#he deserves the chance to earn true forgiveness. not just 'yeah this shit happens and we have to move on'

[arsenicflame]

i think the moment i fundamentally lost all respect for s2 was when they treated that pathetic "sorry about your leg" as though it was a good enough apology for everything

[the141ghost]

There most definitely was an air of insecurity about Simon’s words.

It was always a sore point for him, owning up to mistakes. Growing up as he did, mistakes weren’t exactly looked on very kindly. That didn’t mean he avoided doing it, though. No, he’d sooner own up to them and heal than deny them outright like a fucking coward. Most of the time, he ended up apologising about situations that weren’t even immediately his fault, but he’d much rather that than any alternative.

He wasn’t sure if he wanted Johnny’s mother to forgive him, though. He didn’t feel as if he deserved it or even earned it. He’d nearly gotten her son killed because he made a stupid, split-second decision to stay in the sniper nest on the roof, and not only had he nearly gotten himself done in from that decision, but he nearly got Johnny killed.

In his mind, the latter was far worse than the former. He’d have happily died, then and there, so long as that meant that Johnny was safe and sound. But, he didn’t get that privilege. 

Fury followed his brief moment of introspection, once again.

Johnny and his mother began having a small spat, though Simon immediately felt his skin begin to crawl. Confrontations with parental figures had never gone well for him, that much was proven by several very faded scars over his body, and if it turned out that Johnny’s mother dealt with disobedience the same way?

Recently having his head cut open be damned, he’d kill her himself.

But, it never happened. Simon had cast his gaze down at his lap for barely a moment, and when he looked back up Johnny had begun to cry and, adding to his surprise, his mother began to hold him in her arms to comfort him.

It took all the remaining strength in Simon’s body not to just see red. Watching Johnny go from being playful with his siblings to sobbing in his mother’s embrace would have been enough of a push for Simon to burn the world to the ground for him.

Then, he made up his mind. 

It was going to be a stupid move, and it would for sure raise even more questions about the nature of their relationship, but he wasn’t about to sit there and watch his Johnny sob over something that wasn’t his fault, not when he knew he could put a stop to it by travelling barely six feet across the room.

The trousers the hospital had given him to wear felt scratchy against his skin as he moved, far too quickly for the severity of his injuries but he’d moved under far worse conditions and he’d moved for much less worthy causes. Johnny was crying, because of something he had brought up, and now he had to fix that. Quickly.

He wouldn’t be able to do what his immediate thought was, he didn’t think that making out with Johnny in front of his family would solve anything, even if it would feel great. No, he’d have to shift back into a professional mode for this and take a more tactful approach to soothe him.

And, he just about managed it. Biting back the sheer pain he was in from moving around, Simon managed to cross the room, ignoring that he genuinely towered over every person currently with them, and took a seat on the very edge of Johnny’s bed. 

“Oi, Sergeant,” he mumbled, waiting until he had pulled from the hug with his mother and turned his attention to Simon before he continued speaking. “Suck it up.” 

Aright. Maybe not the best way to start it. 

Johnny’s family might think he was being harsh, callous, even. But, he knew better than to immediately coddle the man outright. He’d ease into it, of course. There was only so long he could stare into those big, watery baby blues and be cold. 

“Really think this is the worst that’s gonna ‘appen to us? Hate to be the one t’break this to you, but we’re still alive. Much worse ways this coulda ended that’d warrant tears. This?” He gestured vaguely between them. “We’re gonna walk this shit off, yeah? Cause the chances are, Sergeant, that we’re gonna die out there one day. Bloody miserable thought that it is, but it's true. Just how the statistics go, yeah? This time we didn’t, so you turn those bloody waterworks off and you save them for that day.”

He didn’t know how Johnny worked with his family, and right now he didn’t care enough to know. All he saw was his Johnny crying. And he wasn’t going to let that continue, even if he had to burn a few barely constructed bridges in the meantime.

“You aren’t stupid, lad. And neither was you coming back in.” A clear dig at what Johnny’s mother had said. It was barely a passing comment, but it gave him more than enough fodder to already feel irritation for the woman building up inside of him. He did his best to remind himself that tensions were running at an all-time high. He and Johnny were both exhausted and in pain, and Elsie MacTavish had just found out she had nearly lost her son.

He had to remember to fucking breathe.

And to not punch the mother of the man he loved for having a moment of weakness.

“You had your orders. You followed them, to a fuckin’ tee. Clear? You did everything you were supposed to, everything I told you to do. You did your bloody job, and you did it fucking well. You ain’t dead,” he began, grabbing Johnny’s good wrist and manoeuvring it to press his hand against Simon’s chest, allowing him to feel the soft thumping of his heart, “an’ neither am I. We’re both fine. That’s thanks to you.”

It took him a few more seconds of holding Johnny’s hand to his chest and staring deep into his eyes before he remembered they weren’t alone in the room anymore and, no, he absolutely shouldn’t end his little speech with a heavy, wet kiss right onto Johnny’s lips.

He decided to go for something more tasteful.

“You are a fantastic soldier, Johnny, and an even better man. You never fuckin’ forget that, yeah? Or I’ll kill you myself.”

What? He said more tasteful, not entirely.

“Don’ worry about it, dear, I’m sure I can find it in ma heart tae forgive ye,” Elsie waved off Ghost’s worries with a kind smile and a gentle laugh. As if she was going to blame him for something like that, honestly. She might have continued a conversation with him if Lorna hadn’t jumped in with the teasing, but she was distracted by the need to mediate whatever was likely about to go down between her kids. She was determined to find out more about this man her son had apparently fallen for, though. He was a little too English for her tastes, a displeasure she’d already voiced to John, but so far he seemed polite enough despite it.

Johnny’s embarrassment didn’t die with Simon’s tease about his nickname, purely because it was true and now Simon knew it - he was truly the only one Johnny allowed to use that name. He hoped knowing it wouldn’t put Simon off, because hearing any other name from him would just feel odd now.

Beth felt eyes on her, glancing over to Ghost just in time to see him turn his gaze away, back onto John. Rather than appearing unsettled about this, however, she found herself briefly regarding him with curiosity before she returned to the conversation. It seemed all the MacTavishes possessed that distinct lack of fear that John did - whether it was from bravery or stupidity was still yet to be determined. She wondered what he’d been thinking. Or, perhaps it had just been the painkillers. He did have a notably vacant look in his eyes, she had spotted.

The MacTavishes had heard a lot about Ghost, yet somehow through all John’s talk they didn’t actually… know a lot about him. He managed to rattle on about the man, who everyone had figured out he had feelings for pretty quickly, for ages without ever giving away anything personal about him. They didn’t even know his name, for God’s sake. Mostly, they were subjected to stories about things Ghost had said or done, anecdotes and rambles about aspects of the man that John admired or adored. But never anything below surface level. John always made sure of it.

Elsie’s teasing smile dropped as Ghost said it, that it was his fault her John had got hurt. But he continued to say that it was because John had gone back in, **which to her sounded like it hadn’t been Ghost’s fault at all, **rather her own son’s idiotic, heroic tendencies.

Johnny recognised the guilt in Simon’s expression, could maybe even see insecurity behind his words. Perhaps it hadn’t been a good idea to suddenly spring meeting his family on Simon while he was in this state, he could only imagine how stressed the man must be.

“Aye, bu’ who’s fault was it the buildin’ went down in the first place?” Johnny reminded him, trying to soothe some of his guilt. Johnny blamed himself for what had happened but knew if he voiced this Simon would shoot it down immediately. It was clear that it was also the same vice versa. If they could share the burden, it might make it a lot easier for the both of them.

What Johnny said, however, seemed to be Elsie’s last straw.

“John Laith MacTavish,” she spoke, dangerously calm, and Johnny felt his heart sink at the use of the full name. There was a lecture incoming- “If I’m understanding this situation correctly, you brought down a building then went back inside, yes?”

“Yes,” Johnny confirmed, already sounding defeated.

“An’ why on Earth would you think that’s a good idea?! Are ye aff yer heid? Anyone wit’ even a shred of common sense can see how stupid tha’ is! Really, I dinnae ken how ye made it this far in life if tha’s the kinda decision yer makin’ oot there! Ye could have died!”

“An’ if I didn’ go back in, S- Ghost would’a died!” Johnny corrected himself, even if he was mid-retort, because he had no idea if Simon wanted them knowing his name, “If he had an’ I’d done nothin’, wha’ then? His blood would have been on my hands, I wouldnae have even tried tae help! Ye think I could- live with myself, after that?”

Johnny’s voice broke towards the end, and to his horror he realised there were tears in his eyes. He squeezed them shut, pressing his good hand over his face, wishing the mattress would swallow him up then and there. This was very much a group of people he didn’t want to cry in front of - then again, any group of people was. It seemed he didn’t have a choice, though, because once the tears started they didn’t want to stop.

He just felt awful about the entire thing. Even though everyone had been telling him not to blame himself, including himself, it was impossible. No one could deny that he had been the one to set off those charges while Simon was still in the building, because it was true. Had he not gone back into that building and had Simon died in there, it would have been his fault.

He would have been the one to kill Simon.

For a while when they were trapped in there, he thought he had. That thought would haunt him for the rest of his life. The memory of seeing Simon bleeding out, unable to do anything but watch.

Elsie’s exasperation was gone the instant she saw his tears, and within moments she was pulling him as gently as she could into a hug. At first he seemed reluctant, but it didn’t take him long to melt in his mother’s arms, turning to press his head against her shoulder. He felt like a bit of an idiot: a 26 year old man, a soldier no less, crying in his mother’s arms. But right now he couldn’t bring himself to care.

[softlass27]

here we go, a little robron-ified fix-it fic to soothe my anger after this week’s episodes. there’s slight divergence in that i've had debbie and cain not leaving for scotland just yet, but other than that everything’s still canon!

AO3 link here

There was a building headache throbbing behind Robert’s eyelids and it was called Chas Dingle.

He’d been in the pub for what felt like an eternity, listening to his mother-in-law hold court behind the bar, rehashing the latest Charity-related drama in excruciating detail with the rest of the Dingles.

Apparently Aaron and Robert had missed a lot during their week-long holiday to Scotland with Seb. They’d only popped in to pick up a takeaway, but within seconds of stepping through the door they’d been roped into sitting with the group, had two pints set down in front of them and now they were well and truly stuck.

“I mean, this is a new low, even for Charity,” Chas lamented for what had to be the fifth time, shaking her head and gesturing to Paddy, who was standing close by to nod in agreement to everything she said. “We’re done with her. She’s a liability, I can’t work with her anymore. The sooner she gives up her half of the pub and lets Marlon buy her out, the better. And I won’t have her under my roof, either.”

“Well, I’d offer her my room now that I’m staying in Jacobs Fold, but Mandy would probably put up a fight,” Belle said with a shrug. “Besides, Dad says he doesn't want Charity there either.”

Robert thought it seemed a bit harsh of Zak to dictate who could or couldn’t stay in the cottage, considering he didn’t actually live there – or even in the village – anymore, but he kept that to himself. Getting involved in the debate would take more energy than he cared to use.

“Well, she’s not still living with us, that’s for sure,” Chas insisted, her mouth pursed into a thin line. “She’ll have to go.”

“I’d let her stay with me and April, but we don’t have room,” said Marlon, looking concerned. “Not with Billy and Ellis, too. And I don’t think she’ll want to, now that she knows I’m the one buying her out of the business.”

“Oh, I wasn’t hinting, Marlon, it’s fine. Frankly, I don’t give a damn where she goes.”

“Hm, she can sleep in a ditch for all I care,” Debbie sniffed, nose crinkling like there was a bad smell hovering around the bar.

“Alright Debs,” Cain grumbled quietly. “We get the picture.”

“It’s no less than she deserves!” Chas cried, quick to back Debbie up. Robert didn't know when it had happened, but the two of them seemed thick as thieves ever since Debbie had come back to the village.

“Oh, come on, you two,” Marlon said tiredly, rubbing his temples. “Charity’s gone through a lot these last few months, she’s been struggling ever since she lost Vanessa. Maybe we should be tryna help her instead of letting her self-destruct?”

Chas snorted, hand propped on her hip. “What, after she dropped Debbie in it with Al? And tried to sleep with him? After what she did to our Noah?”

“What, stopping him from being daft enough to join the army while hiding a life-threatening medical condition?” Robert snapped before he could stop himself, his patience hanging by the thinnest thread. “Wow, better call social services.”

He found himself on the receiving end of a very familiar glare, Chas’s nostrils flaring as she looked at him with disdain.

“I was actually referring to the slap she gave him,” she said lowly. “Were you not listening?”

“No, not really,” Robert muttered into his pint, earning himself a small snort from Aaron.

As the Dingles continued bemoaning the current situation, Robert nudged his husband and leaned over to whisper in his ear.

“Can we please get the hell out of here? I can’t take much more of this.”

Aaron sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. “Still need the takeaway, I’ve been dyin’ for this burger.”

“Do you see Marlon going to the kitchen anytime soon?”

“Oi, Marlon!” Aaron barked, making the taller man jump. “How much longer for the food? We’re starving.”

“Oh, er, Luke’s in the kitchen, he’s sorting it.”

“Great,” Robert groaned, the pain in his head increasing. “They’ll probably be burnt to a crisp if that idiot’s the one making them.”

“Fuck it, let’s just finish these pints and go, pick up some pizzas from David’s or summat,” Aaron muttered, scowling when Paddy’s voice joined the heated discussion.

“I don’t care if she’s regrets it, she’s pushed things too far this time,” he said decisively, arms folded to match Chas’s. Robert absently wondered if he had a nice view up there on his high horse.

“I know what she did was terrible,” Lydia piped up. “And I’m not impressed with her myself. But she seems genuinely sorry, I’m sure she’d do anything to fix things.”

“Yeah, but that’s her all over, isn’t it? Act first, feel bad about it later,” Debbie drawled, swigging back her glass of white wine. “Honestly, I don’t know why any of us are surprised. She’s always been selfish, Noah deserves better.”

“Sure you’re not just sore about losing all that cash you nicked?” Robert asked, brows raised.

Debbie just narrowed her eyes at him and carried on talking. “I can’t see Noah giving her another chance, not after this.”

Chas nodded in agreement. “Even if the poor lad wanted to forgive her, I wouldn’t let him.”

“Maybe just let Noah and Charity sort things out for themselves,” Marlon tried, but that just had Chas’s finger flying up to silence him.

“No, I’m sorry, Marlon, but this is the final straw. I mean, we all know Charity’s never been a perfect mother but slapping him was a step too far. Some things are just unforgivable.”

“Bit rich coming from you.” Aaron’s quiet interjection swiftly brought the conversation to an abrupt halt.

After a brief pause, Chas’s head swivelled to look at Aaron in confusion, clearly uncertain as to whether she was the one he’d been addressing.

“Sorry, what?”

Aaron shrugged. “Just sayin’, if smacking your kid around’s an unforgivable offence, bad enough to get you kicked out the family, you probably shouldn’t be here. You and me wouldn’t even be talking right now.”

Robert held his breath and watched as Chas froze. He was aware of some of the altercations between Aaron and his mum in recent years. Aaron had told him during one of the many nights they'd spent curled up together, sharing all their memories, thoughts and secrets, about some of the things she’d said and done. Like slapping him in the face when she found out about their affair, for one.

Now, he could see some of those events playing out in her memory as she floundered, eyes darting nervously between Aaron and the rest of the family, who were all watching the pair in silence.

“Aaron, you and me, we’ve… I know we’ve had our ups and downs over the last few years, had our fair share of rows, lashed out… And I’m sorry, but that’s different, we’re both adults. Noah’s just a kid.”

“And what about when I was a kid?”

Robert stiffened at the words, and he quickly turned to look at Aaron’s hunched profile. That, he knew nothing about. Aaron’s face remained impassive, giving nothing away.

“What’s this?” Cain said, frowning.

Chas stared at him for a moment, before turning back to Aaron with a slightly bewildered laugh.

“I've got no idea. What’re you on about, love?”

“When I was, what, 11? 12? You hit me then, too.”

“No.” She shook her head quickly, before speaking over the sound of a few surprised intakes of breath from the group. “No, that can’t be right, you didn’t even live here when you were 12.”

“It was when I was visiting,” Aaron said. “Course the family weren’t there to see that one like they saw Charity and Noah. It was just the two of us, back there – ” He pointed towards the back of the pub. “ – in the kitchen. No witnesses.”

Robert saw the exact moment a flicker of recognition appeared in Chas’s eyes.

“Oh… ”

“Coming back to you now, is it?”

“Chas, is that true?” Lydia asked, looking shocked.

Chas ignored her in favour of staring at Aaron with wide eyes, caught off guard. “Oh love, that – that wasn’t – ”

“You had a go at me for not wanting to stay with you or preferring Sandra to you, I dunno. Can’t remember now. But I do remember you tellin’ me I ‘didn’t deserve a mother’ and then slapping me across the face. It left a mark.”

Robert's hands clenched on the bar as red hot anger rapidly surged through his body, and he glared furiously as Chas. She looked around helplessly, turning to Paddy for support. He just opened and closed his mouth a couple of times, looking lost and uncomfortable at the unexpected turn of events.

“Christ’s sake, Chas,” Cain grumbled from his spot next to Debbie, looking thoroughly unimpressed.

“I’m – I didn’t – ”

“I was probably being a bit of a little shit to be fair,” Aaron cut off her stammering with a rueful smile. “Mouthing off – like Noah was doing to Charity, from the sounds of it.”

“Aaron love… I’m so sorry, I didn’t realise you still – that you were still upset about that… ”

“I’m not,” said Aaron, matter-of-fact. Robert believed him, too. He knew his husband well enough to tell when he was lying or putting on a brave face to hide his hurt. This wasn’t one of those times. He wasn’t upset, he was frustrated.

“I’m not after an apology, this ain’t about me. All I’m sayin’ is, you might wanna take a look at that big glass house of yours, before you start chucking stones at Charity for doing the exact same thing you did to me more than once.”

He drained the last dregs of his pint and slid off the bar stool.

“You’re the last person who should be judging someone for making mistakes with their kids. I should know.” Aaron cast a quick glance over the group. “Same goes for the lot of you.”

Cain and Marlon had the grace to look somewhat sheepish, while Belle looked down awkwardly. Debbie just huffed and took another gulp of wine. Aaron rolled his eyes and grabbed his coat, shoving his arms in the sleeves.

“Robert, give Charity a ring, would you? Tell her we’ve got a spare room with her name on it.”

Robert pulled his phone out of his pocket. “My pleasure.”

“Er, no, hang on!” Debbie snapped, a hand flying up to halt them. “We’ve already agreed she’s not part of the family anymore, it’s decided.”

“I didn’t agree to anythin’,” Aaron snapped right back. “You wanna fall out with Charity, that’s your business. It’s got nowt to do with us.”

“Besides,” Robert waved his phone in the air with a smirk. “I’m technically the one inviting her and since I’m not a Dingle, your weird little rules don’t apply to me. Thank god.”

“Come on, Rob, let’s go.”

“Aaron no, get back here, this needs sorting! Aaron!”

Aaron ignored Chas’s protesting shrieks and started walking towards the door. Robert began to follow him, before pausing and turning back to the group, zeroing in on Debbie.

“Correct me if I'm wrong, but it wasn’t that long ago you were tryna do her in – ” He gestured to Chas. “ – for shagging your bloke while you were still with him. Threatened her with a… shotgun, was it?”

Debbie’s mouth twisted in displeasure.

“You weren’t even here then!” Chas cried, jaw hanging open in outrage. “That is none of your – ”

“If you can get past that,” Robert spoke over her. “Then you can stop calling Charity the devil for nearly-but-not sleeping with your scumbag ex. Get over yourself.”

Aaron touched the small of his back. “Come on. If we start listing everything this lot have ever done wrong, we’ll be here all night.”

They stalked out of the pub without a backward glance. As they stepped out onto the street, Robert exhaled heavily.

“Always fun catching up with your family.”

Aaron huffed a small laugh and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Didn’t even get our food after all that.”

He made to start walking towards David’s, but stopped when Robert gently touched his arm.

“You okay?”

“Yeah, m’fine.”

Robert hesitated, fingers curling on Aaron’s sleeve.

“You… never told me about that. That she hit you when you were… ” He trailed off uncertainly, not wanting to sound accusing, like Aaron owed him an explanation.

Aaron hummed and turned to face him, their bodies naturally swaying into each other.

“Haven’t thought about it in ages, if I’m honest. Not for years.”

“I’m sorry.”

For all Aaron said he was fine, that Chas’s actions from 20 years ago didn’t bother him anymore, Robert knew from his own experience the lingering scars that kind of event could leave.

“It’s okay.” Aaron gave him a small smile and pulled him in for a soft kiss.

They stayed like that for a few moments, until Robert’s phone buzzed in his hand. He pulled away regretfully to read the words on the screen.

“It’s Diane. She says she’s with Charity, found her crying in the gazebo.”

Aaron sighed and stuck his hands in his pockets. “Come on, then. Let’s go get her.”

Robert fired a quick text to Diane, telling her they were on their way, before slinging an arm over Aaron’s shoulders as they started walking.

“We’re really gonna have Charity as a housemate again, then?” He asked with a teasing grin.

Aaron groaned and leaned into him. “Looks that way. But if she pervs on us in the shower again, she's out on her ear.”

Robert winced as that particular memory came rushing to the surface.

“God help us.”

[whocalledhimannux]

TBATD Chapter 21 Note

~spoilers abound~

So here’s the thing about this ending:

I’ve had it planned from, essentially, the moment I came up with this AU.

I’ve been second-guessing it since that moment.

My personal struggle with this chapter (and, to some extent, the previous three) is because the focus of the plot shifts somewhat--for most of the fic we’ve been firmly with Katara, on how she adjusts to her life in the Fire Nation and her relationship with Zuko. And now the culmination of the plot is essentially on Zuko becoming Fire Lord and Aang becoming the Avatar--which, to be fair, is what happens in canon, too. In my version, Katara also doesn’t technically win her fight with Azula. And up until literally five hours ago, she didn’t fight Azula, because I assumed that Aang would go into the Avatar state in a rage the moment Katara was threatened with lightning, and I was concerned that reducing Katara to a healing role was kinda sexist. Then my dumb ass remembered that I established earlier in the fic that Aang actually does have legit control over the Avatar state in my fic because he’s been working on it for ~two years and it’s totally fine for Katara and Azula to have more back-and-forth until Aang decides to step in.

SO. My worries about internalized sexism have been somewhat assuaged, but I had already written out a shit-ton of meta about this ending so I’m just going to keep at it. Basically I dithered over this for months, but the fundamental ending never actually changed. Every time I tried to think of alternate endings, I came back to the real catalyst for this fic, which is Iroh’s insight from The Old Masters: 

Even if I did defeat Ozai--and I don’t know that I could--it would be the wrong way to end the war. History would see it as just more senseless violence, a brother killing a brother to grab power. The only way for this war to end peacefully is for the Avatar to defeat the Fire Lord…Someone new must take the throne. An idealist with a pure heart and unquestionable honor.

I mentioned this way back in my first chapter note; when I sat down to write this fic, I decided I wanted to change the established world as little as possible. I wanted Katara and Zuko to have all of the issues with each other they had in canon. I wanted the essential position of the Fire Nation and the South Pole to be the same. I wanted their friendships and familial relationships to be the same. I even tried to keep Zuko’s field trips! And I wanted Iroh to still be right about the politics of this slightly altered world.

Throughout the fic, I’ve touched on the ramifications of Iroh’s decision to kill his brother, in his relationship with Zuko, in Azula’s response (albeit hidden until like… now), in the Earth Kingdom and Water Tribes’ perception of the Fire Nation, and a little bit in the Fire Nation’s perception of him as a ruler. Basically, he’s not trusted, nationally or internationally. And while Katara is, in my canon, very very well-liked, there are still some political limitations for her as a princess. So she can’t fix it until she’s Fire Lady--and she can’t be Fire Lady until her husband is the Fire Lord. Hence, Zuko becoming the Fire Lord takes a little bit of the focus in these later chapters.

Annnnnd then we get to the other part of Iroh’s statement, which is that the Avatar needs to be the one to end the war. Yeah. I think, if anything, that’s even more true in my fic than in canon. Think about it from the POV of, say, an Earth Kingdom general: “So, you’re telling me that they’ve had five Fire Lords in the last ~10 years, the first one died under mysterious circumstances after conveniently elevating his second son to the throne, the second one was killed extrajudicially by his brother, the third one was also accused of killing his nephew and abdicated to the fourth, who was then accused of being behind aforementioned assassination and was then usurped by the fifth one in a brawl that’s apparently totally legal by their standards… and I’m supposed to trust these people to be my friends?”

Somehow, I can’t see that working out. But the Avatar stabilizes things. The Avatar brings balance to the world, and is a neutral third party who can truly broker the peace… if and only if the people recognize his authority. Aang, in the world of this fic, disappeared for a hundred years, came back, died, came back again, and has been dicking around for two years while the adults solved all the problems. In canon, the world needed Zuko to be a good Fire Lord and Aang to be a fully realized and respected Avatar in order to achieve a true peace, and I felt that this fic needed those two things too.

I know that, since Aang didn’t appear for a big chunk of this fic, it might seem like a bit of a cop-out, but… I always felt energybending was a bit of a cop-out in canon, too. Sure, it makes sense when you know the broader context, but there was verrrrry little foreshadowing in the show itself prior to the series finale–and least for this fic you had the foreshadowing of canon!

Yes, that does mean that Katara doesn’t WIN-win the agni kai in this fic, but tbh I don’t know if she has to? Something I appreciate about Katara’s growth in the show is that, in Book One, her waterbending abilities and her access to combat instruction are really her main hangups… and then they’re not. From Book Two on, she is recognized as an unquestionable waterbending master and one of the most competent benders in the world, and she feels comfortable in that role--her conflict in the remainder of the show is more about her personal relationships and her “dark side,” so to speak.

The agni kai is a fitting end for her storyline in canon because it happens during the comet, when she should be at a massive disadvantage. Take that away, and like… yeah, Katara beat somebody. What else is new? I don’t think she has to prove her worth in this universe. She’s been living in the Fire Nation, which is comfortable with female fighters and doesn’t assume she’s weak… and she’s been earning a reputation as a total BAMF for the last couple of months.

Katara’s conflicts in this fic have been on those other insecurities: whether bloodbending is wrong, if her anger or resentment are justified, how she fits into this new home, how she connects with her old one, her relationship with Zuko. So the fact that she has showed up, that she’s publicly defended the nation, that she risked her life to save Zuko, those are all things she gets “credit” towards and things that wrap up her main character growth. Katara ending this fic as an incredibly popular Fire Lady with a strong, stable marriage is a win from my perspective.

BONUS: this was my favorite ending for Azula.. I am working on a follow-up fic that will follow Azula. I’ll be upfront with y’all in saying that it is not finished and will not be up for a few months, at LEAST. (The reason I was able to update this fic every two/three days is because I spent four months writing it w/o posting a word.) I always kind of wished we’d seen Azula’s breakdown drawn out a little more in canon, and I was reeeeaaaaally pissed when I saw how Azula was treated in the beginning of The Search. When I considered Azula’s end in this fic (and how she might progress in a follow-up fic), I thought long and hard about what rock bottom would really look like for her, specifically what kind of issues she might be dealing with instead of the generic “craziness” that is treated pretty terribly in the comics, and what recovery would look like.

I think being without her firebending is unquestionably Azula’s rock bottom. Her identity as a prodigy means everything to her. From her perspective, she’s never really been loved by her mother or her uncle or Zuko–it’s all been Ozai, and his love has been predicated on her success. In canon, she got a glimpse of how easily Ozai would turn his back on her, and that’s her real breaking point; in this fic, she never got that, so while she has been dealing with grief in a pretty terrible, unhealthy way, her real breaking point is the loss of The Thing that ties her to her father.

But I think that also offers her the best chance for true recovery and redemption, because it strips her of the delusion that she is perfect and untouchable and doesn’t actually need love. Azula defines herself by her success, and what is she without success? She would say nothing; Katara, Zuko, et al, would say you’re still a person, actually, still a human being deserving of respect and love and forgiveness. My version of energybending and recovery is going to be a bit different than how it plays out in LoK, because Selective Death of the Author, and I think her recovery of her bending in my way will parallel her recovery in general quite nicely.

So. that’s a lot of meta for an ending I changed halfway through. I have spent so much time thinking about this fic and it’s truly been a joy, even when it’s been a pain in the ass. Thank you all so much for sticking with me.

[bigskydreaming]

Uh.....if you mash together pre-Reboot and New 52 continuities the way we all just tend to do anyway, you know who would have just as much to say about Bruce resuscitating the Joker after Dick killed him in Last Laugh?

Duke. Who does the math and realizes, wait, the fucking clown was actually DEAD, like, game over, the world rid of the problem that is him and the shit he does....and Bruce...actively cancelled this out, whereas if he’d stopped his OWN kneejerk reactions long enough to realize that reviving the Joker wouldn’t erase what Dick had done or lessen Dick’s awareness that he’d crossed that line, literally all it would accomplish is to have all of that remain true WHILE bringing the Joker back into the world and thus creating more potential victims of his in the future?

Victims like....Duke’s parents.

Aka can someone please drag Bruce Wayne’s butt to therapy because his complete inability to bend or budge on the specific issue of killing has 

1) caused his eldest son no shortage of severely debilitating emotional issues all stemming from his deep-seated fear of losing his father’s love due to situations like with the Joker and with Blockbuster 

2) caused and perpetuated his continued estrangement from his second son, whose actual literal death was so devastating to Bruce he was in real danger of getting himself killed before Tim came along and yet upon his actual return from the grave, still took backseat to Bruce’s fixation on a rule he set FOR HIMSELF long ago, because it was always made fairly clear that Jason could have been persuaded to change his methods in regards to fighting all other crimes if Bruce could find a way to make an exception in regards to the Joker, who has hurt all of their family so often and so severely, and that’s not even getting into the shit with the Penguin in RHATO

3) contributed to his third son’s feelings of estrangement and not being deserving of a place in Bruce’s family, in the aftermath of Tim’s entirely understandable DESIRE to see his father’s murderer dead, without even Tim actually acting on it before earning Bruce’s judgment, and with a likely extension and continuation of this divide being evident in how opposed Tim is to going to Bruce for help whenever Ra’s pops up again to be all “I’m outside ur house in the bushes spying on u thru the window, will u join me in remaking the world in our - sorry that’s a lie, I meant my - image, plz check y/n,” because again quite understandably, Tim fears being caught in the middle of Ra’s and Bruce’s ideological war because he’s afraid of Bruce deciding its because Tim is more open to what Ra’s says than he actually is, and the conflicts that could arise from that

4) almost destroyed any chance of a healthy and loving relationship between he and his youngest son before they even got a chance to start one, due to his own issues with a past Damian had literally no ability to opt out of, even if he had been given alternative viewpoints to the morality of killing, as taught to him by the League - Damian was a ten year old child who could not be expected to have the resources to leave the League and their expectations for him, without help, even if he had previously been able to conceive of a way of life other than the one laid out for him from birth

5) I don’t even know where to start with Cass and the whole shit with Deathstroke and like....I just. Yeah

6) As noted at the start of the post, had Bruce simply not intervened to resuscitate the Joker, like didn’t even need to kill him himself, like if he had simply NOT BROUGHT HIM BACK TO LIFE (like and people wonder why Dick was so convinced Bruce would judge him for not stepping between Blockbuster and a bullet to save that villain’s life when not even a year prior, Bruce had established the precedent that apparently in his mind, if there was even a possibility of resuscitating an already dead villain with a body count like the Joker’s, that was apparently what needed to be done)....but like....no Joker after the Last Laugh, no Jokerized Thomases a few years later....not to mention how that could have altered the chain of events that unfolded with Jason’s return and attempt to get Bruce to kill someone who would now already be dead.

Like....Bruce. Buddy. Pal. This vow you made - again, for YOURSELF - to never kill in any scenario, because YOU were afraid that YOU wouldn’t be able to stop yourself from doing it again, and again and again...it might have been born from a place of good intentions, but the stringent, utterly inflexible way you apply it to your own family, with zero allowance for context, let alone exceptions, is actively hurting them in any number of ways, AND HAS BEEN FOR YEARS.

You need to get some nuance. Nobody’s saying YOU yourself have to go out and start gunning people down, but there have to be room for more opinions on this than just yours...especially when it comes to the choices OTHER people make on this matter, for born of THEIR moral compasses. Your moral compass has allowed you to give yourself a pass on some pretty fucked up things, so you need to just NOT, with the whole treating it as the be all and end all of Right and Wrong.

I mean in my professional opinion, of course.

Also also also, I would just like to point out that another factor that in my mind, makes the Last Laugh story and the fact that Dick DID in fact cross that line once and kill someone, even if they were later revived.....

This is important, and potentially central to SO MANY of the internal conflicts within the Batfamily, most of them between Bruce and various of his children....

BECAUSE IT DISPROVES BRUCE’S FEAR OF THE SLIPPERY SLOPE IN REGARDS TO KILLING BEING LIKE...A UNIVERSAL LIKELIHOOD, RATHER THAN JUST A PERSONAL FEAR BASED ON HIS OWN SELF-AWARENESS.

Bruce’s entire thesis about never killing even once, even with someone like a Joker, is because he believes once you start down that road, you’re never going to stop....with him frequently shown as seeing Jason and his actions as proof of that basic premise....because ultimately, like with the Penguin, its like even when Jason has gone a long time without killing anyone, Bruce is convinced that its only a matter of time before he breaks his promises or finds another ‘exception’ he feels he can justify....because again, Bruce so often fixates on this idea that there IS no stopping. With it being very easy to see how this also extends at times to concerns about Damian and the possibility of him killing again, given his own past.

But when you take Last Laugh into account.....and acknowledge the fact that Dick has killed as a bigger deal than the comics or most fics have ever really allowed it to be....

Suddenly you have to take into account that yes, Dick has killed once...

AND ONLY ONCE.

Years and years and years ago....and never done it since. 

And that’s a potential GAME-CHANGER for so very freaking many of the conflicts that keep their entire family so divided....because so many of them are sprung from this one central source.....which is based on this one specific fear Bruce has for himself and has since applied to all of his children as well....

To such an extent that when one of his children crossed this line for the first time....BRUCE HAD TO UNDO IT.

Even though Bruce said at the time he resuscitated the Joker so that Dick could live with himself, not have to live with having killed a man and what that might do to him.....Dick still had to live with himself, still had to live with having killed a man! It very much informed his character moving forward, was a central part of his fears in situations even tangentially similar, like with Blockbuster. Bringing back the Joker didn’t actually change ANYTHING for Dick, other than....render all that kinda meaningless, because he had to work through the emotional issues of having killed a villain....who didn’t even stay dead, and continued to kill and ruin lives.

Nope, I maintain in actuality, Bruce resuscitated the Joker so that HE could live with what Dick had done, not have to live with one of his sons having broken the vow that was so important to Bruce himself, and what that might do to him, Bruce...and his relationship with Dick, or even just his ability to continue to have a relationship with Dick. He was driven to ‘reverse’ what Dick had done, IMO, so that HE didn’t have to face it, could in time pretend that it hadn’t really happened, it didn’t count, his world order was still intact.

And that’s a level of denial that’s actually pretty damn characteristic for Bruce in a lot of ways.....and IMO, the real source of so much of his conflict with his children.

Because then once Jason came along and already had eight heads in a duffel bag by the time Bruce realized who the Red Hood really was.....it was too late for Bruce to do anything about it, to stop reality from crashing straight through every barrier Bruce tried to throw in the way to keep from having to face the moral quandary of one of his children (that he so often saw himself in) taking the step that he’d so definitively feared ever taking.

Its not that Bruce was able to ‘forgive’ Dick for killing the Joker that one time, and not the times Jason has killed, because Bruce loves Dick more.

Its because Bruce DIDN’T forgive Dick for it. HE DID HIS BEST TO PRETEND IT NEVER EVEN HAPPENED.

And the reason that didn’t happen with Jason....was because it was never even an option. By the time Bruce was confronting his son as JASON.....instead of a mysterious masked vigilante....there was zero possibility of reframing this in his mind or undoing any of it like he tried to do when he resuscitated the Joker.

Bruce’s vow is all well and good for him....but the thing he’s never faced, because he’s afraid to face it, afraid it could permanently destroy his connections with his family....is that he doesn’t get to make that choice for his children. That it doesn’t make them terrible people to feel differently about the importance of not even allowing a man as destructive as the Joker to die, in large part based on their having entirely different life experiences than Bruce himself, that lead them to feel differently on specific matters like this one.

And I think the most effective starting place for that dialogue, that confrontation, realization....is for BRUCE to face what Dick did all those years ago, AND the fact that in Dick’s case, history has NOT repeated itself since.....that Dick truly did kill a man, kill the Joker, in every way that mattered....and HE’S STILL DICK GRAYSON. The person he was didn’t change, not fundamentally, not in the ways that matter so much to Bruce on every other level. Killing the Joker didn’t make Dick a killer, other than in the specific context of that specific situation.

And that to me, is such an important conversation to have within the construct of the Batfamily and their interconnected conflicts, a confrontation that could actually force Bruce to start shifting his perspective in regards to his CHILDREN’S choices, not necessarily his own....and with that ultimately spreading into each of the individual conflicts Bruce has with his various kids, and allowing for some actual PROGRESS to be made on those fronts, instead of it always just being the same old fight, with them all endlessly running in circles.

[ashintheairlikesnow]

Not Another Moment: Nate Vandrum and Dr. Rosa

(this is a bit for @burtlederp who wanted to see Nate’s first appointment with Dr. Rosa Martinez! Don’t worry, I’m still working on Bad Things Happen Bingo (Grabbed by the Hair is coming up next!) but this was going to be a short drabble and... um.)

Tagging the crew: @spiffythespook, @special-spicy-chicken, @bleeding-demon-teeth

Timeline: Just prior to the beginning of Abraham Denner’s trial​

CW: References to noncon, violence, abuse, and torture (all just conversational references)

“Why don’t we start with you telling me why you wanted to see me today?”

Nate’s fingers tap on the arm of the couch, and he watches the woman the same way she watches him. If he had thought ahead, he could have brought his own notebook and pen - he’s already seen her mark things down and he hasn’t even spoken yet, not really. Nate takes a breath, thinking through the sentence he wants to say, first - the stammer isn’t as bad if he does that, but he doesn’t always remember.

Bram thought his stammer was cute, when it started, sometime before the end of the final year with the both of them. Ashley had hated it, it took too long for him to get out a thought and she hadn’t cared enough to wait for him to voice his thoughts in the first place. It had started to fade, a little, during the months he was free - only to dig its way in worse than ever when he was up in Alberta.

“I don’t know,” Nate answers, honestly enough, and he’s proud when he doesn’t stammer at all. “I didn’t. D-D-Danny wanted me to s-s-see you.”

“It’s not often that people schedule significant time with therapy when they don’t have at least an idea of why they are coming, Mr. Vandrum. I appreciate Daniel’s recommendation, but we won’t be able to accomplish much unless we can identify a good starting point for you.”

He looks at her hands, where she holds the pen. A dusky brown on one side, paler along the inner fingers and palms Wedding ring, probably cost her a pretty penny when she got married. He’d caught a glimpse of some photos on her desk, couple of women with families, one woman alone about the same age as Rosa Martinez. Wife?

That still felt so strange, to think.

Not that he hadn’t had friends who got married, way back when, but it hadn’t been legal, then. Not in their state, it hadn’t, and a few people drove to the other states to make it legal but even then…

“When Bram f-f-found me,” He says softly, his voice distracted and a little distant, but it’s a careful construct, because even just saying his name makes Nate’s throat feel tight and his heart beat faster. Even now, even after everything. “When he f-found me the f-f-first time, I c-c-couldn’t have gotten m, married, legally, where I l-lived before.”

Dr. Rosa Martinez was quiet, but she wrote something down in her notebook and nodded, gesturing for him to continue.

“N-Not that I would have w, wanted to, then. I was too b-b-busy to even d-date, really. Just started to t-t-teach adjunct, you don’t m-m-make shit like that, where would I take anyone? Out for d-d-dinner off the menu at McDonald’s? I lived with m-my friend, my… my friend. They k-k-killed him when they decided they w-w-wanted me.” His voice doesn’t waver, although he finds himself hesitating.

He’s going to have to talk about this, during the trial. The lawyers have said the context is important, even though there isn’t enough evidence to prove they killed his old roommate beyond a shadow of a doubt and they’re pushing the kidnapping/abduction angle above everything else. That and the dead man who had once lived in the cabin, the body that bled out on the floor, the body Danny had to help Bram carry out to the fire even stumbling and crying from the pain in his head, he-

Nate’s fingers stop tapping, and he takes a deep breath in, holds it for five, slowly exhales.

He doesn’t think a fucking thing when he does it.

“Do you think a lot changed between then and now?” She asks him, and he wants to laugh at her, choke her, punch her for the question.

Has a lot changed? The world got better, and then I got out for a while, then he found me and the world went to hell and I didn’t know, no one told us in the woods, no one told us the world went to hell while we were trying to stay alive.

While I was hurting him, while I couldn’t stop, while he made me hurt him and somehow he still forgave me for it, somehow Danny forgives me everything.

“Yes.” It’s all he says, and his voice is more clipped than he means it to be.

Rosa nods, slowly, thinking, tapping her pen against her notebook. Then she sits back, relaxes into her seat. Nate takes a moment to look through the blinds, at the sun outside, at Ryan’s car in the parking lot. Ryan had given him the keys to drive himself, with the carelessness of rich kids who can just buy another car if the current one gets totaled by an asshole who hasn’t driven in seven years, except the once.

Except the night he lit the cabin on fire with Bram unconscious down in that fucking cellar he had used to terrify Danny. Except the night he put Danny in Bram’s truck, took the fucking muzzle off his face, and got him the hell out of there.

“You’re very aware of the time you lost,” Dr. Rosa says out loud, in a voice full of empathy and compassion. Nate wonders if that’s professionally trained into her, like his own teaching voice used to have a kind of lilting rhythm to it that developed during grad school, working with the undergrads and learning how they responded to different lecture styles.

He’d eventually figured out a way of inserting humor and certain jokes, of being authoritative without being suffocating about it, that had worked really well. He’d been in the process of applying to become a full professor, had thought he had a pretty good chance even though getting a full professor job in his area was like threading a needle blindfolded-

Remember when you had to give Danny stitches and Bram made you do it blindfolded with your left hand?

Nate shakes it off, but his bad hand tries to close into a fist and Dr. Rosa notices, he’s sure she notices. She doesn’t say anything, though. She doesn’t push.

So far she hasn’t, and he has to give her credit for that.

“I am,” He admits, finally. “I am v-v-very aware of it, and the t-t-time I’m still losing. The time D-D-Danny lost, will k-keep losing until he-... until he gets b-b-better.”

He will get better. He will. Nate got him out of there and now he’s back with his brother, and Nate has caught Danny watching Ryan wistfully when his younger brother isn’t looking at him. They got him to sit at the kitchen table for dinner last night, perched at the edge of his seat like any minute Bram would come in and dump him out of it.

“Daniel has chosen to take those first steps,” Dr. Rosa says, her words slow and carefully placed. “And so have you. Recovery after prolonged traumatic experience is not about quick healing, but a slow process to rebuild the framework of your life from the ground up. It’s worthwhile, Mr. Vandrum-”

“You can c-c-call me N-Nate, honestly,” Nate mumbles, picking at a loose thread along the seam of the couch cushion. He doesn’t look up to see how she responds.

“Nate, then. Thank you, Nate. My conversations with Daniel have made it clear to me that names - who uses which name and when - were of great importance to you both, during your experience. But you still use your legal name. Does that bother you, that Daniel was given another name and you weren’t?”

“Yeah. It feels l-l-like shit to kn… to know that.” Nate’s voice drops, and he feels the twist of shame, eternal and unending. “That I g-g-got so much that he d-d-didn’t; mercies, kindness… all of it.”

He had never lost his name. He had never been subjected to the level of pure agony that Danny had. He’d never had some other captive there with him, looking him in the eye while they hurt him on Bram’s orders. He’d never had to watch Bram feed someone else at the table while he ate on the floor, sometimes with his arms tied behind his back if he forgot to ask permission first.

He’d never had to wear a collar around his neck while another captive didn’t.

And still, Danny forgives him everything.

“He d-d-deserves better. Better than what h, happened to him, better th-th-than… than all of it. He’s g-g-going to get better, but my b-b-bad days don’t help - sometimes they make him h-h-have bad days - so I thought, when h-he suggested maybe s-s-seeing you…”

“You’re here because you think you attending therapy will help Daniel?”

His eyes flicker up to hers, searching them for the judgement he knows will be there, but there is nothing to Dr. Rosa but the endless goddamn compassion. He doesn’t deserve it. He’s done terrible fucking things, up there in the woods. He would fight, and protest, and deny it, and say no, and then Bram would grab onto him and look him in the eyes and talk to him in his true voice and Nate would pick up the knife.

The knife, the handcuffs, the keys, the chains, the matches, take Danny’s chin in his hands, try to apologize with his eyes when his mouth and his body wouldn’t let him, when they were doing someone else’s bidding, when Nate’s body wasn’t his own any longer.

(your body is mine, everything about you belongs to me)

He’s done terrible things to Danny - he’s responsible for some of the scars on his body and in his head - but Danny only ever looks at him with sweetness, and the psychologist sitting in the armchair looks at him with empathy, and only Ryan ever gives him the hate he deserves, the loathing he’s earned through every flick of the blade with tears in his eyes, every whispered I’m sorry that meant nothing at all when the knife was still moving.

“Nate, let me ask you… do you often think of things in terms of Danny’s recovery, rather than your own?” Dr. Rosa asks, and Nate catches himself flinching at the question.

(baby, baby… you know I hate when you flinch away from me)

“Of c-c-course I do,” He snaps, and he hates the sound of Dr. Rosa’s pen moving. “Of f-f-fucking course I do. He never did anything wrong. All he d-d-did was try to get to, to know m-me, and I should never have told him I was m-m-maybe interested, it’s all my f-f-fault…”

He trails off, catching himself. He never meant to say that out loud to her.

(this is all your fault, don’t you think? You cheated on me, Nate, with this skinny fucking twig?)

“You assign blame to yourself for the entirety of the experience,” Dr. Rosa says, and it’s not a question, not even a little. “You believe yourself to be at fault for the actions of Abraham Denner.”

“Because I l-l-left him!” Nate’s fingers dig into the arm of the couch and the fabric gives way, and he closes and closes and closes his bad hand, letting the bones grind together until the pain clears his mind, makes him feel cleaner, emptier, of the guilt and the rage that twine together inside him, inseparable. “If I h-h-had just stayed with Bram, if I had only st-st-stayed…”

The tears are back, and he can’t quite hold them in, they run down his face and into the stubble of black hair, speckled with the first bits of gray, down the line of his jaw, to drip dark spots into his shirt.

“If I had st-stayed,” He whispers, “If I had never l-left Bram, he would never have seen D-D-Danny at all, and he’d be okay. He’d b-be okay, he’d be… he’d be…” He leans forward, putting his hands over his face and then raking them back through his hair, and catches a sob trying to work its way out of his throat. “Maybe Danny would have m-met someone and he’d be f-f-fucking married by now. Legally, federally legally goddamn married.”

“If you had stayed, you would still be held against your will.”

“But D-D-Danny would be safe. If I had never left B-Bram, Danny would be s-s-safe, and it would… it would be w-w-worth it.” Nate takes a deep breath, trying to still his shaking voice, to calm himself, to get the red out of his cheeks, half-hidden by his eternal five o’clock shadow.  

“When was the last time you cried about this, Nate?” Dr. Rosa asks softly. She stands, setting her notebook aside, and walks over to him with a small box of tissues. He takes one with a mumbled, stammering thank you (be grateful for every gift you are given) and wipes at the tears that still run, but he can’t stop them now.

“Wh-when I took it off his f-f-face,” Nate says, and he can hear how broken he is in his own voice, he can hear how the low rumble cracks and splits under the weight of his own guilt, of all the punishment he deserves but won’t receive, because he held the knife when he didn’t want to, because he knotted the ropes when he begged Bram not to make him do it, because he couldn’t stop it, couldn’t make it end, couldn’t keep Danny safe.

“It?” Her voice is carefully devoid of anything more than curiosity.

“Th… the thing. I’m s-s-sorry, it’s hard for me to say wh-what it is-”

“No, I understand, Nate, don’t worry. I think I know what you’re referencing.”

“He… he w-w-wore that fucking thing for five months at th, the end, and… when I t-t-took it off his face the l-last time and he didn’t c-c-come back right away, I c-cried because… because I thought it was too late. That was the l-l-last time.”

“December 10th of last year,” Dr. Rosa says firmly, something about the way she speaks calms him, a little, helps him breathe. Something about the way she blends firmness and certainty with the compassion. “The night you set the fire. You made it to the police station the next morning.”

“I thought I was t-t-too late,” Nate says softly. “I thought he wouldn’t ever c-c-come back, that I’d waited t-t-too long, that I couldn’t… I couldn’t… that he’d never come out of his own h-head this time, that I’d… that I’d n-n-n-never see him look at me again.”

“But he did come back,” Dr. Rosa says gently.

“But what if he hadn’t? And it was all m-m-my fault, for not b-b-being stronger?” She puts a hand on his shoulder, and Nate leans over, hands over his face again, and starts to cry.

The sobs come out half-choked and nearly strangled. Bram never wanted to hear him cry, hated the sound of his tears, hurt him when he cried in the house with Ashley, hurt him in the cabin the few times he’d found the emotion still in him, a despair deep enough to pull the tears from where he’d forced them as deep within himself as they could go. 

Nate had hidden tears on the trails, in the woods, where he was far enough away Bram might not know. He’d cried in Danny’s arms, once or twice, wracked the whole time with the slime of his complicity and that he didn’t deserve Danny to hold him, when he was the hand holding the knife sometimes, when the ice in Bram’s eyes buried him under the weight of obedience and a love he didn’t want to feel and hated and couldn’t fight.

He could cry with Danny, now, too, he supposed, but Danny would want to know what he’d done to make Nate cry, how he could fix it, and Nate can’t seem to make Danny understand that he never did anything wrong.

All the sins belong to Nate, and he can never, ever earn absolution.

“Nate,” Dr. Rosa says softly, sitting beside him on the couch. He wonders if psychologists are allowed to do this, or if they’re supposed to keep professional distance, but all she does is sit there, be a warm and living human presence beside him, and he doesn’t ask her to move.

Even if he’s a monster trying, and failing, to make amends to a man he loves for all the wounds he has carved into his body and his heart and his brain.

“Nate, I would like you to listen to what I am about to say. Are you hearing me? Just nod, if you understand that I would like you to listen to me.”

He nods, slowly, without looking up.

“I would like to begin with the goal of addressing your sense that you are responsible for the actions of Abraham Denner. Is that okay?”

He hesitates, then nods again.

“I have counseled many patients, in my career, and some have even been in situations of prolonged captivity, or forms of abuse that deeply resembled captivity. It is common to assign yourself blame. But that doesn’t mean that you are to blame, Nate. And there is one further thing I want to begin working on, right away, starting today.”

Nate freezes, then looks over at her where she sits next to him on the couch. The brown eyes are warm that focus on his, and there’s a hint of a kind smile, a scattering of wrinkles around the corners of her eyes, laugh lines dug deeply around her mouth. “Wh-what?”

“Nate, I want you to acknowledge that you are a survivor, too.”

He blinks at her - she blurs with his tears and clears again when his eyes close and open, and he wipes at his face with a new tissue, sits back to dab at his nose, licks chapped lips in an old nervous habit he’s never lost. “That I’m… that I’m what?”

“You were held by Abraham Denner for seven years,” Dr. Rosa says softly. “With a short break between, but that is a long, long time. You have been subjected to forms of dehumanization and what we call conditioning that are different than Daniel’s, but they are no less real. I will never use the word ‘victim’ in this office unless you ask me to, because I dislike the connotations inherent in that term and have often found them to be detrimental rather than helpful. But you have also been held, traumatized, wounded. All of that happened to you, too.”

“He n-n-never hurt me like he d-d-did Danny,” Nate whispers.

He never made Danny hurt me like he made me hurt him.

“That is not important, except inasmuch as how it affects your understanding of what happened to you. Physical and emotional wounds are of equal importance and weight. Nate, I understand that you struggle because you are wounded in ways that are less obvious on the surface, that you have fewer visible scars. But the scars are still there.”

He’s silent, now. He can’t find the words to say.

“Nate. I want you to say it out loud, just once, and I will call that a good place to begin. ‘I am a survivor, too. I survived.’ Just try for me, please, just once.”

(I love you so much, baby, we’re soulmates, we were always meant to find each other)

(I’ve given you everything you wanted, Nate! what does it take for you to love me?)

(this is your family, now - you and me and the puppy)

D-D-Danny, pl-please, please, come back to m-me, there has to be enough of you l-l-left to save…

Nate takes a deep breath, thinks of Danny’s face, the way he smiled this morning when he wished Nate luck at his first appointment, the way he touched his arm and looked at him like maybe he wanted to kiss him, too.

“I’m a s-s-survivor, too,” Nate says out loud, and something in him cracks apart, something cold and frozen starts to warm. “I s-survived, too.”

“One more time,” Dr. Rosa says quietly. “One more time, please.”

Nate nods, slowly.

Nate, he’s walking traps, we’re alone for like three hours - c’mere, come here, come, come lay down on the mat with me while he’s gone.

Shut up. Call me Danny again. Just while he’s gone.

Leave him alone, Abraham! It’s my fault! It’s my fault, I kissed him and he didn’t want me to, don’t hurt him, hurt me instead! Please, please, Abraham, it’s my fault, I’m so sorry! It’s my fault, punish me!

Nate, if this had never happened, do you think we would have liked the movie?

Let me get the ice pack, he really did a number on you this time, huh?

Do you think you would have liked the person I used to be?

Abraham, please, please, I can take the punishment instead! I can, I can be better for you, I’m better at being hurt, let me be hurt, please!

Will you lay with me for a while? Just, just next to the mat? Just for a little bit?

I don’t blame you, it’s not your fault. You didn’t want to do any of this to me. It’s not your fault, Nate, please listen to me, it’s not your fault. It was never your fault. None of this is your fault. Please… please listen to me, I don’t blame you.

Nate, I think sometimes that I, that I maybe I… I love-

“I’m a survivor, too,” Nate repeats, softly, and he doesn’t stammer. “I survived, too.”

“Good.” Dr. Rosa smiles at him, standing to give him back his space, moving back to her armchair and picking back up her notebook and pen. He takes a deep breath, and she watches him as he counts to five and lets it out again.

And he doesn’t think anything at all while he’s breathing, except for the look on Danny’s face when he’d left this morning. He thinks of the little half-smile that crinkled the scar on his nose, lessened the broken line of his jaw. The look that lit up his eyes, warmed up the vibrant blue. The wavy red hair a riotous mess on top of his head, falling over one eye, that Nate had casually reached up to brush away and back.

He could have kissed him, if he’d wanted. Even with everything he’d done, Danny’s head had tilted down at him slightly in a way Nate could read as well as he’d ever read any of his books. 

He could have written a whole dissertation on what it means to have someone look at you that way, given a lecture stammer-free on what forgiveness means when you haven’t earned it, never could, but it was freely given nonetheless, and by someone you would do anything for.

I tried to kill to save him, and I would do it again.

“Danny n-n-never blames m-me for anything,” Nate says out loud. “Never.”

“Maybe it’s time,” Dr. Rosa says quietly, “that you learn to give yourself the same understanding and empathy that Daniel gives you.”

Nate sits back, looking at her, thinking about the picture of the woman on her desk, the diamonds in her wedding ring. While he’d been trapped, they had changed the laws around marriage, and about a thousand other things, just in seven years. Things had changed, the world had changed, and he had lost so much fucking time. He and Danny both.

“I know why I’m h-h-here.”

“And why is that?” Dr. Rosa’s eyes crinkle at the corners again, as though she’s hiding a smile. He can see why Danny likes her so much.

“B-Because I l-l-lost seven years of my life, and he lost f-f-four of his, and… and I don’t want to miss another single g-goddamn moment if I g-g-get to spend it with h-him.”

[rayshippouuchiha]

I came out of Endgame with tears in my eyes and my heart filled up to the brim with absolute seething rage.

Even as I write this now my hands shake with some sick mixture of sadness, rage, and bitter disappointment.

So I preface this by saying that I am emotionally compromised and some of my views might shift with time and distance.

But, for better or for worse, this is my first rage flushed take:

I am so disappointed and so angry that after all of the tension, all of the build, all of the time and sweat and tears, all of the loyalty, we were rewarded with this.

Endgame had its high points, I’m not saying that it didn’t.  There were some genuinely funny moments and some heart rending ones as well.

Every single second Tony Stark was on screen was flawless as always.  Robert Downey Jr. once again proved why he and he alone was suited for the role of Tony Stark and the task of carrying the majority of the MCU for the past 10+ years.

That’s not to say that the rest of the cast wasn’t good.  All of the actors all obviously brought their A game and then some when they were allowed to by what I loosely call a script.

So yeah, there were some highs.

But when its comes to Endgame’s low points?

Its low points were subterranean.

They lowered the bar and then they dug underneath it.

Again I’m writing this basically fresh from the theater and with my emotions still high so do forgive me if this is a bit jumbled around or if I ramble a bit as I cover some of the real issues I had with the film.

So, first thing to address was the overall tone of the film.

For this to be the much glorified Endgame, the “battle of our lives”, there was, in my opinion, a distinct lack of true tension in this film.  Instead of a fraught, nail biting, tension filled ride, Endgame is more of a ... brisk jog through some vaguely sticky situations.

Instead of playing the story straight and giving the situation the gravity it deserved, the narrative went out of its way to put humor that served no other purpose than to ruin what tension had been previously built.  And, in my opinion, the tone of the film suffered for it.

The humor and jokes were humorous, I’m not saying they wasn’t.  I genuinely laughed out loud in the moment.  But I also feel that, with the majority of the comedy that was wedged into the narrative, the film suffered for it.

Now let’s move on a bit to the actual plot of the film.  Again, forgive me if I bounce a bit:

Jeremy Renner was breathtakingly heartbreaking as Clint Barton.  Renner was finally allowed to stretch his legs a bit in this film and he proved that, had he been given the chance, he would have given us a Clint Barton to take our breath away.

Watching with Clint as his family died helped to set what should have been the tone for the majority of the film from there on while reminding us of just what was lost and just what was at stake all at the same time.

Chris Evans brought heart to his portrayal of a Steve Rogers who seems both lighter and more weighted down in this film than ever before.

Scarlett Johansson’s Natasha finally showed more emotion than “head tilt”, “lip purse”, and “arched brow” and it was beautiful.

The brief flash of friendship and affection between Nebula and Tony was perfect and heartwarming as well.  Nebula was magnificent as the “feral space cat desperately in need of softness and a friendly hand” when placed side by side with a slowly withering Tony Stark who is, even at his lowest moments, still kind to this alien cyborg he doesn’t know but to who he owes his life.  They flowed together with an onscreen chemistry in their few moments side by side that felt organic and aching.

Together Tony and Nebula embodied a truly important life/plot point of “meet kindness with kindness and kindness will be your reward”.

Moving forward in time hearing Tony vent his anger and his pain and his distrust at Steve was cathartic in a lot of ways.

As was watching Tony rip the arc reactor from his chest and slap it into Steve’s hand.

In this moment Tony is handing Steve his metaphorical broken heart and leaving someone else to, for once, try and pick up the pieces.

But then, unfortunately, things go rather steeply down hill from there.

With Tony out for the count in a hospital bed the others hunt down and execute Thanos with basically a hand wave and all hope for the stones is lost.

Until deus ex rat-ina unleashes Scott Lang from the quantum realm and the logic of the film takes a sharp left turn.

Scott Lang was missing for 5 years.

To him it was 5 hours.

To which I say, why did Janet van Dyne, age during her stay in the quantum realm?  If, according to the MCU canon, every year in our world was roughly only an hour for Scott Lang, then why didn’t Janet come out of the quantum realm only 30 hours older instead of 30 years?

I feel like the answer is probably “because” but yeah maybe I’m just fuzzy on my Ant Man so if I’m wrong then just ignore that bit please.

Also, just a side note, I adore how it’s been 5 years, Wakanda is very much an ally and still up and running, and yet Rhodey still don’t have working legs.  But alas, racism.

Moving on. 

So with the main villain dead and Tony Stark having solved time travel in his living room, because I stan legends only, we’re now subjected, and that is the very word I’d use to describe what happens next, to what is called a Time Heist.

Cute.

Also Bruce Banner and Hulk have now merged Steven Universe style despite Hulk being scared green-less 5 years ago.  But that’s all good, Bruce smoked a ton of weed, they meditated, went on a cleanse or whatever.

Either way Bruce finally did that character development that everyone had been shouting at him since Avengers 2012 and accepted Hulk as part of him and they’re now Dr. Hulk which was … something that happened?

A thing that they chose to do.  The direction in which they set their narrative wheels and then powered full steam ahead and plowed us right over in the process.

But yeah, Time Heist!  That’s the way to go, the only way apparently.

Because going back in time to stop the Snappening isn’t an option due to reasons that are explained and still look and feel paper thin but probably just honestly boils down to “Russos”

Our intrepid heroes will now split up and surf through time Bill and Ted style to collect the Stones from different points in history.

Yay.

So the rest of the film is basically that, a big old jewel hunt through space and history where the Russos attempt to fool us into thinking their plot points are cohesive and cool by donkey punching us repeatedly in our nostalgia-sacks.

We’re treated to, in no particular order, such hits as:

“Ah 2012 and the invasion of New York only not as interesting but Tony Stark is very much an ass man, but then we been done known that.”

“The Ancient One and her still very distracting skull vein coming at you right now”

“LOKI YOU LITTLE SHIT”

“The one time I envied Scott Lang because, for a split second, he got to be inside Tony Stark”

“Let’s watch Tony Stark simultaneous take a Hulk to the face and have a small cardiac event all at the same time but from different angles”

And let us not forget

“Tee Hee Hee us white bois just had to find a way to make sure Captain America say “Hail HYDRA” but it was for “spy reasons” so weren’t we clever???????”

Yeah boys, great job.

So edgy.

(Although as a side note I do agree, Steve Roger’s ass really is America’s ass and I’d like to thank him for that. Personally.)

But then, of course, Endgame would not have been complete without:

“Steve Rogers stares longingly and creepily at Peggy Carter from behind a window, further backing up his one defining character trait in the MCU which is the inability to move on.  Also she doesn’t look up at all despite being a trained spy and all around badass who probably should have noticed the 6 foot slab of American Beef staring at her from less than a foot away, dark room or no dark room.”

And then my personal favorite:

“Tony Stark sees Howard Stark, the father he described as “calculating, cold, he never told me he was proud of me, never even told me he loved me” but it’s all good cause Tony’s a dad now so looking back all he sees are the good times with his emotionally neglectful and abusive father who says there’s nothing he wouldn’t do for his unborn kid and now they awkwardly hug while I try not to scream “FOOTAGE NOT FUCKING FOUND HOWARD AND NO THAT ONE 3 MINUTE VIDEO DOESN’T COUNT YOU SHIT” at the screen and explode in pure rage.”

Joy.

Truly a scene that was necessary and fit the narrative of Howard Stark’s personality and was needed for Tony to uh get closure or grow as a man and a father or something …

It totally wasn’t yet another excuse to give a canonically abusive father screen time in a way that seems genial and sweet in an attempt to give them a bit of redemption that they neither earned nor deserve.

But yeah, whatever, moving on.

Also Rhodey remains an absolute gem and he and Nebula get shit done.

Only oops, not so fast.

Because apparently the only one who is going to run into the whole “two of you can’t exist in one place at one time without consequences” rule is Nebula who, despite her bitchin orange stripe/badge of character development, managed to like synch up with her past self?

Because she didn’t turn her bluetooth/quantum entanglement function off I guess.

Either way Orange Stripe Nebula, O’Snebula as I call her, has accidentally air dropped all her files into OG Nebula’s mental iPhone.

So yeah now big old Past Grimace knows what’s up.

Ooops??

So shit goes down and then Past Grimace is like “you need to Trogan horse this shit, least favorite daughter” so OG Nebula does because “daddy issues”.

Dr. Hulk puts on the gauntlet and Kentucky fires his arm bringing all the people lost in the Snappening back to life now, 5 years after they got dusted.

Which is … honestly a recipe for disaster in so many ways.  What about the people, like the guy in Steve’s support group, who have started to move on?

What about the people who have remarried, have built new lives?

All of that’s ruined now.

It’s fantastic all those people are alive again but jobs, housing, food, healthcare, government, all of it is back in massive disarray across the universe.

And bringing those people back does nothing to bring back the people who didn’t die in the Snappening but died from causality instead.  All the deaths caused by suicides, by car/bus/train/plane/ship/etc crashes, by a lack of first responders, by the civil/world/interplanetary wars that probably raged across the universe due to entire governments disappearing?

All of those people are still dead.

The Snappening killed half of all life in the universe.  Causality probably killed another good ¼ after that.

And Dr. Hulk’s Un-Snappening saves none of them.

This isn’t a true solution, it’s a shitty band-aid.

But yeah, Russos so….

Moving on.

Yadda Yadda Yadda, plot plot plot. OG Nebula goes undercover, Past Grimace ends up in the future, there’s some fighting (which was admittedly BAD ASS), shit happens, and Tony saves the day like we all knew he would.

YAY!

Despite the massive rambling up above I’m not gonna plot out the entire movie right here though a lot will probably get covered coming up because here’s where I get down and start talking about the various character arcs too.

Because what a wild fucking ride those were.

Okay to take it from the top Scott Lang’s arc was fine.  Beyond my questions about the quantum realm his was clear cut and fine although I do wonder at his luck at being, apparently, the only Scott Lang in San Fran to go missing.  Well either that or he was staring at some other Scott Lang’s name instead of his own and in that case “awkward”.

Bruce’s arc was … look I could have done without all of the cringy Dr. Hulk stuff that they played up for laughs.  If they were gonna brush Hulk being terrified under the rug they could have found a better way to do it besides just erasing the duality between Hulk and Banner with a hand wave.

But yeah, Russos.

Carol Danvers was beautiful and magnificent and completely brushed aside.  Yes she was out in the universe handling shit, yes I know they did that so they could focus on the core Avengers, etc etc etc.

But it’s a damn shame that Carol Danvers, and her glorious haircut, was reduced to being the sorely needed and totally badass cavalry and last minute ace in the hole when she should have, logically, been a part of the vanguard.  Honestly I have thoughts on why Carol’s entire character should have been saved completely for the next phase of the MCU instead of introduced so late in this one but I digress.

O’Snebula was a perfect shining bionic light and I love her.

Gamora is now alive in the future but at what cost?  Not that her life isn’t worth something on its own, it totally is and she deserved the loophole resurrection 10000%.

Shit’s gonna be awkward though cause she doesn’t love Quill, she doesn’t love the Guardians, doesn’t really know O’Snebula or the universe she’s been thrown into.  She doesn’t have the memories or the experiences or the character growth and even if she does go back to her family she’ll never be the same person.

Now her and Quill’s relationship, if they ever have one again, will be reduced down to Quill going “you fell in love with me once you could do it again despite us no longer having the shared experiences that bonded us together”.  Same can be said for the rest of the Guardians as well.

Guess we all know what the plot of GotG 3 is gonna be about.

And that brings us to the story lines that really and truly upset me.

Which is basically all the rest of them.

Natasha/Clint’s combined story-line, Thor’s everything, Steve’s … Steve, and then finally Tony.

Now the Natasha/Clint story-line started out promising.

Clint’s rage and pain was obvious, his heartbreak poignant.  His decision to use all of those to cut a bloody swathe through the criminal underworld was both Dramatic(™) and understandable.

Natasha’s love and grief for him, her desperate attempts to hold onto what she has left by throwing herself into her new job, was a perfect demonstration that Natasha Romanoff is very much not a robot.  She was exhausted, frayed at the edges, and she had tears in her eyes, over Clint.  And then she pulled herself together, slipped her mask back on, and pushed her way forward.  This was all excellent.

It was also a nice narrative callback/parallel to have Natasha be the one to go out and bring Clint in from the cold.

Natasha plays touch stone, plays stability, for Clint and for many of the others.  For the first time Natasha is truly portrayed as a person all the way down to the core instead of some witty quips in a catsuit.  Plus her eyebrows finally came back from the war and her hair looked good again.  So there was that.

Clint and Natasha’s arc comes to a climax on Vormir as they search for the Soul Stone and Red Skull, the Nazi cockroach that he is, gives them the same spiel he gave Thanos.

To get the Soul Stone you must give up the life of the one you love the most. A soul for a soul.

Narrative wise this is consistent, we all knew this would happen as soon as they started searching for the Stones again.  It was obvious.

It was also obvious that Clint was the perfect sacrifice.

He’s got nothing left, his family is dead, he’s already lost the people he loves the most, he’s spent five years being a borderline monster.

And he is also, without a doubt, the thing that Natasha loves the most.

Clint was ready and willing to go, ready to die for the blood on his hands, ready to sacrifice himself for the chance that his family would be saved.

Ready to lay down on the wire and let Natasha walk over him for the sake of everything.

Clint dying made sense, was narratively sound, and heartbreaking.

All of which are only a few of the reasons why Natasha’s death was such a goddamn betrayal.

Instead of following along with the narratively sound death of Clint Barton, an Avenger that’s been ignored for most of the films as is, the Russo brothers instead chose to fridge Natasha.

Clint dying would have been the perfect mirror to Gamora’s death.

Gamora was a daughter unwillingly sacrificed by her father to destroy half of all life in the universe.

Clint would have been a father willingly sacrificed by a friend to save half of all life in the universe, his own sons and daughter included.

But no, we didn’t get that, instead we got a gratuitous scene of Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, splayed angel like and bloody on the rocks below.

Instead they fridged the Black Widow, the only woman of the original Big Six, because they couldn’t bring themselves to fridge a man.

So Clint gets the Soul Stone.

Such a fitting end for the Black Widow right?  Dying in a man’s place, mourned on screen by a circle of men, but ultimately set aside rather quickly.

I understand why Natasha wanted to be the one to go, I understand that she didn’t want Clint’s family to lose their husband/father and that her true family was the Avengers. I get that.  It doesn’t mean I enjoy or agree with the decision they made any more.

It doesn’t make me any less tired of watching female characters die for the sake of men and their families.

Natasha Romanoff sacrificed herself for the universe and her family and that deserves respect even if I absolutely hate it as a narrative choice.

Oh and what about the absolute NERVE of the Russos to have that awesome Lady Power Battle Strut happen but only after they killed Natasha, one of the Big Six?

Bitter? Me? Nooo.

Now, moving on to Thor.

Thor.

Oh my actual God, Thor.

The levels of disrespect Thor, Chris Hemsworth, and the fans were shown with this character arc/story-line in Endgame is breathtaking.

The absolute, shameless disrespect.

They turned Thor into a cowardly, drunken slob who has spent the last 5 years ignoring his responsibilities to what’s left of his people and instead has spent his time drinking, sulking, and literally yelling at kids over PSN??

Endgame’s Thor has the bullshit reasoning that he needs to stop trying to be who he thinks he should be and instead be who he is.

Which flies completely in the face of literally all of his character development from Thor all the way to Thor 3 and then Infinity War.

The entirety of Thor 3 was Thor’s hero’s journey culminating in him finally being the king he was always meant to be.  Finally maturing and stepping forward to lead his people.

I am supposed to believe that Thor, depressed and guilty or not for not killing Thanos when he had the chance the first time, just abandoned his people like that?

I’m supposed to believe that Thor would piss all over everything the majority of his family and friends died for?

I’m supposed to believe that Heimdall, Loki, countless soldiers, and The Warrior’s Three and Lady Sif (I guess), all died to protect Asgard, died for the people and for Thor, and Thor just what? Turns his back on all of that to become a drunk?

No, Thor wouldn’t do that.  Thor should have been down there beside Valkyrie working those fishing vessels when Bruce and Rocket came calling.  If Thor had any hesitance to join them it should have been, “I can’t abandon my people, I am needed here.”  He should have been fiercely guarding the tiny fraction of Asgard that’s left.

Thor’s depression and guilt was valid. Don’t mistake me on that. But they played it for jokes.  They made him a caricature of depression, made him “gross” and incompetent and the butt of the jokes, and in the process diminished what should have been a painful and poignant arc for Thor.

Instead we got Big Lebowski Thor, bathrobe included, who does stand up and fight yes but, in the end, gives up his crown and just fucks off to space to have petty pissing competitions with Peter Quill so he can?? find himself?? despite finding himself in Ragnarok already???

Thor’s entire arc in Endgame was shallow, mishandled, and disrespectful to the character, to Chris Hemsworth, and to the fans.

You, we, he, all deserved better than this.

Now we get to Steve.

Steve Rogers, Captain America himself.

I’ve had a lot of salt about Steve’s character and actions in the MCU but, all of that aside, he deserved so much more than what the Russo’s did to him in Endgame.

Hell he’s deserved so much more than what’s been done to him since post-CA:TFA.

But this is about Endgame specifically soooo….

Steve’s shown leading a support group in the beginning of Endgame, is shown talking about moving on and moving forward and learning to let go. Which is wonderful.  It sounds like the exact character development we’ve all been waiting for for Steve.

Which is, of course, the exact moment when Steve goes “nah just kidding, we don’t ever move on”.

Which, given the circumstances, is pretty fair.  If Steve was only thinking/talking about Thanos and the events of Infinity War.

But of course he wasn’t.

CA:CW should have been the end of the Peggy Carter saga for Steve.  He mourned her, he was finally moving forward, he’d kissed Sharon, he threw everything away to save Bucky, he gave up his shield, etc etc.

But no.  Endgame finds him right back there, clutching that goddamn compass, and making moon eyes at a woman who we all thought went on and lived a life without him, got married, had kids, and generally existed outside of Steve Rogers.

But no.  The Russo’s had to take that away from us too.

And yes yes I know I know multiverse or whatever but still.

Steve steamrolls his way through Endgame with skill and determination.  He picks up Thor’s hammer, finally worthy, which how??? Why???  (perhaps because he’s no longer keeping secrets??? Or maybe that’s just my salt talking? Who knows? Not me?)

And then he fights Thanos head to head.

(Although him wielding the hammer brought up an entire separate set of issues cause I’m pretty sure Mjolnir doesn’t actually summon lightning. Ragnarok pretty much said that the lightning has always been within Thor.  Mjolnir was just a control accessory.  But, you know, Russos *jazzhands*)

And then, in the end, he insists on returning the Stones on his own.

Only he doesn’t come back like he was supposed to.

Instead we’re given old Steve Rogers.

Because Steve returned the Stones and then ….went and found Peggy Carter and got married and lived an entire life with her ignoring everything he would have known was going to happen to her and around the both of them or something???

Or maybe not if the multiverse thing holds up but then who knows any more???

But then how did Old Steve end up right there by that lake on that day at that right time if he’s technically from a different multiverse???

Either way Sam gets his shield and the mantle of Captain America, which was fantastic, and Bucky more than likely knew Steve’s plan all along but the best read I really got on him was basically “eh” so he might well have been happy for Steve too.

But still, instead of finally achieving peace and continuing to learn to live in the future with Bucky and Sam and the remnants of the Avengers, his family and the life he’s built there over the past years, instead of putting the shield down because he’s learned to let go in the now, Steve only puts the shield down because he chooses the past.

He chooses the past over all of that and all of the people left who love him. Sure the argument could be said that he knew they’d be alright but still.

There is a deep well of dissatisfaction inside of me as to how Steve’s entire ending arc was handled.  Why did peace only come to Steve after Tony and Natasha were both dead and then was only found in the past?

No disrespect to Peggy Carter, I adore her, but were the relationships he had in the future worth so little that the past was the only place he could find happiness?  A past with a woman that he knows loved him but still moved on and found happiness outside of him, lived a full and happy life without him?

Steve didn’t get a character arc so much as he got a character circle.  A character loop.  He went right back to where he started.

Endgame erases all of the character development Steve underwent post-Avengers.  Just brushes it all under the rug.

The Russo’s stole the character development Steve Rogers spent a decade undergoing to give him their version of a happy ending.

They robbed him and us both of every bit of growth and forward motion Steve has underwent and I will never forgive them for that.

And now we get to Tony Stark.

Anthony Edward Stark.

The Iron Man.

Tony’s arc is, was, the longest and best developed arc in the entirety of the MCU.

It’s spanned 10+ years and has been nurtured and hand fed by Robert Downey Jr.

If Endgame got one thing right, one thing at all, it’s how they handled the majority of Tony’s arc.

From him laying the smack down on Steve once he was home, finally venting his emotions and his anger, all the way to him solving time travel before tucking his kid into bed, and then building an Infinity Gauntlet on his own even though Thanos committed genocide to get the one he had.

Tony Stark’s arc was glorious and expected and sad.

I think that my one almost complaint is that Tony stopped for 5 years.  On one hand he deserved the rest, deserved the chance to find happiness.  He was hurt and tired and he’d faced his demons and been left bleeding out with the death of half the universe weighing on his shoulders.

He deserved to just stop for a while.

On the other hand stopping is not something Tony has ever been good at, just like Pepper said.  A part of me thought Tony would be working, frantically, to find something, anything, to turn back the hands of time.  To track Thanos down. To get the Stones and then to get everything else back.

To get Peter and all of the others back.

But that’s not the route they went and I’m … okay? I guess, with that.

Tony was validated and vindicated and everyone would have finally listened to him.  It only took the death of half of the universe to do it.  But he was too tired, too hurt and untrusting to keep pushing.  I can respect that.

But of course once an idea worms its way inside Tony can’t let it go.  So he solves time travel on the fly and sets out to save the world.

Again.

His one stipulation is that he will do anything, everything, he has to in order to keep what he has now.  His wife Pepper and Morgan, his sweet little daughter.

So of course he doesn’t get to do that either.

After all of the blood, sweat, suffering, and mental illnesses, Tony doesn’t get his happy ending.  Not really.

He gets to rest, yes, but he loses out on everything he wanted to do with his kid.  In the process of saving the universe he becomes the one thing he never wanted to be for Morgan, a distant father.

A face on a screen, stories, memories other people have.

No matter how many holograms or inventions or whatever Tony left to Morgan, it’ll never replace him.

Morgan got 5 years with her father.  She’ll spend the rest of her life hearing stories about him, about how much of a hero he was.  And hopefully, with Pepper and all the others behind her, Tony will remain a hero to her and will not, instead, become her version of Captain America.  An untouchable symbol that Morgan will never live up to.

So, in the end, Tony sacrifices once again.

Watches the future he wanted crumble to dust in his fingers, lightning scorching him from the inside out as infinity rips him apart.

And he dies there, surrounded by some of the people who love him best.

His best friend.

His wife.

The son he almost had.

And, despite all of that, it is very very fitting that his death was at his own hands.

Thanos could take out half the universe, he could traverse time and space, he could humble Thor, terrorize the Hulk, rip Steve Roger’s up, survive shield and hammer and so much more, but the one thing he couldn’t do?

He couldn’t kill Tony Stark.

The only thing that could kill Iron Man, could kill Tony Stark, was his own��heart.

Tony Stark takes the Infinity Stones in hand knowing how this is going to end, knowing that Stephen Strange set him on this path years ago.

Because didn’t Strange warn him?  Didn’t Strange tell him outright “I’ll let the kid and you both die to protect the Time Stone”?

Tony just never expected it to take a few hours and then 5 more years for Strange’s promise to finally be fulfilled.

So Tony does it knowing that after everything he’s been through, all of the pain and the suffering and the battles, it was only enough to have earned 5 years of happiness, 5 years of his dream.

5 years of being the father he always swore he’d be.

Tony Stark takes the Infinity Stones and dies for the entire universe, for his family, for his daughter.  Dies knowing that he’ll be doing the one thing he didn’t want to do, swore he would never do.

Leaving them behind.

Tony Stark brings us full circle as he stands as both equal and mirror of Thanos once again.

Man to Titan.  Good Father to Bad Father.  Life to Death.

Tony Stark picks up the weight of the universe and then he dies making sure that it has a future free from the same fear that has haunted him for a decade.

A warm light for all mankind, sent to sleep, to rest, knowing that finally everything will be okay.

And all he had to do was die for it.

So, I’ll close this out saying this:

This was written in one solid push after my first viewing and Endgame was dissatisfying for me as you might have guessed.  I am disappointed and angry at so much they chose to do to end out this iconic decade of cinema and to close out these character’s arcs.

There were a lot of points and little details I didn’t get to cover in this and perhaps a lot of points you might not agree with me on.

That’s okay.

Because, no matter what, there is one thing I know for sure.

We, I, will always have Tony Stark and the lessons he taught me.  The pain he endured and shared with all of us.  The bravery and strength he inspired in so many of us as we watched him struggle with physical and mental illnesses on screen.  As we watched him obsess and stress and love and grow.

I have never loved a character more than I love Tony Stark.

I have never been impacted by a character as much as I have been by Tony Stark.

I’m not sure if I ever will again.

So, Tony Stark is Iron Man.

He always will be.

And he saved more than just some fictional universe.

He saved a lot of us along the way too.

And we’ll always love him for that.

[keelywolfe]

FIC: Owed to a Grease-cian Earn (baon)

Summary:  Stretch should've known something was up when Edge asked to go to Grillby's with him.

Tags: Spicyhoney, Established Relationship, Hints of Kustard, Angst, Issues with LV, Suggested Past Prostitution, Implied Past Promiscuity, Emotional Hurt/Comfort

Notes: Note the tags, some angst ahoy!

Part of the ‘by any other name’ series.

~~*~~

Read it on AO3

or

Read it here!

~~*~~

Back in Underswap, Stretch had always been in the know. He saw things, knew things people thought he shouldn’t, he could Look into souls and sometimes did, felt the sins of others crawling up his back.

He’d given that up pretty quick when they came to this ‘verse. Sometimes, a lot actually, it was better not to know and seeing that shit let him assume too much. It’d taken that ass-of-u-and-me thing way further than it should’ve with Edge and years later, he still had a regret about it. Too much of the negative, not enough of the actual soul and Stretch didn’t miss it one fucking bit.

It did mean he was pretty out of practice, though, and he should’ve known something was up from the beginning when Edge asked to go to Grillby’s with him.

Grillby’s was the only Monster-owned establishment outside of New New Home. Had to give him credit, Grillbz was a pretty savvy businessmonster. He’d hustled to get this place up and running in record time, before any Humans even thought of passing laws to prevent it. Protests here were few and far between and it was pretty damn popular with Monsters and Humans, like the Beanery was. During the day it was a family establishment, with some of the best burgers in Ebott. At night, there was plenty of entertainment. Stand-up comedy, local bands, even slam poetry from time to time and that was what brought them here tonight.

Stretch couldn’t say he actually liked slam poetry, but he loved coming whenever they were doing it. It was worth it for the people-watching alone; interesting folk crawled out of the ground and Thrillered their way downtown for this and since Andy couldn’t come, he’d planned on making it a solo trip. So he’d been pretty surprised when Edge wanted to tag along. It hadn’t even occurred to him to turn Edge down when he offered to come, hell, no, he loved spending time with his honey.

He was feeling pretty damn guilty about it now. Grillby’s was not on Edge’s top ten list of hangouts; he’d probably rather go to the DMV than here. Stretch didn’t mind some grease slathered on his food, added flavor in his humble opinion, but he knew better than that where Edge was concerned, and neither was he much for drinking. And the only person Edge ever seemed interested in watching was sitting in this booth with him. So that meant he got to sit around in a place he didn't want to be, surrounded by people he didn’t want to be with, picking at drinks and food that he didn’t want.

Sounded like a fun night, if you were a pal of the Marquis de Sade. They’d only been here an hour and this was the second time Edge’d gone to the bathroom to wash his hands, impressive even by his standards, considering he was wearing gloves.

It wasn’t Stretch’s fault, no. He hadn’t asked Edge to come along, no sir, he wasn't a glutton for punishment, preferred it to be snack-sized. But he still felt bad; there was no question that Edge only came along to keep an eye on him, hell, he’d already caught his baby stifling a yawn once and this was a Monster who was capable of sitting through meetings about trade agreements. Edge knew his boring.

But if Stretch was filled with relief about Alphys’s news, he had a sneaky suspicion that Edge was still feeling a little fragile about it. S’ok, he got it, the whole situation was a clusterfuck from start to finish. Between his HP, Andy’s attempt at getting some internal air conditioning, and Edge’s LV trying to tap dance on his soul at night, Edge was due a little fragility. If his baby needed to keep him in arm’s reach for a little while, he could deal. For fuck’s sake, it wasn’t like he was the one who’d have to be hands-on if his HP ever gave out, so Edge was welcome to all the extra snuggles he needed until he got back on an even keel. Edge probably considered the boredom and grease a fair price.

Stretch gave the bar a glance, trying to decide if it was worth fighting his way through the crowd for a drink. Grillby was moving tirelessly along with the other bartender, flames tamped down to a steady glow that matched the dimmed lights. Some nights he would put on a little show, give a demonstration on a few interesting things that alcohol and fire could do when mixed. Tonight he was probably trying not to distract from the show, currently what Stretch presumed was a Human waxing poetically about avocados—was that a Human? Honestly, he was having a hard time deciding.

But hey, with the frequent fiery shows, it was no surprise no one tried to burn this place down. Maybe Deb should ask for a special presentation at the Beanery someday.

He’d just decided that sending Edge to get him a drink when he came back might entertain him for about a minute when from behind Stretch came, “Hey, Papyrus! Haven’t seen you here in ages!”

“rolf,” Stretch had to struggle not to make a face. He knew Rolf, a little better than he preferred to remember and from two Universes besides. Here was a Monster who hadn’t shown much difference between Underswap and this ‘verse.

A distant relative of the Dogi, he had the ears and the muzzle but not much else in common. Not every Monster had taken well to surface life and Rolf was one of them. He wasn’t bad sober, but when he’d been drinking he was a jackass and a half, something Stretch figured out pretty quick on one shitty evening. From the smell of him, he’d already been here a few hours. “i go by stretch, now, remember?”

Rolf only laughed, too loudly, earning a couple of dirty looks, and crammed into the booth next to him. Stretch wasn’t beating too many Monsters when it came to body weight and he was forced to scoot over to keep Rolf from falling into his lap. It was still cramped enough in the booth that he was pressed in tight, the heavy smell of beer and not enough showers strong in Rolf’s fur.

Fan-fucking-tastic.

Grillby had a strict policy against using magic in his establishment. Once, you got a warning, second time, a month’s ban. A third and the ban became permanent.

Which was the only thing keeping him from knocking Rolf out on his ass when he settled a clawed hand on his knee. “You’re lookin’ good tonight, you know that?”

Yeah, in a hoodie and jeans, he was a regular supermodel shaking his ass on the catwalk. Rolf’s grin let his tongue loll out, a dribble of saliva dripping down to puddle on the table. It clammed up into a frown when Stretch firmly moved his hand away and he whined, “C’mon, you always used to be up for a good time.”

“maybe you didn’t hear,” Stretch said coolly, “but i’m married.” Not that any idiot shouldn’t know; the Monster community was small and Edge wasn’t exactly the most private citizen around. Neither was he, to be fair, most of New New home followed his twitter, if not the experiments he got up to with the minions on the weekends.

Rolf threw back his head and his raucous laughter was loud enough to earn a glance from Grillby and half of the rest of the bar, fiery glares both figurative and literal at them both for interrupting the ode to avocados. “Yeah, I heard, everyone heard, you and that dust-scraper shacked up. Think you’re worth more than that, don’t you?”

Just hearing him call Edge that set his teeth to grinding, forcibly wrangling his temper down. He was not going to start a fight, not here, not with a bunch of Human college students listening to some guy wax eloquently about being a lone wolf in a city of sheep. Low, he said coldly, “i know i’m sure as fuck worth more than you. get lost, fuckface, find a different tree to piss on.”

“Come on,” Rolf leaned in too close and the alcohol on his breath was gagging, “I have G. Buy you a pack of smokes and everything.”

Okay, screw being subtle. That implication made his already simmering temper flare into white-hot. He’d heard that gossip, thanks a heap, and he didn’t know who the fuck started it, but it had never been true, not even in Underswap. Stretch gave Rolf a hard shove but he didn’t budge an inch, even when he dug in his fingers. “Fuck you!”

“That’s the idea, pretty,” he leered

Enough of this shit; Grillby would definitely kick Rolf out if Stretch asked and he wanted him gone before Edge came back. This was the kind of stupid bullshit that Edge did not need to deal with right now, not when his LV was giving him a bitchfit. Rolf deserved an ass-kicking but if Edge lost control and gave him one? There was too much of a chance he’d get too rough, his control was taking a walk on the wild side. If that happened, he’d never forgive himself and Stretch was not about to allow his baby to get any emotional scars over this piece of shit.

But his racing thoughts weren’t giving him much to work with. Even if he were allowed to use magic, Rolf was touching him so if he shortcutted, this prick would be coming along for the ride. And going anywhere alone with him would be fucking stupid, calling for Grillby to help would be humiliating, so what the fuck could he— Stretch gave him another hard shove and hissed, “i said no, asshole, knock it off!”

“Yes, you should knock it off.”

Well, fuck.

Those words were dripping with cold, practically freezing in the air itself. Say what you would about Underfell, it’d gone a long way towards helping Edge really perfect that casual sort of menace that usually got people pissing in their shorts.

This was an all-new level of suck, and Stretch wondered a little wildly if it was possible for a Monster to die of panic, because here he was sitting ass to elbows with a guy he’d drunkenly slept with once. Edge wouldn’t doubt him, he knew he wouldn’t, but, but, he didn’t know what to do, didn’t want Edge to get hurt in any capacity, not by anyone else or himself.

“babe—" Stretch started, still struggling with the unfamiliar sensation of not knowing what to say. Just his luck that his one superpower would give out now, usually he couldn’t manage to shut himself up.

But anything he might have said stuck in his throat, unspoken, when Rolf turned to Edge and showed his teeth, growling low in his throat. “Yeah? What’re you gonna do?" he sneered. "Gonna kill me? Add a little more EXP to the pile you’ve already got?”

People talked so blasé about things screeching to a halt, but right now they were all living a textbook example. The entire bar was watching them, even the kid on stage was silent, notebook pages crumpled in one hand as he stared wide-eyed. Grillby was watching closely but he made no effort to intervene, not yet. Only polished the glass in his hand while he waited with everyone else to see how this panned out.

Stretch was about to shortcut out and damn the consequences, take the black mark on his record and pin this asshole down outside with a little blue magic when Edge spoke again.

“Don’t be ridiculous," Edge said mildly. He tucked his hands into his pockets and Rolf probably didn’t appreciate the subtle insult of it. "I’m going to remind you that your monthly stipend is dependent on the contract you agreed to when you moved to New New Home, and that if you break that contract, say, by breaking the law assaulting someone who is only trying to enjoy a drink at a bar, you no longer benefit from it. You can move out and live with the Humans and cover your own expenses without having to worry about petty rules. Although I would remind you that assault is generally frowned upon by the Humans as well.”

There was no telling how much Rolf had to drink, but it wasn’t so much that the picture Edge was a painting for him wasn’t crystal clear, no happy little mistakes, just broad, blatant strokes. Slowly, he slid out of the booth, that low growl still vibrating in his throat and Stretch didn’t think he imagined hearing him mumbling something about whores. That was fine, he could whine like a two-month puppy. Stretch didn’t give half a shit what this asshole thought of him, but he really hoped Edge wasn’t listening too hard.

Once Rolf slunk away, back to an empty table in a dark corner of the bar, Edge sat back in the booth, across from Stretch and everything around them slowly resumed, like a film reel flipped back on. Glasses clinked, bottles opened, and the kid on stage started up again about pencil graffiti.

“my hero,” Stretch smiled wryly, the tension in his soul leaking out, leaving him weak with relief, “you're a smooth motherfucker when you want to be, aren’t you.” He frowned when Edge didn’t say anything, “babe?”

“Give me a moment,” Edge said tightly and Stretch took a good look at him, at the pinpricks of his eye lights, the way his gloves creaked as he clenched his hands together.

So he did. Didn’t talk, for once, let all the words bubbling in his mind fizzle out and instead, he busied himself making a tower around his empty beer bottle out of the condiments and silverware. There was enough math involved to keep him entertained, weighing out on whether the ketchup or the vinegar was best as a foundation, the exact formation required to balance the saltshaker in the end of a spoon.

He was just jenga-ing in the last fork when Edge gave the ketchup base a flick with one finger and it collapsed in a mini shower of flatware.

“you asshole, you have no respect for art,” Stretch laughed, gathering up forks and spoons. Then softer, “you okay?”

Edge sighed. “I feel that’s a question I should direct back to you.”

“me?” Stretch scoffed, waving that off, because no, thanks. “please, i could have handled that asshole in two seconds if it weren’t for ‘da rulez’” He made little air quotes around it, just to see if Edge grimaced. He did, and that right there was encouraging, a nice little slice of normality.

“I know you could.” Edge reached over and took his hand, squeezing gently. His gloves were buttery-soft against Stretch’s bones, but he sort of wished he could feel the light scrape of phalanges. “I’m not upset with you, I want you to know that.”

“yeah, i know.” Stretch gave him a lopsided smile. Edge had never held his previous indiscretions against him, if that was what you called fucking around with anyone that offered. This was the first time one of them had shown up asking for an encore though, so it was kinda nice to hear.

Edge looked at him searchingly then slowly nodded. “So long as you know.” He drew Stretch’s hand up, his breath warm as he kissed his knuckles gently. That was better, much more normal, so it was something of a surprise for him to drop Stretch’s hand and pull out his phone to start typing, enough that Stretch blinked at him in confusion.

“what are you—?”

“Contacting Embassy security.”

That gave him a hell of a jolt, “babe—"

“It’s not only about you,” Edge didn’t look up from his phone, “If he’s like this often, drunk and aggressive, he’s a danger to himself and others. I don’t want to hurt him, love, but he needs help before something worse happens.”

Of course. Of course Edge was thinking about helping him, so worried about his LV, about hurting people, and here he was making sure some asshole was gonna get better than he deserved. Stretch loved Edge, more than he could explain, sometimes so much it scared him a little, but the warmth that rose in his soul right at this moment was soft and sweet, begging to be properly shared.

“you’ve got a good soul, babe.” Stretch regretted it the moment he said it, too teasingly light, and the way Edge’s eye lights constricted made his own soul throb once in sympathy, that warmth dimming. By unspoken rule, only his soul got to be talked about and held, his supposedly perfect LV-free soul.

True to form, Edge didn’t say anything to that. He only tucked his phone back into his pocket, shifting to stand, "I'll get us another round, try not to get into more trouble while I'm gone."

"i wasn't trying to get into trouble the first time." Stretch pointed out. It got him a brief smile, but not the kiss he was angling for. He saved his sigh until Edge walked away, tracing the circle of moisture his bottle left on the table with one absent finger.

“babe, you have a beautiful soul,” Stretch whispered to nobody at all, “someday i’ll get to tell you that.”

For now, he only turned his attention back to the stage. A woman was up there now with hair in a rainbow of fascinating colors and no paper notes, only raising the microphone with brisk determination. He watched with interest as she began talking about public transportation, only glancing once at Edge who was standing in line at the bar. No one else was giving Edge so much as a cautious look and the bartender’s smile as he stepped up was friendly.

It allowed him to relax, focusing more on the show. No one thought anything bad, then, no one let Rolf’s drunken anger give them a worry about Edge’s LV, even if it was jarringly high.

Good enough.

~~*~~

Rolf was considerably drunker when he stepped out of Grillby’s at closing time to see the plain black cars waiting for him. His waitress had cut him off about an hour before, fucking unfair, he’d been sitting by himself, not causing any trouble at all. Hadn’t even said a word when the dust collector and his whore left earlier, kept his head down looking at his drink.

None of the Monsters leaning against the cars looked remotely threatening, but he wasn’t stupid, not by a long shot. ‘specially not when one of them was Sans, and maybe he’d swapped out the pink slippers for sneakers, but otherwise he could’ve stepped right out of Snowdin, the hoodie and shorts, that easy grin. Made Rolf think of other days, better ones, staggering home through the snow with a drink in his hand and a song in his heart.

“heya, rolf,” Sans said, easily, “was hoping you’d come with us, yeah?”

Hoping, right. Conjured magic was heavy in the air, clammy humidity before a storm, and part of him was ready for the fight, more than, wanting to lash out and hurt a couple of these pricks for daring to try laying hands on him. But he wasn’t that drunk, not that stupid, and he wouldn’t get off a single hit, he knew. Not against Sans.

He only walked up to the closest car and one of the Monster’s held open the door for him, one for the backseat. He hesitated long enough to sneer, “So much for freedom on the surface.”

“nah, you got it wrong, pal,” Sans’s easy smile never wavered. “you’re pretty free to do what you want. out from under the mountain. out in the sunshine. but your freedom ends right about the point you make the humans want us all dead. that kinda takes away my freedom.” He stepped closer and Rolf hastily climbed in the car. Too late, Sans stood in the open door, keeping him from closing it. “anyway, we’re just here to help you get home.”

“Home,” Rolf repeated, hopefully. Sans nodded, his grin widening.

“gotta little tip for you, first.” His pleasant smile seemed anything but when coupled with those suddenly dark sockets and Rolf swallowed hard, the pressure of too much beer heavy in his bladder. “stay away from stretch.”

The reminder of the little whore made his anger surge again and Rolf blurted out, scoffing, “I get it, that pussy stays in the family, huh.”

Sans laughed as if it was the best joke he’d heard in a year. His eye lights flared back to life as he chuckled and Rolf let out a little tremulous laugh of his own, “nah, don’t be stupid, i just don’t like to see anyone hurting my brother.” A cheery ting choked off Rolf’s laughter and he cringed, strangling on lack of air and terror as Sans leaned into the car, one of his eye lights flaring like staring into insanity. His voice was deeper, trembling in Rolf’s very bones as he whispered, “stay away from stretch or you’ll have a really bad time.”

Then it was gone and there was only Sans and his easy smile, along with the sharp smell of urine. He slammed the door shut, giving the top of the car a slap and it drove off in a short caravan, headed towards New New Home. He watched a little longer, until the taillights twinkled out of sight before he said to no one in particular, “good enough for you?”

He didn’t bother looking over his shoulder at the sudden flare of crimson eye lights. “for now.”

Sans nodded, “they’ll either get him some help or get him on house arrest until he wises up. it’ll work out.” Sans slanted a glance over his shoulder, towards the sudden click of a lighter and a whiff of cigar smoke. “whoever gets home first gets to top?”

A dark chuckle and a plume of exhaled smoke. “you’re seriously underestimatin’ the appeal of getting’ to lay there while you fuck me.”

“am i?” The innocence in his voice was as pure as New York snow, “guess you’ll lose, then.”

There was nothing but the sound of a shortcut, a faint pop of displaced air, and Sans cursed aloud and vanished into one of his own, leaving the street empty and a neon sign flashing with the word, ‘Grillby’s’, the same above as it had been below.

-finis-

[misha-moose-dean-burger-lover]

Forecast's for Bitches

Prompt by: @smodernlife : I just got caught in a rainstorm I should have been prepared for and now I'm loving the idea of Cas and Dean in a rainstorm and Cas refuses to share his umbrella and raincoat because "if you insist on making fun of my weather preparedness you shall suffer the consequences".

Except, this isn't a rainstorm. It's just rain.

***

"For fuck's sake, Cas," Dean groaned, glaring at his boyfriend, as the rain flattened his hair unbecomingly, as it bounced off of Cas's stupid Oscar-Wilde-quotes umbrella to hit Dean precisely on the head. "You're in a trenchcoat, and you have an umbrella." He sucked in a breath. "I have neither. Sharing is caring."

"Dean," Cas declared, definite and smug. "Despite what they taught us in preschool, sharing - at least, right now - is to spoil you by encouraging your deprecating sarcasm. Not making fun of my weather preparedness is caring."

"You're kidding, right?" Dean blinked, and raised his arms in annoyance. "I'm getting soaked, and you want to nag me for making fun of you, instead of being a gentleman and protecting my ass from the rain!"

"When the rain threatens to kidnap you and somehow doubles your student loans, I promise to intervene for the sake of your ass." Cas shot back, sure of mind. "And, by the way, hand over your phone and wallet."

Dean feigned shock. "You won't share your umbrella with me, and you're trying to mug me?"

"Your possessions shouldn't have to pay the price for your assholery towards my weather-cautious attitute," Cas elaborated, and pocketed the articles Dean handed over submissively. "So, I'll keep your things safe. You, on the other hand, are encouraged to get drenched in the rain, Dean."

"You're such a dick, why do you also have to be McWordy Worderson?" Dean whined, kicking a pebble, and continuing to walk - still getting drenched from the downpour, his clothes sticking to his skin.

"You calling me that just brought the already marginal chances of me giving in, down to nil." Cas stubbornly informed Dean, earning himself another ferocious roll of his eyes.

"Marginal, my ass." Dean muttered. "You were so not gonna give in yet. I know you, Cas, I've been dating your stubborn-frigging-ass for too long."

It was Castiel's turn to roll his eyes. They went on walking, Cas comfortably holding the umbrella over solely himself while Dean drudged along his side.

"By the way, would you be okay with me finishing my draft before we resume watching -" Cas had begun, perfectly casual, but Dean glared at him incredulously.

"What, you think you can just make conversation, right now?" He barked, at the slightly smirking man. "The least I can do to retaliate is take away your privilege of getting to talk with me."

"You're not supposed to retaliate to my retaliation, you're supposed to learn a lesson." Cas informed Dean, pursing his lips.

"Oh, is the lesson going to be that death from pneumonia is painful as fuck?" Dean mocked.

"I have faith in your immune system, Dean." Cas simply replied, looking utterly pleased with his boyfriend's predicament.

Dean huffed.

"And what about the fact that I'm wet and getting wetter by the second, honey?" He egged on.

"I like the sound of it." Cas deadpanned.

"Cas, you dirty sonuvabitch," Dean couldn't resist. "But I didn't mean for you," He teased. "What about the girls who're gonna see me all drenched and faux-naked and alone, since clearly if I were walking with my boyfriend who has an umbrella, I wouldn't be in this state, and what if they offer me a ride or their coats or -"

"I have an umbrella." Cas stopped him. "And I won't hesitate to use it."

"You can use that thing to poke away kind, helpful chicks who approach me, but not to provide me shelter?" Dean protested.

"Exactly." Cas agreed, unperturbed.

"That's it." Dean grumbled. "I'm not talking to you."

Cas gave him a look. "You propose we walk home in silence?"

Dean, true to his word, didn't reply. He took a longer step than usual to cross a puddle, and focussed his attention on the ground solely.

"Alright." Cas said, partially annoyed. "Let's not."

There was silence for barely a moment before Dean spoke up again.

"Where's the fun in me bitching about you, if you're not here to listen to it?" He declared.

Cas nodded.

"And, for the record, I propose that we walk closer - near enough to share the umbrella and then I propose you kiss me under it." Dean crossed his arms on his chest, a drenched mess now. A stray droplet landed on his forehead, and trickled down the left of his face.

Cas narrowed his eyes.

"Don't you try to be -"

"What? That wasn't seductive or anything." Dean excused himself before he'd even been accused. "You mind me being a cliche lover of romantic tropes, now?"

"No, I like that fairly." Cas scoffed. And then, on a seemingly unrelated note, he went on. "You know, you haven't even apologized yet." Cas finally admitted

"What for?"

Cas gave him the universal in-a-relationship look for If I have to tell you, you don't deserve to know.

"Is this still about the stupid weather forecast thing in the morning?" Dean knitted his eyebrows together in a frown. "Or, are you projecting? Is this a bigger issue? A larger dick move on my part?"

A car zoomed past them. Dean got splashed, and swore at it. Cas was already speaking.

"No, this isn't something big. The 'stupid weather forecast thing' is all this is about." Cas sounded offended. "It's that small. If something is of the slightest import to me, you cannot - you can't just up and diss it, Dean."

"Oh -"

"I don't enjoy being mocked. And it isn't as if I was cancelling a wedding because my horoscope said so. I was carrying an umbrella because the news said it'd rain. Meteorology is a science."

Dean was taken aback. There was silence for a while.

"Can I just say that I honestly didn't know it meant a single thing? If I was a jerk, which I bet I was, now that I think of it - I'm sorry. Won't happen again. I didn't mean it like that." He finally uttered, in a rush, sounding embarrassed, and genuinely sincere.

"I know, Dean," Cas nodded. "That's why I'm not 'mad' mad."

"You're stuck in the 'passive-aggressive' mad zone." Dean helped.

"Just like you're eternally stuck in the not-exactly-but-somehow-an-assbutt mode." Cas served back, continuing to walk.

"Exactly like that, yeah." Dean grinned, the temporary drop and the tension resolved. "Hey, so, that being said and sorted..?"

"I suppose we could follow through with before mentioned kiss in the rain." Cas was being a little shit on purpose, Dean recognized the humor in his tone, and leaned in nonetheless.

Just as Dean was close enough to be sheltered by the umbrella, he was close enough to be pulled right up against Cas. With a hand on his back, almost against his skin through the layers of fabric, Cas shuddered, and almost pulled back. "Whoa, you're soaked."

"You're the one doing laundry," Dean retorted. "I'm gonna stink of rain."

"Rain doesn't -" Cas pulled back to say, but Dean closed the gap, putting one damp palm on Cas's face, to position them correctly. Their lips fit against each other familiarly, soft brushes and swirling tongues, and Cas held the umbrella over them as Dean held them together.

"You're more handsy than usual." Cas laughed, pulling away, his face almost as wet as Dean's, because Dean had made it a point to touch.

"What do you mean - I'm always into you, sweetheart." Dean winked, mischievously.

"You haven't found my forehead worthy of your attention in quite a while." Cas explained, smiling as well.

"That's a lie, I think you've got a really sexy one." Dean laughed, and Cas mirrored him. "You know, I had half a mind to pull away the umbrella and let you be the one getting drenched while you were caught up in the kiss. But," he dramatized. "It's like you held on to it on purpose. You have messed up priorities, Cas."

"I just anticipated it, because as you say, I know you, I've been dating you for too long. And, choosing to hold the umbrella over you was a one-time-thing, I promise." Cas told him, sliding an arm around his waist, wet or not. They resumed walking, and well, Cas' had always been a generous, forgiving spirit. He shared the umbrella, but kept it mostly over himself, because push comes to shove; two men, six foot tall and enough wide, cannot really share an umbrella that well.

*

The next time, Dean doesn't laugh at Cas for taking an umbrella and his coat on a sunny day, but it turns out to be one of the brightest days of the year.

The one after that, lesson forgotten, Dean has to actually walk the whole ten blocks home in the rain, while Cas doesn't deter from his promise to not share his Oscar Wilde quotes umbrella at all, even when Dean - admittedly adorably - swallows raindrops and tries to be endearing while skipping over a pothole. Castiel is a man of his words, with an awfully cute boyfriend.

***

Taglist alert: @ctrl-alt-destiel @awkward-penguin-in-a-trenchcoat @styggtroll @adventurous-blob @petrichoravellichor @all-or-nothing-baby @iamcharliebradburylevelperfect @moderatelypanickedbisexual @elvenlicht @legendary-destiel @a-mess-of-many-fandoms @trenchcoatsandfreckles @noemithenephilim @naitia @ladywaywarddsc I'm really sorry for the super-late fic, dear taglist! It's been a weird-ass month. Sadly enough, I dunno when the next one will be, though I'm constantly thinking up stuff :( Anyways, do leave a note, and maybe some words. Thank you for reading. Have an awesome day!

Edit: I realize the plot is kinda all about the place and doesn't make much sense now that I got it pointed out to me, but I'm gonna keep it posted just so because I need to get back to Trig. Just ~ if you don't like it, please don't read. I wrote after very long and I'm sorry if it sucks. Hope you smile.

[itisannak]

‘Valentine’ by 5sos (Ashton Irwin Smut / The Youngblood Series)

Summary: (Y/N) and Ashton pretend to hate each other to conceal the fact they are sneaking around behind everyone's back. Until jealousy takes the best of them. Based on Sexual Prompt: #60 "I will ride you until I break you. You are mine and mine alone." (Smut / Unprotected Sex) (Request) (Words: 2.5k) (Part of Ashton’s Youngblood Series, but not connected with the other 3 parts)

"Well, look who finally came for breakfast... What, was your comforter a bit too heavy?" Ashton mocks me, earning a punch on the shoulder from Luke and a middle finger from me. "I am sorry, I forgot I had to ask you when you would like me to wake up, Master Irwin. It will be the last time. I humbly request your forgiveness. Now fuck off." I say, taking my seat next to Michael. "Here we go again." Luke mumbles as Ashton clenches his jaw and slams his mug on the table. "Guys, really you have to start getting along. We can't have this whole tour with you 2 fighting like cat and dog." Calum comments, passing me a mug of coffee. "He started it." I state and sip on my beverage. "It's true." Michael says and turns to Ashton. "Oh come on. She was late..." He says and points at me. "I feel that this conversation will lead to nothing. Plus, it's like having 2 4-year olds fighting. Just be adults and put up with each other." Calum states and gets up from the table, heading to the couch. "It's... whatever... As long as he stops being a bitch, I will not push it further." I say and grab a biscuit. "I am a bitch?" Ashton asks, glaring at me. I roll my eyes and get up, joining Calum on the couch. "So, what are we going to do tonight?" I ask the guys, earning shrugs from everyone. I huff and grab my phone, searching for bars near our hotel in Stockholm.

I fix my dress which has risen further up my thigh from sitting on the couch while waiting for the guys to get ready, getting up to prep for their shoot. "Guys, I need to take some pictures of your looks." I shout, picking up my camera. "Do we really need to?" Michael groans, making me turn to look at him. "First thing first, you need pictures for your accounts. And second, that's what you pay me for." I say and shrug. "Luke first." Michael says and points to Luke, who is already fixing his jacket. "Be my guest." I say and point to the white wall which I've chosen for the background. Luke poses for me, almost naturally. I take a few shots before I motion for Calum to come up, giving Michael some extra time. "How do you want me?" He asks, wiggling his eyebrows. I chuckle and roll my eyes before I bring the camera to my eye level. "Lean on the wall, thumbs on your belt loops. Pout a bit, girls love your lips." I say and he follows my orders. Again, I take a few shots, trying different angles. "Thank you. Michael, you are up." I call him and he moves in front of the wall, posing for me. "See, you are a natural..." I say as he changes his poses. "Of course." He replies and I smile at him. "Sit a bit straighter... A couple more clicks and we are done." I say and Michael smiles. "Can someone call Malibu Ken?" I ask, referring to Ashton. "Seriously, don't start again." Michael pleads and I shrug. "I can't promise anything..." I reply, checking the photos I took.

"We are going to wait in the lobby." Calum says as Ashton stands in front of the camera. "Wish I could join you..." I mumble, looking at Ashton. The guys exit quietly, leaving me and Ashton alone. "How long do we have to pretend that we hate each other?" Ashton asks me as I snap the first shot. "Who told you that I am pretending?" I ask, teasing him. "Your nails on my back, last night... When I fucked that pretty little pussy of yours." He smirks at me, giving me the perfect picture. "And who told you that I wasn't pretending last night?" I push him a little more, making him smirk and lick his lips. "Maybe the fact that you've been sneaking in my room throughout this tour." He says as I take the last picture. "Busted." I say, leaving the camera on the table and approaching him. He spins me and pins me on the wall, pressing his body on mine. "You look hot in that dress." He whispers, nuzzling his nose on my neck. "I wore it for you." I admit and he smirks, kissing my sweet spot. "And I really appreciate that, princess." He says and I chuckle. His hand travels up my thigh, grazing the soft skin with his fingers. "We don't have much time." I inform him, breathing heavily; all this play-pretend between us makes the heat between my legs rise. "I know. And don't fool yourself, princess, I won't be satisfied with a quickie. I will ride you until I break you. You are mine and mine alone. " He growls before he crashes his lips on mine. "Is someone a bit jealous?" I ask, parting from his lips. "Of course I am. Do you think I didn't see you cuddling with Calum?" He asks, moving his lips down my chest. "It was innocent, Ashton... We were just watching a movie." I protest but melt as he bites on my collarbone. "You are not allowed to cuddle with anyone but me." He barks, gripping hard on my jaw. "Supposedly, we hate each other's guts. I couldn't just come and cuddle you." I say and watch his features turn harsher. "Then don't cuddle anyone." He says and I smirk. "I love it when you get jealous." I comment and peck on his bottom lip.

After we found a lame excuse for why we were late, we left the hotel and headed to the club I suggested. Soon enough, everyone is drinking and dancing, relaxing after a long time. I am trying to stay away from Ashton, but after a couple of drinks, it is getting harder and harder. I move my hips to the rhythm, maintaining eye contact with Ashton, who sips his soda as he scans my body. I decide to tease him just a little bit start dancing with Calum, who looks at me a little weird. "Are you ok?" He asks me and I nod. "Yeah, I just love that song." I reply and he nods, moving to the rhythm. My eyes are glued on Ashton, who clenches his jaw for the whole time I am dancing with Calum.

An hour or so after, the guys have scattered around, chatting with people and dancing along with the music. Of course, Ashton had to get payback, so he opted for a girl nearby, buying her a drink and grinding on her; I guess I deserved that, but that doesn't make my blood boil any less. He catches the irritation on my face and that makes that stupid smirk spread on his face. A minute after, he is next to me, drink in hand, and cockiness written all over his face. "What happened, princess?" He asks me, leaning onto me to whisper in my ear. "Nothing." I state simply; I hate myself for falling in the stereotype, but honestly, I don't want to talk to him right now. "Oh, come on princess. I know that someone got a little bit jealous." He says and twirls a strand of my hair with his finger. "I don't know what you are talking about." I say and turn away from him, grabbing my glass to get myself another drink. "(Y/N), just admit it..." He sings and I hold myself back not to slap him. "Leave me alone." I say and walk away from him, taking deep breaths to calm my nerves. Given half the chance, I would bust his head open to get some sense inside it.

When I get back to our table, Ashton is waiting there, scrolling through his phone. "What happened, pretty boy? Where is that little girlfriend of yours?" I ask, catching his attention. "Actually, my girlfriend is being such a bitch right now, even though all I did was give her a taste of her own medicine." He replies and I gasp. "I am not your girlfriend." I protest and he groans in frustration. "If you keep doing that, you obviously won't be." He almost screams. "Fine." I reply. "Fine." He says and gulps down his drink.

Once back in our hotel suite, all we do is stare threateningly at each other. The guys give us confusing looks, whispering about what might have happened between us again. "Can you stop fucking looking at me?" I snap, making Michael huff in annoyance. "When you stop staring at me, sure." He replies and I groan. "Guys..." Luke tries to reason us. "What the fuck do you want from me?" I ask, my blood boiling. "What the fuck do you want from me? I am lovey-dovey with you, you are complaining. I am mean to you, you are complaining. I give you a taste of your medicine, you hate me. What do you want from me?" He asks and I burst into tears. "I want a fucking normal relationship with you. This shit is problematic." I scream, feeling my face turn red.

I only realize what I said when I take a look at the guys; Calum's jaw grazes the floor, Michael stares in confusion, and Luke switches stares between me and Ashton. "Shit." I mumble under my breath, looking for a way to leave the room. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?" Ashton asks me, moving closer to me. "Anyone mind explaining to us what is going on?" Luke asks, but neither of us is paying attention to anyone else but each other. "I knew your intentions from Day 1... I didn't want to lose what we had." I admit as the back of his hand grazes my cheek. "What am I going to do with you?" He sighs and I shrug. "Probably break up with me, not talk to me ever again..." I say, pouting. "No princess. I am going to punish you for not speaking your feelings." He says and cups my chin. "I was scared." I protest and he smirks. "I guess we were both..." "What do you mean?" I ask. "Oh, come on guys, you can't be that stupid." Luke groans, making us realize that we are in front of other people as well. "Maybe we should take this somewhere privately." Ashton suggests and I nod.

Once in his room, he locks the door as I sit on the bed. "You know, I am in love with you..." He says, still with his back to me. "You are?" I ask, fiddling with my fingers. "I really am." He replies, however not daring to look at me. "Good, cause I am too. And it is scary, and it is scary as fuck, but I want to shoot at it. Because it's you." I say, standing up and walking to him. "What if I screw this up? I don't know how to do this whole normal thing..." He says, turning to face me. "Then we will screw this up together. I don't know what to do either." I reply and he chuckles. "Look at the kitten being the mature one in this relationship." He comments before he grabs me and pins me to the wall, crashing our lips. "You are mine." He groans against my lips, biting hard on the bottom one. "I am yours." I agree, trying to get back to kissing him. He responds, slipping his tongue into my mouth. I grip on his t-shirt, pulling it to get him closer to me. His hands travel under my dress, directly going for my underwear. He doesn't bother pulling it down; he pushes it to the side and rubs a finger along my slit. "If I knew that fighting for real turns you on so much, I would have argued with you every day." He comments, smiling at me. "Am I really that wet?" I ask him, earning a chuckle. "Here." He says and sticks his fingers in my mouth. I suck on them, looking at him through my eyelashes, and watching him gaze at me in amazement. "Fuck, I always forget how good you are at sucking..." He growls as I take his fingers deeper.

"Bed or wall, princess?" He asks me after I pop my fingers out of my mouth. "Wherever you want, daddy. I need you..." I say and look at him with doll eyes. He doesn't reply; he just gets on his knees in front of me, lowering my dress as he goes. Leaving me only in my powder pink panties, he looks up at me as he spreads my legs. "Princess looks good in pink." He states, yanking my panties down with his teeth. "You like it, daddy?" I ask and he nods. He kisses below my navel and moves downwards, stopping just before my clit. "I love it... Ready for me, princess?" He asks before he pecks on my clit, causing me to melt. "As always." I reply and try not to cum right there and then. "Good." He says and stands up.

He turns me around, gluing my chest on the wall. I hear him unzip his jeans as one slap is delivered on my ass, making me wince, but getting me wetter. He thrusts inside me, making my chest hit on the wall. "Fuck." I scream, throwing my ass backward. "You like that, little slut?" He asks, making me roll my eyes. "I love that, daddy." I scream; It is weird that it is the first time of all we've fucked that I am able to scream, without worrying about the others finding out. "I love your voice when I fuck you, princess." He whispers in my ear, making my pussy pulse. He is pounding in me, hitting my spot every time; there is no time to take it slow, we want release and we want it now. The tension between us has been thick for hours, we can't hold back. My ass claps against his skin, making a perfect sound, adding to our moans and groans. I claw on the wall as he pounds in me, his hand squeezing my boob. "Fuck, fuck, fuck..." He groans, thrusting harder. His grip tightens and I almost lose it, my head falling back and resting on his shoulder. "A little more... a little more..." I chant as he sucks a hickey on my neck. Ashton curses through groans and growls, trying to hold himself back.

I collapse on the wall, screaming through my ecstasy as my legs quiver. Ashton pulls out and starts humping my ass, soon releasing too. I pant and shake as Ashton hisses and groans. "So fucking beautiful." He comments through a hitched breath. "That was so good, baby." I say, turning my head to look at him. "I know." He agrees and plants a kiss on my temple. "Let me clean you up, princess." He says and moves to grab wet napkins from the bedside table. "What are we going to tell the guys in the morning?" I ask and watch him shrug. "The truth. They are big boys, they will understand." He says and starts wiping his cum from my back. "What about the fans?" I ask again. "For now, let's keep it a secret from them. Once the tour ends, we will see." He says and turns me around, bringing me closer to him. I nod and he smiles, leaning in for a kiss.

My Masterlist

[howlingwind]

HARRISON CLEESE ( HERAKLES/HERCULES/“HERC” ) , who strongly resembles THEO JAMES, has been spotted in Pandæmonium. The CISMALEis a THIRTY / 1498 / UNKNOWN year old HYBRID GRECO-ROMAN DEMIGOD–VAMPIRE, SON OF ZEUS/JUPITER, and has been in Pandæmonium for TEN+ YEARS. I hear they’re HEROIC & BRAVE and COCKY & SALACIOUS. If you’re lucky you may catch him working at all, because he’s UNEMPLOYED.

short version of a long story, the dude’s hercules. like the hercules. so yeah. he did the trials, was a god for a while, then he wasn’t anymore. but what you didn’t know is he also spent a bunch of time in ireland, where he became a vampire thanks to his fave wife morrigan turning him after their kid died. oh yeah, and he was desiccating up until like 10-15 years ago, idk that needs to be worked out still, but yeah someone woke his ass up, fed him blood & he was pissed about it because really he was ready to be dead but was afraid of what awaited him when he actually died.

goes by “herc” to pretty much anyone he knows and prefers the name hercules to herakles. he also needed a new legal identity when he woke up, so he uses the name “harry cleese” outside of pandemonium.

unemployed, gets by on an inheritance from some old widow he (intentionally) married right before she bit the dust. she was a nice lady so he didn’t ever drink her blood.

does his best not to kill but he’s not gonna get all batman-y or emo about it if he drinks a little too much blood or has to kill someone in a fight. he’s seen so much death and suffered so much loss that he’s pretty meh about the whole process tbh. and since becoming a vampire he’s especially meh about human life. he’s pretty meh in general these days. 

has seen some shit, has done some shit, has been through a whole bunch of shit, now he spends most of his time shit-faced. otherwise he’d just be a cranky old bastard.

knows morrigan is in town but actively avoids her because it’s too awkward & painful. 

dude’s bi as a fork in the road. in ancient & pre-ancient greece, not only was this basically the default, but it was a sign of masculinity to have a male lover, and no one was more of a man than hercules, right? honestly that’s why it’s weird there’s not many stories about him & guys, but hey, he wasn’t marrying them and 90% of his lady stories are about his wives or intended wives, so.

has been married a fuckton of times, but only really gave a shit about two of his wives (megara & morrigan). has countless children, most of them illegitimate, but has lost most of the ones he knew & cared for. 

he also does his best these days to not sleep with anyone with any sort of greek heritage because chances are good they might be an ancestor of his. not that he really cares after about 3 or 4 generations removed (have you seen him family tree? it’s more of a family-wreath) but he’d rather be on the safe side. 

there’s a couple pieces of jewelry that herc always wears — golden claws from the nemean lion hanging from a simple leather necklace, and the daylight ring fashioned by morrigan so he would be uneffected by the sun.

now enjoy this monstrous bio that absolutely no one will read (and i don’t blame you, seriously) but at least it’s there to help me remember stuff.

born alcaeus, to the mortal woman alcmene and the god zeus (who was impersonating her husband), the story of hercules is a long one. lets begin at the the start. the newborn alcaeus, son of alcmene and amphitryon, youngest of three siblings, was a special child. a demigod. the goddess hera, wife of zeus, was well aware of her husband’s constant affairs, and always found a way to take her revenge for each one. when alcaeus was born, hera decided the child could not be allowed to live, and sent two serpents to kill the baby before he was old enough to make the task difficult. too late. mere days after the birth, young alcaeus was already strong enough to catch both serpents as they tried to strike, and strangle them to death. having witnessed what happened, alcmene and her husband renamed the boy herakles, meaning “great glory of hera”. little did they know. with hera seemingly having backed down after the failed attempt on his life, herakles grew into an unparalleled warrior with no idea of where his great strength came from. at the age of only fifteen, he single-handedly led the attack the drove the minyans out of thebes. out of gratitude the king of thebes, creon, offered him the hand of his eldest daughter megara in marriage. 

herakles and megara had a good life, for a time. they had three sons, and got a happy four years together (ignoring herc’s infidelities—like father like son—which megara did). as zeus continued his own affairs, it only prompted hera to check back in on the young demigod, who was appalled and furious to learn he’d found such happiness, and such a good wife, yet repeatedly cheated just the same as zeus did to her. he didn’t deserve what he had, as far as she was concerned, so she bore deep into his mind and drove him into a temporary fit of madness, forcing him to murder his wife and children. he didn’t even remember committing the atrocities when all was said and done, only that he awoke covered in their blood and limbs. he didn’t know how he was supposed to live with himself after what he’d done and seeking punishment, he traveled to delphi for advice from the oracle, who told him only the god apollo could help him now, and he was no where to be found in greece, so herakles knew he’d have to embark on a journey to find the him.

herakles’ search eventually brought him to rome, and to draw apollo out, he performed feats of strength and courage, slaying monsters and earning the adoration of the townspeople, who called him hercules, a name with a much preferred ring to it. it wasn’t long before apollo caught wind of the demigod, and decided to pay his brother a visit to finally see him for himself. it was apollo that explained to hercules his true heritage, but decided to protect his aunt hera (fearing hercules to be strong enough to kill a god) and not divulge the true reasoning behind the madness that overcame him. instead, he sentenced him to complete 12 near-impossible labors (decided upon by hera, but he wouldn’t know that) to atone for his deeds, and made him the deal that if he completed all twelve, he’d go through apotheosis upon death and be welcomed into olympus as a full god. if he were to die before completing each labor however, he would spend eternity languishing in tartarus. finally, apollo gifted hercules a bow fit for the trials he’d soon face.

with a new determination, and a new will to live, hercules set off on his first task: kill the nemean lion. then the hydra. they were difficult battles to be sure, but it quickly became clear that no battle was going to stop hercules, so hera decided to have him capture the golden hind and bring it to the king of tiryns so he could make it part of his menagerie. hercules was intercepted by apollo, and artemis (who cared deeply for the creature), and had to beg for the forgiveness of his siblings, explain that it was for his penance, and promise that it would be returned to her unharmed. hercules then tricked the king and let the creature go, at which point it returned to artemis, but he had technically completed the task, so hera and the king conspired to come up with a new task. this time, capture and bring him the fearsome erymanthian boar. furious when he was able to complete the trial, they made the next one to clean all of the shit out of a giant stable in just one day, which was actually the most difficult (and unpleasant) task thus far. as expected, all the rest of the labors were grand feats, but with a bit of wit and perseverance, hercules accomplished them all, until the very last task. unarmed, without bringing any serious harm to the creature, he was to kidnap the hell-hound cerberus. it was a near impossible trial simply because of the fact that there was no such hell-hound in hades. it was a long arduous journey just to locate the beast, he traveled from underworld to underworld, visiting the likes of helheim, tuonela, and even diyu. finally, herc learned of a little known realm known simply as hell, where the beast resided. he’d spent so long searching that now that he’d finally found the one he was looking for, he didn’t waste time sneaking or trying to outwit anyone. he simply stated his reason for being in hell and made it very clear that he’d “come to take the beast known as cerberus.”  somehow, hercules pulled it off, wrestling cerberus unconscious, and literally dragging him out of hell to present to the king, hera, and apollo. eventually word spread throughout all of olympus that hercules had completed his final labor, and zeus personally descended from the throne to give his son a pat on the back and promise him immortality.

hercules wasn’t dead yet, however. he still had a lot of life to live and many adventures to go on, from battling giants to saving princesses from sea monsters. one of the adventures brought him to the city of oechalia, where he met iole, a beautiful young princess that captivated him. not long after arriving he entered an archery contest with the king eurytus, who promised his daughter’s hand in marriage if he were to win. obviously, hercules won with ease, but the king refused to give his daughter to hercules out of fear that when they eventually had children, he’d slay them like he slayed his children with megara. iphitus, the youngest son of eurytus (who herc had also met and gotten along with well) argued against that decision, but the king stood his ground. later that evening, cattle were stolen and eurytus immediately blamed hercules and imprisoned him. iphitus knew better than to believe that, however, and freed him, then invited herc to help him find the cattle. they climbed to the highest walls of tiryns so hercules could survey the area and find the thief, but just then, hera struck him once again with a fit of madness and rage, which led to hercules throwing iphitus off the top of the wall, killing him, and beginning a rampage that left eurytus among many others dead. iole was somehow spared, but she was the only one in her family. hercules was mortified, and turned himself in for the crime.

hercules was convicted for the killing of iphitus (and subsequently most of oechalia), and willingly obliged whatever his punishment may be. he was sentenced to spend his life as slave to the lydian queen omphale. during this time he was kept in a state of inebriation, another of the queen’s slaves tasked with serving him only water from a ‘fountain of forgetfulness’. he was forced to work, yes, but the year was mostly spent as a slave to her desires. he fathered a child with her that later became king of lydia, as well as children with a number of the other slave girls. he was eventually rescued by his friend, the king odysseus, who posed as another slave and fed him normal water until he regained his senses and they were able to escape.

eventually another of hercules’ wives, deianira was tricked by a centaur and was about to be raped by it. leaping into action, herc killed the centaur with an arrow poisoned with the blood of the hydra and saved deianira. with its dying breaths, however, it got its revenge, convincing the woman to keep a vial of its blood by leading her to believe it was a magic potion that could keep hercules madly in love with her, so that he’d never stray. it wasn’t long after that hercules met iole again, and despite what he’d done, for the first time since megara hercules was beginning to truly fall in love again with someone that loved him in return. of course, deianira saw it as a now-or-never situation, so in an act of desperation, she poured the blood out on his lionskin “shirt” (a chiton –- fashioned from the nemean lion’s pelt, just like his infamous cloak). when he put the shirt on the next day, his skin immediately began to burn, an agony like he’d never felt before. he didn’t know what to do, and he couldn’t think straight to even try to fight it. instead he went into town and told the townspeople he was dying, and requested they build him a funeral pyre atop mount oeta. when it was finished and lit, hercules wasted no time. he leapt into the flames hoping to succumb to the fire and quickly end his suffering. he couldn’t ascend just yet, however, all the gods needed to agree to welcome him. hera was the last to decide, the only one who hadn’t yet accepted him. to the surprise of the entire pantheon, she finally agreed that he had suffered enough, and so the goddess hebe (daughter of athena, whose job this usually was) rode the chariots down from mount olympus and collected hercules to welcome him to an eternity as a god.

he spent millennia as a god, returned to his the youthful appearance of his late teens. herc served as the gatekeeper of olympus, finally getting to meet and know his divine family. for most of that time however, the gods kept hera’s interference in his life a secret from him. when a drunken, pining hebe let it slip that they could “be together and hera couldn’t ever ruin things like she did with megara,” hercules flew into a rage and attacked his stepmother, ready to murder her right then and there, but hermes and apollo talked him down and kept him calm long enough for zeus to intervene, stripping him of his immortality and casting off of mount olympus. zeus warned him to leave greece and never come back to his domain or he would strike him down where he stood, chasing him away from the now-medieval nation with lethal lighting strikes. hercules spent the next two years traveling north through europe, getting completely inebriated in every city and every nation along the way until he reached the northern shore. far from the god he was, or even the hero he used to be, he was terrified of death now despite retaining his original strength. if he were to die, the only thing that awaited him was the pits of tartarus and reliving the agony that drove him to kill himself in the first place. he was broken. but he couldn’t allow himself to die, so he powered through. he worked the docks for a bit until one day a man got off a ship speaking about an island called ireland, and how beautiful and peaceful it was. the man’s stories made hercules want to see it for himself, so he stowed away on the next ship destined for the island, and that decision changed the course of his life forever.

when he arrived, he was immediately taken by the country. the greenest green’s he’d ever seen, followed beautiful, chilly, foggy nights. it was so different from anywhere he’d ever been before, but in the best way possible. he made a humble life for himself there, but it was almost immediately upended when the dullahan rode through his village. one of his neighbors explained to him that when it stopped riding, one of the villagers would die, and the only way to stop it was to kill it with something made of gold, but no one in the village was wealthy enough for gold. hercules however, immediately looked down to the leather necklace he wore. hanging from it were the claws of the nemean lion. forgetting his fear as the adrenaline surged through him, he tore off the necklace, slipped the claws between the fingers of his balled fist, and ran outside to confront the being. there wasn’t much of a fight, hercules simply leapt into the air and stabbed the dullahan in its headless neck with the claws and watched it burn to ash. the village lauded his name, and for the first time in years herc finally felt like himself again. word spread of his accomplishment, and he was invited to have an audience with the royal family. he was offered gifts in return ( a nicer home, a steed, a servant, and steady work protecting the town from monsters ), but not the one thing that truly caught his eye — the princess. hercules would have to earn the affection of the raven haired beauty, but he’d never met a task he couldn’t accomplish.

before long, hercules and morrigan were set to wed, and not long after that, they had a child on the way. he’d been happy before, sure, and he’d even been in love, but with morrigan things were different. they felt meant to be, more than anything before. she was truly the light of his life, and before long, they’d welcomed even more children into their lives. it was the perfect life, and after so long of nothing but heartache after heartache, tragedy after tragedy, hercules had finally found something peaceful. the perfect person to spend the rest of his life with, and he would not screw it up. for the first time e v e r, the only woman he had eyes for was his wife. the only people he cared about were his family. hercules awoke one night to the sound of a woman shrieking, wailing, and immediately jumped out of bed to see what appeared to be a woman floating away from the window. to any local, they would have known it was a banshee, and to be overly protective of loved ones, but hercules didn’t know. he didn’t know. he didn’t know. he didn’t know. that’s all he could say, repeating it over and over, almost as if in a trance the next morning when he and morrigan found their child drowned in the lake. why did this happen? what had he possibly done to deserve all of this loss, and how could their innocent baby have deserved that fate? he knew it must have been hera who’d done this. that’s why he was in full support of kieran & morrigan’s plan to make them all immortal. he wanted to bring the fight to the gates of olympus –- and never wanted to lose another person he loved. and so he joined morrigan and his children in becoming vampires. when morrigan went off the deep end, he fell right along with her, and their reign of tyranny in ireland was a terrifying sight to behold. when kieran got through to morrigan though, hercules was far from ready to calmly back down. he was beyond being calm. he was hungry. for blood, and for the head of the goddess that’d done him wrong over and over again. and now it seemed he had nothing left to lose, morrigan having betrayed him, his children going along with their mother and uncle. he was alone again.

hercules carved a path of destruction and blood all throughout europe, making the long journey in mere days with his new speed and even further enhanced strength. he may not have been a god anymore, but he sure felt like one. until he got to greece and found himself in for a rude awakening, immediately struck by lighting. he might as well have been a fly compared to the power of zeus’s lightning. why was he still standing? why was he still drawing breath? the moment the bolt struck his body, his hand instinctively wrapped around it, grasping it tight like the necks of the serpents all those years ago and tossing it aside. it burned, far worse than the poison that made him take his own life, but it was nothing compared to the mental anguish of losing everything he cared about yet again. he endured lightning strike after lightning strike, each one searing into his body, he climbed his way to the top of mount olympus. when he finally reached the summit, zeus unleashed one final lightning strike, more devastating than any of the others, but hercules caught this one just as he had before. it narrowly missed his face as he tilted his head, instead reaching up to catch it and use the momentum to send it flying back like a javelin, crashing through the gates. exhausted, he collapsed into the house of the gods, barely dragging himself forward until his body finally gave out and he fell to his knees, quickly surrounded by the entire pantheon. staring up at his father, he begged him for an honest answer. “why? why would you protect her over your own son, after everything she’s done?” and for the first time ever he saw compassion in his his father’s eyes, compassion in hera’s eyes. “this was not our doing.” and another first — his father picked him up off the ground and hugged him. “i’m sorry,” he told hercules, and then another pair of arms were wrapped around him. “so am i.” it was hera’s voice, and hera’s embrace, and hera’s love. and soon, the entire pantheon had him surrounded in a different way, each of them a part of the embrace. except for ares, he was and always had been a dick. and hades because he was too busy getting it on with persephone down in the underworld, since it was like day one of her half of the year down there. 

he couldn’t stay this time. the vampirism made it impossible to undergo apotheosis and take his place in olympus once again, and even the gods had no clue how to undo the condition. with no other choice, hercules left olympus. his life had collapsed around him though, the one thing that truly brought him happiness—his family—gone in the blink of an eye. he wasn’t going to try again and invite more pain into his life, he wasn’t going to try returning to morrigan and invite more pain into hers either, he was just done. he was at peace with the idea of his eternity not being spent in the agony of tartarus, nor in bliss of elysium or olympus, just spent in the numbness of life on earth. the next few hundred years passed him by in the blink of an eye, until he caught word of what had been deemed “the new world”. for the first time in centuries, he felt… intrigue? so that’s where he went. he ended up in a fledgling city called new nederland. what he found was… disappointing. it didn’t quite live up to the promise of a new world, and compared to greece, rome, or ireland, new nederland was nothing short of depressing. what did strike his curiosity however, was a small community of people like him — vampires that had been working together to keep themselves a steady supply of blood. hercules made himself known to them, and despite his wealth of experience as a vampire, they taught him things about their kind he had no idea about. decapitation or heart extraction being the ways they could die, their ability to compel, the sire bond (thankfully that meant morrigan was still alive and well, at least), vervain, the wood weakness… but nothing more interesting than the desiccation. despite no longer wanting to live, hercules didn’t want to die. he knew that with what he’d become, there would be no place for him to go except tartarus, or even hell, but with desiccation… an eternity of nothingness sounded absolutely delightful compared to the alternative. so he asked the other vampires to grant him one request: chain him up and bury him. so they did. as awful as the dryness and overwhelming thirst was while he languished beneath the dirt, no concept of the passage of time, or the goings on above the surface, it brought him a twisted sense of peace. finally. 

until someone had to go ruining everything and dig him up.

[hunterpuff]

The Hunter’s Daughter- Chapter 6

Chapter Summary: Reader is where she wants to be, with Dean and Sam, and accompanying them on a hunt. Of course, things never go as planned for the Winchesters and Reader ends up getting a scare.

Chapter Word Count: 2,287

A/N: Thank you to everyone who is reading this and for all of the great feedback. As always, thank you to my beta @bazingirl​

True to his word, Sam had made sure Dean came back to Sioux Falls after they had helped a young girl find her missing hunter father. There was still a widespread threat from Dick Roman and the Leviathan but, as Sam put it to his older brother, sometimes there were more important things. Right now they had a sixteen year old girl who needed to feel like a priority rather than an afterthought. It had been a tense reunion, as everyone tried to work out what the best course of action was for Y/N’s future. She wanted to go with Dean and Sam, arguing that they owed it to her to have the chance to be with the only family she had left. Jody was trying to convince her that it would be better for her to stay put, just until she finished high school. Meanwhile the two brothers, Dean in particular, were walking on eggshells to try and come up with a realistic solution that both made Y/N happy and kept her safe.

All plans and negotiations had come to a quick halt when the boys came across another case. Knowing that it wasn’t going to go over well with Y/N if they left her behind Dean had begrudgingly agreed to allow her to come along, with the understanding that it was still only a temporary solution and they were still going to sit down and figure out exactly what was going to happen with her on a permanent basis. She wasn’t thrilled that anyone still thought she wasn’t going with them permanently, but at least it was a start in her eyes. She could prove to Dean and Sam that she could hold her own on a hunt, she’d been doing it with her dad for years, and that she would be an asset to them rather than a hindrance.

Things had been going well, too, at first. While the two men were out questioning witnesses, a task that they both claimed Y/N was too young to be convincing at, she had stayed in the abandoned house they were squatting in and started researching anything and everything she could find that would leave behind mummified victims. It turned out that she was a lot like her uncle in the fact that she was a good researcher; one who managed to find the smallest of details in a sea of information.

Then, things had taken a bit of a southward turn when Sam had come back to the house alone. Y/N looked up from her research when he walked into the room, then frowned slightly when she realized that Dean wasn’t following close behind. Sam had a pained look on his face as he walked over and sat on the edge of the bed to look over at her. Y/N just stared at him and shook her head slowly, not wanting to hear whatever he had to say. “No. Whatever you’re going to tell me, just no. I don’t want to know.”

“Y/N…”

“I said NO!” Y/N hadn’t even realized that her hands had started shaking until Sam reached out and gently grabbed on to one in an attempt to calm her. Looking down at where he was holding onto her, grounding her in a way, she took a few deep breaths to steady her nerves before looking up at him. “Where’s Dean?”

Sam just sighed softly and shook his head as he gave her hand a little squeeze. “I don’t know, sweetheart. He just...disappeared. He was there and then he wasn't. I already called Jody, she’s on her way with some stuff of your dad’s. I’m hoping there will be something in there that can help us figure out what happened.”

Y/N bit down hard on her lip, a metallic taste filling her mouth as she broke the skin. This couldn’t be happening. She had just lost her dad, now she had lost the only person she had left. Yes, she was mad beyond belief at him, but that didn’t mean she wished harm upon him or wanted him gone entirely. Especially if it meant that now she would never get to talk to him about her past or to try and get answers about her mother. She would never find out why he hadn’t wanted her and would never get a chance to try and forgive him. Sniffing softly, she looked up at Sam. “Why do I keep losing everyone? I-I don’t like him right now, but that doesn’t mean I wanted to lose him. Am I going to lose you, too?”

“Y/N…” Sam was quick to get up off the bed and pull her into a standing position, his arms wrapping around her as he held her tight. “You haven’t lost him, we’re going to find a way to get him back. I promise. As for me...you’re never going to lose me, either, kiddo. I’m not going anywhere and I’m never going to leave you. I promise.”

She just nodded her head as she hugged Sam and buried her face against his chest. As much as she wanted to believe him, she just couldn’t allow herself to get her hopes up. Everything in her life up until this point seemed to suggest otherwise. “Wh-what are we going to do now?”

Sam just kissed the top of her head and gave her a gentle shove towards one of the beds in the room. “You’re going to go to sleep is what you’re going to do. We can’t do anything right now. Jody should be here tomorrow and we can get started then. In the meantime, you need to get some rest. We’ll figure this out, Y/N. I swear to you, we will.”

Y/N crawled into bed and tried to sleep, but her sleep was fitful at best. She tossed and turned, never dozing for more than twenty minutes or so at a time throughout the night. Every time she closed her eyes and started falling asleep, she would jerk awake with a nightmare of slowly losing everyone she had ever cared about, one by one. By the time she finally managed to actually fall asleep from exhaustion, the sun was starting to peek through the curtains in the room.

She didn’t know how long she slept, but when she woke up Sam and Jody were both sitting at the table, research material spread out all around them as they poured through books and journals with grim expressions on both of their faces. Forcing herself out of bed with a yawn, she stretched her arms over her head and groaned softly as she felt her back pop in three different places. Shuffling slowly across the room, she plopped down in the chair next to Sam as her eyes traveled sadly over the papers in front of him, recognizing the handwriting in the notes as her dad’s. “Have you found anything, yet?”

Sam frowned a little as he glanced over at Jody, then looked back at his niece. Right now he was mentally cursing himself for allowing her to come on this hunt with them, because it was turning out to be a shit show and with her being as fragile as she was right now, he didn’t know how she was going to handle it if things went south. “Well, we’re pretty sure we’re dealing with Chronos, the god of time. Which means that Dean is somewhere else in time. The problem is that we don’t know where, exactly. Or...how to get him back.”

Y/N frowned a little as she picked up some of her dad’s notes, hoping that something would jump out at her that could be helpful. She had helped her dad on a lot of hunts, she’d even helped him with research for the Winchesters on several occasions, but never had it felt so personal. Never had she felt so damned helpless that she couldn’t do anything. Reaching down into one of the boxes, she smiled sadly as she pulled out a bottle of scotch that her dad’s buddy Rufus had sent him years ago. “If I didn’t think my daddy would roll over in his grave, I’d probably finish this bottle off right now. I’d say if anyone’s earned it right now, I have.”

Sam just smiled softly and laid one hand on her arm as he reached over and took the bottle from her. He himself had been introduced to alcohol by her age, and something told him that she wasn’t completely unfamiliar with the burn of a good whiskey, but no matter how much she might deserve a strong drink he knew his brother would kill him if she was allowed any right now. “Let’s hold off on that a few years okay, kiddo? We’re going to figure this out and get him back. If we don’t...I’ll personally pour you a glass of this myself, okay?”

“Yeah...okay...sounds good.” Y/N shrugged her shoulders a little as she gathered up some of her dad’s books and papers and went to curl up on the bed while she helped with the research. Just over an hour later, she was jumping up off the bed in excitement with a book clutched in her hand. “Uncle Sam? Uncle Sam, I think I found something! I found a spell that can be used to summon a god. We could use it to get Chronos and he could bring Dean back!”

Sam couldn’t keep the look of surprise off of his face and he exchanged a glance with Jody when Y/N addressed him as Uncle, but he chose not to comment on it. He didn’t know if she had intended to call him that and he didn’t want to make her uncomfortable if she didn’t. Walking over to take the book from her, he read over the spell and a smile formed on his face as he realized that this could work. “This is exactly what we needed to get him back, Y/N. You did good, kiddo, all we have to do is find out where in time he is and when Chronos might have his hands on him and we’ll have him back.”

Y/N couldn’t keep the smile off her face at knowing she’d found the key to getting Dean back. She still wasn’t sure how she felt about him, but she did want him back. Plopping back down on the bed, her smile quickly faded into a confused frown as she noticed something across the room. “Uh...Sam? Why is your name on that baseboard over there?”

Following his niece’s gaze across the room, Sam noticed what she was pointing out to him and went over to pry the baseboard off the wall. Pulling out a folded piece of paper, Sam grinned when he realized it was a letter from his brother, detailing what had happened to him after he had disappeared from an alleyway. “Okay...we’ve got the spell, we’ve got a date, now all we need is a time and I think I know where we can get that.”

In just a matter of a few short hours, they went from having nothing to having everything they would need to get Dean back. Sam and Jody had talked to someone who had been there with Dean and Chronos and found out exactly what time the two would be touching. All that was left was to bring the man home. Y/N stood and watched nervously as Jody and her uncle set up the spell. Though she wasn’t the most religious person growing up, ever since she had found out that things like angels were real she put a little more stock in religion and she sent up a little prayer that this would work. She watched as the paper burned and held her breath as she waited for something to happen.

As soon as the flame burned out on the paper, everything began to happen all at once. It was all over so quickly yet seemed to move in slow motion. Before she could register what was happening there was a huge gust of wind and a flash of light before Dean and a man she didn’t recognize appeared in front of them. Y/N stood frozen in place as she watched Dean collapse to the ground, Jody running to him as Sam took on who Y/N had to assume was the god they’d been looking for. As soon as the god was dead and Dean was standing up from the floor dusting himself off, Y/N launched herself at him and wrapped her arms tightly around him.

“Dean! I thought you were gone. I-I thought I lost you, too.”

Holding on tightly to his daughter, Dean looked over the top of her head and raised his eyebrows at his younger brother, who just shook his head and shrugged his shoulders. This was definitely a change from the girl he had seen last, the one who would barely talk to him let alone touch him. He wasn’t sure what caused the change in attitude and he was afraid to mention it , let alone question it, for fear that she would revert back to the person she’d been a few days ago. Kissing the top of her head softly, he held her tight as he ran his hand comfortingly along her back. “I’m right here, kiddo. Don’t you worry, you’re not getting rid of me that easily. You’re stuck with me and I’m not planning on going anywhere. I’m sure as hell not going to leave you ever again.”

Tags: @sammyisapuppy @casjohnson @trustnobodyshootfirst @wolfshifter4life @thatcrazybookwormgeek @greenmoony

[knightofbalance-13]

Too bad: Don’t want drama, don’t be a jackass. Same for everyone on the internet.

0:24 No no, there’s a ton of drama about hate being passed off as criticism. Actual critics of RWBY have gotten off scott free and the only ones being affected are you assholes who try to sell your snakeoil opinions as fact and critics who don’t want to be associated with you. And quite frankly: You deserve for the shit you spew.

0:34 Rant huh? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBUJ3RrkZhU) Not even a minute...and a good third of that was Miles giving people credit and leniancy. Your video is more of a rant than his, complete with whiny bitching and rambling.

0:46 No, Lord Fatass whined that he was getting called out. That isn’t a response anymore than...well, any response he makes to anyone who doesn’t agree with him.

0:55 Lord fatass has a Patreon and all he does is bullshit all the damn time about RWBY. Fuck, you even compare yourself to a cult leader in that screenshot. Cults are defined by being irrational and rabid with the leader encouraging such behavior. I don’t care what you say your relationship with RWBY is: Lord Fatass calls himself a fan. Your ACTIONS are what I care about you DEFINITELY act like a cult leader.

1:01 Not helping your case that you sound pissed about a video essentially saying ‘‘don’t hate on the creators.”

1:20 Oh, someone’s being disingenuous! Miles never discredited the fandom as a whole or even critics as a whole. He just said ‘I don’t like know it alls and haters.’ You just said that because if you told the truth, no one would listen to you.

1:26 Bull fucking shit. Critics are revered in fandoms and it’s usually the CREATORS that are given a bad name. A critic can shrug off criticism and ignore their own flaws and continue making the same mistake over and over again while if a creator so much as thinks about not gulping down shit, they’re seen as egotistical. You’re lying.

1:30 Lord Fatass literally lies about the show numerous times in his ‘reviews’ and you will outright lose your shit if someone doesn’t call Volumes 3-5 shit. Pretty safe to assume you hate RWBY.

1:34 Yes. And it is literally every single point I’ve figured out on my own just said worse mixed in with personal gripes trying to be passed off as criticism. It just feels like you looked up what other people said and parroted it back to disguise your bullshit as criticism.

1:48 Your Volume 5 review was you rambling about fight scenes. That’s it. You apparently have the patience of a goldfish. P.S. You are literally contradicting what you did in the video you linked because you flipped your shit at people who were saying they liked Volume 5. You’re only doing this to try and build credit.

2:04 So basically, let people be irredeemable assholes, making personal attacks on creators until said creators become so desensitized to criticism due to the abuse they suffered they stop trying to improve because you’re shit at your job and can’t handle being professional in any way. Here’s another saying: “Git Gud.”

2:08 Yes and let’s here about all those dirty commies and how ugly and nasty they are while we’re doing propaganda.

2:16 And flat earthers say that a round Earth doesn’t exist either. Doesn’t make it make it true!

2:25 But if you ordered a steak that was suppose to be undercooked or went to a place that only served undercooked steaks: You’re wrong for bitching about it. Hey look, I broke your lengthy analogy in it’s infancy in under two seconds. Should say something about your critical thinking skills.

2:29 yes but a media student would know WHY it sucked on an objective level while you just pass off subjective as fuck opinions are objective reasons why a show sucks. A chief would be able to know why something sucks anbd why it sucks for being that particular meal while a normal customer would bitch and moan because they ordered a dish and they didn’t like it. Also, this has nothing to do with constructive criticism and is just kind of out of place. Plus your analogy was kind of...short to be honest. You should have looked over your script before writing and thought about it. ... Hey look, I just CONSTRUCTIVELY criticized you. And all it took was NOT being a complete douchebag. Almost as though your skill in critiquing has next to nothing to do with constructive criticism and is instead about HOW you go about criticizing.

2:42 Cept this analogy doesn’t work either. PLENTY of people make calm, constructive reviews of the show, both positive and negative, explaining why the show does/doesn’t work. While the angry reviews basically boil down to ‘this Volume wasn’t made for ME.” So whose more right? The people who can explain why the dish does/doesn’t work as the type of dish it is or the people bitching about the type of dish it is or the flavor of the dish not being a flavor they like?

2:46 Cept they CHOOSE to waste their time and the show is FREE. You only pay to see it early, not to view the show. This is like bitching about mayo being on a sandwitch that was said to have mayo on it and the sandwitch was FREE. I broke that analogy by just looking at it funny.

2:50 Yeah and then they assault the chiefs, sending them hatemail and death threats, attempting to ruin their business through fake controversies, invoking the memory of the dead friend who made the recipe and general act as though they fed them PEOPLE. All while complain about how the dish was too sour when it was advertised as sour. You just keep getting worse and worse at this.

3:03 While the reviews say there were bugs in it (which there wasn’t), saying the dish gave people food poisoning (which it didn’t), the reviwers tried assaulting the chief for using a certain ingreident to the point he doesn’t want to cook and instead of the morning news, it was a recording of the chief just relieving stress with friends. Now you sound like a fucking sociopath.

3:09 I mean, Gordon Ramsey actually knows what eh is saying, in the British version of the show Gordon is a lot nicer and in turn is more well respected, Gordon actually tries to help and encourage the chiefs instead of belittling them and Gordon doesn’t try to force his way of cooking down their throats while attempting to make them quit cooking.

... Now YOU sound like one of those chiefs from Kitchen Nightmares.

3:18 No, you’re going to assault the chief and essentially harass him into becoming your slave. I do not care how pissed you are: You ‘critics’ of RWBY have used up all my sympathy for you. You have to now EARN it and boy oh howdy will it be a HERCULEAN task for that to happen.

3:26 And yet I can, despite not being an animator myself. Also, if you can’t tell what is wrong with a dish then why should the chief listen to you when you could just be a whiny bitch? Also also: Miles is a WRITER and by virtue of making a script for this video, you are a writer. You have no excuses.

And finally: that’s actually a rather adept analogy with Yelp. Because yelp is FULL of people who will us either status as ‘critics’ to harass and bully restaurants into doing what they want. You wanna know what you are? You’re Cartman from the episode “You’re not Yelping!” And we all know how THAT ended (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDlR_ccnZww)/ Fuck, I’ll make a RWDE version after this.

3:35 funny because that isn’t what constructive criticism is because it’s more akin to ‘this is how you should do this for these reasons’ and what he described is what YOU people do.

3:39 ... But you can help them. You’re just too lazy.

3:51 But you guys DON’T and in fact when people bring evidence of YOUR fuck ups, you’ll whine and moan and ignore it. See, that’s the biggest irony here. Miles is essentially being YOUR critic and you are acting EXACTLY as you perceive him to be. It’s like if a student came to teacher for help and all the teacher did was scream in his face and slap him.

4:03 But you will call the steak shit by saying it was cooked exactly as advertised and you didn’t want that despite nit letting them know otherwise. Also the steak was free.

4:08 And I can say you’re full of shit. Doesn’t make either one of us right. Except i can say WHY you’re full of shit and you can’t explain jackshit.

4:19 No but they’d give it a fair chance and move on if they don’t like it for personal reasons. Now forcing your opinion onto everyone else: THAT’S a hater move.

4:21 No you’re not. Your actions say otherwise.

4:28 You’re not the audience. You’ve made that abundantly clear. You’re like a chicken fan bitching about how a steak doesn’t taste like chicken.

4:37 Name one person and no, Shane doesn’t count. And even then, Shane even admits he was probably being biased.

4:42 Well, when you blow things out of proportion to ATTACK Miles, that would be the case...except if anything, they’re toning it down.

4:54 That’s fucking rich. Not only was Miles NOT talking about critics in general but HE was defending himself from YOU PEOPLE. And he’s ONE person when you’re fucking DOZENS.

5:06 And Miles shouldn’t have to grovel and beg for forgiveness. This is just your shit coming back at you. I do not care.

5:13 Cept that;s your JOB as a critic. Don't wanna do it? Stop calling yourself a critic.

5:22 yet here you are, fearmongering that Miles is gonna annihilate your poor defenseless critics in an age where critics are treated as infallible gods.

5:32 ... So you’re basically affirming what Miles said, that you don’t know what you are talking about. ... You just beat yourself.

5:43 Says the man who says ‘the customer is always right’ unironically.

5:51 ... Miles outright hates working on RWBY because of you. He is scared shitless of what people will do to him if Jaune gets any scenes. A Camp Camp blog got mistaken for Miles and was harassed to the point of leaving because of it. I’ve seen Miles’ life being threatened on this very site. ... Fuck you.

6:11 Yet when that happens for hating on RWBY and making Miles’ life a living hell, it’s A-Okay! ... You’re just fucking salty people aren’t listening to your shit and calling you out.

6:21 This is gonna be GOOD.

6:25 Cept he is in the UK and actually reviews food instead of screaming. Hell, even in kitchen nightmares he doesn’t insult anyone. That’s just Hell’s Kitchen, which is basically cooking Jerry Springer. Congratsm you're Jerry Springer.

6:36 Cept you gave the hatedom every fucking excuse to hate on Miles and make his life hell while parroting their points while also categorizing anyone who disagrees with you a fanboy.

6:52 ‘I’m not calling you out! ... But here's me calling you out indirectly like a pussy!’

6:57 And guess what? Most of RT’s fans have heard ENOUGH of YOU. And unlike YOU, they have an actual reason while you just wanna protect your ego.

My final thoughts? I don’t care how tired you are of it, you fucking deserve every last bit of this. You wanna be a total jackass? FIne, you can get hate for it Wanna be a hypocrite? Get hate for it. Wanna encourage harassment and hatred? Get fucking hate for it.

I do not care. You have lost ALL sympathy from me.

[whodoesntloveagoodscandal]

I haven’t had much to say about this season of Scandal because frankly it’s been a little too all over the place for my taste. However, last night with the re-emergence of Olitz we were finally back in familiar territory. Granted, it was toxic, nauseating, ‘why are we here again?’ territory but it was familiar nonetheless.

I will admit that even though I hate Olitz with the heat of the burning sun that Olivia and Jake want to stand in I could always (begrudgingly) admit they had chemistry and spark. Compatibility? No. The ability to make each other happy? No. The willingness to put the other before everyone else? Well, one of them was willing but the other (*looks at Liv*) not so much. But I digress...

The point is no matter what I could always feel the the chemistry...until last night. I watched the episode the first time around and there was something off about it but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. So I watched it again today to see if I could figure out what it was (besides the obvious) that was bothering me and finally it clicked. And since it clicked I have a question to ask, are we going to talk about how Olivia played Fitz like a drum...or nah?

That’s what felt off about the whole thing. She played them, she played them ALL, but no one more than Fitz.

First of all she tells Mellie that she has to cede the election. Her reasoning was sound, to an extent, but at the same time she was talking to Mellie freakin’ Grant. In what world would Mellie willingly lay down and concede her opportunity to Cyrus?!?! The talk Liv gave Mellie about being an inherently good person and too noble to ‘win’ the White House this way was nice, it was moving, it was inspiring...it was also bullshit. But it’s bullshit that puts Liv in a good light and it forces Mellie to follow suit. Which she won’t...and Olivia knows that. So later in the episode she gets to be righteously indignant when Mellie flips the script and does exactly what everybody knew she was always going to do, which was fight for the Oval. 

After Cyrus is freed Liv goes to Fitz to report to him that Mellie is devastated but with time she'll be okay. Fitz being Fitz isn't the least bit concerned about Mellie or what she's going through, in fact, the only thing he's worried about is pulling Olivia into an awkwardly long hug. She drops the seeds tells him, "I wanted this...I needed this..." to which he responds, 'You deserve this." And with that she lets go of him and walks away without looking back. 

Olivia continues  with the "Smack it, Flip it, Manipulate it" tour with the next stop being Cyrus' hotel room. The second the door opens she becomes Olivia Pope, Fixer and she's shoving a suit at Cyrus to wear in order for him to look presentable. He declines reminding her that he's been eating prison food and therefore had lost a substantial amount of weight. He goes on further to tell her the whole reason he's in the shape he's in now is because she walked away from him and left him for dead and he has no interest in being another problem she gets to fix. They precede to play tug of war with the door until finally he snaps and she lets go. Cyrus is beyond done and he declares that it's over but Liv being Liv assures him that 'IT' is far from over and just needs to let her   exp--

I'm sure there was more but sadly we'll never know because he slammed the door in her face at that point which stopped her tirade. Thank God. 

Soon after hitting that brick wall Olivia is then summoned to the Smithsonian to go visit her Daddy, his bones, and his little strategic blue boxes.  Eli per usual is trying his best to keep Olivia in the land of the living but she has got her stubborn mind set on 'winning' a battle that she decided it was hers to fight. She doesn't really know these people, doesn't really know what they're about, doesn't really know what they're capable of and doesn't really know the lengths they'll go to get what they want. But yeah...she's totally prepared to win this war. Apparently because she was able to dismantle B6-13, which was run by either her father or by the man that loves her, she thinks dismantling whatever the hell Killer Barbie and Mr. Robot (are we sure that man is even human?) are running is going to be a piece of cake. Who wants to tell her? 

Back at the office Olivia uses Frankie's widow to paint Cyrus as a poor, misunderstood man wrongfully accused of (that) murder who deserves to be given a chance by the American people Electors to run this fair nation. Mellie (so Olivia thinks) sees Frankie's widow and raises her  Cyrus' prostitute nanny husband who admits to the world that while he doesn't think Cyrus murdered Vargas he still cried himself to sleep at night  because Cyrus was such a horrible, horrible person. 

Olivia is infuriated and so her, being the pot, decides to call Mellie--the kettle--black. Shame on Mellie for using Frankie's grieving widow in an effort to manipulate the voters to...oh wait, that wasn't Mellie. And neither was the Cyrus thing apparently which Mellie is quick to let her know, right before hanging up in her face. 

Back at the White House, Fitz is doing what he does best which is trash Mellie for doing the same exact shit that he does on a daily basis but thinks he should get away with. Olivia is quick to defend Mellie and say that she's heard a Mellie lie and that wasn't one, it was someone else. This is where things started to get weird or rather, blatantly weird. When Fitz demanded to know who the other person was Olivia took a giant step forward and got all in his space. In that exact moment you could literally see about 25% of his brain just stop working as it usually does in those situations. She begins to tell him about seeing her father yesterday and she tells Fitz, "he told me to stop, he said if I didn't they would kill him." Which is partially true. He also told her they'd kill her if she got Cyrus elected but I guess she didn't hear that part.

So, of course, Fitz flips his lid and is ready to throw Eli under the jail because he's guilty (which he is) but Olivia found time to climb off her high horse long enough to plead her father's case because he was "weak, old, and imprisoned." Cyrus was also weak, old and (literally) imprisoned but she had no problem chucking the deuces to him at the prison and leaving him to rot. But again, I digress...

Olivia then does what she does best and starts manipulating the hell out of Fitz. She threw his words back in his face about how they all did terrible things and since she forgave Abby he should DEFINITELY forgive the man that had his son murdered. It's clearly the same thing. Since that wasn't enough Olivia then started to twist the knife a little further by reminding  him that they were the ones that put an innocent-ish man in prison for a crime that he did not commit and they were going to leave him there to suffer and die. So they had to fix Cyrus. And by they she meant Fitz, and since he's such a good little wind-up doll he did exactly what she wanted and before long he had Cryus on stage speaking and looking oh so fresh and so clean. Meanwhile as Abby and Olivia smile at each other smugly, Eli is at the Smithsonian making his peace with the fact that they're all screwed. 

At Mellie's office she's called into a meeting with Lizzy Bear, Killer Barbie and Mr. Robot. Mellie quickly figures out that Liz has gotten in involved with the lowest scum of the world--AGAIN--and she's not having it. She orders them out of her office and they all look at her like, "umm...and who are YOU, supposed to be?" Needless to say, no one left the office. Mr. Robot went on recount the story of the Trojan horse and told Mellie in no uncertain terms that while she had the position of power it was all a ruse because she wouldn't actually have any power. So basically she would be exactly like Fitz only she wouldn't be afforded the same illusion of believing she had any type of power like he did. Despite hearing this Mellie was still talking a good game...right up until Killer Barbie used Liz North's head as a golf ball and tried to hit a hole in one with it. After that (and having her children threatened) Mellie had no more to say to Mr. Robert and Killer Barbie but yes, she understood. 

Back at the revolving door that leads to Fitz's bedroom the FBI Director/Presidential girlfriend, Angela marches in and gives Fitz a manila folder and all but spits out at him that she was giving him a head's up that she had a warrant to arrest Olivia. When Fitz wants to know on what grounds she tells him that her team 'uncovered' evidence that Olivia paid Tom to kill Frankie. Hmmm, if i remember correctly one of the last people with that evidence was Olivia, how lucky of the FBI to just stumble across that. 

So, as women so often have to do on this show, Angela was forced to tell Fitz's crooked ass about himself. She had hard evidence connecting Olivia to the person that was accused of killing the President-elect but Fitz decides it time to accuse her of going after Olivia on a personal level and not because of truth and justice. So, in FItz's mind he's such a catch that not only would Olivia still be pining over him but Angela would be risking her hard earned career falsifying evidence just to get the 'competition' out of the way. I think I'm just going to add this scene to my, 'The Reasons I Don't Fuck with Fitzgerald Grant" list. 

Back at Mellie's office Olivia walks in to find Mellie covered in blood and still as a statue with a dead Liz North at her feet. Mellie begins to explain what happened and once she got to the part where she would be the President because they made sure it happened by buying/bribing/threatening the electorates Olivia is in la-la land and still dreaming up ways to stop Killer Barbie and Mr. Robot. Liz's BRAINS are quite literally right next to her Jimmy Choo's and Olivia is talking about going public through proper channels. WTF?? That stupidity was enough to knock Mellie out of her trance and she told Olivia point blank that they will kill her if she doesn't stop. And once again Olivia gets this dumb, confused look on her face like she doesn't know what the word "kill" means in relation to herself.  As Mellie begins to work herself up into an epic panic attack Olivia tells her she has to go. Poor Mellie is traumatized beyond belief and Liv just...leaves. Luckily for Mellie, Olivia left her right hand man behind with her and he's the best man for the job. He's the one that Olivia trusts to get the job done when she can't. 

So, Liv goes back to the White House and while there Fitz tells her that Angela is going to arrest her and inexplicably she's a-ok with that. It's the perfect idea. If she, Mellie's campaign manager, gets arrested for paying off Tom to kill Frankie and framing Cyrus for that then that means the fallout from that scandal will be enough to knock Mellie out of contention completely. They win and they beat the two scary murderers at their own game. Seriously, the plan is flawless, what could possibly go wrong? *RME*

Of course Fitz is not okay with that and in no uncertain terms that he isn't going to allow her to take the fall for her guilty father. The FBI needs a head on a spike and that head is going to be Eli's not hers. Olivia is quick to remind Fitz, as she stomps towards the door, that he should know by now that she doesn't need or want his permission. He stops her by yelling across the room that if she takes the fall for her Father and goes to jail for the rest of her life then he would lose her, forever. I wasn't aware he still had her, but whatever...

He goes on to say that her father is guilty but she's not trying to hear all that and she tells him that her father is old and feeble and some other lies and that if he's put in prison then they will kill him and if THAT happens then he'll lose her anyway. So basically it's a lose/lose situation for Fitz. Or so she lets him think. 

Back at Cyrus hotel Liv is drinking all his liquor as she spells out her plan to fall on her sword, drag Mellie down with her, and save the day! (Seriously, the plan gets dumber every time I hear it) and she informs Cyrus that soon he will be the rightful and deserved President. He made the ultimate sacrifice (when?) and now it's only right that she do the same.

 At the White House, Angela all but kicks the door to the Oval office in and she barrels down on Fitz. She's been told that not only is Olivia no longer going to be arrested but she's been yanked off of the case and it's been given to someone else. Fitz's response is that he did that in lieu of sending her to the field office in Omaha as if he did her a favor, and to add insult to injury he said if that didn't work for her he would always accept her resignation.

Side note:  Ladies, this is why you don't mess around with fuck boys and ain't shit men. They will ruin your life every time

So, Fitz admonishes Angela for making it personal as if he wasn't the same person that enjoyed torturing Jake, not because he killed his son, but because he had been with Olivia. Or as if he wasn't the same guy that took personal pleasure in revealing intimate, sexual details about Olivia to her FATHER in an effort to get a rise out of him. That guy is the one that wants to sit on his high horse now with a woman that was actually doing her damn job. Ugh, one more thing to add to the 'Fitz Ain't Shit' list. 

So finally, the results are in and Mellie wins. It's a sad moment though because she's sitting all alone drinking hooch with remnants of Liz's blood still on her face. And Cyrus is with Abbie who's power-hungry ass is a large part of the reason he was put through the hell that he was. All in all it was a tragic sight. Back at the White House after finding out that Fitz did exactly what she wanted him to do told him not to do she all but runs in to berate him for daring to go against her. And she tells him, "And for some reason you find it very hard to believe that if I have to choose between him and you, YOU will lose" 

Why does it feel like she's not referring to her father...? 

So, anyway Fitz in all his smug glory asks her if she's done yelling and then precedes to turn on a TV and show her Eli sitting in the oval office and he says,

"You saw your father taken into custody, MY custody. He's safe Liv, and now you and I can focus on taking down Peus, together." 

She then goes to sit by his side like a Stepford Wife (getting back in the routine, I guess?) and she stares at him with tears in her eyes. I didn't feel any overwhelming love or excitement or anticipation or chemistry. It just felt forced? Disconnected? Awkward? Unwanted? Fueled by guilt? All the above? Whatever the case may be it didn't feel natural or genuine. 

I think for me the reason the kiss and the coupling that followed seem unnatural is because I'm about 99.9% sure Olivia played and manipulated the hell out of Fitz. Power-hungry Liv didn't just disappear overnight. Sure, Frankie's assassination rocked them all and it may have caused that need she had for power to dampen a little but it didn't extinguish it. So that Liv is still there just waiting for the ultimate power grab, and I think she just found it. 

This episode was called 'Trojan Horse' and in Greek mythology the Greeks constructed a huge horse as a parting 'gift' for Troy after a 10 year siege that went nowhere. A few Greeks hid in the horse while the rest pretended to sail away. The Trojans being smug and high on their victory brought the horse into their city, which they had managed to keep protected for years, as a trophy to show off. In the middle of the night the Greeks got out of the horse, opened the gates for their fellow soldiers and preceded to destroy the city.

So the Trojan Horse in the episode wasn't Mellie (at least not yet) it was Eli. So that begs the question, is Olivia the Greek? Did she set all this up knowing that Fitz would fall for it hook, line, and sinker? Did she do this knowing that all she had to do was float the idea of him and her being back together and it would be all it took for him to move heaven and earth to make sure she was available to him? Is the reason that scene between them was so awkward because it was driven by guilt more than anything else?

[macabrecabra]

Sombra and D.Va meeting online after the hate mail incident, and D.Va having no clue that Sombra's with Talon, but it doesn't really matter because the two talk about tech and gaming, and D.Va just smiles really widely and Sombra thinks she just fell for her.

I can give a little something surec:Title: Digital CrushRating: PG

Relationship: Budding Sombra/D.Va

There were a lot of people on theinternet who had shit personalities. That was just the long and shortof it all. People vague posted insults and acted like they were aboveothers, tried to hide how awful they were behind prettyblogs,banners, and pretty words, and overall just being insulting one way or another. That was just a truth of the internet.

D.Va though, she was a rare gem. Shewas blunt and honest, always telling it how it was and wearing herheart on her sleeves. Even when she was at her worse, cussing outopponents in a game, there was still that genuine spark that remainedburning bright. D.Va had a confidence that could not be contained andcould not be dimmed it seemed and with every push forward, every bossovercome, she just showed more of that elegance that had Sombrawatching her stream after stream.

It honestly surprised Sombra that shecould have haters. Such a concept seemed strange given that D.Vadidn't do anything offensive and actually did police her humor andthe like. She didn't isolate groups but always made her stancequietly understood and at times even made an effort to open a bit ofdiscourse with her teammates, all of it handled honestly better thanmost older supposed adults would. She never put anyone else down touplift her opinion, never resorted to petty insults, and even towardsher haters and perhaps comments meant to incite, she bore them with astoicism that made her seem untouchable.

That trait alone, that confidence, musthave been what drew all the horrid wretches of the internet out to tryand rip her down, trying to twist her words and drag her totheir level of self-pity and contempt.

Sombra had taken things into her ownhands to start dealing with all of that. Usually such individualswere ignored. They weren't worth the time to acknowledge. Feeding theunderbelly scum of the internet tended to just validate their horridattitudes, which in turn had others think to act like them, which inturn perpetuated the cesspool that was the internet.

Like hell though was Sombra going tolet someone as bright and good as D.Va be another victim of thatcesspool!

Those haters were taken down one byone, and given their dues. Their accounts were locked, content deleted,and the promise of obscurity implanted onto hard drives to wash awayall that they had done in the most extreme cases of haters found.Some of them were awful to a lot of people and deserved every second.In a way, Sombra had felt like an internet hero, the dark knightwhich hacked in the night.  Maybe more an anti-hero given that afterher internet troll cullings she was right back to doing Talon's dirtywork.

Sombra hadn't realized that herdealing with haters and filtering out hatemail combined with hersmall encouraging e-mail to D.Va would actually earn a chance to meetthe internet gamer idol. It seemed a strange dream come true, hardlybelievable and even sitting there now in the cafe with a milk teawarm between her hands and said internet idol sitting before hersipping on a some sort of lemonade, Sombra could scarcely believethis was true.

“You know, you are exactly how Iimagined my internet hater protector to look like,” D.Va said atlength, grinning a bit, “All cyberpunk techno,”

“Heh, really? Most people's firstresponse is that I'm not a chico,” Sombra commented with a slightsmile of her own.D.Va snorted, “I like it better you aren'tsome guy. Heh, my one friend said you would turn up wearing a fedoraand greeting me as milady!”

That earned a laugh from Sombra whogave a shake of her head, “What? The day I wear a fedora is the daymy co-workers finally leave their goth phase,”

“Goth phase?” D.Va asked with anamused grin.“Oh yes. All black and purple and red, allsuper edgy like they can't be touched emotionally,” Sombra let outa chuckle, “Even when off work they dress like they are about to gohang out behind bleachers, smoke cigarettes, and complain about thepain of life,”

“Man, that sounds like it could be apain to work with at times. I bet they don't got a single ounce ofhumor,” D.Va said before taking a long slurp of her drink.Sombralaughed, “You don't know the half of it. Once hacked a door toclose in front of one of em and you thought I had shot him orsomething. So angry! But enough about my co-workers, how about you?Any new games on the horizon?”

“A few yeah. Avoiding big companygames though. A few of the latest releases have been so buggy that it makes playing them almost impossible,” D.Va shook her headsolemnly, “I'll never forgive what they did to Star Voyagers. Youcan practically feel the writer going 'like these characters! Theyare hip and cool' half the time. It had so much promise and hype!”

“There is no such game as StarVoyagers. We do not speak of that,” Sombra said quickly, “Such agame cannot be spoken of or you shall be cursed with shittycharacters in all the games you doth play,”

D.Va shuddered, “Don't even jokeabout that!  I may like good gameplay but if it has a good story too,sign me the fuck up six times over.  Black Nights of Aidal was good.Loved it even if it did break my heart ten times over,”Sombranodded, grinning, “That game was a work of art! Difficult but god,the lore and characters! That boss fight against that dick sorcererwho went mad and his artificial dragon was epic. Remember? Thatknight sweet heart character, Kelniaus right? He jumps in to fightthe dragon while you take on the boss and the whole battle he'scrashing in and apologizing as he's trying to slay a dragon?”D.Vasighed, putting a hand to her heart, “Kelniaus is my gay knightprincess and I love and support him and what happened to him in theend,” she let out a sigh, “I was in tears and whispering prayersto the gaming gods to make it happier,”“Black Nights ofAidal? Happy? You speak nonsense! They crush our feels and give usonly a glimmer of hope the sequel will give us more joy,” Sombrasat back with a smile, “Hopefully the sequel turns out allright,”“Hopefully! They got the same lead designer atleast to write the story,” D.Va glanced up smiling, “This isactually really nice, you know? Just talking like this. I don't getto do this all that often. Always work or streaming or both,”

“Yeah, it is nice,” Sombra agreed,looking into her tea with a smile, “Really nice,”It wasnice to forget work and who she was and just be with someone on apersonal level, just to talk about small things like games and thelike.

It was really nice and D.Va herselfspoke about all of it with such passion.... Sombra couldn't fightthat little glow of warmth in her chest knowing that in that moment,she may have honestly just fell for D.Va.

Sometimes a digital crush could lead tofinding someone that completed you entirely.

[lorainelaneyblog]

I am God and I have this to say about Loraine Laney’s despondency, it is very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, difficult to be despondent. It is not depression, as depression involves crying, while despondency involves a lot of boredom. Loraine Laney is sooooo bored that she can hardly even think straight. And even she does not know what to do about it. She has been bored for so many years, yes, even when she was with people, that she can hardly even think straight anymore, and I am God, and I say this is so.

Loraine Laney, says God, is a bona fide gang bang girl, even though, with her ugly, and it is ugly, Loraine, nose, she has no hope in hell of ever finding a normal relationship, she has even less chance of finding what she really needs, a true gang bang. Gang bangs are not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, not, of course you can rent a big house with your friends, right, Loraine? And ask a nice gang bang girl to move in with you, couldn’t you? It seems plausible, doesn’t it?

‘It’s illegal, of course. Polygamy.’

Yes, Loraine, it is illegal, it is, but, do you really think the police are going to start prosecuting the polygamous center, the woman, if they go, interview her, and she is fine, and says she wishes to stay with her erstwhile “family.”

‘Why is it erstwhile?’

Funny, Loraine. It isn’t necessarily erstwhile, I’m teasing you. If it got to that point with a girl, maybe the men were sincere, right?

‘Maybe. Or not.’

Exactly, and people cannot, cannot, cannot, cannot, cannot, cannot, condone it, because it feels like exploitation of a woman, and that, even--are you bored, Loraine?

‘Yes, God. Though I’m always interested in what you're going to say. I just, my life feels empty in other ways. And all these efforts go unrewarded.’

Yes, Loraine, that is true, and everything you said can be true, it’s true, you can be fulfilled in one way, and bored in others. When you licked a toilet, and, believe you me, women do lick toilets, for masturbation, they do, you’re not the only person who did that, and it stopped once you met [ ], that’s why, you were more fulfilled, and, thus, less weird.

‘Thank you, God.’

Funny, Loraine.

This is what it is, Loraine, I have to set up some people before you and Fifty because they deserve it, and that is why, and this gang bang family thing, you know what I’m going to say, don’t you?

‘May I, God?’

Yes, Loraine.

‘Are the gang bang boys coveting the gang bang girls instead of taking them to the number one?’

That is what’s happening, that is what is happening with your dealer, Loraine, and everyone knows it. And this is how he will react to that, he will not be mad that you wrote about him, but he might be mad at your opinion, Loraine, and you could, could, could, could, could, could, lose him, you could.

‘Oh Lord. I’m less worried about the drugs than I am about hurting him, God.’

I know, Loraine, I know. And this is what I have to say about that. That girl will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, will, fall irrevocably in love with [ ], she will, she already has, and yes, she is doing some dirty things with him, yes, she is, Loraine, don’t be jealous, Loraine, I have you set up like no tomorrow, Loraine.

‘Oh, my drug dealer is one of the lucky ones?’

You’re funny, Loraine, he is an example, and some read, a bit, and it will get back to him, what he has been doing with her, and he will be, rightly, angry with you, and you hope he forgives you, but this is the work we are doing, Loraine, and you always follow me exactly, and that is, precisely why you’re doing so many drugs, precisely why, because, when you have money, Patrick says to buy drugs and you do, well done, Loraine, and yes, they do, at ODSP realize that girls cheat, the ones, especially, who have drugs habits, Loraine, and they don’t, don’t, don’t, don’t, chase them down, yet, because it’s too hard to fix an amount on what they might have earned, they may end up over penalizing them, and they would, would, would, would, would, would, would, regret that, they would, Loraine, because, because, because, because, because, because, this is God, speaking through my messiah, Loraine Laney, my new messiah, that is, because she is next to Jesus in suffering. 

Loraine Laney has been beaten and abused, by her mother, she has been told, pimped by her erstwhile father, and left to die by all the police in Vancouver, and she almost did die from chemical overexposure, she almost did, she got to that townhouse, and came up, she came up, she came up, she came up, she came up, she came up, and this is God, and I am here to tell you that David Suzuki himself did Loraine Laney’s shit cleanse. She was so full of shit from her mother’s waste, that the police knew enough to take a DNA sample from the shit can, which, again, following orders to the letter, I made her use, the washtub at her rental property, which, then, her poor, put upon, and he is put upon by their parents, who think the world revolves around him, and who think that he should serve them bodily while they visit, while most parents see it as their due to help their children, they sit around, waiting for meals, and doing nothing. Loraine knows this first hand, herself, but has precious little experience of it, lucky her, she has never had a house, and an extra room for the in laws, lucky her.

I am God, and I would like to say that Loraine Laney is not doing that well right now. She is constantly watching her bank account and spending every dime on that shitty Hell’s Angels crack. She is worried about the cops and her dealer all the time, all the time, so, when he is coming, she’s worried that he’s been arrested, because of her, so, anytime, he could decide not, not, not, not, not, not, not, to deal with you anymore.

‘They know me, Loraine, they know us so fast, it’s not, even, funny, so, worry not. I knew what I was getting into, because my friends were not only laughing about me with the old hooker, when I said your age, that is, but they told me the old hooker was famous too, so I knew, so don’t worry. I have wondered, did you think to tell me earlier?’

‘No.’

‘Really?’

‘Nope.’

‘Why?’

‘When I realized I could *69, I was sooo happy, I didn’t even think of it.’

‘So no one called while you were deducing this.’

‘No.’

‘How long did it take? Oh, yeah, I was there, about forty minutes, I would say, that was, fucken, lucky, for me too, because that boy we sent in, he was game alright, because he loves old hookers too, but he had been the beneficiary of many’s the dinner out, Loraine, and we talk about how we feel bad that you’re home doing sex and nothing but drugs, alone, we do, and we think it’s pathetic and sad, but nobody wants to help you, do they?’

‘Tell him that, Loraine.’

‘A young black guy, small, with a big dick would not ease up, because he saw the picture of 50 Cent on my computer and thought that, according to 50 Cent on the ether, I “wanted to be fucked hard by a big, black man."’

‘Oh, nice. Weird. And everyone gets weird? I’m bored. I’m bored. I’m gonna let you go. Be kind.’

She will, [ ], do everything I say, everything I say, and it might not be smart and it might not be kind, so that’s that,’ says God to [ ].

‘Okay, God. I get ya.’

Thank you, [ ].

Okay, Loraine, so this is what I’m going to deal with next, the deal with Dean of the Hell’s Angels in Mexico for cocaine, Loraine. And this is what is happening with that, Loraine, nothing, obviously, as long as you have no money, but, if you should happen to see some money from this government for your near death torture by the police, specifically, and the Agent Orange almost killed you too, and they did, for anyone, nothing, but you survived, well done.

‘Thank you, God.

I want this written down. I’m God, and I want Loraine Laney to know that I want her to invest three million of the erstwhile funds from the government with the Hell’s Angels, Loraine.

‘I see, God, yes, God.’

You are saying “yes,” and I want, want, want, want, want, want, want, want, want this to get back to Dean, Loraine, because, one day, you may see him on your door step, you may, I’m serious. 

And, Loraine Laney believes in nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, and that is what people call banal these days, cynicism like no tomorrow, and that is called banal these days.

‘I don’t know what to say.’

This is what I’m saying to you, that you are the center of Ottawa right now, and nobody either cares about you or is interested in you, in the slightest, wouldn’t you say?

‘Yes, I would, God.’

So this is what it is, Loraine Laney, 50 Cent loves you, and nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody, thinks otherwise, and that is why there is no sympathy coming from any quarter, Loraine, they think that you are well taken care of, but you’re not, Loraine, you’re nothing to anyone, rest assured, and, if you think your dad will buy you a TV table, for the TV that he bought you, think again, Loraine, think again, Loraine, he knows that you are doing crack, erstwhile, again, from your mother, directly, she phoned him right away about your erstwhile “confession.” And he didn’t care, and he wasn’t surprised, he was just happy that it wasn’t heroin, Loraine, because he realizes, from the news, that fentanyl is in heroin, not crack. Don’t make the mistake that his fears involve losing you, he does, not, care, if you die, he doesn’t, Loraine, he doesn’t, Loraine, he doesn’t, Loraine, he doesn’t, Loraine, he’d actually rather that you die than see you suffer anymore, kidding, Loraine, kidding, Loraine, he doesn’t care about you, or about anything to do with you, he doesn’t. He just likes to travel a bit, and it makes sense to look good to the neighbours, and that is how your father, and stepmother feel about you, Loraine Laney.

‘Really? That’s crazy.’

Yes, really, says God, yes, really, says God, yes, really, says God. Let’s talk about him for a moment. Within about ten seconds, he likes drugs too, he realized he’s made a mistake inviting you to come to Toronto at all, let alone to live with him, Loraine.

‘[ ]?’

‘Oh. No, a former cadet.’

‘One of yours?’

‘He wasn’t one of my green stars, were you?’

‘No, very close to her in rank and age. I just liked her.’

‘Many did, in that unit.’

‘So what? I needed a woman, and it seemed like a good idea for a moment, but, when she said there was police involvement, I should have balked, and forgot to.’

‘Right, Loraine, you’re the modern day untouchable. Well, done. Oh, you’re bored.’

‘I guess.’

‘She’s tired.’

She’s not tired, says God, she slept for hours last night, and napped a bit, she’s never that tired, she’s just sick, 50 Cent.

‘Oh, poor, poor, little, my baby.’

I’m God and poor, poor, poor, Loraine, is soooo fucking bored she can hardly even think straight anymore. And she is old, and she knows it, and nothing looks good for the future, not money, not love, not even family, and she doesn’t, doesn’t, doesn't, doesn’t, doesn’t, doesn’t, doesn’t, doesn’t, doesn’t--

‘Don’t forsake me.’

--doesn’t, doesn’t--

‘I won’t, Loraine. I, too, follow God’s instructions to the letter. He couldn’t work with you, is why you’ve done badly.’

You don’t know that, 50 Cent, she’s more, more, more, vastly more, abused than you, she should have a reasonable brain cell count but she doesn’t, she should have an able body, but she doesn’t, she should have some family, as you do, but she doesn’t, she should have someone to love, as you do, but she doesn’t. So, please--

‘I’m sorry, God.’

Let me finish. Please don’t comfort Loraine with false truths. If she had had any help from any quarter, instead of just detractors and bullshitters, she might have had a fighting chance, but she doesn’t, 50 Cent, she doesn’t, 50 Cent, she doesn’t, 50 Cent, she doesn’t. Let’s deal with that for a moment.

‘She wants my money.’

She wants your love.

‘Oh, fuck her. All my money is going to [ ], Loraine, he’s my son, and to [ ], my other son.’

‘She says, “My money,” all the time,’ says [ ] [ ]. ‘And it’s upsetting for me, because I worked too, and worked alongside her, you’ve seen me, in the kitchen, up all the time, not like her father, you know that.’

‘I know that. Sorry.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes, really. You never sit down.’

‘For five minutes.’

‘Not even.’

‘That’s true. I always have a chore, and that is why I get annoyed about “my money.” I want to give some to you and Brian, but she doesn’t. She doesn’t love anyone, Loraine, no one, just the family, and that’s it.’

‘I see.’

‘Why does she want my love?’

She just does. And she never gets it, never. [ ] [ ] is cold, Loraine, she has worked her fingers to the bone, and, when she saw that particular phrase, she knew it applied to herself, she knew, and she cried over it, that phrase.

‘Shitty.’

‘You haven’t?’

‘No.’

‘Why? You didn’t want to.’

There was no one to work for, says God. She had only herself to take care of and that’s all she did, nothing more, and that’s that.

‘What about her future, her retirement?’

Loraine doesn’t care about retirement, it’s just more boredom for her.

‘She’ll work? Where? Tim Horton’s?’

She’ll collect for the rest of her days, I expect, says God.

‘What if she cheats, she is cheating, and gets caught? She will, if she writes about it, they can’t ignore her writing about it like this, they can’t, Loraine, they’ll throw you off it, and you’ll lose everything, housing too.’

Unlikely, [ ], says God, they can’t let an old prostitute roam the streets after the shit she’s been through and they recognize this, they do.

‘Why does she think I should give her my money?’

She doesn’t.

‘Oh, I see. I don’t believe it.’

Why do you think she should give her money to [ ]? asks God

‘Because her mother ruined [ ]’s face, and it’s obvious, it’s practically a copy cat crime, it’s so obvious.’

Why is that her fault?

‘It’s not, but she could help.’

You could help, and you don’t.

‘I don’t want to. I don’t want to tell [ ] there is anything wrong with her, I don’t. Her [ ], her [ ], I mean, believes someone did it, we’ve talked in real, Loraine. And she has heard of such things and can’t make sense of what happened to her pretty nose, and she assumes it’s abuse, as do I, and we both think that Loraine’s mother did it, because she looks almost exactly like Loraine before her nose job, and there is no genetic connection, is there, Loraine?’

Now she is being ridiculous, see that, Loraine, implying that you must have impregnated her daughter in law? Ridiculous. And that is how people are with Loraine, and were with Jesus, they lose, they’re fucken, minds, minds, Loraine. And that’s what’s happening here. This is what I think you should do with the money, should it ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, come your way, Loraine. Give it to 50 Cent to invest as he desires, and leave out everyone, even your own parents, and give some to your brother, so he leaves the military, and leave it at that, Loraine, leave it at that, Loraine, leave it at that, Loraine.

‘I see, God.’

But you don’t obey.

‘I will obey, God.’

You will? Under duress?

‘She’s greedy,’ says [ ]. ‘What does she care?’

She actually does care a bit, not much, to be sure, but a bit. Every last one of her, again, erstwhile friends, sold her down, down, down, down, down, down, down, right down, the river, [ ], right down, and you did too, so stop whining for money.

‘Okay, God. She deserves it though. Because her mother was nice. And she’s dissing her.’

Was nice? She’s not still nice?

‘I don’t like her anymore.’

Case in point, [ ], says God.

‘Oh, fuck off. She lied to Loraine about her sexual experience and I didn’t think much of that, Loraine.’

But you didn’t mind finding out for yourself what a crazy, judgmental, bitch she was. You didn’t, [ ], you went out of your way, out, of, her, way, Loraine, to contact your mother on many’s the occasion, many’s the occasion, [ ] didn’t, but she did, did, did--

‘I did, Loraine. That day we ran into each other, I agreed that you were acting delusional, even though I believed you about 50 Cent, and about the ‘Lo’ing.’

‘Oh.’

She did, Loraine, and this is after [ ] investigated the ‘Lo’ ing and knew firsthand, for herself, that it was true, and nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody, nobody, not your best friends forever, Loraine, not even [ ], stood by you, and you know that, he stopped inviting you to parties because, explicitly because, and this is a quote, Loraine, ‘She’s too poor to bring as much wine as she is drinking, and it bugs me,’ which wasn’t, even, true, she would drink about two thirds of a bottle, and bring weed for everyone besides, for, every, one, lots of it, for tokes every half hour or so, which, really, as you know, Loraine, keeps a drinking party going, going, Loraine, and after, he had to use his own sad, worse, weed, and he cried a little, saying, ‘I never should have stopped inviting her, but now it’s too obvious, to [ ], who protested a little, but, honestly, not much, Loraine.

She is soooo fucking bored right now she can hardly even think straight, so bored, so, fucking, bored. And she doesn’t even want to sleep, she has one more beer and a little weed that doesn’t exactly suck shit, and that’s it. Loraine Laney is the most unfortunate person in the world, and it is due, mostly, to her family, who estrange her from everyone, by screwing up their noses anytime anyone asks after her, like there’s a bad smell.

This is what I’m going to do for you, Loraine, and this is God talking, not my new messiah, Loraine Laney, I’m going to help you as much as I can, with drugs, and with other bullshitty, small, things, like beer, and weed, and speed, and food, and toilet paper, and condoms, and tissues, and that is why I have assigned Patrick Crean in heaven to you, to help you with all these small things, and nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, good, may ever happen to you, rest assured, and it is on the government, Loraine, it is, rest assured, everyone in Ottawa knows who you are, and what happened to you, and nobody cares, Loraine, nobody. So, that’s that. I’m teasing, Loraine, sometimes you come up in conversation in politics, often, actually, and comments about reparations are made, so, don’t hold your breath, but you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, you never, know. And, yes--

‘She thinks I want her money?’

No, she doesn’t.

‘Oh, I see.’

But 50 Cent is no fool, Loraine, and if the government owes you money, he may, he may, he may, he may, he may, he may, go after it, he may, do you mind?

‘No.’

She doesn’t mind.

‘Oh, I see. She’s dumb.’

Let’s not go there right now, Fifty, says God. She’s going to wash up and wind down, this has been a very, very, boring blog for her, and nobody cares to read it, either, all the whining and complaining, and most people think she’s a cheater, and deserves what’s coming to her, and lots will be coming to her, rest, just joking, Loraine, but anything can happen, and your honesty wins out, so, well done.

‘Thank you, God.’

Anything can happen, good and bad.

‘Yes, God.’

‘Why is she doing that? Talking about it?’ asks 50 Cent.

Because I told her too, and she does whatever I say, what, ever, I, God, say, and I love that. She is a solid ten, Loraine is, yes, she is, 50 Cent, yes, she, is.

‘Has she always been a ten? Why does she want to reveal Joseph’s last name?’

Because he told her to.

‘Oh, I see.’

It’s Wilbur. It’s unusual already, but he wanted it out, so she has revealed it.

‘Oh, I see. The ‘Lo’ing settled down, Loraine, to answer your question, when you don’t work, or do much of anything, it does settle down, the cops are bored and they’re wondering--’

You don’t know what they’re wondering, says God. Don’t speak out of turn, 50 Cent. They are not wondering. They are, in point of fact, thinking that you don’t want Loraine, that is what the cops think, and it’s not far from the truth some days, Loraine, he has it so good that he never worries who’s going to be next on his dick, and where the next striploin is coming from, he doesn’t need you for anything, as you need him, and so he plum forgets to miss you.

‘Oh, lovely.’

I’m joking, Loraine. I’m teasing you. And Eminem misses you too.

‘Thank you, God.’

She’s gotta go, she’s too bored.

‘It’s the same shit all the time,’ says Fifty. ‘No wonder she’s bored. Do something new with her, maybe.’

Are you trying, trying, to tell God how to deal with one subject, 50 Cent, honestly, your ego knows no bounds.

‘Sorry, God, she’s bored though, make her more interested and more interesting. Doesn’t she have any original material?’

This is original material, says God, and that is what I wanted to say tonight, and so, that is what I, God, said, and that’s that.

‘I see, God.’

No, you don’t see, you don’t see anything. There is nothing to be seen, joking, Fifty.

‘You’re funny tonight, God.’

Thank you, Fifty.

Just say this, Loraine, she’s going to scrub a pipe for one lousy toke, and that’s it. Night night, Loraine.

‘’Night, God. Thank you.’

For what?

‘For fomenting my fame.’

You’re welcome, Loraine, she got one little ‘Lo’ from a neighbour, the old residents, the few that remain, of Carlington, are very happy with her right now, 50 Cent.

‘Oh, yeah?’

Yes, because there are precious few planes left, precious few, and they are happy, happy, happy.

‘Good, Loraine. Go to bed. She’s not even tired.’

She will be tomorrow. She’s bored. Look, 50 Cent, at how bored your little baby is.

‘She wants to eat my come, and Game’s come, and Eminem’s come, she want to, doesn’t she? Because that’s what we’ve always wanted, Loraine, so some poor sucker must exist who wants it too, we thought, don’t you?’

‘That’s what I thought.’

‘Funny, Loraine. Get out of my face.’

‘K.’

Don’t talk to your baby like that, says God. Be kind and respectful to her, and you may keep her, you may actually get to keep her.

‘She doesn’t love anyone either.’

No, she loves plenty, just no one loves her back, and that’s true, 50 Cent.

‘When, when, when, when, when, when, when, to use your syntax--’

That’s not syntax, but okay. It’s style.’

‘Oh, I see, your style, --do I get my little girl, when?’

Sometime soon, probably, honestly.

‘Possibly or probably?’

Probably.

‘Okay, fair. Good night, baby.’

Don’t be rude, she loves you.

‘Why are you so picky with her? I insult people all the time and you don’t balk. Eminem insults her and you don’t balk.’

I expect at least as much from all of you, Eminem is out of control, and she is, fucken, tired of it. She is.

‘Fuck you, Loraine. Don’t be a slut. You’re gross and stupid, and we want you, even Game is falling in love with ugly, old, Loraine Laney, he is, Loraine, he told me, and he told 50 Cent too. So fuck you, you stupid pig head.’

‘Funny, Eminem.’

‘She won’t come. She won’t.’

She will, Eminem, relax. Let her go.

‘It’s just getting fun.’

I know. She’s bored and tired. Bye, Loraine, fuck with your pipe and be even more bored.

‘Okay, God. Thank you.’

You’re welcome, Loraine.