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darth-mendax · 4 years ago

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Mendax and the Wolffe: One-shot Fic

A/N: Yes, I made this a while ago, yes it’s dirty, and yes I did it for my enjoyment. I am sorry for making this.

WARNING: It’s a dirty fic, man. You know what you gotta watch for. Stay safe bois. Also, the clones are being nasty lil boys, especially Wolffe being feral

Word Count: 5k-ish

Pairing: Darth Mendax x Commander Wolffe, OC x Wolffe

Ahsoka, Maul and his new, previously Jedi love Eli, weren’t resting on the random forest planet when evening was approaching. Eli had decided to try and save a few new clones from the wrath of this new Empire born from Sidious. Cody was their first target, and were going to supposedly deliver him to Kenobi. I felt it wasn’t wise to bring Maul on that adventure, but Eli argued against my opinion. Wherever Eli went, Maul followed. Now, I was stuck sitting near a growing campfire and surrounded by a couple clones and their downed ships acting more as shelter. I’d only learned their names when we first got here a few days ago.

The clones were relatively easy to tell apart, thank the Maker. The only blonde there was Rex, formerly Captain of the 501st. He had a blonde buzzcut, a clean shave but stubble was close to growing in, and his legs looked like they could kick her head clean off.

Next was a brash clone of the 501st named Fives, easy to pick out from the tattoo of the number five on his temple. He had short hair like Rex, only he had black hair, as well and a goatee like beard. He’d been injured badly, but he was healing relatively fast.

Jesse was next, almost like a child of the 501st group (based on personality). He was playfully flirty to me at times, but overall, was like sunshine after rain. He had a large tattoo of the previous Galactic Republic on his bald head, and a 5 o'clock shadow. Like Fives, he was injured badly but was healing.

Gregor, one of the few who survived relatively unscathed and a republic commando, was a bit shorter than his brothers. He had longer black hair that was neatly styled, and stubble growing in like Jesse. Rumor had it that his hair was much longer once. He was built like a boulder though, with large shoulders and seeming a bit thicker in build than his other brothers. His gentle nature contrasted his look greatly.

Kix was probably the most average looking of all the clones, and their medic. Once in cryo after some mystery mission, got rescued by pirates a good while ago, now helping the injured that survived the Order. He had a short sort of haircut with black hair, and friendly brown eyes like the rest of his brothers. Only, his eyes seemed to be able to comfort anyone and managed to speak in the calmest voices possible.

Echo had a messy sort of story, and his appearance made that possible. His skin was slightly lighter than the deep tan of his brothers, and he had darkened eye sockets, like he was constantly sick (though he was perfectly healthy). Multiple scars could be seen on his head in a particular pattern, and black hair was coming in like the crew cuts of Rex and Fives. He had a handprint on his armor, which made him stand out. He was also practically stuck by Fives’ side at all times, including around the campfire.

The last one was Wolffe, the one clone I knew before the mess Order 66 had caused. He was very different from his brothers. He had a pink scar going over right eye, and in the eye socket was a white cybernetic eye (it made him almost seem like he was blind on that side). He had short black hair like many of his brothers there, but it looked most similar to Kix. He was probably the tallest, even if it was by little over an inch. He had a stubble shadow, like Jesse and Gregor. Like the wolves on Lothal, he was built to fight and it showed. His biceps were certainly the second largest, outranked by Gregor, and thighs able to crush skulls (if he wanted). Without his top half of armor on and relaxing in his blacks, there was the clear outline of abs on his waist. I wasn’t sure I picked that detail up. He nearly killed me when I first arrived with Maul, Eli, and Ahsoka. My eyes remained focused on the fire in front of me, memories flooding my brain.

It was done, the Order initiated and finished in only what seemed like an hour. My clothes were dirtied by dust and almost ratty. Maul was in his usual sith robe attire, minus the usual cloak that hid away his features. We were sitting at a small table in what was like a casual living room. Eli and Ahsoka were whispering to each other nearby, wiping away a few stray tears. This Order had killed many of their friends, and clones alike. Families were shattered and Sidious was to blame, me and Maul knew that for sure. Ahsoka nodded to Eli, and then walked up to the bridge of the ship. Eli fixed her neutral colored Jedi robes and turned to Maul.

“Lucky for us, our ship is arriving at the safety rendezvous soon. I’d be wary of a few clones, they may think you’re against them so. . . don’t act too aggressive.” Maul leaned on the heel of his hand and gave an expression similar to someone raising an eyebrow. “Eli my dear, I’m constantly fueled by anger, driven by spite and revenge for years. Being aggressive is my personality.” I didn’t care to speak or include themselves in conversation. I simply hid in the hood of my Sith robe and remained silent. Eli turned to me, “Hey Mendax, there’s one guy who you’ll know once we arrive. Though I’m not sure he’d be the most happy to see you. Not the biggest fan of Sith still.”

“Don’t humor me. I’m not looking to make friends.”

Eli scoffed, then rolled their eyes. “Alright, fine, sit and brood. But you better not say anything that will make you end up with blaster holes.” I chuckled, then looked Eli in the eye, “If that were to happen, I’d consider it a mercy.” The Jedi turned away and went to join Ahsoka Tano on the bridge. Maul sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“I know you’re still hurting, I can sense it. . .”

“I just don’t understand. . . It feels cruel to live. To live in such darkness as overpowering as this. All the death he brought, to us, to the Jedi-”

“I know that’s not the real reason you’re upset, Mendax. . . Savage would want you to live on. He loved you, so dearly.” I was silent, then leaned on Maul’s shoulder. Maul slowly placed a gloved hand on my head. He wasn’t one to regularly give comforting touch, but this. . . this was nice.

“Things will change now, and we’ll move past Sidious’ plans.”

When we were introduced, almost all the clones had aimed their guns at us. Wolffe seemed a bit hesitant to aim at me though, instead aiming at Maul. A few good sassy remarks were thrown, but we all agreed no more killing was needed. Wolffe still kept a close eye on me as days went on, however.

Jesse’s laughter tore me from my thoughts and into his conversation. All of the clones seemed happy, or amused. I glared at them and asked, “What’s so funny, boys?”

“Oh, nothing Mendax. We’re comparing body count and the comments made about us.” Body count? Was this a sick count of all the enemies killed? Fives made an impression of what sounded like a moan, then said, “Oh Fives, you know just how to please me!”

“No way! There’s no way you can please a woman with as rough as a hand like yours!” Nope, definitely not an enemy body count.

My face felt a little hot once I’d realized. I guess I should’ve known that soldiers like clones had needs. They weren’t Jedi so sexual acts were more. . . allowed? Wolffe was the only one who wasn’t talking about who fucked the best or how many men or women they spent a night of pleasure with. Feeling a little bothered plus warmed by the fire, I removed the cloak from around my body.

Fives was the first to try and get Wolffe to join in. “Hey, Wolffe! What’s your body count, hmm? I bet it’s a high one, what with the ‘rugged charm’ I’ve heard some women say about you.”

Wolffe grunted, taking a drink from a small cup he held in one of his hands. Fives went on, “Grunting is not usually an acceptable answer to a question, Wolffe.”

“It is now,” Wolffe replied, eyes landing on me as I sat across from him by the firepit. His gaze seemed to soften, and then he went back to staring at the contents in his cup. Fives decided not to push further, but rather turn to me. “And what about you, Mendax? Did the great Sith lord ever get any love?~”

“As much as I admire the Sith and their passions, we never really see many who use passion in a sense that they fight for someone. Most use passion more as ambition, seeking power and their way.”

“I asked if you had a boyfriend once, not your philosophies,” Fives said, rolling his eyes. I scoffed, and glared at him, “No, does that satisfy your curiosity? I had no one. All I had was Maul to oversee my progress and Savage to. . . to make me feel less lonely.”

“Define less lonely. . .”

Jesse shoved Fives, “Shut up. She’s obviously never had a boyfriend.” Wolffe turned his gaze to me again; I couldn’t tell what emotion was behind his eyes. A few of the brothers muttered to each other, then turned to Wolffe. He caught on to the staring and sneered, “What?”

“So are you going to tell her, or. . .?” Wolffe gave a low growl at Kix. He practically barked at him, “Know your place, soldier. And stop your insane claims.” Kix held his arms up in surrender, and smiled, “Just saying, Commander.” Rex rolled his eyes, then lightly shook his head. Clearly, the captain was getting just as annoyed as Wolffe was at his men. I couldn’t really blame him. Darkness was swallowing the forest around us; Rex added more logs to keep the fire burning.

“So, what’s the sleeping situation, boys? Since the generals and Maul are gone?” Gregor had asked, his meek voice coming through with the brief silence. Echo wrapped an arm around his shoulders, “I already figured it out for you.” He pointed at one of the ships, the largest one of them all. “That one will hold me, Fives, and Rex,” he said. Echo then pointed to the smaller ship next to it, saying, “That one there will be for you, Jesse, and Kix.” The smallest ship there was a simple cruiser, but good enough for a few people to live on, and it was the one Echo pointed to next. “That ship there is where Wolffe and Mendax will be,” he concluded. Rex started to snicker to himself, and tried to cover it with one of his gloved hands. “Something funny, Captain?” Wolffe asked. Rex replied, “No no, it’s nothing. Just laughing at the arrangements.”

“And why is that?”

“You’ll have a ship alone with Mendax. And I don’t want to ruin the moment for the two virgins.”

Wolffe growled loudly at Rex’s comment, clenching the cup tightly in his hand. His voice lowered dangerously low, “How about you shut it, Captain? I’m sure you men would hate to see their leader suddenly get a black eye and busted lip.” Rex squinted at Wolffe, “You think your strength could save you there? You believe that you can take on the Captain of the 501st in a fist fight?”

“Oh, I know it would. My squadron regularly fights in the dirt, so what makes you think this will end with you winning against me.” The two brothers got up and stood in front of each other, Wolffe glaring slightly down at Rex and teeth bared. Rex seemed relatively calm, but a sneer was forming on his features. “How about you prove it, Commander?” Rex challenged. Wolffe stiffened and clenched his fists tight. The two of them raised their fits, ready to fight then and there. Hearing enough banter, I got up and decided to stop the impending fight.

“SILENCE! If you keep bickering, I’ll give you all a good reason to shut up!” The flames of the fire flared, and burned bright for a few moments. Silence followed my shout, besides the cracking of the firewood.

All the clones looked at me in shock, Jesse’s, Kix’s and Fives’ faces all slowly turned to smiles as they looked at Wolffe. He was staring at me, eyes wide and blinking as if he was processing what had happened. I could only imagine that my eyes changed, a little side effect of being Sith. If I was angry enough, they looked just like Maul’s. Rex sat down next to his men, “Sorry Sir.” I huffed, calming down and rubbing the back of my neck. Wolffe made a rumbly noise in the back of his throat, before stomping off. Gregor called out to him, “Where are you going, Wolffe?!”

“To relax! And hit the refresher!” The rest of the clones made attempts to bring Wolffe back, but it was in vain. He’d already entered the ship, and disappeared from view. I sat back down by the fire, hearing the clones burst into some sort of shanty, and had their arms around each other’s shoulders. It was touching, to see them still act like family even after everything. It was almost like Order 66 didn’t happen. But it did.

The moons of the planet were well in the sky, and it’d been nearly an hour since Wolffe went into the ship he and I would supposedly share. The fire was dying, as was the nightly commotion. There was less energy, less blood flowing through the clones’ veins. Growing restless of being quiet while the clones talked amongst themselves, I got up and put my cloak on. I mumbled, “Heading in for the night. . .” before trudging over to the shared ship. I stretched my limbs and back, beginning my walk towards the beds. There were at least five rooms, each one with a decently sized space and bed. Making my way down the hall, I passed by the way leading to the refresher. I paused, hearing that it was still on. “Wolffe must like long hot showers,” I thought to myself. I was about to walk on, when I heard quiet grunting, then what sounded like mumbling.

“Mendax-” I heard, barely heard over the water running in the refresher. A few curses followed, and I felt a bit of panic. Did he hurt himself? Did he know I was here? I slowly walked through the small locker room, seeing Wolffe’s armor and blacks resting on a bench. Moving past them, I peeked into the refresher room.

It was a line of refreshers in glass stalls on the opposite wall from the entrance. The floor was tile, leading into the locker room. Only one of the refreshers had their door closed, somewhat clouded up with steam. The amount of steam in the room made the air humid, and I was sure that my hair was starting to puff up with it. There was a towel on a hook nearby said refresher. Moving closer, but out of view, my face heated up as I looked at what was in front of me.

Wolffe was still in the refresher, but certainly not injured. His eyes were screwed shut, brow furrowed and biting his bottom lip. He was naked of course, water washing over him and moving down his body. Leaning against one of the tile walls of the refresher, one of his arms rested against the wall he leaned against, and his other was in front of him. He had hair on his chest, leading down to a nice trimmed happy trail leading down to his cock, where his hand was a bit. . . busy. He groaned again, his hand wrapped around his cock and moving faster. Wolffe’s head leaned back against the tile, his mouth slightly open now as a soft moan past his lips. He was close, very close.

“Fuck- Mendax~, I want you so bad~. . . Make me feel so good.” Wolffe’s voice was lower by an octave or two, rumbling and lustful.

I’d be lying if that didn’t cause some sort of feeling between my legs. He was so vulnerable, and definitely not bad to look at. We had had our differences before and were becoming something of friends, but this? It was a little unexpected.

Scrambling to get away, I made the mistake of kicking his helmet. It made a clatter that echoed through the whole of the locker room. Ashamed that I’d be caught. I hid behind the small wall of lockers in the middle of the changing room. The noise of the refresher being on stopped, and there was silence. Very tense silence. I heard the sound of bare feet walking on the tile, moving to where Wolffe’s armor was. They stopped, and the silence returned. He was behind the lockers, where I was hiding. Suddenly the footsteps sounded like they moved away and out to the hallway. I quietly breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed. Slowly, I moved around closer to the refresher room and towards the edge of the locker wall. I peeked around, and looked for Wolffe. He wasn’t there, but his armor was still on the bench. That was odd. . . I turned back and collided with something solid and damp.

I pulled away and found myself staring into a pair of eyes, one an amber like brown, and the other a pale cybernetic white. I froze, and felt immensely flustered. Wolffe had a towel wrapped low around his hips, the happy trail disappearing under the soft white cloth. A few droplets were still moving down Wolffe’s body, and he felt very warm, even just by being so close to him. His cheeks were reddened, and a blank expression on his face. I gulped, swallowing down my nervousness and composing myself.

“What are you doing in here?” Wolffe asked, his voice low and rumbly like he was in the refresher. I cleared my throat and crossed my arms, “Was wondering why you were taking so long in the refresher.” Wolffe didn’t seem to buy my reasoning. He leaned down, trapping me with his hands on either side of my head.

“Really? And you didn’t hear anything?” I shook my head, not bearing to look Wolffe in the eyes. “Liar,” he growled out. He knew, of course he knew. One of his hands grabbed my jaw and forced me to face him.

“Look at me in the eye.” My eyes moved back to lock on Wolffe’s. His human eye was blown with lust, brown being swallowed by inky, hungry black. I found myself looking at his lips, and the feeling between my legs returned. Wolffe tilted my chin up, “I’ll be honest with you. When you said you’d give us a reason to shut up, my mind went to. .. less than innocent ideas. And I couldn’t sit with them all when you were right there and looking so . . . delicious.” I let out an exhale through my nose, and dared to ask, “Like what? Hmm?”

Wolffe let out a guttural growl, and the hand holding my chin moved down to my neck. He gave a light squeeze as his lips moved to whisper in my ear. “I want you to shut me up and kiss me until I forget my fucking name. . . I want to swallow all of your moans into my mouth, know the taste of your lips. I want to feel your tongue, and maybe stop your snark for once.” My thighs were twitching with his words; he didn’t even stutter. My hands found their way on his back, and I raked my nails down the muscle. “Would you like that? Would you like to have me?” he asked. I quietly replied, “I’ve never wanted anything more than that right now. . . but I don’t know what to do. . .”

“Then I’ll show you. . .” Wolffe’s hands found their way to my thighs and he picked me up with ease. He carried me down into the hallway and opened one of the doors leading to a bedroom. I was carried right to the bed, and the door closed behind him. It was doubtful that anyone would come barging in, so there was not much reason to lock it. He was already trying to take off my robes as he carried me, rushed kisses being pressed to my jawline. Wolffe was desperate, and the desire coursing through him was infectious.

His lips crashed against mine once my back hit the bed, and my legs were wrapped around his hips. They were softer than I anticipated, and much more intoxicating than I believed kisses should be. I felt drunk, limp as Wolffe pushed his tongue into my mouth and hands explored under my now messy robes. He made quick work of the top half of my clothing, almost ripped them in the process. Wolffe’s lips moved down to my neck; my head moved to the side so he had better access. A rumbling noise went through his chest like a building growl and he bit down into the flesh of my neck. He bit hard enough that I whined at the pinching pain. My feeble attempts of squirming were stopped by the weight of Wolffe moving on top of me: one of his thighs between mine, and hands pinning my wrists down. The gesture of biting and leaving dark bruises on my neck was repeated until my neck and collarbones were littered with the marks like a night sky, varying in size and color. Taking his time and kissing back up to my mouth, Wolffe gave me a tender, sweet kiss.

When he pulled away, I felt cold and my lips felt like they were buzzing. “I’ve wanted to do this for a while, in honesty. . .” Wolffe muttered, eyes looking over my face and his handiwork. His hands cradled my face lightly, like a feather caressing my skin. The innocence and purity of the gesture was lost when his thumb brushed over my lips and lightly tugged my bottom lip down. I opened my mouth and he pushed his thumb in, groaning as it was coated in my saliva. “Such a pretty little mouth,” he mumbled.

Wolffe pulled his hand away, then moved to pull off my pants. He started breathing heavily once he had a glance at the mess between my legs. “Fuck, you’re soaking,” was what he said. Without another word, he pulled me to the edge of the bed and knelt between my legs. Moving them so they rested on his shoulders, Wolffe began to mark up my thighs just like my neck. The feeling between my legs was starting to become unbearable, and I was aching to be touched. “You know, you could stop teasing and get to the point,” I grumbled. Wolffe responded by a smack on my thigh, looking up at me. The scene in front of me was sinful, and I thought it was all a dream since it seemed too good to be true.

“You want me to get to the point?” I nodded.

“Then I won’t stop til you’re begging,” he replied before moving his head down.

The feeling was heavenly, Wolffe’s tongue working through my folds and up to my clit. My hands found their way into his thick hair, tugging on his short black locks. He groaned at the action, then focused on working my clit. My body was twitching, and my back began to arch off of the bed. “Fuck- Oh Maker- Wolffe~!” were just a few of the words that spilled from my mouth out of pleasure. I tried to push him even closer, digging my heels into his muscular back and my thighs squeezing his head. It was almost embarrassingly fast how close I got in a matter of seconds, and my orgasm came with little warning. The pleasure was white hot, I felt like I was floating and my moans filled the room. Wolffe worked through it, and even a moment after I’d come down from the blissful high. My legs were twitching, and in the pale dim lights that were on in the room, I saw Wolffe look up at me with a smug look and my wetness on his chin. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, and hummed, “My assumption was correct, you do taste delicious.” I sighed and flopped back against the bed to catch my breath.

“Maker above, that was nice. . .” Wolffe chuckled at my comment.

“It’ll get better.”

“Hm?” I looked down to see Wolffe taking off his towel and his cock ready for attention. He was big, as far as I could tell. Moving himself closer, Wolffe held onto my legs and I felt him nudge my core. “I’ll go slow, ok?” His voice was quiet and gentle again. I pulled him down into a quick kiss, and gave a soft smile. “I know you won’t hurt me,” I said. Wolffe gave a short nod and held onto my waist. He pushed himself in slowly, and his jaw clenched tightly as he did. A struggling groan came from his mouth, and was joined by a weak moan of mine. Once fully in, he was panting and practically laying on top of me. Wolffe was cursing under his breath, resting his forehead against mine. “This feels- mm fuck- way better than I imagined. . . Fuck me, you’re killing me over here,” he managed to rasp out. As if I wasn’t aroused enough, his praise pushed me even further.

I held his face in my hands, watching as he looked at me with a half-lidded, dazed gaze. “You can move now,” I said. He didn’t move at first, and I was about to tell him again until he interrupted me.

With a voice lowering a good few octaves, he asked, “You want me to move, pretty girl?”

“Y-yes.” My impatience was getting to me.

Wolffe gave a grin, “Then beg.”

I could only assume I made a somewhat amusing shocked expression, because Wolffe chuckled. “You heard me, beg for me to move,” he said. I didn’t want to, at first. After all, I was a Sith and he was just a clone. I could’ve overpowered him and take control easily, yet I didn’t. My desire was getting the best of me, and I could barely move from underneath him. So I begged for Wolffe.

“Please- Please move, I need you.”

“Please who? What do you call me, sweetheart?” This was near torture at this point, but I went along.

“Please Sir. . . Please move~.” He smiled again, and pressed a quick kiss to my cheek.

“There’s my good girl~.”

Wolffe moved slowly, but Maker did it feel great. The slow drag of him against my walls was enough to make me start digging my nails into his shoulders. He wasn’t patient though; soon he was sitting up and setting a brutal pace. I was moaning, loud enough to probably end up being heard from the hallway. Wolffe’s brow was furrowed, but the smug grin on his face told me that he was enjoying having power over me. “Moaning like a bitch for me, and I’m the only one who can do that, right?~ Only I can make you moan and desperately beg~.” I tried to growl at him, to try and show that I didn’t like the degradation. My body betrayed me, and I could only moan and try to move in response instead. He was growling and panting, keeping his pace and his gaze staying on me. “Look at you, covered in my marks and bites. Kriffing beautiful and all mine to look at~. All fucking mine~.” Given that biting seemed to be the way he showed his affection, it was no surprise that it came with possessiveness as well. When one of his hands came down to rub my clit, I was already close again.

“Maker- Wolffe, Sir- I’m so fucking close-”

“You close? You wanna make a mess all over my cock? You wanna beg for me to make you finish?”

All of the pride and dignity I had was long gone by then, and of course I begged. Of course I said, “Yes, please! Please, Sir!” I was glad he was so merciful. He replied, “Now, you can finish.” And I did, shaking and grabbing at the sheets. I heard myself almost yelling, and I’m pretty sure I screamed out Wolffe’s name too. Wolffe’s pace stuttered, and began to get sloppy. Not a few moments later, he finished as well, spilling himself inside of me and throwing his head back in bliss. He made what sounded like a groan, or maybe he was biting back a moan. Either way, we were both very satisfied by the end.

In a dazed and half awake state, we managed to fix ourselves under the sheets and get comfortable. I found myself clinging to Wolffe’s side, resting my head on his chest as his arm was wrapped around me. His thumb traced small circles into my back. A realization came to me that night; I’d fallen for him. Badly. I didn’t have the heart to tell him then, but I knew I would when the time was right. With fatigue pulling at my eyelids, I curled up next to Wolffe and slept soundly for the first time in a good while.

Bonus:

The clones were heading to their ships for the night, but they made a decision to just crowd the ship farthest away from Mendax and Wolffe. In a crowded and simple room with bunks, the clones whispered to each other. “I told you it would happen, now pay up!” Fives whisper-yelled to Echo. Echo begrudgingly handed him a few credits, and huffed. Jesse was also passing credits in the dimness. Rex sat up slightly and rubbed his eyes, “Men, what are you doing?” Fives gave a half-hearted laugh, “I’m surprised you slept through it. Wolffe and Mendax just did the deed. I made a bet that they would do it tonight, so now the boys owe me. Well, except you and Gregor.” Fives looked over to Gregor, who was busy hiding his head under his pillow. “I think he’s scarred for life,” Jesse added. Kix interrupted, “Yeah yeah, you won. Now can we sleep?” “They should be done now,” Fives replied. Rex rolled his eyes and went back to sleep.

“Go to bed, boys.”

“. . . Yes Sir.”

There was a brief silence, and a moment of peace.

“. . . Should we tell them we heard?”

“No way, Jesse. They’d kill us.”

“. . . What if we told Maul and Eli when they get back, Fives?”

“They’d kill them, well, Maul would.”

Another silence.

“. . . Who do you think started it?”

“GO TO BED, BOYS!”

“Sorry, Rex. . .”

#commander wolffe #commander wolffe x reader #commander wolffe x you #commander wolffe x oc #oc x wolffe #the clone wars #star wars #star wars prequels #star wars the clone wars #darth mendax #pls don't judge me #i'm just a writer #the cloons #clone bois #clone troopers #commander wolffe smut

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join-the-joywrite · 4 years ago

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Hamish & Vera soulmate au headcannons

Part two of the first words au suggested by my girl, Sima, as demanded requested.

I am Not Happy about this

I'm a very big fan of saying "fuck canon" in favour of my otp happening but honestly ,,,,, the pain is too great to pass up so here we go.

It took months for Hamish to properly open up verbally. When he did, Vera asked about the ring. He told her all about Cassie and Nico, save the bit about the Knights.

It was a few more months when Hamish started visiting the old places he used to love to favourite with Cassie, but they still weren't the same. He didn't mind, though. They were just places now. Places that held pleasant memories. Now, important places are where he goes with Vera.

Hamish is on his way to meeting Vera when he runs into Randall Carpio. The man is crazy, Hamish first thinks. Then, he'd make a good knight.

"Who's the lovely lady? Hi, I'm Randall Carpio, and you are?"

"Taken."

"Damnit, Hamish!"

Vera finds him endearing, somewhat, as one would a toddler. Two days later, Hamish decides to invite Randall into the Knights. Greybeard chooses him and they celebrate. It feels good to have someone to talk to about things only a Knight would understand. He thought about Vera, but after Cassie, he didn't think he could handle it. Besides, Randall looks like he'd take on a wolf without being one of them. He's perfect for the job.

Hamish knocks on Vera's door late one night.

"Are you okay?" "Can I stay here tonight? Please."

Vera obviously lets him in.

"You ever meet someone and you know they've done nothing wrong at all, but it feels like they're trying to replace someone you've lost?" Vers tries a joke, "This isn't about me and Cassie, is it?" Thankfully, Hamish finds the joke funny. "You, no. Cassie, yes. Randall's made this friend and honestly there's nothing wrong with her but . . . it's like she's wearing Cassie's favourite jacket and I can't get her to take it off."

Hamish intentionally leaves out the part where he was the one who opened the doors for Lilith. Vera would find the metaphor much more impactful if she knew Hamish meant Timber.

Hamish doesn't talk much about Lilith to Vera, though it's not as if they get a chance to talk at all. Now with Randall and Lilith knighted, Hamish has found purpose outside of Vera -- taking down the Order. They were what got Nico killed and they were what got Cassie killed. Hamish knew the Order was the bad magic he's supposed to fight. In addition, Vera's just been made Temple Magus and it is a lot more more work than she'd anticipated. Not to mention, having the university in her jurisdiction included attaining the seat of Chancellor. Fuck the social life, I guess.

At least they're always able to come home to each other.

Unfortunately, that too starts falling apart.

Hamish gets pulled deeper and deeper into uncovering the Order with Randall and Lilith, slowly figuring out how to find the pledges and get rid of them. Since he'd told Vera about Cassie, talking about the departed Knight becomes easier. He struggles a bit to explain it all to Randall, but he's able to speak properly and tell Lilith all about Cassie. When Hamish reveals that Cassie had been Timber's champion, Lilith understands. She is harsh and brash and often rude, but she also has a heart to love, no matter how guarded and hidden. She makes an effort to distinguish herself from Timber and from Cassie. Hamish makes an effort to see Lilith instead of Cassie's replacement. Once they succeed on that, their relationship improves tenfold. (Randall is relieved. He was worried his days as a Knight were gonna be filled to the brim with tension and loathing)

Vera gets pulled deeper into the Order. She's sucked into the position she's been granted and no matter how much she tries to leave it for a break now and then, something or the other pulls her back. It doesn't help that the pledges decrease in number every year due to at least one of them dying.

By the time Jack Morton makes his way to Belgrave, things have quite nearly fallen apart. Hamish has stopped visiting an empty house. Vera's stopped trying to call when she finally leaves the temple, only to reach the voicemail of a sleeping Hamish, who's stopped trying to send texts every odd hour.

Given that Jack never actually said Vera's name to the Knights (I believe, and if I'm wrong shhh it's an au), it's no surprise that the the earlier parts of Finals Pt.2 is slightly more comedy than pain. (Let's assume Lilith never mentions Vera's name upon regaining her memories either)

Let it also be known that I, for the life of me, cannot recall how the entire scene plays out, so we just gonna make it up as we go along =)

Hamish is down in the basement when Jack brings a new ally to the den. An injured Lilith is there.

"Miss Bathory." "Bitch." "Fair enough."

Randall is in next, excited to see Lilith back in the den. "Hey! I knew you weren't dead!"

"Randall?" "Vera! Heyyyyy, long time no see, huh? Wh -- what . . . what are you doing here?" "You -- you're one of them? The werewolves?" "Shiiiiiiiit, you know?? Wait, you're not like,, in the Order, are you?" "How long have you been a werewolf?" *guilty face* "FROM THE START????"

Lilith & Jack: 🤨 wtf is happening here

Hamish returns. "Guys, who's. . ." Hamish stares at Vera. For a while, he wonders how she found the den. Then he wonders what she's doing at the den. Then he recalls Jack mentioning that he was bringing an unlikely ally. He'd figured unlikely ally meant someone in the Order. ". . . here?"

Vera shoots Jack a glare. "What the fuck is this, Mr Morton?"

"Uhh . . . I didn't-- I wasn't aware you guys were, uh . . . friends?"

Hamish is still staring at Vera. "This what you've been doing for years? Magic? The Order? That promotion . . . it wasn't about the chancellor position, was it?"

(Lil bit of comedy = Randall: WAIT, SHE'S THE TEMPLE MAGUS??????)

"You say magic like it's evil. Have you ever once thought about the fact that you've been murdering my pledges every year since Miss Bathory was expelled from the Order? Which is more evil, Hamish, protecting magic or killing its practitioners?"

"Your people got Cassie and Nico killed," Hamish hisses, "those practitioners you're protecting are the reason Cassie and Nico died. Magic. Is. Evil."

"Magic isn't evil! I was barely a Magistratus when your ex-girlfriend was killed! Do you think I enjoyed all those respondeo incantations? Wh-- why do you think I started spending so much time at the temple? Making sure I stayed Temple Magus? I am trying to make the Order better. But you? All you care about is murdering my Neophytes. Children."

(Randall: intense wincing as his parents fight. Jack & Lilith: perplexed but very invested in the drama. Jack's a lil upset that he's got plans to go and confront Edward. He kinda wanted to see the rest of that argument.)

"Oh, that's rich, V," Hamish snaps. Despite the clear rage radiating off of Hamish, Vera isn't afraid. The nickname is familiar and welcome. It's home. Hamish, no matter how far he is from her, is home. Doesn't mean she's not got her own barrel of problems to spill.

"Rich?? I'm not the one out here killing people before they get the chance to even live. You -- you -- you are -- you're a monster, you know that?" She says it factually, as if it's something common knowledge.

"Really, V? Are we doing this now?" "Might as well! If we're all going to die, I'm not going down without getting everything out. You know, while we're on the topic of being brutally honest before we die, Mr Morton, your sense of style is horrendous, Miss Bathory, your temper is infuriating and Randall . . . you -- you -- your jokes are lame!"

Funny enough, Randall is most offended. And then Lilith has his attention because she's hurt. "Can you help?" "I don't trust her." "I don't recall caring, do you want me to save your life or not?"

Hamish is pissed as Vera turns to help Lilith. Amusingly, he's pissed because Vera isn't paying him any attention. But there are more pressing matters, like the incoming army. "We have company."

"Fucking Kepler," Vera mutters.

Both Hamish and Randall squint at Vera. "Bitsy Kepler?" "Isn't she a bit . . . fickle and stupid to be in the Order?"

"Oh, you know Kepler too?" Lilith asks, more of a rhetorical question.

"No, V just complained about her a lot." "Don't call me that, Randall." "Sorry."

"They are circling the house. What are they up to?" "Knowing Kepler, something unoriginal."

*sounds of the order throwing burning spells.* The look of awe on Hamish's face as he watches Vera cast a protection spell does not escape Randall and Lilith.

"How long is that gonna last?" "Long enough for us to deal with them."

Vera is already following an undressing Hamish to the doors. "No killing." "No promises."

Lilith stares at the empty doorway. "Are we going to talk about th--" "Nope. Not at all. Never. Anything else. Anything but whatever just transpired."

When they get into the temple and set the Vade Maecum alight, Hamish thinks maybe it isn't so bad. Maybe Vera's right, maybe she can turn the Order around. Maybe magic isn't evil. Vera takes his hand. He gives hers a little reassuring squeeze. Come hell or high water, he'll always come back to her.

It's what soulmates do.

"So, Grand Magus, huh?" "Mhm." "I didn't think you remembered this spot exists."

Vera, despite her new persona of professionalism and perfection, gets down on the grass beside Hamish. She looks at him carefully. Is she doing the right thing? Probably not. But will it keep him safe from her and the Order? More likely than not.

"What is it, V?"

"Nothing. Just thinking."

"About?"

"Us. What happened to us?"

"Magic," Hamish jokes, lightly tapping his forehead against hers. I missed you.

Vera squeezes his hand twice. I love you.

Hamish closes his eyes. So much trust he has in Vera that despite knowing she's on the other side of the great divide between the Knights and the Order, he still trusts her enough to be around her blind. Vera's guilt starts eating at her insides already. It makes her sick, but she hasn't got a better choice. The alternative is allowing the order to launch an attack on the Knights -- and if the Order could kill werewolves before, they can kill them again. Vera never wants to feel the pain Hamish felt after losing Cassie.

This is losing him, but at least she knows he's alive and safe. Safe from the Order, from magic, from all of Belgrave's dirty little secrets.

She wants to be the one to monitor him, but Grand Magus duties steal her time and attention worse than Temple Magus did. She hates having to leave him in the hands of one of the Medicums, but she can't exactly do it herself, despite wanting to.

"I thought I was the quiet one," Hamish jokes.

"Shh. Some . . . peace and quiet is welcome."

"V, are you--" Vera quickly claps her hand over his eyes. "Sh. Don't . . . don't say anything. Don't open your eyes. I just . . . I just want to see you for a moment."

Hamish smiles and complies. Vera fights to keep her shaking breath quiet. She lowers her hand slowly. Could she spare time for one last kiss? Just one? No. One would never be enough. And she knows that if Hamish kisses her now, her entire resolve will break.

She squeezes his hand twice. I love you.

Before he can respond, Vera blows the powder in his face. She sits up slowly. Dear God, she was sure she'd done something horrible in a past life to warrant this kind of torture. At least for Hamish, losing Cassie hadn't been the product of his own making.

"Your name is Hamish Duke. You go to Belgrave University. You're a TA and -- and you study psychology. Forget the Hermetic Order of the Blue Rose. Forget the Knights of Saint Christopher. Forget . . . Vera Stone."

Vera pulls him up. "Hey, that looked like a nasty fall. Are you okay?"

"Uh, yeah. Yeah, I'm okay, I think. Thanks."

"Sure." Vera can't help the two subtle squeezes she gives his hand before leaving. I love you. She doesn't want to be there when Selena Durov leaves her class and arrives. She doesn't want to see what Selena says to Hamish, what lies she feeds him and what she does. Vera wants to lock herself in her office and never see another person again.

Hamish frowns as he watches her leave. He wondered what had happened to her that her eyes were so sad. Part of him want to run after her and ask her. Ask her name at the very least. But something keeps him rooted to the spot where he stands.

Who was she and why did he feel like she'd said something very important?

Hamish holds his own wrist for a moment, feeling the ghost of her touch. The slight squeezes he thought he'd imagined.

I love you.

Who the hell was she? And why did he feel like he really ought to know her.

Part 3

Did I win yet, ladies? Or do you want part 3?

@gingersimasnapsandvermishthings @bakulka @everythingabouthatship

See some other soulmate aus I've tried my hand at

#vera x hamish #hamish duke #hamish x vera #vera stone #the order #netflix #the hermetic order of the blue rose #the knights of st christopher #the knights of the blue rose #the knights of saint christopher #soulmate #soulmate aus #please just give me the soulmate au i want

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letswritefanfiction · 5 years ago

Text

Pokémon Alphabet Challenge: Z is for Zeitgeist

Can also be read on ffnet here.

“You’re frustrated.”

“I’m not frustrated.”

Ash grit his teeth and clenched his hands under the desk. He was frustrated. He’d been frustrated for a long, long time and had been holding it in. But recently, his great effort to seem appreciative and happy appeared to have spouted a leak and frustration was slipping out, steadily and persistently. It was all he could do in this meeting to keep from letting it all go here, in this office room, and be done with it once and for all.

Sitting across from him were Kunihiko Yuyama, Daiki Tomiyasu, and Aya Matsui—the big three. No one else would have been able to secure a meeting with the three of them. And it had taken a few attempts for him to be able to as well. But they couldn’t say no to him forever. After all: he was Ash Ketchum.

“Well, if not your frustrations, then tell us your grievances,” Aya said.

Her face was unreadable, at least to Ash. But if he had any guess, he assumed she was the one he was offending the most. She was head writer and, after all, it was the writing that he was…aggrieved by.

“Does it have something to do with Gen 8?”

That question came from Kunihiko. It was the obvious one. Obvious because it was absolutely, one hundred percent spot-on. It was, after all, once the talks of Gen 8 had taken off that his frustration leak had begun. Well, kind of. Perhaps it had begun with Movie 20. Or, if he was being one hundred percent honest, Gen 3. And then there was the beginning of Gen 5…

Maybe this had been going on longer than he’d thought.

But Ash had never been a good liar, so he went with the truth. The simplest truth, that was.

“Yes. It does.”

“Well,” Kunihiko continued, “feel free to elaborate.”

It was lucky that Ash had been thinking about this speech for weeks, because suddenly, he felt like he was going to blurt it all out. And, since he was given the opportunity to do so, that’s how it came.

“Okay,” he sighed, “here’s the thing. I liked Movie 20, right? And 21. But you have to admit that there was a lot of internet backlash, especially in the west, when they were announced. And the Mewtwo redo. They’re not what the public want. They want to see what happens to Ash in the world that already exists. The world that some of them have been invested in for twenty years. And I know target demographic and all that but, like, really? Come on, why start Ash’s story over again?”

“You sound like a Genwunner,” Daiki commented.

“I’m not, believe me,” Ash said. “Almost all of the things that lived and died with Gen 1 were good things to let go of. We all know that. But at the same time, risks were taken! When the most interesting risk you’ve taken is a soft reboot, you know you’ve gone wrong somewhere.”

“Risks are not what the stockholders are looking for,” Kunihiko explained. “After twenty years of consistency, people know what they’re getting out of Pokémon. If they want a little something different, maybe they try Pokémon Origins or Pokémon Adventures Manga or even Pokémon Mystery Dungeon. But the anime has its target audience and a massive shift would ruin that in a way we might not be able to recover.”

“So that what? In fifty years you’re still—well, you’ll be dead—but someone’s still using CGI to give me the appearance of a preteen? And I meet a new friend in every episode that’s never seen again? And there are thousands and thousands of newly discovered Pokémon?” Ash argued.

“We changed it up quite a bit last season and it was largely well-received, especially in Japan,” Aya argued. “Certainly we’ve recycled storylines in Pokémon before, but it’s not all we do.”

“Okay, fine. I know I have no control over the plot,” Ash admitted. “Or lack thereof. But hear me out. I’m a thirty-year-old man. I live the public life of a ten-year-old. In the past twenty years, I’ve done this for you—before you all even were here, in fact. I’ve done it for the brand. I’ve never grown so much as sideburns, or even changed my hairstyle. Enough is enough. Either things change around here or…”

There was silence across the table as Ash trailed off. It was Daiki who finally prompted him again.

“Or what?”

Ash’s expression had fallen to his lap. His long bangs were covering his eyes in that dramatic way that the directors always loved when he was having an emotional moment on the show. That thought was enough to bring his eyes up.

“Or I quit.”

The three across the table from him were looking at him as though he was a petulant child throwing a tantrum. Or about to throw a tantrum—he wasn’t sure. But as a person who had been playing a child for twenty years, he knew that he was far from that. He was being the more level-headed Ash of XY, not the hot-headed kid from the Original Series. Well, more than that. He was being his actual adult self.

Aya sighed. “I’m sure we can find ways to incorporate past stars like we did in SM042, 43, and SM102, 103. Things like that are a big hit, and I know you enjoy them.”

It was a compromise. A piece of candy to keep him from throwing a fit at not being able to buy the bag. It was not at all what he wanted.

“That’s not what I’m talking about,” Ash said, suddenly exhausted. “How does that even make sense with a soft reboot?”

“We’ll make it work.”

He knew what that meant. It wouldn’t make sense. Just like it hadn’t made sense with the supposed soft reboot of Sun and Moon. Just like it hadn’t made sense that he was still ten in Black and White, but knew Dawn from his past travels with her. By this point it was what the public expected and understood, so it wasn’t a hard sell. People would poke fun at it on the internet, but they’d hardly be mad about it. That was a tough anger to stoke for twenty years.

“Most people don’t keep doing a show for twenty years,” Ash said quietly.

“I don’t know what you’re trying to tell us,” Kunihiko said.

“I don’t know either,” Ash said, the frustration reentering his voice. He rubbed his head as though trying to massage the thoughts out. “I just don’t want to do this anymore.”

“How did it go?”

Ash had arrived at Brock’s house for a drink—lord knew he wasn’t supposed to be seen drinking in public. Even being seen buying a six-pack would be ‘bad for the kids’. Regardless of the fact that he hardly resembled the character that he played on television anymore. In 2019 there were now grocery services that would help him keep surreptitious, but he enjoyed the habit of going to Brock’s. And he always paid him back for the beer.

“Not good,” Ash groaned as he flopped down on the sofa. Brock put a beer in his hand in eleven seconds flat.

“Didn’t hear you out?” Brock asked, sitting down with his own. Ash relished in the sound of the can being opened and then pulled the tab on his own.

“Nope. They have no interest in anything but going ahead with the plan.”

“That sucks, man.”

Ash took a gulp of his beer. Beer wasn’t something to be savored over time; it was to be drunk quickly while it was still cold and palatable. “Nobody knows what this is like,” he said finally.

Now, if most people had said that—or if Ash had said that about nearly anything else—it would have been all Brock could do not to shut them down immediately. No one’s experience was unique, there were always people to talk about it; you were never alone. But this existence of Ash’s…Well, Brock had lived it for about four years himself. But that had nothing on Ash’s twenty. So he could relate. But not entirely.

He’d bounced, after all. He’d bounced after the OS, then come back for a few more years and bounced after year five of the show. He’d had that choice. And, sure, Samuel and Delia were still around after all these years, but only for a few episodes each season.

Actually, there were only two other people who really understood, and that was Jessie and James. But Ash wasn’t meant to fraternize with them often in public for publicity. It wasn’t ‘in character.’ And since Jessie and James were portraying adults—and not the star—things were a bit more lax for them.

“I know, bud.” Brock got up again and reached for a bag of pretzels. Ash no longer ate as ravenously as his character on the show did, but Brock still showed love through offering food and drink to his friends. “What’s your next move?”

Ash had to chew through the dry handful of pretzels he’d just shoved in his mouth before answering. “I don’t know,” he groaned. “I really don’t want to do this anymore, but they’ve already confirmed Ash Ketchum for the next season. And, you know, my contract.”

“And who can imagine the PokéAni without Ash Ketchum?”

“Ugh, don’t say that,” Ash moaned, throwing a pretzel at Brock’s head. Perhaps he still did share some traits with his 10-year-old persona.

“My bad,” Brock said, chuckling as he blocked the pretzel and let it fall to the ground. He’d pick it up later. “Look, Ash. All I can say right now is that you don’t wanna burn any bridges until you know what your next step is. Being Ash Ketchum comes with a pretty sizable shit sandwich, but there’s a reason you’ve kept doing this for two decades. So keep being Ash Ketchum until you’ve got a plan.”

“Uh-huh.”

It was little more than a grunt as Ash took another swallow of his beer. Brock looked at his despondent friend. It made him sad to see, but TV show or not, this was Ash. He’d bounce back by tomorrow.

“Brock, I’ve had a realization.”

Ash was on the phone this time, instead of in Brock’s living room. And, as Brock had predicted, it was the next day and he appeared to have fully bounced back. He looked excited and full of that youthful energy he’d been paid for so long to exhibit.

“What’s that?”

“If the company wants me to stay on brand, than what is more on brand for Ash Ketchum than burning it all down?”

“Um, a lot of things.”

“Okay, yeah, bad phrasing,” Ash admitted. “I just mean being brash and impulsive. Making a big choice and sticking to it. This is all very Ash Ketchum. And besides, what hero doesn’t break a few things while saving the day? Ash Ketchum has destroyed a lot of property in his day.”

Brock sighed. “Ash, what are you gonna do?”

“I’m going to be myself. For fucking once.”

Swearing. Very off-brand. Absolutely not E for Everyone. Brock could see where this was going in an instant.

“Ash, no.”

“Yes, Brock! If they’re not going to listen to me, then I’m going to have to act independently.”

“And pay the sizable sum I know is in the fine print of your contract for breaching it?”

“I can afford it,” Ash said, surprising Brock by having thought about it at all.

“Okay,” Brock said, putting his phone on speaker so he could start texting. “You need an intervention. I’m calling for backup.”

“Brock,” Ash whined. “I’ve thought long and hard about this!”

“You’ve thought long and hard,” Brock agreed, sending the text off. “But not precisely about this. You’ve thought around this, and I’m not denying that you’ve been frustrated for a long time. But come on, Ash. You dreamt this up last night at the earliest.”

Silence. Then: “That’s longer than I’ve thought about most things.”

“Yeah, that’s what happens when you’re in a twenty-year long habit.” His phone buzzed. “Anyway, backup is on its way.”

“Brock,” Ash whined again. If Brock hadn’t already known Ash was in therapy, he would have suggested it be written into his contract as a necessity when playing a preteen for twenty years. It was bound to have an effect on an adult man’s psychology.

“Don’t even pretend to be upset about it, Ash. You’ll be happy to see her.”

“I see her without your help,” Ash grumbled.

“Doesn’t matter. Now don’t do anything stupid until she gets there.”

“…Define stupid.”

“Ash.”

“Fine, fine.”

The buzz up to his penthouse came surprisingly quickly given Tokyo traffic. It must be a good day outside. Not that he’d know, because he hadn’t left the house that day, as per Brock’s instructions to not do anything stupid.

Then he got an idea.

Instead of buzzing her up, Ash got into his in-unit elevator and went down. He strolled through his lobby and ignored that he could see her through the glass doors in the front—her and her scowling expression. When he opened the door, he swept her into a kiss—one of the dramatic ones like in the movies. Not Pokémon movies but actual movies. Like, rated PG-13 movies. Their bodies were all twisted, and it occurred to him that this was very uncomfortable for the spine. But it always looked good in the movies, so he went with it.

Until he felt her pinching his arm terribly hard and putting firm pressure on him to retreat back into the lobby. Just to have a moment of defiance, he held on for one more minute and then pulled away, acting the part of pleased lover, accepting his publicly-known lover into his apartment building. She played along. For the thirteen seconds it took to reach the elevator. Then she thwacked him upside the head. He’d known she would.

Worth it, though.

“Brock said not to do anything stupid,” Misty hissed. She should have known, though. Ash had never been good with instructions, no matter how simple they were.

“Hey, he only said until you got here. You’re here now.” Ash shrugged. “You went along with it.”

“Yeah, because it would have looked even worse if I’d shoved you off like you were assaulting me,” Misty explained. “#MeToo isn’t just for America, Ash.”

Ash smiled a little bit despite himself. She was always one step ahead of him—simultaneously one of his favorite and possibly the least favorite thing about her. Even surpassing her violent streak.

“Why did you do that?” she hissed.

“Why are you whispering?” Ash asked in an exaggerated whisper.

“Because you just did something stupid!” she shouted. “Stop deflecting!”

“I did it,” Ash started as measured and calmly as he could. It always threw her off when he was measured and calm, “because there’s no logical reason why my long-term girlfriend and I shouldn’t be able to kiss in public.”

Misty shook her head. “Brock was right. You have gone off the deep end.”

“I’m sure Brock didn’t say that.”

Misty took out her iPhone. “Brock, 10:42am. SOS. Ash’s gone off the deep end. You know why.” She looked pointedly at Ash.

“Isn’t SOS the signal they use when big ships crash? This is hardly a Titanic kind of situation.”

“You’re deflecting again!”

Damn, she was good.

They’d arrived in his penthouse by then and Misty had set her stuff down. Already she was heading into Ash’s kitchen for a glass of water.

“Misty,” Ash started in a sickly sweet tone. “Imagine how nice it would be if you could live here. If people could see you coming and going as you please.”

“I have. It would be great.”

She didn’t make it sound great. Her tone was dry and almost angry.

“Yes, it would?”

Misty set down her glass and went to sprawl on one of Ash’s too-wide couches. The seats were so long you couldn’t lean against the back without bringing your legs onto the cushion. It was like they were made for basketball players. Or a thirty-year-old man-child who never sat on a couch without making himself fully comfortable. The only time his feet were on the floor was when he was leaning forward, vigorously playing one of his hundreds of video games.

“I have thought about it, Ash, of course I have. Many times,” Misty said, patting beside her on the couch. That made Ash feel relatively assured that she wasn’t mad at him. “I would love to live with you. And perhaps redecorate this place.” She was always critical of his rather barren apartment. “But I also get why it makes sense to keep our relationship private for the show. It matters that you not really have any particular favoritism towards any of your traveling companions.”

“But Misty, don’t you wanna get married someday? I know you’re the kind of girl who already has a wedding dress picked out and probably a whole Pinterest board about it.”

She did have a dress style in mind, though not a particular one. And she didn’t have a Pinterest board, but she certainly had pins that she thought might…someday be nice for a wedding. But he wasn’t going to get her that way.

She groaned. “This is frustrating for me too, Ash. When we started this, neither of us thought it would have to go on like this for so long. But Brock’s right. You have a contract. There’s very little we can do until that contract is up.”

“In another five years,” Ash shouted, picking up a pillow to muffle the sound. Not because he had any neighbors who would hear, but because he felt like being melodramatic.

That little detail bothered Misty too. But Ash was not a person who needed fuel added to his fire.

“Tell me,” Ash asked, face still in his pillow, “what’s so wrong about breaching contract?”

“Disappointing your fans?” Misty asked. “Your fans who love you and would feel betrayed by you leaving the show?”

Ash shouted again. “I can’t make all my life decisions because of other people!”

Misty put an arm around Ash’s shoulder, trying to coax him out of the pillow. Then she said gently, “Sounds like something Ash Ketchum would do.”

Ash leaned into her embrace and took the pillow away. But he glared at her as he said, “You suck.”

She smirked. “I thought you liked that.”

“See!” Ash exclaimed, bolting up. “That’s the kind of thing that people say! The kind of thing that adults say! If I got caught saying that, the entertainment media would be all over me for days!”

Misty pulled Ash back down, ignoring his indignation. He let himself be pulled into her embrace.

“Give me another reason,” Ash asked.

Misty had to think about that. At this point, she didn’t even know the people working at The Pokémon Company very well. She had no particular loyalty to these people, and she knew that Ash’s was waning. Ash had made them all rich over the years. Of course, they had made him rich as well, but that had never been what he was about. Sure, he had a bit of a show-off streak, but he was a fairly low-maintenance guy. For the huge, expensive apartment he had, it was pretty sparse with actual belongings.

She didn’t give a damn about the stockholders. Maybe she should, because she and Ash were both stockholders themselves, but it would hardly ruin them if the stock went under.

“The employees,” she offered after a while. There were a lot of animators who had to work towards creating the world of Pokémon and making Ash into a preteen week after week. She knew the incredible hours they worked and the burdensome workloads. Not to mention musicians and writers and all the other actors. They certainly deserved the consistent paycheck they could expect from Pokémon.

“Fair point,” Ash said.

“The fans and the employees…” Misty started. “Woah, weird thought.”

“What?” Ash asked, perking up. While she’d been thinking, she’d been rubbing the base of his hairline, lightly pulling his hair and massaging his scalp and neck. It had lulled him into almost a catatonic state. She redoubled her efforts.

“Never mind, don’t worry about it.”

“No,” Ash said, pulling away, however unwillingly. “That was an idea voice. Usually a good idea voice. What was the good idea?”

“It wasn’t. It was an idea, not a good one.”

“Then let me know the not good idea.”

“Well…” Misty started, biting her lip. “It’s really half an idea.”

“Then let me know the half an idea!” Ash insisted.

“Okay, okay,” Misty said, still holding the idea close to her chest. “Just…what do you know about copyright law?”

It was a fucking brilliant idea. One that would probably get them both—but hopefully no one else—sued. But a brilliant idea, nevertheless. And if Ash did end up getting sued, at least that would get him the flames of glory he’d said he wanted this to go down with.

Job one was the hardest, by Misty’s estimation. And when they sat down with his laptop, he realized how right she was.

“This is really for you,” she said as they looked on at the blank document in front of them. “What do you want to include?”

The image felt clear in Ash’s head. He felt like he knew what he wanted. And he did know the major points that the story needed. Ash had to age, the content matter should be darker, the story should progress and have a real overarching plot. Actually, the more he thought about it, the more things came to mind that he’d have to get a stronger grasp on. Certain things in the world needed to be explained more when he really thought about it. But when it came down to it—writing the script meant to rewrite the whole Pokémon universe and he had no idea where to start, even with all these thoughts bouncing around in his head.

Worse than that, he didn’t want to mess up.

“I’m not a writer, Misty,” Ash said, pushing the laptop toward her as he put his head in his hand. “In twenty years, I’ve never written a script. Hell, I’ve never even had significant contributions to one. Just an altered line here and there. Mostly accidents. I know nothing about this.”

“Okay, let’s think about this,” Misty said, accepting the laptop and leaning over it. “We like Pokémon because it has good bones. It’s an interesting world with great outlines of characters who lack depth. It’s got a functioning if somewhat unexplored magic system. It’s touched on some good plots and then backed off of them. That gives us somewhere to start.”

“What, so we copy and paste the first season and then start to do our own thing?”

“Obviously not,” Misty shot down. “There’s no way we’re doing that Christmas episode again. No Santa in this world. And no Christ, for that matter. No, there’s gotta be something that makes more sense…”

“Like hiring a writer? We’re hiring everyone else, so why not that?”

Misty stared at him for a second, her face contemplative. Then her eyes flew open and she kissed him on the lips. “Ash, you’re a genius!”

That was certainly something he’d never heard before. Still, Misty was quick to begin typing something on the computer, and it wasn’t in the text document. He leaned over her shoulder to see what it was. She was typing into the searchbar:

Fanfiction.net.

“Fanfiction?” Ash asked, almost spitting the word. “What do you know about fanfiction? Don’t tell me you read that porny stuff.”

“It’s not all porn, Ash,” she said without looking at him. “And, for your information, I really enjoy RWBY fic. You probably would too if you read anything more verbose than your scripts.”

“I read!”

“Not for fun.”

“…Touché.”

“From my experience, most fic is terrible. God-awful. Way worse than anything Pokémon spews out. But when it’s good…by God, it’s incredible, Ash. I really fucking wish you read it.”

“Not a chance.”

“Well, you are now,” Misty said as she seemed to arrive at her location on the site. “We’re going to have to spend the next few days, at least, combing through this crap in order to find something promising. It’s in there. Pokémon is a huge fandom, so even if only one percent of this is amazing, that’s still a thousand masterpieces. We just have to be patient.”

“I’m not reading a hundred thousand stories, Misty. Not in my whole life, much less a few days.”

“Not to worry,” Misty said, patting Ash’s arm patronizingly. “I’ll teach you my ways. It won’t be long before we find the good stuff.”

Ash scoffed. “And I thought I was the dangerously optimistic one.”

“Can’t be around you without being optimistic. That’s the magic of Ash Ketchum.”

Ash awoke to the sound of his phone ringing. At 4am. He groaned and rolled over. Obviously some American had gotten a hold of his number again and wasn’t thinking about the time change. The buzzing finally abated, and Ash felt his brain turning off again, about to let him sink back into delightful sleep when it started up again. With an even louder groan, he rolled back to the other side of the bed and began groping around for the phone on his nightstand. He had to pick it up, if only to swipe away the call and block the number. But, when he picked up his demonic phone, he saw Misty’s name. He really hoped her dog was dying. Or something equally tragic.

“What?” he croaked, his voice not appreciating being used at this time of night.

“I found it, Ash. This is it. It’s perfect.”

So, not her dog, apparently. “You found an author.”

“Better than that. Way fucking better. I found a story. An actual story. Some crazy bastard is rewriting the whole anime themselves and it’s incredible. I’m only about fifty chapters in—”

“Fifty chapters‽”

“—but it’s perfect. Unless it goes really downhill, then I think I found our person. We can really do this now.”

“Great, Misty. Glad you found it. Now kindly hang up the phone again so I don’t have to look at the screen again and ruin my sleep even more.”

“Sleep‽ There’s no time to sleep. Gen 8 comes out later this year. By that time, we need to have enough episodes out to have built up a presence big enough that Pokémon Company will care. Our names will do a lot of the heavy lifting for us, but what we’re pitching is only going to appeal to a fraction of the market audience. We’re going to have to pull all of those people and new ones to make any kind of a splash. Ash? Are you listening?”

Ash had put the phone down on the pillow and was resting his head on it, eyes closed. He had been beginning to drift. But for as raspy as Misty’s voice was from evidentially having been up all night, she could still make it piercing when she needed to.

“I’m listening,” he grunted. Even though they had already gone over all those logistics a few days before.

“Well, we need to finish reading this story ASAP so we can see if it’s really the story we wanna tell and then contact the author. They probably won’t respond immediately, so we wanna be doing that as soon as we can.”

“It sounds like you’ve got a head start on the story out of the two of us,” Ash said through a yawn. “So you can finish reading it and then we’ll DM the person.”

“No, Ash,” Misty said firmly, as though she knew he was barely listening. Heck, she definitely knew he was barely listening. “You have to read it too. We have to be sure about this.”

“Fine,” he groaned. “Just let me go back to sleep.”

“Fine,” Misty agreed. “But I’ll be calling you back at seven to make sure you’re up and reading. I’m putting in a scheduled delivery for a breakfast sandwich and coffee too.”

“Thanks, Mist. G’night.”

“Goodnight, Ash.”

He was out before the call even ended.

After his false start that morning, the day had still begun too early. This was the off-season for shooting the show, so he slept in most days as late as he wanted. But right at seven, with Misty calling and his doorbell ringing, Ash realized Misty hadn’t ordered the food to be nice. It was because it would force him out of bed in a way that her phone call simply wouldn’t.

Devious girl, she was.

But there was a little part of Ash that felt guilty that Misty had been up all night for the sake of his project, so after downing his sandwich and starting on his coffee, he did set about clicking on the link she’d sent him in the wee hours that morning.

And he balked at what he saw.

It turned out that fifty chapters wasn’t even scratching the surface. The story she’d linked to him was close to one hundred chapters and the first words of chapter one kindly informed him that this was going to be a series. A monstrous series that planned on rewriting the whole PokéAni.

In his mind, he vaguely heard the words Misty had said on the phone to that effect, but by now that phone call felt like little more than a dream. The only way he knew that it had actually happened was the fact that the consequences of that call had led to him being awake at this almost equally unholy hour.

After breezing past the author’s note informing him of the impending series, as well as a whole website devoted to further resources—this person had rewritten the whole Pokédex!—he began the first chapter. It actually started with Ash Ketchum as a child, younger than ten, and seemed to be giving some back story to the characters of Pallet Town. Delia, Professor Oak, and Gary Oak were all appearing, as well as a number of new characters. He was intrigued. And then…he wasn’t.

Well, he was still intrigued, but he found himself skimming some of the longer paragraphs and soon he found himself on Twitter. He only scrolled for about ten minutes before he realized what was happening and closed the tab. Well, minimized it. He wanted to save his spot.

He called Misty.

“How do you read?” he asked after she said hello.

Usually a stupid question like that would have prompted either a sarcastic comment, or straight-up laughing at his expense. But, instead, Misty said. “Ugh, Ash, it’s already 8:30. Please tell me you’ve read something.”

“I’ve started chapter one.”

“Started chapter one‽”

“I’m almost finished!” Ash defended.

“God, I forgot about your ADHD,” Misty moaned. “Okay. You’re going to have to figure out what works for you and figure it out quickly if we wanna move on this. Try copying and pasting into a text to speech website. It’ll sound unnatural, but if you can listen to that while reading or listen to it while doing a coloring book or something maybe that’ll help. Or find something to do with your hands while you read. Chewing gum might help? I think I’ve heard that? Or google it. I’m sorry, Ash, I don’t know as much about it as I should.”

“No, that’s a good start,” Ash said quickly to appease his girlfriend. Sometimes Misty came off as tough or even mean, but she really wasn’t, otherwise Ash wouldn’t have dated her for so long. She did make fun of him often, but he did the same to her. It had been their dynamic on the show when they’d first started; it was the basis of their chemistry. But she wouldn’t ever make fun of him for a behavior disorder. He just didn’t want her to feel bad for not being able to help. “I’ll give those a try.”

“Okay,” Misty said, sounding a touch more relaxed. “I’m almost done with the Kanto arc and I’ve gotta say, this story is still really good. They’re incorporating the bones of the anime, and weaving in the first movie whilst also having more through-lines and stuff. Fewer CotDs and instead really focusing on us discovering stuff about Pokémon. And, like, growing up. And you should really read the resources they’ve created; they’re amazing.”

“I will,” Ash said, hoping that he’d actually be able to. “Try to get some sleep, okay, Mist?”

It was as though the word ‘sleep’ triggered her to yawn. He heard the sound on the other line and then she said, “I will. I just wanna finish this arc.”

“And then sleep. Immediately. Okay?”

“Okay, Ash. I will.”

“Good. You sleep. I read.”

As if emulating a sports huddle, she said, “Okay, break.”

“Go team,” Ash said with a little chuckle.

He hung up the phone and set about finding a blank coloring book page on the internet. He’d make this work however he could. He wasn’t going to get tripped up at stage one.

He didn’t read as much as Misty did. It turned out Misty was a fairly quick reader and, as he already knew, he was very, very slow. But he read a good portion of the first story in the series that day and texted Misty to let her know that he agreed. The story was as close to what he had been murkily envisioning as possible. Well, much better, actually. He could see it on the screen, could feel the choices he’d make as that version of Ash Ketchum in his muscles as he was reading. He even found himself saying his character’s lines out loud.

After that came the strange moment that made it all real. It turned out Misty already had an ffnet account—which he fully intended to explore later—and all they had to do was send the author or authoress in question a PM. That’s where things became sticky. What they were going to offer—payment for the use of an adaptation of her story, plus for her continuing writing the story, as it was still ongoing—was going to sound illegitimate. One hundred percent fake.

“We just have to go for it,” Misty said on the phone. “And hope they’re a good person and won’t leak this first thing. I mean, that should be our real concern.”

That hadn’t even occurred to Ash. He’d considered the fact that they would need a large team of people to pull this off, and that that would significantly drain his overflowing bank account. He hadn’t considered that he’d have to have absolute loyalty from the people he was asking to be disloyal to the company that had employed all of them at one time, at least as far as the actors were concerned. Except this mystery writer, of course. He’d have to get his lawyer to start drafting some NDAs.

“Yeah, we’ll just have to hope for that. You don’t have any identifying features on your account, so worse comes to worse, you just tell the public it wasn’t you and there’s no way to prove you wrong.”

“And then we’re back to square one.”

“Let’s not worry about that now. Just cross your fingers and send the message.”

“Okay. Crossed. And…sent.”

Ash realized he was holding his breath. This was the biggest thing he’d done since he was ten and had first accepted the role of the then-unknown Ash Ketchum. And, while that had been big, since he’d never had a star acting role before, he’d had no idea of the implications. No one had known the international phenomenon Pokémon would become. This, he knew, would be big. Whether it ended in the biggest success of his life, or destroyed it.

As Ash and Misty were on an internet frenzy, looking up people for all the different roles they needed to fill. Animators was the number one job in their list. They were hunched over their computers, doing search after search, occasionally exchanging work and sending out emails. Then, suddenly, Misty’s phone rang.

She groaned. She and Ash had managed to rein in his attention and they’d had a vibe going. Now he’d probably get up saying he needed to pee and wanted to order take out and it would take an hour to get him back on track. When she saw Brock’s name, she cringed. She showed it to Ash, wordlessly, and they exchanged worried expressions, the corners of their lips pulling to the side. This wasn’t great. But it wasn’t like she could blow him off, right? With a steadying breath, she answered the call.

“Hey, Brock, what’s up?”

“What’s up?” Brock echoed, his tone one of disbelief. “I thought I’d get some kind of update on the…you know, situation by now. A text at least. It’s been two days!”

Misty looked uneasily at Ash. The phone wasn’t on speaker, but she knew he could hear every word. Not that she cared if he heard—he fully knew what Brock was referring to after all. But still, Ash was a bit of a blabbermouth…

“Everything’s under control, Brock!” she said, trying to keep her voice down from the strident place it wanted to go.

“You mean you’ve talked him off the cliff.”

“That’s right!” Misty exclaimed. “Absolutely no cliff here!”

Misty couldn’t so much as glance at Ash. He was making all kinds of facial expressions—she could practically see the subtitles below his chin. He clearly thought she was doing a terrible job lying, but also wanted to jump in and spill the beans himself.

Like he could say anything. He was a good actor, but a truly horrible liar.

“Okay, good to hear,” Brock said, a little sigh of relief pressing into the phone. “I was concerned about that picture of the two of you online…”

Ash and Misty had both forgotten about that. There had been a number of snaps taken of the dramatic kiss they’d had outside Ash’s building, which had led to a lot of scrutiny online. Most people were under the correct but unconfirmed assumption that they were dating, while others said that it was so dramatic that perhaps it was some kind of stunt. Little did everyone know that both were right, more or less.

“Oh, no nothing to worry about there,” Misty confirmed.

“Good. I really was worried about him.”

“I was too,” Misty agreed, her voice nice and easy this time. “But we’ve got a plan now.”

Ash and Misty hadn’t planned into their timeline the time it would take to build trust between themselves and the mystery writer, who they now knew as Tess. She was a young American woman who just happened to love Pokémon and fanfiction; she wasn’t even a professional writer. Not yet, at least. But Ash and Misty quickly realized that they were basically performing an interview. However, instead of each question taking a few seconds to answer, they took hours to get a response. They had to get this right, though. No horsing around.

Fortunately, after a few correspondences, both parties seemed confident in each other to move to Skype and expedite the process a little bit. Their first interaction went a little like this.

Tess: “Oh my God, it really is you!”

Ash: “Heh, yeah, sure is.”

Tess: “I really just thought this was some really elaborate troll! I was prepared to change my Skype name after this.”

Misty: “Well, hopefully there won’t be a need for that.”

Tess: “Right. Oh my God. Okay. Professional. That was my fangirling, and now this is totally professional. Promise.”

It did proceed to be fairly professional after that, though Tess did seem to be in a rather constant state of disbelief. Behind the scenes, Ash and Misty had already been working on turning her narrative into a script and translating it into Japanese. Which, when fluent in both languages, sounded easy. But it—like everything—was more time-consuming and way more specialized than they’d hoped. They’d have to hire someone soon.

But after growing confident enough with Tess to send her a contract—and an NDA—everything became real. And instead of being a project of three, it was going to have to become a company of dozens.

“You’re going to have to be the one to enlist everyone,” Misty said the night after they’d finished the list of all the people and resources that they’d thought they’d need for the pilot episode. Or at least finished as far as they could tell. They’d need Ash, Gary, Samuel, and Delia at the very least, plus a couple other voice actors that they liked, preferably ones who’d be able to play most of the other Pallet human characters and Pokémon, since they wanted to start with as small a cast as possible. They’d need a recording studio and a number of animators, plus whatever equipment those animators would need.

The show was going to have to be different than Pokémon at heart. Instead of the quasi-live action with heavy CGI that Ash had physically been starring in for two decades, this was going to have to be full animation. Live action would simply take up too many resources, not to mention that meant they’d be acting out on location, where people would see with no small amount of curiosity what all the stars of Pokémon were up to. This meant that they’d have to create a fresh animation style, since there was no way to copy Pokémon’s current look.

“Why do I have to enlist everyone?” Ash asked. “This idea was both of ours.”

“Because you have that magic Ash Ketchum extroversion. Everyone loves you and will follow you wherever you go. They won’t do that for me.”

“The execs sure didn’t do that for me.”

“They had no reason to,” Misty explained. “But these people might. They do. Everyone loves this show and they’ll want to see the story that Tess has created. They’ll want to be a part of that. So long as you’re the charming Ash Ketchum they’ve all fallen in love with.”

“Charming like this?” Ash asked quietly, leaning in to give Misty a kiss. They’d become more lax with having her over to his place more often. After all, soon that would be small potatoes compared with the bomb they were planning to drop soon.

“Charming with your words,” Misty whispered against his mouth. But she didn’t seem to mind his advances as she closed the gap and began kissing him in earnest.

They didn’t get much else done that night.

The first episode took over a month to create. They’d had to work back and forth with Tess for script rewrites, not to mention that this was being done in both English and Japanese, plus including English subtitles. If they wanted to gain an audience, they’d have their best bet by engaging both Japanese and English audiences. And, best case scenario, many more languages after that.

Then there was finding actors. This was the most painless of all the processes, except for where the lawyers had to get involved. It was always sticky to present legal documents to friends—and after all these years, Samuel, Delia, and Gary were dear friends of Ash’s—but they were receptive. And, most importantly, they thought Ash and Misty’s idea was good. Of course, they thought it was batshit crazy, and none of them were afraid to say that. Which they all did on separate occasions. But they still got on board. That was more reassuring to Ash and Misty than most anything else.

The hardest part was assembling an animation team. They had no idea how many animators were needed, how responsibilities would be split up, how they would work together or anything. Plus, they couldn’t just poach from the show for two reasons. 1.) Ash didn’t intimately know any of the animators. They had no loyalty to him and no reason to jump ship from the show. 2.) They were working on an entirely different kind of animation. Ash and Misty didn’t know the repercussions of that, but they were sure they must exist.

But after a frustrating amount of trial and error—and a lot of money bleeding from Ash’s bank account—there it was. A final product. And a polished, decent one at that. Everything was professional quality, it was a standard twenty-seven-minute length, despite the fact that there would be no advertisements, and it had subtitles in both Japanese and English. Then it was all about what to do with it.

They did nothing. For a time.

In the process of working on the episode, they’d realized they’d need the next couple stocked if they wanted buzz to continue around this series and for people to take it seriously. Fortunately, it only took a few weeks to create the next two episodes. The bulk of the work on their end at that point was in the script, but Tess had been prolific with her turnout of drafts. They were already interviewing a few impeccable translators, as they had quickly realized what specific skills were needed for subbing versus dubbing and that simply being bilingual wasn’t going to cut it.

Then it was time. Ash would have to go back to the real show soon, and they had to drop these before that happened. So Ash made a YouTube channel—because where else could they put something like this? The show had to be free, otherwise they’d be sued faster than someone could watch the first episode.

That part wasn’t stressful. Uploading a video to a YouTube channel with zero subscribers was hardly a leap of faith. It wasn’t like Ash was a master of search engine optimization. No one would find this thing.

Until he tweeted it. When he tweeted it, there would be no going back.

“Are you ready?” Ash asked Misty as his finger hovered over his laptop’s touchpad.

He wasn’t really asking it for her. He was asking it for himself. Not out of selfishness, even though his job and reputation were the ones on the line. Sure, Misty had done a couple episodes recently, but she was a relic of the show, not a star. And he, next to Pikachu, perhaps, was the star. And people would either love him or hate him for this.

But he just wanted a little reassurance. That they hadn’t gotten swept away in the excitement of it all in the past few months. That all the work and dedication hadn’t clouded the possibility that this wasn’t a good idea after all. But Misty just took his other hand in hers.

“We’re ready.”

He had to look away as he clicked to send the link to the video out to the world. He was fully wincing, as though the action would send a shock wave through his system. He stared at the screen for only a second, his live tweet burning into his retinas before shutting the laptop screen violently and recoiling onto his couch. Misty, meanwhile—seeming much calmer than he—was on her phone, hopping over to his Twitter account to retweet the post. Then she, too, put away her phone.

“Wanna watch some anime?”

“God, yes.”

“Misty, what the fuck?”

Brock’s was the first call they bothered taking. Their phones had started blowing up with notifications soon after the video had gone up and they’d silenced all alerts. They’d already ignored a few phone calls. But Brock was the couple’s best friend, just like in the show. There was something about spending your formative years together that left a lasting bond. They owed him an explanation, at the very least.

“Hi, Brock!” Misty said, sounding fake with cheer. “What brings about this call?”

“I thought you had talked him off the edge? But you’ve been doing whatever this is for however long you have. I assume you’re a part of this, right?”

“I did talk him off the edge, Brock,” Misty said, her phone on speaker between herself and Ash. “Instead of self-destructing he crafted a beautiful and intricate bomb and threw it at his whole life.”

“Oh, my bad. That sounds like a great idea, Misty.”

“Yeah, you didn’t make that sound any better,” Ash agreed, making himself known on the call.

“Hello, crazy man,” Brock greeted. “Glad to know your bosses haven’t harpooned you yet.”

“They’ll have to go through my doormen before they can come up here and harpoon me.”

“Lucky dog,” Brock said sarcastically.

“I’m sorry we didn’t tell you, Brock,” Misty said, getting at what she suspected was at the real root of this call, whether Brock knew it or not. “We were already having everyone sign NDAs. It didn’t seem smart to tell anyone who wasn’t absolutely necessary to the beginning of this project.”

“Beginning?” Brock said. “There’s more?”

“We’ve already got the next two episodes in the bag and are in production on the fourth and script-writing up to the sixth.”

Brock was quiet for a second before he asked, “Just how long are you planning on doing this?”

“Don’t worry, your character is coming,” Ash said with a laugh.

“The writer we’ve employed already has a story loosely plotted all through Kalos. They’re nearly done with all the specifics of Kanto—though we have slowed down her progress significantly since starting this.”

“Kalos‽” Brock exclaimed. “You have eighteen years worth of content for this?”

That was putting it in a perspective Ash and Misty hadn’t yet thought about it. Would they be fifty years old and still working on this project?

“We truthfully have no idea how long we have, Brock,” Misty admitted. “This could be shut down at any time by something we haven’t foreseen. So we haven’t looked that far into the future.”

“Well,” Brock said, finally at a bit of a loss for words. “I just can’t tell you how heckin’ proud I am of you crazy bastards. This was the biggest leap of faith I’ve ever seen.”

That brought a big grin to both Ash and Misty’s faces. They looked at each other and nearly giggled. If Brock was on their side, then they were doing just fine.

“You watched the episode?” Ash asked.

“Of course I did. And it was great. Truthfully, I’m not sure everyone cares 100% about a Pokémon prologue, but as soon as it becomes evident that you’re going to continue this…I can’t imagine the response. Seriously, you guys shouldn’t read the comments but…they’re mostly really good. People like it. They love it.”

The conversation with Brock petered off after that. He’d said his piece, but really he’d just affirmed everything they were doing. That was all they wanted out of their best friend.

“I didn’t realize people would think of it as a prologue,” Ash said once Misty had hung up.

“Yeah,” Misty agreed. “We might be out of the woods until we get to the part where this story meets up with canon.”

“Which gives us the time to build up loyal viewers and get the hang of this producing thingy.”

“This producing thing-a-ma-bob.”

“Producing thing-a-ma-jigger.”

The two stared at each other for a moment, the laughs building up in their throats before they burst out, laughing hysterically on the couch.

It was done. It had started. They’d done it.

“My reviewers think you’ve stolen my story,” Tess said on their next Skype call, going over one of the scripts. “They’re indignant on my behalf and ready to burn the show to the ground.”

The words were dark, but Tess looked practically giddy.

“Honestly, even if you had, I’d have counted myself lucky,” she continued. “It would have been the most flattering thing that’s ever happened to me. Certainly more flattering than my 150 reviews for 93 published chapters of labor.”

“You need to make an announcement,” Misty said. “Also, your name is in the credits, but do you want us to add your username so that people will be able to see that? Or do you not want the two tied together?”

“Hmm…” Tess intoned, considering that. “Fanfiction has always felt like a secret identity to me, so my impulse is to say no. But now my name is on the show anyway…Tell you what. I’ll scrub up my profile and delete some more indulgent author’s notes tonight and then you can include it next time. No need to make any changes to the episode that’s already out.”

“By the way,” Ash butted in. “We probably should have talked about this earlier but…are you going to be continuing your story on ffnet?”

Tess sighed. “No. I don’t think I’d have the time even if it weren’t probably a breach of the NDA at this point. So I’ll have to include that in the announcement. I’ll make an author’s note chapter telling everyone. All 28 followers of mine.”

“Well, that’s one potential drama storm put out,” Misty said.

“There is actually something I wanted to talk about,” Tess said slowly. “Regarding the longer arching plot.”

“Shoot,” Ash said.

“Well, regarding the ships—er, relationships,” Tess corrected. Misty knew most fanfiction terms well enough, but Ash knew next to nothing. He was learning, through talking with Tess and Misty, but it wasn’t penetrating very much. “Uh, what are we going to do with them?”

“What do you mean?” Misty asked. “I thought you had things basically plotted out through the Kalos League?”

“I do,” Tess said. “For my story. My story that’s a love letter to the anime and the fandom. Where I’ve basically taken the most popular couples and rolled with it. In PokéAni fanfiction there are basic couples that are usually grouped together. The two of you, May and Drew, Dawn and Paul—”

“Dawn and Paul‽” Ash interjected.

“That’s why I’m bringing this up!” Tess said. “Yes, Dawn and Paul, Cilan and Iris, and Serena and Clemont. And Gary with Leaf, but there’s no way we’re doing that. I personally think some of these pairings are pairings of convenience than real chemistry or shipping hints from the anime. But they’re what the fans have accepted. Just like the fact that your last name is Waterflower, Misty.”

“Which it isn’t.”

“Well, mine isn’t really Ketchum!” Ash said. “That would be too ridiculous.”

“I know, I know,” Tess said. “These are things that wouldn’t matter in fanfiction, because they’re accepted. But for a broad audience where this is essentially television and not fanfiction…I’m just not sure about pairing any of you together.”

“Well, there has to be romance,” Misty argued. “We want these characters to grow up, and that’s a part of most people growing up. We can’t assume all these characters are ace and aro.”

“No,” Tess agreed. “Though I think we should include some.”

“But that doesn’t help us with the issue at hand,” Misty said.

“Well, what about us?” Ash asked, taking Misty’s hand. “I think we should end up together.”

Those words made Misty’s ears turn pink. It was the kind of thing Ash didn’t say in real life. She felt it, certainly, but being in a relationship when you were thirty and not having any particular talk of marriage and engagement was discouraging. Of course, that was part of why they’d undertaken this whole project to begin with. But still, even hearing Ash talk about the fictional versions of themselves ‘ending up together’ was heartwarming.

“Yes, I totally agree,” Tess said without hesitation. “You two and then May and Drew are basically non-negotiable for me. But with the others I’ve been of many minds. First of all, people should date around. My whole thing with this series is that it should be realistic. People don’t all end up with the first person they partner with. They don’t all get married in their early twenties. That’s not the story I wanted to tell.”

“I don’t want that either,” Misty agreed. “But if this story is a love letter to the fans, then when do we indulge them and when do we not?”

“Well, not everyone ships the same people,” Ash said. “I said that right, right? Ships?”

“Yes,” Tess answered quickly, smiling at Ash sounding like such a fanfic nerd.

“Right. So what’s the point in pandering at all?”

Misty looked surprised, eyebrows raised. “The man makes a good point.”

“Really, it all depends on how long this goes,” Tess said. “If the show finishes after Kalos, then only a few couples should be together. If it goes into adulthood, then more should be together, though not everyone with their #endgame. If it goes into next-gen—”

“Next-gen?” Ash interrupted.

“Kids,” Tess clarified. “Your kids.”

“Oh,” Ash drawled, a blush coloring his cheeks as he glanced at Misty.

“If it goes into next-gen, then even more people will be paired off…but then there should also probably be divorces and separations. But those things would really anger the audience. Especially if we’ve been working towards a pairing being together for a long, long time. Have you ever seen How I Met Your Mother?”

“Nope,” both Ash and Misty said in unison.

“Oh,” Tess said, her energy dropping a bit. “Well…if you did you’d know what I mean. But you’ll just have to take my word for it. Even if we’re not pandering to the fans…I’d rather not anger them. But, like I said, it comes down to when this story ends. And, well, I hadn’t quite gotten that far in my outline yet, since the actual anime isn’t over yet.”

Yet. That sounded suddenly ominous. Perhaps this was the moment Ash was first realizing it, but it suddenly occurred to him that that’s what they were working toward. The actual destruction of the show that just wouldn’t end. It felt like the intentional murder of a life-long friend. He had to brush that feeling away immediately.

“Right,” Ash said. “So, perfect world, how long is it?”

Tess just pulled the corners of her lips down and shook her head to show she had no idea. Ash turned to Misty.

“Ideally? As long as Ash has a story.”

“Ash?” Tess asked.

“That’s the one thing the Pokémon anime has right. This story is Ash’s. So, as long as he has a story to tell, then we keep going for as long as we can.”

Finally, Ash had to address the elephant in the room. Well, the room that all this had begun in, which is to say Kunihiko Yuyama’s office. His agent had informed him that Kunihiko, Daiki, and Aya insisted on seeing him again. Suddenly, Ash felt like he had been summoned to the principal’s office. He wasn’t far off.

It turned out he didn’t have to do much haphazard explaining as to what he’d done. They could already guess that Ash’s new show wasn’t just a prologue, but out to rewrite the whole anime. And they knew exactly what that might mean for the show. But it turned out Ash didn’t.

“Ash,” Kunihiko seethed, barely able to keep his voice under control. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

“If you’re talking about a breach of contract, I’ve taken that into account and am willing to—”

“Of course it’s a breach of contract!” Kunihiko exclaimed. “But that’s not what I’m talking about. You’re not just out to destroy the Pokémon anime, but all of Pokémon as a franchise. That number one media franchise slot? Gone.”

“What are you talking about?” Ash asked, genuinely confused.

“Think about it,” Kunihiko explained. “When a new anime season comes out, the new games come out. The new manga comes out. New trading cards. New merchandise. All these things support each other. If one of them deteriorates, they all do.”

Ash’s heart dropped. He actually hadn’t thought about that.

“The anime is what a significant portion of our fans follow. It brings in new eyeball for the youth, some too young to even play the video games. No anime, fewer game sales. Fewer merch sales. Fewer trading cards. Then boom, Hello Kitty is the top franchise again. Are you a closet Hello Kitty fan, Ash?”

“No, sir,” Ash answered, suddenly feeling even more the part of the primary schooler being chastised by his teacher.

“So, what do you suggest as a solution, Ash? I know what I want. But I’m curious to hear your thoughts.”

“You want us to stop production,” Ash said, evading the question. “At least before it starts to replace the anime.”

“Of course. Do you have any plan of doing that?”

Ash wasn’t a child. These people might think of him as a ten-year-old—and he was really good at being one. But in the last couple months, he’d like to think he’d gotten pretty damn good at being an adult too.

“No, sir.”

“So I’m forced to ask once again, what’s your solution?”

His solution was to go back in time and have Tess’s story be the PokéAni from the start. Then she never would have felt the need to clean up the mess that the original writers had made before they’d known the phenomenon Pokémon would be. That it would one day be the top grossing media franchise. Then Ash never would have felt trapped by this show. The show that had given him everything. But, unfortunately, this was the real world. It wasn’t Pokémon. He couldn’t get a magic necklace or travel in a magic elevator to a different time period. He was stuck here cleaning up the mess that he and everyone else had made.

“You wanna know what my perfect solution would be?” Ash said finally. “If you let Ash Ketchum go. We can keep doing our show, hopefully with your blessing. Maybe even with your support, so that it could earn us some money to keep it going. And you keep your anime going, but with a new star. Because, like I tried to tell you, I can’t do it anymore.”

“But there is no Pokémon anime without Ash Ketchum and his Pikachu,” Aya insisted, finally speaking up. “He’s synonymous with the show.”

“So make it the next generation,” Ash blurted out, thinking of his conversation with Misty and Tess. “In our show—” Kunihiko scoffed at the word ‘our,’ “—Ash Ketchum and Misty are eventually going to get married and have kids. Let the Galar region be about that kid. He’ll—or she, I guess, I don’t actually know—be really similar to Ash Ketchum. Maybe even with another Pikachu. And then Ash Ketchum will be able to make cameo appearances. C’mon, the viewers would love that.”

“No,” Aya said. “That adds too many complications. Where’s Professor Oak? Is he dead? And Ash and Misty getting together canonically isn’t an option. We want Ash to stay relatable, and getting married to one of the Pokégirls isn’t a part of that.”

“Well, I don’t want to say take it or leave it,” Ash said. “But that’s the best compromise I have for you right now. We can both keep thinking, but my hope is that this new show will reignite the fans. It will make them feel that we care. Since it’s actually me and Delia and everyone in it, and not just a fanfiction in the corner of the internet. This is the kind of thing the diehard fans want, even if the youngsters don’t. But, then again, what difference would the youngsters know between Ash Ketchum and his kid?”

The group across from him was silent for a second. Then Kunihiko put his hands on the desk.

“Fine. We’ll adjourn this meeting for today. But don’t think you’re off the hook, Ash. Any change to the current track for the anime would mean a delay in production, which we can’t afford for the aforementioned reasons of the games and merch already in production. That would be millions and millions in losses. Our stock is set to plummet at any wrong move.”

“I understand that,” Ash said, though it hadn’t occurred to him until just then. “But I hope you’ll consider the idea.”

“I suppose we don’t have much of a choice,” Kunihiko said. “We’ll just have to speak with the heads at The Pokémon Company and to see.”

It turned out Ash had left Pokémon Company with very little choice. In only a week their pilot episode had gone viral and, since Ash hadn’t received a cease and desist or anything like that, they followed up in posting their second video which accrued almost the same number of views, proving that their audience was captive.

Perhaps if they hadn’t done that, the Pokémon Company could have tried to sweep it under the rug. But with the first and second episodes already out, damage control was needed more than anything else. To their advantage, all that had been announced about the Gen 8 anime so far was that Ash Ketchum would continue to be in it and that there was a new traveling companion. These things would technically still be true, under Ash’s compromise, though a bit of backtracking would be needed. Surely, Ash Ketchum would still be in the anime. Just in an entirely different capacity.

There would be backlash. No one knew whether it would be more from the fact that 10-year-old Ash was being retired or because Ash and Misty were going to be canonically married with progeny, but Pokémon Company had to be prepared to handle both of those. They were bound to get an even bigger reaction than the debacle about the lack of a National ‘Dex in the games—though admittedly more mixed rather than overwhelmingly negative. Ash and Misty had agreed to be a part of the damage control process. And what they realized quickly was that they needed to do something that no other television show ever had to do: state its intensions.

Of course, Pokémon Company would first have to air its trailer as usual, which would be a bit of a rush-job, since so much would need to be reanimated. Its release would have to be pushed back, but that wasn’t too bad, since it hadn’t had a public announcement. The drop was meant to be a surprise. Then Ash and Misty would have to issue a follow-up video to what was sure to be a big reaction from a trailer of a new generation of the anime in which Ash was not the protagonist.

After that, Pokémon: The Retelling, as they had been bold enough to name it, was up and running. And with greater ease than ever because, while Misty now had a small role in the anime to fill, Ash was basically jobless. Compared to his schedule as the star, at least. So they could put all their time into the new show. Well, all their work time. Because now, for the first time since he was ten, Ash was able to have a personal life.

A dozen episodes of the show had now been released and the original—or new, depending on how one wanted to look at it—anime had just started generation 8. For once in his life, Ash was a free man. He could go to bars, he could swear, and, best of all, the world now knew he had a girlfriend. Some AmourShippers, among others, were a little peeved about this revelation—and what they correctly guessed it would mean for The Retelling’s plotline—but Ash didn’t care. They could get married. He could propose.

And propose he did.

Even though this whole saga had begun with the Pokémon writers refusing to change the script for him, Ash managed to eke out one tiny favor. Sure, he’d been in their bad graces for a while after The Retelling had dropped, but as the anime continued to do well—as well as could be expected, since PokeAni viewership had been down for years anyway—it seemed he was forgiven.

It showed growth in the PokeAni that a line at all about romance was even able to make it in, but Ash managed to squeeze a line into one episode that Ash Ketchum had proposed to Misty Waterflower on a certain day in 2020. The same day that episode was set to air. And, thusly, Ash proposed in real life.

In the future, Ash would regret that move. He would be able to see that he’d done that as a result of his censorship of the past years and he wanted to be overly-bold. He’d wanted the proposal to make a big, public splash. It had been an overcorrection. In the midst of their engagement, he realized that something more personal and intimate might have been better. But, as Misty reassured him many times over the years, she would have been happy for it either way.

Of course, the other issue was that fans were quickly able to suss out when that would mean that their child, the current protagonist, would be conceived and born, assuming their real life relationship was to match that of the characters in the show. That led to some embarrassing and surprisingly aggressive hounding from the fans. Of course, their first child didn’t end up being born for a few more years, and they were quite different from the Ketchum child on the show.

Years later, after the PokeAni had run its course and The Retelling had come and gone with massive fame and success, Ash had one final interview before declaring himself fully retired. Of course, his interviewer was some youngster who hadn’t even been born when The Retelling first came out.

Three cameras were focused on the two of them sitting across from each other in lounge chairs. The set was sparse, but when Ash looked beyond what was visible in frame, he saw dozens of pieces of expensive film equipment. There were booms, monitors, and lots of people with headsets fussing about. Frankly, it was much more pared down than what he’d worked with for much of his career. The technology had grown so much smaller—tighter and better than when he’d gotten his start in the ‘90s. But no matter the differences, he was perfectly at ease as he fell into the role of interviewee and focused all his attention on the young man in front of him.

If Ash wasn’t mistaken the boy across from him looked a little nervous himself. But, nevertheless, he gave one final look at his first note card as people around him moved and called for the cameras to start rolling.

“Hello, Ash, we’re so pleased you could join us here again today.”

“Happy to be here,” Ash replied, the old song and dance coming off his lips as easily as any script had.

“We both wanted this final interview of yours to be the definitive Ash interview, so do you mind if I just get into it?

“Not at all.”

“Great. So what led you to betray the show that gave you your fame and success?”

That was a planned question. The one he’d shown Ash before so that it wouldn’t come across too harsh. But it wouldn’t have anyway. All of the drama of that time was so far in the past, it was easy to talk about. So he did.

”All I wanted was to have my life. And the fact that it led to Ash Ketchum finally having one himself has made me very happy.”

The interviewer leaned back, settling into it. “You have played the role of Ash Ketchum in various capacities for nearly your whole life. Do you think his character has greatly impacted who you feel you’ve grown to be? Is that why it was important to give him a fuller life in The Retelling?”

Ash chucked, his laugh sounding nearly like a croak in his old age. “That boy and I have been together so long, I nearly couldn’t tell you where he stops and I begin. Even at my most frustrated with the role, though, I always had this love for him. I think people all over the world have held a deep love for all versions of Ash Ketchum in their hearts. He’s the quintessential hero, and his many failures never impeded that.”

“You speak of this love for Ash, yet you ultimately caused the character to change entirely after a pretty consistent twenty year run for him. Did you ever have small regrets about that or grieve the ten-year-old version of the character?”

“I definitely never regretted it,” Ash said firmly. “This is the one great truth of my life. But did I grieve the boy I knew? Sure. I’d grown up with him as he’d stayed the same. Constant. Suddenly having such a role in his shaping, his adolescence, adulthood, marriage to my wife’s character, having kids…it was hard. The fans didn’t like everything we did with him unanimously, of course. But for me, I knew if I misstepped with this boy, it would break my heart.”

“Did it break your heart when the show ended?”

“Which show?”

The interviewer thought for a moment, then answered, “Both.”

“Well, the answer is yes, for both,” Ash said, then chuckled. “I suppose I didn’t have to ask ‘which show,’ then.”

“We always like clarity around here.”

“Right, me too,” Ash agreed. “The truth is, when we started The Retelling, I’d been ready to quit the Pokémon anime. In fact, I’d been all set to do so before we came up with the, in hindsight, very complicated solution of entirely rewriting the show. The Retelling, of course, ended up being the best decision of my life. At the time, it was part of a handy solution to keep me from causing an abrupt end to the anime. I think the show ending there would have upset me, but at the same time, it was easy to feel it had run its course. I truly think nearly everyone involved in the show at the time felt that way.

“But then we ended up breathing new life into it. And I was so glad the show hadn’t ended and that the creators thought there was more to add to this world. They started taking fan-created Pokémon for new generations and it really felt like the show was doing more than ever. But still, its time came and went. It was sad, but it was like the passing of a grandparent. You mourn, but you now it’s right.”

“And the Retelling?”

“That show was a blessing, top to bottom. An incredible amount of work, but it saved me in so many ways. We were so lucky to be able to tell that story to the end, to the end of Ash Ketchum’s life. That was the only natural end, and we concluded that early on. Of course, it seems as though some fans continue to write about the children and the next generation, but those stories belong to the fans. Ours was only Ash’s. We told it to the best of our ability, from his birth to his death, and I’m ever so grateful that we got to give him that life.”

“You’re leaving so much behind in your retirement and I wonder, is there any one thing that you’d like the people to remember about Pokémon or Ash Ketchum or your legacy?”

Ash was quiet. In his old age, he’d come to take his time a little more. The impulsive, rash Ash of his youth had been left behind, and now he was ponderous. “There is no right way to tell stories,” he said finally. “I think that when we first started, myself, Misty, and Tess were arrogant enough to think that our way was the right way. The original show had gotten it wrong and we had to right it. But the truth is, that show was wonderful. And our show was wonderful. And every other story out there about Pokémon is equally wonderful. I’m lucky that the story I wanted to tell about these characters had the gift of a large, kind, and receptive audience. Not all stories get that. But they’re no less valuable. Pokémon is such a gift. It provides an amazing world that we all have spent so much time playing in. You, sir, have you ever watched the show?”

The interviewer nodded. If he was taken aback that Ash had turned the tables to ask the questions, he had the professional veneer not to show it. “I grew up watching reruns.”

“And did you play the games?”

“Some, not a lot.”

“That’s wonderful,” Ash said. “I’m so happy to hear that. They say that generative pieces of art, the books, movies, television shows that inspire people to create themselves, these are sacred. Pokémon, for me, has been the gift to never stop giving. It’s given me my wife, my livelihood, my dearest friends, and the ability to make change in this world. Now, it hasn’t given all those things to most of its fans, but they too have received things. There’s a reason Pokémon kept on coming back, that the new generations of kids kept playing the games. There’s something magic about it. I’m still arrogant enough to like to think I was a part of that. But it will continue to be there after I’m gone as well. And that’s the beauty of it.”

“…So you’d like to say that Pokémon is for everyone?”

“Yes,” Ash answered firmly. “It’s yours. Take it and do with it what you will. I did just that for a long time and it’s brought me much of the joy of my life. I hope it does the same for all of you.”

“Well,” the interviewer said, folding his legs and looking a great deal more comfortable. “I’d say that that’s the end of our exclusive final interview with the inimitable Ash. Thank you, Ash, for speaking with us one more time.”

“Yes,” Ash said, also leaning back and relaxing, looking into the camera one last time. “Thank you as well.”

#pokemon #pokeshipping #aaml #fanfiction #oneshot #ash and misty #ash ketchum

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homenum-revelio-hq · 5 years ago

Photo

Welcome (again) to the Order of the Phoenix, Gabe!

You have been accepted for the role of non-biography character CORA CHITTOCK with the faceclaim of Hunter Schafer! We were thrilled to see a veela character in a non-fanon way and can’t wait to see what you bring to the veela lore! We are so excited to see what you do with Cora!

Please take a look at the new member checklist and send in your account within 24 hours! Thank you for joining the fight against Voldemort!

OUT OF CHARACTER:

NAME: Gabe

AGE: Still 22!

TIMEZONE: GMT-3

ACTIVITY LEVEL: Pretty solid, eh? I always go missing in the weekends because it’s Official Socializing Time, but then I make up for it during the week, mostly

ANYTHING ELSE: Nope!

CHARACTER DETAILS:

NAME: Cora Chittock

BLOOD STATUS: Half-Blood/Half-Breed (Veela)

AGE: 18

GENDER, PRONOUNS, and SEXUALITY: Trans girl, she/her/hers, lesbian. She can’t imagine her transition is anyone’s business, so I wouldn’t think that is something she’ll talk about at all these days, but her sexuality is definitely public knowledge, as she makes it her mission to make it obvious whenever the opportunity for it presents itself. She’s heard it too many times before that her interest in women is simply another cheap tactic to rebel against veela expectations, and she likes to assure everyone that nope, the 12-year-old knew what she was talking about, and she’s still very much gay.

HOUSE ALUMNI: Slytherin

ANY CHANGES: I wrote this myself, so nope!

CHARACTER BACKGROUND:

PERSONALITY:

Cora is an avocado – soft on the outside, hard on the inside. Some may argue – and she would argue with those some – that she doesn’t even have a soft exterior at all. Nothing is what it seems with her. There was no hesitance from the Sorting Hat when it sent her straight into Slytherin, its booming voice making the announcement as soon as it touched the first strand of hair on her head, much to her sister’s dismay.

Being a veela wasn’t something she was conscious of until somewhere around third year. Or, at least, it wasn’t something that bothered her before that. It wasn’t hard to fit in right from the first day at Hogwarts, life was easy to navigate as an eleven-year-old that almost everyone feels inclined to like; Cora used to love the attention. She had many friends, teachers liked her, there was nothing to complain about! That’s what most people think about veela, anyway, and it might be true for a while, but only until you’re no longer a child. People’s intentions change. Her classmates’ friendly smiles and high-fives became inappropriate remarks and catcalls down the hallway. She went from Good Friend to Object of Desire in what felt like the blink of an eye and she despised it.

And no one cared, she quickly learned, about the veela complaining about getting too much attention, being too liked. It’s like complaining you have too much food to eat, or a bed too comfortable to sleep in! At least it’s how everyone saw it. Even her family refused to acknowledge the issue. Get used to it, they’d say. Welcome to the real world!

Cora isn’t one to sit idly by while someone has to deal with any sort of abuse – not herself, not anyone else. She learned quickly that no one else seemed to care about her fight, but she wasn’t gonna fight any less because of it. She just had to become her own fortress.

Her charisma and charm are still there, but now, every time she smiles, she’s baring her teeth. Every flip of hair is weaponized, every bat of eyelashes is a threat. She learned how to defend herself before anyone had a chance to do something more than hide behind catcalls and love letters. There are several expectations when it comes to veela, and she’s willing to break every single one of them, if she can. She’s still friendly and flirty when she wants to be, but she’s loud. Self-assertive to the point of brashiness, energetic and sarcastic, with the mouth of a sailor and a tongue sharp enough to kill. Every bit of her is a quiet armor, the pieces carefully collected and glued together over the years, though she still sees everything with unbeatable humor. Her skin is as soft as her edges are sharp and she’ll always throw the first punch. She refuses to be the fragile little fairy-thing made to cater to the fetishizing ideal of acceptable half-breed, and she won’t apologize for it.

She still keeps her fair deal of friends around, even though nowadays she prefers those who don’t seem to react to her much. Her defenses are up so high that it’s become a problem – maybe she has thrown a couple fireballs at one or two innocent people who she thought were following her, yes, can you blame the girl? –, but she’s pleasant company when she’s not climbing up on any tables and delivering speeches about half-breed rights that no one wants to hear.

BRIEF OVERVIEW OF FAMILY:

The Chittock sisters never really met their mother. It’s a complicated story, really – at least that’s what Cora heard all her life. Their father, an eccentric wizard devastated by the loss of his beloved veela companion, never told his daughters what really happened. When they were little, he would tell them these crazy fantastic stories of how their mother was and why she had to leave, but that only lasted a couple of years, until the girls grew up and realized these were products of his mind. And terribly inconsistent stories, at that.

He’s not crazy, Cora would say, but he’s, perhaps, not the most sane man she’s ever laid her eyes upon, sure. He’s a conspiracist and a bit of a nutcase, but he has a heart bigger than his body, and that’s how he raised his daughters to be. He loves them more than anything, and they know it.

Cora has a good relationship with her family, through and through. She loves her sister, even if they pick fights with each other sometimes, and she loves her dad even if he insists on cooking and burning the dinner every single night. They’re not too supportive of her feisty ways, and they would surely lose all the hairs on their head if they knew about her finding her way into the Order, but she’s not planning on telling.

Despite the absent mother and the lack of explanation that comes with it, the girl has never felt like anything was missing from her family. In fact, before she was even a teenager she’d already stopped asking questions about her mom’s fate, knowing it would only sadden her father and get her some nonsense response in return. Her family’s not a big one, but it’s perfect, as far as she knows. They’re as good of a support system as any, she thinks.

OCCUPATION:

Cora works at Eeylops Owl Emporium, at Diagon Alley. It wouldn’t be hard to get any sort of part-time job with the Veela charm turned all the way up, and while Glenda chose a much more artistic path with her own show, Cora decided she didn’t want all of that attention. No, instead, as soon as she was out of school, she marched right up to her favorite shop in Diagon Alley, and sweet talked until they gave her a position in there. It’s her dream job, for the moment, even if it pays terribly. Her family is quite wealthy and she doesn’t plan on moving out immediately, so it’s not like she needs piles of money. Here, she gets to hang out with the pretty little birds for most of her day, and it’s incredibly soothing. She thinks it might be the Veela bird-like tendencies that make her feel so comforted to be surrounded by the little winged animals, but she won’t question it. The owls keep her calm, and they seem happy to have her around, and she gets to help little eleven-year-olds to pick new friends. It’s a pretty fun job.

ROLE WITHIN THE ORDER/THOUGHTS ABOUT THE ORDER:

Cora still feels a little out of place in the order, but only because she’s new and hasn’t quite figured out who she can trust yet. She remembers some of these faces from school, but back then she’d been so busy perfecting her skills and learning defenses and dodging creeps that she would rather forget that time entirely, start fresh. The tiny self-conscious part of her worries she might be too brash for the crowd her age and too young for the older people, and that she’ll float somewhere in between, but she’s willing to make her presence known either way. She believes in their fight. She also, perhaps selfishly, believes she can have more of a voice if she has a group like this to back her up, and maybe she can convince them to join some rallies for half-breed and veela rights, while she’s at it. She certainly has been trying to make that happen for a while now. Cora sees the war for how heavy it is, and she knows how easily the tides could change against her, as a half-breed. As much as she vowed to fight her own battles, now she seeks protection, too. She knows no one is gonna survive on their own and if she can do something to help this end quicker, then it’s her duty to do so.

SURVIVAL:

Cora still lives with her family, and doesn’t plan on changing that anytime soon. Her father may be a nutcase, but their little hut in the middle of nowhere might also be the safest place she knows. She doesn’t know what it is about it that makes it feel so secure, but it does, at least for them (he told her once that her mother had enchanted it before she left, but he also said a number of ridiculous things, so she doesn’t believe it). She’s easily overlooked when it comes to this war. She’s a half-breed, but an acceptable one, one that society may praise from time to time, when it fits them. It’s just her and Glenda’s luck. Most people don’t seem to care about what the half-Veela are up to, and the rest who do, only care because they feel enchanted by them, so it’s mostly a win-win when it comes to hiding.

RELATIONSHIPS:

Cora doesn’t do relationships all that much. She’s never had a romantic relationship with anyone, nothing that ever went beyond some meaningless fooling around – even though there was and still is a lot of that. She likes the affection, she craves a human connection like that, but she doesn’t feel like she can have it until she learns to reel in all of her Veela charm. She’s still too young, too insecure. Even if she’s learned to keep most of her unwanted charm in, nowadays, she knows some people can still be affected. And how can she trust their affection, then? How can she know if the pretty girl who wants to date her won’t lose all of her interest suddenly, the day Cora learns to control her abilities better? She can’t. The line is blurry between someone loving you for the energy you put out, loving how you make them feel, or really loving you for who you are. She’s not willing to take any risks.

For that reason, she’s been known to still deliberately use her charisma here and there to get what she wants, but she tries to keep close to people who aren’t affected by her blood status at all. At least, those, she knows she can trust. Some specifics:

REGULUS BLACK: It’s not like they’re childhood friends or anything, but Cora might risk saying they were the closest friend she had in Hogwarts. It was a confusing, chaotic time back then, and when people started reacting differently to her, she found comfort in Regulus’ blatant indifference. She’s not fully convinced they even like her at all, as a friend or general company, but she still likes to hang out with them when she can.

DORCAS MEADOWES: They met because of Cora’s brief panic in fifth year, when a poor, sweet boy asked to be her date on a trip to Hogsmeade and she was too tired to be mean or blunt, as she usually was. Dorcas happened to be walking by, and Cora took the opportunity to grab her hand and yank her over before declaring she couldn’t accept the invitation, as she’d be going with this Hufflepuff, instead. She paid Dorcas back for any inconvenience by buying her some Pepper Imp on the trip, and she still occasionally helps distract her from her job nowadays, by visiting Flourish and Blotts and bringing candy.

OOC EXPLORATION:

SHIPS/ANTI-SHIPS: Cora/women is what I ship and Cora/dudes is the anti-ship, that’s pretty much it. Let my lesbian daughter thrive.

WHAT PRIVILEGES AND BIASES DOES YOUR CHARACTER HAVE?

Cora’s fatal flaw when it comes to biases is probably the fact that she wants to be an advocate for half-breed rights, but the truth is that she has no idea what that even means. She might wave that flag around and call people out, and she may get mad if anyone trashtalks any type of half-breed around her, but has she ever stopped to listen to another half-breed? Absolutely not.

Her concerns are very personal and Veela-focused, she doesn’t know what the other species are going through in the current society, and certainly not in this war, either. She wants to help everyone, genuinely, but she’s too caught up in the stuff Veela have to go through. They’re a particular type of half-breed, the model minority type, they are the ones who get invited to parties and get to escape from the general population’s scrutiny. On the other hand, they’re also victims to a lot of abuse and prejudice, and that’s the battle she’s (wrongly) focusing on. She says her fight is for all of the half-breeds because she knows her voice will have more of a reach that way, and she genuinely thinks it’s the right thing to do, to try and help others.

That being said, she is still a pretty sheltered half-Veela girl who lives a good, wealthy life, she’s never even seen many of the half-breeds she claims to be trying to help. She’d still be wary of a half-giant, and twist her nose at a half-goblin’s appearance.

Almost the same goes for her view of muggleborns, too. Circumstantially, the majority of her friends – and fellow housemates, back in her Hogwarts years – are purebloods or half-bloods, which means she hasn’t really ever heard from the muggleborns what they go through, and what they want. She’s angry, and loud, and she wants to be an activist for everyone, but she isn’t great at studying her causes.

WHAT ARE YOU MOST LOOKING FORWARD TO?

Absolutely NOTHING, I’ve heard this place is horrible!!! Yuck!!!! Delete my number!!!!! No but on a serious note, I’m dying to explore all of the Veela world and create a sensible, more inclusive lore for it (suck it, JKR). And this character is one that I’ve had in mind for months now, in sort of an abstract form, living somewhere in my brain in the room of Characters That Already Have a Voice But No Background Or Story. So I’m looking forward to finally flesh it out and write her!

PLOT DROP IDEAS:

I’m terrible at these BUT I’d be down for the Order wanting to use her Veela charm for something, like use her as bait or a distraction, because she would probably hate the idea of doing that and i’d love to watch her get pissy.

Also any opportunity to get her to use the fire hands, obviously, that’d be amazing.

ANYTHING ELSE?

A Headcanon:

Not really into sports at all but tried to get into the Slytherin Quidditch team out of sheer spite because everyone kept saying Veela were only good for mascots, not for playing. She almost made it in as a Beater, which she’ll deem good enough to prove people wrong as long as she doesn’t have to ever do that again. Yes, she’s still bitter about it.

EXTRA FOR NON-BIO CHARACTERS:

PAST:

Cora Chittock grew up to be pretty alright, all things considered. Despite her absent mother, her father and sister were all the family she needed, and she lived a sheltered life until she entered Hogwarts. There was where she discovered what being half-Veela really meant – and how she would have to try her best to repress that part of herself, if she wanted to stay safe. As a good Slytherin, of course, it was bite or get bitten. The charm and charisma that she flaunted as a child quickly turned into unwanted attention from her peers the second that hormones came into play. Everyone thought she was spoiled to complain, a rebel without a cause, but they didn’t know what it was like, to receive all these looks from people she had no interest in, people she didn’t like. She had all the attention she could possibly want, but loneliness still stung. Learning to be part Veela was learning to handle the harassment that came with it, and that was a hard lesson to learn.

PRESENT:

School had been hell for Cora, but now she’s finally found her footing. She worked hard to perfect her abilities to the point where her Veela charm is mostly controlled nowadays, and it makes her feel more confident than ever; she knows when she can, and should, display it around freely. That doesn’t mean all the past years haven’t left a bitter taste in her mouth. Now that she graduated Hogwarts, she wants to make sure people understand and listen to her side of things, too. Her people are still harassed every day, she’s not letting anyone forget that. These days, she can easily be found trying to organize marches and protests for half-breed rights, even if most of them fall through. She snuck her way into the Order as soon as she heard rumours of a resistance group existing at all, and she’s ready to give everything to fight this war. She believes in the group, she trusts her peers and she’s got her combat boots laced up and ready. Finally, she’s making the difference she wants to make in the world, right?

FC CHOICES: Hunter Schafer (truly my one and only, love of my life, but also to add other good names to the list because other rps need more representation anyway: ), Loiza Lamers, Hari Nef

#marauders era rp #lsrp #bio rpg #marauders rpg #harry potter rpg #homenumaccepted

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hollowedrpg · 6 years ago

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CONGRATULATIONS, BEC! — You’ve been accepted for the role of Alastor Moody. To be honest, I was so so so worried about applications for Alastor. Frankly, with a character as multi-faceted as Alastor, there were so many ways it could have gone wrong, but reading your app was like a giant sigh of relief. Not only did you completely understand who Alastor is, but you even convinced me into parts of your app with your characterization (I never thought Alastor could have been a Hufflepuff, but boy was I wrong.) Do me a favor and keep convincing me into things; you’re right on the money.

Thank you so much for applying. Please create your account and send in the link, track the right tags, and follow everyone on the follow list. Welcome to Hollowed Souls!

ooc.

Name: Bec

age: 26

preferred pronouns: She/her

timezone: EST+10 (AEDT)

activity: Ok, so I do work fulltime and often that entails 10 hour days but I’m often able to get on when I get home for a couple of hours. I might not be able to get on every single day, but I should be able to remain within the activity requirements!

are you applying for more than one character?: Nope :)

how do you feel about your character dying?: I mean it’s definitely plausible when it comes to Alastor considering how headstrong he is. He would absolutely die for a cause that he truly believes in (getting the fuck rid of Voldemort is certainly one). Let’s hope I don’t regret saying so in the future, but I think I’d be okay with him dying. I generally love causing my characters pain (I know), I basically breathe for in character drama.

anything else?: I just wanted to say that this place is beautiful, and I’ll definitely be keeping my eye on here whether I get accepted or not! Thanks for the opportunity!

ic details.

full name: Alastor Moody

date of birth: July 19th, 1947.

former hogwarts house: Hufflepuff

There is no question that Alastor could have fit in at any Hogwarts house. Sure he’s ambitious and some would say that he would just about do anything to achieve what is necessary. However, Alastor lacks the need for notability as a direct result of his actions. He carries out what is necessary because it is simply that, necessary. There is no doubt that he is clever, but knowledge is not something that he seeks merely for his own desire or curiosity. Frankly, he would have had no joy in solving that silly riddle each and every time he had to return to the common room, far too impractical for his liking. He was almost placed in Gryffindor. He’s certainly brave and determined, but once again, his actions are never designed to seek his own means. He’s brave because the situations he’s placed in simply demand it, in his eyes, he has no other choice. Despite what many believe, Alastor lacks much of the impulsion that other Gryffindor’s harbor, instead he’s much more calculative. That left him with Hufflepuff. A house that helped level his impatience over the years, and establish that good does exist. Being placed in Hufflepuff is largely what saved Alastor. A teen who was so fragile when he first stepped into Hogwarts that it took him years before he started to open up.

sexuality: Heterosexual

gender/pronouns: Cisgender male. He/him

face claim change: Michiel is a God.

more.

how do you interpret this character’s personality? how will you play them? include two weaknesses & two strengths.

It’s probably safe to say that Alastor, he’s had it tough. Growing up he was always told that emotions were not made for wizards like the Moody’s, that they’ll only make him weak. And weakness is not something that a great Auror can afford to have. Despite now knowing that this is not always the case, Alastor’s always been a little silent. As a teenager his silence often came across as brooding, as an adult it’s matured with wisdom. He’ll only speak when necessary, not the sort to fill the air with words of flair and uncertainties. While Alastor does know how to smile, his need for constant vigilance often means he’ll be the last one to loosen up at a social gathering. He possesses an inflexible will, ever pushing forwards with what must be done, his purpose always clear and forever at the forefront of his mind. This might mean that he may be a little brash with you at times but you can’t always take his curt mannerisms to heart as he only does so with no partiality and only when necessary. He possesses a zeal so great that his actions are often misdiagnosed as those of impulsiveness, but he is anything but. Every action has been carefully premeditated.

+ Pragmatic: At his very core Alastor is a pragmatist. He doesn’t allow himself to wander too deep into ideals and what might be as this leaves him open to the possibility of failure. At this point in the war, failure is not an option. His pragmatism is largely attributed to his upbringing. Gone are the days of believing that fairytales exist, that someone else will come in and save the day. While he certainly doesn’t believe himself a hero, Alastor is a firm believer that only he can shape his own future, and perhaps the future of their world too.

+ Committed: Alastor has already sacrificed so much to the order and has every intention on continuing with the same zeal. In his opinion, it’s not sacrifice if the cause is one that is a necessity to fight for. If they stop fighting who will take their place? He spoke an oath, wand to the sky, hand over heart. An oath of the aurors that he does not plan to break. He won’t rest until their world is exonerated by the evil that threatens, he won’t hide away as thousands of muggles, half-bloods and their defenders are slaughtered.

- Distrustful: After years of emotional and physical abuse alike, it’s hard to not let some of that filter through. When the two people in the world who you’re supposed to be able to trust wholeheartedly betray you beyond repair, how are you supposed to have faith so easily. Alastor has a hard time trusting people. The easiest way to judge a person’s character is to not let them close enough to find out if they have good or bad intentions. Perhaps this isn’t a healthy train of thought, but for the most part it’s kept heartbreak at bay. He’s managed to find methods of coping with what some would call an issue, and that is with keeping himself occupied. Alastor’s almost always constantly busy, on his toes working, a rather well welcomed distraction if he’s honest.

- Guile: Alastor knows how to navigate a bad situation to make it the very best that he is able to. Sometimes his methods can erre on the side of manipulation but he will usually try and avoid as much collateral damage as possible. He’ll only use his guile methods when absolutely necessary, and in situations when he’s got to think quick on his toes.

how has the war affected this character, emotionally and otherwise?

Alastor feels as though he’s been in a constant war almost all his life. He’s been involved in this particular war since the very beginning and has since allowed it to consume every aspect of his life. He’s never had a serious romantic relationship, despite often receiving interest from various women over the years. It’s not that he’s oblivious to the attention, but more so that he believes that there are higher things at stake. Is there really a point in getting attached to someone when the future’s so uncertain? When tomorrow may not even be an eventuality?

Alastor has become particularly good at mastering his emotions. It’s perhaps the one skill his parents taught him, for better or for worse. It’s made him function under pressure better, hard decisions are made by him with more ease.

where does this character currently stand? with those who wish to hide in godric’s hollow until the war ends, with those who wish to rebuild the order and continue fighting the war, or on neither side? Why?

He knows that they’re currently sitting ducks just waiting to be fired at one by one. That they must act sooner rather than later. Hiding doesn’t fix anything, hiding doesn’t reverse the lives lost or guarantee that no more will be lost. In fact, hiding in Godric’s Hollow means guarantees that thousands, if not more, innocent lives will be lost. They’ve already wasted far too much time in Alastor’s opinion.

extra.

Mock Blog: https://amoodymood-mock.tumblr.com

Character questions:

How have the setbacks the Order has faced affected Alastor?

Alastor already feels as though they’ve wasted time. He’s truthfully disappointed in many of the members in the Order who are happy to take a backseat. He believes that no matter what they believe, pretending that they’re in a safe bubble doesn’t change the reality that the more time they spend at Godric’s Hollow twiddling their thumbs, Voldemort is only re-charging his strength and gathering his forces. Each minute they spend in hiding he only grows stronger. With each day his patience wanes, and with it he’s losing more and more control over keeping his anger at bay. His irritation is becoming more evident with the occasional unwarranted snipe at the wrong people. He can only hope that they understand, but only Merlin knows how much of it they’ll be able to take.

What does he think the Order should do next?

Alastor wants to continue with recruitment. He also wants to continue gaining intel from his internal informants amongst Voldemort’s ranks.. He also wants to attack. Moody knows that now is the time to strike, the Death Eaters are at their weakest point too. They also has those Order members still in captivity and those that are missing on his conscience. Alastor knows that they’d been far too careless the first time that they’d gone in, with more wands ready to fight, they might have a better chance at saving their fellow members. That is, if they aren’t already too late.

#hp rp #rp #marauders rp #lsrpg #roleplay #accepted

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deanssweetheart23 · 7 years ago

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Before You Go

Title: Before You Go (AU)

Summary: He’s lost everything he has ever loved. She’s trying to mend her broken heart . They’ve only got one night together.

Author: deanssweetheart23

Characters: Dean Winchester x reader, Jo Harvelle, Sam Winchester, Bobby Singer, Jody Mills (all mentioned)

Word count: 4049 (but worth it)

Warnings: Fluff. Angst. Some language. Allusions to sex. References to loss and grief.

Author’s Notes: This is my contribution to @percywinchester27‘s “PJO Quotes Challenge”. Ana, thank you for letting me participate, granting me a generous extension, and being a wonderful friend. I hope you love this.

Special thank you to my beautiful sunflower @trexrambling because this wouldn’t have been the same without her help. She’s amazing.

My prompt for this was “I won’t go looking for trouble. I usually don’t have to” and it’s included in bold in the text below. This is loosely based on Before We Go with C.Evans and A.Eve (do yourself a favor and watch this movie, it’s brilliant) and highly inspired by All The Pretty Girls by Kaleo (*cough* one of Jared’s favorite songs *cough).

Thank you for all your love, guys. Enjoy <3

Dean still can’t believe Jo Harvelle is married.

He’s standing in the middle of the wooden roof deck where the reception is taking place, surrounded by buffet tables with linens and vases with roses and tulips and white candles and an outdoor fireplace –an actual outdoor fireplace- and he still can’t believe that his best friend, the girl with the piggy tails and the innocent blue eyes that reminded him so much of the sky when he was a kid, is married.

It’s not that he’s not happy for her.

If anything, there is no one that deserves to be loved and cherished more than Jo does, but it’s unsettling, almost terrifying to see the world he has managed to build for himself changing without his consent. It’s like everyone he knows, everyone he’s always known, family and friends and people he’s grown up with, are shifting, altering shapes and sizes and essence while he’s watching life pass him by, still trying to cope with the turn his life has taken over the past couple of years. They have plans, have their lives neatly figured out and fit into boxes, but him?

He has nothing.

Taking a deep breath, he runs a hand over his face and reaches for his glass again, signaling the bartender for another round.

“You know,” a soft voice pulls him out of his thoughts, “my dad always said that when a guy’s drinking all alone at a wedding, someone probably broke his heart.”

Dean snorts a little at the words and turns to tell the stranger that her father probably didn’t know him, but stops when he realizes that the girl standing before him is the one that had saved him from one of the groom’s drunk aunts earlier that night.

She’s clad in one of long chiffon dresses Jo seems to despise with everything she has, and though Dean already knows she’s beautiful, the little observation stored somewhere in the back of his mind, he can’t help but acknowledge it again now that she’s leaning against the bar, lips curled up in a perfect smirk as her eyes flicker over his features.

He grins.

“Or,” he says, hand curled around his glass, “he’s just hoping that the pretty girl that saved him from Martha Stewart Junior will join him.”

She laughs, a rich, loose laugh that’s warmer than whiskey as it seeps into his bones.

“Pretty, huh?”

“Among other things.” Dean says, looking up at her through his lashes. A sincere smile, and then, “I never got to thank you for that, by the way.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it.” She slides in a seat next to him. “Mildred can be really sweet, but she gets way too handsy when she’s drunk.”

“You know her?”

“Everyone here does.” She shrugs. “She’s the groom’s aunt.”

He snorts, eyes going a bit narrow. “You’re kidding me.”

“Nope. His family, uh,” she glances towards a group of people to her left, then turns to him again, “they’re interesting people.”

His lips twitch upwards. “You don’t like them.”

And it might be more of a statement than a question, but he’s not surprised when she nods in agreement because though he knows nothing about her, he does know how to read people, and the way she juts her chin and puckers her forehead when she mentions Dave’s family is the only evidence he needs.

“I don’t like all of them.” She gnaws on her bottom lip, seemingly thinking about something, then sighs and shakes her head. “Do you see that guy over there?”

He peeks over his shoulder gingerly.

A man in his late twenties is talking to Dave and Jo and, despite the fact Dean doesn’t even know him, his brash smile is enough to make him hate the guy.

“You mean the James Dean wannabe?”

A snort.

Amusement dancing in her eyes.

“Yeah, that. That’s Dave’s brother.” She shifts a little as she speaks and then-

“Please, tell me you didn’t date that douche.”

“Yeah, I was actually engaged to that douche.” She scoffs and, even though he knows she’s trying hard not to strap her words with emotion of any kind, the words are laced with melancholy as they leave her mouth.

He knows better than to comment on it.

“He seems…special.”

“That’s one way to put it,” she deadpans, drawing her head back. “Our relationship was…rocky, I guess. But I was young, and we were high school sweethearts and I had read far too many romance novels to just give up on him.”

He nods, eyes flickering to the amber liquid he’s twirling in its glass.

“He let you go, didn’t he?”

“Said he wasn’t sure he was ready to commit to just one person,” she leans forward on her arms, “then started dating his father’s secretary like two days after that.”

“Son of a bitch.”

“Biggest one I’ve ever met,” she agrees, reaching for a pint glass the barman sets in front of her. “You don’t have to worry about Jo, though. Dave’s a good guy.”

“How did you-”

“I’ve known the groom my entire life. If you were his friend, I’d remember you,” she explains, nudging his arm with her elbow.

Dean can’t be sure, but he thinks the tips of his ears turn pink.

“You would?” he smirks.

A tiny smile tugs at the corners of her lips.

“I definitely would,” she mumbles, but it’s laced with enough coyness to confirm the one thing he’s been suspecting all along; flirting with strangers was probably not a pastime of hers.

Huh.

She clears her throat. “So.”

Dean grins.

“So?”

“How do you know Jo?”

“Childhood friend,” he explains, eyes shifting towards the youngest Harvelle. “Our dads used to hang out, so we practically grew up together.”

And maybe it’s the whiskey that’s clouding his judgement, or maybe it’s the fact he hasn’t talked to someone –really talked to someone for over two years - but, he finds himself sharing childhood stories of him and Jo, finds himself telling her about the first time they met and the summers they spent by the lake at Lawrence and that one time Dean busted the windows of her boyfriend’s car because he cheated on her.

“She’s just,” he runs a hand over his face, tries to gather himself a little, “Dave’s a lucky guy.”

“Oh God,” she mutters, bright, Y/E/C locking into his, “you’re in love with her.”

The words echo as they leave her mouth, all certainty and realness, and catch him off guard, like a gunshot to the heart.

A crease forms between his brows.

His shoulders tense.

“I’m not –It’s… It’s not like that, kid.”

He’s expecting her to fight him on it, to ask more questions or squint or do… something.

She doesn’t.

“We just… We had a thing. Back when we were in college. And we both agreed it wasn’t going to work.”

She nods, making sure to meet his eye. “But?”

With a heavy sigh, he lets his eyes drift to his hands, to his father’s silver ring.

“What if I was wrong? I mean… Jo gets me, you know? We’ve been through so much together and we still… We’re there for each other. How often does that happen?”

“Not as often as you think.” She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “But I think… After all I’ve been through, I think that it’s one thing to love someone and another thing to be in love with them. And I can see you love Jo. A blind man could see that. But, are you in love with her? Or with the idea of her?”

A small smile.

Eyes looking at her in amazement.

“Who are you?”

“I dunno, Mr. Winchester.” She shrugs, a smirk playing at the corners of her lips. “Why don’t you find for yourself?”

Yeah.

He likes her.

Dean’s not sure how they ended up back at his place.

He remembers drinking her under the table at the reception, remembers listening to hundreds of her childhood stories, dancing with her while the stereos blasted a cheesy Ed Sheeran song about stars and beating hearts, and, God, he remembers kissing her, desperate and needy and open mouthed, but everything’s a blur of hungry hands and short breaths after that.

And now, somehow, they’re in his living room, and he has her pinned against the wall, lips and mouth and tongue mapping the smoothness of her neck while his hands travel underneath her dress, to her hips, her thighs, any place he can reach, and she’s clutching at his shirt.

God, he wants her.

He wants her, and even though he feels like he needs to take his time, feels like this should be so much more than tangled sheets and breathless whispers, much more than just another one-nighter, the feel of her skin under his fingertips and the way his name leaves her lips in whimpers when he finds that spot on her neck are enough to drive him absolutely insane.

“Is that,” she lets out a soft whimper as he presses his mouth up her jaw, “is that a chess set?”

He lets out a loose breath, brows furrowed in puzzlement as he follows her gaze.

“Yeah, that’s… Yeah,” he replies, and leans in to kiss her, hands sliding up her sides.

She pulls away, tilting her head to the left, almost too slow.

“Do you, uh, play a lot?”

His head drops to her shoulder.

“Not really, no. My brother gave it to me.”

She hums in response, but when he starts peppering kisses along her shoulder, she shifts a little, squirms under him.

His eyes dart up to meet hers.

“Is everything okay?” he asks, voice laced with concern.

She sighs, eyes cast downwards.

“Yeah,” she pushes some hair off her face, “yeah, m’ sorry. I just –I’ve never…” She shakes her head, stumbling over her words a little. “I’ve never done this before.”

He smiles, a soft, gentle smile that smooths his rough edges and make his eyes shine.

“Kid, don’t take this the wrong way, but I kind of figured that part out.”

She clenches her jaw.

Something that looks awfully like shame floats across her face.

“Hey,” he cups her face with his large hands, “we don’t have to do anything. You know that, right?”

She opens her mouth to speak, but-

“Look, tonight’s been –it was amazing. And I’d never make you do something you don’t…” He lets out a nervous laugh, tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “If you don’t want this, just say the word and I’ll kiss you goodnight and drive you home. No hard feelings. No drama. You don’t… You don’t owe me anything.”

A smile.

Fingers that trace the line of his jaw, tender and sweet.

“Dean, I know that. And I want this. I’m just…”

She lets out a sigh, armor down for a millisecond, and Dean sees the uncertainty behind it, sees the embarrassment she tries to hide under layers of small smiles and reassuring looks, but knows she wishes he doesn’t, wishes he’ll spare her the mortification.

So-

“Tell you what.” He clasps a hand at the side of her face. “How about you just take a hot shower while I make us some grilled cheese? You can lock the bathroom door.”

“Dean-”

“And if you still want this later…” he presses his lips on her forehead, the rest of the words whispered into her skin, a secret only for her to hear.

She smiles then and, this time, it’s all wonder and depth and awe, a smile that makes him feel like he’s more than a stranger to her, more than a guy she wants to sleep with.

And when she steps on her toes and presses a chaste kiss on his stubbly jaw, the breath hitches in his throat for just a second, and he hopes.

He hopes he’ll get to see that smile again.

Dean doesn’t remember the last time he laughed so much.

He’s laying on his bed with Y/N snuggled up against him, her cheek placed firmly on his chest while he’s running his hands up and down her arm gently, and every time he leans in he can smell his shampoo lingering on her hair.

So, he breathes it in, along with the sight of her dressed in his clothes, in that old Rolling Stones T-shirt he loves and that grey pair of sweatpants he doesn’t wear anymore, and tries to ignore how nerve-wrecking it all feels.

“Are you kidding me?” Y/N gasps in faux offence, catching his attention again.

It’s been almost two hours since she’d gotten out of the shower and, after they’d eaten, they ended up back in his bedroom, lips pressed together like pieces of the same puzzle.

And still, nothing happened.

Well, almost nothing.

Because ever since they settled against each other, limbs and heartbeats blending, they haven’t stopped talking.

She talked to him about her family, her best friend who’s like the older brother she never had, her dream to open her own record house one day. She said her favorite flowers are pink carnations and her favorite song is probably Dylan’s Knocking on Heaven’s Door and that she’d never really knew what heartache felt like until she lost her grandmother to Alzheimer when she was still a teenager. She spoke to him of winters nights spent at a little cabin her family has in Utah and of her favorite blanket, the one her grandmother had made for her when she was still a baby.

And then, she listened.

She listened as he talked about his parents and Bobby and how he practically had to beg the old man to go out with his neighbor, Jody. She listened as he told her about his job and his decision to go to college just to know what it would be like, about his love for classic cars and rock music and pie. She listened when he spoke of his first girlfriend and how she broke his heart, and when he told her about that little diner right across the street from his house, the one his dad used to take him to as a kid which has now been turned into a horrible block of flats.

She listened and listened and listened and Dean realized, much to his surprise, that, though he’s only known her for less than a day, she already knows things about him, already understands him in ways most of his friends don’t.

He doesn’t mind.

“How can someone sleep through La La Land?” she asks, laughing into his clothed skin.

“You see, when a movie is that terrible-”

“Shut up,” she whines, smacking his hand, “that’s my favorite movie you’re talking about, heathen.”

“Yeah, but it’s still a bad one.”

She perches herself on her elbow, looks up through narrowed eyes.

“It’s a work of art.” She jabs a finger at him. “Mia’s and Sebastian’s love story is the best one I’ve seen in years. It’s just… so pure.”

A snort.

Eyes rolled skywards.

“Okay then. Tell me what your favorite movie is so, I can make fun of it.”

“See, that’s impossible because my favorite movie is,” he leans in, brushes his scruff against the sensitive skin of her neck playfully, “awesome.”

A laugh escapes her lips.

“Hmmm,” she runs her fingers through his short hair, all mischief and delight, “and what movie would that be?”

“Every movie Clint Eastwood’s in.”

“Really?” She scrunches her nose up in indignation. “You don’t like Ryan Gosling, but you’re willing to watch a movie with a monkey?”

“Well,” he mouths up her jaw leisurely, “in all fairness, Clyde’s a better actor.”

She laughs, again, and Dean’s pretty sure he could get drunk on that sound.

“No, he’s not.” She presses her forehead against his, close enough that he’s sure she can count the freckles of his face if she wants to. “You just happen to have a very weird fetish, Winchester.”

“I do not.”

“You so do.” She settles against him again, lets his large hands slide underneath her shirt, his fingertips tracing over warm skin. “I bet you even dressed as a cowboy when you were a kid.”

“Hey now,” he waggels his eyebrows suggestively, “the ladies in the neighborhood loved it.”

“Course they did.”

“Shut up, you perv.” He tickles her sides. “My costume was fan-frigging-tastic, if you must know.”

“Well, in that case, I might have to ask your brother for pictures.”

And Dean’s so lost into their conversation, so lost into the sense of her so close to him that he doesn’t realize what she’s said until the words are out there, new and uneven, hanging in the air between them.

He wishes she could take them back in then, wishes he could erase them from his mind, from her mind, but he can’t.

He swallows, hard.

“Yeah, he won’t…” He clears his throat, quietly. “Sam died two years ago.” A pause painted with grief. “Hit and run. He was jogging late at night and…”

A second passes and nothing happens.

Dean waits.

He waits for the sharp intake of breath, waits for the clipped I’m sorry to fly out of her mouth, for the way she looks at him to change, to turn from softness to pity and guilt, but she doesn’t move.

Warm lips press against that spot where his neck meets his shoulder.

Fingers tie themselves between his.

“Tell me about him,” she whispers.

And if it was someone else, Dean would refuse, would be absolutely furious because he does not want to share his memories, doesn’t want to share his brother, with anyone else.

But with her laying by his side, he hears a wrecked voice respond.

“What do you want to know?”

Her hand squeezes his.

A smile lights up her face for just a second.

“Everything.”

And so, he tells her.

“Do you ever feel like you don’t belong?” Y/N whispers into his chest after what feels like hours, her fingers drawing arbitrary patterns there.

She’s almost asleep in his arms now, eyelids heavy with sleep and voice drowsy, and if it weren’t for the pensiveness that’s coating her features or the way she purses her lips and stares straight ahead as she asks him the question, he’d probably be pondering how cute she looks.

“You know, like when you’re in a room full of people, but you feel like nobody gets you? Because I’ve –I have so many good people in my life, but sometimes I feel like… I feel like there’s a little invisible line that’s always going to separate me from everyone else, you know?”

And Dean knows exactly what she means. He knows what it’s like to feel like a complete stranger in your own world, to feel disconnected and lost into the life you’ve made for yourself because he’s been there so many times after his brother’s death.

“Yeah,” he drops a kiss on her hair, “I do.”

She presses her face into the crook of his neck, breathes him in.

“What am I doing here, Dean?” she whispers, and it’s so faint he might as well have dreamt of it.

He wishes he had an answer for her.

He doesn’t.

All he knows is that this, the feel of her next to him, the weight of her in his arms, feels right.

All he knows is that he feels like this is how things are supposed to be from now on.

He runs his fingers through her hair, traces her jawline with his thumb.

“Get some sleep, kid,” he mumbles.

But he doesn’t sleep that night.

He just holds her, thinking that maybe that’s what he needed all along.

Dean finds her sitting on the edge of his bed the next morning.

She has her hair up in a messy bun, the dress she’s been wearing the night before already on, and, even though she seems so much different, even though she comes from a world so much different than his, there’s a simplicity in her that makes it easy for him to imagine her as a part of his world, too.

He smiles.

“What are you thinking about so hard over there?”

Her head jerks when she hears his voice.

“Dean,” she turns to look at him, “you’re back.”

“Yeah.” He holds up a paper bag from his favorite diner. “I went out to get us breakfast. You read the note, right?”

She nods, rubbing at her forehead.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she says, shy and nervous. “I could have just dropped by Starbucks on my way to work.”

And Dean knows that, but when he’d woken up a few hours earlier only to find her asleep in his arms, laughing lines and kindness dusting her skin, he felt it again, that pull he’d felt the night before, that need to spend every minute he could with her.

So, he’d gone out to get breakfast.

“Well, yeah, but” -he jabs a finger at her- “you said last night you like cinnamon rolls, and I just happen to know the place with the best cinnamon rolls in town.”

She frowns, looks down at her hands.

“See, now you’re just making me feel like an awful person,” she mumbles, voice laced with a nervous smile. “My boss just called. I’ve got to be at work in twenty minutes.”

“Oh.”

“Dean, I’m sorry-”

“Hey, no,” he shakes his head, hands her the bag. “You can eat that on your way there. Just…”

He thinks about the things he wants to say for a second, thinks about the night they shared, sprinkled with whispered laughs and honest confessions and wounds opened just for the other person to see.

And then he realizes that if he asks her to stay, if he asks for a chance, she’ll probably assume she’s being the girl he’ll use to numb the pain, the girl he’ll use to substitute Jo and forget his brother’s loss and he doesn’t want that.

He never wants that.

So, he sets her free.

“Drive safe.”

She cracks a small smile, but it’s all smoke and mirrors.

“Thank you,” she says. “And you-” -she jabs a finger at him.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.” He laughs, scratching the back of his neck. “I won’t go looking for trouble. I usually don’t have to.”

A laugh, small but genuine.

Steps that lead her to him.

Her arms wrap around his waist, and he leans in.

God, she fits perfectly against him.

“I know you don’t-”

He never gets the chance to finish his sentence though, because she presses her lips against him, determined and slow and different, so much different from the way they’d kissed the night before, a kiss that’s warm and tender and makes him wonder why he hasn’t spent his entire life kissing her like that.

“You’re a good man, Dean Winchester,” she says when they finally break apart.

He looks at her then, looks into her eyes, and everything he wanted to tell her dies at the back of his throat, choked and genuine and overwhelming, and he just laces his fingers with hers and grips.

“Thank you,” he whispers.

She doesn’t reply.

She doesn’t have to.

It’s all written there, in the way she grips right back, in the way her bottom lip wobbles and her lips brush against his cheek in the tiniest bit of movement.

When she leaves, the sound of the door shutting closed echoes his loneliness.

He doesn’t know how much time he spends staring blankly at the wall that morning.

He finds it the following day.

He’s wandering around his house, pondering whether he should ask Jo for Y/N’s number, whether there is even a point after the way she left the morning before, when he sees it.

It’s right there, just a little Post-It note with the world’s worst scribbles, a phone number and a tiny carnation drawing spread across it, etched on the chess set.

Smirking, he picks it up, lets his eyes dance over the lines.

Do not call unless you’re willing to reevaluate Mia’s and Sebastian’s love story.

I can wait.

Oh, but she won’t have to.

Tags: @jpadjackles @supernatural-jackles @ravengirl94 @hannahindie @trexrambling @percywinchester27 @torn-and-frayed @thing-you-do-with-that-thing @dancing-the-hellfire-rumba @dancingalone21 @polina-93 @pickupthatamulet @atwistoffate @there-must-be-a-lock @ultrafandomcat @tiny-friggin-human @imagining-supernatural @impala-dreamer @becs-bunker @becominglionhearted @wordstothewisereaders @sgarrett49 @ruprecht0420 @myrabbitholetoneverland @juanitadiann @castianityislife02 @iwriteaboutdean @spngeronimo @spn-dean-and-sam-winchester @captainemwinchester @mogaruke @imissyoualittlemoreeveryday @wellthatsrandomkek @winchestersnco @jayankles @winchesters-flannels @akshi8278 @thevioletthourr @kathaswings @atari-writes @emilywritesaboutdean @keepcalmandcarryondean @mandilion76 @atc74 @ravenangel33 @holahellohialoha @tardis-full-of-fallen-angels @sinistersaltqueen @carryonmyswansong @blushingdean @emoryhemsworth @princess-of-erebor1992 @superapplepie @bebravekeeponfighting @carryonmywaywardcaptain @sebastianshoe @stellaa33 @kleinkariertebetrachter @samisimportant @masksandtruths @shutupiminlooove @jessilliam-caronday @annoyingpeople-postingthings

Crossed out tags don’t work for some reason, let me know if there’s something I can fix :)

#dean x reader #dean winchester x reader #au!dean x reader #Ana's PJO Quotes Challenge #dean winchester x reader au #dean winchester #reader x dean #you x dean #dean x y/n #you x dean winchester #spn au #spn fluff #spn angst #dean fluff #dean angst #dean x reader angst #dean x reader fluff #not my gifs #not my pics

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richiefuckfacetozier · 7 years ago

Text

Chapter 15: Under Pressure

Story: It’s Not My Fault

Pairing: Richie Tozier and Eddie Kaspbrak

Located on Archive of our own

For other chapters - | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 |

“She didn’t even let you tell her?” Beverly said in horror from the backseat of the car. Richie drove Eddie and Beverly to school the next day. They had started doing it when Richie's father gave him his mother's car after her DUI. 'The only useful thing Wentworthless has ever done for me.' Richie had said once.

“What a fucking bitch.” Beverly hissed.

Eddie fidgeted awkwardly at Beverly’s brashness. As angry as he was, she was still his mother. “It was awful Bev. Then I was so terrified I might see her this morning that I made Richie help me sneak out the window and down a fucking tree.”

Richie laughed heartily, taking his eyes off the road to say to Beverly. “It was hilarious. He fell on the last branch and landed in my arms like a damsel.”

“EYES FORWARD!” Eddie screeched. “And it wasn’t funny! I saw my life flash before my eyes.” Eddie shoved Richie’s shoulder.

Richie scoffed, “Oh please, you fell like 4 feet.”

“You’re the cutest, Eddie.” Beverly laughed and ruffled his hair affectionately. Eddie scrunched his face at her. He ran his fingers through his hair to flatten it back down.

“I am not cute.” Eddie grumbled.

“Yes, you are.” Richie and Beverly said at the same time. Richie put his hand up and without even looking at it, Beverly perfectly high-fived him.

“How do you two do that?” There was a slight twinge of jealousy at how in sync Beverly and Richie always were.

“Rich might be your soulmate but he’s my other half.” Beverly poked Richie’s side. Eddie could not help but smile to himself at being called Richie’s soulmate.

Richie squirmed away from her poking since he is the most ticklish person around, “It’s true. She could probably guess what I am thinking right now.”

Eddie crossed his arms surveying them with doubt. He zeroed in on Beverly. “Alright, prove it. What is Richie thinking?”

“You don’t want me to say, I promise.” Beverly laughed.

“Do it, Bev.” Richie bounced in the driver’s seat excitedly. “Try to guess!”

She grinned at him and cracked her knuckles as if getting ready for a boxing match. “Alright, three things. One, what you are going to do about lunch since Eddie didn’t pack any food for either of you and you probably forgot your wallet.”

“Correct.” Richie nodded.

“You shouldn’t be driving without your wallet!” Eddie chastised.

Richie shrugged, “I keep my license in the glove compartment.”

Eddie opened the glove compartment to check then closed it roughly. “You’re an idiot. We can go off campus and get food, I brought money.”

Beverly put her hand over Eddie’s mouth to stop him from harping. “Two, if I brought weed for us to smoke later. The answer is yes.”

Eddie pulled her hand from his mouth glaring at the pair, “Guys, seriously?”

“Listen,” Richie said with an air of superiority. “We are trying to cut back on cigarettes for you.”

“And because cigarettes are making our lungs shit.” Beverly added in annoyance.

Eddie huffed, “Well, good because not to pull the dead dad card but he died of lung cancer you dipshits.”

Beverly shrugged, “Weed is better than nicotine anyway.”

“That’s true but harder to get in small-town stupidass Maine,” Richie complained.

“What’s the third thing he’s thinking about?” Eddie said bringing them back on task.

Beverly smirked devilishly, “Three, sorry about this Eddie, he’s thinking about sex with you.”

Eddie's mouth gaped open and his has flushed bright red. He twisted in his seat to scream, “Fuck you, Beverly!”

She put her hands up in defense laughing, “It’s true!!”

“To be fair, I always am, so that one doesn’t really count.” Richie reached over and pinched Eddie’s cheek.

He batted the hand away, “Unlock the door, I’m gonna to fling myself out of the moving car.”

They all started laughing so hard their sides hurt. Eddie was grateful to have two of the best distractions in his life. Beverly and Richie were the best at cheering him up. When they quieted down, Beverly brought her hand forward to hold Eddie’s. They had the same size hands. Her’s were calloused just like Richie’s. He sighed and squeezed her hand kindly.

She hesitated then asked, “So what are you going to do about your mom, hun?”

He shared a quick glance with Richie. “Again I say, unlock the door so I can fling myself out of the moving car.”

“Eddie!” She laughed at his dark humor. “Are you going to try telling her you're gay, again?”

“Nope.” He said definitively.

“Come on, my fruity skittle, you have to try again until she listens.” Richie encouraged. He placed a hand on Eddie’s knee rubbing it soothingly. The attention from both of them was becoming overwhelming. Eddie did not want to have this conversation right now, but he had already decided what he would do after last night.

“No, I’m not going through that again. I will act like nothing happened because I know that’s what she’ll do.” Eddie let go of Beverly’s hand to turn in his seat and talk directly at Richie. “I’m going to get through school, graduate, and move away forever. That’s the only sensible option for me.”

Richie removed his hand from Eddie’s knee and placed it back on the steering wheel. Eddie observed as his mouth turned into a thin line but he kept his eyes front refusing to acknowledge this latest confession.

Beverly, however, was not going to ignore it. “Eddie, that’s crazy. You can’t live a lie for a year and a half.”

He locked eyes with her incredulously. “I’ve been living a lie under that roof for 16 years, why bother being honest now. I won’t get to be myself until I’m far away from Derry.”

The car fell silent. Beverly was regarding Richie with caution, who was still staring forward in thought. His grip on the steering wheel tightened significantly. There is a deadly calm that passes over Richie when he is angry before he blows up or says what is wrong. Everyone in their friend group finds it extra unnerving because Richie is rarely truly mad.

He took a deep breathe then let it out. Eddie watched him do all this in confusion. He seemed to be trying to control the anger. What does he have to be angry about? Eddie thought.

“I love you for you and always will,” Richie said through gritted teeth. “But please stop talking about leaving forever unless I am in that equation. It is pissing me off.”

Eddie opened his mouth to snap at him but closed it deciding he would not go there. There was too much going on his head to be fighting with Richie. “I love you too.” Eddie whispered. “And of course. I go wherever the fuck you go.” Richie’s intensity eased and he smiled at Eddie for repeating the same words he said last night.

Beverly sighed sadly, “I love you both and I’m sorry your parents suck.”

“I think my mom is coming around. She loves Eddie.” Richie rolled his eyes grinning. “Wants to adopt him and hasn’t insulted me for being gay in a while.”

“Oh my god, that’s so precious!” Beverly squealed animatedly. “Do you think she suspects anything between you two?”

Richie nodded, “Definitely. My mom is too smart not to.”

Eddie felt his mouth dry up with nerves. “Oh god. I hope she doesn’t tell my mom,” Eddie grumbled. “But I really like her too so that’s nice.”

Richie pulled into the school parking lot trying to find a spot. It did not take him long because he had the best luck with parking spots. “How do you always get a front row parking spot!” Eddie laughed in disbelief.

Richie wiggled his eyebrows seductively, “Clean living, baby.”

“Ok. Sure, Trashmouth.” Eddie smirked.

Richie put the car in park but kept the heater running. They had some time before classes to sit in his car. Beverly pulled out a cigarette, saw the evil-eye Eddie was giving her, then put it back in her pocket. “How’s your mom been doing in general, Rich?” She asked.

“Bev, she’s been sober for 2 weeks.” He said with pride. “She went back to AA.”

Eddie gazed at him with surprise. He felt a pang of sadness that Richie had never told him something so important. “I didn’t know she ever went to Alcoholics Anonymous.”

“Oh yeah,” He turned his head toward Eddie. “She’s been going on and off for a decade but this is the most amount of meetings she has ever been too. It’s nice, but it will inevitably come crashing down soon.”

“Why?” Beverly asked in concern.

Richie took a deep breath and let it out. “My dad’s leaving her.”

Beverly immediately put her hand on his right shoulder, Richie placed his own on top of hers. She did not say anything right away. It blew Eddie’s mind how connected the two of them were. They were all an extremely connected group. Shared trauma will do that to you.

Beverly raised her face up and shouted, “Hey, universe! Go fuck yourself! Leave my gays alone.”

“Did you mean guys?” Eddie laughed.

She placed her other hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “I did not my love.”

“Alright, Richie,” Eddie decided to change the subject before one of them cried and got sappy. “What is Beverly thinking about.”

“Hmmmm,” He thought for a moment. “What did you have for breakfast Bev?”

She sat back in her seat crossing her arms with a challenging grin on her face. “I didn’t eat breakfast.”

“Alright, she is thinking about: our science test today, if Stanley is going to cancel their shopping plans this weekend, and whether Ben will finally ask her out.

“Never going to happen,” Beverly sighed dramatically. “Sometimes I wonder if he really likes me or not. Then I see the way he looks at me and I am just like...kiss my fucking face, Ben Hanscom!”

“Why don’t you ask him out? Who says the guy has to do it?” Eddie suggested.

“Oh, I have. Three fucking times but he doesn’t think I am serious. No one ever takes me seriously.” She wrapped her arms around Richie’s shoulders and pretended to weep.

“Same!” Richie joined her fake crying charade.

“I wonder why.” Eddie commented sarcastically. He shoved them apart and added a forehead flick for good measure. “We should probably head inside.”

As Eddie opened the door the icy air hit his face harshly. He hated being cold more than anything. Richie walked around and slung his arm around Eddie’s shoulders knowing this about him. Normally he would berate the taller boy for being too openly affectionate, but the extra warmth was really welcoming. He let himself move closer into Richie’s side.

“I’ll see you two later, I’m going to try and catch Ben before homeroom.” Beverly kissed Eddie on the cheek kindly. “Sorry, again about your mom babe.” Then she looked at Richie. “And sorry about your dad. I love you both.”

“We love you too, Bevvie.” Richie said smiling. She waved them goodbye and jogged toward the school.

Richie brought his face to Eddie’s ear whispering, “So my most beloved tootsie roll, I know we have already talked about not doing anything on Valentine’s Day next week but I was thinking since…”

“No, fuck Valentine’s Day.” Eddie interrupted him pulling out of the embrace. They were starting to be too obvious anyway.

“Come on Eddie! Please?!” Richie whined.

“No Richie, Valentine’s Day is a stupid commercialized holiday meant to make you buy overpriced flowers or chocolates, It makes single people feel bad and I don’t care for it. If you truly love your loved one then you would show it every day.”

“I wonder what that’s like.” Richie grumbled angrily.

Eddie stopped in his tracks staring at Richie, who turned around realizing Eddie had ceased walking. Eddie’s face was burning with rage. “Richie...what the actual fuck?”

“I’m sorry Eds. It’s just…” Richie grabbed his arm and pulled him to the side of the school building out of hearing range. A couple people glanced at them curiously but no one paid much attention. When they were safely away from others, Eddie pulled his arm away.

Richie put his hands in his pockets taking a shaky breath, “Eddie, I want to go out on a real date with you.” Richie’s eyes were boring into Eddie’s with a lot of emotion. “As actual boyfriends.”

Eddie’s own face softened at that. “We go on dates, Rich.”

Richie shook his head. “I don’t want one of our usual ‘dates’. Where we go to the Aladdin Theater and have to sit in the back to hold hands. Which only happens if there is no one in the row with us. I don’t want to have a fake date where we have to invite everyone else just to make it look like it isn’t a date. I’m tired of the secrecy. I understand it, honestly, I do, but I am still tired of it. We are going on almost 5 months dating and it just feels like we aren’t moving in any real direction. In fact, sometimes it feels like we are moving backward. I just think we should go on a -”

“Ok!” Eddie yelled to stop his rambling.

Richie stared at him, not believing he had successfully convinced him. “What do you mean, ‘Ok’?”

Eddie exhaled, “I mean ok. Let’s got on a real date.”

“Are you serious?” Richie searched his face for any sign that he was joking or wanted to take it back.

“Yeah, you have a car,” He went to hold Richie’s hand with a reluctant smile. “Let’s drive out of town and go on a fucking real date.”

Richie pulled him in closer with excitement making Eddie stumble into his chest. Richie kissed his cheek. “Wow, so this weekend?”

“This weekend sounds great.” Eddie paused and played with the zipper on Richie’s coat, then asked, “Have we really been dating for 5 months?”

Richie smirked at his boyfriend’s complete cluelessness. “We kissed September 14.”

“Shit...our 5 month anniversary is on Valentine’s Day. God damn it.” Eddie peered at him hopefully. If he could avoid a Valentine’s Day anniversary, he was going to try. “Alright, but you didn’t ask to be my boyfriend until my birthday in November.”

Richie brushed Eddie’s bangs to the side slowly. “I consider the kiss to be more pivotal than when I asked to be boyfriends. It’s hotter.”

Eddie rolled his eyes, “Such the romantic.”

“Only for you, babe.”

“Hey, Richie…” Eddie bit his lip anxious to ask this question.

Richie continued running his hand through Eddie’s hair absently. “Yeah?”

“When Beverly called us soulmates...do you think she is right?” Eddie held his breath for an answer.

A bit of a blush spattered on Richie’s cheeks as he said, “Absolutely.” Without an ounce of doubt.

Eddie smiled up at him feeling just as much certainty. “Me too.”

The first bell rang signaling that they needed to head toward class. Eddie placed his hand on Richie’s shoulder squeezing it. “We’ll talk more later. Let’s go to homeroom.” He turned to walk away but Richie wrapped his arm around Eddie’s waist bringing him roughly into his chest. Richie leaned forward brushing his lips lightly against Eddie’s but not fully closing the distance. As if challenging Eddie to pull away. His hot minty breath washing over Eddie’s face made him shiver. His needs took over any logic and he put his arms around Richie’s neck pressing their mouths together.

Their lips parted quickly, wasting no time as their tongues rolled against each other. Their breathing was heavy and loud as Eddie sucked on Richie’s bottom lip. Both of them were practically panting.

Richie slid his hand under his jacket and up the front of Eddie’s shirt. His touch leaving a trail of burning in its wake. Eddie moaned as their bodies molded closer together. This just encouraged Richie as his other hand grabbed Eddie’s behind. Eddie gasped and kissed him harder practically bruising their lips. Richie kneaded him eliciting another groan from Eddie. He could barely focus with Richie touching him like this. Eddie was hot. Too hot. He needed them to stop right now.

Except he wanted to keep kissing Richie. If he could kiss Richie every day, all day, for the rest of his life, he would. Richie kissed down his jaw as he pulled Eddie even closer, flushing their bodies as one even through all the layers. Eddie rolled his hips against Richie who groaned. His lips pressed against Eddie’s neck, licking and biting into his skin.

“Don’t mark my neck,” Eddie breathed out.

“Fine.” Richie brought his lips back up to kiss Eddie’s. Then the moment was broken by the sound of the second bell.

“SHIT!” Eddie grabbed his bag and started running. Richie following on his tale. They ran up the school steps and flew through the halls until they reach their classroom.

Eddie swung the door open quickly. “I’m so sorry Mr. Clarke!” Eddie said breathlessly.

“My car broke down, had to run ten blocks here.” Richie lied easily.

The teacher frowned, “Sit down Mr. Tozier.” Richie and Eddie went to take their seats. Eddie made eye contact with Mike, who was laughing to himself at their appearance.

“Hold on Mr. Kaspbrak. You are wanted in the principal’s office.” Mr. Clarke held up a pink slip.

“For what?” Eddie wondered aloud. He was rarely called to the principal’s office anymore. His mother used to do it a lot more when she made him go to doctor’s appointments every week.

“I have no idea. Take the slip and go now.” Mr. Clarke insisted. Eddie glanced back at Mike and Richie. They had identical looks of confusion and Richie shrugged.

Eddie walked through the hallway slowly, trying to prevent a panic attack. The only explanation for being called to the office would be something his mother wanted. He mentally kicked himself for not going downstairs to see her in the morning. Sneaking out the window was a mistake. Eddie suddenly got nervous that she was taking him out of school for good. She was going to homeschool him and never let him out of her sight.

When he got to the principal’s office, he was ushered in right away. The principal of the school was an older man named, Jon Filch. He was a stern man, who lost his son years ago. It was one of the children taken from Derry too soon. Eddie always felt awkward around him, but he got that way with most male authority figures.

“Hello, Edward,” Principal Filch said in an exhausted voice. “Had a nice long shouting match with your mother this morning.”

Eddie put his hands on his face in embarrassment. “I’m so so sorry. We are fighting, so she tends to um...take out her anger out on everyone but me.”

He ran a hand through his grey mustache nodding. “Yes, I remember fondly her yelling at me when I was a vice principal at your elementary school.”

“Again, I’m sorry.” Eddie averted his eyes to his hands.

“Edward, she wants to pull you from all your classes with Mr. Richard Tozier. And I think -”

Eddie's anger flared up and he immediately shouted, “What?! That’s completely crazy. We share every AP class together!” His breathing was picking up as his voice rose in pitch, “And not all of them have a second class available. You can’t just - “

Principal Filch raised his hands in defense, “Edward! Relax. You are going to give yourself a panic attack.”

“How do you know I get panic attacks?!” Eddie yelled louder, breathing erratically.

“You used to clearly get them as a child. Please, breathe. Let me speak.” He stated firmly. Eddie’s eyes flashed distrustfully. Most adults in this town could not be trusted but he held back his anger.

“Please sit.” Eddie glanced down and realized he was standing with his hands clenched. He slowly sank down into the seat.

“Contrary to popular belief, I tend to side with students when it comes to their education. You know yourselves better than your parents think.” He picked up a stress ball and handed it to Eddie. He reluctantly took it, letting his hands squeeze the ball methodically. “From my conversation with your mother, I gathered some kind of relationship is happening between Richard that she is not a fan of?”

Eddie pressed his thumb into the ball aggressively, refusing to give the older man his attention. He focused on his finger with the gold pinky ring Richie gave him for his birthday. It calmed him to look at it, thinking about how much he cared about Richie. He wished people would be more understanding of them. People being his mother.

“It’s not anyone’s business but your own.” Eddie inspected him with scrutiny, not sure he heard him correctly.

“One of the best parts of life is that you get to pick your friends. And they pick you in return. You don’t get to choose your family but you do decide how you handle life’s challenges together.” Flinch held his gaze trying to get a proper read on Eddie. It made him anxious being put on the spot in this way. “I know a little something about overbearing mothers. When my wife and I lost our son…” His voice cracked and he tried to clear it. He grabbed a cup of water on the desk, drinking it.

“Your son was Hughie. Right?” Eddie said solemnly.

“That’s right.”

Eddie nodded thinking back to a boy, who was about the same height as him before he passed. With bright green irises and red hair like Beverly’s. “He invited me to all his birthdays since we were 5. He was really sweet.”

“Thank you. My son always thought you were cool with your inhaler and fanny pack. Don’t ask me why, he was an odd boy.” Principal Filch played with his thumbs for a moment thinking. Eddie handed back the stress ball, which Filch accepted gratefully. “Anyway, when we lost our son, my wife went into superhero Mom mood. It drove the kids and me crazy. She nearly killed herself with how much she was taking on through her pain.”

He held Eddie's gaze steadily trying to see if Eddie understood him. “My point is, you and your mother have had loss as well. I’m sure that grief has manifested into the woman she has become. You just need to try talking to her and if that doesn’t work or feel safe, please come speak to me or any of our counselors.”

Eddie soaked all this in with humility. He could not remember the last time an adult was truly this kind to him. Mrs. Tozier had come around but they started off rocky, leaving him wary of upsetting her. The principal barely knew him and actively cared about his well being.

“Thank you. I’ll think about it. But what are going to do about my AP courses? I can’t drop them! I don’t want to get stuck in this town.” Eddie gave him an apologetic expression. He knew Principal Filch had lived in Derry his whole life.

He grinned knowingly, “I wouldn’t want that for you either. So what we are going to do is make sure you sit on opposite sides of the classes you cannot switch out of and switch you into the classes you can.”

“That is completely unfair!” Eddie protested. “How can you take her side like this?!”

“I am not taking her side. But it was the best compromise I could come up with that pleased her enough not to take you out of school entirely.” He seemed sincerely sorry but that did not stop Eddie from being angry.

“Fine. Give me the new class schedule.” Eddie demanded. “Please.” He added dismissively. Mr. Filch handed over the schedule. Eddie took it and read it over quickly. He would have homeroom with Bill and Beverly now, so that was not too bad. Richie and him now only shared 2 classes when they were in all 7 together.

He turned around and began marching out of the office. He was ready to be an asshole and not say goodbye, except he stopped himself.

“Thank you for what you said. Richie and I are having a hard time balancing family and our relationship so it means a lot to hear some kind of support from an adult.”

“Anytime, Edward.”

He considered him for a moment, “I prefer Eddie.”

“Anytime, Eddie."

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arrowheadproductions · 7 years ago

Note

Percabeth arranged marriage au?

This turned out… differently than what I expected… And probably different from what you wanted, but it’s still an arranged marriage. I might make this a bigger piece because I liked this concept so much.

Crossed Unions- Rated T

I met Percy Jackson almost 6 years ago when he was discovered as the sole heir to the Atlantean throne. He, like every other heir to an Olympian throne, received a banquet in his and his father’s name. My mother, Queen of Athens, begrudgingly took my siblings and I to this event out of sheer respect for the virility of the crown. She and the Lord of the Sea never saw eye to eye on much, (outside of a brief project that included the invention of the chariot- but I digress) so it was no question that this was purely out of formality and respect to the High King, Zeus.

He was a scared little boy no older than 12, like myself, and I didn’t regard him as royalty material. He looked like he’d been taken off of a farm after wrestling with some pigs, hosed off, and wearing clothes that didn’t have holes in them for the first time in his life. His hair was deliberately unruly and dark as the deepest depths of the ocean. He looked absolutely terrified and positively unaware what in the name of the River Styx was going on.

I scoffed. It wasn’t unlike Poseidon to make such a brash decision at claiming this boy as his own. He was better off giving his kingdom to the children of his wife, who at least grew up in that environment and would know how to manage an entire group of people. Instead, like with many of the fine rulers of Olympia, pride got in his way and he was determined to find his singular bastard child.

Mother finds it unlikely that the Sea Lord has just one illegitimate child out there in the realm, but somehow he’d managed to convince his brother, and that was what truly mattered. This was especially scandalous, as the three offspring of the fallen Lord Kronos took a binding oath of loyalty to their wives.

This led everyone in the kingdom to either hate or love young Percy Jackson, which was a situation he’d never been in before as squalor. He was used to being underestimated and ignored, not plastered on every flyer in town about every movement he made.

One of the dangers of being claimed as a son of the higher lineage (also known as the “Big 3″) was the idea that he would have to prove himself worthy by fulfilling a prophecy along with 2 companions. He chose a satyr named Grover, despite his father’s insistence he take one of his noble half-siblings, but Percy Jackson was loyal more than anything and Grover was trying to earn his searcher’s license like many other satyrs. To do that, he would need to fulfill a quest alongside a hero.

As for the third companion? Well, he didn’t get much of a choice. His quest was to recover Lord Zeus’ stolen lightning bolt to prevent war amongst the 12 kingdoms. It was a heavy one and I felt it was unfair to bestow this upon a kid so new to this world. He barely knew how to swing a sword. I was the most capable and readily available.

The court was pretty against a girl going, which was super annoying since I’ve kicked all of their sons’ butts in dueling, but Athena sided with me and relented that it was high time I prove myself in her name.

I can’t say I liked him very much upon meeting him, though I will admit to some flickers of jealousy that he was inevitably getting a quest and I haven’t seen the outside of Athens since I was taken in by Lady Athena.

“So, you’re a daughter of…?” He trailed off as he approached me. I analyzed him carefully and could tell he was obviously nervous. He couldn’t stop alternating between staring a beat too long at me and quickly reverting back to looking at his shoes. They were shiny and all, but not worth gazing at. I would have argued that I wasn’t exactly worth staring at either, but the boy seemed dumbstruck.

“Athena.” I supplied.

He blinked.

“Of Athens.” I said more impatiently. Maybe he was just dumb.

He wrinkled his brow and I could almost see the wires in his seaweed-filled head trying to make out just how that was possible.

“Oh.” He said stupidly and his face reddened. I could tell he was battling between asking me or not. “I thought she was a… Nevermind.”

“I’m adopted.” I sighed, taking pity on him. “We all are, technically.”

“Oh.” He said again. Didn’t he have anything else to say? He was about to embark on a dangerous quest, after all. It would do a lot better to ask someone as trained in the arts of planning and history of our land to converse with me about it. Actually, I had mistakenly believed me was going to do just that at first.

Nope, instead there we were making weird small talk.

“You drool when you sleep.” I offered, like he needed to know it.

His green eyes widened and it was the first time I’d noticed their impressive likeness to the actual sea. There was no question this was Poseidon’s boy. Though, he could use some training on how to act like a capable person.

“H-How do you-?”

“Who exactly do you think helped nurse you back to health with Chiron after that Minotaur attack, Seaweed Brain?”

“I’m not a Seaweed Brain!”

“Could have fooled me.” I shrugged and slunk away before anyone thought we were getting too comfortable. Had I only known that I’d just met my best friend.

Athena is a virgin leader, so all of her children are actually unrelated to her directly. Those that biologically produce the children are doing so as surrogates and are always the wisest and most intelligent people with whom Athena has built a mental connection with. She is always present at the birth and retrieves her child to Athens. It is as though we are hers through something bigger than blood- fate.

I am forever grateful to be hers and am rightfully placed, however, I have been waiting for my chance to prove my wit and my strength for the past few years. I am the best swordsman (or woman) in Athens even if I prefer to fight with a knife. No one outside of the great lady herself strategizes like me. I spend all day reading and training, even if mother does not always know it. She is certainly more progressive than some of the other figureheads and wants her daughters to be just as intelligent as her sons, but there is still a standard to be made. She does not think with love like a typical mother might, but in what is strategically best for the good of mankind.

My mother was unlike many of the other Godly leaders and placed her children with a choice. We were to either marry in the name of strategy and arrangement or to be virgins forever and focus solely on enriching our minds and bettering humanity. At 10, I chose marriage, as it seemed like the best thing for the current climate of our kingdom. Mother had certainly approved of my decision and that was enough for me back then. Hermes had an eldest son a few years my senior named Luke Castellan who was directly in line to obtain his throne. Mother and King Hermes got along well enough and it was always ideal for wisdom to spread beyond the gates of Athens. It was always a goal for the higher up’s to get their children on as many thrones as possible. If I were to marry Luke, I would be in line for Queen of Arcadia.

This was all good and great back then. I even developed a fixation on Luke Castellan. He was tall, blond and good-looking, not to mention seemed to carry a protectiveness of me that seemed fit in a husband. I was 10 though and more than trying to rationalize the idea that the then 15 year old guy would be my betrothed. I’m sure he didn’t see much in me back then. We were not to marry until we were both of age at 18 and at 10, this seemed like lifetimes away.

And what does any of this have to do with Percy Jackson? Well, I did my best to dislike him as Mother vehemently dislikes King Poseidon, and at first, I did. I couldn’t stand Percy Jackson. He was ridiculously brash and impulsive, but so thick skulled that I wanted to shake him senseless just about every time he spoke. He wore this stupid smirk that exposed himself with those stupid bright green eyes that told anyone in sight that he was up to no good. I thought he was ridiculous and was glad to be marrying a respectful knight in Luke.

And then, a very dangerous thing happened.

Well, two very dangerous things happened in line with one another. Luke began to betray his father’s realm and planned to overthrow the High King. And, I fell madly, truly, hopelessly in love with the son of the Sea King. It was a slow progression, but it happened and I fear I cannot think my way out of it.

Worst of all? He fell in love with me too.

My engagement to Luke fell through the wayside, due to his own death during his attempted uprising, but our problems in this matter did not end there. I was suddenly supposed to marry the son of King Apollo in an attempt to achieve his throne. Percy was set to be married to a princess from a different country altogether in an attempt to create peace between the Greeks and the Romans. He and Princess Reyna were to be married when they are both 18.

We’re 17 and marriage is no longer lifetimes away, despite how much we pretend it is when we sneak around. When we hold hands and walk together, we pretend we are a normal couple living a content and unplanned life. When we steal dances at galas, we pretend everyone knows about us. When we make love in the protective confines of my room in the high tower, we pretend it’s practice for something bigger than the two of us. There’s a bit of security in knowing I’ll always have Percy as a first everything in my life and likewise. That is something no amount of arrangement can change.

We wear promises that don’t come in the name of rings, but in symbols. I wear a necklace with a coral pendant on it while Percy in an impulsive (it’s become mostly endearing at this point) stunt, permanently branded “AOE” in small letters right over his heart in dark ink. This typically stands for “Of Athenians” and is often accompanied with the owl.

“What if somebody sees this?” I asked one time while we were sweaty and still recovering from being wrapped up in one another. He hovered over me, his muscular chest on full display and I traced patterns into his bare back.

He smiled that lopsided grin that now made my heart melt and heat grow between my legs if he caught me in the right mood. Sometimes I think he knows what he does to me, but he’s too thick-skulled to see his own beauty and is honestly somewhat surprised every time we arrive in an intimate situation.

He leaned down to kiss a growing mark on my neck. “Who’s going to see it, but you?”

Your future wife.

I didn’t say it, but I don’t think I had to. His smile flickered a bit in his gorgeous eyes and it yanked at my heart strings. Maybe sometimes we pretended a little too well.

Worried I’d ruined the otherwise pleasant mood we’d cultivated in the wee hours of the morning, I leaned forward and kissed the engraving.

“I like it.” I decided. “Now you’re mine forever.”

He leaned in close so our noses were brushing against each other. “As if I ever wasn’t.”

I grow increasingly bitter about the situation as the days go on, even if it could be worse. I am now betrothed to the son of Apollo, who does not lust after me either, but for the son of Hades. For obvious reasons, he does not come out with this claim either. Percy’s bride to be is in love with a lady of the hunt, Thalia Grace, daughter of Zeus. For the same reasons as well as a shared duty to her country, she remains loyal and quiet.

I toy with the idea that we can time things just right. After all, a baby will be expected from both of our ends. If I were to have Percy Jackson’s baby instead of Will Solace’s, it would not be a problem. Unless, of course, that baby popped out with his beautiful dark locks. That wouldn’t solve Reyna’s predicament either. We get together and vent, occasionally, though all of us return to this binding loyalty we have to our parents. What would we sacrifice in order to protect the greater good? What would we lose? Would we regret it?

It’s hard to think I wouldn’t when Percy’s hands slip so perfectly in mine as we stroll in private by the water.

I no longer side with my 10 year old self, unsurprisingly, though my Mother will hear none of it. Strategically, this makes sense, but I am not thinking that way anymore. My siblings know of my affair and tease me by accusing me of being a child of Aphrodite instead. It isn’t like the Sea King’s son and Wisdom’s daughter as a union would be negative. In fact, it might force the two to actually sit down and get along for a change. It would just be unprecedented.

We weren’t meant to get along and we certainly weren’t meant to fall in love.

#percabeth #percy jackson #annabeth chase #ap's fics #pjo #au #arranged marriage #medieval au #request #myfics #fanfiction #seriously i might make a series from this #annabeth's pov

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yourjughead · 7 years ago

Text

Legacy pt.5

Pairings: Jugheadxreader

A/N: Don't worry, Part 4 isn't the last we'll hear of the Riverdale gang. I'm kind of thinking of putting smut into the next part but I'm not sure if I'd like to keep this fic "clean" or not. Let me know. I'm sorry if this part ruins the series, always afraid of that happening.

-------------------------------------

Jughead POV

I had to stay in the hospital for the week. My social worker was less than impressed to find out I had been shot in the absence of my foster parents…as any good social worker should. I insisted I return to school Friday, I needed to start to fix the mess...and misunderstandings.

My arm was in a sling and if I didn't move my shoulder too much...or think about it...or breath too much it didn't hurt too badly.

I prepared for the worst as I walked through the cop checkpoint. I cautiously walked to my locker and after a bit of a struggle, managed to exchange my books for the ones I needed.

“Jones!” I jumped at the sound of Sweet Peas voice. I don't know what yn has told them but this could go badly.

“umm h-hey Sweet Pea what's up?”

“Nothing nothing...EXCEPT MY FUCKING BIRTHDAY!” I swear, I was shot this weekend and lived but I have never felt so relieved in my life then I did seeing that small giant smile at me.

“Oh Happy birthday”

“Yeah! We're having a thing at the the Warehouse, you know it right?” I nodded.

“Well yeah we're having it there, all the Juniors are coming so don't be afraid to show your face-” I was petrified ”-and trust me if the Ghoulies even think about rocking around, yn won't be firing the gun at the roof this time” he laughed but I didn't find it very funny. “Some seniors will also come I'd say” he continued as we started strolling towards the common room, somewhere I hadn't ventured much.

“So how's yn?” I try to sound as nonchalant as possible.

“Yn? She's yn” that's extremely unhelpful. Although since I'm still walking and breathing and from the lack of Sweet Peas foot in my ass, it seems to me that she hasn't said anything to anyone. No sight of YN yet, not unusual.

“Hey Toni have you seen yn?”

“Nope, haven't seen her since you were in hospital actually... didn't even show up to meetings all week, not very like her but I'm sure she's super busy getting info out of people”

“What do you mean?”

“Well she's going to be the next full leader, you didn't think all she did was watch did you?” She half laughed but I did think that's all she did, that's all any of us Juniors do really. I hadn't thought much about YN being the next leader in the context of Yn being the next leader of what essentially is a criminal organization.

“She almost never does watch anymore, she's needed doing more... important things for the Serpents”

“She did look out with me when I was shot…”

“Yeah she did, she volunteered that night actually, weirdly enough. Who knows she probably had some master plan” I don't understand, we had had a fight that day, was she going to apologise? Was I part of her master plan or was it something else? I can't figure out this girl.

“Coming to the party tonight? I promise it'll be more fun than the last one” she offered but I had had a great time at the last party...yanno, before the attack.

The Warehouse’ music could be heard from down the street. This is some party. I sauntered into the familiar Warehouse and was greeted kindly, well as kindly as they could. I was getting thanks, handshakes and pats on the back from all these people I hadn't seen before, both Junior and Senior members alike. They were all thanking me for saving yn but right now I didn't feel like much of a hero. I was a coward.

I looked around for yn, circling the whole main hall but to not much avail, just received more thanks. It made me feel guilty. Then I saw her and my guilt grew by 100.

She stood on the very same supervising platform above the dancefloor that she had fired her warning shot last time I ventured here. She was beautiful, a queen surveying her kingdom. I have to just go for it, there's only one stairs up and down and I don't think she's mad enough to leap from that height. I'll have to just corner her in while receiving privacy from the height of the panel.

“Yn!” She jumped at the sound of my voice, she had clearly been in deep thought as normally no one could sneak up on her.

“You shouldn't be here Bonehead” she faced back to scanning the room.

“Well I mean you shouldn't be hanging around on condemned rickety platforms but we all have our vices.

“Is yours being a cheating liar?” yup, deserved that one. Her eyes stayed fixed on the happenings below us.

“I wasn't cheating or lying”

“Really? Your blonde bitch bombshell of a girlfriend begs to differ”

“Okay well firstly Betty isn't a bitch she just has a lot going on in her family right now and-”

“Oh nooo the Northsider is having family problems boo-freaking-hoo, Serpents write the book on family problems.”

“Fair point...and she's not my girlfriend well I mean not really”

“Just go away Jughead, I'm not in the mood”

“Ah! You called me Jughead! I'm breaking you down!” she rolled her eyes.

“Yn” I moved closer and she retreated slightly.

“Please, hear me out and if you don't like it then I'll throw myself off the platform” she sighed and I took that as permission to start.

“Okay so before I was shipped to the Southside I was kind of sort of half with Betty half not. It was complicated to say the least” she exhaled loudly, okay so I need to speed it up.

“But she couldn't get over her thing for Archie. you know Archie, tall, ginger, almost got stabbed by Sweet Pea at my bedside, yeah him, sound as the ground normally, you might like him” she exhaled again, really not up for small talk tomorrow day okay...

“Anyway that was always a barrier for us and I always liked her more than she liked me and it just wasn't right. And then when I came here I realised what actually liking someone like that was because I met you and I even like you more than I could ever like her and-” she turned to look at me while I took a breath before continuing. I have to shift the topic from my feelings for her my courage is suddenly fleeting…

“-but back to betty, she and I were kind of a will they won't they and trust me, we won't, ever especially after I've met you and the way she treated my new family, that's you guys by the way and also she just could never get over the serpent in me and that just didn't...didn't go with me. I think she only introduced herself as my girlfriend to establish an edge over you because you two weren't exactly ready to be braiding each other's hair and also Betty has this habit of making people her projects and i think she always saw me as that where as you just saw me for who I was” I was half out of breath by the time I sped through my explanation.

“Done?” I laughed lightly at yns reaction, a very her response to which I nodded.

“Yn, please believe me when I say I'm not that type of guy, I'm sorry” she took a deep breath before nodding slowly.

“You forgive me!”

“No, I'm going to try and start to forgive you...no promises” I didn't even think, I just hauled her into a hug. She half accepted it before breaking from me.

“i just have to ask you one thing yn...why didn't you tell everyone what happened?”

“It was business between us and besides...if Sweet Pes found out he'd bury you under the Warehouse” she smiled at me. Bliss.

“I'm glad you didnt then” I laughed

“I'm also glad you're going to try to forgive me yn, it means so much”

“Dad”

“Woah okay interesting kink but whatever you're into” I laughed before stopping at the sight of her widening eyes.

“Jughead Jones” I turned swiftly to the sound of the brash new voice. A man, a towering man, stood behind me. Oh God.

“Umm y-yes I'm him, nice to meet you” I offered a hand he did not take.

“So, you get shot for my daughter and you didn't think that I’d find out?” He chuckles lightly but still someone threateningly when I do not respond to his question. My face tensed slightly.

“Take it easy Jones” he pushed me playfully into my wounded shoulder causing me to have to stifle shearing pain. I felt yn step closer behind me and put a hand to my lower back.

“I appreciate your sacrifice for my daughter, it has not gone unnoticed. Yn, home by 11pm, work to be done after 1am. Enjoy your night”

"Yes sir Ill be home" is all she said to him before he snaked ((puns)) back down the stairs.

Well I can see where yn. gets her enigmatic style from. She took her hand from my back again.

“Well isn't he fun at parties?”

“I'd be careful making fun of him, some people won't take too kindly to it Legacy”

“I'm so sick of being called that”

“Aw, boohoo, was the silver platter not shiny enough?” I rolled my eyes at her.

“How do I make them stop calling me Legacy, they don't call you a legacy?”

“Well yeah because a) I would break their neck b) I'm their leader not their legacy and c) I've proved myself many many times beyond that title”

“I mean I was shot what more do they want”

“You could get into a vicious knife fight where only one is left standing” she looked at me again and her faint scar that caught my eye the first day I saw her seemed to gleam back into center stage.

“Is that what you did…” caution dripping from my words.

“Maybe, Maybe not. I'm not going to tell you either way because it takes the fun out of it” her laugh was one I wanted to hear on repeat for the rest of my life.

“Listen, I am so thankful for what you did-” her hand caught my arm lightly, my skin almost lit to life “-and even though I'm their next leader and that was a sacrifice...it kind of only proves your loyalty to me and right now I'm not the overall leader so it means almost nothing. Well I mean I'm sure my dad is glad his daughter isn't dead but in terms of the gang, it doesn't hold as much weight as you think… to the seniors that is” she dropped my arm and the brisk air returned to my skin.

“What can I do then?”

“You could do the Initiation” she burst into laughter as if it was the most hilarious thing ever said.

“I'll do it” her face dropped completely. I'm ready

------------------------------

Feedback is appreciated kittens!

Much love Xx

Tagged: @sunshine51879 @mrs-sarcasmm @deanilostmyshoe @goshdarnitthatsalongname

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panda-noosh · 7 years ago

Note

HC for the Paladins having a female human teen medic/engineer who is very brash, sarcastic, salty, stubborn, and has a crude and sadistic sense of humor with a terrifying hair trigger temper and won't hesitate to hit someone over the head with a wrench and takes shit from no one but she actually really cares and worries for them and is a good friend and then they realize they have a crush on her?

Contin for Paladinshaving a crush on ill tempered, wrench throwing, foul mouthed femalehuman teen medic, who would they react if she was an extremely giftedfight like mortal kombat good and she's like scorpion (uses a chainedKunai spear and uses fire)?

Shiro:

- Shirowould have tried to hard to avoid his feelings.

- so hard.

- feelings are a distraction and all of that jazz. he doesn't wantthem. he doesn't need them. he doesn't what to associate himself withthem.

- but low and behold, this dopey, in love mochi can't help it. he'sfalling head first into feelings and he hates it.

- okay, maybe it's not thatbad.where you have a temper, you're helpful. you're a medic. you've savedhis life on multiple occasions. if there was anybody to fall in lovewith, he's at least glad it's you.

-but, like, if your 'no-bullshit' attitude could just stop being sodamn attractive, that would be fantastic.

- he doesn't really see that you actually care for him very often. hesees the bad bitch side to you a lot more, since it isalot more prominent, and his brain keeps telling him that there is nocaring to really look for.

- this is the reason he's kind of confused as to why he feels the wayhe does. you keep to yourself, and whenever somebody else tries totalk to you, you take no shit. you're all business.

- so basically, Shiro would hate his feelings. he would try and hidefrom them, try and deny them, but it's really no use.

-the fighting would take him off guard at first and he wouldn't reallyknow what to do.

-the way you fought definitely fitted your personality perfectly, butit was just the way you did it that threw him off a little bit.

-even he can't use fire in his training sessions. he would never knowwhat to do.

-so upon seeing you, a 19 year old {I chose a legal age}, doing itwith such ease, would be insane to him.

Keith:

- listen,Flustered Keith. we got rid of you.

- nope. he's back and better than ever.

- because our mochi is flustered as hell and he doesn't know how tohandle it.

-first off, he didn't plan to come to space and fall in love with thebaddest bitch amongst the stars. so he's taken quite off guard by thesudden butterflies in his stomach.

- secondly, you could probably put him down if you so wished. why washe risking his life this way?

- he kind of cares, but at the same time, he knows these are hisfeelings and he knows you truly care for him and the other Paladins,so it's not that bad.

- like Shiro, he doesn't see anybody better to fall for. you've savedhis life on multiple occasions and have risked your own in theprocess of doing so.

- he still wouldn't address them fully. he'd be far too anxious to dothat, but he can admire from afar.

-I feel like the fighting would intimidate him a little bit???

-not in a bad way. he doesn't get scared or anything, but it's just –you're so young. you shouldn't be doing that kind of stuff.

- you shouldn't have needed to learn that kind of stuff in the firstplace, let alone use it.

-so he doesn't really like it whenever you train in the hardcore waythat you do. he would much prefer you to just use weapons, or boxingif you really feel like it. just not anything overly-intense.

Lance:

-wheneverLance thought of the person he was going to fall in love with, henever imagined it would be a person who was the complete opposite ofhimself.

-he imagined somebody who he could poke jokes at, somebody who wouldflirt back at him just as much as he flirted with them.

- instead, life was throwing him a curve ball and giving him feelingsfor the most mysterious, laid back and stubborn person he had evermet in his life.

- he's not mad about it. he sees this as just anotherhot person to flirt with, butwhenever that feeling doesn't go away, he gets a little confused.

- he truly believed that it would wear away, but it doesn't.

- so of course, he just milks it for all it's worth.

- flirting with you non-stop, only to earn a roll of the eyes and a“go to hell, Lance,” in response.

- your negative response doesn't stop him, though.

- I mean, not until you genuinely threaten to throw him off the shipif he doesn't shut his mouth.

- as for the fighting, it would be another thing he finds absolutelycrazy about you.

- sure, he's good at fighting. he has incredible aim. but using fire?basicallybeing a parkour pro?he'samazed.

-but he just uses it as another thing to flirt with you about, sincehe doesn't know what else to say.

Hunk:

- Ifeel like he would end up falling in love with somebody with suchpersonality quirks just because they are so different to him and hefinds it interesting.

- it started out as him just finding you interesting, in all honesty.the way you always managed to quieten down an argument with just two,calmly spoken words. the way you sat in a corner and observed, onlyto bring up what you had seen in a conversation two months later.

- it was little things like this that he caught onto that reallyfascinated him.

- but as he was observing these things, he also caught onto somethings that you were clearly trying to push down and not let anybodysee.

- he sees the way you always reach out to Pidge whenever she's walkingdown the long steps because you don't want her to fall.

- he sees the way you always pull the punching bag up whenever youknow Shiro is going to be training next because you know he hatesdoing it with his metal arm.

-he sees the way you gently smile at Lance's jokes whenever nobodyelse does, because you know he lowkey gets upset whenever nobodylaughs at his jokes.

- he sees the way you give Allura that warning glance everytime shesays anything mean to Keith, because you know Keith is a good guy andhis background has nothing to do with him now.

- Hunk falls in love with those aspects of you – the nice aspects ofyou. the ones hidden beneath the sarcasm and the bad bitch attitude.

- and unlike the others, he isn't really scared of it or confused. hefully understands why he would fall in love with somebody who caresso much for his family.

- as for the fighting thing, he doesn't really take much of aninterest in it, I don't think.

- fighting has never been his forte – especially with the way youfight – so he doesn't really waste his time looking at it, thoughhe finds himself enjoying himself whenever you talk about it.

-he loves seeing how passionate you get. it's a nice change from thesarcastic person everybody thought you were.

Pidge:

- well, fuck.

- that'sPidge after realising you've completely stolen her heart.

- because ????

- she used to find your attitude annoying?howdid this happen?

- it'strue. upon first meeting you, she thought you were annoying. shethought you were being stubborn and ominous and she found itfrustrating.

- but that feeling of annoyance quickly faded, clearly.

- and she wants it back, because falling in love with the medic wasnot her intention and she isn't ready for it.

- it's like she gravitates towards you, almost.

- for someone who's trying to fight off her feelings so much, she suredoes spend a lotoftime in your doctors office just talking with you.

- for someone who's trying to fight her feeling so much, she sure doesadmire your intelligence a lot.

- that's definitely one of your most attractive traits to her – yourintelligence.

- she finds it incredible how somebody so young can be a doctor, and avery good one at that.

- she wants to get as much information off of you as she can, but atthe same time she wants to avoid you at all costs, because fallingdeeper in love is not her intention at all and she would rather avoidfeelings.

-as for finding out that you're good at fighting, this would throw heroff even more.

- you aren't meanttobe so skilled at such a young age, and she finds it slightlyconfusing.

- but nonetheless, watching you use fire and spar is something shewill never, evergettired off. she finds it so fascinating and it's one of the onlythings she actually leaves her work to watch.

- she always plays it off as her 'just passing by' but it never is.she knows what time you train at, and she designates those times togo and watch you.

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coolman229 · 8 years ago

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Just watched your most recent Topic of the Week video about Aang/Korra. Korra may have started off with more 'power-ups', but it seems like Bryke was too busy making sure that she was getting beat up and tortured to really do anything capable. As confident as she tries to seem, she really seemed insecure about her being the Avatar because from day one, (The past lives could have helped her with this, namely Kyoshi. Thanks, Bryke.) no one treated her like a human being except Bolin...

...From the jump, she's brought down from a social aspect and... eventually it goes from that to physically and emotionally. Regardless of how you feel about her personality, (which made me really mad and really happy at some points, her smile is infectious) it really made me uncomfortable watching how much they hurt this character...

...Taking away her bending, past lives, torturing her with poison while she's bound in chains, having Zaheer beat her down while she was out of commission because of that, and taking away her mobility, leaving her depressed and with PTSD for however many years.. All of that is just too much. It angered me watching this that they took this strong, confident, naive, brash, ready to go, willing to learn woman and turned her into a blank canvas of emotions by the end...

...I mean, the girl is a powerhouse and the first thing you choose to do is toss her into unnecessary romance, make it so that she loses most of her fights against major villains, (you can't tell me that the girl who can throw full grown people through shop windows and has been training everyday of her secluded life is going to just be thrown around like that. Bryke can really get out of here with that shit.) and then just torture the hell out of her...?

...All of this angered me to no end. Korra deserved an infinite number of times better than that. Sorry, this was a rant. I just wanted to share. Such a beautiful, strong character....just wasted... I'm just glad she got her happy ending, no matter how under developed it was.

I understand what you’re saying and I get your frustration, but the important thing is that none of those punishments and none of that suffering ever lasted. Korra loses her bending? She gets it back plus interest at the end of that same finale. Korra loses her past lives? She never cared about that anyway and it had zero effect on her character (and she didn’t even lose a bit of power in the Avatar State). Korra beaten and wheelchair bound with PTSD? Timeskip and she’s out of the wheelchair and the PTSD was reduced to just being bad metal that gets taken out and then bam Korra is back! She never truly suffered and none of that ever had any effect on her character.

I have little doubt that Bryke put in those in order to avoid her being called a Mary Sue. If she suffers then she can’t be a one! But the suffering was so poorly written, and honestly mismatched with her actions, that it didn’t mean anything. She gets punished hard for the wrong things and then when she does something horrible she gets away scotch free. Try to take on Amon without a real plan? LOSE YOUR BENDING (then get it back). Try to start another world war in order to benefit only her hometown? Threaten to murder a judge? Violently attack people? Nope never mentioned again. It’s just plain bad writing.

I agree that Korra was likable (at first) but her writing led her in circles. Every season something would happen that you’d think would make her grow, then bam she reverts back into Korra from episode 1 with maybe a slight change. She was a reckless hothead who would rather get into a fight than do her duty. The fun part about characters like that is seeing them grow and mature into being better people. Like Zuko in ATLA. He started off the show as a selfish dick but ended it as a good guy who turned against his family and gave up his nobility to do the right thing. Korra needed development like that. She needed to grow. And at times she displayed growth.

One of my favorite moments that was unfortunately undone was when Korra told Mako to go to Asami because she really needed him after finding out her dad was an Equalist. It showed great maturity for Korra to openly tell the guy she likes to go to another girl, especially since she’d already displayed a complete disregard for Asami dating Mako. Unfortunately that was undone and Mako randomly hooked up with Korra, but in that moment she really showed promise. If they kept up with things like that she would have ended up being a very likable character.

Ultimately Korra was written badly. She had so much promise in the beginning of Book 1 but ultimately ended up being just a walking plot device to make stuff happen. She was never allowed to really grow or shine in her own series. For being the main character she ended up being very plain and boring. She just repeated the same beats and ultimately fell flat as a character. It was entirely the result of Bryke’s crappy writing that led Korra to being such a lackluster character.

#anti LoK #Korra Criticism #Anonymous #anon #ask #ask me

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serenephenix · 8 years ago

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Perdu (excerpt)

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Perdu

[Fandom]:Voltron: Legendary Defender

[Rating]: Mature / Gen & Other

[Genre]: Hurt/Comfort, Angst, Drama, Team as Family

[Word count]: 30k +

[Warning]: elaborate tags and warning on AO3

[Status]: ongoing/ 3 chapters total

[AN]: If you’re interested, go and read the full story on AO3. Make sure to read the AN before continuing.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Lance meets him when he least expected it.

He just dropped off on another moon specialized in trade for intergalactic travel - at least he hopes it’s that because despite Pidge’s and Hunk’s efforts to translate Altean with their program there still were some bugs that could lead to some rather hilarious mix-ups.

His eyes sting as he turns off the system and does his best to push down the lump in his throat, to swallow the bile rising.

No use mulling it over. There was no looking back now.

The mall is a copy of the one he had last visited with the team and he finds it rather ironic that it reminds him so much of home, where every mall, no matter the city, looked exactly the same.

He heaves a sigh, exiting his pod through one of the tunnels connecting his vessel to the structure. The duffel bag slung over his shoulder rattles with the mismatch of items he has stuffed into it. Hopefully, one of those space pirates would be willing to trade with him. It was his only chance at scraping together some GAC and hopefully get some canned food that was safe to consume.

He would need it for the trip he had planned.

Weaving through the masses was easy. Finding the shop was not. Maybe his appearance, a teenager with a ratty nest of hair and bags under his eyes, was working against him. He plugs some fuzz off his jacket absentmindedly as he sits at the base of a fountain, coins glittering enticingly at the bottom. He swallows and turns around. Getting in and picking up the money might attract the wrong kind of attention.

His stomach gives a menacing growl and he can’t help but weave his arms around his middle as his muscles cramp. He had not counted on how slow the pods were in comparison to the Castle or Blue...

Nope, not going there.

Anyway, whatever goop he had packed had not lasted long enough. And although it had only been a day since he had last eaten, he feels like he would not even turn down Coran’s disgusting paladin lunch. He gives a frustrated growl, getting up with a sharp jerk and navigated through the mall once again.

When finally, he had found the place he had been looking for, and finally managed to get the shopkeeper to trust him, it had taken all of his skill and charm to persuade the alien to buy his mementos off of him. It had kind of hurt to see the collection of knick-knacks, ranging from a small Balmeran crystal to a sea-shell from his and Hunk’s trip in the depths of the ocean planet, go over the counter. Those had been gifts he had actually wanted to give to his family.

He hopes his coming back will be enough to appease them and make up for his absence.

The 4.000 GAC he had received in return felt heavy in his hand but he was aware that it would never be enough to get a few months’ worth of food. But bargaining had not worked and sob stories had been of no interest to the gray-skinned individual behind the counter.

Shoulders slumping, he trudges over to a more secluded area, probably for employees only, and sits down on the ground with his legs outstretched, resting his head against the wall.

How sad that being a Paladin of Voltron, one of the people responsible for the downfall of Zarkon, did not give him any extra brownie points with strangers. But he had nothing on his person that could even hint at his connection to the group.

He gives a growl when the tears are back again. He had spent the last few days going through every range of emotion a human could possibly feel. A roller-coaster ride that had not done his stomach any favors. He finally understood Hunk a bit better, even if he would have been happy to live without that knowledge. He cusses at his stomach when it reminds him of his most pressing problem. The jingle from the purse filled with coins only fuels his dismay.

He would like to dig into a huge plate of pasta, pizza or anything greasy and savory. Anything to curb both the gnawing hunger and piercing homesickness. But he would have to ration whatever he got. This trip was going to be long and money was, sadly, scarce.

Getting up, he makes his way to round the corner and collides with someone.

His half-empty bag goes flying as he lands on is rear with a surprised shout. The person he had run into going down completely.

“Oh my gosh, I’m sorry!”

He scrambles to his feet hastily, trying to help the other person get up and extending his hand.

His breath gets caught in his throat.

The man was undeniably gorgeous.

Long, white strands frame a face with sharp contours but there is no harshness to his features. He looks smart in clothes that are plain but practical, a mix of black, grays and white. But what immediately has Lance’s undivided attention are the eyes of a gold so intense it is almost blinding.

He is the most human-looking alien he has come across yet, besides the Alteans. These things aside, if he didn’t know any better Lance would have thought he had just run into some sort of beautiful deity.

His outstretched hand is taken with little hesitation and Lance needs a second to remember that he needed to actually hold onto the stranger to heave him up.

The man gives quiet thanks in return, dusting himself down.

Every move was fluid and elegant as unspectacular as the actual act of dusting oneself down may be. Once he is done his gaze goes back to Lance, a small smile on his face that makes a knot form in Lance’s stomach.

“Ah – I’m so sorry.” He stammers, feeling heat rise up to his cheeks. It was so strange how words seem to fail him when he usually considers himself suave.

The stranger slowly shakes his head, grabbing the bag and handing it over to Lance who taks it without his eyes leaving the stranger’s face.

“It is no problem. In such a crowded place one must expect to run into other people, even literally.”

Lance gives a nervous laugh: “Or them falling for you.”

The words are out before his brain is able to put in a filter and when he is met with surprised blinking, Lance suddenly realizes what he has just done. He wants to die on the spot. What the quiznak was he thinking blurting out something like that?! Point is: he wasn’t. At all. And he usually isn’t this open or brash with guys. It’s strange… But damn that had been smooth.

“Ah- um- I mean… I” his voice breaks with the flood of embarrassment taking over his thoughts and stops when a chuckle meets his ears.

The stranger has a hand before his mouth but the crinkle around his eyes betrays his amusement.

Lance gives his own nervous chuckle before the loudest growl yet makes them both stare at his stomach. Lance never knew that one could feel this self-conscious.

What had he done to deserve this?

It takes his mind little to supply him with a quiet: A lot.

“If you don’t mind,” the stranger begins; voice as kind as his glowing eyes, “I would like to invite you to eat something with me. I am sure getting to know each other while seated, is much more comfortable.”

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Lance can hear the echo of his failed attempt at flirting with the princess, something about talking and eating equating a date.

“You know,” he replies, grateful smile twisting up the corners of his stiff lips, “I really would like that.”

For the full chapter/ story go to Archive Please make sure to read the AN.

#vld #voltron #lance #lotor #keith #shiro #hunk #pidge #allura #coran #voltron lions #fanfiction #wip

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bvckst · 8 years ago

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70 horrible questions

tagged by @kookno

1. do you have a good relationship with your parents?

kind of. my dad and i are pretty close, and my mom and i used to be really distant, but we’re starting to get more in touch with each other.

2. who did you last say “i love you” to?

i think either my grandmother or my best friend syd.

3. do you regret anything?

yeah like every single decision i make. my life is nothing but second-guessing every action i take.

4. are you insecure?

incredibly so.

5. what is your relationship status?

hopelessly single.

6. how do you want to die?

ok so this is going to sound really weird but my cousin and i have thought very deeply about this. we decided that we either want to become immortal (like technology evolves enough to make us live forever without getting old) or we want to die relatively young bc we don’t want to be old. that sounds really really bad but dude if we’re both immortal then we won’t be lonely.

7. what did you last eat?

raspberries.

8. played any sports?

yeah i used to play soccer and i was really good at it.

9. do you bite your nails?

yes, to the point that they bleed, and it’s really annoying.

10. when was your last physical fight?

in elementary school on the first day in T.A.G. class a girl kept teasing me and messing with me and stuff so i punched her in the stomach.

11. do you like someone?

yeah but im p sure i don’t even register to her.

12. have you ever stayed up 48 hours?

yeah finals week b.

13. do you hate anyone at the moment?

yeah a lot of people i have this bad habit of disliking people at the drop of a hat. too cynical.

14. do you miss someone?

yeah, my aunt moved really far away and we used to be super duper close.

15. have any pets?

yeah man two mastiffs ( gimli and daisy ) and two cats ( buddy and luna ) who are completely unrelated but have the exact same markings and are really hard to tell apart for strangers.

16. how exactly are you feeling at the moment?

excited bc i’m hanging out with friends tomorrow.

17. ever made out in the bathroom.

never made out period mate. a little too far for me.

18. are you scared of spiders?

i have a very hot and cold relationship with spiders. i understand that they are benign and i try to let them go their own way but if one happens to get too close or is a bit bigger than i’d like it to be i will not stop until it is gone.

19. would you go back in time if you were given the chance?

i mean not forever bc the past doesn’t like gay people but for a brief period of time hells yeah ur talking to a major history nerd i couldn’t resist.

20. where was the last place you snogged someone?

christ never.

21. what are your plans for this weekend?

hanging out with friends and buying a swim suit.

22. do you want to have kids? how many?

no not at all sorry dad but there are no kids in the future for me.

23. do you have piercings? how many?

just my ears.

24. what is/are/were your best subject(s)?

really all of them but my favorites are math and science.

25. do you miss anyone from your past?

no i think i’ve moved on.

26. what are you craving right now?

chick fil a.

27. have you ever broken someone’s heart?

a few times maybe, but one of them i don’t feel bad about bc he was stalking me.

28. have you ever been cheated on?

yeah in elementary school lmao.

29. have you ever made a boyfriend/girlfriend cry?

idk probably i’m a shitting gf i think i don’t know not a lot of experience.

30. what’s irritating you right now?

my sister had her friend over and they were up until 5:30 in the morning shouting and they kept me up all fucking night and i would have slept in except my dad woke me up to check if i was still alive.

31. does somebody love you?

i mean yeah like my friends and my family. def hate myself though.

32. what is your favorite color?

ok legit i do not know this is a serious problem for me i like a lot of colors like blue and green and yellow i can’t decide on a favorite.

33. do you have trust issues?

yes and no. i feel like a lot of people have ulterior motives bc i’ve been around a lot of people like that but i’m also willing to open up if i know it’ll help someone.

34. who/what was your last dream about?

i dreamed that my grandmother was best friends with the chinese president.

35. who was the last person you cried in front of?

idk i cry every fucking day i think i got in a fight with my dad and started crying bc i’m a crybaby.

36. do you have out second chances too easily?

yeah i think so. i mean i’m still suspicious of the person but i allow them to try and make it up.

37. is it easier to forgive or forget?

forget, i’m bad at forgiving so i try to just block it out.

38. is this year the best year of your life?

yeah i think so. i’ve picked up a lot of the things i used to love, and i’m a lot happier than i used to be.

39. how old were you when you had your first kiss?

i think i was it third grade and this kid we called vampire kid ( he bit people ) dragged me underneath a bush by my leg and forced me to kiss him.

40. have you ever walked outside completely naked?

dude no wth.

51. favorite food?

pasta, chicken, potatoes, sushi. don’t make me choose.

52. do you believe everything happens for a reason?

nahhh i don’t think so. i believe in science and science is random and meaningless but also patterns and meticulous. i think that everything is explainable but that doesn’t mean everything has a purpose.

53. what is the last thing you did before you went to bed last night?

watched blackfish for the 75th time.

54. is cheating ever okay?

nah b down with cheaters.

55. are you mean?

i don’t think i’m mean, i’m somewhat brash and i like to tease but i’ve never intentionally tried to belittle someone or cause someone pain. plus i’d never have the courage to be mean to someone, i’m too scared of everything ever.

56. how many people have you fist fought?

none i’m small. i have wrestled with my cousin skye though but i always lose.

57. do you believe in true love?

nope i think you can love someone with all your heart and still it might not work out. love is someone you have to work for.

58. favorite weather?

sunny and 65.

59. do you like the snow?

yeah bc it means i get a snow day.

60. do you wanna get married?

idk man like i don’t see a reason for it because i don’t think you need a piece of paper to validate your relationship but i do think that if you wanna get married that’s totally chill.

61. is it cute when a boy/girl calls you baby?

platonically yeah, i love it.

62. what makes you happy?

idk my friends, painting without reason, books, nature, the beach. a lot of simple things make me happy.

63. would you change your name?

no i don’t like my name but it’s still MY name, and i don’t think any other name would fit me.

64. would it be hard to kiss the last person you kissed?

we’re talking abt vamp boy so yeah, hella hard.

65. your best friend of the opposite sex likes you, what do you do?

politely turn them down bc i’m gay. however this scenario wouldn’t ever happen bc my best friend of the opposite sex is also gay.

66. do you have a friend of the opposite sex who you can act like your complete self around?

yeah several. i think i’m very much myself nowadays, i’m not as afraid to be myself as i used to be.

67. who was the last person of the opposite sex you talked to?

my dad?

68. who’s the last person you had a deep conversation with?

probably my grandmother talking we like to yell abt how much we hate trump.

69. do you believe in soulmates?

no i think you can have deep connections with multiple people.

70. is there anyone you would die for?

honestly i’m really scared of dying, but there are still a few people i would. especially my little sister, because i’m always worried about her.

i tag @3cbx @tencafe @softheartae @overdevv @shinee-prism @namjoone @dreamscript @jeon-gguk @amartae

#tag #mine #mutuals

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obtusemedia · 6 years ago

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In Ascending Order: Ranking Taylor Swift’s singles worst to best

After slowly tilting her sound away from Nashville more and more with each album, Taylor Swift made a clean break from country five years ago with her synthpop masterpiece, 1989. It was about as successful as a pop album could be, producing three massive #1 hits and cementing Swift as the world’s biggest popstar.

Fast forward three years, and her next album, reputation, was bitter and moody — a good fit for the American landscape of 2017, but a far cry from the bright melodies and fun sing-a-longs of her previous smashes, Red and 1989. The lead single hit #1, but quickly stumbled down the charts and the album’s follow-up singles didn’t have the same impact. But you’ll still find those who defend reputation, and a year and a half later, it’s clear there are some gems hidden in the wreckage.

Now that Swift is entering her 30th year of life with a catalogue that’s ran the gamut from country-fried ballads about teen crushes to vengeful electropop bangers about Kanye West, I thought it was a good time to look back on her career. Because despite her negative (sorry) reputation right now, Swift has contributed many great songs to the modern pop canon.

Here’s the ground rules: The song had to be a single from one of Taylor Swift’s six albums. No deep cuts (apologies to “All Too Well”), no soundtrack tunes (sorry, Fifty Shades) and no featured spots on others’ songs (asking me to listen voluntarily to John Mayer is too much to ask, sorry).

#37: “End Game” feat. Future and Ed Sheeran (reputation, 2017)

Listen, Taylor, if you want to have guest rappers on your single, that’s fine. But maybe get, you know, actual rappers. Ed Sheeran doing his awkward schtick certainly does not count. If this was a hip-hop flavored pop song, fine — then why is legitimate rapper Future here? The Atlanta trap icon feels so out of place on this gentrified R&B cut, and he only gets a few bars anyways, making his appearance seem more like Swift wanting cred more than anything else.

Honestly, if that was the only problem, “End Game” wouldn’t be last place on this list. But nope, the song itself is a giant mess in itself. The production aims for sexy and nocturnal and lands in lethargic. And what is this song even about? Is Taylor making a song about how cool she and her boyfriend are, or about her negative reputation? The post-chorus, which suddenly veers into that later topic, tries so desperately to be a chant-along and it falls utterly flat.

With all of Swift’s other singles, even the ones I don’t like, I at least understand how someone could like it. But I have no clue who “End Game” is for, or who would enjoy listening to it.

#36: “Ours” (Speak Now, 2010)

I’ve listened to this song many times, and I find it hard to remember a single hook or line. “Ours” isn’t aggressively awful, but it is painfully bland, and I have no plans on listening to this nondescript ballad after I’m done writing this.

#35: “Fifteen” (Fearless, 2008)

I can’t take away the good intentions of “Fifteen.” The general message of being wary of manipulative older men (or, in this case, high school seniors) and enjoying youth while it lasts is nice, if a bit cliché.

But this song still bugs me. Swift sings the story of her and her (real-life!) friend Abigail’s experiences as ninth-graders like she’s a wise elder, looking back with years of experience. But she was only 18 when she wrote “Fifteen” — I’m sure she matured some in those three years, but once you realize that, it makes the whole song come off as fairly condescending.

Couple the after-school special lyrics with a sickeningly sweet acoustic guitar musical style, and “Fifteen” doesn’t hit the mark.

#34: “Gorgeous” (reputation)

The lyrics aren’t the problem here (except that any Angeleno knows that at the intersection of Sunset and Vine, it’s just a Walgreens). Nah, it’s the shrink-wrapped production that drives me nuts. There was the potential for a great, 1989-esque pop song here, but it got neutered.

#33: “Mean” (Speak Now)

Given that Swift eventually became the music industry’s Regina George, this song has aged horribly. Also, this sounds way too much like the Country Bear Jamboree for me to take it seriously.

#32: “Bad Blood” feat. Kendrick Lamar (1989, 2014)

The worst song from Swift’s best album, “Bad Blood” is a clunky mess that frankly doesn’t go hard enough. If you’re going to make a diss track towards Katy Perry, go for the kill shot! Prism was mediocre, her whole look was tacky, she wrote this disaster — Swift had plenty of options. But I guess she felt adding a couple phoned-in Kendrick Lamar verses, getting Selena Gomez and Lena Dunham (??) in the music video, and spouting clichés did the job better. *shrugs* At least it’s catchy.

(Side note: Perry obviously lost that feud, but “Teenage Dream” is absolutely flawless and probably better than any song Swift wrote)

#31: “Everything Has Changed” feat. Ed Sheeran (Red, 2012)

“Everything Has Changed” has a gorgeous, wilting chorus, and Swift and Sheeran have clear chemistry. Beyond that, it’s unfortunately kind of forgettable.

#30: “Fearless” (Fearless)

I’m honestly not sure why this needed to be a single. It’s fine and all, but it doesn’t stick in the brain compared to Fearless’ other smash hits.

#29: “New Year’s Day” (reputation)

Ending the brash reputation with a quiet, sparse piano ballad was a smart move, and the bittersweet “New Year’s Day” is a solid enough tune.

But here’s the thing — Swift wasn’t the only popstar in 2018 to put a minimalist, Jack Antonoff-produced piano song on her album. Lorde did nearly the exact same thing just a few months earlier with the heartbreaking “Liability,” which is much rawer and more intense than “New Year’s Day.” In other words, when I hear Swift’s ballad, I enjoy it, but I find myself wishing she went for the emotional jugular like Lorde did.

#28: “Tim McGraw” (Taylor Swift, 2006)

Here’s the part where I admit that I’m really not into country music, so a lot of Swift’s very early material isn’t for me. But, like with other genres I don’t love, I can at least respect talent, and “Tim McGraw” is a great piece of detailed, nuanced songwriting. But acoustic-y country ballads will never be my favorite.

#27: “The Last Time” feat. Gary Lightbody (Red)

Here, we have the opposite situation as “Tim McGraw” — a musical style I love, but not done very well.

These types of Coldplay-esque, faux-indie power ballads were totally my thing back in the day (shoutout to The Fray and obviously, Coldplay). But although “The Last Time” does have real bonafides with its soaring chorus, great guitar solo, and Snow Patrol frontman Gary Lightbody contributing vocals, it just doesn’t click. The duo doesn’t have a lot of chemistry, and the epic feel shoots for “Chasing Cars” and lands closer to...one of Snow Patrol’s other songs that nobody remembers.

#26: “...Ready For It?” (reputation)

I’d love to just make a snarky joke about Swift trying to rap and embarrassing herself in the process (which she kind of does) ... but I can’t lie, this is a total guilty pleasure. It’s about as close to a classic Ke$ha song as we’re going to get in the gloomy late-2010′s, so I can forgive the try-hard vibe.

#25: “Our Song” (Taylor Swift)

This is the very first of Swift’s songs I ever heard. Naturally, being a 13-year-old wannabe snob at the time, I hated it immediately.

Over a decade later, I can appreciate “Our Song” for its adorable charms and extremely quotable lyrics (“when you talk reeeeeeal slow” is my personal favorite). But it still rubs me the wrong way a bit, probably because Swift was pretending to be a southern hick when she was actually raised by a wealthy family in Reading, Pennsylvania. ...but it’s still a solid pop tune.

#24: “Mine” (Speak Now)

So uh...I guess Swift really wanted to write a Bruce Springsteen song? Specifically, a more optimistic version of “The River,” with a romantically doomed teenage flame sputtering out into adult financial troubles.

But obviously, a song about a shotgun wedding and blue-collar poverty wasn’t going to sell to Swift’s audience, so she gave the trope an uplifting spin, complete with a bright, peppy chorus in a major key. And it kind of works! I’m not going to pretend that “Mine” is top-tier Taylor, but sometimes rough stories do have a happy ending.

#23: “Should’ve Said No” (Taylor Swift)

A nice and pissed-off song about a cheating boyfriend, “Should’ve Said No” has a great, visceral chorus and Swift puts 100 percent of the blame on her scummy ex, who’s trying to weasel his way back into the relationship. I will say this about country: it’s a great vehicle for breakup songs.

#22: “The Story of Us” (Speak Now)

This is a great example of a very under-used style of breakup song — the slowly-drifting-apart story. It’s not usually as fiery, but it’s a lot more realistic and relatable. The best recent example I can think of is The 1975��s new wave heartbreaker “A Change of Heart,” which admittedly, is a lot better than “The Story of Us.”

Still, Swift gives the trope a nice effort here, and the charging guitars perfectly match her growing frustration at this boy who gets more and more distant as time goes on. The book framing device is a nice twist too (“NEXT CHAPTER.”), and it all adds up to one of Swift’s more underrated singles.

#21: “Look What You Made Me Do” (reputation)

Ahh yes, the infamous Kanye West diss track. Let’s be clear, nobody looked good in this feud — Taylor came off as vindictive, back-stabbing and petty. Then Kanye lost any moral high ground by wearing MAGA hats and buddying up to Trump.

The funny thing is, the songs from both artists that are central to this feud — “Look What You Made Me Do” and Kanye’s “Famous,” the song that reignited Swift’s rage — are both deeply ridiculous songs that I love despite my better judgement. The main issue with Swift’s song is that she can’t decide whether to play the cackling villain or the victim. The smart move would’ve been to lean into her dark side, like Kanye himself did with Yeezus, but she isn’t willing to completely do that, which makes the song have a pretty awkward tone.

YET. “Look What You Made Me Do” is still way too much fun for me to hate. The “I’m Too Sexy”-aping chorus? Love it. The thumping, wonderfully stupid Black Eyed Peas-esque production? Give me more! “I’m sorry, the old Taylor can’t come to the phone right now. Why? BECAUSE SHE’S DEAD!!” — that might be my favorite part of all.

It’s a total disaster, but it’s a highly enjoyable one. But considering that I find other bombs like Lady Gaga’s ARTPOP fascinating too, maybe my opinion isn’t valid on this one.

#20: “22″ (Red)

I read a tweet once that called this song the “Kidz Bop ‘Tik Tok.’” Don’t remember who wrote that, but they’re absolutely right. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! It’s probably the closest Swift came to a squeaky-clean Carly Rae Jepsen banger.

#19: “White Horse” (Fearless)

The darker cousin of “Love Story,” Swift proved with “White Horse” she could also use classic tropes to convey weepy ballads as well as the sweeping romances. I honestly wish the lyrics were a little less vague — usually Swift is hyper-specific, which serves her well in these breakup songs — but Swift’s emotive performance carries the song regardless.

#18: “Begin Again” (Red)

Musically, the sleepy sound of “Begin Again” doesn’t do a lot for me, but the lyrical detail and story are stellar. After listening to so many Taylor Swift songs about crushing heartbreak or whirlwind romances for this list, it’s nice to hear a more understated song about a first-date that goes well. It especially works well at the end of Red, a fairly angsty album.

“Begin Again” might still have some exaggerations (nobody’s first date is that perfect, Taylor, come on now), but the more grounded, mature tone was a nice change of pace for Swift.

#17: “Shake It Off” (1989)

This song is so, so stupid. And yet I know every single word. Yes, even the incredibly awkward rap breakdown (“THIS. SICK. BEAT!”).

I can’t in good conscience name “Shake It Off” as a top-tier Swift single, but it’s damn fun, despite its awful lyrics. Which basically makes it — gasp — a Katy Perry single. Oh, the irony.

#16: “Delicate” (reputation)

Swift went nocturnal with this sleeper hit. I couldn’t get into it at first, but it eventually grew on me, with its subtle production and charmingly insecure lyrics. Who among us hasn’t nervously second-guessed everything they’ve said or done when they’re around a new romantic partner?

The vocoders and slowly building percussion just add to what was already a solid groove, and it’s no wonder that “Delicate” eventually creeped up the charts despite the fact that, as Swift said herself, her reputation’s never been worse.

#15: “Picture To Burn” (Taylor Swift)

If I’m going to enjoy a country song, it better be ridiculous and stuffed with as many goofy clichés as possible. The single can’t take itself too seriously (and should be super catchy, of course). This is why some of the few country songs I semi-ironically love sound less like George Strait and more like “Man! I Feel Like A Woman.” If all country music was as silly as “Save A Horse, Ride A Cowboy,” I’d probably like the genre a lot more.

“Picture To Burn” isn’t quite on those songs’ level, but it nearly matches the same level of yee-haw fun. Swift puts on an aggressive Southern accent, there’s a literal banjo solo at one point, and it’s about the best country topic there is: getting revenge on your ex!

Swift leaves no shot unfired as she calls out her former boyfriend for her “stupid ‘ol pickup truck you never let me drive,” calls him a stupid redneck, threatens to date all his friends and even gets her daddy involved. (At one point, the song contained a lyric about telling his friends he was gay, but thankfully, she later removed it)

It’s not quite “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk,” but it’ll do in a pinch.

#14: “Wildest Dreams” (1989)

One of the smartest things Swift’s done during her blockbuster pop era is cribbing ideas from other musicians and adapting them to her own personality. As mentioned earlier, “22″ is her version of a Ke$ha party song, “Mine” is like one of Springsteen’s heartland tunes, and “Shake It Off” is an intentionally dumb Katy Perry single.

But probably the most obvious example of this is “Wildest Dreams.” And the artist Swift cribs from on this sweeping ballad is more of a cult favorite than a true pop megastar: Lana Del Rey. Don’t lie, you hear it too: the cooing, sensual vocals, the cinematic sound, the lyrics that evoke classic Hollywood romance. It’s basically just “Summertime Sadness” without the Spaghetti western guitars.

And that’s absolutely a good thing! Although Swift doesn’t have Lana’s stunning alto vocal (sorry, but you know it’s true), she can still absolutely play that classic movie starlet role. Add a bit more modern pop structure to Del Rey’s indie-darling formula, and you’ve got the recipe for an easy standout track.

#13: “You Belong With Me” (Fearless)

Pointing out that “You Belong With Me,” arguably Swift’s biggest early hit, is problematic isn’t a new take. The idea of that someone inherently “belongs” with you because you like them has been debunked. I’m sorry this guy doesn’t you like you back Taylor, but maybe he has a good thing going with that cheer captain who wears short skirts? Let him be.

...but on the other hand, Swift was 19 when she wrote “You Belong With Me.” Most people criticizing the lyrics here are doing so through an adult vantage. Yes, the message is toxic, but it’s also extremely accurate to how teenage crushes work. I can promise you that I had similar feelings in junior high/high school, and I know I’m not alone in that regard.

Also, “You Belong With Me” is far too catchy and bouncy to truly hate. So although I can’t rank it too high due to the iffy lyrics, I can’t deny that it does tap into some raw teen emotions, even if they’re ugly.

#12: “I Knew You Were Trouble.” (Red)

I was there. That fateful day in 2012 when Taylor Swift *gasp* MADE A DUBSTEP SONG. People were snarking that this was basically just Skrillex for the Forever 21 crowd, sharing around that (hilarious) screaming goat remix, and so on.

But seven years later, although that dubstep production is oh-so-early-’10s, “I Knew You Were Trouble” absolutely holds up. If Swift was going to abandon country, why not go all out? Besides, the drop still hits with a lot of force, mirroring the visceral anger of her lyrics. If anything, it isn’t intense enough. Maybe she really should’ve gotten Skrillex to produce...

#11: “Out Of The Woods” (1989)

YES inject that synthy Jack Antonoff production right into my veins.

I’m still upset that “Out Of The Woods” wasn’t a smash like 1989′s other singles, but it is a pretty weird song. The chorus is aggressively repetitive (its only real flaw), it’s a breakup song that’s less relatable lyrically and more abstract, and America was too busy paying attention at the time to Bieber semi-apologizing.

But THAT PRODUCTION. It’s nervy yet propulsive, with a quiet-loud-quiet setup that any good power ballad needs. Antonoff even provides some backup vocals, which is always a welcome addition. Swift herself really sells the song too. I wouldn’t say she’s a powerhouse singer, but she’s really giving it her all here in terms of vocal force — something she typically shies away from.

“Out Of The Woods” will likely be lost to time for all but the most ardent Swifties. But for those who love it, may I suggest listening to some Bleachers?

#10: “Back To December” (Speak Now)

The stereotype of Swift’s breakup songs, particularly in the early stage of her career, was that they weren’t self-aware and basically demonized whatever boy the song was about (or the girl she was jealous of). And while that’s not 100 percent true, the stereotype did have some merit back then.

That’s why “Back To December” was rightfully hailed as a breath of fresh air for Swift, and it’s held up extremely well nine years later. The perspective has shifted — in this story, she’s the one admitting guilt for ending the relationship. It’s a very measured, mature song, but with still enough tender emotion and regret to stay relatable. The orchestral sweep is a nice touch as well, emphasizing the tragedy of the situation.

Also, fun fact: This song is about Swift’s relationship with Twilight hunk Taylor Lautner. Maybe the relationship didn’t work out because she thought it was weird to date a guy with the same name? It was probably because she’s more of a Hunger Games fan.

#9: “Getaway Car” (reputation)

Here’s the one thing reputation improved upon from 1989. As just a cursory listen could tell you, “Getaway Car,” sonically, is extremely similar to “Out Of The Woods.” They’re both pulsing, synthy new wave tracks with a heavy Bleachers influence — considering they’re both Antonoff productions, not surprising at all. It even steals a lyric from Bleachers’ “Rollercoaster.”

So what makes “Getaway Car” a superior sequel? Well, it’s a smoother ride, for sure — the aggressively repetitive chorus in “Out Of The Woods” was that song’s weak spot. And “Getaway” has a more clear concept as well, being about a Bonnie and Clyde-inspired escape from a failing relationship, invoking all the bittersweet emotions that come along with that. “Out Of The Woods” is...about a car crash with Harry Styles? I guess?

It’s really a personal call. They’re both amazing songs, I just happen to think Swift and Antonoff refined their collaboration on this later attempt.

#8: “Teardrops On My Guitar” (Taylor Swift)

“Teardrops On My Guitar” is both obviously written by a 15-year-old kid, but also so, so much better than that implies.

The lyrics here are extremely wholesome and corny — unlike “You Belong With Me,” Swift doesn’t even take any shots at the girl her crush is currently dating, and there’s references to “wishing stars,” something I think I’ve only ever heard in Disney songs. And like many of Swift’s early songs, it absolutely nails the yearning emotions of a teenage crush, especially for those of us who were too shy to do anything about them.

But obviously, Swift wasn’t an average ninth-grader. The lilting melody in the verses of “Teardrops” fits the lyrics perfectly. And the song comes off both very polished and radio-ready, yet still plucked right from the pages of a diary. Yes, Swift co-wrote the song with pop-country songwriter Liz Rose, but that’s not unusual for a very young artist. Lorde’s “Royals” (written at age 16) had a co-writer, too.

The simple beauty of “Teardrops” is what brought Swift into the mainstream, and there’s a good reason for that: it’s an incredible start to a career.

#7: “Blank Space” (1989)

“Blank Space” might be the only intentional, successful self-own in recent pop history. I can’t think of another time when an artist eviscerated their public persona with such surgical precision, and it actually made them more endearing.

Tired of trolls constantly making jokes about her short relationships and constant breakup songs, Swift decided to make the joke herself, 8 Mile-style. In “Blank Space,” she paints herself as a psychotic maneater who will drive any guy insane. Out of all her disses over the years, she might have saved the best barb for herself: “Darling, I’m a nightmare dressed like a daydream.” The instant tone switch from the cooing, seductive first verse to the furious, delusional second verse is brilliant.

If there’s one flaw to “Blank Space,” it’s that the production is maybe a tad too minimalist for such an intense song. But the hook is still massive, and the song isn’t about the production anyways: It’s 100 percent a lyrical showcase for Swift, and a way to beat her haters at their own game.

Dissing yourself while still coming off smart is a tough tightrope to walk, as “Look What You Made Me Do” unfortunately proved. But with “Blank Space,” Taylor proved that, even if for a brief moment, she controlled the narrative.

(Also, this is Taylor’s best video. Obviously.)

#6: “Sparks Fly” (Speak Now)

A lot of the other songs in this top 10 work because of a very specific reason, whether it be the production or a clever lyrical conceit. But it’s difficult to describe what makes “Sparks Fly” fly so well.

At first glance, it’s not that much different than other early upbeat Swift singles — it’s got the country-rock guitars, lovesick lyrics, a bit of a twang but not too much. But this is where that formula reaches perfection. It’s no wonder that after “Speak Now,” Swift tilted hard into pure pop, because she wasn’t going to top this.

The chorus is passionate and soaring, with even the percussive lyrics ( “Drop. Everything. Now.”) contributing. And this seems like a super-odd aspect of a Taylor Swift song to compliment, but “Sparks Fly” also has a fantastic guitar riff — something few of her pop contemporaries would try.

Sometimes what makes a song great is to just have every aspect go perfectly, and that’s exactly what happened with “Sparks Fly.”

#5: “Red” (Red)

The title track to Swift’s instant-classic album Red is the closest she’s come to being a full-fledged rockstar (well, that and album cut “State Of Grace,” which is an obvious U2 pastiche). It’s definitely more of a country-fried, Sheryl Crow brand of rock, but it suits Swift well. There’s even a killer guitar solo!

As a summation of a whirlwind relationship, “Red” absolutely nails the bittersweet feelings that come after a breakup. Even the best moments or aspects of her ex have a dark side, but she seems equally wistful about the worst moments. And the color-based chorus (a few years before Halsey stole the idea), complete with a new wave-y vocal echo, is simple but effective. It’s the perfect middle between Swift’s uber-pop era to come and her Nashville songwriter past.

#4: “New Romantics” (1989)

I was hesitant to include “New Romantics” on this list. Yes, it was a single, but it was also a tacked-on bonus track to 1989. But it’s too damn perfect of a pop song to leave off.

Honestly, how was this not included in the regular tracklisting of 1989? Yes, it’s her best album, so there’s not a lot of filler, but “New Romantics” would’ve still been an improvement over nearly all of the songs there. The production by pop wizards Max Martin and Shellback pops and whizzes with energy. It’s pure ‘80s heaven, with an anthemic sing-along chorus and bouncy synths and drum machines.

But naturally, Swift herself is a major factor to why “New Romantics” is such an effective pop song. Her vocal delivery here has a knowing wink, with a bit of snark. You might even call it Debbie Harry-esque. For a song where Swift is conveying the joys of non-stop partying, she certainly sells it. And I’d imagine if she released it as a regular single earlier in 1989′s cycle, it would’ve been another #1 smash.

#3: “Love Story” (Fearless)

“Love Story” deliberately misinterprets multiple literary classics to create an uber-cheesy, ridiculous fairy tale. And it’s easily the best song of her country era, and one of the best pop songs of the ‘00s, bar none.

The star-crossed lovers angle is overdone, yes, but Swift sings about this secret relationship with such passion and earnestness that it feels fresh again. When the surprise ending comes and the boyfriend proposes (wait, aren’t they both high schoolers? Maybe wait a bit on that one, guys), it’s got all the sappiness of a Hallmark special, and yet it totally works. You can tell the then-18 Swift didn’t find this cheesy in the slightest, and her bold, passionate sincerity works.

Even the fact that the song seems to not understand what The Scarlet Letter was actually about, or how Romeo and Juliet ends, is honestly more charming than anything else. “Love Story” is like a puppy — full of boundless joy and absolutely impossible to resist, despite not being all that smart.

#2: “Style” (1989)

I can’t imagine the confusion and shock that Swift’s management must have felt when she told them she wanted to record a song that sounded like the Drive soundtrack. But it was an absolutely brilliant move, and it gave us the song that will likely age better than any of Swift’s other singles.

To be fair, “Style” is much more radio-friendly than your average Chromatics single — but not by much! Swift’s vocals are less ethereal than Ruth Radelet’s, and the hooks are much more obvious. But many Chromatics songs, or songs from Drive, are already pretty catchy — Swift just needed to maximize them into a slinky-yet-explosive new wave behemoth.

The pulsating synth background and Swift’s whispery vocals make “Style” an all-time classic song for aimlessly driving around at night, yet it’s big enough to fit in with her more blunt hits. In fact, it might be the one time she actually seemed *gasp* cool. It’s too bad reputation tried so hard to recapture this dusky vibe and utterly failed, but at least we’ll always have her first attempt.

#1: “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together” (Red)

It took Swift many, many tries to capture that elusive first #1 hit. But when she finally reached that pinnacle in 2012 with the gleefully venomous “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together,” it made perfect sense. After all, it’s her best song.

Swift has written many breakup songs before, but she’s never had this much fun knocking down her ex — in this case, the famously sleazy John Mayer. And her digs are just so relentless and delivered with a perfect smirk. There’s the dig at Mayer listening to “some indie record that’s much cooler than mine,” which drips with sarcasm. She calls him out for his inability to fully commit, saying both that his breakups and makeups only “last about a day.” And of course, there’s also that wonderfully exasperated phone call, where Swift groans about her ex’s persistence, calling the situation “exhausting” and mocking him.

The best part is that all of this is delivered in a sugary-sweet, insanely catchy campfire sing-along that wouldn’t leave anyone’s heads in the fall of 2012. That chorus is just so joyful and fun that you have expect the little bouncing ball to pop up next to the “WHEEE-EEE!”

It seems weird to say Swift’s best song is also her big sell-out moment, but some artists were just meant to be pure pop. And in Swift’s case, she didn’t sacrifice any of her sharp songwriting en route to a catchier, more fun sound, which created one of the most iconic pop songs of the ‘10s.

#taylor swift #pop #country #In ascending order

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