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angelinasway · 3 years ago

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Regaining Hope Chapter Seven

Pairing: Clark Kent/Buffy Summers Warnings/Triggers:Torture, Violence, Mention's of Major Character Death, Bad Language, Sexual Tension, Eventual Smut, Mentions of Sexual Assault Summary: Takes place during Man of Steel. When Buffy discovers the U.S Military trying to keep quiet about an object buried in a twenty thousand year old glacier, she immediately thinks the worst. However, when a surprise visit to the Canadian Arctic puts her in the path of a mysterious stranger her whole world is changed forever.

Previous Chapters: [Chapter One] [Chapter Two] [Chapter Three] [Chapter Four] [Chapter Five] [Chapter Six]

[TTH] [AO3] [FFN]

Authors Notes: Thank you all for your amazing and wonderful reviews. I do need to address something though, when it comes to reviews, I honestly don't mind anyone critiquing me when comes to grammar, characterization, or even if its kind of a heavy subject and someone feels like they need to debate me on it. That is absolutely fine, for instance I knew I would get a few blocks and even someone asking about the religious views of this story. I do not mind that. I do however mind, if you think I'm a decent writer, but then proceed to belittle the content of my story. I'm going to try to say this as absolutely nicely as I can...If you don't like the content of this story, if the talk of soulmates, soulbounds, or claiming is not for you, if the romance of this story is not for you, kindly back out of this story now and please just don't leave a review. I will say that anyone who's been in the BTVS fandom long enough already knows what a Claim is pretty much a fanon canon, since its been around our fanfiction community since like 2002 at least. Wesley mentioned Angel and Buffy being soulmates in season one of ATS, so that is actually canon. I say this in the nicest way possible, because sometimes I think reviewers who don't write, do not realize how much a review about content can actually screw with our muse and inspiration and I believe there will be at least a handful of people that do write who will agree with me. That being said, this chapter took as long as it did for me to write because of a bad review, so I'm sorry for the long winded exposition everyone. I know this chapter is a bit choppy and if it wasn't for my beautiful Beta Hipkarma, I'm pretty sure it would have been illegible. This chapter deals with some pretty heavy subjects and I added a warning tag just in case. I do not expect anyone to feel the way Buffy does on this subject, and if you feel the need I will gladly talk to you through pm about it. Thank you guys so much again, and please review, unless you know its an above subject and you hate it. Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.

Chapter Seven

The plane arrived right on time as Clark anxiously awaited Buffy’s arrival outside the terminal. He’d felt this way since he awoke this morning and he didn’t know why. It was almost like that feeling you get when you know you’ve forgotten something.

He’d dreamt of her last night and it was so vivid and real that when he opened his eyes, he expected her to be there. The feeling had washed over him after that, like a sudden cold draft in a stifling room. He’d also been as hard as nails and had to relieve himself twice in the shower. His dream Buffy whispering filthy words into his ear as he imagined pinning her to the shower wall and driving into her hard and fast. It only seemed to make the feeling worse though. There was a pounding, an almost driving force that told him he needed to see her and that coupled with the lust, he couldn’t seem to shake was a dangerous combination that he did not enjoy feeling at all.

It was so strange, yesterday he’d been fine, more than fine really. He’d walked into his house humming and smiling. His mom had noticed his exuberant mood in an instant and raised her eyebrows in surprise, a curious yet knowing quirk in her lips. She had immediately started bombarding him with questions about his evening and Clark had been unable to deny her even a single detail. Well, there were definitely a few things he left out, but he told her everything from meeting Buffy at the school to him having to sing at Lorne’s. This was a first for both of them, Clark making friends and being able to tell his mom all about it. She listened intently, a happy smile on her lips as if this was something she had always wanted for her son. The ability to just be treated normally by people, even if they knew what he was. The more he spoke about how great Buffy was the more his mom’s knowing smile grew. He told her he promised Buffy that he would pick her up at the airport, and his mom had agreed to let him use the truck as long as he promised to take her to work before he left. She had a full shift at the diner tomorrow, so he was pretty sure he could make it back in time to pick her up and take her home.

Later that night, after getting off the phone with Buffy so she could go patrol, Clark had spent the evening on the internet looking up several theories and ideas on the concept of soulmates. All in all, it was pretty simple stuff, a soulmate could be a romantic or platonic relationship with a mirroring of the souls. Where, both their values and ideals deemed them a perfect match. He had even gone to a few sites on the mystical aspects of soulmates that seemed to be pretty legit, and they believed that when it came to soulmates not only were the souls similar, but both souls usually challenge each other to perceive themselves and the world differently. In essence, your soulmate could help you transcend into a higher state of consciousness. All of that seemed to match very much with what he had been feeling since the moment he met her. None of that however, explained how he felt now.

Buffy had been right the other day when she said it wasn’t just the soulmates thing. He was almost positive the out-of-control lust and the uncontrollable desire to be near her had very little to do with the fact that they were soulmates and everything to do with the prophecy. Something wanted them to consummate their relationship, and he was pretty sure that something had a reason. He wondered if he was in danger of meeting the other woman and somehow changing his mind about her. He definitely couldn’t imagine ever doing that though, not when he felt what he felt, not when she had consumed his thoughts so thoroughly since the day they met.

He felt physically ill at the idea of ever having to fight Buffy as an enemy, Lorne’s words about killing her making him nauseous and dizzy. The demon said it most likely wouldn’t happen now, but God, what if it did? What if he wasn’t capable of fighting off this mystery enemy of the future. He shuddered at the thought, his anxiety level spiking in worry. He had to get himself under control.

As the passengers began to exit the terminal Clark looked on, his eyes searching for golden hair and green eyes. When he finally spotted her the tension that had been growing in his limbs immediately eased. It happened so fast he almost felt boneless by the sudden release. Her eyes met his and a similar look of relief washed over her face, but there was something else there. She was scared, which just made the tension begin to build again. Clark frowned in confusion, but didn’t deny her as she ran to him wrapping her arms around his waist tightly as she laid her head on his chest.

“Are you okay?” He asked.

She shook her head and closed her eyes. “There’s something wrong,” She whispered. “I shouldn’t be feeling this–”

“I know,” he whispered. “I feel it too.” Clark shuddered, so it wasn’t only him who was feeling it. “I think it’s time we learn more about this prophecy.”

He felt her nod. “I’ll call Wes once we get to the safe house.”

****<S>**<S>****

The drive there had been mostly quiet. The only real sound was Buffy’s smartphone giving directions to their destination. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from reaching out and entwining their fingers however, and she smiled at him gratefully before closing her eyes and sighing. They finally arrived at what looked to be an unassuming house just outside of town that rested on a few acres of property. Buffy untangled their fingers and reached into her carryon bag that was between them and pulled out a large multicolored crystal.

“Here,” she said quietly. “Hold this.”

Clark, frowned but did as she asked. Watching her as she muttered the word, “Agnoscis.” The stone suddenly warming in his palm as he caught the house in front of him shimmer for a moment out of the corner of his eye.

“Latin?” He guessed.

Buffy nodded. “It means recognize. It’s so you can get through the wards.” She bit her lip, “We can also bring your mom here, in case you ever need to hide her you’ll have a place to take her that’s pretty impenetrable.”

Clark nodded gratefully, his eyes studying the sad expression on her face. He reached out and gently brushing the back of his knuckles down her cheek. Her whole body shivered at the contact, a small gasp escaping her lips.

“Are you…are you okay,” He asked.

She shook her head, “I think it’s affecting me more than you.”

Clark was quiet for a moment, and then he shook his head. “It’s not, I think I’m just a lot better at controlling my impulses.”

Buffy chuckled humorlessly, “Maybe, that’s something you can teach me sometime.” She met his eyes and Clark lost his breath at the want he saw shining there.

God, she was beautiful like that. Her eyes almost swirling with color and heat. His temperature immediately skyrocketed, his pants becoming tight. He wanted to ask her if there was anything he could do, but didn’t dare for fear of what her answer might be. She had already told him she wasn’t ready, and if he was being honest with himself, neither was he.

He swallowed, his heart beating in his chest. “Come on,” he whispered, opening his door and stepping out. “Let’s go make that phone call.”

He walked around her side of the truck as she fumbled with her seatbelt, opening the passenger door for her and holding out his hand. She took it gratefully as she slid out of the passenger’s side, hoisting her bag over her shoulder after her feet hit the pavement. Clark reached in the truck bed and grabbed the only other bag she’d brought with her. He wondered where her weapons bag was, but remembered she’d just went through an airport and realized she probably couldn’t bring them with her.

As if she was reading his mind, she said. “Willow was here last night; I had her ward the training equipment so that we can use it without destroying it.” She looked at him out of the corner of her eye as they walked up the driveway. Her hand fumbling with her keys as they made their way to the door. “I also had her fill the fridge and bring my weapons bag over.”

He didn’t say anything as he watched her slide the key in the lock and open the door. He followed her through a spacious living room that was tastefully decorated, through another door and into a modern kitchen. She slid her bag off, dropping it unceremoniously on the floor. She pulled out her phone next, scrolling through her contacts and hitting send before putting it on speaker. She set the phone on the island between them and walked to the fridge, leaning her back against it as she closed her eyes.

Clark wanted to go over and comfort her, but something in his gut told him that would be a very bad idea. She was putting distance between them for a reason and he completely respected that. Her sudden change however, worried him and he was beginning to think maybe she really was suffering more than him.

"Buffy?" A cultured British male voice answered after the first few rings.

"Yeah, it’s me." She said quietly.

"Is everything alright?" He asked, his tone worried.

"No, not really." She answered. "I think it’s time you told us about this prophecy."

"Buffy, I've already explained–"

“No,” She cut him off. “No Wes, you don’t get to do this. Not now. Something is wrong with me, I feel…” Her face went red, as she looked at Clark, “I feel like I’m on fire, I…” Her eyes moved to her phone and glared, a growl tearing from her throat in frustration. Her teeth clenched as she ground out. “I feel incredibly sexually frustrated, okay? Like a cat in fucking heat.” Her face went scarlet and she avoided looking directly at Clark. “Want to explain?”

There was a sudden choking sound on the other line, as a coughing fit proceeded it. “Good Lord, it’s happening already?”

The outrage in Buffy’s eyes, did something to Clark in that moment and he stepped forward his anger simmering under the surface. “What’s happening?” He demanded.

“Mr. Kent,” Wesley said in surprise, “I didn’t…I didn’t realize you were on the line as well.” Clark heard the British man sigh, “I’m sorry we were finally introduced this way, I had hoped to meet you in person. I’m sure you already know that I am Wesley Wyndam-Pryce and that I am head of the Watchers Council.” There was a pause, before he continued. “I do apologize for not telling you both sooner, but I had hoped we would have a few more days before the bond started to require a need to be fulfilled.”

“Bond…what?” Buffy’s face scrunched up in confusion.

“I don’t really understand it myself,” Wesley admitted. “But it’s written that once the Immortal Slayer and, I believe the correct term is Star God meet, a…I think the term is soulbond will start to form and a compulsion to fulfill it will start to take hold. Now, both Willow and I think we’ve found a way to counteract the compulsion, but I didn’t expect it would start to take hold so quickly. I do apologize Buffy; I had planned to have Willow bring me there tomorrow so I could explain.”

“What’s a soulbond, exactly?” Clark asked, “And how is it any different than being soulmates?”

“I honestly don’t know, there are very few references to what it is exactly. I imagine that much like soulmates there must be a similarity or mirroring of souls if you will, but unlike soulmates there is a need…a compulsion for a confluence between the souls. As far as I can tell, once that happens it would act very similarly to a claim.”

Buffy gasped and looked at Clark, her eyes wide and disbelieving. Clark swallowed, “What’s a claim?”

“It’s a…a type of marriage between demons, vampires in particular.” Buffy shifted uncomfortably and looked down. “It’s barely ever used now because its unbreakable, not even magic can undo it. It’s ancient and powerful and requires total trust and consent between both parties.” She met his eyes then, an apology shining through but Clark didn’t feel like he needed one, in fact he just felt very confused.

“That doesn’t make any sense, not after what Lorne told me.” Clark said with a frown. “If this bond is as powerful as you say then…” It was his turn to look at Buffy apologetically, “Then even if I met this other person first, wouldn’t the bond take hold when I met Buffy regardless?”

“I don’t quite understand what you’re referring to.” Wesley said in confusion.

Clark looked up at Buffy and saw suspicion in her eyes. “Lorne didn’t tell you?”

“Lorne doesn’t give me the details of readings Mr. Kent; he treats all his clients very much like a therapist treats a patient.” Wesley said, adding. “The only thing he told me was that you were the one the prophecy spoke of and that you were on the right path in regards to your destiny. What exactly did he tell you?”

Clark shifted uncomfortably, feeling Buffy’s eyes on him but unable to meet hers. “He said I had two very different futures, that Buffy was my soulmate but I have another as well and in this other future this woman dies and something makes me go bad.” He finally got the courage and looked at Buffy, her eyes were wide and burning with hurt and maybe a bit of jealousy. “I’m sorry,” he whispered, thinking he had ruined everything.

Buffy shook her head and swallowed, “Did he… did he say what would happen if you met her now?”

Clark nodded, "He said I'm a one-woman man, that it wouldn't matter."

She seemed to relax a bit at his words, her eyes softening and darting back to her phone as Wesley began speaking, "Then you are very correct Mr. Kent, if you met Buffy in this other future, it should have activated the soulbond whether you had feelings for this other woman or not. A soulmate is not always a love interest after all." He paused for a moment, "There are only two things that could have stopped it. One would be that you don't meet Buffy until this mystery foe had your mind or if you did meet her, she was already claimed."

Buffy gasped, and looked at Clark guiltily, “I almost asked him to claim me.”

A potent wave of jealousy and possession swept through him at her words. If she was referring to Angel, he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to control himself much longer. Not when the very idea of her being tied like that with someone else made his blood boil.

"What?" Wesley said, shocked.

"Spike, Wes. Not Angel." She clarified. "It was...it was right after we found Alicia. I knew it could make us stronger and I... I thought it might give us an advantage against Angelus. I never had the courage to ask him though."

“And thank every deity in the universe for that!” Wesley said sharply, “I don’t think you quite understand the repercussions that could have had on not just Clark’s future but your own.” There was a long silence, the only sound was heavy breathing before a much calmer Wesley finally said, “That kind of bond Buffy…think about what you did to Angelus and multiply it by a million. I was there that day you came through the portal after Spike died. You were almost feral; your Slayer was in complete control and she wanted to kill Willow for making her immortal. There was a part of her that already thought of Spike as her mate, and she wanted blood from whoever had wronged her. If you had been claimed and Spike died…” They heard him take a shuddering breath, “You would have burnt the world and then marched into Hell without a second thought in search of him. There would have been no stopping you.”

Clark watched Buffy shiver at Wes’s words, her eyes getting lost and faraway. His possessiveness grew at her words, but a small part of him couldn’t help but be curious as to what happened between the two of them and why she so rarely spoke about him. The book had only said that the vampire had killed two Slayers, and had tried to kill Buffy on numerous occasions. He had been hampered by some form of neurotechnology by the US Government and began working with her reluctantly. Somewhere along the way he had fallen for Buffy and regained his soul, sacrificing himself for the world once, where he was resurrected by a mystical amulet he was wearing when he died. The author of the book believed he’d been brought back by mistake and the amulet was meant to be worn by Angel, but there was also some speculation that Spike may have been the actual bearer of the Shanshu prophecy. The author however, was highly skeptical about this because Spike didn’t do what he did out of heroics, even with a soul he relished in the violence of his nature. The author believed that becoming mortal would feel more like a punishment than a reward for the vampire. It spoke some about his time at Wolfram and Hart, about his part in the fight against Angelus, and how he died saving Buffy a second time.

“I don’t…I don’t remember any of that.” She said quietly, wrapping her arms around herself. “Even what I did to Angelus, I only remember parts of it. I felt like I was outside my body looking at someone who wasn’t actually me, except I could feel what I was doing.” She shivered, and it took every bit of self-control he had not to go to her, especially when her voice cracked. “When I came to, I-I was covered in blood and…God, Wes there was nothing left but a torso and head. I…” She choked. “I even took his face.”

When a single tear tracked itself down her cheek, Clark couldn’t take it anymore and he rounded the island and pulled her into his arms, hoping she was too upset to be affected by the embrace, but not really caring if she was, not when he could feel her trembling in his arms. He understood now why she’d been so adamant the other day about her being wrong in the way she killed Angelus and about Slayers not actually being creatures of light but warriors for the light. He could never picture her being capable of such carnage even after hearing it from her own mouth. Then again, he could never picture himself killing her either or anyone else for that matter, not on purpose at least.

They heard a muffled sniffle over the line, before a choked sounding Wesley finally said, “Oh, Buffy, I never…I never knew it was that bad. We found the warehouse and the blood, so I did realize…but…not to what extent, and then you just disappeared and Willow couldn’t ever get a read on you. It was like you were blocking her somehow. Why didn’t you ever tell me any of this?”

Clark felt her shake her head, “I was ashamed.” She answered honestly. “Lorne’s the only one who knows everything, even the stuff I can’t remember.”

“Do you remember anything that happened before you captured Angelus?” Wesley asked cautiously. “I’ve always wondered how you did it, but was always too afraid to ask after the way we…the way we found you.”

Buffy sighed against Clark’s chest, her shivering increasing. “I think I let myself be caught,” she said quietly. “The only thing I really remember is being bound magically by Amy and then Warren tearing open my shirt.” Clark stiffened at her words, his whole body going rigid. She squeezed her eyes shut, her grip on him tightening. “Angelus threw him out of the way, and said everyone would have a turn, but he got to have me first.” Clark’s anger flared at her words, his fist tightening behind her back, he had to squeeze his eyes shut at the sudden heat he felt building. “I-I don’t know how, but somehow I was able to break through the magic that was binding me. Everything’s kind of a blur after that, but I think…” She frowned, her forehead crinkling in confusion. “I think none of the spells were working on me. I think…I think I killed everyone.”

Clark found himself sighing in relief at her words. God, just the image of someone trying to do that to her made him see red. Literally, in fact. He really hoped that something like that has never happened before, because he could already tell he wouldn’t be able to stop himself from tearing whomever did it to shreds. As horrendous of a way she killed Angelus, he couldn’t judge her for how she did it, not after hearing that. God, if she hadn’t been able to break the magic… He felt himself shudder.

Wesley was quiet for a long time, “I’ve always known that Willow brought you back stronger, but being able to break a binding spell with sheer force of will is extraordinary Buffy. We should have started testing this advantage years ago.”

“I try not to think about that day, Wes.” She huffed. “I don’t think the magic going wonky even occurred to me until this moment.” She was quiet for a few moments, before she finally said, "So what happens if I bond with Clark and I lose him too?"

Wesley sighed, "Well, I'm hoping since it’s your souls that are bonding and not your Slayer, that it will make quite a difference."

"You're hoping? That’s really not a guarantee, Wes." She said in annoyance, stepping out of Clark's embrace and leaning on the island. "And what’s to stop my Slayer from trying to initiate a claim? What if this soulbond thing isn't good enough for her? Lorne already said she's been looking for her mate since I was called. He said that's why I was so drawn to both Spike and Angel." She shook her head, "Well, according to this prophecy he's my mate, right? Or the closest she'll ever get to one. So, what's to stop her from doing what she's been wanting to do for years? I mean I looked up claiming in high school, Wes. As soon as I read the word, I was fascinated."

Clark stepped around the table so he could look at her. She seemed worried and deep in thought before her eyes met his and they softened immediately, a small smile forming on her lips as she studied him.

Then they heard Wesley sigh, "I honestly don't know. We've still not even translated the whole thing and we've been working on it for over a year."

Clark watched Buffy frown in confusion. "Is there a reason you haven't gotten Dawn in on this?"

"I'll give you three guesses as to why." He said sarcastically.

Buffy snorted, saying mockingly, "Aww Wes, you're not afraid of my baby sister, are you?"

There was silence on the other end of the line and then a grumbled, "I would rather face all the demons in hell than deal with Dawn on a tirade about you."

She chuckled and shook her head. "Well tough, because I want her in on this."

"But Buffy–” He started to whine.

“No Wes,” she said cutting him off. “I love both you and Willow, you know that. But, if there’s anyone in this world who will have our best interests at heart and give it to us straight, it’s her. I want her in on this.”

“Fine,” He groaned.

Then a smile broke across her lips and an evil look of mischief Clark was slowly becoming familiar with sparked in her eyes. “Plus, she already knows I spent time with Clark the other day and she knows he’s something other.”

“How on Earth did she find out about that?” Wesley said in surprise.

Clark smirked as Buffy’s smile grew. “I may have pissed Faith off by waking her and Gunn up with a cold shower. She ratted us out.”

There was silence on the other line, but she swore she could hear him shaking his head. “Do I even want to know?”

“Probably not.” She said chuckling and then sighed. “I’m feeling a little better now, I mean as far as the compulsion stuff goes.”

“Hmm,” Wesley hummed. “Perhaps it gets worse when you’re apart. I knew that you would feel a need to be around each other, but perhaps being away from one another has an even greater affect than I imagined. How about you Mr. Kent, how do you feel?”

Clark blinked in surprise. Now that Buffy mentioned it, he was feeling less uncomfortable than he had all morning. “Better, actually. It’s still there, but not as potent.”

“Then perhaps the theory is a sound one,” Wesley said. “However, to be on the safe side I’ll have Willow drop off the pendants she’s making this evening. They should be able to subdue most of the compulsion until you both feel ready to move forward with the bond. I would also recommend spending as little time apart as possible. I believe that the pendants are powerful enough to ward off the worst of it, however if this bond is as powerful as I think it is you very well might override the magics if the compulsion becomes too powerful.” He sighed, “I suggest staying there with Buffy for the time being Mr. Kent.”

Clark shook his head “That not going to work Mr. Wyndam-Pryce. I need to help out on the farm. While I was away my mom got behind on the payments and if we don’t bring in a decent crop this year my mom could lose it.” He looked at Buffy nervously. “You could stay with us though; we have a guest bedroom.”

Buffy nodded, “Yeah, yeah, that might be a good idea. I can help you with anything you need, and we can start your training in the afternoons.”

Wesley cleared his throat, getting both their attention. “I think you’re forgetting the contract, Buffy. He may very well not need to worry about that any longer.”

Buffy’s eyes widened, “Oh, yeah. I almost forgot. I’ll be right back.”

Clark watched her run out of the room as Wesley said, “Are you still there Mr. Kent?”

Clark looked at the phone, “Yes.”

“Good, I thought I’d go over the numbers for you and see if they’re satisfactory.” Wesley said. “I had thought of paying you as we would a hired mercenary or demon hunter, however since your role in the future will be pivotal to keeping this world intact, I decided you deserved what we would pay any Slayer, it’s only fair after all.”

“What aren’t you telling us about this prophecy?” Clark said, Wesley’s words telling him the man knew more than was saying.

He heard the man sigh, “I would prefer not to say at this moment. I already know how Buffy will feel about it, and I believe you both have enough on your plate with the bonding. I’ll tell you both, but she’s not ready to hear it yet.”

Clark frowned, “I don’t think you give her enough credit.”

“You may be correct,” Wesley conceded, “But I know she will not be happy about this, even if it’s a good thing. I, at the very least need to prepare myself for Dawn finding out, and she may very well tell Buffy even if I ask her not too. I do not believe either of you have long to wait.”

“Alright,” Clark said, “I’m going to hold you to that though.”

“Now,” Wesley said, just as Buffy walked back in the room. “How does two hundred-thousand a year sound?

Clark blinked in surprise, the blood rushing to his head. He couldn’t have possibly heard that right, could he? “I’m sorry did you…did you just say two hundred-thousand?”

“Clark are you okay?” Buffy asked, running to his side. “You look a little pale.”

He shook his head, “It’s…that’s too much.”

“No,” Buffy disagreed, shaking her head. “It really isn’t. Entering this world Clark… you’ll be putting not only your home but your mom at risk and no amount of money will ever make up for that.” She bit her lip and nodded, “Trust me on this, most demons aren’t stupid enough to mess with the good guy’s families, but the real big-bads, the uber-powerful demons, who’s only goal is destruction and world domination? Those demons won’t care, they’ll do everything in their power to try and hurt you, even if that means trying to break you.” She sighed, “It’s why I want your mom to have access to this place too. It will make me feel better knowing you can get her to safety if you needed to.”

Clark sighed, reaching out and sliding the small stack of paper out of her hand. “And what happens if I sign these and change my mind?”

Wesley spoke up, “You are not beholden to anything Mr. Kent, if you sign those and decide that helping the Watchers Council is not in your best interest, it would simply be like you quitting a job. You wouldn’t be paid anymore of course, but you would not be obligated to continue helping us either. However, with the bond beginning to form I’m not sure how you would be able to distance yourself from the Council or Buffy, but if you made that decision no one would stand in your way.”

Clark pulled out a chair and sat down, his eyes quickly reading it through. It was pretty standard stuff, nothing in it that had some sort of hidden agenda. He flipped the page and read through the rest before getting to the signature line.

“Do you have a pen?” He asked, looking at Buffy.

She went to a small drawer and pulled it open, grabbing one from inside and handing it over. Clark took the pen signing his name on the dotted line. “Okay Mr. Wyndam-Pryce, I signed it.”

“Very good.” Wesley said, “Now, I don’t suppose you’re up for giving him a tour of the underground facilities?”

“Of course.” Buffy said.

“Very well,” he said. “I’ll call you before Willow leaves, in the meantime try and keep your wits about you.”

The line disconnected and Clark raised his eyebrows in curiosity. “Underground facility?”

****<S>**<S>****

Buffy slid open the hidden panel in the wall of the master bedroom. She entered a number into the keypad and then looked up into a camera where it scanned her face, and slid her keycard into the slot.

The computer’s AI came online and a female voice said, "Good afternoon Miss Summers, what can I do for you this afternoon?"

"I need to give a new recruit security clearance."

"Name?" The computer asked, as Buffy removed her keycard and slid in the blank one Willow had left for them.

Buffy nodded at Clark and stepped away from the panel so he could stand in front of it.

"Clark Joseph Kent," he answered, stepping into the space Buffy had just vacated.

"Facial recognition." The computer said, and Buffy pointed up to the camera, indicating he needed to look into it.

Once that was done the computer said, "Four-digit pin."

Buffy looked at Clark and nodded, "Now choose four numbers you'll remember easily."

She watched as he thought about it a second before he put in his code. Once that was finished the computer said, "Thank you Mr. Kent, you now have full access to the Watcher Archives as well as all facilities. Ms. Summers would you like access into the rest of the building?"

"Yes," Buffy answered before the hidden wall shifted, sliding away and revealing the steel doors of an elevator that would take them down into the heart of the house. The doors slid open and Buffy removed the new keycard handing it to Clark as they stepped into the elevator, Buffy pressing the simple down-arrow button.

“We had these built in all the safehouses after what happened with Angelus.” Buffy said as way of explanation. “Or I should say, Wes and Willow did. I wasn’t really around for that.”

It didn’t take long for the elevator to reach its destination and the doors slid open. She could feel Clark’s eyes on her as she stepped out of the elevator and into the large steel control room. There were several monitors on the walls with keyboards on a stainless steel counter top that bolted into the walls along half the room.

“This is the control room.” Buffy said, “For safety reasons, if we’re ever in any code-red type situation, this room is always occupied in case someone manages to get past the outer wards. We can house up to thirty bodies here at a time and since most of us are a little something-other, we can at least hold off whoever’s broken in to give the rest of us a fighting chance to escape by sounding the alarm.”

She knew she was rambling, but she couldn’t look at him right then. It was just occurring to her all that she admitted to Wesley and what she’d said in front of Clark. He was going to ask about Spike, she could almost feel it. Of all the things Wesley could have brought up, it had to be claiming. She felt Clark move closer, and wasn’t surprised when she felt him place his hand on her shoulder as she rambled on about where the exits were located.

“Buffy?” He whispered.

She sighed and looked down, “Yeah?”

“Why…why don’t you ever talk about him?” Clark asked.

Her shoulders slumped at his words, but she still couldn’t bring herself to turn around and look at him. “It’s…it’s complicated.”

“Well then, I think you should try to uncomplicate it for me, because this thing sounds pretty permanent between us and I need to know if I’m going to be living in another man’s shadow.” He said honestly.

She spun around, her eyes meeting his in surprise. “God, no. It’s not like that at all. We were…” She sighed. “Maybe we should go into another room that’s more comfortable. This is a long story.”

Clark nodded at her and she turned, leading him through the heavy metal door to their left and down a hallway the AI illuminating the rooms as it monitored their approach. Buffy led him into a large rec room, a massive tv mounted to one wall with a standard sized couch in front. There was a card table in a corner and a pool table in another. A few pinball machines lined one wall of the room and a dartboard hung near a foosball table. She led him over to the couch, gesturing for him to sit before she wrapped her arms around herself protectively. She waited for him to sit down first, and sat at the other end biting her lip in thought, staring straight ahead into the black void of the blank tv screen, not sure exactly where to start. She figured the beginning was probably best, so she started there.

“When I met Spike,” she said slowly. “He was just about as evil as they come, or at least that’s what my sixteen-year-old-self thought. Though, I hadn’t had the pleasure of meeting Angelus yet, so I was a bit naive in that department. Anyway, his girlfriend-slash-sire had been weakened in Prague at some point and he came to Sunnydale to try and restore her and bag himself another Slayer.” She shrugged, “So, we pretty much started out as mortal enemies. We fought each other a lot that first half of the year, and he was a hell of a fighter. He almost got me on that first one, but incredibly enough my mom was the one who saved the day.” Buffy smiled in amusement. “Clocked him on the back of the head with an axe.”

Clark snorted in amusement. “Sounds like something my mom would do.”

Buffy smiled, “Yeah my mom could be pretty tough.” She shrugged, “Anyway, I ended up putting him in a wheelchair after dropping an organ on him during a spell that actually did end up restoring Drucilla. On my birthday I found out they were both still alive and Dru was reassembling an ancient demon called the Judge who couldn’t be killed by any man-made weapon. Me and Angel tried to stop it from happening, but we were both too late. That night I made the colossal decision of losing my virginity to Angel.” She looked at him out of the corner of her eye and sighed, “And just like that his soul was gone. Maybe that’s why I clung on to the notion that we were somehow destined for so long. I mean, the breaking of Angel’s curse literally states that only a moment of perfect happiness could release the soul. I guess I thought that if our love was enough to drive his soul away, it must be special.” She rolled her eyes at herself. “Honestly, knowing Angel it had more to do with him somehow feeling redeemed in me or it very well could have been that he hadn’t dipped his wick in over a hundred years. Whatever the cause, so began several horrible months of mental torment from a demon wearing my lover’s face.”

“And Spike?” Clark asked.

Buffy sighed, “Spike went through his own torment at the hands of Angelus and Drusilla. Spike really did love her, but her love compared to his was fleeting at best. He told me once how they would mock him for being wheelchair bound and Angelus would…well, he would fuck Dru right in front of Spike because he knew how much it hurt him. I think that’s when whatever destiny Spike had must have started. He came to me and made a truce in the hopes of getting Angelus away from Dru and also according to him, he actually liked the world and didn’t want to see it destroyed like they were planning.” She sighed again, “Anyway, that’s probably the first instance where I started to see Spike in a somewhat different light. Less of a danger and more of a nuisance if that makes sense.”

“Yeah,” Clark nodded. “I guess I could see that.”

“Okay, so skip ahead a few years, when I’m in my first year of college. I’ve seen Spike once in that time when he kidnapped Willow and Xander, trying to make Willow preform a love spell to get Dru back. Apparently, our little truce didn’t sit well with her and she dumped him.” Buffy shrugged, “We had one more real fight where we were actually trying to kill each other that year, and then a few months later the Initiative planted the chip in his head and then once again he came to us for asylum.” A small smile tugged at her lips, “We fought like cats and dogs that whole year. I think our bickering is partly what drove Giles to drinking so much. Then sometime during the next year when Dawn arrived and my mom got sick, he realized he was in love with me.” Buffy sighed. “It wasn’t a healthy love though, not even a little bit. He was obsessed with me. He had a weird shrine to me and he had, the super nerd Warren make a lifelike robot of me for reasons I’m sure you can guess.”

Clark grimaced before saying, “Is that the same Warren that–”

“The one and the same.” She interrupted. “I’ve dealt with some pretty gross demons before, but as far as Warren goes, he’s probably the worst human I’ve ever had to deal with.” Buffy sighed, “Anyway, as weird as Spike’s obsession with me was, he did some things that year that really surprised me. Things that normal vampires wouldn’t do, though I still to this day haven’t decided if Spike was the unique one or if Angelus was, because I know for a fact Spike isn’t the first vampire to keep a portion of his humanity after being turned.” She shook her head getting back on topic, “Anyway, he protected my sister’s secret when Glory tortured him for information and he promised to protect Dawn until the end of the world. When I came back the next year, I didn’t really acknowledge it at the time, but he was still there. Still looking out for my baby sister. It’s strange how you don’t see those things when they happen, but Spike loved Dawn like a little sister and he loved my mom too. For some reason he was drawn to us Summers women.” She sighed and looked at Clark. “I already told you when I came back, I went to a dark place.”

Clark nodded, his eyes studying her face. “You have.”

“I went to that dark place with Spike, I didn’t… when I came back, I was numb and I didn’t know it at the time, but my Slayer had gotten stronger. Part of me hated my friends, I was furious with them for bringing me back and expecting me to be happy about it.” She swallowed, “Spike became my confidant at first, he became my quiet solace. I could sit with him and just be… he didn’t…he didn’t expect me to just be okay like everyone else. I was the one who made the first move…we were under a spell at the time but that didn’t stop me from making a second move after it was broken. One night not long after our second make out session, after my Watcher decided I needed to learn to do things on my own and left, we got into an argument about the kiss and I hit him,” she frowned bitterly, rolling her eyes. “He retaliated and must have realized his chip didn’t fire. The next day, well he started a real fight with me. The first one we had since…well since our brawl before the chip.” Buffy could feel her cheeks heat up at the memory, “It was the first time I felt alive since my resurrection and one thing led to another and we…well we weren’t fighting anymore. At least not with fists. It was the first time I didn’t have to hold back and it was exhilarating.” She looked at her hands, “And the next day I told him how disgusting we were, and I was cruel and awful to him.” She shook her head. “I’m not saying that he didn’t give as good as he got, but I was always the one saying the cruel stuff first. I was awful to him Clark; I beat him once and left him for the sunrise. He was trying to help me…well, I thought I accidentally killed someone.” She pursed her lips, even the memory of Warren now days could send her into a rage. “I hadn’t, Warren once again was trying to fuck with my life, but both of us thought I did. He didn’t understand why I had to turn myself in, how much even thought of hurting someone innocent was killing me. I…I just snapped. I honestly don’t know how he managed to make it to safety on time.”

She didn’t realize she was crying until she felt Clark’s arms come around her. “He still had bruises a week later and vampires, they heal fast.” She sniffled. “Shortly after that my ex-Riley came to town and somewhat reminded me why being with a soulless vampire was a bad thing. I realized that what we were doing…we had to stop. I was using him and it wasn’t fair to either of us, so I broke things off.” Buffy shook her head, “It was hard, because I really did still want him, but I resisted. Some things happened, over the next month or two, my friends ended up finding out about us and one night, he showed up at my house. I was pretty banged up from a fight earlier that evening and he tried to…I’m not even sure he knew what he was doing…but he tried to rape me.” Buffy said quietly, she felt Clark’s arms stiffen around her, this was the judgment she’d been waiting for. “I kicked him off, and he was shocked at himself and then I said, ask me again how I could ever love you?”

She looked at Clark then, and she could see the anger swirling in his blue eyes. “That’s why Spike got his soul. He thought it was the only way he could be sure never to hurt me again. He wanted to be the man I deserved. He did it for selfish reasons of course, but the outcome of those reasons? It was worth it in the end, because he’s the reason we don’t still have a Hellmouth in Sunnydale California.”

Clark shook his head, “I don’t…how can you have feelings for someone after they…even if he didn’t, how could you have not wanted to kill him?”

Buffy shook her head. “Because love isn’t rational, because it can be beautiful or a nightmare, and unfortunately feelings can’t just be flipped on and off. I think if he hadn’t gotten his soul, I would have felt differently, and maybe I eventually would have stopped caring about him. You have to understand though…what he did, it’s never been done before. He fought against his nature and became something incredible for it. I think I would be kinda a hypocrite if I could forgive and still love Angel for what he did to me without a soul, but couldn’t forgive and still have feelings for Spike.”

“Your ability to forgive, Buffy…I think you might have me beat in that department.” Clark said.

She shook her head, “I don’t necessarily think that’s true. I don’t think I can ever truly forgive Willow for bringing me back, and you now know what I did to Angelus.” She sighed. “I really do think it depends on the transgression. Willow tore me out of Heaven, she made me immortal, denying me the peace and reward that all Slayers crave. Angelus went after people I love and he tormented and killed my sister Slayers, all of which were young girls, newly called. I know what Wes said, and part of its true, but Spike was just the catalyst, he was not necessarily the cause. It was my hate, my emotions guiding my Slayer, and it wasn’t the first time that part of me wanted to kill Willow nor was it only her that wanted to destroy Angelus for what he had done.”

“And the claim?” Clark asked.

Buffy sighed, “It was something that was swirling around my head for a while, and at first it was absolutely a hundred percent my Slayer. But by the time I started seriously considering it, that was definitely all me.”

Clark looked away, “You wanted to bind yourself to him for eternity.”

She was silent at his words; she knew what he was thinking and he was wrong. She remembered very clearly why she wanted to do it. “It…I really did want to win, Clark. I know you’re thinking I must have been head over heels in love, but… I loved Spike, I did and I still do, but not…It was the type of love you hold for your best friend, for the person who gets you more than anyone else. I’m not saying it wasn’t romantic in nature either, but it was a love that formed over time. There was no cupid moment. I knew we were compatible sexually; I knew he would never leave me, and I knew it would make us stronger. Claims, they don’t even require love to be fulfilled, just a mutual respect for one another and I knew we could make it work.”

Clark sighed, leaning his head against the back of the couch. “Why didn’t you then?”

“Fear,” Buffy said simply. “Fear of the unknown, fear that he would say no, and fear that he would say yes.”

She watched Clark swallow. “And you want to do the same to me?”

Buffy blushed. “I-I don’t know. Yes, I think so…” She was silent for a moment. Did she want to claim Clark? Her Slayer seemed to think so, but was that the prophecy or an actual want. She certainly didn’t want to lead him on, so she said “But I think it’s something that could happen in the heat of the moment.” She could literally feel her face heating up even more. “Just, if…if I ever bite you when we…and say ‘Mine’, don’t answer unless you’re willing to do the same.”

“I’m assuming when you say bite, you mean breaking skin.” He said raising an eyebrow.

“I do.” She admitted. “That’s basically what a claim is, it’s a symbolic ritual of sharing one’s life force, blood, saliva, semen. The mixing of your essence with another to create two halves of a whole.”

A slow amused smile broke across his lips. “That actually sounds kind of beautiful, if not a little messy.”

Buffy snorted, her own amusement growing at his analogy. “Anything else you want to know, before we continue our tour?”

His eyes slowly gave her a once over, before he shook his head. “No, I think that was more than enough for today.” He looked down, “It’s hard for me to picture you like that, being cruel I mean. Not when…not when you’ve been so nice to me. I don’t think I’ll ever truly understand anything you told me about him and you, and…and if I’m being honest, I can’t help feeling…” He looked at her seriously, his mouth set in a firm line. “Let’s just hope he doesn’t come back from the dead again, because I can’t promise I will be very nice.”

She found herself giggling at the visual. Dear God, that would be funny, especially with how quiet and reserved Clark was. Spike would drive him up the wall. “Oh, trust me neither will he, even with the soul he had the ability to drive just about anyone mad with rage.”

“Well, then it’s probably a good thing he’s not around anymore. I don’t think I’d like to be responsible for killing someone you cared about.” Clark said seriously.

Buffy rolled her eyes; he might be from another planet but he was definitely a hundred percent male. “Yes, Clark, lucky for you, you only have one of my ex’s left to contend with and he’s married.” She pushed herself away from him, grabbing his hand as she did and pulling him to his feet as she stood. “Now, come on, I’ll show you the training room.”

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dontcallmecarrie · 4 years ago

Text

screw it, this “too many options that all sound appealing” thing is really messing with my rhythm so here, outlines for Endings 1-3. Major spoilers inbound, read at your own risk.

Ending 1: Stay With The Original Plan

canon ensues on Loki’s side, aka he falls right into Thanos’ clutches. [Un]fortunately for him, Thanos is even more pissy than in canon, since ‘his love’ is MIA and he’s hyperfocused on assembling the Infinity Gauntlet under the belief that this’ll be what finally gets her to say yes

somewhere in here, Loki realizes that this is the purple bastard Hela kept telling him about. Just to make this entire experience even more hellish, because having to listen to Thanos talk is more torture than the torture.

optional, probably won't write: at some point, Thanos asks Loki for dating advice. Which’d go about as well as expected.

Meanwhile, Asgard, Earth, and just about everywhere in between has their hands full now that Helheim is empty and all of its demons are having a field day.

somewhere during the chaos, Fenrir breaks his binds and steals the Aether on the way out.

cue potential alternate antagonist to make the Avengers assemble. Surtur, perhaps, for maximum irony because...

Jörmungandr wakes up just in time to see Hela bust out of Helheim, and immediately invites her to come with him. Fenrir joins the club when he gets out, too, and cue minor time skip as they all catch up and help each other reacclimatize to living outside of a glorified prison/the modern world.

okay, from here, there’s two further endings I’d be having to pick between.

Option A:

shit goes down when Loki shows up.

The Avengers assemble, and get not one, not two, but five Asgardians crashing the party on the Helicarrier.

turns out one of them’s an ancient sorcerer who’s been camping out on Earth over the past thousand years and influencing some of their myths. Somehow, this isn’t the weirdest part.

a lot of dirty laundry gets aired in a very short period of time, aka the Avengers get a front-row seat to the shitshow that is the Asgardian royal family and Thor’s respect for his father tanks.

The local sorcerer is the one who figures out Loki’s being mind-controlled, and Hela is royally pissed off when she finds out who’s responsible.

well, actually, that’s not entirely accurate: when they find out Loki’s condition, nobody takes it well, and since some of the people in the room were basically used as living weapons for the better part of a millennia, well...

RIP, Thanos.

[insert family reunion and happy ending here, probably]

Option B:

[insert antagonist name here] shows up, Avengers assemble.

Cue confusion when an alien trio beats them to the punch, feat. a fuck-off huge wolf, a goth chick who keeps throwing swords [seriously, where is she even getting them from?], and a honest-to-goodness wizard.

Cue even more confusion when Thor recognizes them as Loki’s friends, and then a lot of stuff goes down very fast when he finds out that they’re famous on Earth— because they’re prophesied to bring about Ragnarok, the fall of Asgard.

[insert drama here]

Fenrir, Hela, and Jörmungandr quasi-joining the Avengers? Not as impossible as it sounds.

Thanos shows up looking for the Infinity Stones. Hela oneshots him, and maybe brings him back to life just to kill him again when they find out what he did to Loki.

cue happy ending.

Ending 2: All The Angst And Dramatic Irony [feat. Major Character Death]

this one’d make it all a tragedy, and I hate making myself sad and also I didn’t tag for major character death, so that’s already two strikes against it but my brain can’t let it go so here goes:

Loki died when he fell from the Bifrost.

Hela and Jörmungandr don’t know this, and don’t have much to compare notes because Jör last saw him when he fled and Hela’s last conversation was right before Thor’s coronation. However, they are aware that Loki succeeded in his mission of getting Hela free, and they know how happy Odin would’ve been when it happened— they’re operating under the assumption that he’s been imprisoned for treason, and gearing up to invade Asgard for the sole purpose of getting him out.

The events of the first Avengers movie doesn’t happen/gets skipped.

Fenrir breaks out during the Convergence, scaring the crap out of Jane Foster and taking the Aether with him.

The group has a reunion, and then all eyes turn to Asgard.

Chaos ensues when the Dark Elves’ invasion is interrupted by a separate, entirely unrelated attack that somehow manages to do even more damage.

and incidentally end up fulfilling the prophecy along the way, because they have a bone to pick with Odin and everyone who helped him

Cue angst and sadness when the truth about Loki comes out. Because Thor enters the fight, and Fenrir/Hela/Jörmungandr would inevitably ask “where’s your brother?” and then out comes the story of what happened on the Bifrost

...and because I made myself sad, here, have an alternate ending:

Hela and the others categorically refuse to accept he died, and keep looking.

Jörmungandr in particular points out that the Bifrost can result in wonky time-space shenanigans if not monitored closely, and considering the circumstances in which he fell, well...

Fenrir goes to town on Sakaar when they find Loki.

cue tearful reunion and happy ending.

Ending 3: CHAOS [the fun one that I’m honestly leaning towards]

aka taking all of MCU canon that I remember, and sticking it in a blender because timeline fuckery abounds and absolute no one knows wtf is going on anymore.

Taking full advantage of the “Bifrost can result in accidental time travel” thing, and the fact that Thanos is distracted looking for Hela and the Infinity Stones which in turn affects when the events of the first Avengers movie happens, well...

after Loki falls, cue minor timeskip because of Reasons. Hela and Jörmungandr get the chance to start recovering from the whole “living on the run/being forced into this position” thing, and also start looking

then a lot of stuff goes down very very fast.

Loki shows up in Germany, catching the attention of not only the Avengers, but Hela and Jörmungandr.

...the alien god talking about subjugation should’ve been the guy getting all the headlines, had it not been for the gigantic glowing wolf that showed up halfway through his speech. Or the aliens that followed him from gods-knew-where.

aka Fenrir breaks out during the Convergence, and the Dark Elves really, really, really want the Aether.

aka yes, this is the one where the events first Avengers movie and Thor: The Dark World happen concurrently.

SHIELD has their hands full, Erik Selvig and Jane Foster are working overtime to figure out wtf is going on, and Thor is less than helpful because all of other aliens can and will attack him on sight.

Thor tries to drag Loki into custody.

Loki gets kidnapped on the way. By a wizard, because why the fuck not, things were already weird enough as is.

Tracking down said wizard is an exercise in futility, but damn if they don’t try anyway.

Having Clint Barton and his associates get portalled in with an honest-to-goodness apology note? Sure, just add it onto the pile.

Everyone in SHIELD is confused, anyone who knows their myths has just been screaming this entire time because there’s also been sightings of an enormous snake in the oceans [Jörmungandr’s defense system was working overtime, sue him], and things just keep escalating.

Eventually there’s a team-up, and then a human wizard shows up too? Saying something about how their duty was to safeguard the Earth from extradimensional threats and obviously SHIELD was doing a shit job of it? Fine. Just...fine.

hi, Stephen Strange

aka the Avengers assemble and there’s more of them because all hands on deck

[insert snappy dialogue and interactions here]

Hela when she finds out what Thanos is up to: (ง'̀-'́)ง

[insert cinematic fight scene with all the drama and irony and Norse mythology references]

cue happy ending

#Ere The World Falls #thinking aloud #behind the scenes #spoilers #ETWF spoilers

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itsclydebitches · 4 years ago

Note

RWBY team impact anon. Thank you for answering my asks! I did want to follow up with one quick question. Does RWBY actually represent anyone? Nobody appointed/elected them. Blake is a princess bc she's Ghira's kid and that's it. IW has a commissioned duty. RWBY doesn't seem to have a legal right to make decisions for Solitas...let alone withhold information from IW that could impact the continent's defense. I'm confused why these kids are the protagonists? Has CRBWY done enough to justify that?

Of course! :D

I touched on this briefly many months back and as far as I can tell, no, the show hasn’t done a particularly good job of answering that question: Why are these people our protagonists? What gives them the power to get involved? Usually stories—particularly fantasy stories—provide clear-cut answers so that we can best immerse ourselves in this situation, rather than continually questioning why this group, out of all groups, is the one we get to follow. The two most common explanations are:

This group has to fight whether they want to or not. Meaning, some outside force is exerting control over them. They’re stuck in the center of this fight whether they like it or not and thus we, in turn, are stuck with them as our protagonists. Think Harry Potter with a prophecy hanging over his head. Luke being born as a Skywalker. Geralt forced into a witcher’s life with a destiny to juggle. These characters are all bound to something larger than themselves and are, to one extent or another, carried along on the current of that. They have to fight. (“Have” — often overcoming the internal conflict of whether they’ll agree to this unwanted responsibility adds to their heroism. They COULD just run for the hills like Ozpin with his cabin, but they won’t).

RWBY, however, undermines this sort of setup at every turn. Our characters continually reject responsibilities that may have led them to being a part of other fights—Blake leaves the White Fang despite her parentage and life-long involvement in it, Weiss walks about from the SDC despite being born as an heir and wanting to improve the company—and the closest thing we get to fate is with Ruby’s silver eyes. However, that was likewise undermined when Maria came onto the scene. Rather than presenting us with a world where silver eyes are either unique or rare enough that Ruby feels compelled to fight Salem even if she doesn’t otherwise want to, they gave us a character with the same skill, even more talent (if Maria’s moniker as The Grimm Reaper is any indication) who then said no thanks. She left. Bowed out. So what’s stopping Ruby from doing the same? Nothing. She could pull a Maria and be done with this nonsense and the world would continue surviving as it has for over a thousand years (with the exception of Salem’s new involvement, but again, we don’t see Ruby deciding to fight because Salem is now a more active threat). Ruby is not at the center of the world’s safety and there is no other outside force acting on the group to a point where the audience feels that their involvement in the fight is unquestionably necessary. We might have gotten that if the story had spent more time developing Ruby’s silver eyes. We might have gotten that if the story had spent more time establishing that if Ruby were to bow out, she and her friends would still be endlessly hunted by Salem (AKA, if she wants any kind of life, Salem has to be defeated first). We might have gotten that if the silver eyes/other talents were presented as lynchpins, etc. As it is, RWBY keeps providing examples of how heroes can leave, do leave, have every reason to leave, because they’re not the most talented, their powers are not unique, not necessary, there is nothing in the universe saying YOU have to be a part of this fight... so why are they?

This leaves us with heroes who fight because it’s the right thing to do. Think Frodo saying he’ll take the ring to Mordor. Katniss stepping in to save her sister. Peter Quill yelling that he’s going to try to save the universe because he’s one of the assholes who lives in it. There’s nothing like destiny, a prophecy, or an inborn talent forcing (“forcing”) the hero to step up, they just do it because it’s the right thing to do and/or they realize that no one is able or willing to help. They and others might both assume they’re not be the best for the job (insert theme of underestimating Hobbits here), but they’re doing it anyway. They’re all that’s available.

Similar to the above, Ruby could fit really well into this setup. She’s just a kid, she’s talented but she’s barely trained, she knows nothing about magic or this intricate war... surely there’s someone better to take her place? But Ruby wants to help people, which means she’s poised to step up if that’s required of her... but RWBY failed to create those circumstances. Ozpin is not an inept or corrupt leader who she must replace — he created a time of peace and kept the relics safe for who knows how long. Ruby does not live in a world where others refuse to step up — she’s surrounded by talented fighters who are already involved in this war. Ruby doesn’t even live in a world where she fights alongside these more talented and informed fighters — by the end of each volume she’s replaced them as the “real” hero. When someone asks, “Why is the screw up group of convicts trying to save the world in Guardians of the Galaxy?” the answer is, “Because no one else is doing it. The world has to take what it gets.” With RWBY it’s, “Why is the group of second year students, traumatized from a recent battle, going off to find a Maiden they definitely can’t beat?” and the answer is, “Because... they want to? There are other older, more powerful, more informed people dealing with this situation already but Ruby’s group is going off regardless.” “Why is RWBYJNR at the center of this fight now? Have they proven themselves some way? Is there no one else?” “Well no, not exactly. They just showed up at Ozpin’s safehouse expecting to be involved, they definitely provided much needed support at the Haven battle, but then they created circumstances where they were at the center of things regardless of whether others approved of that: stealing Ozpin’s secrets, driving him off, lying to Ironwood, etc.” Then, because the story hasn’t successfully laid out why they have to fight or why others would want them to fight (they often don’t), we get the plot turning in on itself to explain their continued involvement. Like refusing to grapple with their recent behavior. Or having them suddenly able to beat the Ace Ops.

RWBY’s underlying reasoning for why this group is at the center of this plot is “Because they’re the protagonists” which is a circular explanation. You should craft protagonists that have a reason to be involved, not ignore the lack of a reason for the generic protagonists you’ve got. And don’t get me wrong, RWBY has lots and lots of nods towards various reasons, but they’re never well developed. Things like Ruby’s eyes, her “I want to help people,” the others’ devotion to her, the villains’ interest in them... they’re all the beginnings of compelling explanations, but RWBY never does much of anything with it, largely because we haven’t gotten enough of a look into the group’s personal motivations. Why is Ruby so compelled to throw herself into a war? Because of her mom? That’s never said. Why is Jaune? Because Cinder killed Pyrrha? Then why isn’t he trying to hunt her down? Why is Yang? Because she’s Ruby’s sister? Give us better motivation for Ruby then. And so on and so forth. This is particularly important post the lore episode because the group learned about Salem’s immortality and came to the unanimous conclusion that this war was impossible to win. So why are you still in it?? Volume 6 and 7 should have been an exploration of why they’re fighting, what they’re fighting for, and what they can bring to the table. Instead they happily ignore all of it until Salem and her subordinates get right in their face, then Ruby took control of the situation despite the story failing to establish why she wants to, let alone why she should.

When we have characters like Ironwood and the Ace Ops trying to stop her and the takeaway is supposed to be “Omg how could they stand against Ruby they’re evil!” ... I just find myself agreeing. Ruby is a teenager. Ruby has one year of formal training. Ruby has thus far rejected or screwed over everyone she’s allied herself with (outside of the group who has agreed to follow her). Ruby has a very useful skill, but does incredibly little to learn about it or train it. Regarding the question, “Should Ruby be the hero we follow?” we’re shown a number of things that give a resounding “No.” She’s the protagonist because her name is in the title, not RWBY has convincingly written a world where her help is necessary or, at this point, even desired. She runs off to nearly get kidnapped, orchestrates an attack on the Argus military that results in a Leviathan grimm showing up, emotionally cripples the world’s oldest defender, undermines and betrays his replacement, and is now risking two relics/a Maiden by hanging around to fight Salem head on. At this point it doesn’t matter how pure her intentions are, Ruby’s actions have been inconvenient at best and downright damaging at worst. Though they clearly don’t intend it, RT is closer to writing antagonists then protagonists. Outside of their pure “We want to help people” outlook, we’ve got this group shouldering their way into this war and, more often than not, making things a whole lot worse. If the story had done a better job of explaining their involvement, such mistakes would be quiet sympathetic, but as it is their insistence on getting involved reads more as arrogance rather than resignation/drive: I have to help. There’s no one else. I’m needed.

#rwby #mymetas

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fogsrollingin · 5 years ago

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2.11 Playthings Coda Pairing - Sam & Dean, WC - 1.3k Summary/tags: hard gen or queerplatonic, cuddling+snuggling, sharing a bed, angst, shmoop 🤗, no warnings necessary A/N: Thanks to @spnfanficpond for the template on how to make tumblrfic pretty! ❤️️ ~ fogsrollingin. Edit: 6/28/2020 this fic is now posted to AO3.

It was a lie.

Dean knew it was a lie before he said it and yet he said it because Sam was drunk and getting worked up and sometimes just giving him what he wanted to settle down was worth a lie.

You have to watch out for me, all right? And if I ever turn into something that I'm not... you have to kill me.

I promise.

Heavy lie, though.

Sam's body shuddered where he lay on the bed. Dean got up to throw a blanket over him. As he did, he realized Sam was still awake. He'd been turned away from Dean but now he could see Sam was just staring at the wall, eyes wet, breathing a little choppy but keeping it together. Sam's arm was extended because of the cast. It made him look like the kid he still was, falling apart under his own father's prophecy that he would...

Dean shook his head clear. Dad's last words were bullshit. For the reasons he gave Sam about how you don't just lay that on your kids, but also the deeper reasons Dean was still grappling with himself. Dad's last words to him had betrayed the love and trust Sam not only deserved, but had fully earned from his family. How was it even possible for the man to say what he did when he and Dean had both had the same priorities where Sam was concerned for the past twenty-plus years? How could the man see even a kernel of malice in Sam?

Sam sniffled, pulling Dean out of his thoughts and turning back to the emotional drunk of a little brother he had laid out before him. He sighed and sat on the edge of the bed, placed a hand on Sam's back. After a few moments of quiet, of making sure Sam would let him, Dean slid his palm up and down his back, along both sides of the kid's spine, warming his shoulders. Gentle pressure, reassuring, comforting. Sam cut off a drunken sob with a wheeze.

"Oh come on," Dean huffed testily, lowering himself so he could cover him with a hug. Sam tensed at first but then relaxed, his breath easing. It made Dean feel better too even though Sammy’s hair smelled like sweat, booze, and the old musty floral perfume that pervaded this house and all its spooky-ass dolls.

Sam whimpered something unintelligible to Dean and turned, reached out to hold onto Dean like the hazy, clingy drunk he was. Dean wouldn't mind it if Sam wasn't so noticeably desperate, pain and fear over his future telegraphed so plainly in the way he grasped Dean, fingertips straining to hold onto his big brother like he really believed Dean was his only hope for salvation.

It was so strikingly wrong that even if Sam didn’t remember this, even if little brother was three sheets to the wind right now, Dean had to stop whatever was going on here.

"Dean-"

"No, shut up,” Dean interrupted harshly, masking how frightened he was to hear whatever Sam would say next. “Just... shut up. You talked. Now it's my turn."

Sam swallowed, looking up at Dean with familiar unconditional trust in his glassy eyes, and Dean felt the equally familiar rush of affection for Sam run through him. Sam clenched his jaw and nodded. It was Dean's turn to talk now.

Dean didn’t know where to start so he rearranged them on the bed, Sam on his side and Dean lined up against his back so he didn't have to look Sam in the eye while he said whatever terrifically maudlin crap was gonna come out of his mouth... but also so he could still hug the kid, still hold him if Sam had to curl up and cry for a spell.

"Dad didn't get it. I don't know how he didn't get it but..." Dean sighed, pressed his forehead against the back of Sam's neck.

Sam pulled his good arm up across his chest to hug himself and Dean reached over and did the same, gripping Sam's wrist, trying to pour so much security and love into his actions here because he couldn't find the words.

"I only believe what I know, and Sammy, I know you. I know you better than I knew dad, better than I know or understand his last words to me, better than some vague destiny. I know you." Dean pushed their hands against Sam's heart. Sam ducked his head and curled in a little. Dean compensated, covering him protectively. "Do you understand me?"

Sam nodded shakily.

They rested for awhile, just breathing.

Sam wasn't settling. He twitched in Dean's arms, fingers playing at the edges of his cast.

"I don't want to turn evil," he whispered. His cries were soft but clear and it was like a reflex for Dean to hold him tighter.

"You won't, Sam, you never will," Dean promised. He pulled back and Sam rolled over, reached for his brother and buried his head into Dean's chest, ashamed but needing it and if it made Dean feel better too, well, he wouldn't admit it. That promise, that lie, wasn't them. He felt dirty for having said it. And screw Dad for doubting Sam, for seeding this darkness into them.

But this-? Holding Sam together while the kid coped, it wasn't exactly good but it was grounding. This was what he, what they both, knew; it was familiar ground they'd tread. They were there for each other, believed in each other, propped each other up when the other was down. And Dean honestly didn't know what was wrong with the world that it seemed like Sam kept getting the wrong end of the cosmic stick but Sam was handling it. Barring sudden midday binges during a case, Sam was handling it.

Sam chose that moment to speak, voice wet and weak under Dean's chin.

"It just feels like… it feels like something's coming to fuck me up so bad that I'll go evil."

Dean closed his eyes and sighed under the weight. He knew what Sam was talking about. He felt it too. He cursed their father again, those insidious last few words working themselves out in both brothers' heads: only the worst, most devastating trauma could rewire Sam's brain so much that he'd make a fundamental change from good to evil. But honestly, how had he not already suffered that?

"Sam, you lost the woman you were gonna marry, your home, your entire future, we've lost Dad. If anything bad was gonna happen that'd make you go dark side, it's already happened. And you're still one of the good guys."

"With you."

"With me." Dean nodded in idle agreement. Sam looked up at him with that puppy thing he did. "What?"

Sam pressed his lips together, red eyes glistening with tears but he just shook his head and turned around, backed himself against Dean.

Suddenly Dean understood.

"Hey." Dean wrapped his arms around him. "Sammy, I'm not gonna leave you."

"You could die."

"Even if I did, you'd be okay."

"You wouldn't be around to kill me if I wasn't." Sam's voice was flat, toneless. It hurt.

Dean squeezed Sam. "Don't say things like that. Don't even think them."

Sam huffed with drunken indignity, then sighed as Dean ran his fingers through his hair. "Just sleep, Sammy. It'll be better when you wake up."

"Okay," Sam whispered, finally relaxing against his big brother and gripping Dean's arm tight against his chest.

Dean decided to close his eyes too for a spell, just until Sam was all the way out, and then maybe he could slip out for his own drink. He'd seen the bar downstairs, the older gentleman who'd cheerfully mistaken them for antiquers manning it.

But for now, just for a little bit, Dean could linger here, curled up with Sammy in a soft bed with a sturdy locked door keeping everything out. He could let go and relax as he listened to his little brother's even breath, let the warmth of their bodies soothe him.

Sam began to snore softly. Dean smiled and tucked his head against Sam's.

Just a few more minutes.

Fin

#my fic #spn fanfic #spn fic #sam winchester #supernatural fanfiction #dean winchester #my spn fanfiction #sam and dean #my spn fanfic #my gifs #my spn gifs #my tumblr fics #my tumblr fic

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kiingsroar-moved · 5 years ago

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Only one will stand.

Title: One one will stand Characters: Lucifer ft. an original character. and some minor Diavolo Rating: PG13 / blood / torture trigger warnings Summary: Lucifer enjoys torturing anyone who dares to betray Diavolo, but what happens when that someone happens to be a past flame? **SPOILERS FOR LILITH LESSONS**

The sound of his heels click and echo against the cold stone walls as he walked into the deeper levels of Hell. As far as his brothers knew, he was off running a simple errand for Diavolo, though it wasn’t exactly a secret that he liked to see too torturing the traitors of the Demon Prince. Barbatos was usually the one to accompany him, but the name of this particular demon had him wanting to interrogate on his own.

The sound of the door opened and he stepped inside. The room was dark, lit only by candles all lined up against the edges of the room. She sat in the chair in the center of the room, a boundary spell keeping her bound and unable to leave her seat. Her wrists and ankles were chained down, to keep her from fighting him off. Her head was sunk low, her long black hair covering her face for now. She had blood trickling down from her arms and her legs from the previous torture session. The room was quiet before she let out a soft chuckle, her head raising before her reptilian eyes locked onto him.

“I was wondering when you’d come down here, the other guys I gotta say just don’t know how to make a girl scream quite like you can” she grins devilishly. “Long time, Lucifer.”

“Ammit” he says her name with a strictness that tried to hide from the fondness that leaked from him. Lucifer knew she would notice it, she was one of the very few could notice just about anything about him. After all, they share more than just moments of intimacy. There was a time he wanted to give everything to her, every bit of himself but sadly he had nothing to give.

“I didn’t expect to see you here, of all demons” he speaks surprised, and hurt to see someone he once cared for so deeply in a chair that would ultimately mean her demise. “Not enough souls for you to eat you had to become a traitor?”

“Don’t get cute with me, Lucifer. I’m right where I need to be, and I’d say it feels pretty damn good to see karma finally working its magic after all these years” she hisses at him. He could see the hurt reflected in her eyes, the anger she still harbored for him.

“What’s done is done” he said simply, she laughs. “I loved you, Lucifer. I wanted you, but Diavolo says bark and you do that and more. You’re his little bitch.”

In a quick, swift movement, his fingers move to curl tightly around her neck. “You will watch your tongue when speaking of Diavolo�� his voice was warped in his anger, grip tightening so much he knew if he squeezed any tighter her neck would snap. But he couldn’t do it, not when he caught whiff of her scent, so familiar it sent him back into a daze when he awoke by her side. She was intelligent, beautiful, she brought out of the best sides of him. Why would she fall so low? Betray their prince? Why?

Averting his gaze, he released his grip. She gasped for breath, coughing as she tried to regain her composure. “Why did you betray Diavolo? Was it because I choose him instead of you?”

She growls, spitting blood to the floor. “You think because I am a woman I would resort to petty advances? Did it hurt to see you turn me away? Sure, but,” she scoffs, “ Losing me was your loss Lucifer.”

“So? What could possibly be your reasoning for you being here then?” He had to know what drove her to this. Traitors of Diavolo were never treated kindly, and none of them lived to do it again.

“You still don’t see it? You’re serving under a tyrant. He’s using you” Lucifer immediately shakes his head. A ridiculous belief, absurd to think Diavolo would be capable of such a thing.

“And you know this how? Diavolo is not a fool, and the things he had been doing to try and bring the fractions together has helped make the Devildom better. He has my trust and more.” He says it matter of factly, truly believing following ( and loving him ) were the right things to do. He was making the right decision.

“You’re a fool Lucifer. Why do you think Diavolo had you vow your loyalty to him?”

“He saved my sister”

“Did he?”

“Yes” Lucifer’s tone grows quick and sharp, his anger boiling the more she spews her false accusations. She merely shakes her head in disappointment. “How can you be sure? She turned human right? Did you ever try to check in your her? To know if it really worked? No you didn’t. For all you know this could be one big lie Diavolo spun to trick you into selling yourself to him.”

“Why would he do that? Why would he lie?” Lucifer can barely contain his fury.

“Because of the prophecy!” She shot back, her words causing Lucifer to cross his arms, brows furrowed in confusion. “What prophecy?” he asks, hardly convinced.

“What you think you angels were the only ones who had prophecies? Hell has lots of them, and there was one about you. It was said a fallen angel would reign over hell. Don’t you see? Hell already had a kingdom when you fell, do you really think they’d want someone new, someone more powerful then them to take their place? Think about it, Lucifer”

Lucifer couldn’t believe the things he was hearing, this couldn’t be real. How could it? Diavolo had been honest with him from the beginning, hadn’t he? He saved Lilith, but he didn’t actually check on Lilith. He was told from the beginning she wouldn’t carry any memories, he trusted she was in better hands being a human. Lucifer could feel the inside of his head spinning, like all the screws had begun to loosen, falling to the ground the more things didn’t add up.

“You can feel it can’t you? Why does that grimoire exist, Lucifer. You told me it had her heart, why is that the only book that can control any demon? Maybe Lilith was made a human, but what happened to her grace? It had to go somewhere.”

The grimoire... could it contain Lilith’s grace...? Is that why they were all able to feel her presence when they touched it? Was Diavolo planning on using her grace to gain control of them? Of him?

His Diavolo? The one who always seemed to stare at him with affection, with such longing. The one he fell asleep beside at night, who’s lips he sought after a long days work. Was he truly planning on betraying him?

“Hurts doesn’t it”

“It’s not true” he shoots back, she rolls her eyes. “You’re an idiot, Lucifer. You don’t realize it because he’s got you wrapped around his finger when it should be the other way around. I’m not the only one who thinks it, there thousands of us who believe you to be the rightful King of Hell. It’s always been you.”

What did this mean for his brothers? What plans did he have for them? Nothing was making sense anymore. Could he even confront Diavolo about this? No... he would have to figure this out on his own, find the truth. His gaze fell back on Ammit, the woman he once loved more than anything, more than Diavolo. Diavolo had believed she was keeping him from doing his duties and ultimately he had to choose. Though he supposed now it wasn’t much of a choice.

“I love you, Lucifer. That hasn’t changed, and I am loyal to you” she looks up into his eyes as Lucifer draws nearer to her. His finger caresses the side of her cheek, he had missed her, and knew what he had to do, she knew it to. If what she said was true, Diavolo would never allow her to live.

“I’m so sorry” the second time in years Lucifer had ever felt remorseful since his fall. Crimson hues flutter to a close as he moved in to kiss her, memories of their time together fluttering back to him like an old movie. Then he felt her gasp as he drove his hand through her chest and pulled out her heart. In that moment he felt something click into place inside him, a deep, darker monster that lurked within him. A beast that was kept chained and leashed, and he had plans on breaking that chain.

“Lucifer” came the prince’s voice, and Lucifer regained his composure before turning to face his prince. “When I heard she was here, I came as quick as I could. I know you two had a history, I can’t imagine this was easy for you.” His eyes deep with sympathy, and it made Lucifer wonder just how long he intended to play him like this.

“Don’t be ridiculous, past or not, any enemy of yours is an enemy of mine” Lucifer spoke with ease, not a change in his tone as he let shamefully let Ammit’s heart drop to the floor to further fool the prince. “Well still, its a lot to ask of you. Did she say anything important?”

Lucifer merely grins as they exit the chamber. “No, nothing important.”

#WHEEZE #i hope this makes sense #but anyway ive decided im hella gay for this oc #and I might make her #but anyway have this #my drabbles;#【ᴏᴏᴄ. // ꜱʜᴏᴜʟᴅɴ'ᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ʙᴇ ɪɴ ᴄʟᴀꜱꜱ?】#obey me lucifer #obey me diavolo #obey me spoilers

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sunsetsover · 5 years ago

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i’d love to read one of your posts about ben’s actions tonight? like, we all understand /why/ but you have such a lovely way with words and i like pain. thanks 🥺

thank you, you’re so sweet!! usually i like to answer asks in order but imma let u skip the queue just this once bc this one’s time sensitive and ur so nice 🥺

so……. where do i even begin w this……..

the thing is ben has such horrible self esteem issues and a lot of ppl (both characters on the show and ppl in the audience) don’t realize that bc he comes across as very confident and bold and unfazed by anything, but the thing is….. that’s a front…….. he is not confident, he is not bold (not when it really matters) and he’s affected by pretty much everything. like massively so. what other people think of him - particularly people he cares about - affects not only how he sees himself, but also how he behaves. he seems to almost want to be a self fulfilling prophecy - remember how everyone thought it was ben who hit phil over the head, so ben was like ‘well seeing as though everyone thinks i tried to kill him, i might as well actually do it’?? yeah. he’s very susceptible to allowing other people’s opinions on him dictate his opinions of himself, as well as the course of action he ends up taking.

so it’s very easy to see how that lead to what happened with callum and their date. ian making a comment about it? well ben gives back as good as he gets, and this is ian we’re talking about, who is as obtuse as they come. but you see as ben leaves the beale’s that despite seeming unbothered by it, that comment actually got to him. it got him thinking: what if ian was right? what if he has a point? literally ben was already doubting himself after a snide comment from ian, that’s how affected he is by other people’s opinions (and also that’s how much he cares about callum!). and then you’ve got jay piling on top of that, and ok maybe his comments were innocuous and maybe he had a point, but with what ian had already said? the doubts really start taking hold. like maybe ian isn’t just full of shit, not if jay’s thinking the same thing - jay, who probably knows ben better than anyone. so maybe he and callum aren’t right for each other. maybe they won’t work.

and then you’ve got stuart who just puts the giant fucking nail in the coffin. he sets the disaster snowball rolling down the hill. and he does it in a really clever, manipulative way too (it’s a similar type of manipulation we see ben use on callum when he sold him that van!): he disarmed ben with an apology and with this newfound openmindedness, offers ben an olive branch by saying ‘i care about callum and i think you do too’ - essentially lowering ben’s guard - and then goes in with the ‘bad things happen around you so you need to stay away from callum because i don’t want happened to paul to happen to him’. and that undoubtedly completely fucks ben up - we didn’t even really need ian and jay putting doubts in his head before that tbh, i think what stuart said would have been enough to screw ben up on it’s own. and you know, i think even with ian and jay’s comments, if stuart hadn’t said what he said they might’ve been alright. ben might be a little bit off, but it probably would have been recoverable. but as soon as paul was mentioned - as soon as what happened to paul was mentioned - it was all bets off the table. we’ve seen how much paul’s death still affects ben, how much he still blames himself. so to have stuart basically insinuate that yeah, what happened to paul was somehow because of ben and that the same thing might happen to callum - someone that ben obviously really cares about - again because of ben? it was game over. stuart softened him up then went right for ben’s rawest spot. like how the fuck was he supposed to recover from that in a matter of hours?

and yeah, he probably should have done the decent thing and just cancelled. but that’s not how ben’s brain works. ee have already established that doing this exact thing is a pattern of behaviour for ben - he broke up w the guy he was seeing (that he was into!) in newcastle for the exact same reason he purposely sabotaged his date with callum: because he ‘had to, because if anything had got, like, serious, then [ben] would have ruined his life’. those are ben’s exactwords. now who does that sound like? what kind of paranoia is that kind of thinking feeding into? this is what ben thinks about himself. this is what ben worries he’s going to do to the men in his life. like this is what ben does!!! which is why it really surprised me that some ppl thought his behaviour yesterday was OOC. it seems to me that if anything this behaviour is perfectly in line with both his character and his previous actions. and to be perfectly honest, i think if ben hadn’t tried to deliberately fuck it up now, then he probably would have eventually. at least if he’s doing this right at the very beginning the two of them have a chance of working through it.

so why didn’t ben just cancel? well callum would’ve wanted an explanation. and what could ben have said, when he had been so up for it until then? ‘sorry, a few people have talked some sense into me and i realized i like you too much to ruin your life’? that wouldn’t have worked. ‘i changed my mind’? callum’s gonna ask why. ‘something came up’? callum might ask for another date. and ben clearly likes callum quite a bit, and he knows as well as we do that if callum had asked him out again, he probably wouldn’t have been able to say no. so he thinks: i have to break this until there’s no chance of recovery. i need to destroy any chance there is for us, get rid of any interest callum has in me. i need to make him angry at me, because then he’ll stay away from me. i need to make him hate me, because if he hates me at least he won’t be hurting. and if i do have to hurt him, it’s better to hurt him now rather than further down the line when it will hurt him ten times more. it’s flawed thinking, obviously, but ben’s a flawed man with a lot of issues and no self esteem who thinks that a) he doesn’t deserve someone like callum and b) that he’ll only end up hurting him, or that callum will end up hurt because of him. so in his own fucked up way, he was really trying to protect callum - from ben himself, and whatever pain ben’ll inevitably (as far as he’s concerned) end up inflicting on him. (and don’t forget paul and what happened to him was now at the forefront of his mind too, so i’m sure that only made him even more determined to make sure he gets callum as far away from him as possible.)

so what does he do? he completely fucking destroys this date. invites other people along, pays callum no attention, makes 0 effort, literally cops off with someone else in plain view and then makes it clear he’s not bothered what callum thinks about it (although it backfired a little bit bc callum’s such a sweetheart and also has no self esteem so he went the ‘no hard feelings’ route which must have infuriated ben bc like no!! he was supposed to kick off!! swear!!! call ben a bastard!!! anything but be so painfully understanding!!!!) and he does all of this to basically fuck their relationship up beyond repair. bc if he does that then callum will be able to move on and find someone else, someone kind and safe and normal who won’t hurt him or fuck it up.

and i know it won’t make sense to some people, but he did all of it with the best intentions. with callum’s feelings in mind, not ben’s own - in fact, ben’s feelings and what he wants are practically redundant in this situation bc he’s so set on doing what he thinks is the best thing for callum. what ben wants and feels about it doesn’t matter.

and he manages to do a pretty good job of ignoring his feelings up until the very end, when he’s essentially alone. then - and only then - do we get to see how fucking upset ben is about the whole thing. like he’s sitting there drinking by himself trying not to cry! he’s fucking heartbroken! because his actions during the date, that wasn’t him wanting to be cruel or vindictive or hurt callum. that was him trying to protect callum (and i know, i know not everyone will understand or agree with that but i promise you that’s exactly what he was trying to do). his own happiness, his own feelings, they don’t matter. he’s fucking devastated, but it doesn’t matter. callum is safe now. he’ll be alright, and as long as callum’s alright, nothing else matters.

and the most telling part of it all? the fact that ben didn’t go home w that guy he’d been kissing earlier. he could have. he so easily could have - the guy was into him, he was up for it, and we know ben’s not opposed to random hook ups. but he didn’t. he wasn’t at all interested. why? because he wanted callum. he caresabout callum. he was just using that guy to make his point - that ben is bad and callum shouldn’t be interested in him bc because he can do better. he had 0 interest in that guy and the minute everyone was gone and no one was around to witness it, ben made that very clear - he didn’t even want fuck him as a rebound or to prove he doesn’t care about callum or whatever. he couldn’t even pretend.

like ben just really cares about callum and that’s exactly why he did what he did - because he thinks that it was the best and kindest thing to do.

idk i just hope that this helps give people a little bit of perspective on why ben did what he did bc i feel like some ppl were kind of unfairly harsh on him. the way he behaved was not at all fair on callum, and i don’t condone what he did, but as someone who has been there myself (not literally the same situation, but the same ‘i need to scare them off now so i don’t hurt them in the long run’ way of thinking) i can confidently say that it was from a place of good intentions. completely twisted and fucked up and unfair, yes, but his heart was (mostly) in the right place.

but yeah lmao i’m glad you like my way with words bc you just got a lot of them!!! and perhaps a lot of pain too lmao 💕💕

#ben mitchell #ballum #eastenders #GOD this is long sorry lmao #benthighway #question

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seilahsacress · 6 years ago

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Everything Wrong With The Way Neji Was Handled

I'm in the mood so I'm gonna write something that has been on my mind for quite some time. Here we go.

1-) Neji vs. Hinata

Let's start with the most obvious offense: Why did people allow this match in the first place?

Gai, Kurenai, huns, exactly what were you thinking? Both Hinata and Neji are heavily damaged children, seriously what were you expecting from this fight?

And that's without saying Neji would get in a lot, a lot of trouble for defeating Hinata. Heyoo??? Hinata absolutely wouldn't activate Neji's seal but Main House elders would. Even if they didn't care about Hinata's well being at all, I'm sure beating a Main House member into a coma qualifies as a revolutionary act and I don't think slave owners would be fine with it.

I don't like how the narrative portrays Neji as the villain in the match too. Neji DID warn Hinata, he did tell her that he was gonna win this and she should give up. Hinata didn't, she chose to fight and even when it was absolutely obvious she lost, she still came at him. What was she expecting, to get out unharmed? No, Hinata knew Neji had understandable reasons to hate her and Neji warned her to give up at the beginning. This isn't to justify Neji's misplaced anger but to claim why Hinata wasn't completely innocent.

Besides, people do realize that Neji is a literal child slave, right? That stuff tends to slightly screw your mind up, do people know? It doesn't make Neji a horrible monster that he hated his owner's daughter who could exploit him and make his life a hell with just one hand sign, no matter how the said daughter was genuinely a good person. Neji was in the wrong and Hinata didn't deserve his hatred, a big yes to this but holy sweet, be a little bit understanding.

But nah, Neji is a bad villain and great Naruto will kick his ass. Hinata is so undoubtly good that even Neji's teammate supports her instead of... I dunno... realizing the "for the first time, Branch House shall win!" quote meant that the match wasn't just about a black and white hard work stuff and Neji did have his reasons too.

2-) Neji vs. Naruto

This match may be the most hilariously stupid thing I've ever seen in any form of fiction...

So... Naruto preaches about how hard work beats genius even though the one with one year worth of more experience and training among the two is Neji. Then, Naruto beats Neji by... using Kyubi?

??? :D

Hyuga's style was extremely disagventagous against a Jinchuriki since Bijuus essentially work as a secondary chakra battery which can re-activate closed Tenketsus. That's how Naruto beats Neji. Birth advantage. Neji has one more year of training and experience but it failed against birth advantage.

Hard work truly beats genius. Nice way to prove your themes.

And where was Gai during the match anyway? Kakashi has an excuse not to be there since Sasuke would have died to Gaara if he didn't complete his training but Gai? Couldn't he just carry Lee to the arena and watch his student's match?

Besides, a simple "I'm gonna change the Hyuga when I become the Hokage!" was enough to touch Neji because that quote meant someone actually gave a fuck about what he's going through. It meant someone else agreed that the slavery in his clan was wrong and his feelings about it were validated. It was that simple.

Question: Where tf was Gai during roughly one and a half year???

3-) Solution to Slavery

Credit: https://www.deviantart.com/purple-snowflakes/art/Caged-Bird-Neji-198284847

Neji is shaken up enough already after his match with Naruto. Then Hiashi, his owner, comes and...

"We didn't kill your father, he chose to die. That doesn't mean all that much since we were gonna kill him even if he objected anyway, he had no choice but to use that fake freedom of choice narrative. Anyway, that's not the topic at hand now. Your father escaped his destiny by dying to us so your feelings of anger are kinda invalid. Sorry, suck it up. Oh, and know I didn't object slavery at all during all this time, there's also an anime filler of me torturing a seven year old you, but heeey, I apologize so it's fine. Don't forget, your father wouldn't want you to be bitter about our house's unfair system :)"

Please tell me I wasn't the only one who screamed emotional manipulation at that panel.

What kind of bs answer is 'choose to die' to slavery anyway? Do they have a right to choose not to die when their owner asks them to die? No, they don't. Then, they're not free.

I also hate how later in the series, Neji's anger at the Main House was invalidated because his father had pulled the "well, I'm gonna die anyway, I may as well as trick myself into believing I'm finally free because I'm desperate and that's the only way I can feel some closure at death" card. Excuse me but Neji is still a slave to the Main House, he'll remain so as long as that mark is on his forehead remains - Hiashi's apologize be dammed. He HAS the right to be mad at the Main House and the clan's system.

4-) Later on...

Neji dies to some flying pieces of wood he absolutely should have been able to defend against cus the author needed a... uh... What's the word here? Anti-plot armor? The opposite of a plot armor? Negative plot armor? I dunno, send help.

Note: Hiashi's or whoever's words don't mean a thing. Neji SHOULD HAVE BEEN able to defend that attack.

His death is insulted with a ship moment that comes mere minutes after. We also don't get enough reaction from his teammates, one manga page is all.

And Naruto, the boy who lectured him about how destiny doesn't exist turns out to be a demi God and the child of the prophecy. And all that jazz.

Nice way to prove your themes again.

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Well, rest in peace my boy. You deserved a lot better with just about everything but look at from the bright side, at least now you're safe from SP!

Oh, H E L L N O !

#naruto #neji hyuga #pro neji #neji deserved better #neji vs hinata #neji vs naruto

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doctortreklock · 5 years ago

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(Not Quite) Touched By An Angel - September 15, 2019

Part of my Resolution19. Read it on AO3.

Prompt: I’m a guardian angel but really shitty at my -oh my gosh don’t walk into the street! (x)

Fandom: Supernatural

Words: 1231

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"Guardian," Dean said flatly. "You're putting me on Guardian duty."

Bobby looked unimpressed. "Damn right I am."

"But Guardian duty," Dean complained. "You know I'm crap at that."

Bobby's expression was leaving unimpressed and edging well into irritated. "You screwed up Matching so badly that we had to push back the Second Coming by three centuries." Dean flinched slightly at the reminder. "I will stick you where I damn well please and you're going to be thrilled I don't send you to patrol the sixth sphere. Now get out of my office," he demanded with a rough gesture toward the door.

Dean got.

Before he closed the door behind him, Bobby gave him one last warning. "If the Novak boy gets so much as one goddamned hair out of place, you'll be wishing I'd sent you straight to Limbo. Got it?"

Dean swallowed. "Yes, sir." He closed the door behind him before Bobby could level any more threats.

He closed his eyes and leaned back against the door for a moment, letting his breath out in a controlled stream.

"So how'd it go?"

Dean jumped, swore, and opened his eyes to see Charlie standing a scant two feet from him, Sam hovering just behind her.

Then he sighed and admitted, "It could have gone worse." Dean started to walk down the hallway toward the nearest Section, which had the double advantage of taking him further from Bobby's office and of carrying him closer to the brilliant white hallways that housed the Heavens of departed humans and thus the chance of grabbing a cheeseburger and a beer.

"What happened?" Sam asked, worry evident in his voice as he and Charlie flanked him.

"I got transferred," Dean admitted easily.

"No shit," Charlie snorted. "After the Milton thing, I'd thought that would have been a given."

Dean threw her a mock scowl. "Quiet, you."

Charlie continued without pause. "I mean, you were meant to make a Match, but you sparked off, what, three blood feuds?"

"Five," Dean corrected under his breath, easily navigating their way through the winding hallways of Heaven.

"Five?" Sam shrieked. Damn, Dean had forgotten his brother had ears like a bat.

"Pipe down," Dean demanded. "It's not that bad; I'm sure it'll all blow over in a generation or two."

"A generation or--Dean!" Sam was practically hysterical at this point. Dean rolled his eyes at his overly concerned brother.

"It'll be fine," Dean said placatingly.

"I'm not sure of that," Charlie warned. "Anna Milton and Uriel Cohen were supposed to be the Abraham and Sarah of the Second Coming. Now you've made them the new Montagues and Capulets."

"Eh, I prefer Hatfields and McCoys myself," Dean offered. "It's a more modern reference."

"Dean," Sam protested.

"Shut it," Dean said, annoyance bleeding through his tone. "It's fine. I just got bumped off Matching. It'll all work out."

"What did you get moved to?" Charlie asked warily.

"Guardian," Dean said flippantly as they turned the last corner into the proper Section. Ellen had just told him about a wonderful little Heaven with a bar called the Roadhouse in it and he was dying for a cheeseburger that actually tasted like grease.

"Bobby thought that was a good idea?" Sam voice was skeptical, which Dean was somewhat offended at.

"What's that supposed to mean?" He shot his brother a dark look. "I can pull off Guardian."

"You just turned a love match into the backdrop for World War Three," Charlie pointed out dryly. "I can't see what could possibly have Sam so concerned."

Dean scowled at the pair of them. "You're both worrywarts," he announced. "It'll be fine."

"With your luck the poor sap will end up running into traffic," Charlie informed him. "Who is the unlucky bastard anyway?"

"Castiel Novak."

A few seconds later Dean realized that Sam and Charlie had stopped dead in their tracks at the name. He turned around to see them both eyeing him, Charlie with pity, Sam with horror. "What?" he snapped defensively.

"You are so screwed," Charlie told him.

"We're all screwed," Sam corrected her.

"What? Who's Novak anyway?"

"If Milton and Cohen were Abraham and Sarah--" Charlie started.

"Novak is Isaiah," Sam finished. "A crazy powerful prophet who's going to be churning out some very important prophecies."

"What?" Dean was aware his mouth was hanging open unattractively in surprise. "Why the hell would I get Novak after the Milton thing?"

"Because Novak's a trouble magnet," Sam informed him grimly. "He came online ten months ago and has gone through seven different Guardians since then."

"Really?" Dean asked weakly.

"Yep," Charlie said, popping the "p." "And not the usual ways either; no demon attacks or anything yet. Nope!" she continued. "They've all quit."

"What?" Dean asked, confused. "You can do that?"

"Apparently." Charlie shrugged. "He must have broken a entire funhouse of mirrors or lost a warren's worth of rabbit's feet because that guy is unlucky. Like, the dictionary definition."

"What kind of unlucky are we talking about?" Dean asked, a sinking feeling making itself at home in his stomach.

"He's been struck by lightning twice--"

"--fell in an elevator shaft--"

"--stuck in the middle of a lift bridge just when it was opening--"

"--middle of hunting season--"

"--locked out--"

"--identity theft--"

"--four times--"

"--twice--"

"--can't understand how he's still--"

"Alright!" Dean shouted, holding up his hands to halt the flow of woe coming from two sides. "I get it, okay? The guy's unlucky." Dean hesitated. "Why do you think I got him?"

"Punishment?" Sam suggested.

"Karma," Charlie said decisively.

"C'mon, be serious," Dean said. "If this dude's so important, there's no way the guys upstairs stick him with me. I mean," he waved a hand around. "Hatfields and McCoys!"

"Karma," Charlie repeated. "You've ruined the world, now the world is going to try to ruin you. Mostly by making you run yourself ragged keeping Novak alive."

"Punishment," Sam said again. "For us." At the questioning looks he got from Charlie and Dean, he elaborated a bit. "The rest of heaven has obviously failed at exerting enough social pressure to get Dean to fall in line," he explained grimly. "Exhibit A: the Milton Debacle. As our punishment, we now have to watch as Dean runs this whole thing into the ground and we have to start the prophecy business all over again as well."

There was a moment of silence.

"Well that's fatalistic," Charlie commented.

"Realistic," Sam corrected. "The odds of Dean actually succeeding here are slim to none."

"I like Charlie's theory better," Dean informed him. "At least then I'm only dooming myself and not the next millennium of human history."

"To be fair," Charlie said. "You sort of already did that with Milton."

"I need a drink," Dean sighed, running a hand over his face.

"I'm not sure that's going to be enough," Charlie said comfortingly. "But you're welcome to try."

"It couldn't possibly make the situation any worse," Sam added darkly.

"Ugh," Dean groaned. He turned and starting stalking off down the hallway again, knowing Sam and Charlie would be following.

Charlie and Sam were right, of course. Alcohol wasn't going to make the Novak problem go away. But, Dean thought as he found the right door and pushed it open, letting the warm light and laughter of the bar spill out into the hallway, that was no reason not to try.

#Resolution19 #Supernatural #reverse!verse #not sure if there will ever be more #but if there is it would be #destiel #the title's a bit of a cheat #but i'll let it slide #three and a half months left!!!

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weerd1 · 5 years ago

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Star Trek DS9 Rewatch Log, Stardate 1909.17: Missions Reviewed, “Inquisition,” “In the Pale Moonlight,” and “His Way.”

In “Inquisition,” Bashir is repairing Chief’s shoulder after a kayaking accident (again) and preparing to go to a medical conference. When he wakes up for his trip he is remarkably groggy and matters are made worse when he is called to ops because Starfleet Internal Affairs, led by a Director Sloan, has come to investigate DS9’s senior staff as someone has been leaking information to the Dominion.

After some time confined to quarters, Julian is just briefly questioned by Sloan, but all seems well. Returning to his quarters, he finds they have been searched, and he receives a cryptic message from O’Brien that Miles had been questioned for two hours, and ONLY about Julian. In a second interrogation, Sloan reveals that he believes Bashir was actually turned during his time in a Dominion prison, and has sublimated all memories of this, making him the perfect spy. Sloan admits that Bashir’s motivation is to save lives, hence using the genetically engineered think tank from “Statistical Probabilities” to try and convince the Federation to surrender. Bashir continues to deny, but Sloan, seemingly with no accountability to anyone but himself begins to raise the stakes. Things just become difficult when Julian is suddenly whisked away in a transporter, and finds himself with Weyoun on a Dominion vessel. The Vorta tells him that in fact he HAS been working for the Founders, but now he has been compromised. Bashir, still simply can’t remember any such programming. Soon after though the Defiant arrives, and Kira and Worf beam over to rescue Bashir. When he’s back on the Defiant though, he is treated as a prisoner. The crew has turned against him. When even O’Brien literally turns his back on Bashir, Julian reaches out to turn Miles back to him, and realizes that O’Brien doesn’t have the shoulder injury he just treated the day before. Everything disappears and a black-clad Sloan is standing with Julian in a holodeck. Sloan explains to Bashir that he runs a branch of Starfleet intelligence called “Section 31” and all of this has been to confirm Bashir’s loyalty for recruitment into the covert organization.

Sloan promises Bashir will see him again. Back on DS9, Bashir realizes he’s been gone since the morning he woke up (which was actually after just an hour’s sleep to keep him off balance). Sisko makes inquiries to Starfleet about Section 31, and the admiralty will neither confirm nor deny their existence. Sisko and Bashir decide they want to infiltrate this organization, so if 31 comes calling again, Sisko advises Bashir to join.

The introduction of something that will become a major plot point throughout the rest of Star Trek. Section 31 will of course continue to appear in DS9 for the rest of the show, we will find out they were already operating in the Earth Starfleet in the 2150s during “Enterprise.” Section 31 is responsible for thawing Khan and trying to provoke a war with the Klingon Empire in “Star Trek Into Darkness.” And finally, the existence and actions of S31 play heavily into the second season of “Discovery.” The Kafka-esque feel of this entire episode is perfect, even if it seems like this is something they would generally do to Miles for the annual “let’s screw with O’Brien” episode. Bashir is a perfect choice though- well placed, genetically engineered, has already made friends with men like Garak, and someone who replicates espionage on the holosuite. Can’t overstate how perfect William Sadler is as Sloan either. It’s a pointed discussion. A utopia like the Federation may not be able to exist without someone behind the scenes doing the wrong things for the right reasons. At least one of out main crew would never do that, right?

“In the Pale Moonlight,” is told entirely as a personal log entry from Benjamin Sisko. He is talking about how “it all went wrong” when he posted a casualty report; the Federation/Klingon alliance is not doing well against the Dominion. Talking with Dax, he realizes they need to get the Romulans to break their non-aggression pact with the Dominion and come into the Alpha Quadrant alliance. Sisko is convinced that the Founders plan to invade Romulus when the main war is done, but will need proof to get the Romulans to act. He approaches Garak to see if anyone can get such records off of Cardassia, but Garak reports back that the Dominion has killed every operative he still as contact with on Cardassia.

Garak suggests faking the proof; he can get a blank Cardassian data rod, and he knows a forger who could build a holo program to demonstrate the “briefing” regarding turning toward Romulus. Sisko is resistant…until another casualty report comes, and Sisko realizes perhaps the ends do justify the means. They proceed with the plan which keeps having moral red flags pop up, but finally convince a Romulan senator to stop at the station and see the “evidence.” The senator analyzes the data and discovers the forgery. He leaves, potentially to tell his government that the Federation tried to trick them into the war, likely leading them to join the Dominion. The senator’s shuttle explodes on the way home, and the Romulans discover the forged rod, believing it to be real and the reason the Dominion destroyed the shuttle. Sisko knows it was Garak who killed the senator (and the forger on the side) and had really planned this from the beginning. But when the Romulans attack the Dominion, Garak tells Sisko they may have saved the Alpha Quadrant, and all it cost was one senator, one criminal, and the self-respect of one Starfleet Officer.

Sisko closes out the dictation of his log:

“So�� I lied. I cheated. I bribed men to cover up the crimes of other men. I am an accessory to murder. But most damning of all… I think I can live with it… And if I had to do it all over again… I would. Garak was right about one thing – a guilty conscience is a small price to pay for the safety of the Alpha Quadrant. So I will learn to live with it…Because I can live with it…I can live with it. Computer – erase that entire personal log."

I know I say this more than once during this show but: Holy shit. First there’s Avery Brooks’ performance throughout the episode. As he dictates the log he is just mesmerizing to watch. Andrew Robinson as Garak of course is fantastic. This is of course the origin of the internet meme “It’s a FAAAAKE!” from Senator Vrenek.

And the moral conundrum is really captivating. This is an episode a lot of DS9 detractors use to point out how antithetical they believe DS9 is to “Gene Roddenberry’s vision.” I would argue they forget that classic Trek had many of the same tropes. Watch “Errand of Mercy” and how quickly Kirk and Spock are willing to risk the lives of what they believe to be simple peasants in order to stymie the Klingons. Or “A Private Little War” where Kirk provides rifles to a stone age tribe so the can fight a proxy war against a side supported by the Klingons. Kirk referring to himself as a “soldier” or his line from “A Taste of Armageddon,” “We can admit that we’re killers, but we will not kill today.” Yes, Trek offers a positive view of humanity’s future, but it also uses its science fiction setting to examine the human condition without ever saying humans are perfect. There is no way to examine the human condition without examining what we as a species are willing to do in war. As someone who still periodically has to assess what I did defending my county (and more than once found myself not meeting my own ethical standards) I appreciate Trek asking us to do that, asking us to take a look at ourselves, what we have done, and what we can live with. I can live with it. I will learn to live with it.

Will you?

“His Way” introduces us to Bashir’s new holosuite program, a swinging 60’s Vegas club and lounge singer named Vic Fontaine. The AI in the program is remarkably astute and quickly sums up everyone Bashir introduces to “Vic.” Even Odo becomes intrigued when Vic looks at he and Kira, begins to ask about their status but shies away. Odo begins to go the holosuite to ask Vic for advice on Kira.

They run through a series of exercises to help Odo learn to be “smooth,” and eventually program another 60s character, a torch singer based on Kira. Vic actually on his own reaches out to Kira to tell her to be in the holosuite to have dinner with Odo, and tells Odo that they are working with the hologram again. The two are having a wonderful date when Odo begins to lament that this isn’t the real Kira. When he find out it is he storms out. The two of them meet on the promenade and begin to argue about whether or not they should try it again. “Well then after dinner, I suppose I should try to kiss you then!” Odo shouts. “Maybe!” Kira counters. “Why wait, maybe I should just kiss you now!” “Maybe you should!” and he does. After five years of mooning over her, Odo and Kira have finally come together.

Oh. MY. GOD. How frickin’ sweet. This episode is simply adorable, and the whole scene with them on the promenade is just lovely. Always good to see your OTP (that’s internet talk- “one true pairing”) made canon. It is just about damn time, and their joining is perfectly executed. Also, my sincere and heartfelt thanks to whomever on the DS9 writing staff decided we needed to see Kira in a slinky 60s dress perform “Fever” while laying coquettishly across the piano Odo was playing. I just can’t thank you enough for that.

From the larger Trek standpoint though, we are beginning to deal with questions on the sentience of AI. Yes, The Doctor over on “Voyager” would seem to have been “awake” long enough to gain a self-awareness, but is Vic simply a hologram, or are these “lightbulbs” a new lifeform as much as Data was on TNG? There are some big SF philosophical questions going on behind this delightfully romantic episode.

NEXT VOYAGE: Ancient Bajoran prophecy comes back into play as it is Prophet vs. Pah-Wraith in “The Reckoning.”

#star trek #star trek: Deep Space Nine #ds9 rewatch

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boltsandashes · 6 years ago

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Game of Thrones - The Bells

Alright, so. My day so far has been waking up to find my parents’ basement flooded, then spending my entire monthly income at my car’s yearly inspection.

And then I got home and watched this episode.

And. I have some thoughts.

Spoilers starting after this.

So I.... did not like this episode. I didn’t hate everything in it. There was some spectacular acting, a few really great character moments. Jaime and Tyrion’s scenes are always brilliant and this was no different, even though I didn’t love the context of this one. Tyrion telling Jaime how grateful he was for him left me tearing up.

Jaime’s reunion with Cersei was also beautiful. Even after everything they’ve been through and done to each other, the way she just broke, seeing him, really made me feel for her. Her last moments too, they were heartbreaking.

I love how the woman we focused on at the start of the episode appeared to help Arya later.

I also really enjoyed the majority of the Clegane fight. (Though... maybe this is me coming from a zombie fandom, but eventually I was shouting for Sandor to just stab him in the brain!! Apparently that wouldn’t have helped, but you’d think it would’ve been a much more obvious choice than a shoulder, just in general.)

Finally, I loved the last Sandor-Arya conversation, and the way they cut between him fighting and her trying to survive later. There were some really great elements in this episode, and I feel like I just listed a lot.

So it’s kind of amazing that overall the episode was just... so goddamn painful to watch. The way they handled Dany was pretty unforgivable. I understand that they’re sending her down the Mad King route, but they shouldn’t be. It’s so out of keeping with how she used to be. It’s so disrespectful to her journey. It’s like watching an entirely new character.

Varys

Varys’ death was horrible and not in the way that Game of Thrones sometimes used to be horrible, where awful things happened but it was thematically satisfying or built to some larger purpose. It didn’t build to anything. No one cared when it happened (or at least, cared in a way where it changed any character motivations or actions). It’s not what signaled to anyone that Dany was going off the rails; everyone continued to follow her just as stalwartly as before. It led to nothing. Added nothing. I’m convinced it only happened because Melisandre made a quick prophecy last year that Varys would die, so they felt the need to clumsily throw it in. And that’s so deeply sad for such a significant character, such an interesting and complex character, to go out in a way that meant absolutely nothing in the end.

(Side note: we saw him writing letters about Jon’s true ancestry at least a day before the one he burned. Killing him didn’t stop the word from getting out, or shouldn’t have. Did no one think to care or question this? No follow up? ...Possibly it’s something that will somehow matter in the next episode and I hope so, because I still want Varys to have mattered. But after what happened in the rest of the episode I don’t see something like a letter mattering much anymore.)

The Fleet

This is just plain plot armor shining through and it irritates me. Last episode, Drogon and Rhaegal faced off against the fleet. Rhaegal was killed, and Drogon forced to retreat. This episode Dany destroyed the fleet, along with all the scorpions King’s Landing had set up, with absolutely no difficulty. You can’t set them up as being some huge threat to her in one episode and then, with no alteration in power or strategy, just have her crush them immediately afterward.

(And... this isn’t exactly about the fleet, but Dany pretty much proves here that she could fly all over the city without much difficulty, so why, why why why, wouldn’t anyone suggest her just flying into the Red Keep, bypassing all the soldiers, and taking out Cersei, leaving everyone else alive? Considering how important a minimal death count was, you’d think that would be the obvious strategy.)

Euron

So... I don’t know what popular opinion is on this character, but to me he’s always been just such a non-character. I can’t even explain it except that every time he’s on screen has always felt like wasted screen time. What I can say is that his fight with Jaime seemed so forced and out of character for him? Like the writers realized that since they’d been setting up a rivalry there they needed to have them fight at some point, so they just squashed it in while the world was already ending, and when it really made no difference.

You know what would’ve made more sense? For Euron to climb out of that water, see that the city was falling and Jaime was going to save Cersei, and say “yeah have her, man. She won’t be a queen anymore once the day’s done, what use is she to me now?” And then, if the writers felt like they still needed to fight, he could’ve gone for the dingy and Jaime could’ve gone after him then, since it was his and Cersei’s only way to escape.

And that would’ve been much more in keeping with Euron’s character, and highlighted the differences between Jaime, who actually loved Cersei and was willing to go back in to save her, and Euron, who only wanted her because she was the queen.

...All I’ve got to say is I’m glad Euron wasn’t actually the person who killed Jaime Lannister.

Jaime

I hated what they did with Jaime last episode. I don’t hate that he went back for Cersei. Honestly, when they said at first that he was planning to stay behind in Winterfell that felt desperately out of character to me, and I was excited when we saw him gearing up to go back. But then he said that he was going back to be with Cersei. As in... just drop every ounce of character growth we’ve seen from him over the series, stand by her side again and watch the world burn.

But I would’ve been so happy with his entire character arc, and his fate, with one easy tweak. Jaime’s motivation should have been trying to get Cersei to surrender in the first place. It’s so frustrating to me because that’s what Tyrion gets him to do anyway in this episode. It makes sense for Jaime to want to protect Cersei, who he’s spent his entire life in love with. It makes sense that he’d want to try and end the war without any more bloodshed than necessary, since he cares about people on both sides now. It doesn’t make sense for him to just snap like he did, decide “screw the rest of the world, I’m gonna go be evil again.” It just... doesn’t.

Nothing would’ve had to change, story-wise, with this tweak. Jaime could have gotten captured trying to get to Cersei. Tyrion goes to visit him, asks “why are you going back to her?” and Jaime says “I was trying to get her to stand down. If there’s a way this can end with her still breathing, I have to try.” And then Tyrion helps him escape. (Maybe in this version Jaime tells Tyrion to pass some last message along to Brienne.) He still goes to try and convince Cersei to surrender or leave with him, but gets there too late. The plot continues as it was, without severely damaging Jaime’s characterization and growth. Easy fix.

Daenerys (and Grey Worm)

Alright, this is the big one. I’m not going to go into detail on how awful that entire segment was. I just... it’s too much, I can’t. But I am going to talk about how that could have also been made much better with one small tweak.

They should have saved Missandei’s death for this episode.

If this is the route they wanted to go down –– Dany losing it, the city burning –– then I could have actually gotten on board with it. But there needed to be a reason. Not just “Dany’s suddenly crazy and bloodthirsty.” Not “Grey Worm’s just kind of an asshole now.” And yes, while you could say that their motivation was still anger over Missandei’s death in the episode, there’s a huge difference between an in the moment snap reaction and one that happens days later. So let’s rewrite just a smidge. Missandei’s still a prisoner at the start of this episode. Dany starts out the episode being fairly reasonable, and agreeing with Tyrion that if they hear the bells, she’ll accept the surrender.

The battle begins and the fighting goes on for a bit. Missandei’s there with Cersei watching the battle, maybe commenting proudly that there’s no way Cersei will win. Daenerys is the true queen and soon the people will realize that. When the bells sound and the soldiers stand down, Dany’s elated. Maybe meets Jon’s eyes across the battlefield and they share a smile. The war’s won, and not many people had to die. It’s everything she’s ever dreamed of.

But then Cersei, in a fit of panic at having lost and the vindictive rage that she’s so known for, drags Missandei out onto a balcony, meets Dany’s eyes, and slits her throat.

Dany, horrified and grief-stricken, takes flight with Drogon again. Grey Worm, heartbroken and enraged, raises his spear and kills one of the surrendered troops. Chaos breaks out. We cut to Dany, see her crying as she ruins the city, as all her dreams shatter around her with no way to fix it. She’s still falling apart, but her actions are understandable. We empathize with her, even as we’re horrified by what she’s doing.

This one change would have completely altered the spirit of the episode, without changing the content of it much at all. This would’ve given us multidimensional characters, understandable motivations, and the heartbreak of seeing Dany rise so high and crumble so completely right before our eyes. Instead of what we ended up with, which was just... demonizing her, honestly.

She deserved a lot better than this. The entire show did.

And... that ended up being so much longer than I’d expected. I’m sorry for the ramble, I just had a lot of feelings on this. Please reply to this or message me with your own thoughts, I’d love to hear what everyone thinks <3

#and now back to your regularly scheduled walking dead content #game of thrones #got spoilers #game of thrones spoilers #got: the bells #b&a opinions #jaime lannister #daenerys targaryen #cersei lannister

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robininthelabyrinth · 6 years ago

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Fic: Nocturne (25/30) - Ao3 Link

Fandom: Final Fantasy XV Pairings: Mostly Gen

Summary: In which Cor Leonis loses his temper, accidentally acquires a kid, and tries to single-handedly dismantle the Lucian immigration system – and that’s before he and his lawyers find out about this Prophecy business. If the Astrals think Cor’s going to let his kid’s best friend die without a fight, they’ve gotten the wrong cheetah ‘taur.

(a young adult novel set in @kickingshoes’ ‘taur AU)

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It's not like Noctis is an expert at this whole hero business, except maybe in video games (where he kicks hindquarter like nobody's business), but he's pretty sure accepting the bad guy's invitation to a party is, like, a bad idea? Or something?

"We've thought of that," Dad tells Noctis when he brings it up. "But we don't see how we can avoid a full-fledged siege of the Rock otherwise – and a siege we will more than likely lose, and lose badly, since Niflheim is both closer and has greater forces than we. So, in lieu of any better options, we go to have fritters, roast meat, and fruitcake with the enemy."

"Fruitcake with a fruitcake," Noctis says.

“Be nice, Noctis,” his mother says, drifting through the room. "Regis, do you think Noctis can wear his traveling clothes, or are those not formal enough? I want something sturdy, in the event of disaster, but good enough to pass as appropriately formal..."

"Perhaps the dark blue travel outfit, instead of the black?" Dad suggests. "It's a little less used, but still thoroughly broken in..."

Noctis throws his hands up into the air. "What do we care? The only person we'll be impressing is Creepy McCreepytaur!"

Noctis' parents look at him with injured "you're not getting it" expressions that quickly shift into "well maybe he’ll understand when he's older" ones that are even more annoying.

Cor, who's sitting on the floor near the fire with Prompto, snorts, though, because he's cool. He gets it.

"Don't worry, Noctis," he says, running a brush through Prompto's silky fur. Prompto likes it when Cor does it for him, rather than just doing it himself; Noctis isn't sure if that's a canidaetaur thing, a laziness thing, or a Prompto thing. Either way, he's totally going to go over to demand some brushing as well, even though he'll probably get bored of it after two minutes. "No matter what you wear, we'll be there to back you up. With an army."

"Quite literally, in fact," Uncle Clarus puts in. "We're fully expecting an ambush, and we're bringing all the forces we can spare from Insomnia's defense. We'll all be there, hanging back in the event you need us."

"Even Gladio and Iggy and Prom, right?" Noctis says eagerly.

That gets frowns from the adults. "Noctis," Dad starts, "I don't think that that's –"

"They helped me with all the other Covenants!" Noctis argues. "Maybe they're necessary!"

"We are fulfilling the Prophecy in a non-traditional manner," Iggy volunteers from where he and Gladio are playing checkers. Luna, Iggy's usual opponent, isn't there, since she's off packing in her quarters (picking her clothing, more likely), so Gladio has volunteered himself and is losing amiably. "Our presence may be necessary. You don’t know for sure, and why take the risk of not bringing us?"

"You're children," Aunt Cyrella points out, but she sounds thoughtful. "And it will undoubtedly be quite dangerous. Though you've been in dangerous situations before..."

That's a good sign!

"I'm fairly sure I don't like the idea of sending children – any children – up against the Accursed," Uncle Clarus says, frowning. "Much less ones he already has reason to know of."

Less good.

"You know, while we're at it, I don't like that we have to kill this Accursed Izunia fellow," Scientia says from where she's nose-deep in some book. "We're a nation of law, by Bahamut's scales; we ought to try him by jury, just like anyone else."

"Oh, come now, Scientia, really," Aunt Cyrella objects. "Please remember that we're talking about a person who is, as far as we can tell, quite literally the incarnation of the Starscourge."

"Doesn't matter," Ms. Scientia says firmly. "The Lucian charter doesn't qualify between individuals, no matter their crimes or, er, composition: all sentient beings get a trial by twelve of their peers. And you can't say he's not sentient, not with all the trouble he's caused."

"But really, under the circumstances, Scientia..."

"Oh, I'm not saying we can do it," she concedes. "Just that it would be nice if we could do it legally."

"I don't know where we could even hold him for long enough for a proper trial," Cor says thoughtfully.

"I've given in already, Leonis; there’s no need to rub it in further."

"Hey, no, I'm agreeing with you," he protests. "It would be preferable if we could, but I don't think we can. Besides, the battlefield has its own laws."

"Hmmm. True enough, I suppose."

"Well, I still think the very idea is absolutely ridiculous," Aunt Cyrella huffs. "The fact that you're both still concerned with the rights of –"

"I think the blue will do quite well," Noctis' mom decides before Cor and Scientia's hackles can go up any further. Her voice is calm and gentle and also somehow manages to interrupt everyone's conversations with no effort whatsoever, pulling everyone's attention to her instead of to their tiff. "What do you think, Noctis?"

Noctis groans.

"I don't think he cares," Gladio translates. "Did we ever make a decision on whether we're coming or not? Because if we're not allowed to come, we're just gonna try to stow away. Cor will help."

"He will not," Dad says, giving Cor a hard look.

Cor shrugs noncommittally.

He totally will.

"Cor!"

"I didn't say anything."

"Oh, yes, but you 'didn't say anything' in a way that speaks volumes. Don't think I don't know -"

"This entire discussion is irrelevant," Mom says with a sigh. "We've seen that the Accursed has his ways to get into the city regardless, and if he launches another attack on Insomnia while we're abroad there won't be anything we can do. So we may as well bring the children – it's the Inferniad holiday, after all, which is meant to be celebrated by bringing families together. Not to mention that we aren't exactly leaving anyone at home to watch them, except perhaps for Cyrella's mother..."

"She's watching Iris," Aunt Cyrella says. "That's all she agreed to do. You try to push three boys on her, she'll lead a palace revolt."

"Successfully, too," Uncle Clarus mutters, his fur going flat. He's always been a bit afraid of his mother-in-law, which has constantly been a source of hilarity to Noctis and Gladio because Grandma Romulea happens to be very sweet and so near-sighted as to be half blind even with her frankly enormous glasses.

"So we're going?" Iggy asks eagerly.

"Not to the party itself," Mom says. "You're not invited."

"But otherwise yes," Scientia says. "Consider it a contract."

Iggy breaks out into a momentary grin, then gets control of himself again. "Thank you for this opportunity," he says politely.

"You may assist by wrestling Noctis into his traveling clothing," Dad says wryly. "He needs to try it on before we go."

"Nooooooo -"

"You have to."

"I can do it myself! Don't sic my friends on me!"

And that, as far as Noctis can tell, is that, and next thing he knows they're on their way to the Rock of Ravatogh for the world's most screwed up Inferniad party ever.

They go in an airship, at least – a small one, with Aranea driving and being more awkward than he might've believed possible after having known her for a few weeks as a Crownsguard. Apparently she has a totally different approach to Noctis' Dad and Luna's Mom than she has to regular people - far, far more respectful and awestricken.

Like, Noctis can't blame her, but it's super annoying.

Luna grabbed Noctis to sit by her, and made sure her other side was right next to the wall, which probably means that she and Ravus still haven't made up. Luna's mom looks all pinched up about it, too.

Ugh, Noctis is glad he doesn't have siblings. They sound like way more trouble than they're worth.

When they get close to the Rock of Ravatogh – bare of snow and unseasonably warm as always, no matter the weather - Noctis looks out the window and abruptly realizes exactly why his parents and all the other adults agreed to this whole ridiculous thing.

There's an army already there.

MTs, all of them, standing in rows and rows, unmoving tin soldiers with glowing red eyes – just deadly.

There's a lot of them.

A lot of them.

Noctis thought the Crownsguard and Kingsglaive force that's following behind them at a far distance was impressive, but it's not anywhere near as impressive as this.

All the MTs are just standing there, out in the open, unmoving, and their army is encircling, as far as Noctis can tell, the only pathway up the mountain. Trying to get past them...

Yeah, okay. That would be impossible.

It'd definitely be impossible to do it before Niflheim called for backup from its massive airship fleet.

Its slightly-smaller-than-previously airship fleet, thanks to Aranea.

Aranea lands their airship without any of the MTs taking a step in their direction, although their heads all creepily rotate to focus on them.

All together, all at once.

Creepy.

"Good luck," Aranea says, and she sounds pretty doubtful about their chances. "I'll wait here until I see you safely up."

"They might fire on you once we disembark," Luna's mom says.

"I have shields for a reason, your Ladyship," Aranea says. "I don't think they'll let me stay more than a few minutes, but those minutes I can, I'll be here."

Luna's mom smiles at her and puts a hand on Aranea's lower back, just lightly. "You're a good one, Commodore," she says, and when she lifts her hand away, it's glowing a little.

Aranea looks dumbfounded for a second, and then extremely honored. "Yes, my Lady," she says, looking even more awestruck than before.

That must be the Oracle's Blessing.

(Big deal. Luna can do it too.)

They get off the ship.

Once the MTs see that all six of them are there – Dad and Mom and Noctis and Luna and Ravus and their mom – they abruptly move, choppy uneven movements like the creepy quasi-robots they are. The ones of them in the front turn to the side in a single uniform movement, opening up a narrow path between them, just large enough for one or two ‘taurs to pass through, just barely, and the back rows march in a turning style to stand side-by-side to continue the walls of that path all the way up the side of the mountain.

Up and up and up the mountain.

It's like watching dominos, except instead of falling they're rearranging themselves into a different pattern with perfect precision.

So, so, so creepy.

"I'm glad I brought my cane," Dad sighs. He has an old wound in one of his forelegs – he has a knee brace that he wears for it, more and more often, and he's been using his cane to get around. It's a nice cane – it goes up to his chest in height so that he can lean against it, like a staff, and it's very pretty – but Noctis worries. He knows that the Ring drains the King's health, but surely it shouldn't be doing it so fast..?

If his Dad's ill health is part of the Prophecy, Noctis is going to be super mad at someone.

Probably Bahamut.

"We'll go slowly," Mom says firmly. "There's nothing wrong with being fashionably late. Sylvia, if you would..?"

Luna's mom takes Dad's arm – her hands glowing again, this time focused more on healing him so as to make the climb easier – and they all start going up the mountain.

Per Mom's instructions, Luna goes next, and then Noctis, and then Ravus, and finally Mom, covering their tails.

It's pretty slow going. Worse, with MTs on both sides watching them go, it's hard to even really enjoy it – they're basically stuck in single file, twisting and twining their way up the mountain path, and they can't even really talk to each other or anything to make it less boring.

Ugh, Noctis really hopes this isn't actually a trap. Or, if it is, that Cor and Uncle Clarus have some really awesome plan to get them all out of it.

The MT path ends up diverging from the actual pathway and going up some sheer rock, forcing them to follow that path instead, and that's even harder on Noctis' dad, making his breath come faster and his limp worse. If Noctis didn't hate this Accursed guy on principle already, he definitely does now.

And then they finally get to a cave, and inside that cave is –

Oooooh shit.

"Is that a Lucian tomb?" Luna's mom murmurs. "It resembles the one in Succarpe."

"It is," Regis confirms. "The Tomb of the Fierce – the last of the Royal Arms that Noctis requires."

"Indeed it is!" an extremely obnoxious voice purrs from the side. There's a leopard 'taur there, half in shadow, half out, his eyes hidden by the shade of his hat but the whiteness of his teeth entirely evident as he smiles. "Please, come inside – I insist! You should feel entirely free to collect your little...trinket."

"Chancellor Izunia," Dad says icily.

"A pleasure," Mom says. "As ever."

She sounds amused and a little fond.

Noctis' Mom has the weirdest sense of humor.

The Chancellor pulls off his hat and holds it to his upper torso, still grinning. "Your Majesties do me great honor in accepting my little invitation. I've set us up a nice picnic further in – please, do follow me."

He waves casually at the MTs, causing them to start marching back down the mountain, and then the Chancellor turns his back on them – he's got to be immortal or something, because literally any of the adults could probably get him right between the shoulder-blades without even trying, and he seems utterly indifferent to the idea – and saunters in.

Literally saunters.

The rest of them all follow slowly, the adults looking suspicious (well, except Mom, who mostly looks interested in the cave walls and not unlike she's on one of her visits to the general populace, calm and collected as always), but nothing happens when they walk in. The Chancellor even walks right by the tomb as if it's unimportant.

Noctis hesitates when they get close, looking up at his parents.

"Go ahead, Noctis," Dad says, his eyes still fixed firmly on the Chancellor.

Noctis tries to absorb the Mace as quickly and quietly as possible. Well, as quickly and quietly as is possible when the weapon turns all glowy, rises up into the air, and stabs him in the upper chest.

At least it's not accompanied by an orchestral score or anything. That would be weird.

Even if Noctis has played enough video games that he can very vividly imagine how it would go.

Still, it's kind of a relief to have it. He has all thirteen of them, now – Luna's mom gave him the Trident earlier (he gave the real one back at once, of course), and he's had a copy of Dad's sword since forever. He kind of expected it to be a bit more of a moment, some sort of gold star "here! you've done it! you've got them all!" but honestly that might just be the gamer in him. This is real life, not a game.

He shakes his head and quickly catches up to the others. The Chancellor is leading them deeper inside, to a big cavern where there is, in fact, a series of blankets and picnic baskets laid out in a circular fashion, surrounding the nine-pronged candlabras traditional to the Inferniad.

"How nice it is for us to all be together, on this of all days," the Chancellor says cheerily. His voice feels slimy. "Now, first things first – who among us will light the candles?"

"Chancellor Izunia –" Luna's mom starts, sounding very stiff.

"Please, please! Call me Ardyn," the Chancellor – Ardyn – says. "We're all friends here, are we not?"

"It's very easy to be friends when you have an army outside the door," Mom says, her cheerful and sincere good mood making even Ardyn's intimidating creepiness seem a little less scary. "Wouldn't you say?"

"I do find that it helps," Ardyn agrees, smirking conspiratorially with her. The smirk is noticeably less fake than all the other expressions he's had on so far, less rehearsed and fake, but that's probably because he likes Noctis' Mom. Everyone that Mom likes likes her back, it's like her superpower or something. "But then, that's why I expect that you brought your own, wouldn't you say?"

Dad and Luna's mom stiffen - Noctis is pretty sure Ardyn wasn't supposed to know about their army - but Noctis' mom is entirely unperturbed. "It would be rude not to meet courtesy with courtesy," she says cheerfully. "And we do so try not to be rude. Etiquette is so easily forgotten these days."

"Well said, well said," Ardyn says, looking vastly amused.

"Is there any chance we can get to the point of these discussions?" Ravus growls. He growls very well for an ungulaetaur.

Ardyn tsks.

"So impatient," he says. "The follies of youth! But youth, of course, represents the future. And on that note, why shouldn't we have our dashing prince and lovely princess light the candles, as the youngest of our little company? I believe that's the tradition."

"Very well," Dad says slowly after a few moments. "Luna, Noctis, go ahead."

Noctis looks at Luna. She doesn't look particularly happy about it, but she's straightening her back in a way that suggests that she's going to do it.

And, well, if Luna's going to do it, then obviously Noctis will as well.

So they head into the center of the circle to the candles, while the adults all settle down in a loose semi-circle around them, and they light the candles together, reciting the traditional Inferniad blessings.

"How lovely it is," Ardyn says when they finish. "Ah, youth and beauty – and they make such a lovely couple indeed."

Noctis, who'd taken Luna's hand in his for the candle lighting, immediately drops it. "Couple?!"

Ardyn chuckles. "I see the prince is not yet old enough to properly appreciate the bounty that has been placed before him."

"It's not that," Noctis says, wrinkling his nose at the thought of Luna being called a 'bounty', whatever that meant. He's pretty sure Ardyn doesn't mean like a bounty hunter. "We wouldn't be a couple anyway. Luna likes girls!"

(Pity, too - Noctis would totally have married her and Prompto both if he could.)

Still, Noctis' announcement gets the smug, self-satisfied look off of Ardyn's face, if only for a moment while he blinks at them.

"And has a girlfriend already," Luna adds, her voice a little waspish. She reaches out to take Noctis' hand again in order to guide him over to the blankets to sit down. "Assuming my input is at all relevant here, of course."

"Hardly the fairytale match you thought it would be, Ardyn?" Mom says wryly. "But then – we haven't really done any of this the way you thought it would be, have we?"

"Indeed," Ardyn says, but the smug look is back on his face. "I must say, it's positively heartwarming, really, to see all of you working together on the duties of the Chosen King – the Prophecy of Bahamut is so cruel, wouldn't you say, your Majesty? After all, if it all goes the way the Astrals intend, you'll be giving up both husband and son to their destines as Kings of Lucis."

"We have no intention of giving up anything," Luna's mom says. "There is always light, even in the midst of darkness, and where there is light, there is hope."

"Such charming philosophy," Ardyn says, then settles back, looking them over. "Charming, yes – quite charming. Six of you here, six Astrals above and below, and yet between the two groups, it is we mere mortals who are chosen to pay the price for the Astrals's folly."

"That is still better than encouraging it," Dad says. He inclines his head to the cave entrance. "Or do you deny that you invited the Starscourge to Niflheim, so that it might grow stronger?"

"You misunderstand me entirely," Ardyn says, hand over his upper heart, clearly insincere. "I wish for nothing more than to see your lines united so as to see the Prophecy properly fulfilled – Chosen King and Oracle, come together at last to defeat the darkness!"

"I suppose that would be important to you, wouldn't it?" Mom says musingly. "After all, you yourself sprang from such a union."

Ardyn's face goes utterly flat, all humor disappearing. He clearly wasn't expecting that.

Mom pours herself a cup of tea from a thermos she pulled the picnic basket, all casual and awesome.

"The line of the Oracle and the line of Lucis do not often unite," she says, still causal as if she's commenting on the weather. "And almost never through arranged marriages, the way you implied would be appropriate for Noctis and Lunafreya – almost never, that is, except for once, centuries ago, a handful of generations after the world was turned and the fight against the Starscourge began in earnest. A near cousin of the Oracle was a lion 'taur, through some well-placed marriages, and so able to meet the already established Lucian standard of only marrying lions. And so they married, and had two sons."

She studies a silent Ardyn.

"Isn't that right?" she asks.

"It is," he says. His voice has lost that nauseatingly intimate tone he'd been using up until now; it's very flat. "Tell me, what exactly is it that you think you've found?"

"Izunia," she says instead. "What a strange surname for you to take – that of the younger brother that took the throne of Lucis instead of you."

"The throne of –" Dad says sharply, even as Luna's mom stiffens.

Noctis looks around. He's not sure he understands.

If Ardyn is centuries old, and he was once in line for the throne of Lucis – a line that has been unbroken from the very beginning, when Bahamut blessed them with the Ring and the Crystal – then that means...

"You're a Lucis Caelum," Luna's mother says blankly.

"And a Nox Fleuret," Ardyn says, his eyes glittering. "If one believes my ancestry to be true."

"It is true," Mom says quietly. "Genetic drift was always a possibility, even if no one knew about it back then. Two lions could have a leopard for a son – even an eldest son."

"And yet the throne went to the second son," Ardyn says. "A second son, with a different mother, as leonine as the first, but he was born a lion. And thereafter the line of the Lucii and the Nox Fleurets diverged thereafter forevermore."

"But –" Noctis says, still unsure. "But that means you're..."

"Oh yes, my young Chosen King," Ardyn says, and smiles. It's not a nice smile. "That makes you and I family. But then, isn't the Inferniad traditionally celebrated by families coming together?"

"What happened?" Luna asks, her eyes wide. "If you were Lucis Caelum and Nox Fleuret both...? How did you – why did you..?"

Ardyn laughs. "Let me tell you a story," he says. "It is about a young King-to-be – a young healer, by virtue of his mother's side – who traveled throughout the land to fight the Starscourge, using his abilities to pull the plague from the bodies of his subjects into his own so as to free them from their burden. And yet, when he returned home, his family and his subjects all declared that he was too corrupted to take the throne that was rightfully his – they declared, further, that he had no right to the throne, his true heritage made questionable by simple virtue of the spots on his back – the spots of a leopard, rather than the clean lines of the lion - and because of this, they had him executed. But the Starscourge he had absorbed – the countless daemons he took into himself, rather than let them afflict his land and his people – oh, it would not permit him to die so easily. He did not die. Instead they chased him out, and wiped his name from history."

He turns his eyes to Mom, arching his eyebrows. "Or at least, so I'd thought. It appears a whisper of that story survived, deep within the archives of Lucis."

"The Starscourge corrupts," Luna's mom says with a frown. "To take the daemons into yourself, rather than to purge them – your judgment would have been tainted, your reason unbalanced. That would be why you were denied the throne, not your heritage or your spots."

"They would never have turned on me if not for that," Ardyn hisses, suddenly fierce. "The line of the Lucii, so obsessed with remaining pure – it could not tolerate something different. Anything different!"

"You're mad," Mom observes, her voice neutral – all amusement gone. If anything, she sounds regretful. "Perhaps you were only angry, once, but now you have become consumed – by the Starscourge, and by your hatred."

"Perhaps," he says. "Perhaps. But really, who can blame me?"

He rises to his paws, and so do the rest of them. Noctis doesn't like the way Ardyn's face has gone twisted with anger and the remnants of condescending humor. It makes him seem much more dangerous than the condescending asshole he was just moments before.

He steps back as Ardyn steps forward.

"But now, this time, this time it will be different," Ardyn says, his voice low and his eyes fixed on Noctis. "Now I will face the Chosen King himself – younger than I'd thought, perhaps, but no matter. I will face the Chosen of the Astrals, the Chosen of Prophecy, in the full bloom of his power and might, he who received all the inheritance that should have been mine, and I will show the Astrals who condemned me to my fate the ruinous folly of their ways, of their cruelty –"

There's a muted sound of an explosion, and the room shakes, causing them all to stagger.

"What's happening?" Dad shouts.

Noctis looks at Ardyn, assuming it's his fault, but no – he looks as surprised as any of them.

Another explosion – not in the room, Noctis realizes, but on the mountaintop above them. And then another, and another

"It's a Niflheim bombing run!" Luna's mom exclaims. She’s more familiar with them than most, being from Tenebrae.

"Well, those certainly aren't our people doing it," Mom says, grabbing onto Dad to help him keep his balance as the cavern quakes and ominous cracks begin to run up the walls. "They know we're here - and anyway, we wouldn't use up the bombs like that."

"They've turned on me," Ardyn says poisonously, realizing. "Niflheim – they've turned on me - they're trying to take out two birds with one stone –"

He turns his face back to where Noctis is standing, towards the back of the cavern with Luna.

"It's too soon," Ardyn says, and his voice has gone horribly raspy. "You have not fulfilled your quest yet. You cannot die, Chosen King, not yet, not until your mission is done – I will have my revenge done properly –"

His face is different all of a sudden, his eyes yellow lights in a pit of blackness, with filth the color of tar spilling down his cheeks and out of his mouth, his skin gone grey like a corpse – the corruption inside revealed –

A giant rock falls from the ceiling right next to Luna, making her scream, making Noctis look up and realize just how much the ceiling of the cavern is fragmenting.

"Luna!" Ravus shouts. He charges forward, knocking both Luna and Noctis back just as the ceiling begins to collapse, and the three of them tumble down together, falling backwards – backwards through where the wall of the cavern used to be – backwards and down, going down through some newly-revealed fissure in the wall, tumbling onto some slippery slide where their paws and hooves can get no grip.

Sliding down and down and away, into the center of the volcano.

"Noctis!" someone shouts after them, frantic, and through the echoes Noctis can't tell if it was one of his parents – or if it was Ardyn, seeing his revenge slip away from him.

#final fantasy xv #noctis lucis caelum #ardyn izunia #lunafreya nox fleuret #ravus nox fleuret #regis lucis caelum #aulea lucis caelum #sylva nox fleuret #aranea highwind #cor leonis #clarus amicitia #cyrella amicitia #apollonia scientia #ignis scientia #prompto argentum #gladiolus amicitia #nocturne #my fic

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walkerduchess · 6 years ago

Text

A Game of Hearts - Prologue: Promised (The Royal Romance AU)

Pairing: Drake x MC [Liam x MC]

Notes: I feel I must introduce myself since I don’t really post much original content here. So... hi! This is the prologue to a The Royal Romance fic series situated in an post-apocalyptic AU. This is the first fanfiction I’ve ever written and English is not my native language so I’m a bit scared! It’s big, so I had to make it a series. Usually I just make stories in my mind and work on them there but this one wouldn’t get out and I just had to get the details out, so I beggined to write it down. At first I felt apprehensive because I don’t really have many followers and honestly I have no clue if anyone would be interested in a post-apocalyptic story. Regardless, it’s been fun to write it and I figured if one person reads and enjoys it then it’s worth sharing! So if you do read it, I would really like to know what you think!

I do not own these characters, they belong to Pixelberry.

Summary: Decades after the only survivors of the end of the world started building a new realm, a young princess has to deal with the role assigned to her by her ancestors.

Word Count: 2912

Prologue: Promised

The ten year old is restless in her seat as the voice of her tutor fades into background noise. Her eyes are desperately searching for anything interesting enough to catch her attention. Not that she doesn’t care for history lessons, but she has too many of them. And this specific one - about the prophecy that came with the end of the world - she swears she could lecture it herself for the numerous times she heard it ever since she was born.

"Your Highness." She fidgets with the strings in the waist of her dress when she notices a pause in her tutor's voice and realizes he is addressing her.

"Yes?"

"Have you been paying attention?"

She’s annoyed by his question, but replies politely as she knows she should. "Yes Mr. Frederick."

“Then I suppose you wouldn’t mind repeating what you learned today for Dominic here.” The tutor motions to the teenage servant who just walked in the room with a jar of water for them. The boy’s eyes widen and his cheeks turn pink, but finally he approaches the table and gives the girl a smile. She knows Dom, he is funny and always lets her get away with whatever unadvised activity she conducts within the castle. The girl returns the smile and is about to complain about how Dom already knows the history - who doesn't? -, but right before any words can come out, the older man interrupts, looking at the door “But unfortunately I believe it will have to wait.”

The girl looks across the room. It is sort of empty, with only one bigger table, the tutor’s chair opposed by two other chairs, one on which she is seated. The walls, as well as the floor and ceiling, are stone-gray and filled with maps and notes, some of them relics from the world of before. At the door stands her governess, a lady the girl reckons to be something between 40 and 50 years old, announcing she came to escort her to her chambers to get ready for her sword lesson.

“Why do I have to go anyway? Liam doesn’t go.”

“Prince William has private sword lessons”, Mr. Frederick corrects her.

“Why though?” She insists, getting up from her seat.

“Because he is a prince”

“Well I’m a princess.”

“No. You are the crown princess of Cordonia. And the Promised Princess of the Last Prophecy. It’s other people’s duty to keep you safe, not the other way around. Even so, it is important that you know how to defend yourself as well, during these days of war.”

“I thought the prophecy said that the Promised Princess would bring salvation and peace.” she defies. She can recite the prophecy by heart. She knows every word. She has to, after all. But there are so many things she still doesn’t understand, the words aren’t clear about anything. She doesn’t understand how the council of holders determined that she was the Promised Princess, or that peace will come from and for the North kingdom out of the four kingdoms built after the resurgence. Well, three, now that the East kingdom celebrated its allegiance to the North, originating the united kingdom of Cordonia. She doesn’t even understand why they are at war for so many years now.

The tutor scowls at her “You are much too young to comprehend all things.” With that, the man closes with a thump the book in front of him, as well as the subject.

She actually adores her sword lessons, out of so many lessons she has since young age - archery, history, diplomacy, engineering, physic. Although she is best at engineering, she prefers her sword lessons solely because she can be with friends there. She thought about telling them the truth, who she really is, her real name, several times, but her mother reminds her everyday how important it is that it remains a secret, for her safety. As she follows the governess through the halls of the old castle, her mind drifts back to her first day of sword lessons.

"I know, I know. I'm Elia and not Sophie."

Queen Aurora gives her a stern look, but the princess knows her mother is just worried about her. With no cause, she thinks. Her mother is always loving and concerned, differently from her father, the King, who is always strict and distant. "And what if they ask you who you are?"

"I'm Bert and Max's cousin."

The older woman raises her eyebrows, as if waiting for more.

"On our mom's side. I know all this, mother!" Her tone is pleading for the questioning to end so she can join Max, her real cousin on their father side, to go to her lesson.

“Good.” The woman gives her a smile. “Go, then.” With that, the girl smiles before running out of her chambers.

Young Lord Maxwell is already waiting for her by the castle doors. He is her age, about her size and has his usual playful smile on. He is Sophie's best friend, she knows him since forever and they always have fun together. They often get in trouble together too. Sophie runs to him but as soon as she opens her mouth to speak, she hears a voice from beside her cousin.

"Shall we go?"

It’s her other cousin. Maxwell's brother, Bertrand. He is about four years older than Sophie and Max, and used to play with them, but not anymore. He says he doesn’t have time for children’s affairs. ‘Utterly boring’, is how Sophie would define him. He was assigned to take both the children to their lesson in the yard just some blocks outside the castle limits, so they don’t have to get a car to get there.

Sophie doesn’t get to leave Stormholt Castle when it can be avoided, so she takes in the view surrownding the pathway to the yard. She notices the big metal fences outlining the way and how the grass outside of them looks different, brown and too short. She considers asking the reason for such contrast, but decides it’s better to stay quiet until she gets to the lesson. It’s not like anybody explains anything to her.

Once there, Bert mutters some sort of farewell and disappears. Sophie is excited to finally be around some more kids. There are about a dozen of them, each one with different patterns drawn on their faces, all holding their training swords and waiting for the master, a man sitting in front of them, to begin the lesson. All around the yard there are guards securing the location for the class.

“You’re new”, a freckled girl approaches her. Her hair is red and she looks so beautiful, Sophie thinks. For a moment she wishes that she, too, had red hair, for she has never seen it before. Three other girls stand behind her, as if an audience for wherever she goes.

“What are you looking at?” The girl asks.

“Nothing.” The scolding tone from the girl is enough to make Sophie annoyed by her, so she just walks past her and her followers to stand beside some other girls.

“Hi” she says, hoping they are more pleasant.

“Hi”, a slim girl with dark brown hair answers. “What’s your name?”

“Elia”, she is prepared for that question. “And yours?”

“My name is Hana, this is Kiara and this is Penny”, Hana motions to the other two with her hand.

“So who are your parents?” Kiara asks.

“Kiara!” Hana exclaims with wide eyes. “Quit the rudeness with the new girl”.

“What? We’re all holders here, everybody knows that. Well… almost all of us are.” She gives a quick glance to the direction where Max is chatting with a boy she doesn’t recognize.

“My mother is Max’s mom’s sister.” Sophie tells her rehearsed lie.

“You’re Max’s cousin?” Penny jumps in the conversation, with a sudden interest.

“Yes… why?”

“Oh, he’s just… funny, I think.” Penny’s cheeks get pink.

“Well, children”, their conversation is cut short by the loud voice of the master, “Get in your positions, the lesson is starting.”

Sophie walks back to stand next to Max, who is excitedly holding his sword up.

“Hey Soph- Elia! You’re gonna love this.”

Sophie gives him a warning look. He knows better than to screw this up by revealing who she is to anyone.

She indeed loved the lesson and was congratulated by the master afterwards. The red haired scowled at it, it is clear that she is one of the very bests amongst them.

The princess starts making her way towards Max, who is again with the same dark haired boy from earlier, talking beneath the shadow of a undergrown tree, the only surviving tree in that yard. However, the red haired gets to them quicker, along some other kids.

“When are you going back to cleaning the grounds and leave the fighting for the real holders?”

“Stop pretending you’re one of us, settler!”

As she approaches, Sophie hears some kids speaking down on the unknown boy. He looks angrily at the ground and Max tries to pull him away. She furrows her brows, wondering why they’re being so pointlessly cruel.

“Hey!”, she shouts. “Stop this absurdity at once!” Her voice is full of authority and she realizes she sounded just like her governess when she catches the princess in some wrongdoing.

“Seems like the new girl thinks she’s in command”, one of the kids says.

The girl with the red hair frowns at her and stands in front of her. “Who do you think you are?”

Oh, if she could only tell her… “My name is Elia. And you are…?”

“I don’t need to tell you anything… Elia.” Her judgmental eyes scan the new girl head to toe as she pronounces her name.

The princess looks at the other kids that were also being mean to the boy, “What has he ever done to you?”

“Are you another prince’s settler protegee to be in his side too?”, The girl asks with a disgusted look.

Sophie had never been disrespected like that, nor had she ever seen anyone be humiliated for apparently no cause.

“Are you really so miserable that you need to belittle others so you can feel superior? Because I thought I heard you claim your nobility.” Sophie knows how to be mean, too. She can see that the girl was not expecting her answer by the shock in her face. “Didn’t really catch your name” the princess adds.

Then, finally Max is able to elaborate words “Don’t waste your time with Liv.” He starts pulling his cousin and the boy to a corner of the yard.

The red haired glares at him. “It’s Olivia”, she states, anger in her eyes.

Walking away behind Max and the dark haired boy, Sophie looks back to shoot Olivia a smirk and mischievous eyes “I’ll call you Liv.”

When they distance themselves enough, the unknown boy finally says something. “I didn’t need your help there.” Sophie raises her eyebrows.

“Come on Drake, don’t need to be ungrateful with her.” Max speaks up.

Sophie is finally able to give the boy a proper look. He’s a little taller than Max, slightly tanned skin, just like hers, and his dark hair falls messily upon his face, almost touching his eyes. His eyes are a dark shade of brown, not caramel like hers or blue like Max’s.

“Are all the kids in this class unpleasant, Max?”

“I’m sorry, Drake is not very good at making new friends.”, Max states.

Drake looks even more peeved than he was before. “I’m not.... it’s just… thank you.” He looks defeated, although he can’t hide a small smile “It was enjoyable to see Olivia put in her place.”

“Wasn’t that hard, was it... Drake?” She speaks his name with a smirk and a newfound curiosity. “Why were those kids talking about you being a prince’s protegee?”

That evening, Sophie sits in her bed, with a book in front of her. She is inside her chambers waiting for the right moment to sneak out. Her parents won’t let her out during open events, they say it is far too dangerous. It’s been a couple of years since she discovered the secret passageway behind the fireplace in her chambers, so she can come and go without the guard outside her door noticing she left.

Once she’s out, the girl silently occupies her usual spying spot. She looks down at all the people that came for the festivities but her eyes are searching for one in particular.

She spots him with his back against one of the walls of the front hall, and a man, which she recognizes as his father, speaking to him in what seems to her quite a rispid tone.

The girl gets up quickly and makes her way to the kitchens, where she knows the servants will be busy enough with all the food for the guests to notice her petite figure sneaking out of the castle through the back doors. She makes her way around the castle and stops right outside the main hall’s front window to leave her message there, and runs towards the side gardens.

When Liam notices the small horse-shaped piece on the window in the front of the main hall, he feels conflicted. He really doesn’t want people wondering where he is. Yet, when he catches himself, he’s already standing by the window, chess piece in hand. It’s not like he’d been able to ever tell her ‘no’. He wonders how someone ever could. As he slips through the doors he feels a little embarrassed to be giving in to some plotting of a ten year old. Not that he’s much older, but two years made a big difference at their age. He really doesn’t feel like she is younger when he’s with her, though. Actually, sometimes she would have him lost in the midst of so many ideas and other times he would be unable to understand her or read the expression in her eyes. He doesn’t know if tonight will make any difference in that matter, but it’s been a while since he had come to Stormholt Castle, and he doesn’t know when he’ll return.

Sophie finds Max already in the maze and feels a little jealous. She wonders what would be like to be able to be seen at festivities and roam around the castle freely during open events or meetings.

“Finally” Max speaks. “Did you manage to tell him?”

“Of course.” she states, matter-of-factly. “I don’t know if he’ll come though” The girl answers, slightly disappointed. She doesn’t say it out loud, but she hopes Liam will show up. She wants him to be her friend, not because he is a prince, not for the reasons the other girls her age brag about when they get to meet him in some formal gathering or festivity. She yearns to be close to someone who will understand her. She wants his friendship because he is the Chosen Prince of the Last Prophecy. They are in this together, they have to be. She is going to marry him after all.

“Hey” Liam’s voice startles her.

Turning around, she smiles “Thought you weren’t coming.”

“I’m here.” He sounds serious, as he always does. She wonders if he ever had fun. Or maybe she’s not like a proper princess should be. Maybe that’s why she feels uneasy with Liam, like she can't just say what she wants to say or he won’t approve of her. However, he gives her a smile and hands her the chess piece.

She extends her hand and takes it back “So you got my message right.”

“Yeah. Why are you the knight anyway?”

“Because I don’t like following a straight line.” She smirks.

Her answer manages to get a chuckle out ou Liam, so she felels good about it. “Of course not. Would you care to tell me why am I the rook then? I hope it’s not because I’m dull”

“You’re not dull, you’re just… steady, I think.” She doesn’t really know how to explain her choice.

Liam furrows his brows “I guess that’s… better than dull.”

“What?” Max interrupts “He gets to be the rook? Why am I only a pawn?”

“Oh Max…” the princess giggles “you should feel lucky you are my pawn.” Liam joins her and they both laugh.

“Are we going to play something or just stand here in the dark while you make fun of me?” Max inquiries.

“Yeah, why is it so dark here?” Liam asks, looking up at the big lamps that rise above around the gardens, turned off.

“Something about the generator.” Sophie shrugs “Someone is going up there in the morning to fix it, I suppose. It’s a separate generator from the castle, that’s why there are lights there.”

“Well then…” Max begins, impatiently.

“Have you any ideas, Liam?” Sophie interjects.

“Um… I used to play maze tag with Drake all the time back at Thorngate Castle”

Sophie smiles at the idea, but somehow she feels it would be more fun if Drake was there too. “Why don’t you ever bring Drake to these open events?”

“I would, but he never wants to. He says he can’t endure being around so many holders.”

“Heh” Max giggles “That is what Drake always says.”

She feels slightly disappointed, but then what is she thinking? She only sneaks out to see Max and Liam because they already know who she is. It is too risky for other kids, the ones who know her as Elia, to see her here, in her home.

Her parents spare no efforts to make sure other holders or settlers who aren’t servants or guards at Stormholt Castle don’t know who she is. People outside their small circle of trust cannot acknowledge what Princess Sapphire Aurelia looks like. Not during the war, and not until she is old enough to be able to fulfill the prophecy. That’s why it comes as a surprise to all of them when, twelve years later, she disappears.

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