belief in Erwin’s strategy, they charge. And they all die.

Except for Floch.

Floch’s turned into many things over these four years. A liar is high on the list.

But this moment, and when he talks to Jean, strike true.

Jean’s in shock. Too much has happened, and he understands far too much of it. He’s completely blank, and that is a surface Floch can speak to. Floch knows, and has never forgotten, the shock and trauma the fight can cause. He knows how to put comfort, when he talks to someone like that.

“It’s over.”

He can talk about the rise of a grand new Eldian Empire all he wants, but he’s only smiling when he’s talking to Jean. He isn’t smiling over the new beginning. He’s smiling when he tells a quiet, horrified audience that the fight is done.

Floch’s not a good person. He’s lost in a variety of ways. The war of thought between Eldians and the rest of the world stripped him bare after the battle in Shiganshina flayed him, and he let all of the rot consume him.

All because he happened to live through one of the bloodiest fights in their island’s history.

He should probably be punched in the face and killed. Whichever order.

It’s still a sad fucking story.

-glances at Armin and Mikasa-

HEY SPEAKING OF

This chapter is just the rest of the 104th who haven’t officially experienced it going through their complete mental collapse.

Armin’s in hysterics while trying to hold himself together. The fact that he can still do that second part puts him at the top of the tier list. Mikasa’s lost, with her only avenue left being explaining to Armin why him running off isn’t actually going to fix anything. Connie’s out on his own, contemplating child murder. Reiner’s unconscious and better off for it. Jean’s a wreck. Annie’s spent four years in a dark hole and can’t even win a fight with Hitch. Historia’s main contribution to this arc is being sad. Eren directly caused more than half of all this.

Our Heroes.

Armin has always been the idea guy. He’s the person you ask when you don’t know what to do next. Mikasa doesn’t know what to do about Eren. Eren is literally the most important problem to solve in this world, even outside their emotional complications, so Mikasa asks Armin, her smartest friend, what to do.

Cue the waterworks. Armin goes ballistic, and just like everyone always has, yells at Mikasa for caring about the only family she has left.

She’s taken aback when Armin says he doesn’t know what to do. For the rest, there’s only sadness. She can’t even offer comfort or a denial when Armin takes in everything he’s just said and says he isn’t the one who should have survived Serum Bowl.

Mikasa and Armin have always chased after Eren. Together. They’re the most stable part of the trio. Now Eren’s destroying the world, and the first thing Armin does is lose it with his other best friend for looking to him to be her stabilizing force like he always has.

In Trost, Armin comes to realize that his friends have never looked down at him for the reasons he looks down on himself. Mikasa and Eren love him for his own good qualities. More people start to realize how smart he is, and as the plot progresses, more and more pressure piles on, with people coming to depend on his brilliant mind.

It fails him here. The one thing he’s always been able to offer simply isn’t there. Just like against Bertolt, where all he could come up with was sacrificing himself.

If that had worked the way he thought it would, Erwin would still be here. Solving all the problems Armin can’t.

Mikasa and Armin lose their best friend, and Armin flips out on the one he has left, when what they both really need is those few days of sleep and some damn hugs. Leaving both of them rather ashamed of themselves and isolated.

They’re soldiers. Their job is to keep going.

Also Mikasa’s scarf is gone, and I’d assume Louise has it, but I’m unsure of what the Drama value of that will turn into. Put a pin in it and wait.

Probably the most ominous content goes to Shadis.

The idea that the Yeagerists have the island, so blend in until it’s time to rise up... that is a horrifying potentiality. The time it will take for the Yeagerists to have control of the island is probably slightly more than it will take for Eren to destroy his first city (assuming that’s what he’s up to). If our next climax is going to be a rebellion taking the island away from the Yeagerists... we’ll see a hell of a lot of damage first.

I guess that’s a given, with where the plot is headed, but it’s still appalling to think that Paradis has come so far only to be thrown back into cages when their walls walk away.

I really hope that Shadis isn’t pulling a foreshadowing card. I’d feel more comfortable if his scene came before the scene in Marley, so it could more cleanly be marked as a link to them, instead of a link of what might come to pass in Paradis.

Though the link still stands.

Mr. Leonhart wants his damn daughter back, you fascist jackasses. Staying in line for a decade hasn’t made him forget that.

Anything I could say about Annie and Hitch would diminish my love of their time together. Hitch joins the MPs as a selfish brat, and she lives her truest self that way, but she also saves lives. When duty comes knocking, she sighs and opens the door.

Annie’s a selfish brat too. She’s not as immune to seeing other people as human as she wants to be. She would still kill everyone all over again to make it back to her dad.

Who was a right bastard until he realized he’d done fucked up.

After the long series of poor parenting we’ve gotten, it’s painfully refreshing for Annie’s dad to apologize to express how much he cares for her to her face. He might have fucked up everything else, but he was sorry and he said it. He actually took the first step in doing better, and a decade later, he’s still waiting to complete that journey with his daughter.

Yes, okay, the bar is so fucking low, but he still jumped it. The existence of genuine love at all is a long stretch better than certain other characters get.

Lots of waiting yet to come. Nothing can be done, and Colossal Titans take a long time to travel. If there isn’t a prompt list about what x character does waiting for the apocalypse yet, there should be.

Everyone in this chapter is really just waiting for everything to die. The extinction of the rest of the world is taken as an inevitability, with the only question being how you want to go down.

The world ends with a slow scream that keeps growing louder.

Someone needs to tell Eren to stop doing that.

[aelaer]

☕ Opinion on all the Wakandans we know, all of them, including those that died in Lagos.

Opinion on Wakandans: general badasses. Wish it was a real country. Hope that the film's existence gives real inspiration to the people of Africa that have access to the film.

Now in order from least important to most important (well in terms of plot), from the people I can find in the Wiki because I've only memorized how to spell the names of 6 Wakandans, and the name Erik doesn't really count. (Erik's a very very good name though).

The Wakandans that died in Lagos: 🎶 Those poor unfortunate souls / So sad, so true 🎶 It must be rough being a plot device.

Zuri, aka T'Challa's uncle figure killed by Erik: Good guy. Died for what he believed in and his country. I admire his loyalty to T'Chaka and T'Challa. Was right to turn N'Jobu in to the king.

N'Jobu, aka T'Challa's actual uncle: I get that he wanted to help people. Helping people by instigating war is usually not the way to go. I mean, if this happened in 1850s America then sure, slavery is bad. I mean war's not great, but that's a topic worth fighting for. But trying to instigate a violent race war in the world in the early 90s for class imbalance? Doesn't seem like a good idea. The LA riots were bad enough in the US. And criminals of all races that ended up with Wakandan weapons would have just used them on either each other (gang wars) or the police (of all races). In other words, he was not thinking ahead at all. Innocent people would have caught in the crossfire as what usually happens. Or they'd be victimized by those (of all races) without scruples. He'd not be helping the trodden in the (American) black community by gifting criminals with weapons, because those gangs are often the people terrorizing their very communities. I hate gang violence- it's so senseless.

King T'Chaka, aka T'Challa's dad: I've major beef with him. He killed his brother, which may be his kingly right or whatever since he tried to kill Zuri, but to leave his nephew there? Alone and without help? That's fucking awful, man. I mean there was no good outcome after N'Jobu died, but leaving a kid like that was heartless. According to wiki, his mom died in prison when he was a kid. This kid would have been put into the foster care system which would be no walk in the park. That's awful. I can't believe he abandoned his nephew. It wouldn't have been easy but it could have been better. Also, I really dislike him for his part in the Accords. A lot. Him rushing it through was not good. So yeah, not my favorite character.

Ramonda, aka T'Challa's mom: She's a cool lady. No qualms here. She raised two awesome kids.

W'Kabu, aka Okoye's former(?) husband: I wonder if Okoye was allowed to divorce him after the civil war. I hope so. Anyway, he was cool until he, you know, sided with Killmonger and betrayed T'Challa. But that's civil war for you. I know anecdotes of childhood friends and families fighting against each other in the American Civil War and I imagine it's happened in many a civil war elsewhere. Still, not cool.

M'Baku, aka The Best One: I love him. I love how he was set up as being this awful brute and then he ends up helping save Wakanda and also have a sense of humor. He is the best and I just want to hug him. What else is there to say?

Nakia, aka the love interest: Definitely one of the best love interests in the MCU. She has a solid personality with her own sets of beliefs, wit, can fight (which is always great in a superhero film), and she plays a core part in both helping T'Challa in his quest for the throne back (by saving the heart shaped herb) as well as helps shape T'Challa's change of heart by revealing themselves to the world. She's up there with Peggy Carter for me. I'd love to see her as much as we saw Pepper.

Erik Killmonger: One of the best villains in the MCU, hands down. Jordan's ability to portray him as both off kilter and sympathetic was incredibly well done, and this character is one large reason Black Panther was such a fantastic film. For all the fun of, say, Guardians of the Galaxy and Doctor Strange, which are in my top seven MCU films (it's hard to rank films), they don't have a really well-rounded villain. The fact that Erik is sympathetic enough that there were a few (insane) people on Twitter who thought his plan was perfectly alright really speaks to how well he was written and played.

Okoye: I adore this woman so much. Everything about her is just fantastic. I love her dry sense of humor and her friendship with the royal family. I really loved that we got to see the conflict of her trying to figure out what Wakanda was, and what Wakanda she was fighting for. That she went against her husband is incredibly poignant. Overall for a character with not a ton of screentime, she's very memorable and a fantastic hero in her own right.

Shuri: Shuri is the type of character diversity I expect out of my 21st century entertainment. A young black woman that happens to be as smart, if not smarter, than Bruce Banner and Tony Stark? Brilliant. I was wondering just how old this character was in terms of original creation date, so I looked it up and lo and behold: she made her debut in 2005, only three years before the first Iron Man was released. It doesn't surprise me that she's such a young character (only 15 years compared to T'Challa's 54 years of comic book existence) because such diversity in comics has really, really only exploded in the 21st century. Even Miles Morales of Spider-Man fame is only 9 years old! Anyway, I love everything about her. The fact that she is so crazy smart but also manages to still remain cheeky and a bit of a brat to her older brother is honestly icing on the cake. I'm so glad she exists as a character. I look forward to seeing what they do with her in the future.

T'Challa: According to the comics wiki he's a graduate of Oxford! I have no idea if they carried that over to MCU lore, but I love that (and it's not rare for foreign dignitaries to send their children to places like Oxford, so). Anyway, he is an absolutely fantastic character and one I can see becoming a favorite during the Phase 4 and 5 films as he gets more time to shine. His character arc through CACW is one of my favorite parts of the film; it's fantastic to see him grow as a person and realize what the quest for revenge can do to a person, which in turn leads to a fantastic parallel when you compare him with Killmonger during Black Panther. That there is fantastic storytelling. I don't know if he'd have any reason to team up with Stephen but goodness knows I'd love that. I've only written him a little (in something unpublished as of now) but I'd love to explore his character further in the future. He's fantastic.

Hope you enjoyed that :P

[naometry]

Ronan and his hero journey

Alternatively: if Gansey is the Arthurian knight in the shining armor type or hero Ronan is the tragic one.

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS FOR CALL DOWN THE HAWK

“Once the spear was uncovered, it wouldn't matter if the hero's truest love or family was in the room with him; the spear would kill them anyway. Killing was what it was good at, and so killing was what it did...The spear, Dad told me, was him...He told me to make sure Ronan was the name of the hero, and not the name of just another spear.” – The Raven King

As we all well know, Maggie’s books have a lot of mythology and history in them. Varying from Glendower, Gwenllian and Boudicca to some less obvious ones, like king Arthur and his knights, the holy grail, to Fionn Mac Cumhaill, Fintan mac Bochra and finally, the one that I would like to talk about, because this is the journey that Ronan mirrors.

Cu Chulainn.

Before we start, beware that this will be quite long and I’m going with The Raven Cycle and Dreamer Trilogy timeline, more or less.

Cu Chulainn is part of the Irish/Celt mythology in the Ulster cycle. Cu is a demigod, son of a mortal woman – Deichtine, the sister of Conchobar, the king of Ulster and one of the most important gods in the Irish mythology - Lugh. In a very very very short version – this is the most popular version, there are others –: Deichtine was missing for three years with fifty maidens with her. They were turned into murderous birds that devoured everything on sight, so Conchobar and his warriors hunted them but were hit by a snow storm. They found a house and asked for shelter. In this house there was a woman and a man. The man was Lugh and the woman Deichtine. Lugh fucked off as soon as the morning his, leaving Deichtine with a child to take care of. A very powerful child.

It all depends on the source you’re reading really, but the most common version (at least that I know of, please keep in mind that mythology has different interpretations/versions depending on the source material) is that Lugh wanted an avatar to bore his power on the mortal real. In certain ways, we can say that Cu Chulainn is, in fact, Lugh reborn. Here is a Wikipedia small passage of him: “Lugh is portrayed as a warrior, a king, a master craftsman and a savior. He is associated with skill and mastery in multiple disciplines, including the arts. He is also associated with oaths, truth and the law, and therefore with rightful kingship.”

Does this story sound familiar?

Be it as it may, Lugh won. He got what he wanted in the end, an avatar on earth that bore the same power he had and then he is gone. Which is exactly what happened with Ronan. Niall got his dreamer, Niall is gone. Ronan was left to whoever wanted him and had the patience to be there for him. Who turned out to be just like Cu in the myth: Cu had Deichtine, Conchobar and Deichtine new husband, just like the warriors that where with Conchobar in that day. Ronan had Aurora, Ronan had Declan, Ronan had Matthew and later on, the Gangsey.

Well, speeding up ahead:

Just like Ronan wasn’t born Greywaren, Cu Chulainn also wasn’t born Cu Chulainn. His actual name was Setanta. Cu Chulainn is actually a title-kind-of thing. Cu Chulainn does in fact mean “The Hound of Culann”. Almost like Ronan “Gansey’s dog” Lynch.

The name was given to him because, at six years old, Cu Chulainn – part of the boy-corps at the time and already better them they all together, thanks to Lugh’s heritage – was invited to a banquet at one of the most famous smiths at Ulster, Culann.

Conchobar, who was the one to invite Setanta, forgot he was coming. So, Culann ordered that the hound of the house - who he said had the strength of a hundred men - to be freed to patrol the outside. As Setanta arrives the hound attacks him. And the boy, at the tender age of six, kills the dog smashing his head into a rock after throwing a ball so hard into the dog’s mouth that he mortally wounded it. As gruesome as this one is, Ronan’s new name is considerably less bloody. He too could have the power to do miracles that comes from heritage.

After all, what is Cabeswater if not a miracle that gave Ronan his new name?

But this is not exactly how the name “Hound of Culann” is given. Do you know why is that?

Because Setanta promised to guard Culann’s propriety until they could get a new dog. And so he did.

Many thieves, one greywaren, right? Many guard dogs, only one worth of Culann’s hound title.

Life went on, Cu Chulainn keeps getting more and more impossible things done until the point that some people just… got quite enough of him.

The thing with Cu Chulainn is that even with all the demigod fuckery, there were still warriors that could match him, in one way or another. Just like there is more than one dreamer and they all excel at different things.

What made Cu special on itself is a different thing. Ríastrad – the battle frenzy berserker mode that had his body contort in unnatural shapes and distorting him to the point of being unrecognizable as a human. This alone doesn’t seem much but when you put it along a few lines in Call Down the Hawk that I found specially interesting, it can be something else.

“It was The Dark Lady, the painting that had taken them hours upon hours upon hours to copy for the Fairy Market, but with Hennessy’s face and throat and knuckle tattoos. A perfect and cunning forgery, as good as theirs. No. Better. Because it oozed with the same magnetic, otherworldly desire that the original had and that their copy had missed. This was not a real-world copy of a dream. This was a dream of a dream. Perfect. Beyond perfect.”

Now, I’m not sure if the wording here is intentional or not but it seems to me that it means to be taken as Ronan’s version of The Dark Lady is a better of version of Nialls.

And then:

“And how would you know? Did you see the painting he did? Out of his head? It took him no time at all, maybe even better than the original Dark Lady. He said he might be able to do something just for you. You didn’t even let him try.”

Ronan might very well be a better dreamer than Niall. Is a better dreamer than Hennesy until this point – this can change along the series, so I’m not putting my hand on the fire for it yet – and is also an arguably better dreamer than Kavinsky, if you take in consideration the amount of tries he needed to get the Mitsubishi vs amount of tries that we are shown that Ronan needs to get the Camaro as stated in The Dream Thieves:

“Yours. I practiced, man!” Kavinsky gestured broadly to the field of Mitsubishis. “You see all these losers? It took me months to get it right. Look at that bitch!”

Now, this doesn’t mean in any way that Kavinsky is a bad dreamer or inferior dreamer or anything like that. Kavinsky actually is possibly on par with Niall but sadly we won’t be able to measure if because they are both so very dead. Niall exceled at the originals, like Robobee, The Dark Lady and another myriad of dream objects we see him with at some point or another. Kavinsky exceled at copies. He prided himself as a forger, as it also said in The Dream Thieves. I would even go a little further, maybe, and say that they also have another point in common in their dreams – creating life. BUT Aurora is not a perfect copy of Mor O Corra (and I can’t even say if this is deliberate or not so let’s leave this one open) while Prokopenko, on the very little we saw of him on The Dream Thieves, seems perfectly human. He is K’s favorite forgery, after all.

The thing with Ronan is that he can do both /and/ more. The thing with Ronan is that he had Cabeswater and then Lindenmere.

Which, tied with K, are the next point here.

Now, going back to Cu Chulainn’s story, Cu fell in love with a woman called Emer. Emer’s father, Forgall, wasn’t very happy with the idea that they could come to marry and probably would if he didn’t do something. Which is, in fact, very fair because Cu isn’t exactly a nice guy. He killed quite a lot of people, he is cocky, he is young and he is arrogant because he knows he is gifted and nothing will stand in his way if he puts his mind into it. Forgall calls him “the madman from Emain Macha”.

It does sound kind of familiar, doesn’t it? Even if it’s in a less tragic/dramatical way. Cu is in a path that has absolutely no other outcoming than self-destruction if he goes on like this. Here is why:

Another nice or not so nice thing about Cu is that at seven, Cu overhears the magician Cathbad – it’s nice to notice that not all scholars seem to agree in the term magician, some use wizard too. The important fact is that he is a druid and he makes prophecies. He is also the guy who gave Setanta Cu Chulainn as a name/title thing.

Anyway, Cathbad makes a prophecy for his students: any warrior that decided to pick up arms and armature would have his name to transcend all other Ireland’s youths BUT this warrior would also die really young. Can you guess what Cu, at the peak of his seven years do right? He goes on to Conchobar and asks for arms and armor. Now, Cu at seven was already a fucking menace and no arms were match to his strength. So Conchobar goes ahead and gives his own arms to Cu.

You can probably guess what I’m equaling Conchobar’s arms with right? Yeah, you guessed it. This is Cabeswater. A very dangerous thing in the hands of a teenager.

Now, going back to Cathbad prophecy, we know that K and Ronan are mirrors yeah? And that Kavinsky is what would have happened to Ronan if he didn’t choose different yeah? (Also correct me if I’m mistaken but I think it’s also said somewhere that dreamers tend to die young.)

But Kavinsky is a lot more than Ronan 2.0, he just has the same formula of a teenage dreamer with lots of trauma. They are not even close to be the same person. So, I present you the idea of Ferdia.

As I said before, Forgall didn’t really want Cu to marry his daughter so he proposes a plan to Conchobar – why Cu Chulainn doesn’t go ahead and train with Scathach? He would come back stronger and better right?

This is the time where you’re very welcome to slap me for giving this much information in a back and forth way but please bear with me I’m trying very hard to it all understandable without seeming too crazy. Just crazy is actually ok, thanks.

Now, Scathach is also part of the Ulster Cycle just like Cu. Known as the shadow maid, she is a warrior who excels at martials arts and in the use of the lance. She is, in fact, one of the most fearsome warriors of the Ulster Cycle and known to be a really good teacher. Scathach lived in Dun Scaith which more or less translates as Fortress of the Shadows/Castle of the Shadows. For you to be taught by Scathach, the first trial was to get in her home and then survive her training. It wasn’t even remotely unheard-of people dying under her tutelage and this was Forgall’s hopes for Cu.

Now, here I think it’s one of the most interesting parts. Cu has A LOT of fuckery going on in Scathach’s training that doesn’t matter much on the meta so let’s get to the parts where K is:

Kavinsky kind of fills a double role here – he has a little of Scathach as in: just like Cu kicks out her metaphorical door and demands that she teach him. (Among other things, but those are not important and this is already LONG).

Which is what happened with K yeah? Ronan learned what he needed with him and then fucked right off to nicer places.

Another interesting bit is that at the time she was teaching Cu, Scathach, as the warrior she is, was at war with her twin sister, Aife. Fearing for Cu’s life in the war, she gave him a sleeping potion so he wouldn’t go around and get himself killed.

While K motives weren’t nearly as nice as Scathach this happened too. Kavinsky repeatedly puts Ronan to sleep in order to teach him how to properly dream. Even if his properly dream is Kavinsky style – which we learn latter that his not the best way to dream for Ronan but that’s not the point I’m going for.

Long story short, Cu wakes up, defeats Aife, makes a son on her (this will be important afterwards, I promise) and fucks off to keep learning with Scathach.

Fits of parts of what happened between them yeah?

So here comes the next role K fills and this one he fills fully and not just partially – Ferdia.

Ferdia was also under Scathach’s tutelage and was the best friend – also depending of the source lover too – and during to the circumstances of the war with queen Medb which again, are not important here – he ends up battling against Ferdia. For better or worse, they were there for each other for quite a long time and loved each other a lot, until Ferdia’s and Cu’s circumstances and choices differed and they end up in different sides of battle.

Now, they battled for three days, until Ferdia got the upper hand, even with Cu Chulainn in his battle frenzy monstruous state. Ferdia had the advantage of an armor that was impossible to pierce so he called for Gae Bolg (which we will, again, talk later about) and as Ferdia heard of it, he made a mistake – leaving his chest open. Cu throws a spear at him which makes him distracted and then impales him with Gae Bolg,

While the situation is not exactly the same, Ronan and Kavinsky had a battle that was a lot like that. Kavinsky had Matthew, who Ronan loves more them himself and they battle for the right of it. Until Kavinsky gets tired. Until Kavinsky let things get out of control and commits suicide. As in:

“A second later, the fire dragon exploded into Kavinsky. It went straight through him, around him, flame around an object. Kavinsky fell.”

Again, I think Cu and Ronan are mirrors, so they don’t follow the exact same path neither the exact same formula. But I still think this is the right path to think about his journey.

Then we get to the demon, to being unmade, to Matthew, to Lindenmere and how both Ronan and Cu Chulainn hold the war for enough time until the enemy can be defeated.

This piece of Cu’s story happens both before and after Ferdia’s battle so please bear with my lengthy explanations.

First of all: the demon and how it ties to being unmade, to Matthew and the similarities is bores with the ríastrad. When the war with Medb started, the Ulster warriors were cursed – for the lack of a better word – and they couldn’t fight.

So, Cu Chulainn fights for them. During months he invoked the right of single combat with Medb’s warriors. Which is basically what he does with the demon during quite some time. And in the process he ends up being unmade. Now, the process of being unmade is described to being gruesome and violent into Ronan’s body.

He is dying after all.  

And it all happens because he is special. To Ronan, it happens because he is very deeply tied to Cabeswater, he made it, he is the first one that needs to go if the demon wants to win the war. Which is basically what happens to Cu too. Medb’s warriors tried every dirty trick in the book to take Cu out and he fought until he couldn’t to hold them.

Ronan (and Adam, but this meta is about Ronan) hold him down until they all can come up with a solution, until their win is possible. (The nightwash is a similar thing to being unmade, which also, again, happens because Ronan is Ronan, because Ronan is a dreamer, because Ronan has a big gift, sometimes too big for him.)

He is special, his gift is special, they both can do it.

So they did.

Which leads to Matthew and Conla, Cu’s son. While Ronan didn’t really meant to dream up Matthew and Cu for sure did meant for Aife to become pregnant with his son, the similarities are quite lengthy.

Cu Chulainn killed his own son and it was his fault. There is no way around it. He himself made Aife promise that Conla wouldn’t identify himself, that he wouldn’t deny any battle and that Conla would search for him. Conla did search for Cu and in a truth “the apple doesn’t fall far from the three” fashion he goes around wreaking havoc exactly like young Cu did, until Cu himself comes to battle him. As he couldn’t refuse any duel, Conla and Cu battled until Cu killed him with Gae Bolg,

Ronan, during a very long time, also didn’t know Matthew was his dream. They were brothers, how could Matthew be a dream? But Matthew is and Ronan almost kill him too in his battle with the demon. And now in Call Down the Hawk we see Ronan, once again, for some reason or another, is influencing his dreams. They all search for the riverside yeah?

Do you all know what else had a deep connection with rivers?

Gae Bolg.

How Gae Bolg is used depends a lot of your source material but the most widely known version is that Gae Bolg is a spear made from the bones of a sea monster. It’s a spear that divides itself in thirty barbs and it’s thrown with a foot. It’s a terrifying weapon that if it strikes you, there is no chance of getting out alive. But it has a condition: it can only be used in streams. Now, if Cabeswater was the first weapons Cu Chulainn used as a young boy, Lindenmere is Gae Bolg. Lindenmere is dangerous, it’s wild and it’s unpredictable.

Just like Gae Bolg, there is little chance of you scaping alive if it strikes.

As Ronan himself put:

“I let Lindenmere be more of itself, whatever it was in that other place.”

“And what it is over there is dangerous.”

“Dangerous things can protect themselves,” Ronan said.

Now if Ronan and being unmade and unmaking Matthew where tied to the first weapons Cu wielded, doesn’t seem too farfetched to say that Lindenmere and the riverside problem with the dream things is connected yeah?

Another similarity is the geasa. But this one is already on CDTH:

Even the most invincible heroes could be trapped by conflicting geasa. The mighty Hound of Ulster, one of the boys’ favorite heroes, had a geis to never eat dog (“Shame,” Niall said, “it’s very tasty.”) and a geis to never refuse hospitality, and so when he was offered dog meat by a host, what other choice had he but to spiral into tragedy?

One of Ronan geis is that he can’t stop dreaming. And what is the other? Adam? Declan? Matthew? Geasa means taboo, so what is that Ronan needs to do? Or can’t do? I’m dying to know.

Also you all want to know another funny thing? Cu Chulainn was so ferocious in battle that absolutely no one dared to go ahead and verify is he was really dead. Do you all know how they knew?

Because a raven sat on his shoulder and drank his blood 😊

   Please take this meta with a grain of salt, because this is my own interpretation of the story, of Ronan’s journey and my own studies in mythology in general. It’s totally possible I’m reaching a little bit too far too but who knows, right?

Also, I have absolutely no idea of why I wrote this or where I wanted to go with it. I just think the parallels are quite neat, if they are indeed true to Maggie’s (quite numerous, that’s what tipped me off) discreet mentions of Cu Chulainn along her books.

So yeah, hit me up if you wanna talk or something?

[scullysexual]

What was originally just going to be a simple epilogue turned into a full blow sequel. Halfway through this a multi-chapter format began and I can’t see this being posted just one big final chapter so now it’s just a sequel which might or might not be a good thing but I guess we’ll see.

@today-in-fic @purrykat @baronessblixen @suitablyaggrieved @sarie-fairy Tagging you guys cause I know you’d want to be tagged haha. Anyone else wants tagging let me know. @kittydurs

I hope you enjoy this as much as you did Jewel.

Sunlight streams through the gap in the blinds. A small bedsit positioned perfectly that the first rays of light are bright enough to wake him up.

Mulder should be grateful for it, really. The first to wake means he’s the first to find a good spot on the pier, leaving the night owls to fight for the remaining places.

It’s been almost three months and this humble life has already proved to be much of a trial. He had underestimated it his whole life. Sympathy for those who lived this kind life he’d always had but the empathy had been lacking. Only now can he truly understand just how hard they had to work.

Beside him, Scully stirs, muttering something that sounds a lot like What’s the time? eyes struggling to open.

Mulder smiles, a hand reaching out to brush a stray strand of hair out of her face as she twists and turns to face him.

“It’s early,” he mumbles into the quiet room. “Go back to sleep.”

He watches as she settles, eyes falling shut once more.

The months passed since the disaster hadn’t been easy on either of them. When they had finally arrived at New York, the world had held its breath- maybe not directly for them but Mulder and Scully had felt it all the same, parting the ship, the miraculous survivors of a ship that couldn’t sink.

His dreams were still plagued with that night; icy water and chilling screams. When he slept, he had no escape- he was back there, clinging onto that rail, watching people drop to their deaths all around him. Sometimes he even saw Scully fall and those dreams had frightened him the most.

He never fell, though. Even when he was in the water, he could never die. Only those around him could die.

Scully fared no better. Sometimes she would just stop, get lost somewhere in the memory of that night. They never spoke about it, it was an unspoken agreement they had made stepping onto the docks. Nobody was aware they had been on the ship at all. After all, Fox Mulder had died and Dana Scully had never stepped onto the ship. It was easier that way, or so they told themselves.

With time wasting away he climbs out of bed. Their mattress in the corner has him scrambling over Scully to actually get out. His efforts to not wake her fail and, as he’s fumbling with his clothes, her eyes open for the second time.

“The pier doesn’t open until later,” she croaks. “Why do you need to leave so early?”

“Got to get the best spot on the pier, Scully,” he says, rolling up his sleeves. His attire had changed in the months that had passed. Gone were the handmade tailored suits he’d wear to dinners, now it’s just a simple shirt and some trousers. Even his shoes had taken a turn for the worse.

“You need new shoes.”

There’s a hint of worry in her voice, they barely have enough to pay their rent and eat.

He ignores the way the leather rips away from the sole.

“They’ll be fine,” he says, reaching over to grab his sketchbook- the only expensive investment he’d made after he lost his original in the sinking. He tries not to focus on that. There’s only a few drawings in this book, mostly personal stuff for when business is low and his hand aches to draw something real aside from the cartoon portraits of people willing to waste their cents.

Now ready, he walks the short distance back to the bed.

“I’ll see you later, okay?”

Scully nods and Mulder presses a kiss to her forehead and then her lips before he grabs the keys and heads out.

The hallway is littered as always, even this early in the morning, people sit on the stairs trying as best they can to sleep. They don’t live here but the landlord does nothing to prevent them from entering, he’ll just go round with a cup and a silent request for money.

“Good morning, Leif.”

It still takes him some time for realise that he is Leif, not many people call him by that name and he’s Mulder to Scully regardless. No, only one person calls him Leif.

Mulder turns to see Susi standing in the doorway of her studio, scantily clad as always.

He smiles, intending on continuing with his journey before Susi’s speaking again.

“You know if you ever get bored, my door’s always open,” she tells him, with her cracked-teeth smile.

Mulder awkwardly nods and smiles, saying nothing. He tries to keep his conversations with Susi brief after their first night here and she had gotten a little too friendly with him in the communal area, much to Scully’s dismay. He had only tried to make friends.

He leaves Susi where she is, unlocking the front door and making his journey to the pier.

 Scully spends her days counting coppers. Better with numbers than Mulder, they agreed that she would handle their funds and that’s how it had been for the past four months.

Yet her heart drops when she’s finished adding and subtracting the money away to find that there isn’t enough to pay the rent and feed them.

In the early days, when they’d discussed what they would do about jobs, the price of Mulder’s drawings had been brought up a lot. He’d argued that the drawings were worthless and if he was selling them at a ridiculously high price nobody could come to him. She, in turn, had argued that maybe the price should be decided on the work put in and the work produced.

It doesn’t work like that, Scully, Mulder had told her afterwards. People pay for what they get, they don’t care about how much effort has been put into it.

Scully could only scoff. How would you know? she’d asked. Everything you wanted has been handed on a gold plate. All Little Fox would have to do is throw a temper tantrum and Mammy and Daddy would cough up.

Perhaps it had been a low-blow but his words had only made her angry. He knew nothing of this, of trying to find a good-enough job to pay the bills. Once upon a time, he’d have inherited some big company, his wealth sealed in that outcome and until then he’d been all nice and cushy.

After a while, after what Scully had said had fallen to the floor, Mulder said, Perhaps it’s best we get away from each other for a while. We’ve been cooped up too long in this room. With that he’d left, leaving Scully to figure it out.

Just like she has to do now.

She stares at the numbers, maybe hoping they would magically change to the right number but no, they don’t, they stay as they are.

She can owe, she thinks. She’ll have to.

He hands the stupid drawing to the woman as the man drops the money into the pot.

The third person. The third person in five hours.

Despite it being August, despite it being lunchtime, the sun high in the sky and pier packed, nobody was interested.

Mulder cracks his back, already sore and aching. Still six hours to go, still a chance to bring home some real money.

“Business not going well?”

Mulder internally groans at the sound of a familiar voice.

“What do you want, Fuller?”

He tiredly looks over to the weasel-faced man casually poking around his stall, his face lacking stress, his hands in his pockets, and a cocky demeanour reminding him all too well of Alex Krycek.

“Just looking around,” Fuller says. “Seeing how the competition is doing.” He picks up Mulder’s money jar and pulls a face. “Ooh, not well I see.”

“You not got your own stall to man, Fuller?”

Fuller laughs. “I’m on a break. See, unlike you, I can afford these little luxuries.”

Mulder had met Fuller very early on. They both fought for the same spot on the pier- the spot Fuller now occupies- and since then it had been a race to see who could get there first. Fuller always beat him, regardless.

“Why don’t you have your little break somewhere else then?”

He goes to push Fuller out of his stall but the little weasel man is quick, hopping out of the way just before Mulder can grab him.

“Careful, Brevik,” he says. “Otherwise you won’t be around much longer to pay that rent.” He gives a sideward glance to the jar again. “Not that you’ll be paying it this month anyway.”

Fuller saunters off then, back to his own stall.

Mulder sits back down on his stall, wipes the sweat off his forehead and looks wearily at the jar himself. He thinks it’s rent day today and just hopes there’s enough at home to cover it.

“It’s Mulder, isn’t it?”

Mulder pauses. His real name being uttered by somebody else…He chances a glance up at the person, not really sure what to think.

“Christ, they said you were dead.”

Mulder frowns at the man who stands before him. He looks familiar but Mulder can’t for the life of him replace him.

The man chuckles. “You don’t recognise me, do you?” he says and holds his hand out. “John Byers, we met on the Titanic.”

Realisation sinks in as Mulder remembers him. He smiles, jumping up from stool and shakes hands with Byers.

“I’m sorry,” Mulder says. “A lot’s happened recently.”

“Yeah,” Byers agrees. He looks at the sign next to the stall. “First class suits on the Titanic to selling cartoons on Coney Island. What happened?”

“A lot,” Mulder says. “A lot happened.”

 They’re meeting lands them in a bar just off the pier. It’s still early, Mulder guesses it’ll start to pack up later.

“Didn’t think you’d survived,” Mulder says.

Byers laughs. “Yeah, Suzanne wouldn’t get on a lifeboat without me. The officer just looked at me and shrugged. What about you? They say you’re dead but you’re here in front of me.”

Mulder chuckles slightly, picking the label off his beer bottle. “I didn’t marry Phoebe Green,” he says.

Byers nods. “Yeah, your father put that in the papers. Said his son had died a dignified death, sacrificing himself to save women and children.”

“Of course he did,” says Mulder, begrudgingly. He hadn’t touched the paper. The headlines were everywhere, the story plastered on every newspaper being sold. He had lived the tale, he didn’t need to read some exaggerated version of it.

“So, you didn’t marry Phoebe because you died, what was the other reason?”

He looks up to the ceiling, trying to figure out the way best to explain it.

“I met someone,” he says. “Someone from the third class.” He hears Byers breathe out heavily but ignores it. “And after a day I knew I didn’t want to marry Phoebe. I didn’t want to marry her at all, I didn’t want to get on the ship but there was nothing I could do about it.” He shrugs, smiling. “Then I met Scully and I didn’t want to be anywhere else after that. I decided I was getting off the ship with her and the only way to do that was to change my name and pretend I died.” Mulder sits back in his seat and looks towards Byers, holding out his hand again. “Leif Brevik, by the way.”

Byers laughs, shaking Mulder’s hand again. “That’s quite the conspiracy,” he says and Mulder shrugs again.

“Listen,” Byers tells him. “I have some friends who have been looking into the sinking.” Mulder’s ears piqued up at that. “We think it might have been an insurance scam.”

Mulder frowns. “What makes you say that?”

“There’s just some evidence that seem to point towards it being a possibility. We have a base not too far away from here, if you want to see.”

Mulder looks from his pitiful jar of money, to the window where he can see Fuller’s long line of people queuing for their portrait. With one final decision, he nods.

 The dreaded knock on the door finally comes. Scully jumps slightly, taking her head out of the medical journals Mulder sometimes brought back with him.

Her stomach squeezing with nerves, she grabs the bag of money and with a deep exhale, opens the door.

Mr Roth stands on the other side, his arms already full with other tenants’ rent.

“You’re rent, Mrs Brevik.”

Cautiously, Scully hands the bag to the landlord. He snatches it- ever one without manners. As he begins counting, Scully’s fingers begin to nervously fiddle with her necklace.

Mr Roth shakes his head, muttering. “Where’s the other $9?” he asks.

“That’s all we have,” says Scully.

Roth looks at her for a moment and Scully waits.

“I want $35 next month,” he says and with that limps off down the corridor.

Scully lets out a breath.

“Better be careful.”

Scully looks up to see her neighbour hanging out of her front door.

“Last tenant who couldn’t pay the second time was out on the streets.”

Scully smiles, saying nothing and retreats back into her house. Maybe it was a time she got a job also.

[minaminokyoko]

Maleficent: Mistress of Evil--A Spoilertastic Review

Disney: *shuffling through records* Hey, Hollywood.

Hollywood: *drunkenly burps, throws empty beer can behind the couch* Yup?

Disney: What’s that really well written, well acted, beautifully shot, feminist movie we made with Angelina Jolie that one time?

Hollywood: Oh, the broad with the wings and the horns? Maleficent.

Disney: Yeah, yeah, her. Do something else with her.

Hollywood: Wait, you don’t want to give it to her? *points to Talent, who is sitting at the table typing* Or her? *points to Effort, who is in the kitchen baking souffle* I mean, they’re the ones who made the first one.

Disney: Nah, you got this. Go for it.

Hollywood: Alright. *farts and a script falls out of his ass* Here you go.

Disney: Thanks, fam.

*END SCENE*

In case you can’t tell, I’m extremely disappointed in Maleficent: Mistress of Evil.

Overall Grade: C-

As always, spoilers below.

Pros:

-Probably the only reason a few straggling fans are showing up to Maleficent II is finding out that the legendary Michelle Pfeiffer was cast as the evil queen. She is just as smug and cold and awful as she seemed in the trailer, so kudos. They don’t share enough screen time, but Mal vs. Ingrith at that dinner table was some of the shadiest, pettiest shit I’ve ever seen. Ingrith is That Bitch. You really wanted her to have a harsher fate considering the monstrous shit that she does in this movie.

-Though they are seriously few and far between, I did like the tiny domestic moments we got from Diaval and Maleficent. I’m sad to say that the hype was once again wrong. They were teasing that perhaps Diaval and Mal would get a little more of a romantic spin, but either it was cut for time or they changed their minds. Diaval and Mal are apart the entire movie. It’s the worst. However, the bits we do get of them in the beginning, like him giving her the bad news and her trying out her smile in front of him and her telling him he missed her was nothing short of adorable. I especially loved it when they were served bird and Mal gives him that mean little side-eye. It feels very comfortable and domestic, and less like they’re mistress and servant and a little bit more like the mother and father pair that they actually are. I’m just sad there is so few scenes of them together.

-Expanding Mal’s backstory has very mixed results, but the bits we do see and understand aren’t half bad. The phoenix thing is way under-explained, but it is a neat concept that the dark fae came from a single source. It was also a believable story that they were hunted to near extinction, especially during this era of time when white people were at their most fucking ridiculous killing every new people they found on every fucking continent they found them on. It made sense they hid from them and wanted revenge, since we pretty much see that the humans for the most part are utter shitheads anyway. I also loved the diversity of the dark fae, coming from all continents and all peoples. Nothing drives me crazier than the idea that all fantasy creatures should look like pale white folks. This was very nice to see. 

-At least Diaval didn’t die. I was afraid of that since bad sequels often kill someone you like just to “raise the stakes.”

-Tying the cursed spindle into the sequel isn’t half-bad an idea. It’s kind of neat that it’s how Aurora ends up discovering the truth.

Cons:

-Fucking everything else in this movie, basically, is a negative point. Goddammit. Why did they squander all this fucking talent?

-Having Mal, Diaval, and Aurora separated the entire time is the first huge mistake. I was hoping from the trailer that Mal getting hurt and finding her own kind was something that happens in the second act. Nope. First act. Fucking hell. All the reasons why Maleficent was a great movie was the dynamic between these characters and the development of their relationships. It was so easy to love them. They were a family. They had struggles and they all put in effort and they won the day. And then this movie happened. Mal and Diaval first and foremost were done dirty, especially since behind the scenes they had been teasing that maybe the hints of romance between them might finally get a brief spotlight, but no. Didn’t happen. Either it was cut for time or they changed their minds. Then Aurora just blindly believing that Mal cursed the king despite knowing her mother for fucking five plus years, not counting how Mal raised her from afar, just massively pisses me off. Aurora has shown no signs of wanting to just be a normal girl. She loves her mother faithfully and it feels very OOC for her to just instantly assume the worst, especially since she should know things about magic by now and would have heard that Mal has to verbally curse someone, not just with a gesture of magic.

-Almost every part of this story has our leads being passive as hell. I hate passive stories and I hate passive characters. Remember, a good story is one in which your protagonists affect the plot and the outcome and each other. This movie is borderline boring. It’s so much of people looking out the window at the sky and fretting and being moody. All of our characters just sit around for two goddamn hours barely doing a thing until the war at the end, as if the movie is just waiting for itself to end. It’s such a fucking shame considering how many creative, engrossing scenes are in the first film. The first film perfectly paced the character development with the three main leads alongside the action. I loved seeing Diaval’s different forms. The action was fantastic and the story was deeply personal. Everything built towards the end goal of showing the full scope of who Mal is as both the hero and the villain. Here, it’s just miscommunication. That’s it. It’s so stupidly basic and it doesn’t do anything but open the door for her backstory. It’s such a lazy method to introduce them. There were much better ways to go about it and I’m sad that none of our beloved three barely does anything over the course of the movie.

-The tone is all over the fucking place. I actually would not recommend this movie for kids. It’s much too harsh for the little ones when we reach the war in the third act. It’s unnecessarily cruel to a bunch of characters. It even has the nerve to outright KILL one of the three fairy godmothers with little to no reverence for what a big fucking deal that should be. It’s a nasty, unpleasant feeling when she dies and when the other moorfolk and the dark fae die as well. And yet some of these scenes have slapped together “wah-wah-wah” moments, like the evil queen simply being turned into a goat. Ha-ha. Yeah. There are dozens of soldiers and innocent townsfolk and fairies dead. But she’s a just a goat. Sure. That’s not a whiplash of a fucking tone at all. What the hell is the matter with this movie? How dare you actually kill a fairy godmother. And it was one of a few stupid sacrifices while we’re at it. I mean, Magical Negro Fae went full Piccolo standing in front of Mal when all he had to do was yank her out of the way. Same for the big tree fae who died. Not to mention the fact that the giant tree fae just had to walk over to that fucking pipe organ and snap that stupid redhead’s neck, easy peasy, in three seconds. Problem solved. Fuck this movie for showing such flagrant deaths for innocent characters.

Oh, excuse me, one second.

*grabs Hollywood by the ear, shoves him into a chair, and breaks his nose*

Hollywood: OW! WHAT WAS THAT FOR?!

Me: IF YOU PUT ONE MORE GODDAMN FUCKING MAGICAL NEGRO INTO ANOTHER MOTHERFUCKING MOVIE IN 2019 OR BEYOND, I’MMA FUCKING KILL YOU.

-Magical Negro Fae makes me want to kill something. I’m tired, y’all. I’m tired of writers in Hollywood continually making wise black characters teach white people life lessons and then promptly die to advance their story. Go to hell. All of you who keep writing this wretched cliché go straight to hell. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200. Take your ass to hell and rot in the lake of fire. Stop. Fucking. Doing. This. To. Black. Characters. You. Fucking. Assholes.

-It feels like there is a movie between the first Maleficent and this one that we missed. Seriously, the characters spout backstory that sounds interesting and important, but it’s off-screen, and we’re constantly fighting to understand something that the characters clearly do. Show, don’t tell. Show me Aurora and Philip being in love. Show me Aurora’s longing for Philip and Mal to get along. Show me Mal wondering about her heritage and feeling like an outcast. Show me the dark fae’s backstory. Show me Lickspittle being forced into betraying his own kind. I cannot connect with these characters if you do not give me a reason to do it like you did in the first film.

-Is it just me or did Hollywood deadass steal a whole bunch of this from the Gargoyles animated series? I’m just saying. Go back and watch that and then watch this and tell me it’s not similar.

-Nitpick: God, Disney, I am so tired of you filming all your live action movies on one sound stage with zero practical effects and zero sets. Yes, we can tell the fucking difference when you film everything indoors and there’s no sets. Can we go back to actually giving a shit about how movies look?

-Nitpick: There’s plotholes everywhere. I already mentioned how the tree fae could have ended that church massacre in a total of 3 seconds, if that. Where have the dark fae been? Why did they just act that one time with those mercs stealing the moorfolk? What was Lickspittle actually doing to the trapped fairies? We never see him experiment on them or anything. How did Magical Negro Fae see Mal fall in total darkness? Was he just hovering around the area? Why? They seem very far away from their stronghold, so how did he see her and why have they never attempted contact with her before even though they apparently know the moors very well? I could go on like this for some time.

-Angelina Jolie is given very little material to work with and it’s depressing considering how emotionally attached I became to Mal in the first movie. Her struggle was so sympathetic and her reaction to Stefan’s cowardice and cruelty was arguably justified. Here, she’s not having some kind of revelation about herself. It’s cookie cutter right and wrong. It’s very little struggle. She’s not barely doing anything for long periods of time and it’s honestly boring and disappointing as hell considering what a force of nature she is in personality and in abilities. They took all the zest and spice out of her. She’s a hollow, empty version of herself here and it’s probably the most insulting thing of all.

-Nitpick: The title is a big fat lie. Mal does not turn evil or become evil. She swats some fools around at the end, but that’s all. I hate misleading titles.

Overall, the word to describe this movie is unnecessary. It’s not bad, but it is nowhere near good at all. It reduces all its characters into passive roles in a dull story that tries to make up for it by heavily loading the ending with very distasteful, cruel war scenes that are frankly too harsh for children. It’s not asking any deep, sympathetic questions from its audience. It’s just spinning its wheels, mostly. If you’re curious, sure, go ahead and rent it. I would warn you from paying full theater price since it adds almost nothing to something that was frankly perfect the way it was already. I went in with low expectations and while the movie didn’t go below them, it was still a letdown. Mostly because I wanted some Maleval scenes to wake up the tiny, dormant fandom, and I highly doubt this is going to do that.

Sigh. You deserved better, Mal. At least we’ll always have the first movie.

Kyo out.