#everything in the act feels like it was written under duress

[georgefurth]

Happy Valentine's day!

Here's a very happy and loving song cut from The Act (Furth, Kander & Ebb)

(Not to be confused with the song Good Thing Going in Furth's later musical, Merrily We Roll Along)

[kimbureh]

Teamplay explosive as Ipsium, TBB S2E9&10

So far I managed to evade spoilers for season 2, but I picked up on fandom being sort of frustrated with the lack of Crosshair's appearances. Which, yes, it's factually true as of S2E10 Crosshair appeared in only one episode. But on the other hand, episodes 9 and especially 10 are direct metaphors for Crosshair's arc, the text itself all but says so.

But one thing at a time.

It's fascinating to see the Batch slowly disintegrate, because the conflict further reveals every Batcher's ideals and coping mechanisms. Wrecker is the sensitive one of the group, and when he tells Omega she will get used to Echo's absence, he's assuring himself with that just as much. He also begins messing up during the missions. Think of Wrecker in Clone Wars: his unpredictability is integral part of the team's successful exploits. Once Crosshair and the amicable rivalry with him is gone, Wrecker lacks focus during missions, even if Echo explains the plan to him over and over again. With Echo gone as well, his stabilizing influence is sorely missed, with grave consequences. When the stampede in S2E9 hits them, and they have to leave behind the ipsium, Wrecker chooses to save his friend instead of going for the riches, and is criticized by Tech.

Tech's coping mechanism is to cling to facts. They needed the ipsium, and Wrecker lost it. They end up being trapped in another mine. These are all facts, and under duress, more and more facts pour out of Tech. Their ship is gone, they're unable to track it, Echo can't be reached for help. All these things are facts to Tech, and he sees no harm in asserting those, even though this gravely upsets Omega. Omega's coping mechanism is to be and feel useful. Her ideals lie in seeing the Batch as a family, and she suffers because they don't act accordingly. Tech shares her family ideals, but voices an inability to act on them, as well as the need to stay pragmatic in order to not further destabilize the squad; Tech holds onto facts so desperately, he is unwilling to allow the emotional impact of the change to come to the surface, instead opting to compartmentalize the issue for a nebulous 'later'.

Hunter, I honestly have no thoughts about. At this point he is a pure plot device to me that will re-activate itself once Crosshair comes into play again. Until then, his sole narrative purpose lies in being an ineffective leader and well-meaning but ill-equipped father. His coping mechanisms? Sucking everything up, I guess. His ideals? Hell if he knows himself. His whole identity is arranged around Omega's existence, but not exactly in a familial kind of way, it's a rather desperate act and Omega seems to serve as a substitute for Crosshair.

Speaking of Crosshair. As I said, he doesn't appear in S2E9&10, but the story is definitively about him. Mokko and his exploitative mining operation is directly compared to the Empire twice, and Benni serves as a stand-in for Crosshair. Benni's arc affords him to reject being a willing part of his own enslavement; the great obstacle for him to overcome is personified in the slaver Mokko and his lies.

Transferred to Crosshair, this means he too can leave behind the Empire, if only he can overcome the obstacles. Which bears the question, who is Crosshair's Mokko? And the answer is, he himself is. Crosshair convinced himself that he has got no choice anymore, that he can't return to the Batch, that being a willing tool to the Empire is what he wants or at least what keeps him alive. The way for him to see through his own lies isn't by acquiring new facts, like Benni had to do by learning about Mokko's exploitative profit margins. But Crosshair needs to learn something still, which is (not incidentally) something Omega had to learn in the opening story of season 2: which is the ability to overcome one's shame (I've already written about this at length). Omega can be interpreted as Crosshair's inner child, and as such her character development prepares the path for Crosshair's development.

(pls not season 2 spoilers, I haven't fully watched it yet)

[thebluelemontree]

I know GRRM has previously stated that ADwD!Tyrion is at his lowest point, but I find it very hard to see how he will ever redeem himself given what he has done and what he has participated in. Do you believe readers gloss over the tragedies he faces i.e. slavery, the Tysha revelation, and do you see path for redemption?

I think with the fandom in general there does seem to be a proportional relationship to the amount of careful consideration people give their problematic favs versus how little they give to a character that is decidedly not their fav. Full disclosure: Tyrion is not one of my favs. There are moments I don’t like him and I don’t personally connect with him. He’s deliberately written to be someone most readers will wrestle with. Out of all the POVs, he’s probably the most psychologically complex and fraught with a minefield of trauma-induced hot buttons. As we know, profound trauma and horrific family dynamics rarely produce saintly victims who suffer beautifully, quietly, and always behave magnanimously. I am by no means an expert on Tyrion; however, I do know he definitely started out as a good person. Early AGOT Tyrion is a pretty decent fellow who validated Jon’s feelings of anger and resentment and designed a saddle to accommodate Bran’s disability for no other reason than he just empathized with them both. Even later on, he does stand up for Sansa against Joffrey’s cruelty, even though their marriage was a miserable farce and act of war against her family. Sansa seems to bear no personal ill-will toward him despite it. I think we should leave room for the possibility the impression he made with small kindnesses in the beginning could come back around to foster peace and mutual forgiveness between the Starks and Lannisters toward the end. 

But before that he was a sweet, loving kid until he was brutally disabused of the notion that anyone could possibly love him. I can’t imagine anything worse than your own father violently raping by proxy two innocent kids for the crime of his son being happy and believing for one single second that he was loved for himself. He’s experienced a lifetime of continuous physical, sexual, mental, and verbal abuse on top of ableist bigotry and repeated scapegoating that nearly cost him his life more than once. For all his dark gray, unlikable moments, it’s actually kind of a miracle that Tyrion still retains what goodness he does have when he could have been totally fucked up beyond repair, without any pity or compassion left in him, and hating all of humanity with every fiber of his being.   

GRRM does a good job of delivering blow after intensifying blow leading up to the moment he snaps and murders Tywin and Shae.There’s the overwhelming stress of the trial for the regicide he was framed for, one where his guilt and conviction is a foregone conclusion. The public humiliation and betrayal of Shae’s false testimony where his sexuality is served up for mockery. The people of KL are literally bloodthirsty and cheering for his death. There’s the momentary hope and crushing defeat of Oberyn Martell championing him in the trial by combat. Then finally Jaime drops the Tysha bomb. I mean, wow... it’s a lot. It’s totally understandable why he goes to the Hand’s tower to confront his father instead of escaping immediately. Personally, I don’t think he has to be sorry about killing Tywin at all. That pile of excrement had it coming and deserved a painful, ignoble death on the shitter at minimum. Shae is the only one there that has enough mitigating factors to say she definitely didn’t deserve to be strangled to death, though I get how it happened in the heat of the moment under intense mental duress. I think he needs to atone for that one, and I say that as someone who thinks Shae is a callous, conniving, greedy, low-level bloodsucker without any redeeming qualities. Yet, killing either of them, especially Tywin, didn’t bring Tyrion any peace or satisfaction whatsoever. Kinslaying is still up there with the most cursed of transgressions. It’s major part of his spiral into the tormented abyss we see in ADWD.  

It’s been a long time since I read ADWD as it’s not my favorite part of the series, so my memory of all the details is not the best. And like I said, I am not an expert on Tyrion. The general impression I get is that Tyrion thinks that he thinks he hates humanity and he’s finally become the monster everyone believed him to be. So he rages against practically everything and everyone. He certainly harbors a hatred for the people of KL and the sister sitting on the throne. There is a high probability he acts upon those feelings and helps usher in a catastrophic tragedy out of vengeance. Just as an example, he is aware of the wildfire cache sitting under KL and that knowledge can be used in a really bad way. Might be that crossing a point of no return, which may feel glorious in the moment, is ironically the thing that causes him to recoil in horror and regret after the dust settles. Consider Tyrion’s dream about the duality of himself: 

That night Tyrion Lannister dreamed of a battle that turned the hills of Westeros as red as blood. He was in the midst of it, dealing death with an axe as big as he was, fighting side by side with Barristan the Bold and Bittersteel as dragons wheeled across the sky above them. In the dream he had two heads, both noseless. His father led the enemy, so he slew him once again. Then he killed his brother, Jaime, hacking at his face until it was a red ruin, laughing every time he struck a blow. Only when the fight was finished did he realize that his second head was weeping.

If the two heads are both noseless, then they are both present day Tyrion. There are two sides of him right now that are equally capable of reveling in bloody vengeance and weeping for someone he still loves even though they wounded him deeply. 

Then what? Well, the thing about hitting your lowest point is that you can either dwell there until you fatally self-destruct or you can find your way back up. Granted, ADWD Tyrion is in a dark place, but there’s still space to get even darker for at least a little while in TWOW. It is possible Tyrion spends the rest of his life atoning for his worst actions during this period, using his intellectual gifts (even the parts that are Tywin writ small) to serve the needs of the people he has harmed. And it does make good story sense for someone who grew to hate humanity for very understandable reasons still found it in himself to care about it enough to save it. Even sacrifice himself for it if necessary since there’s a strong possibility he is a dragon rider. Since all signs seem to point to him ultimately playing a heroic role against the Others, we can rule out the idea that he just says good riddance to bad rubbish and laughs while the world ends. That has to mean something, right? 

There is always a path for redemption for anyone who sees the wrong of what they’ve done, has heartfelt remorse, and commits themselves to meaningful and lasting change. It’s not really about forgiveness at all, although that sometimes happens alongside redemption and it’s certainly easier for people to forgive once they see change. Redemption is work the character must do themselves for the right reasons. It’s not a status granted to them by other people. In fact, it’s probably more sincere when someone decides to do right anyway even if no one ever thinks better of them. If Tyrion (or any other character) is unforgivable to you, then the best worst thing that could happen is that they have to live a long life and spend all of it repaying their karmic debt. Even if he’s not my fav or your fav, a lot of people out there still do relate to him and the things he’s been through. A lot of people are not okay and not good victims from the trauma they’ve suffered. Fiction with redemption that is possible for anyone gives people hope that they could be better too, and there’s no other instance in the books that makes me think GRRM is cynical about redemption. The only way redemption isn’t happening for Tyrion is if he choses not pursue it. 

[shini--chan]

Yandere Russia with a foreign reader. They try to leave to go home but he dosnt let them

Yandere Russia

“Roll the r a bit more”, he commanded.

You shot him a desperate look and either didn’t seem to care about of the people staring at the two of you and whispered. Strong emotions! In public! Truly scandalous.

Ivan remained firm with a stoic face – no, a face of tranquil joy as he stared back at you unflinchingly.

“Russian is a language that places a lot of value on clear pronunciation and the r is an important letter in the language, so we’re not getting around that. Your intonation just be as sharp as a whip.”

Exactly how you met doesn’t matter, what counts was what resulted from that chance encounter. Ivan would act as your guide and advisor, helping you around the city and helping you negotiate with people. He’d patiently guide you through the differences of Russian culture and give you educated responses when questions arose. On top of that, he also protected you when complications arose – he can be very intimidating.

The man known as Ivan Bragvinski guided you through the dense crowds of St Petersburg, the masses parting before him like the Red Sea did before Moses.

You had firmly grasped him by the elbow so that you didn’t lose each other on this excursion.

Very nearly his lips pulled up into a smile as he looked at you in passing as you glanced awestruck around you. It made him feel all warm and fuzzy to be so appreciated. 

Russia himself won’t have know how he became so attached to you. Maybe it was because you’re so understanding, or because you want to see things with your own eyes before you buy into them, draw your own conclusions with your own logic, or… the list can go on and he’d just be hopelessly attached to you. For him, emotional bonds have always been distressing and have ended in pain. The fact that you’re foreign and that one day you’ll have to return home would haunt him at night as he lay awake in his bed. 

„When are you leaving for your homeland? “, he asked one day during dinner.

You had invited him over to spend some quality time with him before you departed. After all, Ivan had helped you during your stay and country and had eased many a burden that would otherwise have crushed you.

It was thankfulness, it was gratitude and he deserved no less. Over the weeks, you two had grown close – friends. At least, that was how you saw it.

“I’ve told you a hundred time before, in a week”, you snappishly said, lack-lustily poking at your stew with your folk.

A silvery eyebrow is raised in response to that. “What is wrong, (y/n)?”, he inquired in that steady voice of his.

Grumbling, you muttered about unreasonable bureaucrats and far too much paperwork as you rested your head in your hand.

Normally, Ivan would have chided you for your poor table manners. Tonight he was understanding enough to not shower you with another lecture.

Doesn’t matter if you know his true nature or not, he isn’t going to just let you slip through his fingers – that has happened to often in history to him. No amount of vows and reassurances that you’ll keep in touch can sooth him – promises can be broken after all. So, he’ll take matters in his own hands. To your bad luck, to him this is just another puzzle to solve, an obstacle to overcome so that he could have you. The days following up to your departure would cause anxiousness in him – because he has to see how well his schemes work.

You were very near to going completely irate. With a frown you stared at the digital paperwork that just wouldn’t be accepted.

“What is wrong, jenshina?”, Ivan inquired, large hands settling on your shoulders. You huffed irritated as he started to massage you:

“They simply won’t accept. I’ve filled out everything, written everything, but still there is an error that I can’t find.”

“Have you tried by the office already?”

“Yes and them shooed me out and said I should only come back when I have valid documents.”

Russia is the master of pretending under duress. He has his poker face fixed and all his traces covered. While he is usually very blunt in a conversation and if you ask for the truth, he’ll give it to you, there is only so much of his personality that can cover. While he is verbally direct, he can be very subtle with his actions. So much so, that you would never realise that he was the one sabotaging all your plans to return home.

[prettyboyreid]

tell me about the stars

Request: For the prompt list could you do number 1 from the angst/sad section and can it be reid speaking to cat? Maybe at her execution or him visiting her in prison or something? Thanks!

Cat Adams had one last request of Dr. Reid before her execution.

Warnings: Mentions of needles, mentions of death

Word Count: 6,014

“You have got to be fucking kidding me.” 

He looked over the letter he had just received from the Mount Pleasant Women’s Correctional Facility one more time, both at the official announcement he had requested after his last meeting with her, along with a handwritten letter with the name “Spencie” written in wide, neat letters, signed at the bottom by none other than Cat Adams. 

He leaned forward on the round table as he looked it over again, glancing up at the door at the sound of a light knock.  He gave Jennifer a small, obviously forced smile, looking down at the flimsy notebook paper once again. 

“Everything okay, Spence?” she asked him in her motherly voice, knowing it was more of an impulse whenever she noticed him under duress.  His hands grasped onto the edges of the table until the bones in his knuckles pressed against the skin, burning them white.  He simply shook his head, some of his light brown curls falling down into his eyes. 

“Her execution is next Thursday.  She requested the lethal injection,” he told her, his hazel eyes scanning over her writing again to make sure he actually understood what she had asked of him.  Knowing her, however, made the entire letter feel more like a demand.  He slid the paper across the table to his friend, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes as he let out a groan.  The blonde woman picked up the paper, chewing on the inside of her cheek as she read what had been written to him.

“Spencie, 

I hope you haven’t missed me too much since our last date.  I know I left you probably missing me like crazy, but I’m sure you managed to control yourself without me around. 

They gave me the execution date, two weeks from today - two days before your birthday, if my math is correct.  Of course, by lethal injection.  I might as well shoot up once before I die, right? 

I managed to get my lawyer to work out a deal with the warden.  I didn’t want any special last meal - I’ll end up looking too bloated in my best dress when you bury me, and I can’t have you having that as your last image of me.  

I want one last date with the good doctor - you, of course. 

I figured you’d be at the execution anyway, but I wanted to make sure you got to say your last goodbyes to me before you lost me forever.  Now, whether you decide to bring me a Happy Meal or not is entirely up to you.  Whatever you need to set the mood.  Personally, I’d prefer something more classy for our last meeting, but it is up to the gentleman to bring it all together.  It’s just my job to look pretty. 

I can’t wait to see you again, Spencie.  I know you can’t wait to see me either.  Tell Maxine and Mommy Dearest I said hi! 

-Cat Adams xoxo”

She even went so far as to draw a little heart at the bottom of the page, with “S+C” written on the inside of it.  

“I have to go.”

“No, you don’t Spence,” she quickly assured him, folding the letter up before making her way around the table to talk to him.  She leaned herself against the edge of the table as she spoke to him, her hands folding together in her lap as she looked over at him.  He kept his focus on the execution notice in front of him.  

“She’s just trying to get into your head one last time.  It’s what she does.  If you go, she wins,” she tried to convince him.  He looked over at her after a few moments, pushing out a breath of air through his nose.  

“What if she’s planning something else?  What if she’s trying to hurt someone again and I’m the only one who has the ability to stop it?”  He asked, knowing that every time she wanted to speak to him someone was getting hurt.  He didn’t want to talk to her, he told himself, but he didn’t want anyone else to get hurt at the hands of Cat Adams.   JJ sighed out heavily as she listened to his concerns, knowing where he was coming from, but still not liking the idea of him being in the same room as her again. 

“I know it’s frustrating, but she doesn’t have a taunt about anything specific this time, besides you mom and Max, but we know that they’re both safe and will be.  I really just think she’s trying to get in your head.”

He tugged at the tightly knotted tie that clung to the collar of his shirt, suddenly feeling as though he was being suffocated by his choice.  He paced around the room as he thought  through all of the possible situations and outcomes of what she could possibly do, but it was no use.  She was the one person that was always able to stump him.  She was by no means as smart as him, but she was by far one of the most clever people he’d ever come in contact with.  It was one of the handful of things he hated about her. 

“I don’t think I can take that chance, Jennifer,” he said softly, his feet finally coming to a stop in front of the large window overlooking the bullpen.  He watched as Tara and Luke talked at his desk, and Emily and Matt having their first cup of coffee in their little kitchen.  Emily had a stack of files under her arms, probably looking into a replacement for Rossi.  Kevin Lynch was currently covering for Garcia while they searched for her replacement, but he knew that a lot of the team would rather keep him on since they at least knew him.  He looked back to his best friend, her hands still laced together in her lap as she watched him, letting him make the decision for himself.

He couldn’t risk any of them getting hurt because he was too prideful to go face a woman that they had outsmarted three times before.  

JJ already knew that. 

-

After work on Thursday, he had called in a takeout order for an Italian restaurant that was on the way to the prison.  He figured he could at least play into her fantasy if she did have something planned.  It was probably the best way to protect everyone. 

He picked up the order and drove to the prison.  It was a silent drive, but his mind raced a mile a minute.  For the past week and a half, she had been stuck under his skin like a splinter, and he couldn’t wait to put it all behind him.  For five years now, she had followed him and his team, trying to break them down and beat them.  Today was the last time they’d ever need to think about her. 

He decided on going alone, mostly to minimize any possible damage she could try to inflict, and because he didn’t know what really was going to happen.  He had a habit of losing his temper around her, and he didn’t want to give her the benefit of the doubt by letting his team see the way she could affect him. 

Once he had parked his car in one of the available spots near the entrance, he turned off the car and sitting at the wheel, his eyes fixated on the sign in front of him, reminding him where he was.   He didn’t want to be here.  It was the absolute last place he wanted to be in the entire world.  But, of course, he worried what she would do if he didn’t show up.  

As the watch that clung onto his wrist showed the time of 7:45 PM, he gripped tightly onto the steering wheel and let out a heavy breath.  He thought for a brief moment, he should just turn around and go back home.  He should forget about all of this, forget about her, and let her execution play out the way it was supposed to.  

He pushed the car door open and grabbed the bag of food, locking the doors before he made his way to the front doors of the prison.  Upon entering, he flashed one of the guards his FBI badge, letting them know why he was there silently.  The guard nodded towards another in the little booth by the entrance, and the door pushed itself open.  

He led Spencer back through a dark hall of the building, the only sounds he could hear being his heavy steps and the heartbeat in his ear.  The hall seemed to drag on for miles, as if she was trying to make him walk as far as he possibly could to see how far he would go to see him.  He checked his watch as the guard unlocked the door he presumed she was behind, watching it barely hit 8:00 before he walked in. 

“Spencie!” 

Her voice was much too cheerful for what she was about to endure in four hours.  He half expected her to be wallowing, feeling bad for herself, or to try and start a riot to put it off even more.  

He realized she was really ready to die. 

She could tell, simply by his demeanor, he was ready as well. 

“Hello, Cat,” he said, walking further into the room as the guard pulled the door shut and locked it behind him.  He set the bag of food down on the table in front of her, though she paid no mind to it.  Her focus was primarily on him.  It made his stomach wrench. 

“Italian, my favorite!” she exclaimed, her gaze still on him as she pulled the plastic apart, grabbing the two to-go boxes before setting them on the metal table, each in front of one of the rusting metal chairs. 

“Have a seat.  You look like you’ve had a long day,” she coaxed with her infamous mischievous smile, opening her box before grabbing one of the small packages of silverware the restaurant had added in. 

He sat across from her, his hands folded neatly in his lap as she began to dig into the food, keeping up an act as if she was trying to be on her best behavior.  It didn’t last long. 

“Come on!  Eat!  You couldn’t have gotten all of this food just for me,” she said with a grin, twirling a bit of spaghetti around her fork as she spoke to him.  He silently opened his food and did the same, taking a bite of his dinner while keeping his eyes on her. 

“Aren’t you going to ask me why you’re here?” she pressed.  He imagined her waiting a little longer before beginning to taunt him.  He couldn’t blame her, though - she did only have four hours left to torture him as much as she could. 

“I figured you’d tell me when you were ready,” he said simply and emotionlessly, twisting the spaghetti around his fork.  He wanted to do his best to give her as little attention as possible, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to keep it up for that long. 

She hummed a little bit at his answer, almost unsatisfied with it.  She almost didn’t respond to him, wanting him to actually ask her, but she knew she didn’t have that kind of time.  They both knew she didn’t. 

“I wanted you to make up for our last date.  It wasn’t exactly a girl’s dream evening, you know,” she quipped, trying to get a rise out of him, trying to get him to break his little charade and try to humor her.  She was going to be dead in three and a half hours, and then he could forget about her for the rest of his life.  He could be happy and not even remember her name.  But all she wanted was tonight. 

He held back from rolling his eyes at her answer, crossing his ankles under his seat as he continued to eat his meal quietly.  He wanted to hear everything she said, and he knew the only way was to lure it out of her with his silence.  The one thing she could hardly bear.  Of course, it worked.  A few quiet minutes passed as she ate, her eyes shifting over every inch of her date’s face, trying to profile him the way he had done to her since the first time they spoke. 

“Although, you really did surprise me with that kiss.  Did you ever kiss Maxine like that?” she questioned, grinning as she noticed his grip tightening on the plastic utensil.  It was the most she’d gotten out of him all evening. 

“Do you really care about how I am with her?  I thought tonight was all about you?” he asked, taking another bite of his food as he watched, waited for her next move.  

Talking with Cat Adams was like a game of chess - strategic, long, and a big waiting game.  It was her move, yet he was already four moves ahead, thinking of what he could do next to stay ahead of her. 

“Yes… no,” she said, rolling her eyes a bit as she slumped back in her seat.  She folded her arms across her chest, pushing the food away as she looked at him.  “At least you have the right idea.  It is all about me, so why don’t you act like it is?  You can make up for last time and then drop me off at home at the execution table.”  

He watched her body language, relaxing in the small room they had to themselves.  She noticed, leaning forward again so her elbows rested on the table.  “Come on, Spencie.  Just act like you’re on a date with her.”

He paused for a moment, doing his best to remain stoic as he watched her move.  Almost too slowly, like she was drawing each and every second out as if it would give her more time with him. 

He cleared his throat before closing his box and tossing it in the flimsy bag he had brought it in.  “How are you, Cat?”  She found the question rather humorous, considering she knew he’d probably been keeping tabs on her and her behavior since she had told him she was going to be put to death.  

“You can do better than that, Spencer,” she pressed on, her dark gaze flicking from his lips back up to his hazel eyes.  Once she realized he wasn’t moving on without her answer, she let out a soft huff.  “I’m doing great.  I’m dying in…” she grabbed his wrist and slipped his watch off, checking the time before looking back up at him.  “Three hours.  You wasted one hour trying to profile me, when you could’ve made it worth my while,”  she reminded him, wrapping the watch around her much smaller wrist. 

“What did you want me to talk about?” he asked, leaning back in his chair again, his hands laced together in his lap as he waited for her response. 

“Me, of course!” she said, throwing her hands up to bring more attention to herself, like the bright orange jumpsuit didn’t already have her sticking out like a sore thumb.  “Ask me about the baby, ask me why I wanted to have the lethal injection, talk about me.  I know you haven’t been able to get me out of that pretty little brain of yours.”

“I don’t think about you.  Quite honestly, I haven’t thought about you since our last date,” he lied to her, knowing she wouldn’t pick up on it as easily as he would be able to. 

He thought about her at least once a week.  He thought about her whenever he called his mother to talk about how she was doing.  He thought about her whenever Max kissed him last month when he got back from a case.  He thought about her when he bought a new watch, not wanting to wear something so plagued with her touch around every day.  He hated that she had become so prominent in his life, wanting nothing more to forget about her.  He pushed her to the back of his mind, but her maniacal grin always found his way back into his thoughts.  He would never say it aloud, but he couldn’t have been more relieved when he found out she was going to be executed.  He hoped it would bring him peace, finally getting some sort of justice for himself after all she had put him through. 

She gave him a playful frown.  She knew it wasn’t true, but she’d rather not waste her last hours arguing with him over what he would never admit.  She knew he would stand by that statement until midnight, as they plunged the lethal needle into her veins. 

“Why did you really want to see me, Cat?” he asked her just as she had opened his mouth.  Her lips broke into a smile, standing up from her seat before walking over to him, standing beside him and hoisting herself onto the metal table.  

“Do you really want to know the truth?”

“Did you hurt anyone this time?”

She smiled down at him, flattered he would think that of her.  She wanted to lie to him, make his blood pulse against every inch of his veins out of anger, but she knew it wouldn’t do either of them any good. 

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you.  And I knew since you’d be here anyway to watch me die, I figured you could try to make me feel better about not ever being able to see you again,” she told him.  She truthfully didn’t have some big elaborate scheme planned out.  She thought about it, of course.  She even planned out a few ideas.  But somewhere deep in her gut, she wanted to have a good memory with him.  One where all of his focus was on her, not someone else he cared far more about. 

His eyes watched her check the time again, and she let out a hum.  9:17.   She’d been counting down the minutes all day.  She probably didn’t need to check the watch.  She did it for him.  She did it to remind him how little time she had left.  She hoped it would make him feel bad for putting her here, for having her next up on the execution block.  And it almost worked. 

“How do you expect me to make you feel better?  What do you want me to do?” he asked.  His mouth was pressed into a flat line, his eyebrows raised as he waited for a response.  She pretended to think for a moment as if she hadn’t planned out how the evening would go down to the last move she would make on him before he sat in an audience for her final performance. 

“Take me out on a walk.  In the yard.  The stars will be out, right?”  she asked, raising an eyebrow at him.  He nodded at her question, looking back to the window where a guard was more than likely watching over their every move.  The door unlocked and was pushed open, and Spencer stood up, holding out a hand for her.  He would play into every last move she set up for him at this point, mentally picturing his girlfriend to make everything easier.  

She laced her hand with his quickly, following behind him like a little school girl following her crush around the playground.  He only looked ahead as the guard led him down the hall again, two big red doors awaiting them at the end.  He felt her eyes burning into him, the bright flash of her white teeth catching on the light out of the corner of his eye.  She was enjoying herself, much more than she was supposed to be. 

“Did you really never think about me?” she asked as the guard pushed the door open, a gust of cold air washing over the two of them.  He looked around for a moment, looking up at the clear sky before his gaze landed down on her.  She looked at him, silently pleading for an answer. 

“Not until you sent me your letter,” he answered coldly, walking towards the benches that were scattered around the spacious area.  He sat down in the center, and she sat beside him.  Her eyes never left him, even when he was barely a shadow before the motion sensored lights kicked in and lit the area up like Times Square. 

“Why not?” she asked, her voice carrying the same tone as a pouting child.  He realized long ago that she might as well be a child, considering she always wanted it to be about her and she would do anything to keep it on her.  Which was why he was out in the cold 53° weather, with the last person he wanted to be with on October 26th. 

“Why, Spencer?” she pressed agitatedly, just wanting an answer out of him.  She knew it would be an answer she wouldn’t want, one that she’d be better off if she never heard what he had to say.  He didn’t have to worry about her feelings anymore, since she wouldn’t remember anything he ever said to her in two and a half hours.  

“Honestly? I can’t stand the thought of you.  I can’t help but think about every bad thing you’ve done, every victim you took, every person you put through hell just to get back at a man whose face you probably wouldn’t be able to pick out in a lineup.  You hurt people close to me just to see me, so pardon me for not exactly being thrilled about the idea of you.”

And, for the first time in her shortened life, Catherine Adams didn’t know what to say.

His words stung in her chest, like he reached into her and squeezed her heart until it couldn’t beat anymore.  But, she wasn’t capable of being hurt.  His words rang in her head that he always told her - “You’re incapable of having the same emotions as me.”  She never believed him when he said that to her, but that didn’t keep them out of her head.  It was one of the many things she could never stop thinking about, along with the way he looked when he met her for the first time and the way he kissed her outside his apartment a year ago.  

She stared up at him blankly, hiding any emotions she allegedly didn’t have as she watched him.  He never looked down at her when he spoke.  He stared straight ahead at the brick wall in front of him, and she figured he was counting each and every brick so he could ignore her. 

She laid her head on his shoulder as he stayed silent, not knowing what to say to him.  Nothing she could say would change the way he felt about her, and she figured it would be a waste of breath to try and convince him otherwise.  

She sat with him for an hour in silence, a single tear falling from her eyes, but she wiped it away before he could notice.  She was a psychopath.  She couldn’t have emotions.  He’d accuse her of faking it for sympathy, and the last thing she really wanted right now was to be lectured by Dr. Spencer Reid. 

He had noticed it, his focus turning to her the moment he noticed she was no longer paying attention to him.  He noted the way her breathing would speed up every few moments, and he couldn’t help but wonder what thoughts were running through her mind.  He wanted to know if she actually was ready for her fate, if she wanted everything to finally be over for her.  He wanted to know if she felt like she had done everything she wanted to, if she had a bucket list she was or wasn’t able to complete.  

He couldn’t find the words to ever ask her. 

“Spencer?”

“What?”

“Tell me about the stars.” 

He looked down at her, not noticing he had become lost in his own thoughts.  She was looking up at the sky now, her arm looped around his as she remained as close to him as he possibly could.  Her body was pressed to his, as if she was trying to stay behind with him.  He thought it was the least he could do, before looking up the clear night sky once again. 

For about half an hour, as the air chilled around them minute by minute, he told her about the constellations that they could see.  He talked about how the Zodiacs came to be pillars of Astrology and where superstitions about each star sign came from.  He told her anything he could remember about everything above them, until the guard came up to them. 

“They need her back inside, Dr. Reid,” he informed him.  Spencer looked down at Cat again, her gaze dropping from the spheres of gas millions of miles away to the man beside her.  She took in his features for the last time, committing every freckle, every eyelash, every wispy curl to memory before she stood up.  The guard placed the handcuffs around her wrists and tightened them, leading the two back into the prison and towards the back of the building, towards the execution chamber.  

The walk was long and silent.  Cat’s gaze focused on the end of the long hallway, staring straight ahead.  Spencer’s eyes locked on the three pairs of shoes that shuffled down the quiet hall, chewing on his tongue as he thought of the last thing he would say to her.  He thought about why he cared so much about it.  He wondered if she’d care if he even said anything to her. 

They had reached the chamber in a matter of minutes, stopping outside the door as Cat looked up at him.  The guard took off her handcuffs, letting her have a few more minutes of freedom before everything was taken from her.  Spencer could tell from the look in his eyes that this night wouldn’t leave his memory for a while. 

Cat slid the watch off of her wrist, taking his hand in hers before sliding it back to its rightful place.  Both of them stared down at the time. 11:52.  She had eight minutes left.  Eight minutes left of breath, eight minutes left of life. 

Eight minutes left of him. 

She looked up at him after watching the small arms on the watch tick around the circle, and his eyes followed her.  She gave him a soft smile.  It was genuine.  It physically hurt him to see it. 

“Did you mean it?” She asked him in a quiet voice.  She didn’t sound like herself.  If he thought she was capable, he would think she was scared.  He never answered her question.  He hated to lie, but he didn’t want to make her last moments any worse than they already were.  She simply nodded, looking down at her feet before back up at him.  

“Thank you.  For today,”  she admitted to him.  He treated her with the same amount of respect as he would have given a piece of gum stuck to the bottom of his shoe, but it had been the best memory she held with him.  She leaned up on the tips of her toes and swayed closer to him, pressing her lips to his scruffed cheek before returning to her normal height.  She stared at him for another moment before the door opened, and they were faced with the warden. 

“They’re ready for you, Miss Adams.”

The guard ushered her into the room slowly, and she stole one last glance before the heavy metal door closed behind her.  He let out a heavy breath he had held since he walked into the first room, looking up into the fluorescent lights for a moment.  This was the moment he’d been waiting for for five years, one he practically prayed to come quicker.  

He made his way around to the viewing area, noticing some of the family members of her victims - wives, parents, children.  People who have waited for justice longer than he had.  People who he helped grieve.  He weaved his way around the seats and towards the front, taking a seat at the center. 

He watched as they strapped her to a chair in the center of the room just on the other side of the glass, holding her in her place.  She almost looked as if she was at peace as they inserted the needle into the vein of her right arm, her head resting against the back of the chair as her eyes searched for something in the room across from her.  Once she had found what she was looking for, she let out a sigh, her eyes locking with Spencer’s for the last time. 

“Do you have any last words?” the warden asked, making his way to the large set up that displayed the chemicals that were soon to find home inside the girl strapped to the chair.  She simply swallowed and nodded, her hand gripping on the edge of the chairs arm as she watched Spencer. 

“I’m sorry,” she managed out after a moment.  He watched as her eyes welled with tears and she unapologetically let them fall on her round cheeks.  Right before the warden pressed the button that would send her to her final fate, she blurted out one last thing. 

“I really did love you, Spencie.”

His eyes didn’t leave her once she admitted her deathbed confession, but he could tell that her fate had officially been sealed.  He watched as her face slowly relaxed, her body slumped into the chair as any life she had drained from her eyes.  The recorder announced her time of death to be 12:02 AM, October 27th.  He let out a shaky breath as the blinds lowered, separating him and the families from her.  He heard quiet sobs let out around him, the families finally having a storm cloud that had been hovering them for years clear away.  One person, a father of one of her victims, he presumed, slowly clapped.  Everyone began filtering out of his room, but he didn’t move.  He couldn’t. 

He was escorted out by the warden at 12:15.  They walked quietly down the barren halls to the front of the building, Spencer’s hands digging into his pockets.  He thanked the warden for making a few exceptions, promising that he owed him before he made his way to his car.  He unlocked it and sat in the driver’s seat, but didn’t put the key in the ignition.  

He tugged on his tie roughly until the loop was wide enough to pull it over his head, throwing it into the passenger's seat with his leather messenger bag and his gun holster.  He held onto the steering wheel tightly as he rested his head against the steering wheel, taking long, deep breaths as he ran through the events of the evening once again.  

But her last words rang in his ears like a gunshot.  

He pulled his phone out of his pocket and dialed Emily’s number after a few minutes, hoping she would still be awake as the phone rang twice. 

“Spencer?  Is everything alright?” she asked, her tone laced with worry.  Her voice instantly helped release the tension that had built up over the past few hours, rubbing at his eyes tiredly with his large hand before leaning back in his seat.

“I think I need to take a sick day.”  He swallowed thickly again as he looked at the prison sign, his head falling  back against the headrest as he waited for her to respond.  She was silent for a minute, trying to pick up on his breathing and assess what was going through his head.  Of course she knew what this evening was, but she never got to talk to him about it before he left.  She didn’t really know what he was like going into the situation, which didn’t help her figure out how he was leaving it. 

“Of course, whatever you need,” she reassured him.  He let out a quiet sigh, nodding as he let his eyes close for a moment. 

“Do you want to talk about it?”

He let his eyes slowly open, looking to the center console between the two front seats, where her letter was opened and on display for him to reread quickly. 

“Her last words were that she loved me, Emily.”

It was dead silent on the other line.  He couldn’t even hear her breathing.  He pulled the phone from his ear for a moment just to make sure he hadn’t lost their connection before pressing it back to the spot it was before. 

“She was trying to get under your skin, Spencer.  You know that she was-”

“Incapable of emotions.  I know,” he cut her off, the heel of his hand digging into his eye as if it would clear everything up for him, explain why she said what she said, why she did what she did. 

“Go home.  Get some sleep.  We’ll all come visit you after work tomorrow.  Saturday, we’re all going to Rossi’s.  He wanted to host your birthday this year,” Emily told him.  He nodded again, practically forgetting what this weekend had even held for him and his friends.

“Alright.”

“Spencer?”

“Yes?”

“It’s all over.  You don’t have to worry about her anymore,” she reminded him.  Her voice of reason comforted him, wiping at his eyes with the sleeves of his button-up once he felt hot tears falling over his cheeks. 

“Thank you. Goodnight, Emily.”  He hung up the phone as soon as he pulled it away from his cheek, putting the keys in the ignition finally.  He listened to the engine roar to life before putting the car in reverse, pulling out of the parking lot before turning the car to the road, and finally heading home for the night. 

He couldn’t help but feel a little guilty.  He couldn’t be bothered to show her at least a little more kindness on her last living day.  He treated her the way he wished he could have after she took his mother, after she took Max’s family.  He didn’t even treat her as poorly as she had treated everyone else, yet he felt bad.  He felt bad because he wasn’t the same as her, he tried to tell himself.  He repeated it to himself on the long, quiet ride back to his apartment. 

I’m not like her. 

I’m not like her.

I’m not like her.

When he had pulled up to his apartment complex at 1:23 AM, parking the car in the spot he always parked in, turning off the ignition before gathering his things and heading into the towering building.  His feet trudged up the stairs as quietly as possible, not wanting to disturb any of his neighbors at the ungodly hour.  

He unlocked this door before walking inside, hanging the keys on the hook once he closed the door.  He dropped everything down on his large leather couch, his body carrying him over to his bedroom.  He was too drained to even take off his tight slacks and the button-up that hugged his chest, crawling underneath the heavy duvet and resting his head against the feather pillows.  

He slowly let his eyes close in the comfortable darkness, falling into a deep sleep he felt he earned after the day he had.  But for at least a few more moments, before his body finally had been drained of every last drop of energy left in him, one thought kept his brain turning over and over.

If he hated the thought of her so much, why couldn’t he stop thinking about her?

[candideangel]

The Cat’s Away

inspired from @invidia1988​‘s AU story

@meepsthemiqo @maiden-born-in-snow

He had long since taught himself to be poise, in control, ever since he took up the mantle of a city leader, the days behind the hood where only the up or downturn of his lips would show if he were expressing if he were happy or sad...along with his vocal tones. This night, G’raha’s tail twitched with agitation as the events that had come to pass were steadily growing on his shoulders, his fingers clenched a book so hard his usually sun-kissed knuckles turned white. He couldn’t blame a person for not liking him...not a bit...he was someone who could turn a cheek...accept his consequences. He could take Meeps’ scorn having long since kept a wide berth from her with the exception of aiding Angelique in their repentance...and it was all he COULD do. The one he loved was trying so hard to repair the bridges that perhaps were burned to ashes by this point, this latest amount of ire had been the stone that broke the chocobo’s back. The Scions were to simply brush this under the rug because the Reaper’s reasons were supposedly valid! And perhaps it was, but he wasn’t quite in the mood to fully accept that now.

His fingers gripped tighter to the book before he slammed it shut, his body shaking with a torrent of emotion. Did he really belong here? He was a murderer, a breaker of people, the cheater of death...even though he tried...tried so hard to do everything right. Anger for the briefest moment filled his veins and though Krile would have certainly scolded him greatly, he tossed the tome hard across the room...waiting for it to hit the wall, but G’raha’s ears flattened to his skull when he heard the book crash into something with a smashing of metal, not even noticing the ruffling sound of feathers as it startled a bird. “Shite!” he cursed and scrambled off the perch of the small sofa Angelique had put into their room since he became comfortable sharing the space with her. Actually the room had been more than barren with a few momentos until he came, including the now smashed music box that had crashed to the floor, gold cogs and springs sprayed out to the thin metal plating and the star ruby that had been the centerpiece rolled across the smooth stones. 

“Raha?” The sound of her voice caused the Miqo’te’s breath to hitch slightly, Angelique had leaned down to pick up the gemstone that was lying by her foot and to the broken piece of work and G’raha looking like he was about to break.

“I...I’m so sorry...I didn’t…” he stammered out, but his heart was lodged somewhere in his throat making a once silver tongue completely useless.

“It’s fine, it can be fixed.” Angelique told him as she went over to inspect the parts, it would take time but she could find someone to repair the piece in Ul’dah. Reaching over she would pick up the tome that he had been reading, it was an old book...written in the language of Allag. “Thank goodness this isn’t hurt, I think you’d be upset if it were-” That was when she finally stopped and saw the glazing eyes of tears he was trying so hard to fight back, but the smile on his face was that of someone who was trying to not let it show.

“All the people I stepped on...all my selfish desires...every single thing I do that’s right...I still wind up breaking something or someone…” G’raha barked a bitter laugh, but it faltered halfway through. “I escaped and made enemies of a Reaper...your friends outside of a select few hate me…”

“They don’t-”

“Did you not see the look on Estinien’s face?! Or maybe the way Y’shtola had gone along with the explanation because she’s full-certain that there is no way I can go toe to toe with the Reaper! I’m pretty sure as kind as Alphinaud is, he resents me too, somehow!” His voice rose, the sadness and bitterness switching all too quickly to anger. Perhaps the moment in his mind, it felt like truly everyone was against him by this point. “YOU are trying to repent and make Meeps genuinely not hate me anymore because I am basically a murderer in her eyes! YOU are suffering for the mistakes I made!” He needed to stop his anger, his voice was beginning to crack a little, but he shouldered all he could. The barrier had finally just broken. “Maybe I shouldn’t have pleaded to come back! Maybe I am so much better off not being here, then maybe everyone would be much happier! Just a statue and a memory!”

Silence fell at the end of the last statement as G’raha’s chest heaved for breath and Angelique stood there still holding the book, but the look in her green eyes was obviously stricken.

“...I wouldn’t be happier…” the hyur spoke quietly, making the Allagan princeling stiffen when he finally looked to her, the sorrow in her eyes...and internally he just chalked it to him acting like a petulant child, selfish...and unrealistic.

“...I…” G’raha sighed and scrubbed his palm against his face for a moment, fingers threatening to tug at his own bangs, “...I...didn’t mean that...I’m sorry...everything just came out…” He mumbled and just let his hand drop back to his side almost limply, if only just a little bit worn from the social stress that had occurred. “Believe me when I say that every part of my heart is happy that you are here, that we were given this chance, but...the path around how…everyone I ended up hurting...making things worse instead of better...it makes me yearn to be back on the First. To a time where I didn’t cause such problems outside of lying...and putting everyone in danger.”

Angelique sighed softly as she set the book down somewhere not on the pile of smashed gold plates before pulling G’raha over to her and hugged him as tight as she could and with a shaky breath and would let his head fall onto her shoulder. Inside he still felt as if he had become a spoiled child who just simply yearned for the affection of others...and perhaps that was the truth. Slowly though as he felt her warmth and could hear the beat of her heart, he knew he did belong deeper down, just...not for everyone. The bard’s hand nestled softly against the back of his head, moving in smooth and steady strokes.

“You’re stressed…” Angelique muttered softly and her thumb rubbed a small junction between his ear and skull that caused a small rumble to start in his chest. “And...probably being cooped up here in the Rising Stones probably isn’t the best for yourself mentally.” She pulled back and lightly rest her hands on his shoulders and gave him a little smile. “The music box can be repaired later, but for now...why don’t you and I go to Gridania for a little while? Miounne might have some of her famous pies and we can have some of the harder spirits. Away from the others.”

G’raha wouldn’t deny her that...it was a sad excuse for a remedy to turn to the drink, but he wanted her companionship, if only to numb the wound that had struck his pride. When she had taken his hand they walked from the room and from the halls lined with rooms and through the main hub that was the Scion’s headquarters, but he could feel their looks and his ears flattened with his head bowing, as if he were still under the same level of scrutiny as earlier. Angelique silently squeezed his hand a little tighter, still walking with a purpose as they went to the upper tavern and into the streets of Revnant’s Toll. Though there, they did not linger as Angelique and G’raha had gone to the large aetheryte and took that moment to focus their pathway to Gridania.

~o~o~

A bell, perhaps two had passed since they reached the Caroline Canopy, seated at a table in the quiet aside from a bit of idle chatter and the sounds of night birds outside. G’raha absently ran a finger around the lip of a metal mug, still half filled with the spirits Angelique had purchased for them. He had been in a much more calm state, but part of him still looked a bit broken up. Angelique set down her own mug, empty this time with a soft thunk against the wooden table.

“G’raha, I’ve been thinking...what if we left for a little while?” she spoke calmly, reaching down to shift what had always been deemed as her light travel bag down into her lap where out popped two miniature versions of himself. The wind-up mammets that typically had a rivalry but seemed to have calmed down a little since they have been home. Green eyes watched though as his ears perked up a little to the mention.

“Leave, how do you mean?” he asked for a moment the world took a small spin when he tried to sit up straighter. It had been ages since he took to drinking anything outside of tea and his world swayed just a little from the influence.

“You and I, as well as these two, get away from the Scions and the others for a time. It’s obvious that if you stick around there, it’s just going to make you stress and recluse. Maybe we can go on that journey, anywhere you would like to go, I’m sure there’s plenty of material about the places I’ve gone, but there has to be one that perhaps even you would have wanted to go?” Angelique gave him a smile and for a brief moment G’raha could feel his heart swell, while she had made that promise under a possible moment of duress...she wanted to take him because they wanted that same thing.

“...Honestly, I’ve seen much in my time, aside from Ishgard and the Fringes towards Ala Mhigo, but Othard has always struck me as interesting.” He replied tail swaying a little bit, it seemed that the agitation was gone for the moment. “The way you speak of the country makes your eyes sparkle...as if you were never meant to be a Shroud-born.” He teased a little before taking another drink, definitely more at ease than when they were in their room. Idly his eyes watched as the minions were crossing on the table, just walking and looking around. 

Angelique’s smile seemed to brighten a little, they could take her way which was following the Aetherytes, but instead she could get them a trip to Limsa Lominsa, stay at the inn, and by day they could take a boat to Othard. “I like that idea.” she told him and would begin to relay what she was thinking, watching as the Miqo’te’s ears perked and swiveled as she explained. Perhaps some time away would do some good, it would give him some time to create a sense of balance and hopefully would be fully ready to face everyone’s ire afterward. “Mother Miounne! Two more drinks over here!” Angelique called to the caretaker with a beaming smile, if they wanted to get more than halfway to the sweet embrace of inebriation, she’d be happy to pay for it tonight.

When she did order the drinks as well as some soft breads, G’raha had found himself lightly playing with the two minions whom he often found himself being jealous of and vying for the bard’s affection and attention. The said bard though was speaking through the linkpearl, “Tataru, it’s Angelique. I’m just letting you know that myself and G’raha are going to be...away for a little while.”

“A-Away? What do you mean? Where are you off to?”

“We...just decided that maybe it’s for the best, at the moment, to let things calm down. All the goings-on isn’t good for everyone involved. Everything is just...raw.”

“I see…” Tataru’s voice trailed off in Angelique’s ear, but then came the question that gave the hyur pause, “...If they do come asking for either of you...what would you like me to tell them?”

“Tell them to send a Mail Moogle. The one in Revnant’s Toll can find me easy enough if it follows my aether trail. I’m going to keep our linkpearls off for a time.” Besides, if Estinien wanted to he could track them down anyways, or whoever was in a good mood at the time. Besides, she didn’t really feel like getting an earful in the middle of the night. There was a sputter of a response but Tataru reluctantly agreed. When the connection fell silent Angelique picked up her fresh drink and took a few large gulps from it as her other hand reached to her ear and removed the pearl to stuff it away into the bottom of her travel bag, enjoying the rest of the evening with G’raha Tia...at least until they had to stumble their way to Limsa Lominsa’s inn like partially drunk sailors.

[devilrising]

Fallen Draco, Pt. 21

This story is following a prompt set by @mymindsmadness

Summary: AU where Draco is a fallen angel, and the way he gets his wings back is by guiding Harry in defeating Voldemort, but it all goes wrong when Draco starts falling in love with Harry

Word Count (Part 21): 3,035

Word Count (Total): 66,581

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Mentions of abuse/torture (non-graphic), war preparations

***

1st May, 1998 (continued)

The house flashes, lights ticking on and off in rapid succession. Harry thought it would be a good idea for me to practise some more while he and the rest of the troops train with standard spells. I had agreed, and while everyone else was too busy firing off hexes to notice me, I had slipped away into the basement kitchen. I’m now standing on the stone floor, alone, and toggling with the lighting. Sometimes I use the electric Muggle lights, sometimes I don’t. It’s more fun when I turn them off and use the tiny amount of natural light somehow making its way into the kitchen.

I do need to use the electric lights too though, so I drop my current spell and turn to face one of the ceiling lights. It immediately starts flickering, my power having grown so much that I barely have to think about it. It’s become so strong so quickly that a part of me is really concerned about it. Harry says not to worry and that it’s just the adrenaline and fear about the oncoming war. I’m still going to talk to Hermione about it after tomorrow is over though. If tomorrow sees an end. I might not make it long enough to ask. I push all of my frustration and worries into the magic, and it pulses from me in waves. It’s almost like I merely woke a dormant part of me when I Rose, instead of creating a totally new ability separate from the rest of magic. I’ll need to conduct some tests on it if I make it out the other side.

The lights spark and flash off, but I push it further. Not only are the lights no longer on, but they are actively absorbing any left over, naturally occuring light. It’s something I’ve discovered I can do within the last hour, but I think it could win the war. That—along with my ability to create reflections. Replicas of people and things. Mainly myself. Hermione took our research and has spent all day piecing it together into something that resembles some sort of report. She thinks that the replica is tied to my magical core somehow, so the sensations I feel when the duplicate is hit are just the connection to my magic supply triggering, and not that I’m actually being affected. I can only hope she’s right about that, because she hasn’t found an answer for what would happen if it dies.

I push harder, and the kitchen is now so dim that I’m struggling to see anything at all. Something sparks, and it illuminates the room so much compared to the darkness that I can see everything for half a second. Then it snaps. There’s bangs and clashes everywhere, and I fall to the ground covering my ears. That can not be a good sign. The bangs get closer, one after another they snap. It sounds like… it sounds like the electricity is slowly turning off all over Grimmauld Place. Have I broken the old house?

“Draco?! Are you okay?”

Harry’s voice echoes down the hall and into the kitchen, filling me with relief. He’s okay.

“I'm good,” I call out in response. “I think I might have broken the house though…”

I can hear Harry’s chuckle along with his footsteps. “You haven’t broken the house! Just the electricity circuit.”

“The what?”

Harry laughs again, and he comes into view with a bobbing lumos. “Electricity runs around the house in a circuit, so everything is connected. If one part of the circuit breaks, the whole thing won’t work.”

My face pales. “So I have broken the house!”

“No,” Harry shakes his head. “We just need to connect the circuit again.” He reaches into his pocket and draws out a second wand. I recognise it as Ron’s.

My eyebrows draw down but I don’t say anything as Harry lifts it above his head. He utters something that I can't hear and then slices the wood through the air. It sings, a lovely note filling the stone room. The house creaks and groans for a second. There’s another set of loud bangs and crashes, and then the lights come on again. My eyes are as wide as saucers.

“How the hell did you just do that?!” I ask.

Harry grins at me as he dims his own wand’s light. “Ron has a ton of spells stored in his wand in case he needs them, and when Hermione taught him about Muggle electricity he added a couple for this exact purpose. I just had to say the incantation and it would work.”

“And it did…”

I pause, lost in thought. Wands are so intriguing. There is so much to them that no one knows about. I never knew they could hold spells like Ron’s does, just waiting for the command to release them. I always thought wands acted on a person’s magic, but this knowledge changes things slightly. Maybe magic is merely a signal, not a source. Maybe that’s why the wand chooses the wizard, and not the other way around…

“Draco?”

I feel a hand cup my cheek and I look up. Harry’s emerald green eyes are right in front of me, and my heart stops for a second. I only speak when it kicks back into rhythm.

“Lost in thought, sorry.”

Harry smiles softly and pulls me in for a kiss. His hand tangles in my hair and I wrap my arms around him tightly. The world could end tomorrow. It’s the only thought rattling around in my mind as we keep kissing. I could go dizzy with this, lose my mind and everything else. Become solely Harry’s, because nothing else in the world is as important as he is. But I can’t. Not yet, not now.

I pull away abruptly, feeling a blush rise up and stain my cheeks. I curse my pale skin, angry at the fact that the pink will be on full display. Harry doesn’t say anything though, instead running his thumb over my lips.

“You’re so gorgeous,” he murmurs. He moves his hand back to my hair and presses our foreheads together. We stand there for a while, resting against each other and just looking.

***

“Who did you say was coming again?”

Ron and Hermione are sprawled out on top of each other, lying on the leather sofa. They look so comfortable and happy in each other’s embrace, and it makes me want to do the same with Harry. But I can’t, because even the thought of being so blatantly smitten makes me feel sick. I don’t like expressing my emotions publicly, no matter how much other people around me do.

“A lot,” Ron answers. “Most of our year group back at Hogwarts—so Seamus, Dean, Neville, Lavender, the Patil twins, and many more from other houses—the rest of my family, and all of the Order of the Phoenix. They have a large army that’s been training for months for the imminent end, and they are all preparing outside too.”

Hermione nods, her head bumping into Ron’s chest. “There’s quite a few from Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw as well, but Slytherin I’m not so sure…”

I nod. “That’s understandable. I mean, most of them would have family on the other side, or are in a similar position to what I was earlier this year. I’m sure some do want what’s right, but they probably can’t cope with being the one to kill their parents or cousins.”

Hermione hums in agreement and Ron slowly nods. “I hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“Most people wouldn’t.” It’s true, I think. The majority of people think that everyone in Slytherin is inherently evil, but I believe we were born into a mess that no one else understands. A mess that we can’t fix alone, so we just go ahead with it in order to survive. Almost everything we’ve done has been under duress, and I can only hope that one day, everyone will see that.

“It’s about time too,” Harry chimes in from the armchair opposite mine. “Not everyone in Slytherin is evil. Hell, not everyone evil is in Slytherin! Yet that’s the way people think.” Harry runs his hands through his already messy hair. “I’m sick of that attitude.”

I don’t say anything, letting his words wash over me and the others. Hermione looks thoughtful, swallowing what he’d just said. Ron’s blue eyes cloud over and he looks to be concentrating on something, trying to work something out.

“Is this change in mentality brought on by dating Draco?” He eventually directs at Harry.

He pauses, thinking about his answer. “I think so,” Harry agrees. “I never actually thought they deserved what was being given to them, but I suppose I hadn’t really thought about how deep everything ran.” He smiles at me. “Draco has definitely opened my eyes.”

I swallow and match his smile.

Ron coughs loudly, startling the rest of the room. He holds his hands up in front of him, mock surrendering. “Sorry ‘bout that. A bit of air got caught in my throat.”

Hermione chuckles and presses her lips to Ron’s in a swift kiss. Then she settles back onto his chest. “Try not to dislodge my head again,” she jokes. Ron rolls his eyes but threads his fingers through her hair and pulls her closer.

Harry stands and cracks his neck, stretching his arms above his head and arching his back. “I should probably go get ready.”

“What for? You’ve spent all day setting everything up.” I tilt my head to look at him, trying to see the answer as if it’s written on his skin.

“There’s going to be a meeting assembly thing soon, and I’m giving a speech.”

“Oh. This is the first I’m hearing of it,” I say.

Hermione flushes. “I only suggested it a couple of hours ago while you were training Draco. I honestly didn’t think Harry would actually agree to it.”

“No, I’m amazed I did myself.” Harry chuckles and reaches out a hand to pull me up. I allow him to, locking our hands together as he pulls. Once I’m on my feet I move to leave the drawing room. I will have to make a good impression on the people arriving. We can’t afford to lose fighters just because I’m involved.

***

Night has fallen and the training grounds have once again been readjusted. As well as all of the equipment we set up, there is now a covered stage on which the speech will be said. Hermione is calling everyone in to gather around the base of the platform, and bodies press in close to hear what will be said.

“Come on, this way!” Ron is yelling, gesturing to the stage and sheltered standing area.

People squish in even tighter, and I find myself standing between the old Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor—Lupin, I think his name was—and one of the many Weasley children. I’m not sure which one he is, but he’s built like an ox and is considerably more tanned than the rest of the family. He clearly works outside often.

The standing area is beautifully decorated, with off-white pavement and deep wooden beams. Soft lights run up the beams and hang over the stage, setting a scene of peace and tranquility. It’s almost jarring against the heavy war preparations. It still looks stunning, and when Harry walks up to the stage everything falls into place. The soft orange glow reflects in his black hair, glinting off his glasses. His eyes bounce the light around, igniting the green and making it appear deeper than normal. It sits on his tan skin, the orange drawing out the natural colours of the dark flesh. Smiling, I allow my eyes to rove over his body.

“Get to it!” Someone calls, pumping their fist in the air. It triggers a laugh, and people start jokingly chanting to begin. It’s nice to think about the fact that even with great danger looming over them, that people can still have fun.

Harry smiles out to them and casts a charm on his throat. I recognise it as a Sonorous the second he starts speaking, his voice unnaturally amplified.

“Thank you for gathering here today, and for preparing to fight tomorrow. We’re in challenging times right now, and I’m so grateful for every one of you. This is going to be the last battle—the final fight against Voldemort and all he stands for. We will fight bravely to the best of our abilities, and with the knowledge that what we are fighting for is equality and peace. I can’t sit still and pretend that the world is fine when everyone in it is being threatened, and clearly neither can you. Voldemort won’t ever stop his ruthless pushing; if he’s allowed to continue, there will be chaos.

“There will be casualties tomorrow, I’m not going to stand here and say otherwise. Some of you might not make it out the other end, might not see the world finally put to rights. If it is for this reason that you are no longer willing to fight, no one will judge you for standing down. We can not afford to judge others when our world is being threatened by someone who does just that. By someone who uses ignorance, and the human flaw of dividing people away from each other. For those of you gathered here who want to fight regardless of the consequences and possible outcomes, thank you. You have no idea how much this means to me. I am far from the only person who has been thrust into this situation, and I acknowledge the fact that many of you are giving up everything to be here. Thank you, and let’s get back to preparing for tomorrow!”

Everyone cheers at Harry as he steps down from the platform, trying to shake his hand or pull him into a hug. He politely shakes them all off, choosing instead to remove his Sonorous and make his way through the crowd towards me.

“How did I do?” He asks, his face pressing into my neck.

“Okay,” I murmur back. “Pretty brilliant for someone who hates speeches more than anything else.”

Harry laughs gently, his head moving against me. “Thanks Dray. For everything.”

“Thank you too. Without you, I’d still be in the Manor. I’d still be under my father’s rule and I’d be preparing to fight against you and everyone else here. Thank you so much for removing me from that situation.”

Harry pulls back and wraps his hands around my neck. “If anything, I drew you deeper into the war.” His eyes flash with guilt, clearly concerned about what my thoughts are about it.

“You didn’t,” I assure him. “I would be fighting either way. Better to be fighting with someone I love than someone I would prefer to see die.” The words are ripped from my mouth without a second thought, and I fall silent.

“Someone you love?” Harry asks. “Who could that be?” He teases.

“Shut up,” I scold. “Don’t make me say it again.” Heat rises to my cheeks once more, and I wait in agony for him to reply. For him to say anything about the words that fell from my mouth.

“If it makes you feel any better, I wouldn’t want to be fighting this war without the person I love either.”

Harry beams up at me, and I find myself grinning back. We both admitted it without saying the actual words. “I love you,” I say to him, quietly so only he can hear the confession.

“I love you too,” he murmurs back.

People cheer around us, and for the first time I realise we have a bit of a crowd. My blush returns even stronger, colouring my pale skin all the way down my neck and over my chest. I’m thankful for the darkness, the only thing protecting people from seeing it.

“About bloody time!” One of the Weasleys—the one I was standing next to earlier, I think—calls out. The cheer rises again, and people whoop happily. They’re all Harry’s friends, and they’re all just happy to see him so comfortable. It warms my heart to know that he is surrounded by all of these caring people.

“Shut it Bill!” Harry shouts in return to the Weasley, smile lighting up his face. People laugh again before flooding out of the stage area and going back to training.

After the mother Weasely, who Harry tells me is called Molly, finishes fussing over him and hugging him to her, we manage to get away from the crowd. Harry explains who everyone is to me, pointing out those I would probably recognise and talking about those I don’t. Names swim in my head, not particularly sticking. It doesn’t really matter. Their faces will commit themselves to my memory, and as long as I don’t hurt them tomorrow everything will be fine. Tomorrow. It’s a funny concept. People take for granted that they’ll make it that far. Take it for granted that they will experience the next day, and the one after that. Now that I know I might not, I find the idea… almost foolish. Of course, so is the fact that I’ve become certain I won’t survive. I might; it’s still a possibility.

Swallowing down the thought and bringing myself back to the moment, I squeeze Harry’s arm. He’s wrapped it around my waist in a possessive gesture, declaring to everyone who sees us the nature of our relationship. I expect some curled lips and scrunched up noses, but no one seems to mind a gay couple among their midst. I find my heart warming to them again. I decide it’s best to stop thinking and just to live in the moment, and I touch my lips to the top of Harry’s head. He smiles and returns it.

Grimmauld Place is lit up for the rest of the night as people prepare for war, the soft orange glow of the lights bouncing around the house and training grounds, illuminating the soldiers and the possibility of a better future.

***

A/N: Get ready for war!! I hope you have a lovely and safe week Xx

Masterlist — Previous Part — Next Part

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[blue-lamento]

This post was written for the user @j-penny, who insists that Leo is the most unexplored character compared to his brothers. We are going to prove this statement wrong.

We are using the 2003 cartoon as the example not only because it’s known among most fans, but also because we consider Leo-03 to be one of the best versions of the character.

Introduction

Usually those who write analysis of a character use two terms – character development and characterization. However, people don’t usually use the same meaning for both of them. For instance, some people believe that characterization is the part of character development, because we, the audience, discover more details about our character and thus he develops in our eyes. And other people believe that character development and characterization exist apart from one another, because character development implies the change over the story, while characterization implies a particular set of traits in a particular time of the story.

We have decided to choose the second model because it’s more common and because the story of 2003 usually puts the plot on the first place rather than the characters, which is why they develop slowly and their personality becomes more flashed out with time.

Part 1. Leo’s first traits.

At the beginning of the first season we were given some of the most important traits of our character.

Dedication. This trait was unfolded in the first episode, when Leo has passed Splinter’s challenge. Leo loves to train and study; his outstanding physical (and spiritual) strength is noticeable through exercise and combat; it was also observed by the Shredder.

He trains for the sake of self-improvement and he takes ninjitsu seriously.

‘I'm not striving to be perfect, only perfectly proficient’*

‘Ninjitsu is not a game!’*

However that doesn’t mean that he doesn’t like to have fun. He loves to hang out with his brothers, play with Raph, ride a Sewer Slider or a scooter and poke fun at Mikey.

‘With that aside, I do realize the need for fun and relaxation. While I often disagree with Raphael, he is my brother, and I enjoy the times that we spend goofing off’*

The abidance of Bushido. Bushido (honor) plays a huge role in Leo’s life, because it shapes his personality. One’s actions are a reflection of who one really is and Leo’s actions reflect:

His devotion to his family.

His respect for others.

His kindness.

His mercifulness.

This makes him a pure-hearted person and sometimes his purity shows in other ways)))

Introversivness (or isolation). Leo demonstrates his isolation when it comes to his own problems. He doesn’t seem to be eager to discuss his distress (for example, when he was spending all his time out in the barn in the twentieth episode of the first season) and sometimes even refuses to get help (as it was shown in ‘Samurai Tourist’). The only way to get something out of him is to start talking first, because he is never going to be the one to do it. 

Leo also has a trait that needs to be cleared up.

Leadership. This part of his character has created a lot of trouble before rotTMNT came out, which is why everything should be addressed.

Firstly, he is not an official leader.

That means that he didn’t have any ceremonies and he certainly isn’t pressured by Splinter, (like he was in the 2007 movie and 2012 cartoon), although the latter does like to leave Leo in charge when he is away.

He has chosen the path of the leader himself simply because he understands that his family doesn’t have a peaceful life.

‘I try to be the leader of the team, since someone has to be and I'm the only one who seems to be interested in order’*

‘I train diligently and read up on strategy to better prepare my family for times of duress’*

‘I guess this may seem a little hard-nosed, but if you were in my shoes, I think you'd agree that someone has to play the ‘heavy’’*

‘I love my family more than life itself, so I feel responsible to ensure their protection’*

Secondly, while Leo can worry about his incompetence as a leader (the conflict of the fourth season), he can also torment himself over something more personal (the conflict of the first season; ‘City at War’), which proves further that his character doesn’t only revolve around his role in the team.

Thirdly, Leo is not a control freak. When his brothers know more about the situation, he has no problem in letting them take the lead, while he takes part in solving local problems.

We also shouldn’t forget that some of his orders exist because of Splinter and as someone who values security and peace, Leo also values his master’s wishes and wants his brothers to follow them, even though he sometimes goes against them as well.

Fourthly, unlike the 2012 cartoon, in 2003 Leo’s brothers respect him and listen to his orders, although they do tend to go against Splinter’s instructions, but that’s a big difference, mind you.

And lastly, Leo doesn’t have any fights with Raph because of his leadership nor is there any hatred between them. Their arguments are usually focused on different opinions, not on the ‘I don’t take orders from you’ line (ex. ‘City at War’).

In ‘Tales of Leo’ Raph showed that he understood that Leo was more suited for the role back when they were kids, a period, when he thought that being a leader was all about bravery and strength, but seeing Leo taking out the huge alligator by using his brains he was exposed to another side of the role.

Overall, Leo and Raph have a good relationship that goes beyond the ‘a leader and a hothead’ shtick.  An excellent opinion on this topic can also be read here: (1), (2).

Curiosity. This trait is actually ignored by fans, which in result makes them portray Leo as Splinter’s loyal puppy and it’s not correct.

Leo, as we said before, values Splinter’s opinion, but that doesn’t stop him from wanting to explore and participate in his brother’s intrigues. In the third episode of the first season Leo mumbled ‘Splinter is going to kill us!’ and immediately went off on an adventure and this didn’t happen just once.

At first Leo acts careful, however it is really easy to convince him to take part in anything, even if Splinter would be against it.

 Part 2. The outlived trait.

Some fans tend to think that Leo is arrogant. Do these fans have a point when it comes to Leo in 2003 cartoon? Well, yes and no, because he did in fact have the similar trait, although he outlived it pretty fast.

The trait was shown in the tenth episode of the first season, ‘Shredder Strikes Part 1’, where at the beginning Leo was talking about his swords being superior to any other weapon. But where did this thought come from? Well, it was written in some book, so it must be true, right? Splinter, however, said the complete opposite, which Leo genuinely didn’t understand and he was frustrated about it. So was Leo really just plain arrogant? Not exactly.

Next we are taken to a talk between Leo and Oroku Saki and the latter has almost convinced Leo to join to Foot clan. We see that Leo has done the same mistake when he believed the half-truth about swords written in the book – he believed Saki’s half-truths.

In both cases Leo acted gullible (almost naïve) and thus he acted imperious in the first situation and vulnerable in the second. He wasn’t arrogant for no reason and that helped him get rid of the characteristic. After that episode he has never shown the flaw again.

Part 3. The ‘failure’ theme.

Every turtle has a weakness, be it Raph’s inability to control his anger or Mikey’s immaturity.

After Shredder’s second strike we are told in ‘Tales of Leo’ that he has a hard time dealing with failures, which escalates to a real fear that opens up Leo’s insecurities and anxieties throughout the first four seasons. Every conflict that is connected to the character has a word ‘failed’ or ‘failure’ in it, which makes it his inner theme.

All in all, his constant battle against his fears flashes out his character and adds more to it, which will be discussed in next parts.

Part 4. Northampton.

This is an introduction to Leo’s ‘failure’ theme.

After Leo has woken up he was straightway upset. While talking to Raph, who visited him at the barn, he explained what was bothering him so much: he let everyone down, got ‘his shell kicked’, lost his swords (and moreover he developed a fear over the Elite Guard). In short, not only did he feel like a failure, but he was also humiliated.

The one who helped Leo recover was Raph, which again proves that both of them have a great and deep relationship and that Raph, even though he often acts all grumpy and snarky, has enough kindness in him to support his brothers when they need it.

Part 5. The cosmos.

When the boys were stuck in other galaxy, Leo was upset as well. We saw it two times; when the turtles were told about their location and when they thought they have lost the Fugitoid to Triceratons. During both instances the situation seemed to be dead-end, Leo clearly didn’t know what to do next and for him it automatically meant that they have failed. This affected his spirit similarly to how he was acting in Northampton, however Raph couldn’t help him the second time. Leo needed something else. He needed hope. And when he has it he is unstoppable.

Leo was really active during the cosmic arc; he was doing the job that every leader should when his team finds themselves in unknown circumstances. The arc has listed out the reasons why Leo is a good leader:

1. Because he uses strategy.

2. Because he can think fast under pressure.

3. Because he is ready to take risks.

4. Because he is resourceful.

Part 6. City at War.

Leo (and Karai of course) has always played an important role in ‘City at War’ arc.

Before we dive in Leo’s character we have to briefly talk about the conflict. Leo felt responsible for waking up the mafia and turning the city into chaos because of Shredder’s death and he wanted to do something about it.

However his family found the idea of staying at home and doing nothing about the war more appealing, which Leo didn’t like. And even if Mikey said that he understood where Leo was coming from, it wasn’t enough for him to go with Leo to fix their wrongdoings. No one supported Leo, but that wasn’t a problem for him, because he didn’t need an approval from his family; even Splinter, who Leo respected the most, couldn’t change his mind and couldn’t stop him from running away.

‘City at War’ was always known for its main theme of revenge, but this time the writers decided to create a new theme to keep the story different and this theme revolves around, as Splinter has said in the end, following your heart. During the whole arc Leo was acting according to his own views and he always stayed true to himself, which means that his beliefs are strong and he is ready to act independently from his family if needed.

Part 7. Leo’s fear.

In the third season there was an episode about turtle’s fear. At first glance the story doesn’t give us a complex explanation to work with, but with more research more details rise to the surface.

There is a good analysis of this episode on the site, so we are going to link it.

Overall, while Leo does hate the idea of failure, his deepest fears are connected to other issues and it’s great, because it indeed makes him more complex.

 Part 8. The fourth season.

It’s the culmination of everything we have learned about him.

The conflict is in one way the opposite of the conflict in Northampton. In the first season Leo was the only one who got heavily injured, but in the finale of the third season everyone in Leo’s family was injured. While talking to Usagi and April in ‘Sons of the Silent Age’ and ‘Samurai Tourist’ Leo described his feelings the following way: ‘the only thing that I could think of was to blow up the ship’, ‘I couldn’t save them’, ‘I was useless’, ‘I wasn’t good enough’. Most of his thoughts were connected to his family and because of his sense of responsibility for them Leo felt guilty for not finding another way to solve the problem. This brings us to the conclusion: while in the first season Leo’s distress was only about him, in the fourth season it was about his family, which is why he was traumatized so deeply.

Just like in the ‘City at War’ Leo have decided to fix his failure by doing everything to protect his family.

Firstly he had to fix himself. He started to train more, forgetting completely about having fun with his brothers (in other word isolated himself). He also became more ruthless with enemies.

And secondly he had to fix his family. He started to train them himself and by accusing them of being immature demanded his brothers to take threats and tasks seriously.

However that wasn’t enough. His self-hatred, him not wanting to talk about his trauma openly, the need to be stronger and his non-acceptance of defeat pressured Leo and as a result he lost his grip and took his anger out on Splinter.

With the Ancient One Leo has learned to accept his failure and to not feel guilty over something he couldn’t control.

After that Leo has fully developed, he didn’t have any more room to grow. He was finished and the writer understood that as well.

The conclusion.

Turns out that Leo was actually a well explored character with rich traits, but why then people like j-penny love to say the opposite?

The first reason is that people simply don’t find these traits interesting. The other reason is that people don’t think that being kind, committed to an old code of honor and showing dedication towards one's family or studying are worthwhile qualities, which is why the only thing that some people notice about Leo is the fact that he is the leader and that he has some insecurities. That creates a limited image of the character, not to mention that some fans twist the image and make Leo a controlling, cold and boring leader, which he is not. Is this Leo’s fault? No way.

So… can you not like Leonardo? Of course, it’s just a matter of taste. But can you belittle Leo in order to put another character on the pedestal? No one is stopping you, but would that make you sound smart and your statement sound true just because you have learned some buzzwords that don’t hold any real evidence? Decide that for yourself.

We were actually thinking about analyzing other incarnations (especially Mirage's Leo, since he is also one of our favorite versions), but we didn't have any time or power to do so...

(*) -  These quotes were taken from the archive of an official Mirage studios site

[elenathehun]

Watching the Clone Wars, part 7

Well, this is a better batch of episodes than last time, solely due to not having to actually skip an episode because it was too awful to watch.  With that said, click on keep reading to see reviews of "Brain Invaders", "Grievous Intrigue", "The Deserter", "Lightsaber Lost", "The Mandalore Plot", "Voyage of Temptation", and "Duchess of Mandalore".

"Brain Invaders" (2x08)

I'd rate this as above-average.  I am not really into horror as a genre, as I previously noted, so I was pretty grossed out by the brain worms.  However, it was a pretty nice Ahsoka and Barriss episode, although I think it's a bit weird that four Jedi Knights/Masters are necessary to interrogate Poggle. 

Anyway, it's not an episode of The Clone Wars without some unexpected graphic clone violence.  I don't blame Ahsoka or Barris for killing poor Trap - I even think this was well-written and conveyed the desperation of their situation well - but good god, it was startling.  Also tense: that final approach to the medical station.

Not good: Kit Fisto entering a ship that's infested with brain worms with no PPE.  C'mon, man, I know your headtails are majestic, but keep it covered up!  Also not super great: Anakin and Ahsoka's little talk at then end.  A lot of their interaction just feels forced.  I honestly feel like this should have been a dialogue of some kind between Ahsoka and Barriss.

"Grievous Intrigue" (2x09)

Sort of a meh episode.  I understand Eeth Koth is a bit of a bad-ass in the comics, and that does sort of carry over in this episode, but mostly it just seems like a vehicle for various Jedi Masters to quip while crossing blades with this somewhat delightful murder-cyborg.  Obi-Wan gives a furious monologue to Grievous, which rings a bit hollow since the clone army has had precious little screen-time (at least relatively speaking) to exhibit their loyalty or spirit.

Shout-out to Cody and those 212th soldiers dog-piling Grievous.  If only you'd had a lightsaber, Cody, you probably could have killed him right then and there.  And if the writers let you and your fellows out of the background more often, Obi-Wan's speech would have rung more true at the time this episode aired.

"The Deserter" (2x10)

I struggled with accurately summarizing why this episode left me cold.  After all, the focus is split between Rex and the pursuit of Grievous, and I love most of the clone-centric episodes I've seen thus far.  But after some thought, I realized this episode felt like the culmination of a character arc that never actually occurred for Rex, at least on-screen.  After all, this episode is only the third time he's been promoted to something more than the token Clone Character Who Doesn't Die At The End - the previous two episodes I thought were legitimately Rex-centric were Season One's "Rookies" and "The Hidden Enemy".  We still barely know the guy, but in this episode we watch him wrestle with doubt about his role and reason for existence when faced with a fellow clone who's made radically different choices than he has, before triumphantly stating his place is with the army.  This feels like it would be a great episode, if only we were more attached to the character. Writers have to build-up to those kind of moments, or they ring false.

Anyway, is it just me or is Obi-Wan getting a little angry in this episode?

"Lightsaber Lost" (2x11)

I wasn't expecting much from this episode, but it was actually very good.  Aside from the annoying Cad Bane arc at the beginning of the season, the Ahsoka episodes have been improving a lot this season - possibly because she's been separated from Anakin for a lot of them.  Losing a lightsaber feels like the sort of problem a Padawan might face, and the solution feels like the sort of thing an impatient teenager would resort to.  Tera Sinube is a gem - I am always a sucker for the elderly teaching the next generation, and he does it so well!  The animation was well done too, especially in the chase scenes. 

I've been ragging on TCW for it's lack of interconnectivity between episodes and episode arcs, but this is a stand-alone episode done right: it focuses on what a secondary character (yes, I know she's supposed to be a main character, but she doesn't feel like it quite yet), allows them to learn a lesson that develops their characters in an organic way, and reverberates through future episodes (I hope!).

"The Mandalore Plot", "Voyage of Temptation", and "Duchess of Mandalore" (2x12 -2x14)

Oof.  So, this was the arc that actually made me quit watching TCW the first time around.  I am very lukewarm on Mandalorians in general, so that wasn't great.  But aside from that, and from the well-attested issue of everyone on Mandalore looking like a Storm Front fantasy, this arc exhibits the same structural writing defects the entire show has shown far - and honestly, life is too short to watch bad TV.  At this point, I know this main issue will never be corrected in the entire show run, so I can accept it and push through in the name of completionism and writing research, but at the time I wasn't active in fandom and it was enormously easy to just stop watching and move onto other, better, shows and books.

Now, I thought long and hard about how to review these episodes, but I think it's useful in this case to interview them as a singular block instead of individual episodes.  The story is largely cohesive, if a bit strained. It is essentially Palpatine's PT plot writ small: he wants to take over Mandalore (a reason is never really explicated in the actual story, so who knows why), and he's doing it by essentially creating a false war between the CIS proxies, Death Watch, and the Republic proxy, which is Duchess Satine.  If all goes according to plan, Satine will be shown as ineffectual and unable to rule her people, and the GAR can occupy Mandalore for reasons of "public safety".  This will inflame the Mandalorians, who aren't part of the Republic and don't want to be, and send them rushing in the arms of the CIS-allied Death Watch, starting a cycle of radicalization and violence which will end (at least from Palpatine's POV) with Mandalore firmly in his grasp, and all potential opposition killed in the Civil War he engineered.   

As enormously stupid as the whole plot sounds, it's a valid historical tactic for imperial powers looking to expand.  And that's lead us the the primary flaw of this story: The Jedi are the Bad Guys.  Just ignore the tangled mess of Mandalorian canon, retcons, and expanded universe, past and present - in the show itself, they are presented as a smaller, weaker neighbor-state, and the Jedi are acting as agents of an expansionary military power, interfering with their internal politics specifically for the purpose of a soft invasion.  And that's an interesting story!  But that story is deliberately obfuscated and hobbled because the writers and producers of TCW were and are ever-so-concerned with making the Jedi as sympathetic as possible, even in situations where they shouldn't be.

Part of that hobbling is Satine's character.  Satine is badly written, but she's badly written in a very specific way that has been common to most of the non-CIS political antagonists the show has presented thus far.  Satine's most interesting characteristic is that she doesn't want to involve Mandalore with the war - and who can blame her?  The Republic and the CIS have nothing to offer to her or her people.  The only thing that will happen is the exploitation of Mandalore's natural resources (at best) or the destruction of her people, caught between two Great Powers who obviously don't care for her people's struggle.  That's an interesting character, right?  A POV we haven't seen in this show so far, which has consistently been from the Jedi POV, which is pretty firmly in the CIS = monsters and Republic = assholes (but democratic assholes!) camp.

But it's a POV that is pretty uncomplimentary of the Jedi role in this war, which means Satine must be crippled by an obnoxious belief in pacifism, like the unlikably-written Lurmen in season one, and also weighted down by a personal connection to an avatar of the Republic, like Senator Farr and his "family friendship" with Padme overcoming the fact that his people are starving and getting no support from the Republic.  I have heard people argue that TCW, written as it was in the late 2000s, is reacting against the excesses of the War on Terror.  I am less than convinced, mostly because every single anti-war character is reduced to a flat caricature of an annoying pacifist that can be safely defeated by the ever-so-kind warrior monks in the space of an episode or two before being cast aside for the next adventure. 

Because Satine's motivations are poorly written, her actions don't make a lick of sense. In "The Mandalore Plot", she's clearly escorting Obi-Wan around under duress - but in "Voyage of Temptation", she's apparently going with the Senators willingly to the Coruscant, to essentially beg the Senate to not invade.  Why not write her as an unwilling "guest" of the Republic, invited without recourse to defend her people's sovereignty?  Well, that would show Obi-Wan in a very unflattering light, wouldn't it?  But in "Duchess of Mandalore" she's back to being a prisoner in everything but name, escaping custody to receive an unaltered copy of her dead minister's speech.  

Now, Obi-Wan helps her at that point...but it's clearly due to some poorly-written romantic feelings.  I am not interested in any Padme/Anakin parallels, mostly because I find it incredibly tedious and honestly not helpful in exploring Anakin's Leap into the Dark Side.  This story is a gigantic missed opportunity to show the Jedi (or at least, a representative of the Jedi) wrestle with their roles as avatars of the republic, when the republic is so obviously manufacturing a reason to invade Mandalore.  Palpatine is obviously orchestrating this whole thing, but he still (at this point in the show) requires the consent of the Senate to essentially annex more territory - and the Senate is perfectly happy to give him that consent, by the way.  There is a fantastic story on the Jedi side about the clash of ideals vs realities, and the writers totally side-stepped it.

But pulling the focus out a little further, that has actually been par for the course for most of the Obi-Wan stories of season 2.  He's been consistently more and more irritated about the war as the season has gone on, and made some off-hand comments about the ungratefulness of the Republic populace that, in the hands of a more competent writer, could have been a multi-season character arc about loss of faith in fallible human institutions, which would dovetail pretty well with his characterization in both RotS and ANH.  Instead, his character remains the static wise-cracking Good Guy; Satine is the Designated Love Interest, unable to develop along more interesting and independent lines; and this arc falls deeply flat as a result.  

They're not the only characters who are horribly underwritten.  I mean, here we are at the end of Season 2, and have we yet seen a sympathetic CIS character, or an accounting of how Palpatine was able to take advantage of already extant fractures in the Republic to create a shadowy cabal dedicated to tearing it apart?  No.  It's all war crimes and evil laughter so far.  The Good Guys always win (until they don't), the bad guys are always Very Bad, and there are no shades of gray in this massive galaxy.  Again, ignoring the complicated Mandalorian backstory, Death Watch is extremely under-baked as villains.  There could have been a fascinating interplay between Satine and Pre about their different visions for their people's future, but just as Satine is a flat Pacifist caricature, Pre is a dull Terrorist caricature.

I have to give a special mention to the horrible Love Confession of "Voyage of Temptation".  This is the episode where Satine is written most consistently as Peak Pacifist.  If she had instead been written as anti-war (but not necessarily a philosophical pacifist), her escape from Tal Merrik would have been a great inversion of that trope - and in fact, I thought it was at first, when she "confessed", and then had to make an annoyed face when Obi-Wan didn't immediately play along.  Instead, they played it straight, and I've never felt more simpatico with a villain than when Tal Merrik complained about their timing.  That fact that Satine's "pacifism" is then used as an excuse for Obi-Wan and Satine to hesitate to kill a terrorist, leading Anakin to kill him...like, c'mon.  I get it, the writers want to show his fall to the dark side, you gotta play the ominous theme music, but is this really a particularly evil act by Anakin?  I'm gonna be honest, if a cop or an armed civilian kills a mass shooter, no one is castigating them for doing so, but instead congratulating them for stopping a murderer from killing again.

Final note and the only one that explicitly addresses the Mandalorian elephant in the room: I hate the Darksaber.  Like, I know we all gave KJA shit for the original Darksaber novel, but the fact that Filoni (or Lucas?) repurposed the name for a SPECIAL MANDALORIAN LIGHTSABER fills me with intense rage.  They're fucking gun knights, you coward, stop inserting your weird Arthurian hard-on into my western samurai sci-fi pastiche.

And that's it for this batch of episodes.  Up next: Boba Fett makes his first appearance in our chronological viewing, and we return to Mandalore a second time, much to my sorrow. 

[heartslogos]

newfragile yellows [1007]

"Is it not enough for me to be witty and charming?” Ellana complains as she longingly stares outside the narrow slat of a window, “Must I also be extremely well read and well versed? I don’t think most conversational partners I’ll be having will be overly impressed by how thoroughly informed I am and can make them in the migration cycles of swallows.”

Solas doesn’t give her any reply as he finishes sliding new books onto the shelves that line the tower’s walls.

“You could embroider,” He says, “If you’re so bored. Or draw. The act of creation offers infinite rewards.”

“The act of creation requires inspiration. There’s no inspiration when one lives in a single room with a single crack in the stone as an excuse for a window.” Ellana quickly hurries over to the table groaning with books, searching through them before pulling out a story book. Its cover is beaten and worn, the pages worn thin at the edges from her repeatedly going through them.

She finds the faded illustration she’d been looking for and thrusts it into Solas’ face.

“Look. That’s what a window should look like. It’s got glass panes and it’s so large that a whole person could stand right in front of it and be covered in light. It’s like a small door.” She points to her own window. “That’s not a window.”

“It’s an opening in this room purposefully made in order to let air and light from outside come inside,” Solas replies, pushing the book out of his face. “By definition, it is a window.”

“By spirit it is not.” Ellana sighs, closing the book and carefully setting it back among the others. She listlessly picks through the books on the table. “Where do you get these and where do they go? Surely this entire tower isn’t shelves of books that you’re just cycling around.”

“I will not tell you what is in the rest of the tower. You’ve asked me before. I will not give it away.”

“If there’s even anything else in this tower aside from me.”

“If so.”

Ellana scowls at the books that give her glimpses of the world outside but can’t give her the real thing. She scowls at the window that’s only wide enough for her to stick her arm through if she’s feeling bold enough to risk getting stuck. She scowls at the four walls and their shelves of useless items. She scowls at the high ceiling that seems cavernous at night, like some sort of hole bearing down on her. She scowls at the single doorway into the room and everything it keeps out.

She scowls at Solas, who keeps her in.

“When can I leave?” Ellana asks. She asks it every time he comes to see her, which is often enough. Sometimes she is afraid that if she bothers him too much, presses too much, asks too much, he’ll stop coming and she’ll be left here alone forever and ever.

“When you’re ready and it’s safe,” Solas replies. “Go sit down. Or help me shelve these.”

He points to the stack of books, bound in twine by his feet. There’s four or five stacks of the heavy, boring looking tomes left.

At first, when Solas started bringing her scientific papers instead of historical records and books of poetry and prose, Ellana ignored them. But Solas doesn’t take away the books she hasn’t read, so their number grew on her shelves until she was forced to read them to get them to go away. Ellana can read through some of the toughest, driest, dullest, most incredibly insipid material out there now. It would be commendable if it wasn’t a skill gained under extreme duress.

Peculiar, though, that Solas didn’t think to leave her primers or any sort of introduction to such dense materials. Ellana doesn’t quite understand what some of them mean, but the rest of them —

The rest of them, though written with great complexity, seem to just. Feel natural. As though she were reading something she’d already read, or already known. Sometimes Ellana would be reading and naturally her mind would come to the conclusion provided at the end of the thesis. Or would already be drawing up a counter argument based on some other bit of knowledge that she didn’t know she knew. Perhaps she’d read something about it before — it’s not as though there’s an order to reading these. Ellana is just picking up and reading whatever strikes her fancy.

“Did anything happen while I was away?” Solas asks, breaking Ellana out of her pondering.

She opens her mouth, and her mind blanks rather forcefully. She stands in stunned silence before she shrugs. “What could happen? I live in a box.”

Solas gives her one of his unreadable looks. Ellana returns it with one of irritation.

“Maybe if you’d let me past the door, or gave me a bigger window I would have something to say next time you ask.”

“The point is nothing should happen,” Solas says. “If something happens then something is wrong.”

“Events occurring does not naturally lead to a wrong conclusion. How awful a world that would be, where if anything at all happened you must immediately jump to such pessimistic conclusions.”

Solas sighs and returns to the books. Ellana assists in shelving them and then assists in helping him sort and tie up the books to be taken away.

As always, before leaving, Solas pauses at the door and takes a long, hard look around the room and at Ellana. He places his hand on her forehead.

“You are safe here,” Solas says. She used to think he was saying it for her, but now she thinks he’s saying it to himself.

She used to ask him what she was safe from but she grew tired of him never answering. Or worse, giving a vague half-answer.

Ellana waves him off and goes to press her face against the slat of a window. All she can see is sky. Or what she would assume to be sky. It could be hellfire or the bottom of the sea or the ceiling of an extremely large cave for all she knows.

Maybe she isn’t even in a tower at all. Maybe there’s just a single floor below her. Maybe this is just a box hanging in the sky.

Ellana watches the sky until it turns dark.

And she watches the sky some more.

Ellana! Ellana, a voice calls from far away, let out your arm.

She pushes her sleeve up as far as it will go, and slides her arm through the stone slat. It scrapes against her skin uncomfortably, but it goes through. She sticks her arm out as far as she can, until her shoulder is flush with the window edges.

She closes her eyes as she spreads her fingers wide. And her palm flares to life.

I’m here, Ellana thinks, whoever you are. I’m here. Come find me.

[filthysweetie]

James Bond drabble

Prompt: “Dear Diary...” 

missed a day >.< this one is begging to be a longer story, but i had to cut it so i can finish packing...note that there’s a brief description of torture in this one.

Edit: This now has a sequel here if anyone wants to read it :) 

———

Dear Diary,

Let it be known this is done under duress. Apparently, not being a bloody field agent does not get you out of psych evaluations and ‘recommended’ methods to cope with ‘high stress levels’ and ‘worrying tendency to identify job performance as self-worth’. I bet they didn’t make Boothyard do this. You get kidnapped once and then everyone suddenly thinks you’re a delicate flower. 

Hell, Bond got kidnapped (I guess it’s just called captured when they’re agents…which actually is now making me quite offended that when I was taken it was called kidnapping) on 7 of his last 15 missions. I don’t see him writing a damn diary about it! (Although god, imagine that.) Besides, what’s the point of keeping a diary if it’s mandated and also!! Your psychiatrist will be reading it? Maybe I should start writing in code. 01000110 01110101 01100011 01101011 00100000 01111001 01101111 01110101 00100000 01000100 01110010 00101110 00100000 01011001 01100101 01101110 00101110 ——— “What is…that?”

Q turned, not the least bit surprised to see James standing there behind him. He had a mission coming up and was obviously ready for his kit. Q did a little ritual over the case, always so sad to see the fine pieces of machinery go when the chance of them returning was so dismal. Instead of focusing on the kit, though…Q followed his eyes to the little journal on his desk. It was covered in stickers (most of them shiny, some of them hello kitty gifted by a little one on the tube who got three on before he or her mother noticed) and attached in the pen holder was a pen with a fuzzy feather top. It was rainbow. 

Can’t blame the man for noticing it, it was a rather stark deviation from the normal color pallet and maturity level of Q’s desk.

“Oh, that old thing?” Q pat the top with a little more force than necessary, “my psych assigned diary. I figure if they choose to treat me like a child I may as well oblige.”

James took a moment before speaking, “And what, pray tell, made them think you need it?”

Q blinked, “Does that mean you’ve done it too?” That was a bit of a surprise. The double-o agents seems to thrive on their disregard of ‘normal’ coping, of medical, and of psych all together.

“Answer the question, Q.” James had the audacity to roll his eyes.

“Now I’m very curious,” Q can’t help it, “what do you write in it? About the girls you like? About more interesting ways to destroy my tech?”

“Mostly survivors guilt.” James says, nonchalant.

Well, that answers that, “Oh…” damn it, now he’s obliged to answer James’ question regardless of if this is an interrogation tactic or not. He gives a half shrug, “Dr. Yen assigned it after the kidnapping.”

“Excuse me?”

“I know, I thought it was all very much over the top as well.” Q fights a sigh, “Now your kit—”

James shakes his head, “No, wait, you were kidnapped?”

Q blinks, ignores the chill that goes down his spine; “I knew they didn’t release that on the official channels but I assumed you’d know none the less.” Q clears his throat, “Now, your kit.”

James quiets then, but there are a lot of questions behind his eyes. Who’s to say if Q focuses on his tech a bit more than he normally would. ——— Dear diary, 

I didn’t realize it had been kept quite so secret. I should have known, we are a spy organization. But I was {Q hesitates over the word, crossing out kidn and captu wishing suddenly that he was using his standard pencil instead of this purple inked mess of a pen} gone for 11 days. I guess I figured they would have told the double-os at least, maybe brought them in to help find me. Not that I needed anyone’s help, of course, I mean I got out of there myself, didn’t need anyone rescuing this damsel.

But the fact that {Ja is scribbled over fully; must remember that this will be read} there were agents I’m the primary handler of that didn’t notice at all. What excuse were they told when I wasn’t on the comms? Would they have just kept been given excuses until the forgot to keep asking?

My cats were fed, at least. Moneypenny thought I would come back, or at least held out enough hope to not sell my apartment and put my cats in a shelter after 11 bloody days. 

R had been searching non-stop—bless her, I think she needs this exercise more than me. Poor girl looked like she hadn’t slept since I’d left; keeping all the missions on track while searching for me. It was her and Riley and Sunil that found me on the security footage after I got out of that place and got me a pickup. It’s not like I was forgotten or anything. {Why do I feel forgotten? Q stares at the line in it’s stark purple ink for a long moment before crossing it out. He doesn’t want to talk about that with himself, let alone Dr. Yen.}

Regardless. R has finished debriefing me on all active missions that I’d missed some portion on, and overall everything is going well. Testing of the new laser pen fell behind during my absence but it’s to be expected. It will give me something to do tomorrow when most of my active agents are in transit. ——— “Q, Sir, we really need you in the pit.” Laila said, standing at the threshold of his office, seeming a bit more frazzled than normal. There are no alarms (auditory or silent) going off around her, so the attitude was a bit perplexing.

Q puts the soldering iron down on it’s stand and takes off the magnification glasses, replacing them with his own, already getting up and heading towards her, “What’s the matter?”

“Sir, one of the agents is being belligerent; requesting to speak only to you before moving forward with his mission.”

That’s a new one; “Alright then, transfer the secure line to my station please, Laila.”

It’s always nice, walking out to the floor, seeing his people working away. Standing at the center of it is like being cocooned within the greatest minds of London. It’s safe. 

“Yes?”

“Q”Jame’s voice is instantly recognizable, “I’ve arrived in Paraguay and will be rendezvousing with the contact at 1430.”

Q waited. Nothing.

“And?”

“That is all.”

Q blinked, glad that James couldn’t see the confusion that must certainly be coving his face, “You called me away from my prototypes to give me a standard mission update that you could have given to any one of my people?”

“Had to make sure you were still around, Q”

“Still—” it clicks, “Oh. Well. Yes, I am very much still around.

“Good.” Is that a smile in his voice or is Q projecting? “I’ll check in again after the rendezvous.”

Q’s throat clicks, dry; “I’ll be here.” ———— Dear Diary, 

When will this little experiment be over? It’s been a half month! I haven’t got much free time at all, and wasting it in this damn book isn’t helping anyone. Least of all me. ————— “I notice you haven’t actually written anything about the kidnapping?” Dr. Yen asks, looking through his entries with a clinical eye.

“I much prefer to call it capture.” Q says in leu of an answer. The sticker covered mess looks silly in her hands, but she seemed to have enjoyed his take on ‘making it his own’ even if he’d been doing the antithesis of that. Granted, some of his minions have added stickers to it too—so next to hello kitty is a ‘back it the fuck up’ sticker in fancy script with an old school desktop monitor showing the phrase, and a sparkly unicorn that Trevor insists is from his kids but Q has his doubts. If he leaves it on his desk unattended, when he comes back there are always new stickers. No one ever opens it, respecting some privacy that doesn’t really need respecting (it’s not like there’s anything of substance in there), but it’s a nice gesture none the less.

Dr. Yen smiles, “Of course,” Q wishes she were a bit more of a dick like Dr. Reynard had been—it was easier to dismiss someone when they were being an ass, “I notice you haven’t written about your capture—or escape for that matter—at all. There are some references to it, but no detail. Do you have any thoughts on why that is?”

Q takes a sip of tea. It is nice that these meetings are uninterrupted tea time—though he could do without the conversation. 

“There’s nothing important to say about it.” Q set the mug down, making sure to be gentle about it, “it’s all done, and I don’t exactly plan to get kidna—captured again.”

Dr. Yen gives an amused smile, “no one really plans to get captured at all.” Then, “Sometimes the act of writing down an experience”—she stopped using ‘traumatizing experience’ a while ago, Q did not have a traumatizing experience, thank you—“can solidify it in our reality. It may be difficult to do that at first, but once it is solidified, we can begin to process it in a healthy way.”

“It’s already written up in the after-action report.”

“Yes, but that was what happened, not how it felt to be going through those things.”

Q rolls his eyes, “do you want me to write a soliloquy on how sad and lonely it was and how I felt abandoned by MI6 and made peace with my death? Or maybe how it transformed me in ineffable ways and I have a new lease on life?”

It was so annoying to lay on that perfect level of sarcasm to have it disregarded so thoroughly, “If that’s how you feel, yes.” God she’s so earnest. 

“Well it wasn’t” Q snapped out. He picked up the mug again and took another sip. Setting it down extra soft, with barely a ‘clink’ on the glass table, “Excuse me, I must be more tired than I thought.”

“Not to worry,” Dr. Yen smiled, “your job is stressful any given day of the week, it’s certainly understandable. Please do give it a thought though as you go through this week. Sometimes putting things to paper allows our minds to ‘get it out of our system’ instead of having it linger in our subconscious.”

“Very well. I will give it some thought.” ———— Dear Diary, 

Lets give it the old college try, shall we?

I admire James Bond. He’s one of our best field agents, though his record for returning his tech is abysmal. He seems to come back from the brink of death more times than a cat and never seems to let it affect him. Always ready for the next mission.

I want to be like that. He’s been through so much, the loss of M, the burning of his home, the burning of so many false starts at a normal life, and he comes back and he may be battered but he’s still whole. Undoubtedly whole. I get kidnapped once and now I can’t even get a good nights sleep unless I’m folded awkwardly on the little couch in my office, and of course that sleep is poorer for other reasons. 

I know I’m capable, I know I can destroy countries and get myself out of most any situation that I find myself in, but I didn’t realize exactly how that situation would affect me. I haven’t lost confidence in my abilities, but maybe loss of confidence in my security? Is it just a waiting game to see when I’ll next be thrown into the back of a van, drugged, and then wake up in a windowless room, IV in my arm strapped to a chair with no fucking idea how much time has passed? When will I next find myself threatened and beaten? The soles of my feet slashed, so dehydrated that I can’t put my head up without feeling dizzy? 

Obviously I can survive it. I have. 

The thought of it happening again…it’s terrifying. And it can happen at any time. And I thought I admired James because he looked like a good lay. Maybe it’s because he seems unbreakable and I worry I’m already broken. ———— Q stared at the pages for a long time. Was he supposed to feel hollow?

He tore them out, crumpled them like a secret and then lit them on fire. This was a spy organization after all, no point in letting that level of weakness get out. ———— Dear Diary, 

Laila got a new corgi puppy. Despite being a cat person, I have to admit it’s quite cute.

[crqstalite]

From the prompt list? I'm sending in something simple with will, hopefully, just go in any direction you want. And that's "Always." For whichever pairing you wish :)

posting this before i chicken out, because i’ve been at this for like eight hours already lol. trying my hand at a little shakarian [petrakarian, in this case], and there’s a sprinkle of happiness if you squint ;)

edit: i’ve also never written garrus before honestly. definitely tried my best but i’m sure there are mistakes in there somewhere. regardless, happy to provide.

pairing: brione petrakis/garrus vakarian. word count: 2,611

-

She's putting it off. Leaving, as it was.

Honestly, she doesn't know why. Her bags are all packed, her dress blues are pressed and folded on the cot next to her. Her datapad has been prepped to send all of her reports straight to Alliance Command. Yet she's left her comb in her duffel, hair decidedly unbrushed around her shoulders, still sitting in her fatigues and they're only an hour out from the Citadel. She could be in the crew quarters, going over any possible assignments they could give her. She could be trying to get another couple of winks in. Anything other than being here, and desperately hanging on to what felt like the last thing she had in the galaxy.

It would've been so much easier not to be here right now, but nothing in the last year had been easy. It's harder to force herself out, hell she's been sleeping in here for the last week or so.

The lights flicker just above her, the battery still stuttering in a way that frustrated Garrus to no end. Not that they had much need for it these days, but she'd offered to take a look at it. He'd been content to let her sit nearby. Talking about trivial things during the first few days after the suicide mission with some of her senses glossed over by pain meds, maybe more than a little wine in their systems. Then it waned into painful silence as they grew closer to the station, wine bottle empty and all sentiments aired. All the things she knows she can't say, all the things she wants to.

She rolls another bandage around her hand, pulling taut. It'd been her good hand too, a lucky shot taken by a Collector that had left her unable to snipe properly during the last leg of the base assault. Still bruised and trying it's hardest to bleed through. Mordin hadn't been there to do it properly, so it had been her, hearing gunshots against the barrier they'd set up, blood gushing from her hand with Garrus asking her if she was alright. Medi-gel spilling from her shaking hands, only being able to offer suppressing fire with her Carnifex before Shepard told them to retreat. Her wrist whined from the motion, and she barely catches a blue eye darting between her and the UI when she groans.

"Still bothering you?" His voice is softer than usual when she catches him in the act, hands stilling over the keyboard, "Chakwas should really take a look at that."

"She can once we're back in Alliance space," Brione haphazardly cuts off the end of it, tucking it under one of the other wraps. She tests a smile with the nearly healed scar on her lip, "Besides, you're the one who was apparently up and fighting with Shepard not even two days after you nearly died, Garrus."

Another beat of silence before he starts again, mandibles flaring as he sighs. Exasperated with her, maybe. He'd been bothering her about it for days now, usually asking how it was and if she needed anything, "We Turians are a bit hardier than our human counterparts," He gestures to the scarred side of his head, bandage recently removed. "Brione-"

"Don't." She lays the gauze down next to her, unable to meet his eyes. She doesn't want to think about the fact these are their last days together, the fact this could very well be the last time she hears him say her name. There wasn't much guaranteed after their non-human crewmembers stepped off the ship, nothing saying he had to stay with her, even over light years separating them, "I'll see Chakwas once, once everyone is gone. Shepard will have my head if I lose a hand before we get there anyway."

"You can't hide in here forever, Brione," Is all he says, giving her a concerned look but finishing his diagnostics on the console first, "No reason in putting it off."

This talk has been a week coming. He hesitates, unsure of himself while she tries to will the tears away, turning away from him. What was she, six? She could handle a suicide mission (which they'd all nearly died on), so why was saying goodbye, saying see you later, saying that she'd see him again soon so hard? She was a captain of the Alliance military, not a babbling schoolgirl with a crush.

Except, that's what it felt like, navigating a relationship with him. She'd downright giggled at something he'd told her.

Does he know just how much he means to her?

It wasn't as if extranet access would be blocked for her when she got back to Earth. By every law that Shepard had learned (and in turn exploited) surprisingly quickly, most of the human operatives aboard the SR-2 wouldn't be arrested under the same duress she would be. Brione could still send messages to Palaven, could still say hello every once and a while.

Hello wasn't the same as being able to sit in a comfortable silence with one at the console, the other completing her daily reports with her legs folded under her, hair tied up in a messy bun at the base of neck. Hello wasn't the same as finding leftovers from the dinner prepared earlier and pulling all-nighters just to spend some time together.

Brione wasn't sure when this had turned into more, when she had started to want more. When she couldn't think of a tomorrow without him. At first, she'd just entertained it as little more than a fling, if she was going to die at the end of the year, then she could cross a few things off her bucket list. And, he was a friend. They'd met a few years before the SR-1, a one off meeting during her shore leave. Then they'd been squadmates, fighting their way through waves and waves of Geth, two snipers snipping at each other for their aim. It boggled the mind that it'd been so quick after Alchera, that she started to discover little things about him when she had little else to do. The small visits about the battery that turned into hour long conversations once she'd rejoined the Normandy. One or the other venting about a minor problem or a large one they'd held onto for so long they'd made a joke of it.

He'd patiently listened when she recounted the dressing down she'd been given after Torfan and the therapy sessions she'd attended afterwards. That, she'd never told anyone about in detail. Hated reliving the day, but it slipped from her mouth so easily while she'd been sitting on the crates. Then she'd sipped on some sort of tea Shepard had picked up on the Citadel, listening to him about Sidonis, about his time on Omega in general. That by the time they were within range of the relay, she'd simply decided she didn't want to let go. That there wasn't anyone like him, that there was so much left that she still wanted. They'd spent the night on the cot he'd dragged in here sometime ago, and she'd never felt so alive.

Then they'd survived. And then there was a whole new life expanding before her, with the Reapers looming over them. But she'd lived, they'd lived, and now she wasn't sure what they were. It wasn't a fling anymore, but she didn't know where he fit into her life.

Whether he wanted to fit in her life. She's sure he could have just about anyone, and he hadn't seemed too upset, giving her the way out of asking whether she wanted something closer to home.

How did he become her home? It could've been anywhere else, on Earth, in London, on the Citadel. But instead, it was a certain Garrus Vakarian.

"This isn't -- it isn't the end, Brione, not if you don't want it to be," He holds a hand out to her, "If I know Shepard, and I'd assume I do, she'll get us back into the thick of it within a couple months. If that."

"That might be a little optimistic," She responds, toying with her hair for a moment before grasping his hand, pulling herself up off the cot to look at him properly. She gently holds a hand against the scarred side of his head, brushing the rough plates with her thumb, "I would've been rather stupid to think this would last forever, running into the sunset. I'm just glad we had what we did, Garrus."

He leans into her touch, his other arm snaking around her waist. Why did it have to be him that she'd become attached to? The first person that'd make her feel more like a living being than a cold blooded killer that remained a few seconds from death every time she stepped off the ship?

Why is he all she can think about these days?

"I," He pauses again, "I'll always just be a comm away. If that's what you want, of course."

"Always, hm?" She asks, "Don't know how timezones work from Earth to Palaven, but if you haven't noticed, I'm not much of sleeping person. You could lose a lot of it, talking to me. But you've never minded it before now, I guess."

"It'd be better than nothing." He responds, when she drops her hand and instead pulls him closer to her. Maybe it's not the most comfortable with him in armor, and her still regularly needing their dwindling supply of pain meds, but she just wants to feel something, anything. She can't go back to the way things were, alone, and cold in an alliance apartment with nothing but her next meal going for her.

"I don't want to leave you, Garrus," She admits, her voice cracking. Brione won't cry, she wills herself not to, even as the dam strains against them, "You, damn you, you're...everything."

"You're...lovely yourself, Brione. Not like I'm itching to leave either, not when everything's already going right for once," He responds, the words thrumming through what she thinks are Turian subvocals. If Turians even can whisper, she's pretty sure he is while gently running his hands through her hair, then trailing down her back, "But I'm not sure I look all that good in...what was it Shepard called it? 'Jumpsuit orange'? Not sure how friendly the Alliance would be to me either."

"Probably not very," She tries to laugh, tries to force anything out at all, but instead all she gets is a choking sound that she could compare to a varren. A rogue tear slips out anyway, and all she hopes for is that Garrus can't see it. Why is she falling apart? Why now? She has a million and three battles under her belt, and this is what shatters her? Not a shotgun, not a scion, but this.

She'd said goodbye to so many people before. To her various adoptive parents over the years, her old COs, even Alenko more recently. None of them destroyed her like this was.

Relationships. They're impossible. They're weaknesses and vulnerabilities that your enemies are just waiting to take advantage of. Even more if your's is a cross-species liaison, one that shouldn't have become everything that it was now.

Brione doesn't want to live without him.

She can't bring herself to say it out loud, so she doesn't. He holds her a little while longer, they don't say anything but reassuring the other all would be well. Or at least they try, and it dissolves until silence when there isn't anything to say but repeat themselves ten times over. They sit for a while after that, time whittling down all the while. Her hands fit a bit oddly in his, but she can't find herself wanting to let go all the while.

Shepard's voice comes over the comm with a timer on their arrival, and she has to pick up her things, fastening the last button on her jacket and throwing her duffel bag over her shoulder. Garrus offers her one last lingering forehead touch when they reach the airlock, and she kisses him softly, knowing if she stays any longer, she won't be able to leave.

But she does. She has to be able to.

She sees him off, the glint of his blue armor the last thing she sees. She thinks she's the perfect picture of someone who was trying (and inwardly failing) to stay afloat with a forced grin and a wave as he walks off. Brione doesn't care, as much as the crew teases her about calibrations in more than one capacity. A few get a smile out of her, but she feels numb the rest of the way to Earth.

Cold. It settles in like an all too familiar blanket. The chill of not really seeing the faces of the people around her, nor acknowledging what they had to say.

She slips back into her normal routines, after the hearing. Doesn't even realize it at first, but without her usual visits to someone who wasn't dolled up in Alliance blue, there's nothing to it. She's shuttled back to the Citadel after a month, sent to work with Udina. A liaison to Alliance and from the Council, is effectively her job description. It's like clockwork, sleep, work, find something to eat if she was feeling physically up to it, work until she couldn't, then reluctantly sleep again. Fix up her sniper rifle on the weekends, take it to a range to keep herself sharp.

There's no Turian on her six though. No one there to bother her that her shot is off just a few inches so that clips the outside of the target.

She sees his face in every single one that walks by until they all blur together. She hears his voice in every C-SEC officer that speaks to Udina, to her.

It isn't until two months later that she receives a mail on her comm. Right in the middle of another one of Udina's tirades about the lack of Council support and funding, she opens it like any other email she'd received before. Calculating, tired, she reads over the sender, the subject line and is halfway through scrolling through it when the glaze over her eyes recedes and she realizes just who it is. Her breath catches in her throat, taking her leave for the afternoon.

She finally gets a call after work that day. And just as suspected, it keeps her up all night. There's so much to say, so much that she hadn't known. Her new job, his new task force. And yet, he still seems so indescribably happy to see her. That her eyes are barely being held open to focus on him, but that he's here, as much as he can be.

"Sure you don't want to take back that offer of always being on the other end of the comm? Now that we've done it, I might get a taste for it," She says, yawning as she absentmindedly rubs an eye. Udina will give her shit for being there late in the morning (in a couple hours really), but she doesn't care.

"As long as you want me to be," He nods, "Well, hopefully you don't start calling me at the oddest hours of the night or in the middle of meetings, but always, yes."

"Hm. I'll file it under consideration," She perches her head on her palm, taking in every detail the vid would let her, "Always?"

"Always. Now get some sleep, Brione," His voice softens, mandibles flaring into a smile as her vision blurs, "Good night."

Five months after that, communication to Palaven goes dark. The Reapers attack, and she watches wide-eyed as they touch down in Earth.

And her always becomes an empty promise with every refugee she watches come in during the days afterwards.

Garrus is not among them.

[shipwrexked]

ACOTAR, ACOMAF, ACOWAR, ACOFAS: LUCIEN

I’ve been re-reading the ACOTAR series by S.J. Maas in preparation for a creative writing course I’m planning to teach this summer and I just need to talk to my mutuals about Lucien.

In ACOTAR Lucien is everything that Feyre fears about the Fae on the surface! However, as the story goes on it’s clear that there’s a bond between Feyre and Lucien. A sense of shared trauma, shared experiences between them. We, as readers, don’t really know exactly what Lucien’s trauma is because S.J. Maas hides it from us in the beginning. What she lets us see is the bitterness, the anger, the sadness, and the grief that these two characters outwardly express in their story. It’s hearing this first story from Feyre’s point of view that lets us “see” Lucien with those traumas. It’s a survivor’s bond that they share. Tamlin and Feyre do not share this bond because Tamlin denies and rewrites everything that has happened to him. Tamlin believes his own lies whereas Lucien and Feyre don’t have the luxury or the delusion to do so. What has happened to them has left them broken, and bleeding from the soul and heart and as Feyre says in ACOTAR frozen in those moments of pain and despair. Just as Feyre was incapable of feeling anything but hatred and fear and loathing for the fae due to this childhood trauma so too is Lucien incapable in the beginning of feeling anything but cold, calculating, manipulation toward humans. He and she are frozen emotionally in that moment when all goodness and hope was shattered before them. They are not living they are existing and it’s Lucien and not Tamlin that wakes her up. It’s Lucien and Feyre walking that dark path together in ACOTAR that brings both of them out of that frozen wasteland, Feyre more so than Lucien, but I believe that’s because Lucien has spent more time in that space than Feyre and so it will take more to bring him out. This survivor’s bond is what Tamlin sees and fears and does not understand between Feyre and Lucien and it is this healing that is happening to his best friend and this woman that he is trying to court that he misinterprets as one of romantic attachment and warns Lucien off from. Tamlin can’t see the truth because Tamlin believes his own lies and he makes the mistake that most people make, he assumes that everyone reacts and thinks and feels the same as he does. Tamlin is the most HUMAN of the High Lords in every way. That is the truest irony of ACOTAR. Lucien and Feyre become friends by the end of ACOTAR but that friendship was forged under duress and so it will take more to solidify the trust between the two of them as we see happen in ACOWAR.

But first let’s talk about ACOMAF. In A Court of Mist and Fury we see both Feyre and Lucen’s characters turned upside down. Feyre has survived Under the Mountain. She has been deemed the savior of Prythian, Feyre Cursebreaker they call her now and she is trying to cope with PTSD in a court that does not acknowledge PTSD. Of course, she’s not the only one and I’ve written a previous post “In defense of Tamlin” where in I discuss the very real effects of PTSD and his character’s adherence to same. Again, Tamlin is the most human of all the fae characters in Prythian and this may be why the fandom has such a hard time accepting his flaws of which he has many. In ACOMAF we see Feyre and Lucien’s friendship suffer and eventually tear. It’s not “broken” per se when Feyre finally makes the decision to leave the Spring Court but there is definitely a tear in the fabric of their friendship. Two survivors who protected each other Under the Mountain but neither of them trusted the other enough to be cohorts to be partners, true partners in friendship. The aftermath of that is played out from Feyre’s perspective in ACOMAF. We see Lucien fail her time and time again. She in turn fails him. Their friendship simply isn’t strong enough yet to have survived and strengthened the treachery and manipulation that was necessary to live under Ammarantha’s rule. Lucien understands this “double speak” as a court emissary. He’s skilled in politics and he’s calculating. He understands what motivates people and to understand that you have to understand their nature. However; Feyre is the ONLY human Lucien has ever encountered and he doesn’t understand Humans, which is telling considering who he calls his best friend. Lucien is not maliciously ignoring Feyre. He’s attempting to help her the only way he knows how and it just happens to be ineffective. Tamlin is too gone, too lost, to his own PTSD to see accurately what is happening in front of him and remember Tamlin believes his own lies which leaves him open to believing Ianthe’s lies. There is a lack of honest communication in the Spring Court hierarchy and this dishonesty leads to it’s downfall in ACOWAR. At one-point Feyre begs Lucien to help her, to get her out of the house, to let her be useful. Lucien is trying and failing to please two masters Tamlin and Feyre. He can’t do it. When he tries he fails her. He KNOWS this! He also knows the Spring Court is his only home. Where will he go if he pushes too hard? What will he do if Tamlin throws him out? Feyre calls it cowardice on his part but an adult knows this is practicality. It’s cold, hard, reality for Lucien and yet he still attempts to push and pull Tamlin into line when and where he can for BOTH his and Feyre’s sakes. Feyre fails Lucien too. She is not blameless in this narrative. Just as Lucien doesn’t understand her and her needs, she doesn’t understand him and his needs. She doesn’t have any experience with friendship. She doesn’t know what that looks like, feels like, sounds like. She fails Lucien every time she cuts him off from explanation. She fails him every time she doesn’t communicate honestly with him. She says it herself “we never speak of her here”. She never opens up to Lucien about her nightmares, about her fears in general or even why she has issues with small spaces and the color red. It all comes back to trust. Lucien doesn’t fully trust Feyre and Feyre doesn’t fully trust anyone. She can’t be a good friend to Lucien because she doesn’t know how and he fails her by trying to walk the line between friendship and politics. Yet there is still hope for this friendship. The scene where Lucien comes upon Feyre in the Illyrian Steppes he is desperate to get her to come back with him. He most probably doesn’t know what role Tamlin played in the death of Rhysand’s mother and sister. He most probably heard the same story Feyre did. Lucien himself says he has believed the worst of them for centuries, so OF COURSE he doesn’t understand why she won’t come back. He doesn’t understand that she is where she wants to be. He is in that moment the truest of friends to her. The most loyal of friend to her and he is proving that by risking his very life to bring her home. He willingly goes into the scariest territory; he willingly risks his life for his friend. At the end of ACOMAF it’s Lucien and not Feyre who is the better friend, the most loyal friend. But beware for Lucien’s character plays another role in this series. He is the cautionary tale of what happens when you allow blind loyalty to hold sway over you. Lucien never outright questions Tamlin, he never really pushes Tamlin to explain himself. He gives Tamlin blind loyalty and obeys the order even though some part of him knows it’s wrong.

In ACOWAR we see more of this dynamic between Feyre and Lucien play out throughout this entire book. I don’t think that’s a mistake or accident on the authors part I feel it’s an important foreshadowing of the future books to come in this world. In ACOWAR the two characters that stand out the MOST for me are Feyre (it’s being told from her perspective most of the time) and Lucien. Every time I re-read this book Lucien’s characters forces his way more and more to the center stage. It’s as if Lucien needs to tell his story, is finally ready to share his pain and agony with the rest of us. Perhaps in future books we’ll begin to see why Feyre and Lucien will always be connected. When ACOWAR opens Feyre is vengeful, and wrathful in the Spring Court. She literally hates everyone in that court except the common folk whom she claims to have no quarrel with the nobles, sycophants, and Ianthe however are all fair game for her wrath. Yes, she spies on Hybern for the Night Court and yes she reports back to Rhysand useful information regarding their forces but it’s not anything they couldn’t have gotten without her. The spying is a smoke screen to detract from the real reason she’s there…to fuck shit up! By now Lucien has begun to gain some understanding of Feyre not as a human but as a Fae. He is the only one in the Spring Court that is on to her. Everyone else is duped by her charade yet Lucien says nothing to his closest friend and confidante Tamlin. Tamlin who he wrecked himself and his friendship with Feyre in the previous books to defend and protect. Tamlin whose friendship has meant more to Lucien than anything in all these long years after Jesminda’s death. Yet for the first time in the telling of this story we see Lucien act counter to his loyalty to Tamlin. You could argue that it’s because he risks never seeing his mate again if he does but this is the wily fox we’re talking about. If he wanted to he would find a way, no I think we see this break from his character because he’s learning what blind loyalty costs. He’s seen the fall out from it, Hybern is coming and that unholy bargain was struck partly due to his own blind loyalty. Lucien is still loyal to Tamlin he’s just learned to temper that loyalty with reason and judgement. He won’t be led not by Tamlin, not by his past, not by his family and not by his own guilt any longer. In ACOWAR we begin to see Lucien’s character evolve and grow. He’s questioning the people around him more. He’s pushing for answers inside himself and he’s using those court connections he’s developed over the years as emissary to find answers. Most telling of all is when we see Lucien come to the realization that everything, he’s believed about the Night Court is a lie. For the first time something that Lucien believed to be an infallible truth is wrong and this begins him on a path of questioning himself. What else has been wrong about? What else did he miss? Mor says it herself in ACOWAR when she tells Feyre “It’s always hardest to find a foe is actually a friend because it causes you to questions yourself more than them”. Mor tells us, tells Feyre, this more than anything else is what Lucien wrestles with. Everything he’s been searching for, everything he thought the Spring Court would be is a lie. The wily fox was out foxed and the court he truly belonged to was the one he came to revile and hate. Now Lucien has to reconcile within himself these two things and in so doing find acceptance within himself. If you’re seeing the parallels between him and Elain going from human to Fae here that’s not an accident either. I believe S.J. purposely puts these markers in ACOWAR to show us just how aligned these two characters are. They are both struggling with who they are now vs who they were. Lucien and Elain are the before and after that Feyre constantly draws comparisons to in ACOMAF, Feyre says her life is “before Under the Mountain” and “after Under the Mountain”. Lucien and Elain are “before the cauldron” and “after the cauldron”.

Now don’t think I’m advocating for a Lucien and Elain ship here I’m simply making observations; I haven’t hoisted a sail for either of the Elain ships in this fandom mostly because I think S.J. is going to blow hole through whatever ship we come up with.

Back to Lucien, Lucien proves himself in ACOWAR time and again. He proves his bravery and his humility when he is willing to admit that he was wrong about the Night Court. He proves his loyalty (not blind this time) to Feyre by pitching in and helping where and when they allow. He proves his willingness to do what is right when he agrees to go to the continent to find Queen Vassa and bring her back for help. Lucien has begun the redemption arc of his character before the end of ACOWAR and we see glimpses of this at the end of the book when he meets up again with Feyre after the battle with Hybern and jokes with her about Queen Vassa. There, there is the bond of friendship, the survivor’s bond between Feyre and Lucien that we glimpse in ACOTAR but now it’s shining just that much brighter and a smidge stronger. We also see him hurting. He’s had to choose between his old life; the Spring Court, and his new life, post Spring Court and when he sees Tamlin the pain and the hurt is there. He doesn’t want to lose his friend. He doesn’t want to see Tamlin hurting or despairing or brought so low. Even now Lucien’s loyalty to Tamlin and his friendship are there. He wants to preserve what he can of the old and the good and bring it forward with him. Tamlin however has his own demons to slay before he can be any kind of friend to anyone.

Let’s move on to ACOFAS shall we. I simply adore Lucien in this novella. I’ll be completely honest and tell you that ACOFAS ruined a lot of characters for me but not Lucien. Lucien makes every attempt to keep the peace talks going between Fae and Human. He hooks up with Vassa and Jurian in an old manor house on what used to be mortal land and they have formed the “Band of Exiles”. We know he visits them often as Feyre tells us in Chapter 7 of ACOFAS. She also tells us that after the battle he comes back to Velaris with a black eye and split lip requesting if there’s somewhere else he can stay so as not to inconvenience them anymore. In ACOFAS Lucien and Elain are in mourning. They are mourning the loss of their previous lives and their previous loves. Even Lucien says he does not want anyone to replace Jesminda in his heart, he again tells Feyre he can’t stand to be near Elain for more than a few minutes at a time. Elain is mourning the loss of her human life and her betrothed Grayson. Mor tells Feyre to stay out of it. To let them “figure it out for themselves”. Mor understands grief she lost her beloved to the Wall and old age after the war. She understands better than Feyre what Elain and Lucien are grappling with and she counsels Feyre to leave it alone. Yet despite his grief and his loss he tries, Lucien tries to be pleasant, he’s learned how to be a true and loyal friend to Feyre. He’s learned how to be a friend period. This was a road that he and Feyre have been following since the very first book and we see in ACOFAS that he’s breaking away from his old way of thinking which was, as Feyre described it in ACOMAF, cold and sad, and calculating, and he’s learning to think in terms of warmth, and loyalty, and honor, and friendship. Of course, we see his delectable sense of humor in the choice of solstice present he gives to Feyre. We also see his kindness and thoughtfulness in the choice of gift he gives to Elain. He could have given her jewelry, or clothes, or any number of expensive, sparkly things but he chooses instead to give her something he’s truly put some thought into.

So what I’m saying is if Tamlin the Tool gets a redemption arc in the future books then Lucien the Fox damn well better get one too with a happy ending because he deserves it!!!!!!!!!!

[al-norton]

001, realm of the elderlings ☺️

Favorite character: Easily, Beloved. They were my first exposure to nonbinary/genderfluid characters in media and even aside from that, they are such a great character, so passionate and energetic and clever! I love them!

Next up is Verity, because I’m a sucker for unsuccessful leadership stories, and twins Malta & Wintrow, because their storylines are beautiful and mirror each other in the best ways.

But there are A LOT of great characters overall

Least Favorite character: Probably the Pale woman? She gets a miserable amount of time and acts with bizarre cruelty. I mean, the latest trilogy explains a bit more why she behaved the way she did, but I still find some character choices (like her trying to fuck Fitz ?? just to mess with Beloved ??) uncalled for  

5 Favorite ships (canon or non-canon): Fitz/Beloved (obv), Altea/Amber, Verity/Burrich, Patience/Lacie and Malta/Rain (token straights)

Character I find most attractive: I mean, first of all, Beloved as Amber is everything to me. Then, weirdly, Starling? I think she’s very cool, even if not really upright morally.  Also, Etta (my queen) 

Character I would marry: eh idk

Character I would be best friends with: Kettricken, probably! I’m feeling that minimalist/tough lifestyle that she has going on and I would love to keep those self-sacrificial tendencies in check. Ooh, maybe I would marry her too? that would be cool

a random thought: I’m a little sad about the amount of whitewashing in Buckkeep and with Fitz in particular...

An unpopular opinion: I really like the way Robin Hobb has written dragons. Like yeah, they are douchebags just because they are powerful and can afford to behave this way. Guess what, so are people!!! It was weirdly insightful to watch such arrogance in different species.

My Canon OTP:Fitz/Beloved (like there was any choice lol)

My Non-canon OTP: Fitz/Beloved, but in AU where Fitz isn’t such a dumbass and they actually get to be together for a while

Most Badass Character: I mean, Fitz is, obviously, pretty badass... but I kinda want to bring up the Westrits?? Pretending to be a man for a half a year tough voyage? Saving a ruler of your entire country and flawlessly navigating your position in captivity? Surviving horrible abuse from your father and pirate captivity to rise in the ranks and become a captain? Organizing your community to unite under the duress, when you are on the verge of poverty and are looked down upon as a woman??? Westrits are so fucking badass I love them a lot! 

Most Epic Villain: Kennit... I hate him, but I love him, but I hate him

Pairing I am not a fan of: oh, you know, Burrich/Molly and such... I get it but ehh. Also, I don’t get Verity/Kettricken, if I’m honest. I keep forgetting they were ever in love

Character I feel the writers screwed up (in one way or another): Molly, nothing new this way. I feel like I should have liked her because she’s brave and willful and independent, but the point of view we see her though always reduces her to the love interest or the mother and she’s very archetypical in both roles, it’s kind of sad 

Favorite Friendship: there are a LOT! Fitz and Beloved and Nighteyes... Kettricken and Nighteyes... Etta and Wintrow... Althea and Vivacia... Wintrow and Vivacia... Amber and Paragon... Thymara and Rapscal... Alice and Sedric... and I’m sure I’m forgetting some

Character I most identify with: maybe Verity? I would also abandon the crushing responsibility of ruling my country at war to work on an art project in the mountains, and I WOULD forget all my life before it lol. Also, Wintrow, but that’s more of a personal connection.

Character I wish I could be: Patience? Oh to be an old widow, living in the king's castle as a weird aunt, almost a cryptid, only appearing from piles of weird knickknacks and tropical flowers to pet your dog and kiss your lovely companion/bodyguard on the lips...

Thank you for asking, anon! Sorry, it’s a lot of text... but the rote is also a lot of books :)

[rt8815]

OC Ask Game

I was tagged by the amazing @illegalcerebral

I put a Keep Reading link because this is looong.

1) Name (and why you chose it if you like) McKinley Campbell Durand. I named her after McKinley Morganfield, better known as Muddy Waters. However, the “in universe?” reason that will be given - which I haven’t written yet - is that McKinley and Campbell are family names from a few generations back.

Campbell comes from the Gaelic words for ‘crooked’ and ‘mouth.’ I just like the name. Here’s a post (that I had to rewrite because Tumblr’s a dick and wouldn’t let me edit the typos in the original. The rewrite had typos too! Blargh!) that discusses her first and last names. I thought it would be funny for her full name to consist solely of last names.

2) Fandom and how they fit into the story Criminal Minds. She works at a D.C. museum practically around the corner from the J. Edgar Hoover building (as indicated in “Let It Bleed”). That’s a tiny hint that it’s the National Museum of African American History & Culture, but I don’t think I’ll mention it very often, if for no other reason than I’ve never been to the NMAAHC and don’t want to describe it inaccurately.

The official story is that Spencer and McKinley met at the museum (again, in “Let It Bleed,” which is probably the least favorite thing of mine that I’ve written). However, they’d met once before, and texted a few times after that. Because my brain is all over the place, and because I’m telling the story in non-chronological order, I haven’t written their first meeting yet. The only details I’ve revealed thus far are that it was nighttime in a park, McKinley caught Spencer off guard and made him fall to the ground, and whatever they talked about set Spencer straight and lifted his spirits. Also, a swingset was involved. Beyond that, I’ve inserted McKinley into the plotlines and events of the show, with necessary alterations, and there’s a ton of domestic Spencer and off-duty team stuffs.

3) Do they have any family? Biological family: daughter Sophie and son Jason; her Mom (no name yet); maternal grandparents, uncles, aunts, and cousins; and her estranged father (no name yet). Chosen/found family: husband Spencer; the BAU.

4) As a child, what did they want to be when they grew up? When she was a toddler, McKinley wanted to be a pediatrician (a doctor just for kids?! Cool!) or an ophthalmologist (she’s worn glasses practically her whole life). As an older child she aspired to be an entomologist or herpetologist. In her teenage years she considered a career in forensic pathology or criminal psychology. While earning her BA in English, she discovered that Public History was her true calling.

5) Their greatest dream To be a good Mom. To inspire learning in others.

6) Their worst nightmare Losing her family; having to see her father again.

7) Strengths Empathy, insight/self awareness, forgiving nature but knowing when to cut her losses

8) Weaknesses McKinley struggles with imposter syndrome.

She can be very mean. I mean, downright nasty cruel, verbally. This is rare though because, and I’m paraphrasing a future bit of dialogue here, anyone whose behavior could arguably warrant such a response is beneath her notice and not worth the effort. She’s more likely to close the door on someone. When she’s removed a person from her life, she is done. They become literally nothing to her. McKinley will rightly claim that this is about self-preservation and boundaries, but she really takes it to the next level.

9) What would they chose between: morning and night, sweet and savoury, beaches or meadows, cities or countryside, winter or summer, Christmas or Halloween (sorry, Spencer!), movies or TV shows, action or rom-com, clowns or vampires, stars or the moon (both!), cocktails or pints [Neither. McKinley doesn’t care for cocktails or beer. Scotch, brandy, rum, and dry wines are her poisons. She’s been known to add Kahlúah to vanilla ice cream, Baileys Irish Cream to coffee (she wants to try Drambuie next), or make hot toddies when she has a cold (obviously not mixing any alcohol with any medicine)]

10) How do they relax? Reading, or having Spencer read to her; knitting; listening to her records or playing her guitar; exercising with Boogie so she’s exhausted enough to sleep that night; baking and cooking

11) What makes them angry? Injustice, apathy/indifference, ableism, willful ignorance

12) What makes them afraid? The awful things she’d possibly do under duress; her family getting hurt or worse; spiders and other bugs that bite and/or sting

13) What is a moment from their childhood that has shaped who they are? It’s not a single event, but growing up with an abusive parent has certainly had a lifelong impact on McKinley. You’ve heard the expression “once bitten, twice shy?” She’s “once bitten, there’s no twice because you no longer exist.” She’s working on that. It’s also cultivated empathy, though, and is part of the reason she volunteers in the hospital’s rehab wing.

14) Do they have a sense of humour? Intellectual humor, pop culture references, puns/Dad jokes, science jokes. Sometimes morbid.

15) What do they value in their friends/loved ones? Honesty and empathy

16) Do they have any pets? An Aussie Collie/Border Aussie named Boogie-Woogie. He’s her first child.

17) Worst memory? Probably the day Meadows shot her and she thought she’d never see Spencer and Penny again.

18) Best memory? The days Sophie and Jason were born. Minus, y’know, the agonizing pain of labor and delivery.

19) Do they have any tattoos? (If no would they get one?) Nope and nope

20) If you could write them into another fandom, which one would you choose? If I knew the MCU better, I’d love to write her in as a Stark Tower employee! She’d be an anthropologist and would study alien societies the Avengers and S.H.I.E.L.D. have encountered. She’d naturally be drawn to Loki, initially in a professional capacity (they quickly discover they relate to each other on a personal level as well).

He’d first find her annoying: “Why are you pestering me, Mortal? Surely you’d rather interview my oaf of a brother?”

“No, not even remotely. He only ever wants to discuss battles he’s won. There’s so much more to Asgard and the other realms than that. I want - I need - to learn your literature, your science, your culture and history. You’re well versed in all of these subjects and you’re an excellent teacher.”

He stares at her impassively over his mug of tea, but his heart - that Judas of an organ - flutters slightly at the compliment. And how can he say no to a fellow scholar?

“I prefer your company to Thor’s too. You have this calming presence. Thor’s sweet but he’s also obnoxiously loud and brash and he always hugs me even though I keep telling him I don’t like it. And he’s constantly swinging his hammer around, which makes me think he’s overcompensating for something.”

Loki nearly chokes on his tea. Yes, this mortal is considerably more tolerable than others.

“Very well. Friday evenings at 6:00, my chambers. Arrive late and suffer my wrath.”

From that day forward, whenever Thor tries to hug her, he gets mildly electrocuted.

Did I accidentally sorta kinda write a drabble? Would anyone be interested in making this a collab? That’s what they’re called, right? (Can you tell I’ve given this some thought? Haha! I have even more details in my head.)

21) Do they like their job? (What else would they do if they could?) She loves it! Hmmm, what else…? A librarian maybe. Or animate and produce an educational cartoon series.

22) What is their sexuality? Demisexual

23) Do they believe in love at first sight? Soulmates? One true love? McKinley believes in “seeing the potential for a good relationship at first conversation.”

Yes, although she feels that term has become overused and poorly redefined.

People can find love again after it’s been lost.

24) What music do they listen to? Has that changed over time? I actually recently answered an ask about this. Yes, she grew up on what passed for country in the ‘90s. God help her, she had a boyband phase in junior high.

25) Can they cook? What food do they love? McKinley does pretty well in the kitchen. She loves a wide variety of food. She grew up in the south, so tons of carbs/comfort foods. She loves Thai, Japanese, and Indian food. She cooks up Middle Earth-inspired dishes (ha! nerd). She’s especially proud of a seed cake she bakes.

26) What are their hopes for the future? For her family to be healthy, safe and happy. To be debt free.

27) How do they react to being threatened? It’s a coin flip. McKinley might curl up like an armadillo and hope the predator gets bored and leaves, or she might kick the stool out from under them and cause their chin to slam into the bar and crack several teeth.

28) What is their love language? McKinley and Spencer both exhibit the Acts of Service love language, because just saying “I love you” isn’t enough. You ought to show it. She’ll randomly bake doughnuts for Spencer or play guitar for him in bed, and he’ll take care of laundry, dishes, and any other chores he sees need doing.

Quality Time is important for them too. Once a month, Luke and Penny babysit so Spencer and McKinley have a day alone together. It doesn’t really matter what they do. The point is it’s just them.

It caught McKinley by surprise how much she enjoys physical affection, given that she can be touch averse but holy moly she was more touch starved than she realized. She lives for snuggles and makeout sessions and playing with each others’ hair. When one of them doesn’t want to be touched, they hook their pinkies together.

29) What do they find most challenging in relationships? At work? In general? At work she struggles to gain her colleagues’ respect (think “Boy Genius” treatment except she has lady bits). In general, she struggles with trusting people.

30) What do you as a creator love best about writing this character? Giving her everything I wish I had but don’t.

Bonus: Include a link to your favourite work with this OC or write a small drabble.

October 12, 2021

Warm sunlight filtered through the curtains, gently rousing Spencer from a pleasant sleep. Just when he’d decided to get up, he felt the mattress dip behind him and his wife’s breath fanning over his ear.

“Who’s the birthday boy?” whispered McKinley.

Spencer smiled softly but feigned being asleep.

“Who’s the birthdaaay boooy?” she repeated, bouncing slightly.

“The good-looking guy to your left?”

“Happy Birthday!” she laughed, pressing kisses along his neck, suddenly shifting the mood from playful to sexy.

“Would the birthday boy like his birthday present?” she asked as she lifted the covers.

“Well, look at that - it’s already unwrapped!”

[kittenshift-17]

What are your favorite dramione fanfictions??

Ok, so I’ve been sitting on this Ask for over a month trying to think of favorites because I honestly haven’t read a dramione fanfic that wasn’t written by me or one of my besties in a really long time. But I’ve put together a list of those I have read, and those I liked enough to add to my “Favorites” list on FFN. I’ve included a bunch of my own stories, too, since I honestly do enjoy reading my own work and hope others will too. *shrugs*

Presque Toujours Pur by ShayaLonnie Bellatrix's torture of Hermione uncovers a long-kept secret. The young witch learns her true origins in a story that shows the beginning and end of the Wizarding wars as Hermione learns about her biological father and the blood magic he dabbled in that will control her future.

Howl For Me by Kittenshift17: The Ministry enacts a Marriage Law, magically pairing couples who'd never in a million years agree to even speak, let alone wed. Paired off with Malfoy, Hermione has to suffer the added indignity of the Ministry banning all contraception and forcing fertility treatment and aphrodisiacs on them all. Draco's secret makes it worse.

The Alkahest by Shadukiam The Marriage Law, once enacted, has the power to destroy Hermione's perfectly normal life. Luckily, she and Ron are already planning to obey the horrific law together as a team... Until a Malfoy-shaped wrench gets thrown into the works. Dramione. Cover by littleneko1923 (thank you!).

Lady of the Lake by Colubrina Hermione and Draco team up after the war to overthrow the Order and take over wizarding Britain. "I don't even especially mind belonging to you most of the time," he closes his eyes and just breathes for a bit, savoring not being in pain. Finally he adds, "Just… try to take better care of your toys." Dark Dramione. COMPLETE

Last Year by Canimal There's nowhere to hide when a victorious Voldemort sends his best tracker to find Hermione. Draco won't give up until he finds her again. A story of the unraveling of the lies we tell ourselves. (Dark!Hermione)

Give Unto Me by Kittenshift17: The Ministry is offering rewards for having children. They've got a list of unconventional pairings and their willing to give certain people the thing they want most. When Ron overreacts to the idea of Hermione being paired with Mafloy and does something stupid, Hermione's life is set on a new path. One that involves having a baby with Draco Malfoy.

Eros & Psyche by RZZMG Draco challenges Harry and friends to play EROS & PSYCHE, a scandalous card game with a dark, mysterious history. It's Slyth vs. Gryff, male vs. female, pride vs. desire in the ultimate game of hearts and amour! Pairings: Draco/Hermione, Blaise/Ginny, Ron/Pansy, Seamus/Lavender, Theo/Daphne, Harry/Tracey. AU 7th yr. Secrets, romance, angst, and sex await the turning of the first card...

Summer of the Dragon by Lena Phoria 3 years after the war Hermione takes a break from Ron and accepts a summer job collecting supplies for Ollivander's wands. What she doesn't expect is having to work with Draco Malfoy, who's more haunted by his past than she ever would have believed. Together they will travel the world, fight dragons, conquer demons and maybe find exactly what they're looking for. COMPLETE.

The Silver Dragon by Kittenshift17: "This can never happen again," he warned quietly, waving a hand between the two of them indicatively. Hermione nodded emphatically in agreement, not daring to say a word lest she be terribly rude. Or vomit. Either was an option. Hermione wondered why she had a terrible sinking feeling inside to think that it still might.

The Green Girl by Colubrina Hermione is sorted into Slytherin; how will things play out differently when the brains of the Golden Trio has different friends? AU. Darkish Dramione. COMPLETE.

Stripped Bare by Kittenshift17: *COMPLETE* Dragged to Malfoy Manor, Hermione is tortured for information on Harry's whereabouts. When the Cruciatus curse proves useless, Bellatrix settles on a heinous course of action to loosen her tongue. Forced to come together under threat of death, Draco and Hermione are about to learn there is more to their relationship than hatred.

Ninety-Five Percent by HufflepuffMommy A new Wizarding Marriage Law has come into effect and Hermione takes her chance with the Ministry and lets them decide who would be the best match for her. Who would ever believe that Draco Malfoy would be her best match with a 95% Compatibility? (Hermione/Draco). Rated M for language and mature themes later on. COMPLETE!

Sang et Lumière by Freya Ishtar  *8th Year* Late one night, Hermione hears a sound that chills her bones—a howling from the Forbidden Forest, yet all werewolves fled at the end of the War. When she finds Draco stumbling back into the castle the next morning, she becomes his confidante . . . and something more. 

Tip of My Tongue by Kittenshift17 When Draco's wife is caught cheating and pregnant to another man, Draco must fight for custody of his son, Scorpius. Hermione, determined to ensure her son, Aurelian, grows up knowing his brother without Draco finding out, somehow winds up tangled into the middle of Draco's impending divorce. Can she help it if she also keeps finding herself tangled in his embrace, and liking it?

His and Her Bruises by lezonne "I congratulate your ability to leave a mark on me, Granger. Although I must make a point of it that my bruises on you are far larger than yours on me. When competing, you should always aim to win, yes?" Fractured timeline from fourth year up; will eventually look into their lives after school. Violent references. Sequel "His and Her Scars" is now up!

The Wayward Familiar (complete) by Freya Ishtar Returning for 8th year, Hermione unexpectedly winds up with a 2nd familiar when the one she buys for Ron as a gift—a ferret she jokingly names Draco—refuses to go to him. When she realizes the creature isn't what it seems, she goes further than she ever thought she would to get the real Draco back.

Addicted to You by Kittenshift17: An act of kismet whilst herb gathering sees Hermione interacting with an unknown werewolf. When he bites her while she is in her animagus form, he sets into motion a twisted destiny that binds them together as mates. With Remus and Sirius there to help her through, Hermione's biggest worry is finding out the identity of the werewolf who marked her.

Star-Crossed by HeartOfAspen Three years post-DH (EWE/Dramione). A prophecy handed down the Malfoy line for generations revolves around Draco, throwing a wrench into the life he's trying to rebuild. Even more perplexing, it somehow also seems to involve one Hermione Granger? Angst and murder, fluff and stuff.

Amuse Me by sloanwolves DMHG head boy and girl share a dorm. Draco walks in on Hermione doing something naughty then blackmails her. And Draco has been secretly been pining after the head girl all year! - Rated M for explicit sex scenes, language and lots of casual drug use.

Little Do You Know by Kittenshift17: Post-war, eighth-year marriage law fic. In a world where pureblood pomp collides with muggleborn sass not everything is as it seems. As the pairings unfold in the most peculiar matches, the current and former students of Hogwarts have a learning curve ahead of them. Little do they know that those people they called enemies might turn out to be their perfect match.

A Dangerous Affair by krissh Hermione was terrified. The rage in Draco's eyes was unmistakable; He looked like he was ready to kill someone. When she did not answer, he slammed her arms above her head, pinning her to the wall. "How dare you mock me like that," he snarled in her face. "You filthy mudblood."

Curls and Bruises by s l y t h e r i n d o l l  "When I'm done with you, I won't need your permission. You'll simply be begging for it."

Better Dig Two by Kittenshift17: Hermione never expected she'd fall pregnant with a lovechild fathered by a mystery man to get back at Ron for cheating. Her drunken revenge leads to the birth of her son. 5 years later she is confronted by Draco Malfoy with a photo she thinks is of her son. Things get complicated when he tells her it's not.

The Risk-Reward Ratio by MissiAmphetamine Set during TDH; a maimed, disillusioned Draco surrenders himself to the Order after he earns Voldemort's displeasure. Hermione's pity for him blooms into something more and he stops seeing her as just a mudblood, as they both discover there's far more to each other than they ever thought possible.

A Regular Life by acro acro Draco's mouth popped open. He'd seen hair like that before in his other life, all curling golden-brown madness, rippling and crackling with an intensity that matched the gold fire in its owner's eyes. Her eyes. Her…Mione. Draco stumbled forward on disbelieving feet. "Granger?"

Lost Images by EvilGu  MARRIAGE LAW Hermione must marry Draco Malfoy- the only wizard that (begrudgingly) petitioned for her who is not actively trying to kill her. If only there was some loop-hole... Can the unlikely pair survive marriage, in-laws, ghosts, murderous enemies, and their own traitorous feelings?

Unrequited Snowfall by Kittenshift17: Draco Malfoy has a secret. An Infatuation. An Obsession. '"I have to admit Granger, I was less than pleased with some of the things you drew in this book of yours" he said, pulling his hand away before he could do something crazy like sliding it into her hair and tugging her close so he could snog those pouting lips of hers.' Sequel: UNREQUITED SNOWSTORM.

Unrequited Snowstorm by Kittenshift17: SEQUEL TO UNREQUITED SNOWFALL. The trial of Draco Malfoy was the most controversial of the year. Most felt that he ought to be thrown into Azkaban for his crimes, the other half passionately believed it was wrong to lock up an eighteen year old boy for choices he'd been forced to make under duress. Hermione Granger never expected the trial to take a turn like this. DMHG.

Isolation by Bex-chan He can't leave the room. Her room. And it's all the Order's fault. Confined to a small space with only the Mudblood for company, something's going to give. Maybe his sanity. Maybe not. "There," she spat. "Now your Blood's filthy too!" DM/HG. PostHBP.

Draconian Heart by camnz Hermione had known the bitter end was coming, but it still took her by surprise as their cottage was crumbling from the force of the Deatheaters' assault. There really wasn't any hope left, but she would fight none the less. The dark side had won and there was no place left in the world for the remnants of her side, so this is how it ends. Very DARK - contains non consentual.

Wrapped In Red by Kittenshift17: *COMPLETE* During a school wide Secret Santa, Hermione has the bad luck of picking Draco Malfoy, suspected Death Eater. When she tries to sneakily learn his secrets in order to get his gift, and Malfoy winds up trapped under some mistletoe, things get out of hand. Who said snogging a Death Eater wouldn't land her in a strangely addictive mess? A Christmassy Dramione tale.

The Switch by BackInBlack99 When Hermione and Draco wake up in each other's bodies, chaos ensues. Will they set out to make or break the other's reputation? And can they find something more along the way? Pride, pranks, and forbidden temptation...

The Boy in the Hammock by galfoy Hermione tugged at the string holding the hood onto the boy's head, gingerly pulling the fabric back to reveal his face. Lying before her, barely recognizable beyond the swelling and the blood, but still very much himself, was Draco Malfoy.

Seeds of Seduction by AnjaliMalfoy There is only one rule in the game of seduction...Never fall in love. Draco Malfoy is a prized Death Eater. Hermione Granger, a member of the Order of the Pheonix is sent to seduce him for information.

Fallen by cyropi What can you do when hatred is tearing your world apart? Can you survive when love is all you have left? And how can you win when you’re fighting your own reflection? DMHG, HPGW.

Mistletoe Masquerade by Kittenshift17: *COMPLETE* Hermione Granger receives a strange and beautiful gift anonymously, and is swept off her feet at the Ministry's staff Masquerade Christmas Ball. Caught beneath the mistletoe, Hermione finds herself snogging an incredibly intoxicating young man, only to be shocked when she learns with whom she had been locking lips.

Aurelian by BittyBlueEyes Two years after the war, a young stranger pays a visit to the burrow. His arrival alone is baffling, but the news he brings of an upcoming war turns the world upside down. Hermione's quiet, post-war life will never be the same.

Someone Saved My Life Tonight by JadedDragon4 COMPLETE! They didn't choose to be partnered together or for tragedy to strike. But now, lost, hurt, and together, they must choose to save each other . . . or die alone.

Bathwater by xXBeckyFoo It's their 7th year,the Dark Lord's dead and the Death Eaters are all rounded up. Nothing could go wrong, right? There's a sense of peace in the air, but how long can it possibly last when the Ministry's throwing people together for all eternity? Curse the new Marriage Law.

An Aversion to Change by Mel88 Sent back to Hogwarts with the suspicious title of Head Boy, Draco is forced to share a dormitory with none other than Hermione Granger. With a war looming on the horizon and another danger even closer to home, their final year is anything but ordinary.

A Marriage Most Convenient by AnneM.Oliver Hermione lost it all when she divorced. Draco would lose it all by age 30 if he didn't marry. Marriage to each other would be perfect, one would even say it was most convenient. Her daughter even looked like him, although, he wondered why that was.

What A Difference A Night Makes by Kyra4 DHr prefects, top students in their year and Houses. Makes sense that they'd be chosen by the faculty for an honors project that requires them to be locked in the astronomy tower all night. Will they fall for each other or rip each other apart? COMPLETE!

Soooo.... Yeah.... Lemme just fling these 42 recommendations at you. *laughs*

All I ask in return is that if you read the works by these talented authors, please, please, please, make sure to leave them some kind and encourgaing reviews in return.

xx-Kitten