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the-writing-artist · 4 years ago

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Code: Swap Gift

Specifically, a gift for @Semie78 as part of @code-swap 2021. Here’s a little fic for you, hope you enjoy it. / Aelita-centric, present tense, post-Evolution / No pairings, just group fluff

Second Chance

The textbook definition of 'giving someone a second chance' is to allow someone another opportunity to do something or to prove their ability or worth.

To most people, it means that the person screwed up in some way, and their friend(s) or significant other has decided to see if they're still worth the effort. It makes sense, giving someone you care about an opportunity to learn from their mistakes and become a better person, but sometimes, enough is enough. Sometimes, the person screws up the chance they were so gratiously given, and then it's over.

(It's this definition that probably means the most to William, and it's understandable, but it's unfair for her to assume how he feels about it.)

But to Aelita, 'second chance' means something entirely different. It's something her friends had given to her, and she would never, ever dream of messing it up, but thinking about it always causes her to start crying, no matter where she is.

Mind you, it's not the bad sort of tears. The emotion she carries from this is not negative in any way, and never will be.

No, these are tears of joy.

And the evidence is in all the names she's ever had.

Aelita Schaeffer was a normal girl...well, as normal as one could be while being the daughter of a scientist on the run from the government. To be honest, she still doesn't really understand why her father was being hunted down. All she understands is that, at the time, she never expected for their mountain house to be invaded by the men in black that still haunt her nightmares to this very day. This Aelita never expected her mother to be taken away by them, nor did she ever expect to be forced to run away with her father. She had a normal life before that, and she was as sweet and innocent as a child her age could be.

(She remembers how enraged she was when XANA used this picture-perfect life to trap her.)

Aelita Hopper was her name when in hiding at the Hermitage. She was homeschooled and not really allowed to leave, so she didn't have any friends. This Aelita was very lonely, often crying herself to sleep every night because she wanted to be social, wanted her mother...wanted everything to go back to the way it was. Unfortunately, things only got worse when the men in black found them, forcing her father to virtualize them both onto Lyoko. Her father had tried to get XANA to understand who they really were, but failed, and he was forced to shut down the Supercomputer, trapping the two for the next decade.

(But it was also this Aelita who allowed her to remember her past and gave her friends more tools to fight XANA with.)

Maya was the name given to her after Jeremie had turned the Supercomputer back on. Ten years being trapped inside a virtual world had apparently allowed XANA to steal a crucial piece of her, giving her amnesia and forcing her to forget who she really was. According to Jeremie, her new (and very first) friend, she was apparently a program in the computer. This Aelita was probably the least tragic out of all the Aelitas on her list. It was through this name that she also met Ulrich, Odd, and Yumi. Together, the four of them managed to find a way to free her from Lyoko and eventually XANA's grasp.

(Yes, yes, she knows that Maya was her name for only a while, a whole week at the very least, but she honestly considers it the true key to her current happiness.)

And finally, Aelita Stones is the girl who resulted from all of this. This Aelita actually has friends, has things to wake up for and look forward to, is allowed to feel without to fear of being judged. This Aelita is vastly different from Aelita Schaeffer. Schaeffer was innocent and sweet, her mind numb to all the horrors of real life, only to have a brutal wake up call at such an earlier point in life. Stones is sweet too, but she's no longer innocent, having been hardened to the realities of life, and as such, is fully grown and matured. This Aelita has befriended people like Sissi and William.

(But not Laura. That's a rabbit hole to steer away from.)

Aelita Stones is the version of her that she always wants to be, and forever will be, because that is her true identity now. Aelita Schaeffer is dead, gone, mostly because she is presumed to be dead by the government, and it often makes her sad to realize that she can't go back to that life, whether she wants to or not. Whether her mother is still alive or not.

She remembers watching Jeremie stay up late to complete a government file that he and the others had forged, filling out the necessary information in order to give her a brand new identity before they materialized her into the real world for the first time: Aelita Stones.

Aelita Stones is her second chance.

This Aelita is the one who has a truly normal life, even more so now that they have XANA trapped and unable to attack them anymore. This Aelita is the one who has interests and hobbies, and most important, friends to share them with.

Jeremie is her study buddy, the two of them being the smartest of the group and always having to help the others with their homework, and his prescence always calms her.

Odd is her music buddy, the two of them always working together to work on music, and if he cracks a bad joke or two, she doesn't mind; in fact, she adores them.

Ulrich is her athletic buddy, the two of them always running the track together, and lately, he's also been teaching her how to fight like him and Yumi.

Yumi is her girl buddy, the two of them being the only girls of the group, and Yumi is always the person she turns to whenever issues concerning the female body comes up.

William is her relax-time buddy, the two of them often coming together just to talk, and despite how his first appearance made him look, William is actually a great friend to have.

She has different activities to do with each of them, due to their differing interests, but no matter who she's with, she can always count on them to validate her feelings. They each have their own ways of doing so, but the end result, her being grateful to have them in her life, is always the same.

All of this comes to mind when Aelita remembers that her birthday is tomorrow, the one Jeremie made up for her, and realizes that the date Jeremie chose is the same day they all first met, the day when Maya remembered her true name, the real day Aelita Stones was born.

And it's in this moment that she understands that it's a very special day for all of them, and she knows why.

It's the day Jeremie shed his skin as the lonely nerd and gave him true friends who allowed him to use his smarts in rather creative ways.

It's the day Odd realized that his status as the new kid wasn't as bad as other kids often made it out to be.

It's the day Ulrich gained a new, unlikely friend in the form of Jeremie, and he was the first person Jeremie chose to trust.

It's the day Yumi was no longer an outcast, a day when she realized she had friends who genuinely cared about her.

It's the day William probably wishes he was there for, as it eventually led to him becoming their sixth member, and later on, gave him his own second chance.

She really just wants to pay them back for everything they've done for her, to show them just how grateful she is to have them in her life. After all, it's a day that belongs to all of them, not just her. It wasn't just the day Aelita Stones was born, but also the day the Lyokowarriors become a family.

While some of them do have pleasant home lives, the Lyokowarriors are definitely more tightly-knit. After all, they have placed their lives in each others' hands, trusted Jeremie to keep them safe from the controls, trusted Ulrich, Yumi, Odd, and William to keep Aelita safe, and trusted Aelita to deactivate the tower in time, more times than one could count. When you've entrusted your life to someone you know you can trust multiple times, you've definitely built a unique bond with them.

So yes, the six were a true family, through and through. And they were her family now.

The only problem is that she doesn't know how to pay them back. Her gratitude is just too vast and too deep that there is no sure way to truly show it all to them in just one sitting.

But she can sure as heck try her best.

They were her family, after all.

THE END

#Code: Swap #Code: Swap 2021 #code lyoko #Aelita deserves to be happy #you can't change my mind

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tomhardysteeth · 4 years ago

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Counting Heartbeats

[ao3] Joe x Nicky 2.7k words During the time it takes Nicky to come back to life after an accidental death, Joe thinks back on their 900 years together.

It hurts every time.

The waiting, the tattoo of his heartbeat growing stronger and faster the longer the wait as a tangible reminder that all hearts permanently stop beating eventually.

This time is very stupid.

Joe and Nicky were just eating a lovely dinner together in one of their safe houses when Nicky laughed at something Joe had said and subsequently began choking on the food Joe had cooked. Joe, of course, tried to save him, but it was a fluke accident that inevitably ended in Nicky’s death.

Joe counts the rhythm of his heartbeat as he waits. He holds Nicky’s head in his lap on the floor and strokes his thumb across his reddened cheek and hums a soft tune as he counts.

The first time Nicky had died was clear in Joe’s memory, because he had been the one to kill him and watching a man come back to life is not something easily forgotten (at least, not the first time). Joe thought he was just imagining things, until Nicky stabbed him through the chest and Joe experienced the nothingness himself, the unquantifiable dark emptiness of nonexistence before he impossibly breathed himself back to life and killed Nicky again. And again and again and again until other soldiers began to take notice, and there was a moment of understanding, a moment of looking into each other’s eyes for the first time not as enemies but as allies, and they fled together, wordlessly, into hiding because they knew that they were the same and that they were different.

They learned each other's languages patiently and painstakingly, and for a while they spoke a combination of Arabic and Ligurian, oftentimes switching mid-sentence and then switching right back. Once they could fully understand each other, the first real conversation they had was about what it felt like to die.

“Did you see what you were fighting for? Heaven?” Joe asked.

Nicky shook his head and smiled, his eyes cast down thoughtfully at the ground of the cave they were holed up in. “There was nothing. Every time. Nothing.”

“And when you wake, it feels like no time has passed, and that all of time has passed.”

Nicky laughed and nodded his head. “Yes. Exactly.” He looked at Joe, considering. “What we were fighting for is meaningless.”

“Your religion? Maybe. The god you worship, did he rise from the dead?”

“He did. Perhaps he was like us.”

“So does that mean he was a man, or that we are gods?”

Nicky laughed again. Joe quickly discovered that he liked that small, quiet laugh and that he liked being the one to cause that laugh.

It made sense, in their own little pocket of the universe, when Joe kissed Nicky for the first time. They had been living together, hiding together, running together for a year, maybe two, and they had met Andy and had some questions answered while others continued to pile up, but meeting her put things into perspective. They had an inherent bond with her, of course, but it was different than the bond they had with each other. Until they met Andy, they believed their bond was born primarily out of having the same affliction, but Joe remembered recognizing right away that he would never feel for Andy what he felt for Nicky, that the intensity of his affections were reserved for one person only. And he could feel it, too, without ever having talked about it, that Nicky felt the same. Their love began easily, with gentle touches and secret kisses, and it was altogether thrilling and scary, monumental and simple, and even if they had had just one lifetime together instead of a hundred, Joe would still feel like the luckiest man alive.

The next time Nicky had died was also clear in Joe’s memory, because he loved him, he loved him, he loved him, and he watched the light extinguish from his eyes, and Andy was there with a firm hand on Joe's shoulder, holding him back and yelling in his ear, Nicolo will come back, keep fighting! But it did not stop his heart from hammering furiously in his chest until Nicky came back. That time, Joe felt before he saw; the beat of his heart evened out before he even saw that Nicky was alive. His heart knew.

“When I die, do you feel it?” Joe asked Nicky, one night when everything was still new, when they still felt young and years still felt like years instead of minutes, when they had been together for a single year and it felt like a significant amount of time, a collection of moments, of firsts, to hold and cherish for the long future ahead of them. “Do you feel the pain?”

Nicky was on his back, Joe curled under his arm with his head resting on his chest. He could feel Nicky’s heart beating softly beneath him. “Of course I do,” Nicky replied.

“We began together, do you think we’ll…?”

Nicky squeezed Joe closer against his side. “‘Began,’ is that what you call it? I think of it as being born together.”

“You didn’t answer my question, love.”

“You know I don’t like thinking about it.”

“Humor me.” Joe lifted his head to press a kiss to the underside of Nicky’s jaw. “Please,” he mumbled against his neck.

Nicky huffed a laugh. “I sometimes wonder if it’s not the time that matters but the number of times we die. Maybe Andromache is still alive because she has only been killed 200 times, and maybe on the 300th time she will not come back. If it takes many millennia for that many deaths to occur, then she will live for many millennia.”

“By that logic, if she wanted to die, she could kill herself over and over until she reaches the magic number.”

A beat passed before Nicky said, “It is probably best if we don’t tell her this theory.”

“Agreed.”

“I know it is illogical, but I do keep count,” Nicky continued. “As much as it is possible, I want us to stay close to one another in how often we die.”

Joe traced a line with his finger down Nicky’s chest, the skin smooth and unblemished despite how often it had been stabbed. “Yes, it would be good to try to die as little as possible.”

Nicky kissed the top of his head, burying his whole face in Joe’s hair. “I know we are young, but I fear it will never get easier to see you die. I will worry every single time that it is your last.”

Joe squeezed his lover tight, in confirmation that he felt the same.

After a decade together, Joe began drawing. Everything. He still felt like a young man, but memories are tricky, and the one looming fear of his life was that the vastness of time ahead of him would make him forget all the good he had already experienced. How fortunate he was, to be scared of eternity not because of loneliness and heartbreak and loss but because of having too many good memories to recollect.

Nicky became exasperated with him, with how often he stopped whatever they were doing so he could draw whatever they were doing, or just draw Nicky because “you made a face I like, I need to preserve it.” Parchment was not easy to come by, but Joe was relentless in his efforts.

He drew and drew and drew, a constant as rocksteady as their love for each other.

For a period lasting nearly 50 years, neither of them died. They still fought battles, with Andy deciding when and how they would fight, but they survived each one like very lucky mortal men. It was during a skirmish with a small group of religious extremists somewhere in Europe that Nicky’s throat was cut clean across, and Joe cried out in pain so loud that Andy pulled him against her body and held him tight until he felt his heart calm.

That was the first time he remembered feeling old. He and Nicky had been together for so long, what felt like so long, they often acted like old men. Their love deep and settled and sure, they spent many days together not even speaking, only small touches, sexless for weeks without noticing.

But after Nicky’s throat was slit, a fire ignited in Joe, a myopic feeling of impermanence making him hungry for every touch, every kiss, every fuck. He mapped his body with his lips for several nights in a row, kissing and licking every inch of skin, opening himself up while swallowing Nicky’s cock, bringing him right to the edge with his mouth before readjusting and sinking down, riding him slowly and surely because they had all the time in the world.

And after, lying naked together, Joe scooped Nicky into his arms, back to chest, and whispered against his ear the many ways in which he loved him.

The next time, it was Joe who died a brutal death, and it was Nicky who experienced an existential crisis that resulted in many pleasurably sleepless nights.

When they grew past the age of a normal lifespan, they began counting in decades instead of years. There was a decade of boredom. A decade of bliss, and a second, third, fourth decade of bliss. Then a decade of bickering with one another. A decade of attempted relationships with others outside of Joe, Nicky, Andy—they tried having pets, they tried making friends, they even considered finding a way to raise a child together.

But they were outcasts, and not because of their supposed immortality. They could lie about that, could know a person for years before it became an issue, but for the other reasons. The other reasons were not so easily overlooked. Christian and Muslim, holding hands—they avoided much of Europe for many years. Progress is not linear, however, and so they could spend several years in a place where they could be themselves, only to move on to a place where they could be killed for being themselves, and this was over and over again, for hundreds of years, and in the 21st century they both finally began believing that progress was a line and not a circle only to stumble upon a small town in the American Midwest where they were refused a room at three different hotels. The decade was the 2010s.

They had never broken up. Not once in 900 years had it even come up. They needed space sometimes, sure, but the one thing they had learned from living so long is that time is not real and that a decade together can pass in a moment while three days apart can feel like a year, and so they had never spent more than a couple weeks apart from each other in 900 years.

There was longing, yearning, stretches of time where they wanted to escape the life that was chosen for them, and there were many years that they did not fight any battles, that they did not even see Andy. They both went through periods of depression, mania, and every human emotion in between, identity crises and existential dread, and sometimes the only thing tethering them to reality was the steadfast surety of their love for one another, that when all else seemed lost, they had each other. They checked on Andy a lot during their lowest moments. It was impossible to imagine how she had survived all this time without an anchor.

Living so long rattled one’s moral compass. Any hard decision, any mistake would be forgotten or would prove unimportant with the ever patient and forgiving passage of time. Hundreds of years, killing countless men, it is not possible to feel them all, to remember them all and carry the burden of all that death. No matter how many wars they fought, Joe was never fully confident that they were on the right side or that there was a right side. There was always the nagging deep in his subconscious that there could be more, that they could be doing more with the time they were given, but he wasted years and years trying to figure out what. Once they became old enough to read about things they had lived through in history books, it seemed obvious that they should have done this, could have done that, focused more on this, ignored that, and the world would be a better place if they had just been able to see the big picture. Living through so much of the world’s history made it feel like the responsibility of the world’s trajectory was on their shoulders.

“We can only do what we can do,” Nicky would say, every time Joe had to get his jumble of thoughts out, and he somehow always had the grace to be gentle with him, even after having the same conversation hundreds of times. “We are only men, after all.”

They were not always careful, or they were not always lucky. They had been tested on by doctors, priests, scientists, witches; it was hard to keep track of all the times they had died on operating tables, only to be discarded when their secrets could not be revealed. These deaths were painful, like the others, but for some reason they made for the best sex afterward. We are only men, after all.

When Booker was born, they began fighting smaller battles. They were for-hire for any job that seemed like the right thing to do. After Booker’s last son passed away, the four of them lived together for many years. They all four liked each other, then they hated each other, then they loved each other. There was a sadness in the set of Booker’s shoulders that time could not heal, a grief somehow heavier than the kind Andy carried. It was through Booker that they learned that grief does not compound or diminish with time, it comes and goes as it pleases.

And then came Nile.

It hurts every time.

At beat number one hundred ninety-nine, Joe’s heart evens to a steady pace. At two hundred twelve beats, Nicky coughs his way back to life, red skin fading back to white, blue eyes blinking open.

Joe’s face splits into a grin as he looks down at his lover. “That was all my fault,” he says as a tear slips down his cheek. "I finally cook dinner for once, and you die."

Nicky reaches up and cups his jaw, fingers pressing lightly into his beard. “It’s OK, that’s the first time in several hundred years that you’ve accidentally killed me.”

“I told you, it was Andy that accidentally shot you in the Revolut—”

"I know, I know." He smiles warmly up at Joe. Quietly, he says, "You're OK. I'm here."

“What are y’all doing?”

Nicky and Joe both lift their heads at the sound of Nile's voice. Nicky sits up and leans his weight back against Joe’s chest, both of them still on the floor of the kitchen.

“Joe was waiting on me to come back to life. He poisoned my food to see what would happen.”

Joe playfully bumps his shoulder against Nicky.

Nile raises her eyebrows at them. “Cool. Um, I was hoping I could talk to you guys for a minute.”

They help each other up and gesture to the kitchen table as they talk over each other with of course you can talk to us, anything you need, we’re glad you came to us.

Nile sits across from them and folds her hands on the table. “You’ve been alive nearly a thousand years, right?”

They both nod.

“Do you remember what it was like? At first?” She scratches the side of her face, her eyes wide as she looks down at the table. “Because I’m 27 and I still feel 27 even though I know I’m gonna be 27 for, you know, a really long time. I don’t feel old yet, and I don’t feel like I’m gonna feel old for a while. But I can’t even imagine what it’s like to live for so long, like, am I even gonna remember any of this in a couple hundred years? How do I make sure I don’t...forget?”

Joe and Nicky share a look. Nicky nods his head, silently telling Joe to get up.

Joe excuses himself. He has some drawings to retrieve.

#the old guard #joe x nicky #nicky x joe #immortal husbands #the old guard fic #my fics #i was doin this for the clout but then i had a lot of fun #sorry i'm like this lmao

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risingmoonyue · 5 years ago

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Batman/P5 Crossover

-Sometime before Akechi but after Futaba or Haru

-Damian is sent to Tokyo to check it out for whatever reason (maybe they had a fight, or he’s going stir crazy, or he’s just the only one they can send at the time and didn't bother with all that "you're not old enough" business)

-Dami is younger than Futaba by a year or three or four

-He is baby

-He is transferred to Shujin as a child prodigy where he also immediately joins the "outcast" community because of his attitude and intelligence

-Talia goes too, manages to cut off all his communications with the Batfam, and is planning to take him home in a month whether he likes it or not

-For whatever reason, Batfam doesn't realize this??? (Like, either she's faking reports or they're too busy (think fight or chaos in Gotham scenario maybe???))

-Anyways, obviously Dami doesn't want this

-Somehow the Phantom Thieves hear about the situation

-Maybe he was assigned to shadow Makoto for a while, and they managed to overhear a phone conversation either to Talia or Dami trying to get in touch with the Batfam and nothing really working

-And eventually they outright see him fighting with his mother with him at some point (either in person or over a phone call) mentioning that she already disowned him, he's happy with his Father's family, and that he will head her family business over his dead body—and oh would you look at that, you already managed that, care to try again Mother?

-The PT's are understandably alarmed

-And learn her name from Damian (from Makoto maybe or someone else he bonded a little with) (MORGANA) (THEY GAVE HIM MONA FOR A DAY AND NOW THEY KNOW EVERYTHING FROM HIS MANY PETS TO HIS LEAST TO MOST FAVORITE SIBLINGS STARTING FROM TIM TO DICK TO HIS FAVORITE FOODS TO EVERYONE IN HIS FAMILY’S NAMES TO HOW STUPID HE FINDS EVERYONE AND WHY THEY'RE STUPID TO HIS FAVORITE MUSIC TO WHY ANIMALS ARE SUPERIOR TO HUMANS AND MONA’S LIKE OMG TMI BUT LOVED IT THERE BECAUSE HE WAS PAMPERED LIKE NO TOMORROW GOT ONLY THE BEST FOOD AND THE BEST BEDS AND TOYS THAT HE GOT TO TAKE WITH HIM BACK TO LEBLANC AND NOW AKIRA AND SOJIRO ARE LIKE DUDE WHY AND MONA’S LIKE IM KEEPING HIM THIS HUMAN IS GOOD SORRY AKIRA YOU’RE DEMOTED)

-The palace is basically a fortress full of assasin ninjas and clones

-Dunno what her keywords are tho

-Or her what her palace actually is

-Help?????????

-Cognitive Bruce, Ra's, Damian, Dami clones, and Jason (maybe rest of batfam??? Idk)

-Long story short, the traps are so assassin-y that they need someone who knows the actual Talia because egads, this is the closest they have all come to actually dying

-And they didn't really want to do it and were just gonna power through

-But Dami manages to find out and get in and of course uses his background to help out whether they like it or not

(-he's slightly off put by Joker's name, but then decides to just solely call Gotham!Joker "The Clown")

-At some point they are captured by the Shadow Talia who is decked out in super fancy traditional Arab clothing and probably every conceivable hidden weapon known to man

-Talia says Damian won't and can't ever change from who he "is meant to be", referring to him as her Alexander and basically brutally addresses all of his insecurities concerning the batfam and people and society in general

-And all this is kinda killing him cause he still loves Talia despite the fact that she killed him and had a violent citywide custody battle with Batman but he also loves the batfam too even if he would absolutely never admit it (except to maybe Grayson)

-Joker does his emotional kick-start thing and/or Dami is like Makoto and just gets so mad he triggers it himself, but either way, lo and behold, Damian is now a persona user, usurping Futaba's place as the baby of the team

-The outfit is kinda inspired by his future adult league outfit with the top and bottom and gold jewelry, but has a raggedy cloak with dull gold edges, a Robin mask and gauntlets, and his main weapons are batarang-sword hybrids

---acknowledging his past and moving on with his present

-Persona: Aladdin, Tsun Zu, Ali Baba, somone else???? Need ideas plz help

-Probably the fastest member of the group

-His small body makes his hits not as strong, but hoo boy can that kid move around

-Hits a lot and dodges most

-Most of his Persona abilities are physical and have high crit and/or are status affects

-Downside is he has not a lot of SP (compared to the rest of the group)

-And he has pretty good HP

-Those good ol' “superior genetics” have to be good for something after all

-Anyways they escape to find the treasure another day

-And Dami is all smug because HA you definitely can't stop me now

-And the PTs are just resigned to keeping an eye on the extremely competent snotty assassin/vigilante child

-They do like him though so it's not too bad (comes with learning all his darkest secrets via his mother and thought processes that tends to accompany watching someone at their lowest get a persona)

(-They do manage to temper him a bit and help him adjust better to actual society too that's nice)

-As such, they also know about Batman and Robin and his whoooole family. Both sides.

-Damian decided not to tell batfam because he does agree with the whole "most adults suck" mentality that the Phantom Thieves have; despite his deep, deep respect for his father and mother and Grayson, they all do kinda suck

-And he’s rather not get pulled out as he surely would if he told them

(-On a side note, he likes Sojiro

-The man gives him coffee, curry, and leaves him mostly to his own devices

-Instant win)

-He is dubbed "Mockingbird" apon return to the metaverse because of his freaky talented vocal skills in mimicking anyone and everyone's voice

-Eventually, they beat Talia

-She doesn't publicly confess to all her sins unlike everyone else

-PTs don't realize it worked until Damian came into school with a genuine smile on his face, and more relaxed than he'd been since he got there

-PTs are confused until Damian's like, this works out because hey, don't want to have several people assassinated and draw the entire freaking league to Tokyo

(-Which was probably why Talia didn't)

-They agree

-But she does break down to tears in Dami's arms and promise to ACTUALLY TALK CIVILLY with Bruce to try and make up for everything and try to fix up the league

-He stays for the rest of p5

-But steers all his reports very much away from the Phantom Thieves

-If anything, he downplays absolutely everything, and makes it seem like it's nothing super big but he's gonna stay a while to keep and eye out because y'alls are busy and I like it here and I haven't gotten expelled so there

-The PTs like to add funny stuff on there just to see if they’ll notice

-Like, Akira likes to have Dami describe his day in excruciating detail. Like, recounting the entirety of his nine or so months to Sae during police interrogation, excruciating

-Mona is pushing for the shiny stuff

-Yusuke just likes to put in bursts of randomness (Dami once mentioned that an acquaintance made another acquaintance T-pose in a church for art lol)

-Ann loves to rant about food

-Haru is always insisting on about feelings

-Ryuji likes to complain about everything and puts in ridiculous requests

-Futaba is just putting in every gen-z thing ever

-Makoto is actually responsible and tries to get him to talk about his progress in school and his social life

-And Akechi is absolutely nowhere near any of this and doesn’t know it exists

-When they have the Tokyo/Japan-wide calling card, Batfam sees it too because let's face it, that's totally the sorta thing that they would keep an eye out for even if he didn't look at the news in the entirety of the time Dami was in Tokyo

-And they send a message to Damian (the first actual communication they've had since before Talia) saying "WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON OVER THERE????"

-And with the entirety of the Phantom Thieves looking over his shoulder, Damian's just like "Chill dudes, everything's fiiiiiiiiiine"

-And they're like "UH WHAT PART OF THIS IS FINE????" because they've dug around a bit and found every news report, and oh hey, this isn't anywhere near as calm as Damian described and he’s being super OOC and what’s going on?!?!?!?!?!

-And Damian, being egged on by the most of the PTs, just sends a winky face

-Just

-😉

-And he's smug, because it's still chaos over there so they can't actually come get him and try to pull him out because he's being super ooc

-Which means he's free to do what he wants/needs in the meantime

-Cue the end of the game

-And Dami is going with them on their summer road trip and cackling because the batfam is scrambling to find him in Tokyo but lol nope he's in a van the Japanese government tried and fail to follow

-And he found all the trackers like, a year ago

-Every

-Single

-One

-They eventually track him down to Akira's house where they're calmly eating dinner (and they've been expecting this for the past week so Mona was keeping watch just so they could pull this off) and talking about how uneventful the school year was

-Cue mass confusion in the batfam

-As the PTs enjoy just confusing them so much

-By talking to Mona

-Talking normal then crazy then normal again

-And just generally being their normal selves lol

-They explain absolutely nothing beyond gushing about how much progress socially and academically he’s made (gotta embarrass the baby of the group somehow) and making sure that if Dami absolutely has to go home that he's able to stay in touch

(-Later, Damian forms his own hero persona outside of Batman and Robin)

(-He names it Mockingbird)

(-Batfam proceeds to have a brain aneurysm while the PTs dab their happy proud tears out of their eyes on their regularly scheduled tea time at the Wayne Manor)

(-Damian sends a private plane every week or two lol)

(Bonus: ARTTTTTTT)

(Psst if you guys have ideas for art, outfits, interactions or scenarios, let me know)

#my writing #my art #batman #persona 5 #p5 #persona #batman x p5 #damian wayne #akira kurusu #ren amamiya #p5 protagonist #ive been holding onto this one for a wHILE

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kammieceleek · 5 years ago

Text

Halfling: Chapter 1, Different

Sarai was young but she wasn't stupid.

She knew she was different from others in Xadia. While her interactions with other elves were limited the few she'd had were less than ideal. Many regarded her as some kind of plague or outcast and walked away quickly. Her differences were in the way they looked at her and in the way they spoke. It was in her difficulties with magic that no elf should struggle with. It was in her fear of combat and confrontation. But most of all, it was in her hands.

Elves, she knew, had four fingers.

Sarai had five.

Her father was human and her mother was an elf. It was why she was unusual. Elves and humans hated each other but her parents had fallen in love despite the bad blood. And Sarai's admiration for them was never-ending, just like their determination and spirit.

Rayla, a Moonshadow elf assassin who had once been asked to kill a king and a prince. Instead she'd found her future husband and they'd gone on a journey to end a war that should've never even started. Strong, beautiful, hilarious, and a great warrior, Rayla was what Sarai wished she could be. A fighter, somebody who wasn't afraid of battle or death. Furiously protective of what she cared about, which these days was her husband and her daughter. Sometimes Sarai even wondered how she was her mother's daughter, what with how different they were. But then she'd see her horns reflected back at her and the answer was there, among the locks of long dark hair she'd gotten from her father.

Callum, a human and former prince who had protected his younger brother from Rayla on that fateful raid. He had traveled with her to bring Zym back to the Dragon Queen and end that war. Compared to his wife, he was more scholarly and bookish with an honest face and an aptitude for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time. And Sarai took after him in that regard, as well as with her extra fingers and the fact that Moonshadow magic wasn't exactly for her. He was kind and caring and she knew that both he and her mother loved her more than themselves. The only times she ever saw him get angry were when someone threatened her or Rayla.

Their family was small but had plenty of love to go around. On Rayla's side, her parents were gone—not dead but not with her—and there were no other relatives she knew of. Callum's father was unknown to him and he'd lost his mother and stepfather years before Sarai was born. He had a half-brother, but Sarai had never met the man before. Something had happened and they weren't able to enter the human kingdoms safely anymore. It had been the cause of several arguments when Sarai was younger, where Rayla insisted she could protect them and Callum wanted his daughter to live to adulthood. Eventually they'd settled on the border near the Storm Spire, where King Zym (Sarai refused to call him anything else) assured their safety from the elves but not the humans.

Now, however, things were very wrong.

Things were so wrong that Sarai didn't know how she'd ever help set them right.

Her parents had been captured by a team of rouge elves and a human—a human woman whose hair was almost completely white, save for a few locks of black on the righthand side. Callum and Rayla had been shocked and horrified to see her. Not the elves, but this odd-looking human woman who used dark magic. They hadn't gone easy, mind you. Rayla had fought while Callum tried to help her, but she yelled for him to take Sarai and run, to let her handle the battle while he saved their child. He'd obeyed, only for the human woman to catch up and hold them in place with her evil power.

"Callum. It's been years," the woman said breathily.

"It seems magic hasn't been kind to you, Claudia," he spat. She narrowed her eyes.

"Why are you angry?"

"You attacked my family and you didn't think I'd be angry?!"

Sarai bit her lip as she listened to her father. Hearing him speak with such venom and anger and scorn, a tone that her mother usually reserved for herself, was disconcerting to say the least. He was usually joking or giving her advice or even helping her with magic and drawing. Anger was a rare emotion and she was afraid of this woman who could draw it out of him.

"Please, it wasn't my idea. I wanted to just take you and draw your bloodthirsty lover out so we could take your child, too. The elves had other plans. Now, what to do…"

Out of the corner of her eye, Sarai saw her father's fingers moving in a familiar shape—a rune. He was trying to free them. She could already feel the binding spell weakening around her and before Claudia could finish her mutterings Sarai was free. Claudia had yet to notice but the binding was still tight around Callum. Worriedly, he looked to his daughter, who remained by him.

"Sarai, go find help. She's not as interested in you so you can slip away."

"But Papa—"

"Please. I can buy you some time but it's limited. Go now and run."

Running. It was the one physical activity she was good at. Sarai nodded and leapt to her feet. Before Claudia could even figure out what had happened, the halfling was gone and well out of her reach. She let out a growl and turned her attention to Callum, who glared at her defiantly… then she dragged him back to where his wife was lying on the ground, heavily bruised and injured but alive, surrounded by the elves who had brutally beaten her.

"Rayla!" Callum gasped, desperately trying to reach her.

"She's not dead yet," snorted Claudia. "But she may be, soon."

"Touch her and you're dead!"

"Where was this fire when we were younger? Or is it just because your elven mistress is lying on the ground and your hell-spawn is off who-knows-where?"

"Sarai is—"

"And you even named her after your mother. Hmph. Well, we have somewhere to be, don't we?"

The last thing that registered in Callum's mind was a spell.

Then darkness.

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It had started as a rumor in the street earlier that week.

An elf is in Katolis—a Moonshadow elf!

Those rumors were never something that Soren took seriously. People made mistakes like that all the time and it was kind of dumb when you thought about it too much. No, the rumors worried him when they switched to they're looking for help. Only one Moonshadow elf had connections in Katolis and it had been many years since he'd seen her. And the fact that she didn't go to the castle, knowing Ezran would gladly help her, worried him most of all. So he posted guards in the streets to find the elf and bring her to the palace.

But it wasn't Rayla deposited at his feet.

"Who are you?" he asked. She looked up at him with wide green eyes.

"Who are you?" she echoed, her voice denoting her youth. She couldn't have been older than six.

"I am Soren, the head of the Crown Guard."

"M-my name is Sarai. I was told to go get help."

"Help?" She nodded.

"I need to save Mama and Papa. S-some…" Her eyes rolled back into her head and she fell to the ground. He realized after kneeling beside her that she was starving and tired and nothing that an eight-year-old girl should be.

"Make sure she gets food and rest. We'll continue this when she's feeling better."

His orders were followed. And out of custom, he informed Ezran of their guest. The young king insisted upon seeing the girl, and as soon as he did he backed away in shock.

"Why is she here?"

"To get help for her parents or something." Ezran reached out and touched one of the girl's horns.

"Do you know her name?"

"Sarai."

A shaky breath was inhaled by the king of Katolis.

"I… I think… I know who her parents are."

"Who?"

(Really, Soren had not gotten any sharper.)

"Rayla and… Callum. No doubt about it—everything about her is just like them."

"Huh. Weird. I didn't know they had a baby."

"We haven't talked to them since they were forced to cut contact eight years ago. I can't figure out why their daughter would be here unless something bad happened."

Sarai let out a groan as she came to and Ezran smiled.

"Hey, feeling better?" he asked.

"I… I don't know…"

"Your name is Sarai, right? I'm Ezran."

"You're Ezran?" Sarai's eyes widened.

"I'm guessing you've heard of me?"

"Papa talked about you a lot. So did Zym. You can talk to animals, right?"

"Yes, I can. How old are you, Sarai?"

"Five. Almost six."

"And your father's name wouldn't happen to be Callum, would it?"

"Yeah… and my mama is Rayla. Papa told me to come to Katolis to get help. He and Mama were taken away by bad elves and a mean lady named Claudia who wanted to hurt me and Mama."

"Well, then, you've found your help. We are family."

In truth, however, the news that Claudia had resurfaced troubled both king and guard. Soren was glad to hear his sister was alive but furious to learn she'd tried to harm a child…again. Ezran was bothered by the fact that Claudia had apparently overpowered both mage and warrior, though the fact that elves were helping her made sense. None of them wanted the uneasy peace that had settled over the human kingdoms and Xadia over the past decade and a half. It made sense that they'd go after the human-elf couple and their halfling child. But at the same time, they'd made the mistake of going after his family, the only family he had left other than his aunt Amaya. Sarai was his niece and he'd protect her.

"Soren, send word to Aunt Amaya and the Storm Spire. We're going after Claudia." His eyes turned to Sarai. "In the meantime, let's get you rested and fed. And some new clothes."

Sarai looked down. Her knee-length blue dress was tattered and filthy, its hue dulled by the muck and mud. Her eyebrows knit together and she smiled up at her uncle.

"Thank you, Uncle Ezran."

"What else is family for?"

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Word had spread that she was in the castle over the past several days. Sarai noted the stares and whispers as she walked through the hall in the clothes that Ezran had said once belonged to her father. Her long hair had been braided to keep it out of her face for the time being, horns still up and standing proud and denoting her elven heritage alongside the blue markings she'd inherited from her mother. To so many she appeared the enemy, despite the years of tentative peace between the human kingdoms and Xadia her family had led. War had once been the way of life for both places, for both races, but now that was over.

"You okay, Sarai?" Ezran asked as she entered the dining room.

"It's weird, being around so many people."

"How so?"

"For as long as I can remember, it's just been me, Mama, and Papa in our little cottage by the Storm Spire. Zym babysits me a lot when they had to go do things because he likes me. Mama said it was because they did the same for him when he was a baby."

"I remember. I helped them take care of Zym when he was newly hatched." She sat down next to him. Opeli looked slightly unnerved at the breach of protocol but said nothing.

"I miss them…"

"Me, too. I haven't seen them since before you were born."

"Mama was fighting the bad elves, and Papa told me to run away and get help in Katolis while he faced Claudia. I'm fast."

"Really?"

"Yeah!"

"Well, then, we'll have to have a race once this is over. And you and your parents will have to come visit."

Sarai nodded in agreement and began to eat some of the food that had been set out. Ezran noted the way she ate was so much like Callum; no doubt his older brother had instilled manners into his daughter in case she ever came to Katolis. But the way she held the knife and the markings under her eyes—it was pure Rayla. His heart ached to know just what Claudia had done with his brother and sister-in-law. Sarai was the last thing he had left of them at the moment (save for a couple of portraits done before they were forced to leave). Already he was growing attached to her.

"When are we leaving?" she asked. "I wanna know so I can pack."

"Sarai…"

"You don't want me to go?"

"No, you're coming. It's just… we need to figure this out. I don't want you near the battlefield when you're so young, especially not if we're going against Claudia. She's a dark mage."

"I understand. That's why we live near the Storm Spire. Zym protects us better and Papa didn't want me to see how ugly fighting is."

That sounds like Callum.

"We're leaving tomorrow morning. You'll have to guide us to your home and we'll start looking from there."

Sarai nodded and went back to eating.

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"Ezran."

The young king sighed as Soren approached him in the throne room.

"Soren, we're doing this. It's Callum and Rayla."

"That's not my concern. My concern is you going along."

"Why?"

"If… if something happens to you, you have no heir. Who's going to rule the kingdom if you don't come back?"

"Oh, that's easy. Sarai will." Soren blinked. "Look, she's Callum's daughter. That means in terms of succession, she's after him."

"But Sarai is coming with us."

"And she'll be staying with someone at the Storm Spire. I'm not risking her life, but I'm willing to risk mine."

"…you're just like Harrow, you know. He was the same way." Ezran faced his old friend. "Viren offered him a way out, the night the assassins came. A snake that could put his soul in another body. But he refused, saying he'd rather die a king than a coward who let another die in his place."

"Then that's what I believe, too."

"I'll prepare to head out. Should I alert Amaya?" Ezran nodded.

"Send a message to her and Janai. They can meet us on the Xadian side of the border and guide us the rest of the way."

Soren nodded. Ezran eventually left the room and wandered until he passed his niece's room. He could hear her sniffling. Out of concern, he entered her room and found her curled up with one of Callum's old stuffed animals; no doubt Opeli had given it to her.

(She may have appeared reserved, but she had a soft spot for children.)

"Sarai?"

"Uncle Ezran?" She sat up and rubbed her eyes.

"You're upset, aren't you?"

"I… I just want Mama and Papa…" Ezran pulled her into a hug.

"It's going to be okay. We'll find them and we'll make sure they're safe."

"But elves are mean. They talk about me and Mama all the time. They say Mama is a traitor to Xadia and that I'm an… a-bomb…a-bomb-in-ation?"

"Abomination. And it's not a good word, especially if they're using it to talk about someone."

"What does it mean?"

"It means… unnatural. Bad. Like something never should have happened. You're not an abomination, Sarai. You're a little girl with two loving parents and a family who cares about you. There's nothing more natural or good than that."

She smiled up at him and that smile was pure Rayla, especially the way her eyes crinkled when she did it. He held her tighter for a moment, then sighed.

"Tomorrow, we're leaving for Xadia. And I promise you we will bring our family back together, no matter what."

Ezran stayed with her until she fell asleep, tucking the stuffed dragon under her arm before he left.

I promise, Sarai.

#published on ao3 #the dragon prince #dragon prince rayllum #fanfiction #family #rayllum child #rayllum #callum x rayla

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altduckyfm · 5 years ago

Text

『HERMAN TOMMERAAS ❙ CIS MALE』 ⟿ looks like DONOVAN “DUCKY” MERCER is here for HIS SOPHOMORE year as a BUSINESS student. HE is 21 years old & known to be TENDERHEARTED, NIMBLE, COMPLIANT & TACITURN. They’re living in GORHAM, so if you’re there, watch out for them. ⬳ JAMES. 21. EST. SHE/THEY.

HBDKJFNGDHLFNDJSLK god. this took so long n fr that i am. so sry. bt here is mercy’s wittle baby brother, ducky !!! remember to LIKE this if you’d like to plot !!! i’ve probably forgotten some things in this intro bt alas. i am just human. i am so tired. goodnight IJEBKSGHSOUFNE

TW CHILD ABUSE / DOMESTIC ABUSE / ABUSE, VIOLENCE, INJURY, TRAUMA, MENTAL ILLNESS, DRUGS / DRUG ABUSE / ADDICTION , GANGS.

aesthetic.

bruises; from beneath your eyes to the edge of your jaw, aligned against your stomach and the sides of your waist and the groves of your knuckles. bleeding noses and bleeding gums, spat out teeth, tattoos scarred from improper treatment, a facial scar; jagged and old, now, from above your eye to beneath your lip. worn hoodies and scuffed sneakers, sunglasses inside. the night sky, and it’s many stars, and how brightly they shone during the 2019 blackout, and wanting to be up there, with them. knowing constellations by heart. wishing to be the face on the moon. beer bottles and secret exchanges. dark alleys. fear, through the very core of your heart. fear, hidden behind a stoic stare.

basic info.

full name: donovan mercer

nickname(s): ducky but i’m 95% sure he hates the nickname it’s just. Stuck with him.

b.o.d. - march 15th, pisces :) (he’s actually 20 right now not 21)

label(s): the allegiant, the despondent, the grifter, the malleable, the vacant, etc.

height: 5′11″

hometown: hell’s kitchen, new york

sexuality: bisexual bt make it closeted.

stats

inspired by: lip gallagher (shameless), freddie mcclair (skins), frankenstein’s monster (frankenstein), fez (euphoria) ... that’s it i don’t know any other characters KJNSGLDNVLSDJNFDS

biography.

born in hell’s kitchen to vinny mercer and a mother who ran out of the hospital as fast as she could, as soon as she was able. she’d gone so quick that she’d never given ducky a middle name - just donovan. the younger brother of mercy (shoutout 2 bri)

his father’s the right-hand man of a well known mob boss named lars amaretto, and so, you can imagine the kind of environment ducky (& mercy) grew up in. weapon & drug dealings, interrogations, violence around every corner. a brutal way of living, no place to raise two children.

you can correctly assume that they grew up in a heavily abusive environment, and can imagine the sort of things the two have gone through. ducky was, maybe, the least favorite of their father’s -

- for numerous reasons, and one being that ducky’d always been a sensitive kid. kinder than his brother, and far kinder than his father - kindness is weakness, and ducky was filled with it. too much so, with big brown eyes and a smile that should’ve been able to melt ice. should’ve - but didn’t. and never did, either.

he cried often, and was punished often for it until he learned to stop crying - at least in front of their father, and mercy too, at some point. only in the comfort of his room, with doors locked and blinds drawn closed.

he dreamed, too, dreamt often. he’d been obsessed with outer space since childhood, as long as he could remember. school had once shown man landing on the moon, and ducky wanted that. wanted to be that, wanted to be there, up with the stars, discovering the unthinkable.

but it was discouraged, heavily so - projects destroyed by an angry fist only to be reconstructed to the best of ducky’s ability, with mercy’s help, all throughout the night. he’d saved up for a telescope when he was thirteen, but it’d been destroyed almost immediately when discovered. not a day went by that their father didn’t tell ducky that he was, first and foremost, stupid - and would always be.

to the point where he stopped trying, simply. his grades fluctuated frequently, and it’s a surprise that he hadn’t dropped out of high school altogether.

anyways ... at the age of fifteen, he’d have enough. he was sick of the abuse, the pain - the crying behind closed doors, the sneaking around, the constant feeling of needing to escape, impending doom, anxiety attacks in the shower and in school bathrooms and at the back of the bus where nobody sat besides him because he was - that boy, the son of that man, the brother of that brute. he’d been a teenager and he’d already been an outcast by all means - an outcast in his family, no matter how hard he tried to appease vinny, and an outsider everywhere else.

the plan took months of preparation, paper ripped out from the back of his school notebook and stuffed beneath his mattress, details of his escape from a checklist of essential items to makeshift maps of bus routes to different cities.

all for nothing, the moment vinny discovered it, the edge of a map sticking out after a rushed morning.

it’d been the same day he’d gotten the nickname - ducky - the way the wound wrapped below his mouth, and the way it’d begun to heal - puckered, at first, like a duck’s bill. a better name than eyepatch, at the very least. the scar’d run from the arch of his left brow, across his eye, down his cheek, and below his lip, the entire left side of his face a bloody mess afterwards. his eye sustained injury, and not allowed to see a doctor about it, it never healed properly. corneal scarring, impairing his left eye. astronaut dreams destroyed, but not in a matter of seconds. in the matter of an hour, maybe more - and that’d been much, much worse.

he stopped trying to run away after that. tried to be more like their father, more like mercy - more brutish, less feeling. spoke less, and less. spoke hardly at all, unless spoken to first.

still didn’t matter. still lived his days in fear, still knew it’d never change. nothing would ever change.

graduated high school and had been on-and-off attending community college since then. he’d miss days at a time, flunk an entire semester’s worth of classes - gpa dropped further and further. wanted to try, but life got in the way. always got in the way.

hadn’t intended on transferring to radcliffe, but their father’d been missing for a few months then, leaving ducky to handle the drugs side of their business in hell’s kitchen - and mercy’d disappeared, too, leaving their branch in lovell completely open. in a split decision - an opportunity, and opening - something he couldn’t miss, or he’d maybe never get the opportunity again, ducky bullshitted a scholarship essay (plagiarism, tsk) and transferred to pick up where mercy’d left.

this wasn’t very well thought out, because that meant there were no mercers in new york - and lars amaretto? not a very understanding man. more of a brute than their father was, by far. to keep a story short - ducky is missing a tooth (molar, luckily, this time) and is ... more rough’d up than he’d like to be, for sure. but mercy’s back, now, and he’s still at lovell, at radcliffe.

and that’s enough.

personality.

he’s actually very? intimidating? when you first meet him. mercy’s younger brother, with a criminal’s record almost as long as his - a scarred face and a mean resting face. it takes at least five minutes of conversation beyond small talk before it starts to weigh on your mind that maybe, he’s not as bad as he seems.

and - well, he isn’t. but he’s guarded - so guarded. more-so than mercy, because mercy’s quicker to anger, quicker to react, and ducky tries so hard to drown out the noise. but he’s not a robot, and his facial expressions can give him away in a second.

he’s seen what happened when mercy had a glimpse of something good in his life (though, it wasn’t actually good at all - mercy had someone, at least. at the very least) - and how quickly it’d all fallen, and so ducky puts a barrier between him and others. distant, as much as he can be.

it hurts, because ducky isn’t by any means antisocial. he doesn’t hate people - he wants to be normal, wants to have friends and a girlfriend - or maybe even a boyfriend, god - but he’s so afraid. ducky is, by nature, a very scared person. terrified to his very core. he knows there is always eyes on him, and mercy too, and he knows that nothing is worth getting someone else hurt.

you know him as mercy’s little brother, and he’s quiet you know that - but his name is ducky, and you think - he’s not too bad. and he knows this, knows the doubts. knows that it’ll get back to mercy, eventually, that his brother is nothing more but a pussy. so he fights more than he’d like to, against the guilt that buries itself deep within his chest with every thrown fist. he throws up, afterwards, in the garbage can outside. too much to drink, he says, rare grin - because grins are convincing, and grins with bleeding gums are intimidating. he learned that from his brother.

violence makes him sick to his very stomach. he can’t watch horror films, or even action films, without feeling queasy. there’s been more times than he can count where he’d thrown up after a fight, or after an interrogation, usually in private but in the occasional presence of mercy.

they fight, a lot, sometimes - ducky’s too soft, too weak, and it’s bad and it’s terrible and ducky knows that mercy’s afraid. for him, of their father, and his wraith. ducky knows that if mercy isn’t hard on him now, their father will be harder - and his hits will be, too. still. there’s resentment, small but there, like the flame of a match. he doesn’t know what’ll happen when there’s nothing more to burn, but he doesn’t want to find out. he’s afraid to find out.

he’s still in love with the moon and the stars, and the planet’s - and their moons, too. its subdued, now, though. a silent passion - one that is often not watered, left for rot. he sneaks into engineering lectures, occasionally, or physics - or anything that isn’t business, because he hates his major, but he knows it’s the only chance he’s got to stay at radcliffe. and that’s to follow his brother, to follow his father. a business degree treats you well, teaches you skills you’ll need to know for this type of work.

commits small acts of kindness when nobody looks. doors held open, the meals of elderly folk eating alone suddenly paid. picks up litter besides trash bins, and always cooks extra than what he needs, only to leave it in the gorham community fridge with no name, something for somebody who may need it. it’s these small things that make him feel, just the slightest, better about himself.

because god - there are layers and layers of self-loathing, the result of years of abuse. it’s a labyrinth, and he’d never speak of it - but he can’t stand his own reflection. doesn’t keep photos of his family, only a few sparingly of mercy. his room is messy, but still oddly barren. nothing on the walls except for a poster or two, sheets a standard navy blue and a row of empty liquor bottles on his windowsill.

a liar, sad to say. has little experience with. ehem. intimacy, and the bodies of others, but lies often and says that he does. mostly to his brother, but word travels quick - and he’s not nearly as much as a fuckboy as is rumored, having only been with a handful of girls, if even that. it’s better this way - if people know that he throws others away like they’re nothing. sex is uncomfortable for him, he always feels gross afterwards. wrong, sometimes.

he ghosts often, too, if he does get to talking with anybody. the moment ducky feels a spark, something pulling at his poor heart, he ghosts. he develops feelings too easily, too often than he’d like. has left many friendships without explanation, because of this. you know the priest in fleabag season 2? the scene where he comes to fleabag’s house? yeah. tht’s ducky!

has maybe half the amount of clients that mercy does, but he’s working on it. it’s his first semester at radcliffe.

pretends he doesn’t care as much as he does. pretends a lot, like there’s nothing soft to him. but a trained eye can see clearly through this. even so - even if you can see that there’s more to ducky than violence and drug deals - you’d still have to break through a dozen walls.

in the rare occasion you get him talking - i mean, talking a lot - he’ll talk about space. ramble off a dozen useless facts about dwarf stars and black holes and all of jupiter’s moons. about a video game he likes, about nothing and everything at all. but as soon as he begins, he stops - embarrassed. apologizes, shuts his mouth, disappears to wherever. anywhere but there.

uuuhhh. god. okay so ducky’s got an addiction to xanax. it’s numbing and it’s better than feeling, and he’d rather this than that and it’s. a Thing. we won’t go further into it. besides that - he does smoke weed, does try out some of their products to make sure it’s not ... fucked, for their clients, but otherwise fucking hates drugs. social drinker, but still doesn’t like it a lot. hates beer but drinks it often.

overall just ... he’s a soft boy, with a big heart - bigger than anybody else in his family, that’s for sure, but his exterior is far different than that, and it’s hard to tell.

purposely loses fights so that he doesn’t have to severely hurt someone. because sometimes he just - he was raised in a violent environment, and sometimes he snaps. sometimes ducky just fucking snaps. and his vision goes red, and he can’t control himself - because need to survive kicks in, and violence is all he knows. if someone pushes ducky - pushes him enough, he breaks. he fights back. it’s all he knows. it’s all he knows. it’s all he knows, and that’s not an excuse - and he knows this, and god, he’s so tired. he is so. tired.

wanted connections.

clients... first n foremost. he needs people to deal to. i don’t think he handles the Hard Shit like mercy does, but like coke and mdma? works for him.

f...riend..s?... like it’s so hard for ducky to be sincere with people but if you don’t mind like ... an emotionally distant man who doesn’t even hit 6′ then maybe? he’s your guy? maybe you can break him down a little? chip away at his cold shoulder?

a close...r friend... maybe not like. the best of friends. but at least one normal friend whose world does not revolve around fucking drugs and violence would be nice for ducky. someone he can be a little soft with, as a treat.

hook-ups... not many, because ducky doesn’t really enjoy sex too much but y’know. that’s just how it is. he do be having needs, tho. KDSJGSHDKLFSE god.

fisticuffs!... someone he got into a fistfight with. multiple people he’s gotten into fights with. he’s probably lost them (on purpose) but - mayhaps, some of them, he did not?

gorham roommate... god... i don’t know what these two cld get up to but! maybe give him a sexuality panic but who knows.

unrequited feelings... there’s probably a few of these. whether people are drawn to his fucking ~mysterious~ demeanor (he just has fucking anxiety, man) or mayhaps. mayhaps he has the feelings.

flirtations... he’s never been in a relationship so i can’t really include exes, but he can flirt with people i’d like to think ... when he’s drunk. :-)

ghostees... everybody he’s ever fucking ghosted because he’s stupid and is afraid of both friendship and relationships and romance and platonic? feelings of warmth? so sometimes he panics and ghosts people forever. :) spite!

new yorkians... who are familiar with his family or the business they have there

enemies... god. i’m sure he has a lot of these even without attempting to make them. just like, by association, you know? sometimes ducky hates people because mercy does. sometimes he hates people because mercy likes them. JKSDGDSJGFSNLKF

i won’t lie i’m very tired and am having a Troubled Time coming up with connections please. bare with me.

annoyances... i don’t know if ducky can get annoyed very easily but? thorns in his side? something lighthearted? alternately, something Not lighthearted and then ducky :/ goes rogue JKDNGDSNLFK

idk something soft... literally anything soft. please :) give me something soft and cute :) and peaceful and not stressful :)

something ANGSTY and AWFUL... literally. i don’t know. duality of man.

ok i have been awake fr too long i’m going to bed goodnight.

#radintro #child abuse tw #abuse tw #domestic abuse tw #violence tw #injury tw #trauma tw #drug abuse tw #drugs tw #addiction tw #gangs tw #ok. i think this is all.

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symphysins · 7 years ago

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Have any other good fics for us???

sorry this took a while to reply back to. i’ve been compiling this for a while.

since you didn’t specify what kind of fics, i’m gonna give like a smorgasbord of different ut fics i love w/ a blurb of stupid commentary from me :’D

(be warned, snas is my fav so a bunch feature him/are centered around him.)

(also be warned that not everything i like may be ur cup of tea, so make sure to read the tags/warnings.)

longpost under cut. ready? here we gooo~ ᕕ( �� )ᕗ

Universal Displacement by knowmeknot: A forgotten doctor once theorized that when the same event occurs at the exact same time in two separate universes, they converge for a single moment and something… spectacular happens. A destabilization maybe. Or a merge. Or better yet, a displacement of two similar but different entities.

one of my favorite kedgeup things is when ut!sans or uf!paps lands in the other’s universe, and this fic expands on this idea rlly well.

A Lack of Brotherly Love by Askellie: After a brutal series of genocide runs, Sans wakes up in an alternate universe where the monsters were saved, everyone is on the surface and the future looks bright…except the fundamental difference in this universe is that its resident Sans never loved or supported his brother. As a result, Papyrus is a lonely outcast, unable to fit in and scarred from years of emotional neglect.And Sans isn’t going to let that stand.

i desperately want sans to punch the fuck out of dr.serif. and then go give poor paps all the hugs he deserves.

To Love Yourself by undertailsoulsex: UF!Sans fights with his brother and doesn’t know what to do with himself. He ends up traveling to the Undertale Universe where he meets the kindhearted Sans and Papyrus.UF!Sans has to come to terms with his depression and his newfound feelings for the other skeletons.

this fic emotionally destroyed me… but in a good way i swear! it’ll lead you on a rollercoaster of feels, but it’s worth it.

It’s A Long Story by RiseiTekiSensei: a soriel series detailing toriel and sans’ relationship in the underground and aboveground. i really like how both of them have their own issues, and how they support eachother through those issues. i also love how head over heels sans is for toriel.

A Fortune Cookie For You by Darkhymns: “In bed” jokes are the lowest form of comedy. So, of course, Sans and Toriel love them.

the jokes man. the jokes are the best.

Never a Lovely So Real by Kaesa: The city of Ebott, 193X. The market’s down, the crime rate’s up, and Sans is just trying to make a buck and keep an eye on his brother by working for the Dreemurr crime family. But after the Dreemurrs rescue a human child from their rival gang, the Flower Boys, Sans soon finds himself in way over his head. (Well. Not that that’s hard.)

i love all the research put in to make this mob au fic really authentic. reading the little anecdotes at the end is rlly fun.

Our Skeleton by yastaghr: The people who love him come to realise Sans may be hiding something from them.

this. this is the fic that really got me into sansgoriel. royal goats showering tiny skele in love is the best.

for queen and country by tealmoon: Being the Judge of the Underground isn’t just a job, it’s about being chosen to carry out the infallible will of the Royal Family, to keep chaos and crime at bay, to protect all of Monsterkind.

And for Papyrus, it’s about being helpless, and afraid, and alone.

us!paps suffering: the fic. somebody give this skele a friend. pls, he desperately needs one.

Fired Up and Bone Weary by perniciousLizard: slowburn domestic sansby series. sans is written so in-character and grillby is really fleshed-out as a character. there’s tension and drama here and there, but it still feels mellow overall. reading this fic feels like sitting next to a warm hearth.

These are our Days by Rehlia: Two days ago, you said goodbye to your best friend. Yesterday, you lost your job with no prior notice. And then today, you had a fight with your mom. So that’s your day today. Lonely, fighting with your mom, jobless. Perfect Day for a drink or two, right? What’s that on TV about monsters?You didn’t expect the monsters to accept that application for a social media job you sent them while you were drunk. Now you’ve suddenly moved to Ebott and spend your days hanging out with monsters, documenting your weird new life, and marvelling at how different monsters and humans can be - and how similar.

god, i love all the worldbuilding in this fic. the little things about monster culture are so great. this fic really makes me invested in monsterkind’s integration on the surface. and the build-up to the sans/reader relationship rlly makes it all the more satisfying.

Tend to your memories by Rainbow_Sprinkles: Post-Pacifist after many, many resets. Explores political, social, and personal facets of monster integration into human society. Begins in 211X and spans over many years. Political and social climates have undergone major shifts from those of the present day. Character development and platonic-familial relationships receive the most attention. Major motifs include health, medicine, and science.

realistically, i think a lot of the ut cast have been traumatized in some way, and this fic explores that very thoroughly. i think my favorite part about this series is the frisk, flowey, and chara development.

Kingship, And What Comes Next by CatKing_Catkin: This is the story of the Underground after Sans hung up the phone, after Papyrus took the throne. There’s no one left to guide him, no one left to look up to. Papyrus doesn’t want to let anyone down, especially not Sans when his brother is working so hard to support him. Sans doesn’t want to let Papyrus down, when his brother really is all he has left.They make mistakes, they miss one another, but together, they try to figure things out.This is a story about growing up, moving on, and what’s important in life.

this fic managed to take one of the saddest (imo) endings and turn it into something hopeful.

lest ye be judged by nilchance: in an alternate universe, asgore became something like a parental figure to sans and papyrus. the whole series is wonderful, and i love the relationship sans and asgore have.

Tsum Papyri by BarkingPup: In this world there is only Papyrus and… more Papyrus

the super sweet tsumtsum au made by zarla turned incredibly horrifying.

Overextension by MaxieSatan: Strength and weakness are not mutually exclusive, and neither one always looks the same.

i like reading fics about undyne & sans, bc you really never see them interact in game. it’s interesting to think about how they’d act around eachother.

Late Night Snack by EvilZebra:

Tuesday 3:55 amRUDE SKELETON: did he ask you to help too

RUDE SKELETON: he did i can hear more pots dying

RUDE SKELETON: pls spare my ketchup it does not deserve this

papyrus cooks at 3 in the morning. sans and undyne suffer.

social links by simplycarryon: Friendship’s pretty neat, or so your video games and anime dictate. But you are not an anime protagonist, and you’re not sure you know what friendship is any more.

i love sans and alphys being science buddy friends.

Angels in the Underground by joliemariella: 200 years ago, angels were banished from the surface world after the commander of the heavenly host, Asgore, declared war on mankind. Now, young Frisk has fallen into the Underground and must conquer the angels’ seven trials if she, and the angels themselves, are to have any hope of escape. Along the way she meets Sans, a wounded seraphim who agrees to guide her through the trials at Toriel’s request. Friends are made, history unfolds, and Sans comes to hope again.

monsters with wiiiingsss. also seraphim dad sans is best dad.

Butterscotch and Bones by kaliawai512: Toriel promised herself she would never leave the Ruins. She had to stay there, to make sure that if a human fell, she could care for them - even if she couldn’t stop them from going to their deaths in time. But now and then, leaving is inevitable. The Ruins have only so many resources, after all. This time, before she heads Home from her latest expedition, she decides to stop and check in on the asocial Royal Scientist who was once her good friend.

She doesn’t find him.

She finds two other someones instead.

FLUFF. SO MUCH FLUFF. some sad, bUT THAT ONLY MAKES THE FLUFF SWEETER. this fic is like a balm on the soul from the hurt of the handplates au.

Under the Veil by poplasia: Sans has gotten himself stuck in the void between worlds in a successful attempt to stop the resets of his timeline. He’s not sure how long he’s been chillin’ alone there, but eventually a chance at escape stumbles his way in from the Veil of Death. His name?—Sirius Black.

crossovers are great. crossovers with two of my favorite fandoms are even better. i’m really excited to see what these two pranksters will do next.

Missing Child Case by StoryCloud: Against all odds, the police find the four-year old that went missing around the summit of Mount Ebbot. A story from a child’s perspective has many interpretations.

it’s really rare to see fics that deal with neutral route endings, so this is a nice treat. also the fact that frisk is only four puts things into a diff. perspective.

The Best of Times, the Worst of Times by ABadTime: Set immediately after the pacifist run, the dark history of the skeleton brothers begins to surface when everything that held them together unravels, leading to the revelation of dark and transformative truths.The Best of Times, the Worst of Times sees the rise of heroes of unusual stripes in the face of unusual traumas, and explores the value of relationships in unusual times. The True Labs hold a great many terrible secrets only some of which have been able to reach their conclusion.

leaves you hanging on at the edge of your seat at some points, and has a satisfyingly happy ending. not to mention super cool gb!sans.

a lesson in grief. by ohmygodwhy:

you’ve got pressure dripping off your shoulders.

or: sans tries to deal with some things.

let’s end this off with some of that sweet, sweet sans suffering. one of the first few ut fics i read. the ending was like a punch in the gut.

#paperbeanbag #ultra mega long fic rec post!#hope you like it?#i could scream on and on about how much i love fic #there's even more fic i have bookmarked but this post was getting too long #if anyone wants a more fontcest/skeleton centered list i could probs make one

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unstablemonstrosities · 5 years ago

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Juliette Solo VII

Trigger Warnings: Mentions of death and suicide.

Flashback.

She’d been waiting for weeks.

She knew that there was a plan for her, that Nathan, and God would help her, but sometimes the dark desires got so bad she wondered when she’d find any light again. It was all she could think about most of the time, hurting herself, getting closer to being an angel. It helped that she knew, of course she’d known for months, but it helped a little. It was good to know she wasn’t crazy. But still, when Nathan wasn’t here, or Roland, she thought she was going out of her mind.

There had been one thing that brought her a bit of reprieve from her darkened mind. It was rare amongst many things that just reminded her of what she so badly wanted to do, even with the knowledge that it was wrong. There wasn’t much that could truly distract her outside of the company of others. At least until prom had become popular.

This was her senior year, she’d known prom was coming of course. In the beginning of the year, she’d been so lost, still in the dark in the early signs of fall, she hadn’t really noticed as the girls of her class got excited over the upcoming event. All she’d thought of was her own inner turmoil. Even with her thoughts darker than before, she had her knowledge now. That brief bit of awareness was enough to give her the clarity to actually think about the event most girls dreamt about all their lives.

Sure, before the onslaught of true dark thoughts, she’d dreamt of it too, but it was never the way that other girls did. She didn’t constantly think of it. She didn’t dream of the man she’d go with. She didn’t know the exact details of the dress she’d wear. She didn’t image dancing the night away with some mysterious stranger. Her dreams were not mixed with the fairy tales she’d been told when she was child. But she did think of it.

Sometimes she’d think about volunteering for the decorating committee, or even actually signing up for planning. The first was still something she’d stuck to. She’d signed the sign-up sheet on Monday. But the second had become a distant dream. With her borderline outcast status, she knew she wouldn’t be getting near the elite squad of populars who were planning prom. But that was okay, she was happy with her small part.

Along the way she’d even gotten a date. Nathan had promised he would go with her. Most of their conversations were taken up by angel business. What was going on in Heaven, what his responsibilities were, what the other angels were like, what it’d be like when she eventually went to Heaven as an angel herself, none of it was really about her human life. They didn’t talk about her AP classes, her failure on the ropes in gym, the tests she had coming up or the books she was reading for class. She was okay with that, most of the time.

Roland was always there to provide a listening ear on her normal life. Most nights, when he was working the graveyard shift as the newest deputies were always responsible for, she’d go with coffee and a few pastries from the local café, and sit down with him. They’d talk about all the things she didn’t get to talk to Nathan about. Sometimes he’d even take her fresh perspective on cases they were working on. Not a lot of those were in their town, nothing happened there. Most were in the surrounding towns. Her times with him, late nights in the police station were among the few times she thought about her future, and not the angelic one.

Sometimes, with him she thought about going to school. She had countless offers. Her academic and volunteering experience spoke for itself. She thought about studying criminology, and psychology, and mathematics. She thought about a normal life, becoming something that wasn’t an angel. To her mind, the one convinced being an angel was the way, those were traitorous thoughts, ones she often would silence, not that it was easy to do so.

Prom stayed though. She had had that in the back of her mind for the last two months. It was March, and in two months there’d be prom. She’d acted fully engaged in all the angel drama, but lingering was the excitement for that one normal rite of passage. Once again, she knew it wasn’t like the normal girl’s concerns, that much was easy to tell, but it was enough to actually find that small distraction.

Three weeks ago she’d been with Roland, enjoying one of their late coffee nights reviewing a case when he asked her about prom. Apparently one of the station’s officer’s had a daughter who was going to the prom too. She’d been a little nervous in those few moments, because at the time she’d been so consumed by the thought of the usual darkness and angel business.

Three Weeks Prior to flashback.

“Shouldn’t you be thinking about prom now, Jules? And not this…stabbing from three counties over?” He didn’t ever show distaste towards the cases, no matter how brutal, but she had a feeling the discontent in his voice was supposed to exaggerate his point.

Taken a back, she realized she’d barely thought of prom since the fall. “Oh…um…truthfully I haven’t thought about it much. I’ve had other stuff on my mind. And besides I’m certain this, stabbing from three counties over as you put it will be far less dramatic,” she offered a weak smile, hoping it’d distract from her odd reaction, something he’d no doubt notice anyway.

“I have no doubt about that, if my prom has any mark on what yours will be. You are eighteen though, perhaps you should be concerning yourself with…normal things, not this brutality,” his disgust was genuine this time, though it was about the case, it was that she’d rather focus on the case than her prom.

“Well, I don’t think about it much, I suppose,” she shrugged once more, putting her focus on paper-clipping three pages back together before putting them back in the file. “Don’t you think you should be focused on this brutality, instead of teenage things?” She teased, making a recovery from her initial bashfulness over not truly thinking of her prom.

“Consider keeping you in line part of the job,” he joked back, offering her one of those smiles that was nothing really but a small crook of his mouth, yet seemed something amazing to her. Maybe it was because it didn’t happen all the time.

“Keeping me in line? You’re keeping me in line. That’s cute Ayres. Everyone at this station knows you only keep me around because I hold /you/ in line,” she teased, flashing a real grin at him.

“Oh that’s it,” his voice was still playful, but he abruptly stood up from his desk and motioned his hand at her. “Come on, come with me,” it was a gentle suggestion, yet still she followed after him as he led her into the sheriff’s office after getting up from her chair. As they entered, she saw the briefest flash of guilt on his face. Even if the sheriff had told him months ago that they could go in if they needed to, she knew Roland felt the need to ask each time.

“You know just because he leaves us alone here all the time doesn’t mean we can just barge in when we please,” she told him, not at the same teasing pace she had before, but hardly serious.

He didn’t say anything until he reached the desk and motioned to the seat. It was red, with basic wooden armrests placed over the metal frame, and two cushions, one for the seat and one for the back. It was worn enough so she could see the yellow foam of the cushions. He pulled out the chair after his brief motion and she sat.

“What on earth are we doing?” For once she was completely in the dark.

He leaned over her, close enough so she could catch a brief scent of whatever aftershave he used. It was light, as it always was when they were at the station. The older keyboard let out a few shaky clicking noises and when he pulled back, they were on a search engine, looking at prom dresses. Of course these were for junior prom. She grinned at him for a second. “You do know that these are for junior prom right? The long ones are for senior prom,” she told him, ready to exit out. But looking at the different dresses, comprised of lace and satin and chiffon, she decided to stay put. Instead of leaving, she typed in the type of dresses she was looking for, the longer ones.

“So, I don’t really know how you girls look for these things, because truthfully they all blur together and look the same to me, but we’re staying right here until you pick something,” he seemed determined, and when he was determined he was always set in his ways.

“You know this could take a while, right?” She asked, glancing up at his form lingering over her.

“I know,” he told her, his emerald green eyes returning her glance turned gaze. They stayed like that for a second, just looking at each other. His expression was soft, gentle, handsome as usual. She wondered what she looked like to him. After maybe a minute, she broke the stare. “Well, if we’re doing this, you might as well pull up a chair,” she told him.

He did.

They’d picked a green one after, or she had. It was a light green, bordering on mint and seafoam. He’d mostly just waited, silently and patiently as he often would when she was focused on something. His opinion would occasionally come in, but only if she asked for it. After she’d set on that one, she’d sent the link to her email, leaving shortly after.

And now after those weeks of waiting, it’d finally come. She’d been monitoring the deliveries to her mailbox and door pretty closely over the past while, having her parents alert her if anything came. Mostly it was spam mail or university pamphlets, but today when her mom called out, she’d told her it was a box.

For the first time in months, she excitedly moved out of her room and hurried down the steps. Her mom was in the dining room, and sure enough the package was on the table. It was a brown rectangular box, tape holding down the flaps. Pretty basic. But for the first time in months she was looking forward to something, even if it was just opening that basic box. The redhead got the keys from the magnetic basket on the Friday and used them to cut the tape. The slices were a little jagged, as expected. Once it was cut she didn’t even bother to set the keys back as she usually would. Instead she opened the box to reveal the dress.

It was perfect, exactly what she’d wanted.

A smile rested on her light pink lips.

Present Day.

She wasn’t exactly sure why she’d done it. At the time she’d never thought she’d go to a prom. She hadn’t gotten to go to hers before her first death. Yet still, after she’d first come back, and found herself trapped within the confines of the asylum, she’d used her angelic powers to materialize her dress in her room. It was cool, being able to just think of something and then have it be there. Usually she’d used it for food and small things. The prom dress she’d picked out had been the biggest thing she’d summoned.

And it hadn’t been much good either. All it’d done was linger at the very back of her closet. Strategically placed so it was the last thing she’d come across. Looking at it was just another reminder of the life she’d left behind. It made her think of the abrupt pause her life had come to. It made her think of the night she was supposed to remember, the night she was supposed to dance with Nathan, and laugh and think about normal things instead of angel business. It made her think of taking thousands of pictures with her parents because her dress didn’t look right in one.

That wasn’t a safe place anymore. It was a painful place. It was a place of fantasies. Because that’s all they were, fantasies. There was no dancing. No Nathan. No normality. No pictures with her parents. She no longer had a reason to dance about. Nathan had left. Her life was anything but the normal she craved. And the only pictures she had with her parents were the ones taken before her death. The newest pictures of her were probably the ones taken in the morgue. Maybe the asylum had taken a few shots too. She wouldn’t be surprised. Surely they had to keep track of their patients somewhere.

Something had stirred lately. She wouldn’t call it happiness yet, it was too soon. Nearly a year of disappointment had taught her not to get over excited by anything, at least not quickly. But there was the possibility of hope blooming. Roland was here, however that was, they still hadn’t exactly figured out what he was, and at least she wasn’t entirely alone anymore.

And now there was prom. She thought it was ridiculous, being stuck in here and they wanted to throw a prom. Maybe it was some twisted social experiment. Maybe some patient had rebelled and decided to throw a prom for the one all the younger ones were missing. Whatever the reason, prom was coming, and the asylum had been thrown into just as much excitement as if they were actually seniors. She could almost scoff.

Yet a small part of her wanted to go. She felt a greater need than ever to be normal. Sure she was going with a group of supernaturals, if she did go, but it was normal. It was what she’d missed out on last year because she’d been too busy with Nathan and the angels. It’d all been a waste too, that was the real kicker. All the wasted time when she could have been living blissfully human and she’d been prepping for a role she never really got to play.

Finally, after a few days of glimpsing into the back of her closet, she gave in and made her way in, past all the blouses and dresses until she finally made her way to what she was looking for. The green dress. Wrapped in a plastic sleeve the only sign it showed of its time in the closet was appearing a little flat. It took a few minutes of deliberation before reaching out and taking it off the hanger and going back to her room.

“This is so stupid,” she shamed herself as she set the dress on the bed and unzipped the clear plastic garment bag.

Her hand ran over the chiffon material of the skirt, feeling the intricate tracing of white embroidery along the hem. It was beautiful, more than she remembered, even with the painful memories attached. With one more breath, she used her other hand to detach the small thin satin hanger targeted straps from the hanger, followed by the off the shoulder sleeves that had been strategically placed so they’d contribute in holding up the dress.

Despite her mixed emotions to the ball gown, she regarded it carefully, with gentle hands. After removing it from the bag, she undressed herself. Starting with her cardigan which she slid down over her arms, then her skirt, that she did a brief roll of her hips as she slid it down over her softer legs, and then the tank top. It left her in a plain bra and matching set of panties. Nothing overly special. In the mirror the only real noticeable feature was her scars. The jagged one on her throat, the thin self-harm ones on her arms, even a couple of small ones on her knees form bike accidents as a kid.

She was pretty eager to stop looking at all the marks. Eager enough to get the dress on. She stepped into the dress, the top left open because the corset back was undone. She shimmied it up over her legs, eventually slipping her arms into the off the shoulder sleeves. Her arms bent awkwardly to get the corset back tightened a little. She’d need help when the day came. But it was enough to get the basic idea.

Her gaze turned up to look at the mirror. It didn’t fit just right with the strings loosened, but she could get the picture. Slowly, she folded her hands over her stomach, making sure the self-harm scars were hidden. She allowed her red curls to fall forward to tumble down over her chest. For a second she could pretend she was normal.

“And Cinderella you shall go to the prom,” she muttered sarcastically to her reflection.

#solos

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mbtizone · 8 years ago

Text

Rebekah Mikaelson (The Vampire Diaries/The Originals): ESFJ

Dominant Extroverted Feeling [Fe]: Emotional expression comes easily to Rebekah. She has no problem telling people exactly what she’s feeling. Most of her choices tend to come from her emotions and she can easily sense them in other people. Sometimes, she gets enjoyment out of toying with other people’s feelings and hurting them emotionally. She is very sensitive and her feelings are intense. Rebekah is loyal to Klaus no matter what, even when his interests conflict with her own, which sometimes causes her to make sacrifices for his sake. She wants to be liked, but she also has no trouble putting people in their place when she feels she’s been wronged. Rebekah can be extraordinarily empathetic and put aside her own feelings for someone else’s sake, such as when she gives Marcel what he needs to save Sofya once she realizes he is acting from a place of love. Even though it hurts her to see him love someone else, she admires his motives and wants to help him. Rebekah is good at mediating in conflicts. When Marcel and Klaus are fighting, she reminds them that they need to work together and tries to get them to bury the hatchet. Rebekah’s morality is external. She has spent a lot of time being selfish and putting herself and her family first, but she admires Matt’s morality and he inspires her to be better, causing her to latch onto him.

Auxiliary Introverted Sensing [Si]: Traditions are important to Rebekah. She’s the one who suggests reviving their family’s bonfire ritual. She enjoys reminiscing about happy times. Because she’s a vampire, Rebekah never had the opportunity to have a normal life and missed out on having human experiences. She wants to be able to try to live her life as a human. She wants to go to school and have a prom. She wants to be a cheerleader. Rebekah wants to fit in and be liked, but resorts to compelling people to be her friend because that’s the familiar way of doing things for her. She wants to be able to find true love, settle down, and have children and it kills her that she’s unable to, which is why she was so motivated to get the cure. She tends to have trouble letting go of her past romances and forgives her family for all of their crimes because they have centuries worth of history together. She has a strong connection to her past and can vividly recall details from events that occurred decades ago. She has a lot of resentment towards Klaus for everything he’s put her through over the years, but is simultaneously fiercely protective of him and loyal. When she speaks of his crimes against her, no matter how long ago the incident took place, she feels it so strongly that you would think it only just happened. Rebekah takes some time to adjust to the world after spending so many years unconscious. She doesn’t immediately embrace the latest styles and is quite appalled by the current trends in fashion and music.

Tertiary Extroverted Intuition [Ne]: Rebekah likes to travel and enjoys adventure. Though she always returns to her family’s side eventually, she wants to get out into the world and experience things. Rebekah is good at sensing people’s true intentions and motivations. She knew that Damon was only trying to distract her at the bonfire. She was able to deduce that Klaus wanted the cure for Elena and brought Stefan over because Klaus knew that Stefan would help him find it, even though Stefan hates Klaus. She’s also skilled when it comes to thinking of inventive ways to accomplish her goals. When Elena runs into the section of the cave that vampires can’t enter, Rebekah shows up with a cannister of gasoline, which she begins to pouring onto her. She tells Elena that she can either come out of the cave or burn to death. When she and her siblings find the caravan filled with clothing, it is Rebekah who suggests stealing them and posing as the victims because they were en route to a nearby castle. Rebekah likes to bring a touch of creativity into her schemes. She compels Elena, Caroline, and Stefan and forces them to sit in a classroom and answer her questions. However, because she is a romantic who yearns for love and acceptance, she can sometimes fail to see the signs that she’s being manipulated. Rebekah can be a bit of an idealist at times and always hopes for a better future for herself and her family.

Inferior Introverted Thinking [Ti]: When Rebekah feels attacked, or if the people she loves are threatened, Rebekah can be quite brutal. She can be good at assessing situations and using her findings in arguments, or to isolate the best solution to a problem. If Elena doesn’t want to come out of that cave, Rebekah will just threaten to set her on fire if she doesn’t. Sometimes, Rebekah is capable of being detached and cold in order to protect her loved ones, which leads her to make very heartless choices, such as causing Matt and Elena to drive off of the bridge, or contacting Mikael, knowing he would run Klaus out of New Orleans so that she would be free to be with Marcel.

Enneagram: 2w3 (I can’t really narrow down an instinctual variant because they honestly all seem pretty prominent in her)

Quotes:

Rebekah: Elijah, being a human means a fresh start. I can grow old and have a family and fill my days with meaning, knowing that each one matters.

Rebekah: Go right ahead. Laugh at the girl who loved too easily. But I would rather have lived my life than yours, Nik. No one will ever sit around a table telling stories about a man who couldn’t love.

Rebekah: [preparing to leave] I’ve lived a lot longer than you have, Marcellus. I have seen kings rise, and fall, but there is one thing I know to be true. It is that no matter how matter how big your empire becomes, it is nothing if you have no one to share it with. You want New Orleans? Have it. I won’t be here to stop you.

Klaus: What is it you want, Rebekah? Rebekah: The same things I’ve wanted since I was a child. I want a home. I want a family. I want someone to love me, and I want to live.

Rebekah: Nik, you do not need me anymore. I know that I’m your favorite sibling and of course I adore you, but there is space in my heart for something more. I want love, I want a family of my own and wouldn’t it be nice if we could part on happy terms for once. No daggers, no exile, just so long for now I’ll see you again soon.

Klaus: I love my family. You, Elijah. I loved all of you. I know I can be difficult, but I did not make myself this way. It was Mikael who ruined me. Rebekah: He ruined me, too. That’s what you forget. Centuries later, each of us is broken. You with your anger and paranoia. Me with my fear of abandonment. And poor Elijah; he dedicates himself to everyone but himself. We are the strongest creatures in the world and yet we are damaged beyond repair. We live without hope but we will never die. We are the definition of “cursed”… Always and forever.

Klaus: …Fierce Rebekah, willing to risk everything on the chance that she might one day find happiness…

[Rebekah is looking through a rack of clothing while Stefan leans against the doorframe.] Rebekah: The colors, the fabrics…The eighties were just…tragic. You know, I think shoulder pads rival 17th-century puritan smocks for crimes against fashion. Stefan: Looking for something to wear to the dance? Rebekah: Aye. Are you asking me to a date? Stefan: Actually, it was canceled. [Stefan walks farther into Rebekah’s room, and she is clearly upset.] Rebekah: So why are you here? Back for more dagger talk? [Stefan laughs.] Stefan: Somebody has some trust issues. Rebekah: It’s called a healthy skepticism. I know you were trying to sneak out this morning. I’m not stupid. Stefan: Sorry, I’m…I’m still trying to get used to this. Rebekah: Do you regret it? Stefan: No. Rebekah: Do you want it to happen again? Stefan: Maybe. Rebekah: Even if I don’t give you the dagger? Stefan: You think that I would sleep with you just to get the dagger? Rebekah: Don’t give me that innocent look. You’ve done plenty to me in the name of getting what you want. Well, I guess I should pack up these racks. Just another failed attempt at getting to a high school dance. Stefan: Why do you care so much about a high school dance? Rebekah: I don’t. I was just bored. Stefan: Right. Well, we can still go, if you want. Rebekah: Not if it’s canceled, we can’t. Stefan: Since when do you care about the rules?

Rebekah: Funny. So is everything about the eighties so…excessive? Stefan: It had its charm. “Say Anything” – Lloyd Dobler standing outside of a bedroom window with a boombox over his head, desperately trying to get back the girl of his dreams; “Princess Bride” – Wesley slays giant rats for love; “The Breakfast Club” – one detention turns a bunch of outcasts into allies. Rebekah: So it was a decade of sentimental drivel, as well? Stefan: Well, I was going to say love, friendship, the possibility of anything happening. You would’ve loved it. Rebekah: [smiling] And why is that? Stefan: Because as much as we both hate to admit it, we care about those things.

Rebekah: Go ahead, take it. You’re right. I do care. I want stupid koala corsages and a prom. I want to have kids with someone who loves me enough to stand outside my window with a stupid boombox. I want to be human. So let Klaus put down my brother. Let’s go find the cure.

Rebekah: Name me a more human experience than senior prom.

Elijah: Rebekah, it’s no secret that you are impulsive, emotional, and at times morally questionable. Prove to me this isn’t just another one of your whims, that you know precisely what you are giving up here.

Matt: You haven’t seen Bonnie, have you? Rebekah: She’s probably in the bathroom. Every other girl is. And if you haven’t noticed, I am sitting here all on my own. So, please, will you put me out of my misery and dance with me? Matt: I don’t think so. Rebekah: Matt, please. This is a girl’s worst nightmare. Please? I thought about what you said, about being good, and you’re right. It won’t be easy, but it’s worth trying. Matt: I don’t understand why my opinion is so important to you. Rebekah: Because you’re everything that I want to be. You’re loyal, honest, kind. People root for you to succeed. Elena even died for you. Matt: I’m a bus boy, Rebekah, okay? It’s not like I’m out saving the world. Rebekah: But you’re human. You’re so beautifully human.

Matt: April, April, come on, please wake up! April, come on! Please wake up! [Rebekah comes in.] Rebekah: Matt, why did you call– Oh, my god. Matt: Can you feed her your blood? Rebekah: Can’t we just call 911 or something? Matt: She’s dying. Please help her! Rebekah: I can’t. If I heal her with my vampire blood, Elijah won’t give me the cure and I won’t get to be human. Matt: How is this even a choice right now? You want to be human? Prove it, be good, do the right thing and save her life.

Rebekah: Right. You’re that werewolf girl my brother, Klaus, knocked up. I was expecting to see some kind of supernatural, miracle baby bump. Guess you’re not showing yet. It’s Hayley, isn’t it? Hayley: You have your brother’s manners. Rebekah: And his temper, too, so watch it. Where’s Elijah?

Rebekah: Do you think I want to spend what could be the last few hours of my life having idle chit-chat with a girl who literally stabbed me in the back? Of course not. But for some reason, everybody seems to want to bend over backwards to save your life, which is incredibly annoying, but makes you the perfect hostage. So, why don’t you sit down and shut up before I ruin everything by ripping your head off.

Rebekah: I suspect he just needs to be asked nicely.

Klaus: Dear sweet April Young. Now, there’s a girl with a future. Rebekah: She was dying, and I acted with human decency. You can’t get more human than that. Klaus: Actually, you can. You can stand idly by as poor April takes her final breath. You can ask, “Why does this always happen to innocent people? Where do the spirits go? Was there anything I could have done?” That is what it means to be human, sister. You give humanity too much credit. Rebekah: You’re gonna tell Elijah? Klaus: No. No. You are.

Rebekah: Is that what it is? You are once again worried that you will be left behind? Has history taught you nothing? We don’t abandon you, Nik. You drive us away!

Elijah: I’m not trying to impress the girl. Rebekah: Well I should bloody hope you are. Why else are we out here? Come on, Elijah. You’ve fallen for her. Admit it. It may do wonders for the stick that’s lodged up your enduringly stoic ass if you did.

Rebekah: I was the one who brought him to New Orleans because of your wickedness! I wanted love and happiness, and you denied me the freedom to have either. Yes, I hated and I was afraid of our father, but he was a lesser evil than you. My bastard brother who loomed over me, threatening me as you are now. I wanted rid of you, and given the choice, I’d do it again!

Rebekah: It’s bonfire season! And I am reviving a family tradition! Especially since we’re all going to be together.

Rebekah: Well, we’re just missing a key ingredient! Klaus: No, we’re not. Rebekah: Yes, we are, Nik! Back me up, Elijah! Elijah: I suspect Niklaus would rather choke on the ashes. Hayley: What are you all talking about? Rebekah: Well, before we light it, we write down our wishes for each other to burn for luck! It was Kol’s favorite part when we were kids! Klaus: It’s further evidence as to why we should ignore it! Hayley: Hope’s first bonfire season. I like it! We’re doing it!

Rebekah: Do you still love Stefan? Elena: Yes. Rebekah: Are you still in love with Stefan? Elena: No. Rebekah: [to Stefan] Did that hurt? Having someone you love drive a dagger through your heart. Stefan: Go to hell. Rebekah: Did... that... hurt? Stefan: Yes. Rebekah: Welcome to the last 900 years of my life.

Rebekah: There has to be more to this dress. Klaus: There's not. Rebekah: So, women in the 21st century dress like prostitutes, then. You know, I got dirty looks for wearing trousers. Klaus: You wore trousers so women today could wear nothing.

Rebekah: Why don't you just give me the cure so I can judge you silently elsewhere. Elijah: And what could you possibly want with the cure? Rebekah: I want to be human again. Elijah: How do you know that being human is the answer you're looking for? I mean, it's nothing but a romantic notion. The grass won't necessarily be greener, Rebekah. Rebekah: You might be right. But I don't care. I want to live a simple life as a normal person and when it ends, it ends. We've had 20 lifetimes together, Elijah. Isn't that enough? Elijah: I just don't understand. I mean, why must you always consider our family a burden? "Always and forever." I mean, those words are as important to me today as they, as they ever were. Rebekah: You will always be my brother and I will never stop loving you, but now it's time for me to live and die the way that I choose. Not the way you and Nik want me to. Please. Please just give me the cure.

Rebekah Mikaelson (The Vampire Diaries/The Originals): ESFJ was originally published on MBTI Zone

#2w3 #Rebekah Mikaelson #The Originals #The Vampire Diaries #Type 2 #enneagram 2 #TVD #mbti #mbti types #mbti personality types #fictionalcharactermbti #fictionmbti #tv mbti #enneagram #enneatypes #enneagram type

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ageofwrathrpg · 7 years ago

Photo

Name: Marlena Morozova Age: 27 Ability: Telepathy Faction: ROSTEKS as an INTERROGATOR Faceclaim: Adria Arjona Availability: TAKEN

THE STORY || CW: Death, Drugs, Torture, Violence

It was raining the night the little girl was born in the slums of La Perla, a neighbourhood situated within San Juan. A bad omen sounded as thunder cracked overhead, and only a mere suggestion of what was to come. Even at such a young age the girl seemed destined for nothing more than heartbreak, her mother dying only days after the girl was born, taken by childbed fever painfully in the night. No sympathy was given to the girl or her mother, the latter of which was an outcast in the small, human, devoutly Catholic community in which she had lived. There was no place for a bruja- witch- and there’d be no place for her kin either. Locals debated killing the baby, yet there was no way for them to know for certain the child was cursed with her mother’s power, and there were few who’d willingly have the blood of a newborn on their hands. So she was dumped, nameless, on the doorstep of the nearest orphanage for someone else to take care of. Marlena knows what you’re thinking (quite literally)- oh no, not another pitiful orphan who doesn’t belong and longs for a family of her own, right?

Wrong. This little girl belonged like a fish in water. Quickly snatched up by one of the many human gangs, she hastily adapted to life on the streets thieving from unwary tourists or smuggling drugs here and there. Dangerous, though eventually menial jobs carried out by a little girl with no traceable family and expendable life, doomed to have her body buried in an unmarked grave- if she was lucky enough to have a burial at all. Unfortunately, good things aren’t made to last, and when her telepathic abilities came to light shortly after her eleventh birthday did Marlena realise that true danger had only just began. This persecution of people like her has spread to every corner of the globe, and Marlena quickly turned from a useful asset to another bruja to be dealt with. Quick and brutal. The gang she’d spent her childhood running with turned on her, and in all it’s uncontrolled, inexperienced glory Marlena used her power against them. Messily rifling through thoughts, planting memories and erasing whatever would get her killed. A wicked, cunning girl, Marlena fled.

It was from here onwards that Marlena bounced from place to place, gang to gang and name to name, unable to settle for long. There was too much danger, too much hatred against people such as herself. Marlena got by, using her telepathy and sheer force of will to carve out some semblance of a living- even if the money was dirty and illegally sourced. Humans- filthy, ruthless humans- forging her into a creature of anger which steadily grew to hatred and unending, bubbling rage.

She masterfully built up her mental armoury until her telepathic ability was the only weapon she needed. Able to create and destroy memories, project thoughts and take what she wanted, Marlena considered herself to be untouchable for a while. She could afford to be a little more reckless, a little more careless as she used her telepathy to get whatever she wanted, and eventually her travels landed her in Russia, where she took on her new identity as Marlena Morozova. Yet she’d acquired a taste for danger, at pushing herself and boundaries, and found herself in the clutches of anti-Vila humans.

Kidnapped, tortured, beaten and humiliated. Marlena endured days of unimaginable pain until finally she snapped, no- broke seems a better word, and unleashed herself upon the humans that had held her captive. Using her telepathy and the final dregs of her strength, she destroyed those that had wronged her and anyone else that got in her way. It was easy, pulling apart their feeble minds, and she loved it. Sadistic perhaps, but she didn’t care. A thirst for violence is an acquired taste, but Marlena would happily drink her life away.

When she was done, Marlena stumbled into the night, near-dead and exhausted in a country who’s language she’d only just learnt and who’s people wanted her dead. It was the Rostek’s who found her, frozen and bleeding, and Marlena was healed up by Isadora Rozovsky. From then on she knew she belonged, a group of like-minded Vilas together against the human race, and Marlena’s telepathy and brutality make her a vital asset to the Rosteks.

THE CHARACTER

Kind, gentle and serene are not words used to describe Marlena Morozova. She’d sooner cut the tongue out of the whoever uttered those words alongside her name. Ruthless, merciless and fearless are more apt. Marlena prides herself on cunning and efficiency in what she does; offend or dismiss her and she’ll wait until you’re at your most vulnerable to strike. Friendliness isn’t necessarily in her nature, though she has a sarcastic if not painfully blunt sense of humour. An undeniably haunted young woman, Marlena has mastered the art of deception and destruction, praying on people’s deepest fears and projecting them back when she interrogates. Her recklessness is her weakness, and Marlena often pushes the boundaries to not only see what she can do, but also what she can get in return.

CONNECTIONS

Isadora Muratovna Rozovsky - The first Rostek Marlena came into contact with. The woman healed her, recruited her to the Rostek cause- not that it required much convincing. Marlena has a respect for Isadora she doesn’t necessarily have for others, and though she’d never say it aloud, Marlena is beyond thankful for Isadora’s healing hands, and would likely lay her life on the line for the woman that saved not only her body, but gave Marlena a purpose in her otherwise futile life.

Boris Mihailovich Polzin - Marlena had looked to Boris as some sort of comfort when she’d first arrived with the Rosteks, though the only thing she knew they had in common was that they could both speak Spanish. That was good enough for Marlena for a while, though she developed a new appreciation for the man when he sold her drugs, the woman using stimulants in an attempt to keep exhaustion taking a hold.

Marko Aleksovich Yelchin - He’s too fucking happy. It grates on Marlena, the optimism and laughter and just general upbeat persona. He’s not her kind of person, and she highly doubts she’s his. Opposites attract, and she’ll not deny she likes his appearance. But that still doesn’t mean Marlena won’t take his happiness and squash it, using whatever means necessary.

Natalia Pavelovna Lazareva - Marlena will have whatever Natalia is having; the woman encompasses everything Marlena aspires to be. Cold, merciless steel- with power too. Marlena has goals and ambitions, even if they are somewhat twisted, and Natalia’s right where Marlena would love to be. For Marlena the lines between envy and admiration are blurred when it comes to the right hand.

[[ More Connections ]]

ETC

Marlena has never fought with a weapon much larger than a knife, relying entirely on her telepathy to break her enemies down bit by bit. Be it shifting memories, projecting thoughts, or destroying them completely, Marlena has mastered telepathy and makes a dangerous opponent.

Having never been given the chance until now- be it due to lack of funds, housing or time- Marlena has found an insatiable love for clothes. Always well-dressed and impeccable in her appearance, Marlena has expensive taste.

She prefers her addictions to be stimulants, taking anything from amphetamine and cocaine to a simple cup of coffee or a cigarette. A woman who never really stops, Marlena finds herself relying more and more on substances to keep her on form.

Marlena doesn’t like cheese unless it’s on pizza or pasta, and there’s a good chance she’s lactose intolerant.

All Marlena wants now that she has a stable home within the Rostek manor is a dog. She loves dogs, though would quite happily kill anyone she sees mistreating an animal- no matter what the species.

#adria arjona fc #crime rpg #original rpg #lsrpg #rpg #c: marlena #marlena #closed #closedf #closedr #female #rostek #all #oc #connection: natalia #connection: marko #connection: boris #connection: isadora #telepathy

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perfectackeracy · 8 years ago

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considering what you've already written on the topic of eren's behavior during chapter 84 up until recently; what do you think of him as a character in general?

Eh, I’ll give my judgement when the story will be over. He is the main character after all and I feel like giving a judgement now would be too premature, despite us nearing the end of the manga. I’ve got the beginning but the end is absolutely necessary for me to answer your question properly.

Still, if you want something partial, but still long, follow me under the cut (too bad for mobile users because screw the interface right).

It truly depends of how Isayama writes him at the end, if he really intended him to be some normie who tried to be a hero and change things, but failed, or… something else. Indeed, the end heavily relies of what’s presented to us at the beginning:

“No… But I feel like I just had the longest dream.. What was it? Now I can’t remember…” - Ch.1

Flashback? Future vision? We all thought till chapter 89 came that future vision was bull. It took a whole chapter to suddenly invert the perspective. While there isn’t many chapters left, there’s still facts that are going to pop up that might suddenly change our perception of the characters forever.

…Just like mine with Eren in chapter 84.

I’d actually like the normie one because it would fit what Eren did at the beginning: joining the Survey Corps on a whim because he hates being confined and ended up inheriting a power considered absolute, realizing he made a huge mistake from the start.

It seems Isayama, who previously had a vague idea of what he wanted to do with him, found something more defined. If I recall correctly he felt inspired by Yuki Kaiji, the voice actor from Eren. He even told Araki to make him more pathetic than in the original manga, implying Eren was never meant to be the literal version of a hero, a character with admirable traits.

Usually, the typical shônen protagonist is a character who has a dream, since they were little and do almost anything in order to accomplish it, whether it is becoming the strongest, becoming somebody important, solving a mystery, finding somebody from your life who has gone missing, etc… Their personality vary from manga to manga, but it’s often the cheerful teenager, naive or hot-blooded, capable of being a simpleton due to his lack of experience but also the one who motivates people, is surrounded by his nakama and clashes with rivals and enemies.

The vengeful protagonist also exists, but they’re mostly present in dark shônen or shônen trying to deal with more mature themes without being labeled as a seinen. Eren registers in this category, while building the development of a typical shônen protagonist without exhibiting its qualities: he’s not full of dream and ambition, something a shônen MC should inspire in the heart of young boys. Instead, he’s described as being selfish, having a complex or no ambition at all.

As extra evidence, his highschool AU describes him as the frustrated normie who’s annoyed “in one way or another”. The fake preview from volume 22 describes him as neither belonging to the nerds or the jocks nor having any dreams or interests (it’s interesting how the formulation here ends in “もない” on the three sentences of the description, almost as if Eren meant nothing), despite the wannabe’s reputation being neutral. That’s kinda sad when you think about it actually, because at his core, he really needs to fuel his blank state.

Still, Isayama doesn’t make him wander around aimlessly in the canon storyline and managed to give him a purpose. He strangely carries themes like the Chosen One because people, specifically Grisha imposed that on him. Carla called her son special for the sole reason he was born into this world, that every human who sees the light of the day is considered special.

Because he was frustrated about “Humanity’s submission against the titans”, that’s what prompted him to step out and defy the “imposed slavery” on him. He wasn’t always like that, though. Meeting and knowing Armin triggered that complex about him lacking ambition.

Eren and Armin meeting for the first time - Ch. 83

When he first met Armin, he befriended him fairly quickly because of their status as outcasts. Eren already showed signs of not belonging to the other kids, probably because he had trouble sharing the same interests as them and also because he gets irritated quickly and gets into fights to shut them up. Funnily enough, those panels show the first signs of Eren’s prevalent traits: fighting back and beating them or else you’re a loser.

“I had never thought about what was beyond the walls until then… I’d only spent my days looking at the clouds in the sky. Not that it’s anything strange for a kid eight or nine years old to not be thinking about anything… but then you came running to me with a book. Both of us were outcasts, not able to get along with the other kids in town. That’s all we were back then. But when I heard you telling me those things… and I saw the look in your eyes. That’s when I knew for the first time. I wasn’t free. I noticed that I had been living in a birdcage for all this time. And that these freakish things had taken my freedom. The world was so big, but they’d forced me into a tiny cage. And when I realized that… I knew I could never forgive them.” - Ch.73

It wasn’t so much about the ocean or the contents of the outside world Eren was motivated for. Because he was aimlessly starting at the sky, he couldn’t believe someone like Armin could conceive something like… ambition. That’s why Eren was intrigued by the look in his eyes. And because the titans were actually obstacles to his personal space, he held a grudge against them. They were in the way, they were giant-sized bullies, they have to be removed.

Eren’s character song actually fist up nicely with his character: “男はロマンだぜ！たけだ君っ“ by Shinsei Kamattechan (lyrics and translation here) illustrates somebody talking to a certain Takeda, who prompts him to disobey his parents and do whatever they want because they’re free, despite them being children (the song talks about spending money carelessly and buying cigarettes). Eren being either one of the kids, wants his taste of freedom without having any authority telling him not to do it.

“From the day we’re born, there was something special about all of us: we’re free” - Ch. 73

Needless to say, I think that attitude and that grudge against the titans pushed him to idolize the Survey Corps and eventually join them. Because they went as far as destroying his district, making him swear extermination on every person responsible.

Then there was his meeting with Mikasa.

“You see Eren, that attitude is why you only have one friend.” - Ch. 5

Here we have yet Eren’s “normie” attitude demonstrated when it comes to Grisha asking him to get familiar with Mikasa. But then, he certainly wans’t expecting corpses.

Eren ready to begin the chase - Ch. 5

I tend to see this chapter as Eren being triggered by seeing dead bodies on the floor. Him seeing Mikasa’s parents being brutally murdered tingled his sense of justice and frustration: “How dare they kill people? This if worthy of the death penalty and I’m going to inflict that to them!”. The way he got close to these bandits is almost as scary as what they were planning to do with Mikasa: he’s approaching the first one by acting like an innocent child with clear murder intent (He’s supposed to be 9!!!). He then proceeds to pin down the second one before repeatedly stabbing himself over and over.

“I stopped dangerous beasts!! They only happened to resemble humans!! If you hadn’t come here, they would have been gone by the time the military police brigade had arrived!! The MPs wouldn’t have made it in time!!” - Ch. 5

Notice how the justification he brings to kill them is because they reduced themselves to low beasts who kill people, and as beasts, it’s “only natural” they deserve a death penalty. Besides, Eren is motivating Mikasa using the same logic he used for Armin: fight or you’re a complete loser.

Eren “teaching” Mikasa - Ch. 5

Needless to say that Eren wasn’t opposed to let Mikasa live in his house. He came to realize years later his attitude towards the bandits was pure impulse, as he gets lectured by Reiner about the meaning of being a soldier in chapter 17.

In the very first chapter of the series, every trait I’ve mentioned till there transpires into his motivation into joining the Survey Corps, so he wouldn’t live as a “caged animal” any longer. He gets upset when people are talking trash about them because he truly believed they were doing it for great justice. And that day, when the wall has been breached, it just so happens that Eren had a weird dream when he was crying and it was finally the day where Grisha showed him the basement. That day truly changed his life, for the best or the worst.

“I hate the idea of spending my whole life… inside the wall, ignorant of what’s happening in the world outside!!” - Ch. 1

But of course, this “outside” serves mostly as an excuse to give him more space. As he declared later: “They’re our lives! we can do whatever we want with them, right?”

When Shiganshina fell, Eren made his vow to kill every single titan left. During that time, he punched Hannes for preventing him from saving his mom. What was interesting is that piece of flashback before scrolling back to present.

“I’ll never be able… to go home again. Up to the end, all I could do was argue and be stubborn! Mom’s gone!! I’m never gonna see her again… Why is this happening to us? Is it because humans are weak? Is crying the only thing the weak can do?! I’m gonna destroy them!! Every last one… of those animals… that’s on this Earth!” - Ch. 2

The night when Shiganshina has fallen was the night where Grisha passed his titan power to Eren. The part where Grisha stated two contradictory statements in relation with chapter 89.

“Eren, get revenge for your mother. You can do it.” - Ch. 71

“Eren… never let this key… out of your sight. And everytime you look at it… remember… that you have to go to the basement room. The injection will cause damage to your memory… That’s why I can’t explain this to you now… but when you go to the basement room someday, you’ll learn the truth… it will be a hard and merciless road… but you have to recapture Wall Maria and get to that room. The power I’m giving you will be useful then. Their memories will teach you how to use it… if you want to save Mikasa… Armin… and everyone else… you’ll have to… control this power!” - Ch. 10

“Dad… Stop it! Dad! What are you doing?! You’ve been acting crazy since mom died!!”, “Eren!! Hold out your arm!” - Ch. 3

“You will be the one… to avenge your mother!!”, “Okay“ - Ch. 63

This moment was really hard to piece out together because what was thought as a contradiction became a succession of events where Grisha scared his son with the shifter power talk, but riled back him for a short while by settling him as one one who will avenge his mom. Earlier, Grisha made his mind and picked him as the legitimate successor of the Attack Titan. Thanks to chapter 89, it may have been inevitable. In this scene, he went from a sorrowful expression to an angry one, almost swapping memories for a brief instant like what happened with Kruger. In any case he burdened Eren with his shifter power and the Coordinate, thus making him bare probably the biggest sin going by Ymir’s curse.

Because of that, his whole life changed. So did Eldians’.

The next segment is about Eren joining the military, two years after working in a settlement. This is the time where his attitude sort of... changed.

Eren trying to let his will of dominance pushing him forward - Ch. 15

Chronologically, starting from that point, Eren uses “we” when talking about Humanity. Mostly because, as stated by his dialogue in chapter, he believes in unity against a common enemy. He settled the titans as the enemy “humanity” was supposed to defeat, despite him quickly meeting, and clashing with people who didn’t agree with that notion: it started with Hannes not taking his job seriously, then Jean who outright admitted he’d rather live a comfy life inside the walls. Even much later in chapter 72, when Eren mentions that spirit of unity, Armin internally disagrees by thinking about his bullies.

Eren’s world was mostly an ideal one, where you loop the first opening of the anime and have humanity fighting against the titans, forgetting not every single human is motivated by rage: Mikasa is fine with living with Eren in a quaint place, Levi “the hero” is mostly motivated by Erwin, Jean wanted and comfy life among the MP, people have a very negative opinion of the SC in general, Ymir doesn’t mind living her life for herself despite knowing much more about what’s happening than Eren does...

His biggest obstacle was the first step for 3DMG training, where Keith sabotaged the equipment on purpose. For the first time, Eren felt like his goal just evaporated in the air, with everybody mocking him for it, followed by an argument with Mikasa, who’s trying to dissuade him:

“You shouldn’t set your sights on that anyway. If you’re not cut for it, what can you do? Because at this rate, you’re just going to die in vain. And all your dreams and efforts will be for nothing. I’m saying you shouldn’t aim to be a soldier. You can always support the human race by being a producer. Laying down your life isn’t the only way to fight. [...] ...Your resolve has nothing to do with it. It’s not your decision whether you get to be a soldier, Eren...” - Ch. 16

Eventually, nothing worked. Eren still wants to pass the 3DMG exam. While talking to Reiner and Bertolt, he declares his will to kill the titans is a need he personally feels: becoming a soldier is a way to achieve this. I’m sure he’d find another way out if he can’t pass the exams, mostly because he has nothing left to make him move.

Parts of his personality have been shaped later by Reiner and Annie: Reiner about the solider mumbo-jumbo, Annie because of her techniques aiming to defeat people quickly. He demonstrated these two aspects during his fight with Jean (with Annie and Reiner even looking!).

“...I see... he was... just venting his feelings. Like I did before... but I’m different now... I’m... a soldier! [...] I’ll use my skills to finish this.” - Ch. 17

The most important part of his training is reserved for hand-to-hand techniques, skills proving themselves to be really useful once Eren shifts to a titan. Seems Annie was really insistent on teaching Eren these techniques as soon as he reminded her of her father, because Eren’s reality was just as misplaced as his. You can see that insistence if you connect chapter 17 and chapter 44 together.

I think I’d rather break this analysis into several parts because it’s getting way too long. Eren faced different trials in Trost, during the FT arc and so on, where he had to deal with huge losses, traitors, the hard truth and eventually, the coordinate settling in.

#eren yeager #snk meta #snk analysis #snk #attack on titan #ackerate answers #anon #eren #tl;dr it can't give a concrete answer if the story isn't finished yet #plus fishing eren from A to Z is tedious work #that requires me to read the whole manga again #meta #analysis

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cover2covermom · 5 years ago

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Today I am sharing my favorite reads of 2019! I read 130 books in 2019, so narrowing down my list to only 10 books was not going to happen #SorryNotSorry

Here are my favorite 24 books of 2019….

» The Winter of the Witch (Winternight #3) by Katherine Arden

Now Moscow has been struck by disaster. Its people are searching for answers—and for someone to blame. Vasya finds herself alone, beset on all sides. The Grand Prince is in a rage, choosing allies that will lead him on a path to war and ruin. A wicked demon returns, stronger than ever and determined to spread chaos. Caught at the center of the conflict is Vasya, who finds the fate of two worlds resting on her shoulders. Her destiny uncertain, Vasya will uncover surprising truths about herself and her history as she desperately tries to save Russia, Morozko, and the magical world she treasures. But she may not be able to save them all.

The Winter of the Witch was the perfect conclusion to the Winternight Trilogy. The Winternight Trilogy really has it all: political intrigue, Russian folklore, magic, action, adventure, a bad ass leading lady… I cannot recommend this series enough.

You can read my mini review here ⇒ Mini Book Review: Winter of the Witch

» The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey

Alaska, 1920: a brutal place to homestead, and especially tough for recent arrivals Jack and Mabel. Childless, they are drifting apart–he breaking under the weight of the work of the farm; she crumbling from loneliness and despair. In a moment of levity during the season’s first snowfall, they build a child out of snow. The next morning the snow child is gone–but they glimpse a young, blonde-haired girl running through the trees. This little girl, who calls herself Faina, seems to be a child of the woods. She hunts with a red fox at her side, skims lightly across the snow, and somehow survives alone in the Alaskan wilderness. As Jack and Mabel struggle to understand this child who could have stepped from the pages of a fairy tale, they come to love her as their own daughter. But in this beautiful, violent place things are rarely as they appear, and what they eventually learn about Faina will transform all of them.

There was so much that I adored about this book: the beautiful writing, the characters, the plot inspired by Russian folklore, the magic realism elements, the frontier setting of 1920s Alaska…

You can read my mini review here ⇒ Mini Book Review: The Snow Child

» Moloka’i by Alan Brennert

This richly imagined novel, set in Hawai’i more than a century ago, is an extraordinary epic of a little-known time and place—and a deeply moving testament to the resiliency of the human spirit.

Rachel Kalama, a spirited seven-year-old Hawaiian girl, dreams of visiting far-off lands like her father, a merchant seaman. Then one day a rose-colored mark appears on her skin, and those dreams are stolen from her. Taken from her home and family, Rachel is sent to Kalaupapa, the quarantined leprosy settlement on the island of Moloka’i. Here her life is supposed to end—but instead she discovers it is only just beginning.

This book was absolutely heartbreaking on so many different levels. I cried on two different occasions while reading it, and I seldom cry while reading books.

Moloka’i included themes like family (traditional and nontraditional), friendship, freedom, hope, love, religion/faith (Christianity vs. Paganism), illness, loss, and grief. This book blew me away. I read it along with one of my book clubs, and every member enjoyed it.

You can read my mini review here ⇒ Mini Book Review: Moloka’i

» Circe by Madeline Miller

In the house of Helios, god of the sun and mightiest of the Titans, a daughter is born. But Circe is a strange child—not powerful, like her father, nor viciously alluring like her mother. Turning to the world of mortals for companionship, she discovers that she does possess power—the power of witchcraft, which can transform rivals into monsters and menace the gods themselves.

Threatened, Zeus banishes her to a deserted island, where she hones her occult craft, tames wild beasts and crosses paths with many of the most famous figures in all of mythology, including the Minotaur, Daedalus and his doomed son Icarus, the murderous Medea, and, of course, wily Odysseus.

But there is danger, too, for a woman who stands alone, and Circe unwittingly draws the wrath of both men and gods, ultimately finding herself pitted against one of the most terrifying and vengeful of the Olympians. To protect what she loves most, Circe must summon all her strength and choose, once and for all, whether she belongs with the gods she is born from, or the mortals she has come to love.

I adore how Madeline Miller weaves her Greek Mythology retellings. The more of Madeline’s retellings I read, the more I want to read Homer’s The Illiad & The Odyssey. Even though I have not read Homer’s books, from what I’ve researched, Miller stays true to the original story while creating an entirely new spin on the story. Honestly, I hope she will continue this trend because I will read every one she comes out with.

Circe includes themes like complicated family dynamics, mortality vs. immortality, sexism/gender inequality, destiny, motherhood, sex positivity, and love. I was engaged from beginning to end.

You can read my mini review here ⇒ Mini Book Review: Circe

» The Poppy War (The Poppy War #1) by R.F. Kuang

When Rin aced the Keju, the Empire-wide test to find the most talented youth to learn at the Academies, it was a shock to everyone: to the test officials, who couldn’t believe a war orphan from Rooster Province could pass without cheating; to Rin’s guardians, who believed they’d finally be able to marry her off and further their criminal enterprise; and to Rin herself, who realized she was finally free of the servitude and despair that had made up her daily existence. That she got into Sinegard, the most elite military school in Nikan, was even more surprising.

But surprises aren’t always good.

Because being a dark-skinned peasant girl from the south is not an easy thing at Sinegard. Targeted from the outset by rival classmates for her color, poverty, and gender, Rin discovers she possesses a lethal, unearthly power—an aptitude for the nearly-mythical art of shamanism. Exploring the depths of her gift with the help of a seemingly insane teacher and psychoactive substances, Rin learns that gods long thought dead are very much alive—and that mastering control over those powers could mean more than just surviving school.

For while the Nikara Empire is at peace, the Federation of Mugen still lurks across a narrow sea. The militarily advanced Federation occupied Nikan for decades after the First Poppy War, and only barely lost the continent in the Second. And while most of the people are complacent to go about their lives, a few are aware that a Third Poppy War is just a spark away . . .

Rin’s shamanic powers may be the only way to save her people. But as she finds out more about the god that has chosen her, the vengeful Phoenix, she fears that winning the war may cost her humanity . . . and that it may already be too late.

If I had to sum up The Poppy War in a few words, they would be epic, brutal, and morally gray. I flew through this book despite it being 544 pages! I cannot wait to get my hands on the second book next month.

You can read my mini review here ⇒ Mini Book Review: The Poppy War

» Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson

The first ten lies they tell you in high school.

“Speak up for yourself—we want to know what you have to say.”

From the first moment of her freshman year at Merryweather High, Melinda knows this is a big fat lie, part of the nonsense of high school. She is friendless, outcast, because she busted an end-of-summer party by calling the cops, so now nobody will talk to her, let alone listen to her. As time passes, she becomes increasingly isolated and practically stops talking altogether. Only her art class offers any solace, and it is through her work on an art project that she is finally able to face what really happened at that terrible party: she was raped by an upperclassman, a guy who still attends Merryweather and is still a threat to her. Her healing process has just begun when she has another violent encounter with him. But this time Melinda fights back, refuses to be silent, and thereby achieves a measure of vindication.

In Laurie Halse Anderson’s powerful novel, an utterly believable heroine with a bitterly ironic voice delivers a blow to the hypocritical world of high school. She speaks for many a disenfranchised teenager while demonstrating the importance of speaking up for oneself.

Speak was a 1999 National Book Award Finalist for Young People’s Literature.

Books that explore sexual assault victimization are so important, especially in the YA target age range, because they can inform, increases empathy, and challenge problematic rape culture. Speak needs to be required reading for all high school aged kids.

You can read my mini review here ⇒ Mini Book Review: Speak

» Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Everyone knows Daisy Jones & The Six, but nobody knows the reason behind their split at the absolute height of their popularity . . . until now.

Daisy is a girl coming of age in L.A. in the late sixties, sneaking into clubs on the Sunset Strip, sleeping with rock stars, and dreaming of singing at the Whisky a Go Go. The sex and drugs are thrilling, but it’s the rock and roll she loves most. By the time she’s twenty, her voice is getting noticed, and she has the kind of heedless beauty that makes people do crazy things.

Also getting noticed is The Six, a band led by the brooding Billy Dunne. On the eve of their first tour, his girlfriend Camila finds out she’s pregnant, and with the pressure of impending fatherhood and fame, Billy goes a little wild on the road.

Daisy and Billy cross paths when a producer realizes that the key to supercharged success is to put the two together. What happens next will become the stuff of legend.

The making of that legend is chronicled in this riveting and unforgettable novel, written as an oral history of one of the biggest bands of the seventies. Taylor Jenkins Reid is a talented writer who takes her work to a new level with Daisy Jones & The Six, brilliantly capturing a place and time in an utterly distinctive voice.

I know this book has very mixed reviews due to its format, but I LOVED this book. Since Daisy Jones and the Six is told in interview format from many different characters, many people were turned off. Since I knew this was the format going into the book, this read like a classic rock band documentary playing out in my mind. This book was meant for TV or film adaptation.

You can read my mini book review here ⇒ Mini Book Review: Daisy Jones and the Six

» The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin

As surprising as it is moving, The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry is an unforgettable tale of transformation and second chances, an irresistible affirmation of why we read, and why we love.

We are not quite novels.

We are not quite short stories.

In the end, we are collected works.

A. J. Fikry’s life is not at all what he expected it to be. His wife has died; his bookstore is experiencing the worst sales in its history; and now his prized possession, a rare collection of Poe poems, has been stolen. Slowly but surely, he is isolating himself from all the people of Alice Island—from Chief Lambiase, the well-intentioned police officer who’s always felt kindly toward him; from Ismay, his sister-in-law, who is hell-bent on saving A.J. from his dreary self; from Amelia, the lovely and idealistic (if eccentric) Knightley Press sales rep who persists in taking the ferry to Alice Island, refusing to be deterred by A.J.’s bad attitude. Even the books in his store have stopped holding pleasure for him. These days, he can only see them as a sign of a world that is changing too rapidly.

And then a mysterious package appears at the bookstore. It’s a small package, though large in weight—an unexpected arrival that gives A.J. the opportunity to make his life over, the ability to see everything anew. It doesn’t take long for the locals to notice the change overcoming A.J., for the determined sales rep Amelia to see her curmudgeonly client in a new light, for the wisdom of all those books to become again the lifeblood of A.J.’s world. Or for everything to twist again into a version of his life that he didn’t see coming.

What bookworm doesn’t love a story about books, bookstores, and the people that love books? The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry was heartwarming, funny, and emotional. I’d recommend this book to fans of quirky characters & fans of books like A Man Called Ove.

This made for an excellent book club discussion with the moral dilemmas in the story.

You can read my mini book review here ⇒ Mini Book Review: The Storied Life of AJ Fikrey

» With the Fire on High by Elizabeth Acevedo

With her daughter to care for and her abuela to help support, high school senior Emoni Santiago has to make the tough decisions, and do what must be done. The one place she can let her responsibilities go is in the kitchen, where she adds a little something magical to everything she cooks, turning her food into straight-up goodness. Still, she knows she doesn’t have enough time for her school’s new culinary arts class, doesn’t have the money for the class’s trip to Spain — and shouldn’t still be dreaming of someday working in a real kitchen. But even with all the rules she has for her life — and all the rules everyone expects her to play by — once Emoni starts cooking, her only real choice is to let her talent break free.

I adored Elizabeth Acevedo’s debut novel, The Poet X, so I was very excited to read her next book. I listened to her first book via audiobook, and fell in love with the author’s narration. I chose to listen to Fire on High via audiobook as well. I loved this one just as much as her first! Elizabeth Acevedo has a beautiful way with words & I adore her characters & plotlines. I typically stray away from YA contemporary, but I’ll read anything Acevedo writes!

You can read my mini book review here ⇒ Mini Book Review: With the Fire On High

» The Read-Aloud Handbook by Jim Trelease

Recommended by “Dear Abby”, The New York Times and The Washington Post, for three decades, millions of parents and educators have turned to Jim Trelease’s beloved classic to help countless children become avid readers through awakening their imaginations and improving their language skills. Now this new edition of The Read-Aloud Handbook imparts the benefits, rewards, and importance of reading aloud to children of a new generation. Supported by delightful anecdotes as well as the latest research, The Read-Aloud Handbook offers proven techniques and strategies—and the reasoning behind them—for helping children discover the pleasures of reading and setting them on the road to becoming lifelong readers.

The Read-Aloud Family is about the the reasoning and the research/evidence behind why you should be reading aloud with your children. Since childhood literacy is a passion of mine, this book was absolutely fascinating! This book should be read by all parents, educators, and librarians!

You can read my mini book review here ⇒ Mini Book Review: The Read-Aloud Handbook

» Red Sister (Book of the Ancestor #1) by Mark Lawrence

I was born for killing – the gods made me to ruin.

At the Convent of Sweet Mercy young girls are raised to be killers. In a few the old bloods show, gifting talents rarely seen since the tribes beached their ships on Abeth. Sweet Mercy hones its novices’ skills to deadly effect: it takes ten years to educate a Red Sister in the ways of blade and fist.

But even the mistresses of sword and shadow don’t truly understand what they have purchased when Nona Grey is brought to their halls as a bloodstained child of eight, falsely accused of murder: guilty of worse.

Stolen from the shadow of the noose, Nona is sought by powerful enemies, and for good reason. Despite the security and isolation of the convent her secret and violent past will find her out. Beneath a dying sun that shines upon a crumbling empire, Nona Grey must come to terms with her demons and learn to become a deadly assassin if she is to survive…

From the very first line, I was completely captivated by Red Sister. The characters are complex. The world is well developed and fascinating. The plot was fast paced, action-packed, and an adventure from start to finish. This book has everything I love in my fantasy books: bad ass leading lady, action, magic abilities, school/training setting, political drama, and an emphasis on friendships.

You can read my mini book review here ⇒ Mini Book Review: Red Sister

» A Game of Thrones (A Song of Fire and Ice #1) by George R.R. Martin

Here is the first volume in George R. R. Martin’s magnificent cycle of novels that includes A Clash of Kings and A Storm of Swords. As a whole, this series comprises a genuine masterpiece of modern fantasy, bringing together the best the genre has to offer. Magic, mystery, intrigue, romance, and adventure fill these pages and transport us to a world unlike any we have ever experienced. Already hailed as a classic, George R. R. Martin’s stunning series is destined to stand as one of the great achievements of imaginative fiction.

A GAME OF THRONES

Long ago, in a time forgotten, a preternatural event threw the seasons out of balance. In a land where summers can last decades and winters a lifetime, trouble is brewing. The cold is returning, and in the frozen wastes to the north of Winterfell, sinister and supernatural forces are massing beyond the kingdom’s protective Wall. At the center of the conflict lie the Starks of Winterfell, a family as harsh and unyielding as the land they were born to. Sweeping from a land of brutal cold to a distant summertime kingdom of epicurean plenty, here is a tale of lords and ladies, soldiers and sorcerers, assassins and bastards, who come together in a time of grim omens.

Here an enigmatic band of warriors bear swords of no human metal; a tribe of fierce wildlings carry men off into madness; a cruel young dragon prince barters his sister to win back his throne; and a determined woman undertakes the most treacherous of journeys. Amid plots and counterplots, tragedy and betrayal, victory and terror, the fate of the Starks, their allies, and their enemies hangs perilously in the balance, as each endeavors to win that deadliest of conflicts: the game of thrones.

Game of Thrones is full of action, adventure, humor, political intrigue, plot twists, and lots of death. I was completely engrossed in this book from start to finish. I cannot wait to read the rest of the books in this series!

You can read my mini book review here ⇒ Mini Book Review: A Game of Thrones

» The Library Book by Susan Orlean

On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. As the moments passed, the patrons and staff who had been cleared out of the building realized this was not the usual fire alarm. As one fireman recounted, “Once that first stack got going, it was ‘Goodbye, Charlie.’” The fire was disastrous: it reached 2000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. By the time it was extinguished, it had consumed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more. Investigators descended on the scene, but more than thirty years later, the mystery remains: Did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who?

Weaving her lifelong love of books and reading into an investigation of the fire, award-winning New Yorker reporter and New York Times bestselling author Susan Orlean delivers a mesmerizing and uniquely compelling book that manages to tell the broader story of libraries and librarians in a way that has never been done before.

In The Library Book, Orlean chronicles the LAPL fire and its aftermath to showcase the larger, crucial role that libraries play in our lives; delves into the evolution of libraries across the country and around the world, from their humble beginnings as a metropolitan charitable initiative to their current status as a cornerstone of national identity; brings each department of the library to vivid life through on-the-ground reporting; studies arson and attempts to burn a copy of a book herself; reflects on her own experiences in libraries; and reexamines the case of Harry Peak, the blond-haired actor long suspected of setting fire to the LAPL more than thirty years ago.

Along the way, Orlean introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters from libraries past and present—from Mary Foy, who in 1880 at eighteen years old was named the head of the Los Angeles Public Library at a time when men still dominated the role, to Dr. C.J.K. Jones, a pastor, citrus farmer, and polymath known as “The Human Encyclopedia” who roamed the library dispensing information; from Charles Lummis, a wildly eccentric journalist and adventurer who was determined to make the L.A. library one of the best in the world, to the current staff, who do heroic work every day to ensure that their institution remains a vital part of the city it serves.

Brimming with her signature wit, insight, compassion, and talent for deep research, The Library Book is Susan Orlean’s thrilling journey through the stacks that reveals how these beloved institutions provide much more than just books—and why they remain an essential part of the heart, mind, and soul of our country. It is also a master journalist’s reminder that, perhaps especially in the digital era, they are more necessary than ever.

The Library Book is an ode to libraries, and how they are such an important staple in a community.

You can read my mini book review here ⇒ Mini Book Review: The Library Book

» The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

Alaska, 1974. Unpredictable. Unforgiving. Untamed. For a family in crisis, the ultimate test of survival.

Ernt Allbright, a former POW, comes home from the Vietnam war a changed and volatile man. When he loses yet another job, he makes an impulsive decision: he will move his family north, to Alaska, where they will live off the grid in America’s last true frontier.

Thirteen-year-old Leni, a girl coming of age in a tumultuous time, caught in the riptide of her parents’ passionate, stormy relationship, dares to hope that a new land will lead to a better future for her family. She is desperate for a place to belong. Her mother, Cora, will do anything and go anywhere for the man she loves, even if it means following him into the unknown.

At first, Alaska seems to be the answer to their prayers. In a wild, remote corner of the state, they find a fiercely independent community of strong men and even stronger women. The long, sunlit days and the generosity of the locals make up for the Allbrights’ lack of preparation and dwindling resources.

But as winter approaches and darkness descends on Alaska, Ernt’s fragile mental state deteriorates and the family begins to fracture. Soon the perils outside pale in comparison to threats from within. In their small cabin, covered in snow, blanketed in eighteen hours of night, Leni and her mother learn the terrible truth: they are on their own. In the wild, there is no one to save them but themselves.

In this unforgettable portrait of human frailty and resilience, Kristin Hannah reveals the indomitable character of the modern American pioneer and the spirit of a vanishing Alaska―a place of incomparable beauty and danger. The Great Alone is a daring, beautiful, stay-up-all-night story about love and loss, the fight for survival, and the wildness that lives in both man and nature

This book was a roller coaster of emotion & heavy topics. Themes included in The Great Alone include survival, coming of age, PTSD, domestic violence, family, & resilience.

You can read my mini review here ⇒ Mini Book Review: The Great Alone

» The Dragon Republic (The Poppy War #2) by R.F. Kuang

The searing follow-up to 2018’s most celebrated fantasy debut – THE POPPY WAR.

In the aftermath of the Third Poppy War, shaman and warrior Rin is on the run: haunted by the atrocity she committed to end the war, addicted to opium, and hiding from the murderous commands of her vengeful god, the fiery Phoenix. Her only reason for living is to get revenge on the traitorous Empress who sold out Nikan to their enemies.

With no other options, Rin joins forces with the powerful Dragon Warlord, who has a plan to conquer Nikan, unseat the Empress, and create a new Republic. Rin throws herself into his war. After all, making war is all she knows how to do.

But the Empress is a more powerful foe than she appears, and the Dragon Warlord’s motivations are not as democratic as they seem. The more Rin learns, the more she fears her love for Nikan will drive her away from every ally and lead her to rely more and more on the Phoenix’s deadly power. Because there is nothing she won’t sacrifice for her country and her vengeance.

The sequel to R.F. Kuang’s acclaimed debut THE POPPY WAR, THE DRAGON REPUBLIC combines the history of 20th-century China with a gripping world of gods and monsters, to devastating effect.

I’m happy to report that there was no second book syndrome for this epic series! The Dragon Republic was an excellent follow up to The Poppy War.

You can read my mini book review here ⇒ Mini Book Review: The Dragon Republic

» Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga

I am learning how to be sad and happy at the same time.

Jude never thought she’d be leaving her beloved older brother and father behind, all the way across the ocean in Syria. But when things in her hometown start becoming volatile, Jude and her mother are sent to live in Cincinnati with relatives.

At first, everything in America seems too fast and too loud. The American movies that Jude has always loved haven’t quite prepared her for starting school in the US—and her new label of “Middle Eastern,” an identity she’s never known before. But this life also brings unexpected surprises—there are new friends, a whole new family, and a school musical that Jude might just try out for. Maybe America, too, is a place where Jude can be seen as she really is.

This is such an important middle grade book because it deals with a refugee experience with mild tones of Islamophobia. Warga handles these topics with care & authenticity

You can read my mini book review here ⇒ Mini Book Review: Other Words for Home

» Heroine by Mindy McGinnis

An Amazon Best Book of the Month! A captivating and powerful exploration of the opioid crisis—the deadliest drug epidemic in American history—through the eyes of a college-bound softball star. Edgar Award-winning author Mindy McGinnis delivers a visceral and necessary novel about addiction, family, friendship, and hope.

When a car crash sidelines Mickey just before softball season, she has to find a way to hold on to her spot as the catcher for a team expected to make a historic tournament run. Behind the plate is the only place she’s ever felt comfortable, and the painkillers she’s been prescribed can help her get there.

The pills do more than take away pain; they make her feel good.

With a new circle of friends—fellow injured athletes, others with just time to kill—Mickey finds peaceful acceptance, and people with whom words come easily, even if it is just the pills loosening her tongue.

But as the pressure to be Mickey Catalan heightens, her need increases, and it becomes less about pain and more about want, something that could send her spiraling out of control.

This book is one the best portrayals of drug addiction that I’ve ever read. It was raw, gritty, and deeply unsettling.

You can read my mini book review here ⇒ Mini Book Review: Heroine

» The Ten Thousand Doors of January by Alix E. Harrow

In the early 1900s, a young woman embarks on a fantastical journey of self-discovery after finding a mysterious book in this captivating and lyrical debut.

In a sprawling mansion filled with peculiar treasures, January Scaller is a curiosity herself. As the ward of the wealthy Mr. Locke, she feels little different from the artifacts that decorate the halls: carefully maintained, largely ignored, and utterly out of place.

Then she finds a strange book. A book that carries the scent of other worlds, and tells a tale of secret doors, of love, adventure and danger. Each page turn reveals impossible truths about the world and January discovers a story increasingly entwined with her own.

Lush and richly imagined, a tale of impossible journeys, unforgettable love, and the enduring power of stories awaits in Alix E. Harrow’s spellbinding debut–step inside and discover its magic.

I adored this heartwarming story of love, grief, and perseverance.

» Brave by Svetlana Chmakova

In his daydreams, Jensen is the biggest hero that ever was, saving the world and his friends on a daily basis. But his middle school reality is VERY different – math is hard, getting along with friends is hard…Even finding a partner for the class project is a big problem when you always get picked last. And the pressure’s on even more once the school newspaper’s dynamic duo, Jenny and Akilah, draw Jensen into the whirlwind of school news, social experiment projects, and behind-the-scenes club drama. Jensen’s always played the middle school game one level at a time, but suddenly, someone’s cranked up the difficulty setting. Will those daring daydreams of his finally work in his favor, or will he have to find real solutions to his real life problems?

The charming world of Berrybrook Middle School gets a little bigger in this highly anticipated follow up to Svetlana Chmakova’s award winning Awkward with a story about a boy who learns his own way of being Brave!

LOVED this graphic novel from the illustrations to the story. A wonderful depiction of the struggles of middle school.

» Emily of New Moon (Emily #1), Emily Climbs (Emily #2), &

Emily’s Quest (Emily #3) by L.M. Montgomery

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Emily Starr never knew what it was to be lonely — until her beloved father died. Now Emily’s an orphan, and her mother’s snobbish relatives are taking her to live with them at New Moon Farm. She’s sure she won’t be happy. Emily deals with stiff, stern Aunt Elizabeth and her malicious classmates by holding her head high and using her quick wit. Things begin to change when she makes friends: with Teddy, who does marvelous drawings; with Perry, who’s sailed all over the world with his father yet has never been to school; and above all, with Ilse, a tomboy with a blazing temper. Amazingly, Emily finds New Moon beautiful and fascinating. With new friends and adventures, Emily might someday think of herself as Emily of New Moon.

If you enjoyed Anne of Green Gables, you’ll enjoy this series too!

» Educated by Tara Westover

Tara Westover was 17 the first time she set foot in a classroom. Born to survivalists in the mountains of Idaho, she prepared for the end of the world by stockpiling home-canned peaches and sleeping with her “head-for-the-hills bag”. In the summer she stewed herbs for her mother, a midwife and healer, and in the winter she salvaged in her father’s junkyard.

Her father forbade hospitals, so Tara never saw a doctor or nurse. Gashes and concussions, even burns from explosions, were all treated at home with herbalism. The family was so isolated from mainstream society that there was no one to ensure the children received an education and no one to intervene when one of Tara’s older brothers became violent.

Then, lacking any formal education, Tara began to educate herself. She taught herself enough mathematics and grammar to be admitted to Brigham Young University, where she studied history, learning for the first time about important world events like the Holocaust and the civil rights movement. Her quest for knowledge transformed her, taking her over oceans and across continents, to Harvard and to Cambridge. Only then would she wonder if she’d traveled too far, if there was still a way home.

Educated is an account of the struggle for self-invention. It is a tale of fierce family loyalty and of the grief that comes with severing the closest of ties. With the acute insight that distinguishes all great writers, Westover has crafted a universal coming-of-age story that gets to the heart of what an education is and what it offers: the perspective to see one’s life through new eyes and the will to change it.

This memoir was absolutely heartbreaking & horrifying. Educated makes for a perfect book club selection.

» All-American Muslim Girl by Nadine Jolie Courtney

Allie Abraham has it all going for her—she’s a straight-A student, with good friends and a close-knit family, and she’s dating cute, popular, and sweet Wells Henderson. One problem: Wells’s father is Jack Henderson, America’s most famous conservative shock jock…and Allie hasn’t told Wells that her family is Muslim. It’s not like Allie’s religion is a secret, exactly. It’s just that her parents don’t practice and raised her to keep her Islamic heritage to herself. But as Allie witnesses ever-growing Islamophobia in her small town and across the nation, she begins to embrace her faith—studying it, practicing it, and facing hatred and misunderstanding for it. Who is Allie, if she sheds the façade of the “perfect” all-American girl? What does it mean to be a “Good Muslim?” And can a Muslim girl in America ever truly fit in?

ALL-AMERICAN MUSLIM GIRL is a relevant, relatable story of being caught between two worlds, and the struggles and hard-won joys of finding your place.

This was a beautiful coming-of-age story about a girl that is struggling with her identity and feels the need to hide her true self. I loved the growth of the main character, Allie, from start to finish. I also think this book does a beautiful job of laying out what Islam is, and what it isn’t.

Did you read any of the books on my list? If so, what did you think?

What are some of your favorite books of 2019?

Comment below & let me know 🙂

Favorite Books of 2019 #BookBlogger #Bookworm #Bibliophile #Books #Reading Today I am sharing my favorite reads of 2019! I read 130 books in 2019, so narrowing down my list to only 10 books was not going to happen #SorryNotSorry…

#Am Reading #Bibliophile #book blog #book blogger #Book Chat #Book Nerd #Book Talk #Book Worm #Bookish #Books #Bookworm #Reading

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thall49nonfictionproject · 6 years ago

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White Trash and Proud?

When I think of stereotypes I think of white trash, trailer trash, Okie or hick, and all that those stereotypical terms entail. These terms are all meant to degrade the person who they are being used on. “You see that piece of white trash over there, she will never have any class.” This is what my family was considered, at least some of them, and what I was considered growing up and into my adult years. We may have been less cultured, poorer, social outcasts as it were, but did this mean that we would never amount to anything other than being trash? If you asked the residents of small-town America who had the proverbial silver spoon in their mouth, that is exactly what it meant.

Really, it doesn’t help personifying the stereotypes by acting like trash as a teen; being a teenage mother and living in a trailer rounded out my trashy reputation. Working hard over the years to rise above this reputation, caring what others thought, but more so what I thought of myself was quite a challenge. So that snarky mouthed teenager that spewed curse words, bought clothes from Wal-Mart, and always got into fights turned her life around. Somewhat. Now she can use a few ten-dollar words, write a pretty decent story, and is traveling and planning her future after her college graduation. This is a feat that nobody every thought could be reached, and one that is to be celebrated, and rejoiced for some time to come.

Thinking about personal growth got me wondering about the growth in others and their views on “white trash culture” in the South, so I interviewed some people in my family about how they viewed “white trash” stereotypes, and how they in turn thought they were viewed.

First, we have my husband Jeremy, 37 who comes from a white middle-class family, his parents are still together, and he had an “ideal,” childhood. He has always held a job, does not like change, and is perfectly happy living in his hometown for the rest of his life.

Then my children Kristofer who is 24, and Taylor who is 21, who come from a lower to middle class Native American/Caucasian family, their dad passed away when they were 9 and 6, respectively, and they had a hard childhood being raised by a single mother.

Kristofer has suffered most of his life with bi-polar depression, anger issues, and has been in and out of therapists and mental health facilities. Kristofer has never had many friends at one time, struggled in school until he eventually dropped out and got his GED.

Taylor has not had to struggle with these same demons as his brother, he loved school, has many friends, and is an outgoing young man. He does seem to struggle with some self-esteem issues but is a generally well-rounded man.

Last buy no least, my nephew Benny is 17, and has been raised by several different people, his mother has never worked much, she has had many different partners in and out of her life, which mean they have been in and out of his life as well. Benny has had a rough time of his short life; he is currently living with me and he is doing just fine and turning into a fine young man.

All this personal information about my family is being told to reveal the different backgrounds and personalities of the people being interviewed.

Do you consider yourself or your family white trash, trailer trash, native trash?

Kris: No.

Jeremy: No.

Benny: My nuclear family.

Taylor: I do not consider my family trash.

Have you ever been called a derogatory name that means trashy, or lower class?

Kris: No

Jeremy: No

Benny: Not trashy or lower class.

Taylor: I don’t believe I have.

Do you label others as trashy or any other stereotypical term that you can think of that is degrading in anyway? If so, why do you think you did this?

Kris: Yes, because they were acting like the stereotypes.

Jeremy: No, I treat people the way they should be treated.

Benny: Yes, not necessarily a bad thing though, I call myself trailer trash. Cause I know trailer trash when I see trailer trash.

Taylor: I don’t label them, but I do playfully say it sometimes. Why do I do this? Um…because I’m racist *laughs* I’m not much to use it as hatefulness but as a playful way, and if it gets out of hand, I say I’m sorry.

How does it make you feel when people label you?

Kris: I don’t care.

Jeremy: Bothers me, but it doesn’t. I just blow it off, I’ve learned to deal with it by now.

Benny: I mean, depends on the context I suppose. I don’t mind it, labels have their purpose.

Taylor: I don’t really offend me, it doesn’t hurt my feelings or anything.

Do you own your labels or are you ashamed of them?

Kris: I own them/embrace them.

Jeremy: I own them.

Benny: I don’t care.

Taylor: Just a little bit ashamed of them, I guess.

What do you think the “white trash” stereotype is?

Kris: I believe typical “white trash” people are druggies, dope heads, or just people who live a life of nothing but wrong doings, like women beaters, child molesters, rapist, thieves, physically/mentally abusive people, usually living in disgusting places and don’t care. I consider any color of person I call trashy as someone who’s like that.

Jeremy: Living in a trailer with tons of kids, and a baby on your hip, beat up car because you spend your money elsewhere, yelling and cussing at your neighbors.

Benny: Donald Trump, *laughs*, no I’m kidding, tacky, unpleasant, I think of drugs when I think of trailer trash, that one little plot of trailers behind Wal-Mart.

Taylor: People that have low class, low taste, because they would rather spend their money on other stuff, instead of making themselves look more presentable.

It was nice to see that my children have different views on lower class people than we were brought up with. To them low class people seem to be people who won’t do anything form themselves, not people who make less money because their circumstances are not the same. My generation was taught more that the lower classes included people who would do for themselves, but also those who couldn’t do for themselves. No matter their circumstances or what brought them their they were still looked down on.

White trash stereotyping is not a new concept in this country. In an article I read on the NPR website by Leah Donella, she states that:

“1853, in A Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote about "white trash people," whom she described as "a class of white people who are, by universal admission, more heathenish, degraded, and miserable" than slaves; "a poor white population as degraded and brutal as ever existed in any of the most crowded districts of Europe."”

In this context Stowe describes white trash in the same context if not worse than slaves further on in the article, Donella references Nancy Isenberg’s book White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, that suggests that white trash of the time period were in fact from indentured slaves, or those brought over to do the work in the new world who were criminals and were no longer wanted in England.

Stereotyping people seems to be an exercise for ignorant people., but it is not. Many smart, educated people stereotype others and don’t have a second thought about it. Some people just find stereotyping funny I found an internet article by Ben Yakas on the Gothamist website where New York artist Winston Tseng, decided it would be funny to use images of “white trash” to put on the trash cans and label them “Keep NYC Trash Free” (Yakas). However, to some they just are not funny not all people considered “white trash” are bible thumping, Make America Great Again homophobes that eat at Chick-fil-a. See figures 1 and 2 on the next page.

Embracing my white trash side was a journey to becoming the person that I am today. When I come across people that I knew before, people who would talk down to me because they placed me in their trashy girl stereotype, assuming I would never amount to anything, I enjoy bragging about myself and the accomplishments I have made in life. Just when they are really impressed that I have done something with my life, I like to throw a “y’all,” or some other down-home vernacular into the conversation, just to add to their idea of the stereotype that they boxed me into. I just really hate to disappoint. And as shown above this is what people expect of “White Trash” people.

I’m not an ignorant person, but I do find myself being intolerant of other people’s actions at times. When my little sister acts like she has no sense or how to act in polite society, I find myself wanting to chastise her like she is that same trashy teenager that we used to be. I know she is not though. She has lived the same life as me, been to college, raised three kids, and has a brain. She just chooses to present herself differently than I do, so I stereotype her as white trash. Stereotypes as a trope, or as a label in society will never cease to exist, but we can work on making ourselves better as a society by not grouping certain people together in a stereotypical fashion, and just love and accept people for their individual strengths and weaknesses alike.

My hope for the future is that my children can live in a world that is free of stereotypes, one that is accepting of people no matter their status in life. World peace seems like such a trite idea, but if I could have one think for my children that is what I would want World peace and I believe everything else would fall into place. Knowing that we left the world a better place where our children, our grandchildren, and many more generations to come could live in a world of equals, and happiness, would make me the happiest woman alive. So, when the world is at peace we would no longer have need for derogatory terms for people of different races, or stereotypical terms like redneck, white trash, or hick.

Works Cited

Church, Nate. “'Keep NYC Trash Free' Signs Insult Trump Supporters.” Breitbart, Breitbart News Network, 27 Oct. 2018, www.breitbart.com/politics/2018/10/26/keep-nyc-trash-free-signs-insult-trump-supporters-nyc-garbage-cans/.

Donnella, Leah. “Why Is It Still OK To 'Trash' Poor White People?” NPR, NPR, 1 Aug. 2018, www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2018/08/01/605084163/why-its-still-ok-to-trash-poor-white-people.

Fox, Kristofer. In person interview. 2 March 2019.

Fox, Taylor. In person interview. 2 March 2019.

Hall, Jeremy. In person interview. 2 March 2019.

Marshall, Benny. In person interview. 2 March 2019.

Yakas, Ben. “Fake Anti-MAGA Sanitation Posters Want To 'Keep NYC Trash Free'.” Gothamist, 24 Oct. 2018, 2:12PM, gothamist.com/2018/10/24/fake_anti-maga_sanitation_posters_w.php.

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