#i really doubt ivan was ever trying to seriously kill him

[dreadark]

the first time ivan leads till somewhere it's to escape together and that time till backs out

the last time ivan leads till somewhere it's to death together and this time ivan backs out

[candied-cae]

I know almost every single person in the OFMD fandom is interpreting Izzy a little bit different. Aka we're all spotting different amounts of, or focusing differently on, these traits:

Being a literal homophobe and racist

In love with Ed and jealous

Just trying to do his fucking job seriously and no one is helping

Sexually frustrated bc he's been trying to get topped by Ed for years

Obsessed with having total control over everyone around him

Mad/Worried about Ed suddenly changing in a way he doesn't understand

etc.

I was already pretty firmly in the "Izzy is overall a bad person but also he's seems to be a lil in love with his boss in a way that's entertaining" camp, But as I'm rewatching it - I think I'm going further into "Izzy is just a bad person who's obsessed with control".

A little point of this, is when Ed tells him to go to the Republic of Pirates and bring Stede in so he can meet him, and he starts saying no. Izzy sighs and asks Edward if they could "just send the boys" to do it. Idk fam, but if Izzy was super in love with Edward, why not do the stuff he tells you to do? Even if it's a little inconvenient, you might follow command without hesitation to prove how good you are and do the job well to earn praise. But no, he tries to push back on the orders, and tries to change Edward's mind on how to do things. But he doesn't push too far; to stay in control, Edward can't doubt him.

But the main part that convinced me, is because I'm remembering that he was totally fine with Edward literally abandoning the pirate life, as long as he killed Stede to do it and left his legacy and his crew to Izzy. That doesn't really seem like a thing someone who's in love with his captain would be cool with. He's also not super effected when Ed seems genuinely interested in the idea of killing himself because he's so bored. That's something you should be concerned about if you love someone.

Those are things you might be less distraught by if your primary focus is just amassing power.

He definitely could've convinced himself that he had a right to Edward, that he was the only one who knew what was good for him, that Izzy Hands deserved to tell Edward what to do. So when Edward starts rebelling, it makes him furious. Here he is, having spent so many years of his life dedicated to proving to Edward that he was to be listened to, and now Edward won't listen. He's going off and making friends with people who are telling him not to follow Izzy's rules, he's not making good on his promise to step down and pass the throne to Izzy, and Izzy's being disrespected by the other people on the ship.

The only control he (sort of) has left is over Ivan and Fang, so when he decided to try and scare Edward back into following his orders, he pulls the two of them to his side and has an intervention so they can not only accuse him of being weak, but guilt trip him as well. And it still doesn't work.

So obviously he's lost his emotional hold on Edward, so he'll just have to physically take it back, enter the plan to defeat Stede in combat so he'll have to be respected and followed again. And then that doesn't work.

So he sends Calico Jack, someone Edward has known even longer than him, to ease him back into Izzy's open arms. That doesn't work.

Even when they are about to watch Stede be killed by the British Navy, even then Edward jumps in the way and calls for an act of grace...

He completely lost control of Edward.

He thought he'd be able to get it back when he proved that he knew better and was better than Stede Bonnet, but that didn't matter to Ed. Ed leaves to join the King's forces for 10 years, and there's no sloppy emotions about it, and idk about you, but if the guy I was in love with was abandoning every part of him I recognized for someone I thought was unworthy and I believed I may not see him for 10 years, or ever again: I'd be a mess, despite my best efforts. But Izzy's not, because Izzy never really cared about Edward, he cared about being in charge. And when Edward and Stede leave, he's left in charge. But he does a pretty shit job of it. And when the crew is about to kill him and retake their control, Edward returns, and spares him. That's his in.

Edward was emotional, alone, soft, and hurt now, Izzy would be able to regain control here. Easily. All he needed to do was rial him up, scare him just enough that he closes off again. Goes back to being the dutiful Blackbeard who does the job and doesn't waste time with all the emotional stuff. And when they're alone again Izzy is able to string him to follow orders easily. When you've been manipulating someone for years, and they finally lost the things they we using to escape, it's second nature to do what'll bring them back to heel.

Even when Ed hears the crew who loves him calling for him to come back on deck for fun, he's alone in those captain quarters mulling over what Izzy said to him.

And yeah, Izzy is prolly hot for the power Blackbeard has, but I don't think it's really anything close to love, it's an attraction to this force he's sure he has command over.

P.s. Shout out to this post by @bellasmommyissues: I started this draft over a week ago and wasn't really sure if I was going to finish it, especially since it's a sorta unpopular take... But I saw their post and it convinced me I wasn't crazy for seeing more of Izzy's love of control vs love of Blackbeard, so I sat down and finished the damn thing.

More OMFD

[cheekygreenty]

Familiar - The Darkling x Reader

He was living his worst nightmare. You were in danger because of him. He swore to protect you, to get himself caught in the crossfire if it meant saving you but right now he was useless and you were suffering. He didn't know where you were or who took you from the Palace, the place he said was like a fortress, the safest place in Ravka. You were swiped from right under his nose, most likely roughly and mercilessly and it was all because you loved him.

He never wanted anyone to know of your relationship, you were his most protected and valued secret and he would put his life on the line to keep it that way. But now you were gone and he couldn't bare to look at himself. The promise he made to you was broken and he let you down.

For our love is a ghost that the others can't see

You agreed with it too, knowing that you would immediately become a target if Aleksander introduced you as his. But here you were now, sitting in the back of a moving coach, gagged and handcuffed with a blood and tear stained face.

The ride was more bumpy and painful than it was at the start, having now been on it for at least 4 hours, you knew you were far from home and heading to Fjerda.

The realization hit you as soon as you felt a pair of strong hands at your wrists, holding them apart in the safety of your chambers to prevent you from summoning. The festivities were loud and blocked out your shouts of self-defense and cries for help. That's where Aleksander's protection had run out, right there in your shared rooms.

You cursed yourself as more tears slipped out your eyes, you were a fool who didn't listen to their own advice. Ravka didn't know about you, the Darkling seemingly had no weaknesses until your irrationally tipsy behavior. Tonight's stupid actions would cost you your life.

---------------------

'Enjoying the celebrations?' You held your fourth champagne glass of the night tightly in your hand as you walked up to Aleksander and Ivan. They were all business and no party as the Little Palace roared to life following a day of successful business negotiations. Grisha of all orders let loose and had fun, forgetting the troubles of war as foreign delegations joined in, all in unity for a single night of fun.

The Zemeni were dancing with the Kerch, the Shu were peacefully discussing with the Kaelish, it was a utopia. Your own mind was for once calm, be it the champagne or the vibes you didn't know and didn't care.

'You did a very good job Y/N, I'm impressed.' Ivan gestured to the party and pride filled you. It was stressful and nerve-racking to plan a banquet of this magnitude, but seeing it all accomplished and with no fights made you unbelievably happy.

'Thank you Ivan. Go enjoy yourself, I'm sure Fedyor is looking for you.'

He walked away just as you'd hoped, leaving you and Aleksander alone. You moved a step closer, taking his hand in yours.

'It is magnificent darling, you look magnificent too.' His head dipped as it usually did when he was about to kiss you, but he stopped himself and instead looked around the room, inspecting it to make sure no one was watching him.

'Relax, we're in a large crowd, I highly doubt anyone is paying us any mind.' With the foreign ambassadors here, Aleksander's black attire was balanced out with black tuxedos and suits. He wasn't sticking out anymore, he blended in. You wanted to be with him, and perhaps you could be right now.

'If you say so' Although your words did something to reassure him, his sweet lips were brief on yours. It was a short kiss, but he somehow conveyed his love for you in that quick second before he was back to his usual General persona.

'Alright General Kirigan, I'll go annoy Genya.' You joked and in the process knocked the glass over onto your fine silk kefta. 'Shit'

You didn't miss the look of amusement on his face as you tried to dry the stain with your sleeve. 'Or I'll go and change' you laughed, leaning into his laughing body.

You were certain the moment was intimate and private, that nobody was watching, but a pair of eyes closely watched the scene from afar, mouth open ajar as he found the Darkling's only weakness; You.

--------------

'Moi Soverenyi what is the meaning of all this?' Ivan didn't expect to be dragged out of bed at this hour and see the General's inner circle crowded around his war table in their nightclothes. He thought the banquet went well: nobody fought or got injured or even argued, it was the perfect night so to speak. But the powerful Grisha still dressed in his silk black kefta was restless and panicked.

His hair was disheveled and he looked ready to kill as he stood with his back to everyone, facing the big map of Ravka. The room was silent save for a few yawns and sighs. Nobody knew anything about why they were there but the tension surrounding their commander was hostile and frightening.

'Y/N Y/L/N is missing from Palace grounds. I think she may have been taken.' Ivan stilled, he was the only person in the room who knew of the relationship between his General and you and had grown to like your refreshing presence. He cared for you in a brotherly way and your disappearance ignited a fury in him.

'I need you searching the streets, interrogating the delegates, anything we can to bring her back.' His face was still turned away from them, and Ivan knew he wouldn't turn around.

Aleksander was beside himself with worry and guilt, he was on the verge of tears. You were gone and it was his fault. His mind was swirling with the accusations and the self-hate, but also with memories of you. Your life echoed around the walls of his head, bouncing off of his heart with a shatter.

He wasn't going to wake up tomorrow next to you curled up in his arms. He wasn't going to hear you rant over breakfast. You were gone and it was his fault.

He was trying so hard to devise a plan to find you, to command his Grisha and be a General, but in that moment he was just Aleksander, Y/N's Aleksander. Worry took up his mind and all the commanding bones in his body yearned to have you next to him.

He turned his head briefly to Ivan, who had the same expression on his face that Genya wore when he woke her up searching for Y/N. She was already out in the streets of Os Alta with David, trying their luck with tracking your jewelry.

'We leave in 10 minutes. Every single Grisha in the Second Army will be used if need be.' If you listened closely, you could hear the edge to his voice, a slight pang of heartbreak and anguish. He was trying to hide it, but alas he was only a man.

The Grisha started muttering amongst themselves and Ivan caught a few words of their conversations and couldn't help but let the rage rise in him 'She's not even that good of a soldier.....' 'Who is that?' 'I want to go back to bed....'

'A foreign dignitary had the audacity to kidnap a Grisha after we let them into our home and you speak of going to bed?'

'Ivan.' Fedyor warned him.

'Moi Soverenyi, with all due respect, Y/L/N was simply a teacher to the younger Grisha, not a high-ranking soldier with valuable intel. Should we really assume a kidnapping happened? For all we know it was desertion. Y/N found a good moment to slip out and escaped.'

Every shade of us you fade down to keep

Them in the dark on who we are

The second those words were spoken by Polina, Aleksander's black shadows let loose. They crept up her legs and around her throat, tightening and tightening until air could no longer enter the inferni's lungs. She was petrified, she was simply stating another perspective on the situation but her General's and Ivan's responses told her her opinion was not wanted at all.

Aleksander stopped himself before he killed her. It was his fault, all of it. His Grisha didn't take this seriously because they didn't know who Y/N truly was to him, perhaps a secret ready to be shared, spoke a voice deep in the back of his head, not your voice though. He wouldn't tell anyone anything until he had your approval. If he ever got it.

'Believe me, Y/N was no deserter.'

'10 minutes!' Barked Ivan at the Grisha when none of them moved from their tired trance.

-----

You didn't know Fjerdan fluently but you knew enough to make out the most important words 'We crossed the border', 'Witch', 'let her burn'. It was enough to drown your hope of escaping and coming home to Aleksander and your Grisha.

You never got involved in any war or fighting, simply choosing to teach the young students the basics of summoning. It made you content and happy, whereas war made you anxious and nervous. Your body had only ever known the luxuries of the Little Palace, the feel of a pen or book in your hands. To add to it, your powers were never used in a defensive way only summoned when you taught, so this was a drastic turn of events to say the least.

Being dragged and beaten by the Fjerdans, insulted in a foreign language, and cuffed so the one comfort you had available to you was useless, brought you to your knees despite the initial training you received when you joined the Second-Army. I am no soldier, I am a teacher.

The border had been crossed and you were officially a Fjerdan captive, ready to sit a trail where you would be found guilty and hanged for your gifts. The chances of Aleksander finding you were slim to none as you tried to remember if any clues were left behind at the scene of your kidnapping. The Fjerdans were quick and concise, neat and skilled, leaving no traces of their presence in your chambers.

The back of the carriage yanked open and let in the evening sun, blinding you in the process. You stopped counting the time after the 8th hour passed and your space was still pitch black. The shadows once were a comfort, now they were simply a tool to frighten you even more.

'Let's go, Witch.' A tall man spoke as he grabbed you by the arm, dragging you as if you didn't weigh anything. You complied, not seeing a reason to tire yourself by fighting back. It was pointless and futile.

You were in the middle of nowhere, a field of open green space with patches of snow. Fjerda. You'd never been anywhere near the border even, but the cold wind was whiplash-inducing just as Aleksander once described it.

'I thought I am to face trial.' You had barely spoken a word in fear in the carriage but the suspicion had rousted you to mutter the words.

'You? I'd rather kill you right here' joked the man and his companions laughed along as if what you said was the beginnings of a hilarious joke. 'You are the Demon's vulnerability, we hurt him for revenge' He pushed you to your knees roughly.

This love is gonna be the death of me

It's a danger

'So I am to die in a field?'

'Not before you tell us everything about the Darkling' then a kick to your stomach shut down your senses.

-------

'We are crossing into Fjerda Moi Soverenyi' Ivan shouted over the galloping horses. Not even 2 minutes after the meeting, Fedyor noticed 3 Fjerdan delegates missing from their rooms in the Little Palace and raced to tell his General who was now fiercely riding his black stallion with a fury no one dared to comment on. He had Squallers feeling the air for you, Durasts tracking your jewelry, and Heartrenderers listening to heartbeats as they all made their way up to Fjerda, the enemy country.

As time passed, the fear rose and turned into a strange combination of denial and grief. Aleksander tried to desperately shoo it away, to rid the thought as it came. You were alive. You had to be.

He felt his crew getting restless and tired but he didn't dare slow his pace. His stallion seemed to understand the urgency of the situation and for lack of a better word, legged it as his master requested.

'General, we think we can feel something.' The Durast and Squaller riding right behind him suddenly burst out. 'About 5 miles northeast, I can direct us from there.' The man in the purple kefta bellowed and Aleksander's heart picked up the pace to a deadly rhythm. He was immortal, but he was sure this was going to be the death of him.

---------

It took every ounce of courage and pride to not give in but you hurt all over. Your ribs were cracked, lungs quickly collapsing, your arms and legs unmoving. The only aspect of you that looked normal was your face

'I'll leave it, let him see you dead in a coffin with only your pretty face as a reminder of how disgusting he is, how disgusting all of you are.'

You had told them nothing, not a word, not even a cry of pain to satisfy them. If these were truly your last moments, you wouldn't go down as a traitor. Your eyes closed on their own accord a while ago, your ears stopped listening when you heard the first bone crack in your leg.

You didn't see Aleksander's shadows flood the field, cutting down everything in his path. You didn’t hear the Fjerdans scream out in pain and fear. There was blood everywhere, not just yours as he ran to you.

'HEALERS NOW' you didn't see him, you didn't hear him, but he saw you beaten and dying right in front of him. His hands traced the side of your face lovingly as a small tear escaped his eye. You felt it, his touch on yours and your lip pulled up in the faintest smile you could manage. He was here.

Ivan was next to you in an instant, attempting to quicken your heartbeat, fill your weak lungs with air and keep you alive but his shaking hands were rigid and stiff with fear at the possibility of losing his friend. The other Grisha watched with perplexed faces as they quickly approached, the Healers running for dear life to get to you in time. You were only a teacher in their eyes, not the General's love or the Heartrenderers comrade.

'Y/N you'll be okay, I promise.' Aleksander left a kiss against your forehead, keeping his lips there for as long as he could before the red keftas swarmed around you and fought to save your dwindling life.

And the dark was opening wide, do or die

You registered his touch, his kiss, before the itching took over and the pain slowly lifted. The darkness was back as a comfort and death seemed far away.

The Darkling only had one weakness, one vulnerability, and only one reoccurring nightmare; the death of Y/N Y/L/N and he made sure to let the world know if you ever came to harm, he would kill anyone and anything in his path.

------

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[sirenprincess15]

Please Don't Leave Me Chapter 17

Title: Please Don’t Leave Me

Author: SirenPrincess

Description: What if Aleksander hadn’t answered the door when Ivan interrupted the war room kissing? What if Aleksander and Alina had a bit more time to get to know each other before Baghra told her his true identity? Alina is the only one who can comfort Aleksander through his nightmares. Will she leave once she knows who he is?

This story is based on the show version and features a soft on the inside, hard on the outside Aleksander with an emphasis on emotional hurt/comfort and angst. If you are looking for lots of hurt!Aleksander thoughts, then this story is for you. Mal exists but pretty much solely to cause Aleksander some angst. Don’t worry. It will be a Darklina ending.

Chapter 1 is a missing scene at the end of Ep 4, and Chapter 2 takes place alongside Ep 5 and then diverges from canon there.

Pairings: Aleksander Morozova/Alina Starkov, bits of Ivan/Fedyor

Rating: PG-13

Warnings: Grisha are oppressed in this universe, and I don’t shy away from showing the horrors of that. There may eventually be mentions of canon-typical torture (Fjerdan pyres), death of family members, and cruelty to Grisha children. It’s not the focus, but that backdrop is definitely there and comes up as characters discuss their past.

In this chapter: After their night off from trying to figure everything out, Aleksander shares a secret with Alina.

Chapter 17

Aleksander was conscious, but he refused to wake up. Alina was flooding him with her light so he could sleep, and he did not want to give it up. They had agreed to a night of heaven without worry of figuring everything out, but where did that leave them today?

He was somewhat reassured by her confession last night that she needed him as he needed her. If she felt the pull between them as well, then surely they could find a path forward. That didn’t change the fact that there was so much that he needed to tell her. It didn’t make it any easier to explain any of it. He could run through all the scenarios in his head again, but that would result in the same crippling agony he ended up with night after night. Perhaps he should just send her on her own to talk with David. Could she possibly believe he didn’t want her as a slave after that? The image of her screaming her hatred at him wouldn’t leave his head until he actually thought of something worse. What if what she learned made her run with the tracker? Alina had shared that the tracker already had a plan. The truth could prompt her to follow through with it. What if Zlatan found them? Now it was her head rolling from her body that he saw again.

“Aleksander,” she said his name so sweetly as she wrapped her arms tighter around his chest. “I can feel that. Stop.” She sent her reassurance through their bond.

“Please don’t leave me.” The words were barely a whisper, but he could not hold them in. His heart reached out to hers and begged for her to stay. They could solve anything else together if she would just stay.

“Please don’t hurt me,” was her response, a fair request revealing her deepest fears.

Aleksander met her gaze and nodded. The seriousness of that commitment made his heart ache. He let her feel through the bond how much he meant it. He feared hurting her too, but he would give all of him to prevent that. “I never want to hurt you. I would take any pain on myself, any, if it meant I didn’t hurt you.”

They stayed that way a long time, just staring into each other’s eyes, emotions flowing back and forth between them. She seemed to accept his determination not to hurt her, even if bits of self doubt and fear crept back in occasionally. He tried to reassure himself of her love, but his worry about how to try to explain everything to her still kept creeping in. It was impossible to prevent the panic he felt at the idea of losing her. Her emotions could calm him, but then he would stress again on finding the right words to make her understand everything, and the ache in his heart would reignite again.

“Aleksander? Talk to me. I know it’s hard for you to trust and open up. You have been through so much. I understand that now, but you cannot go on with this pain inside you. Please try to tell me what’s causing it. The more you actually open up, the more I feel I can trust you.”

“It’s just that I don’t know how to be the man you want, the man you deserve, and I fear I will lose you anyway because I can never possibly share all of the dreadful secrets. Alina, I can’t lose you, but I’ve been thinking of way after way to deal with this, and I can’t … I can’t.” His jaw trembled with the effort of controlling his emotions. Damn it, he did not want to cry in front of her this morning. He was terrified, though, that Alina would leave him for any of the litany of good reasons she had.

“If it helps, I can feel how sincere you are about wanting to give me the honesty I request. I can tell, Aleksander. Are any of the secrets about important things?”

His lip quivering as he tried to control himself, he nodded.

“All right. So we just start with one. Tell me the biggest one. And then once we work through that, the others won’t seem all so bad.”

Which one even was the biggest one? He couldn’t decide. Maybe he should tell her about Marie. He could just blurt that out without a lengthy explanation, but the guilt of that death would destroy her. How could he? How could he possibly do that to her?

“Aleksander!” she gasped. “It’s tearing you apart. Guilt, pain, fear--you ache deeper than anything I have ever felt before. Please just tell me. Let’s work through it together. However awful it is, it cannot be worth this amount of pain.”

“If I tell you, then you will hurt, and I cannot do that to you. If I don’t tell you and you find out, then you will leave me for the lie, and I cannot find the strength to bear that pain, Alina.”

She took slow, deep breaths and sent reassurance and love through their connection. She waited several moments like that, just breathing and feeling, taking his pain and meeting it with love. “I want you to tell me. We can face the pain stronger together. I promise I will forgive you if you can manage to tell me now. You do not wish to hurt me, but I am strong, and we are together. Tell me.”

“Marie is dead.” It was barely a whisper, but the look of shock on her face made it clear that she had heard.

“Marie?! How? What happened?” She was processing the grief when she gasped with realization. “The winter fete! The attempt to assasination me … but you said ...Saints, Marie!”

He nodded as he experienced the sorrow anew with her. “She died to protect you. She was a good friend and a beautiful Grisha, strong, brave. The assassin slit her throat.”

“That’s why you’ve been having nightmares of my death? Oh, Aleksander, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Luda died for me. I know what it is to have someone you care about killed when they were just trying to protect you. She isn’t the only one. The guilt of that loss is something I never wanted you to know.”

She cuddled into his chest as the emotions of that hit her, and he hugged her tight as he gave her a moment to process her friend’s death. How many times had he dealt with those emotions over the centuries? And, yet, he could not think of a single word to say that would actually make that pain any better.

“My sweet, caring, Aleksander,” she whispered. “Some moments I’m so afraid of your dark side, but then you say something like that. You kept all the pain inside yourself so I wouldn’t feel any. That’s not what I want you to do at all, but I can feel you did it out of love. You’ve been dealing with the trauma of Marie’s death, her death disguised as me, on your own this whole time. I don’t even think you realize how severely it’s been affecting you. You lost one love to the king’s army, and now another young Grisha, who looked like me at the time, has been slaughtered by another army general. And you just wanted to keep all of that inside you? You ask too much of yourself. I’ve been feeling all your pain, but I didn’t know why or how to help. You should have told me.” Her voice was so soft. It felt less like a reprimand and more a plea for the closeness of sharing. “We could have processed this pain together. You could have helped me. Aleksander, you are not alone. Together, we deal with this loss together.”

Tears came to his eyes, and this time he did not bother to blink them away. Marie deserved his tears. Every Grisha who died for the cause did. He told himself the tears had nothing to do with dealing with the abject loneliness he’d felt for over half a millennium. “Her grave is in the Little Palace cemetery. I had a nice headstone made for her. We could go visit it together if you’d like.”

She nodded. “Could we invite Nadia? Can I tell Nadia? Does she know? She should know too.”

Aleksander squeezed her hand. “I will let you decide what it’s best for your friend to know.”

“Does it feel better to have that secret out of your chest now? No wonder it was tearing you up to keep that inside.”

“I …” He wasn’t quite sure. He still did not like that his words had caused Alina pain, but it was nice to not have to hide that from her anymore or continue to work through how to tell her. “At least I can better explain the nightmares now. You know why I have been so protective … and scared.” He admitted the emotion he had not even truly let himself acknowledge inside himself. Fear had been making him do a lot of things lately.

She interlaced her fingers in his. “Are the other secrets like this? Things that are just going to make me want to hug you all the more?”

“I suppose some might be.” Many things in his past were filled with so much pain. He had done some truly awful things over the years, but maybe she could see his pain through those decisions. “The really big one I fear might make you want to run off with the tracker after all.”

“I won’t,” she reassured him. “I know I can’t take that path. Even if I get really angry with you, like I did when Baghra told me you lied about your identity, I’m not picking to run and hide. Suppressing my true self made me sick. I refuse to be weak and ill to hide again.”

“I would understand if you pick to cut off my head after all, then.”

“That bad?”

He nodded as he tried to contain the emotion that stirred within him as he thought of what her reaction might be. He could not take it if she hated him. His heart could not take any more rejection. “It … I guess it depends. Will you judge me for what’s possible that I haven’t done? Will you even believe me? Can you possibly trust me? It will certainly reignite your doubts of me, and I don’t want … I don’t want to go back there.” After opening himself to her so thoroughly last night and into the morning, he found that words just came tumbling out on their own without his careful control.

“So … there’s something truly awful that’s possible that’s going to make me want to cut off your head but you haven’t done it, and you’re going to trust me enough to tell me about it? But you’re afraid to? Should we just rip the bandage off this wound now?” she asked. “It’s causing you immense pain the longer we let it fester. I will worry until I see how bad it truly is. Let’s just cauterize it and start fresh?”

He nodded. She was right. His heart would not stop aching until she knew. She could not love and accept him until she knew what he could do. He just wished he wasn’t terrified it would make her forever fear and hate him. “Perhaps you will believe David.” It was his only hope.

“David?” Her voice rose in surprise. “The fabrikator? What does he have to do with this?”

He took a deep breath. “Let’s go visit him. You’ll see.”

She kissed him gently before rising to dress. Making no effort to hide his stare, he let himself memorize her curves while she seemed to still appreciate his gaze upon her body. He wasn’t sure it would last, but he would take in every moment with her while he had them. He gasped when he saw her kefta. “Black? You would …”

“I would.” Half-dressed, she walked over and kissed him more passionately this time. “I told you that I only feel whole when I’m with you. I need you as much as you need me. I thought maybe that was fake and you were deceiving me, but the more I get to know you, I really don’t think so, Aleksander. You need me. I don’t think either one of us is particularly good about letting ourselves need someone else, but I’m done fighting against myself. It’s something I’ve been pondering as you slept. Maybe it’s okay to need each other. We are stronger together. Whatever this is that you’re about to tell me, we face it together. ”

[orsuliya]

Since you do such detailed asks and give a well thought out answers, I want to know your opinion on the Ma brothers. Zilong, Zilu and Zitan. What do you think about them?

Ah, our three intrepid Ma princes... Wait a minute, why three? It's not like we're in a fairytale and while Zitan is certainly a fool, he's not nearly good-hearted enough to play the role of Ivan the Fool.

But seriously, it seems mightily suspicious of Daddy Emperor to sire three sons in quick succession and then, as far as we know, never ever procreate again. He's an Emperor and obviously fertile, so how come the imperial nursery remains so glaringly empty? Could it be that he has no concubines at all except for his beloved Xie Guifei?

Or... has the Empress been aborting babies left and right, and poisoning her way through swathes of women to boot? Not impossible, knowing her temperament, but it doesn't really make sense within the dynamic presented in the drama. Drama!Emperor hates, hates, hates the Wangs and especially his wife, so it's hard to believe he wouldn't have used this juicy tidbit to weaken their influence. In the book Wanru is allowed to run roughshod over Potato's concubines and feed them contraceptives willy-nilly, but that's because Potato doesn't really care. The Emperor, as we see him in the drama, would have found reason enough to care upon being given such an obvious opening to start a smear campaign against his favourite enemy. Stymying the imperial bloodline?! Why, I think it might be a crime and easily provable one at that!

This leaves the other option - perhaps there aren't any concubines in the palace or, if there are, they're not being, pardon my French, bred. It's not that multiple imperial concubines of lower rank aren't a thing in this universe - Potato gets at least two and possibly more after sitting on the throne for a relatively short time. It's a pity we don't know what's the policy on entering the palace. Is there a multi-stage selection process? There is certainly no indication of that! Xie Guifei might have been an attempt to balance out a Wang Empress, Seagull was Zitan's impromptu choice, Miss Screecher was meant to be chosen by Potato outside of any organized selection and the same could be true for Potato's other concubines. Our only outlier might be Zilu's Mom and even then it's rather doubtful she was ever processed properly as it would have required a lot of effort and luck to conceal an already existing pregnancy. No, Zilu's Mom was most probably a gift of 'peace' from one brother to another.

My guess as to what Daddy Emperor is thinking? If Zitan has been his preferred heir from the start and he very well might have been since it never had anything to do with Zitan's actual qualities, then it's possible that he simply didn't protest - or did so in a purely symbolic manner - when the Wangs started limiting his reproductive chances. Why breed competition? We already know he has no use for any sons lacking powerful backing of their maternal clans, see: his treatment of Zilu. And any son with such backing would be a direct threat to his favourite, not to mention a potential upset to the carefully maitained Wang-Ma-Xie balance.

...or it could be that Daddy Emperor really loved Xie Guifei and wanted no other. Seeing as he's strongly implied to spend his nights in her chambers twenty years after their only and last kid was born, this would make a staggering amount of sense. The same principle applies - he'd still not protest Wang tyranny over the inner courts, only he'd do it for Xie Guifei and not for Zitan. It does seem to fit with Daddy Emperor's general mindset. Let the others do open battle and exert all that effort, he'll just sit there, look sage and reap the benefits!

After this rather senseless and overly long prelude, let's finally get to answering your question. Mind you, those are not going to be organized, thoughtful opinions, just my subjective impressions on each and every Ma Prince.

His Imperial Spudness Ma Zilong

The not-so-little Potato that could not, but still tried! Let's start with the elephant in the room, namely his rapist tendencies or the lack thereof. See, I'm convinced that raping Awu wasn't actually in the cards, at least as far as Potato was concerned. Compromising her, sure, just lure her into an emptied palace and cry wolf. Outright raping her, no, if only because Potato is way, way too weak and soft to execute a plan this ruthless in its entirety. Besides, harming Awu to this extent would be risky as all hell and sure to provoke authentic wrath in both Daddy Emperor and Daddy Wang. The Empress is not stupid enough to give her husband the perfect excuse to do away with her son nor to alienate her main supporter in the same move. Even if she was able to force a marriage in the first place, Potato would be pretty much done for politically unless both Daddies suddenly dropped dead. The most she would be able to get would be a grandson in a privileged position, so she'd be back to square one, only with one more female to share power with. No, what Potato did and what Wanru suffered was mostly courtesy of Zilu's suspicious drugs. Not to say Potato isn't a rapist all the same, but I'd argue for diminished capacity.

As for Potato himself in his shining spuddy glory, I truly pity the man. From time to time we see glimpses of the ruler he could have become and whom he still tries to be, and it becomes clear that there was something there worth cultivating. The problem is that nobody could be bothered to even try. Daddy Emperor certainly didn't, leaving Potato pretty much to his own devices and believe me, it had nothing to do with his talents or the lack thereof. Do you remember that lovely family scene at the beginning of episode 1.? You know, the one where Awu, Zilu and Zitan lure Zilong into a trap and then leave him there to lie amidst icy rocks in the middle of winter? He could have easily hit his head and died right then and there. Or get pneumonia and die a little bit later. Does the Emperor care? No, not at all! Baby!Awu isn't that good of a liar, but even if she was, perhaps it would behoove him to actually investigate. Not from any kind of fatherly feeling, let's not expect miracles, but perhaps from political expediency? Yeah, no. And I doubt that was the only incident of this kind. Potato must have known even this early on that his father doesn't care for him, not even like an Emperor should for his eldest male scion. Moreover, there is no way Mommy Dearest wouldn't harp on about the Emperor's negligence in private, further affirming this awful truth in Potato's mind.

Mommy Dearest might care, but her care is no less toxic than Daddy Emperor's open negligence. Potato is her key to power, her only way to win the game of thrones and make all her sacrifices worthwhile... and this is exactly how she treats him. Oh, she loves him well enough as her son, clings to him in his role as Crown Prince and then Emperor, but she doesn't actually like him as a person. And oh boy, does it show! I get it, he's not this perfect shining prince that would justify her long years of suffering, but then I have this feeling she gave up on him the moment he showed himself to be perfectly average. Sure, she offers him (toxic) love and (conditional) support like nobody's business, but there's always this nasty undertone in their relationship. Mommy knows best, don't even try to think on your own, listen to me and only me. It's no wonder that Potato thinks he's perfectly useless and doesn't bother to try and better himself, if he knows that even his own mother sees him as a perfect nincompoop. Uncle Wang's open derision isn't helpful either!

And yet Potato is, deep down, a decent enough man. Better than the average Ma, I'd say. I mean, he has some scruples! They might be really, really tiny, but they're there, even as he's being subjected to a barrage of mental attacks from both his mother and his wife. Why, given proper support and a competent cabinet, he'd make a somewhat ineffective, but decent enough ruler, his handling of the flood crisis shows us this much. Potato's best quality is that he really tries. Oh, he fails, but he's no Zitan, content to sit in his room and mope while the country goes to hell. When it's important, he can make actual decisions! Which he may then go back on (or not), but it still counts. Also, he's not petty. Like, at all. He'd like nothing better than for everybody to get along and have lots and lots of plump babies. Even his decision to do away with Xiao Qi is not motivated by jealousy, no matter how hard Wanru and Mommy Dearest keep pressing on that particular button.

Is he childish? Yes. But then, he's never been given any real responsibility and for years and years languished under the care of a helicopter parent who never forced him to man up nor face actual reality, hence his disillusionment with Wanru, once she stops being this perfect smiling automaton. Is he selfish? Oh yes and it shows nowhere better than in his last will. But even so, such selfishness is pretty much par for the course when it comes to the Mas and at least Potato didn't wreck a country for the sake of personal spite, which puts him way ahead of his father, uncle Jianning and bro Zitan. And perhaps even cousin Zilu, who cared less for the country than for Huanmi.

At the end of the day, our humble root vegetable is a tragic figure. I can't help but pity him every time we see him bloom under somebody's attention. Give that man some respect and he'll pay you back with the same, weird comments about killing you nothwithstanding. And he did give us Miracle Baby, Our Lord and Saviour!

Our beloved Groomzilla, Ma Zilu

Daddy Emperor must have been stupid, high, blind or all of those in order to let Zilu and his beautiful brain slip through his fingers. He was right there, that defenseless, motherless boy and ripe for the taking too! If after years and years of being neglected and treated as an afterthought, after suffering an obvious slight of losing his love on Daddy Wang's say-so, after being allowed to supposedly run wild with no attempt at parental intervention... If after all this Zilu still craved his father's approval in whatever form he could get it, craved it so much that he allowed himself to be led into an obvious trap, then what kind of loyalty might he have offered, had somebody bothered to nurture him properly?

And it's not like his talents were easy to sweep under the rug. It's not until after he's an adult that Zilu takes up the pretense of being a never-do-well; during his adolescence he was still giving it his all, hoping in vain that his father might notice and offer him some sweet, sweet parental validation. Alas. The lack of powerful backing from his maternal family is an obstacle, but not if one actively tries to fight against consort kin clans and their influence. Or is it only the Wangs who are the enemy? Must be so, otherwise why the hell would one not see Zilu's relative independence as his greatest asset? You don't even have to make him Crown Prince to use him; just instill some sense of pride and validation, feed his need for attention and put him behind Zitan's throne. Okay, maybe don't do that last thing, deadly brotherly competition being a whole thing in palace environments, but still, use him! But no, Huanmi remained the only person to actually see and appreciate Zilu for what he was. Is it any wonder he was so absolutely loyal to her that even when it looked like she had attacked him with lethal intent, he still cared about her safety most of all?

And is it any wonder that he expedited his considerable will and brainpower solely for her benefit? I was absolutely floored when I realized that becoming an Emperor wasn't actually his ultimate goal - marrying Huanmi in the biggest, reddest wedding possible was! Even if he needed to drag the more august guests in at swordpoint. Not to say he didn't want to take the throne for his own sake; he absolutely did, but only as far as it served as a big fat fuck you to every person who kept dismissing him out of hand, so basically every person other than Huanmi. Taking the crown was a power fantasy, an idee-fixe of sorts, but for all that keeping a throne in one's basement can be seen as somewhat peculiar, there are very few - if any - signs of actual delusion in Zilu's actions. The throne is not a goal in itself, merely a way to achieve his primary goal, which is to marry the woman he loves, take revenge for Huanmi's sake as much as his own and build a life worthy of her. She's his Empress and by gods, she's going to be the real deal soon enough, no more cosplaying in private villas, however nice it might be!

Ma Zitan, the one and only Master of Mope

With every Ma Prince I become more and more convinced that there was something seriously wrong with Daddy Emperor's brain. Neglecting Potato makes some sense within the greater political picture, letting Zilu lie fallow is the height of foolishness, yet it's more a matter of criminal inaction than actively doing something wrong, but Zitan? Oh, there is no excuse for the way Daddy Emperor chose to deal with Zitan. If the Third Prince was truly his intended heir from the start and there is little reason to believe otherwise - if Wangs are to go then Potato is done for, Zilu was never even considered and Zitan remains the favourite long after showing his complete uselessness - why not try to prepare him for his future role? True, doing so openly might provoke the Wangs, but it's not like there aren't any ways to present such ruler lessons as something else, even a punishment. But no, let's just hope he turns out okay all by himself!

Now, logically reasoning, if Zitan was Daddy Emperor’s favourite and the prince he originally wanted as his heir, then Zitan should be given all possible help, right? So why wasn’t he taught any actual skills, whether in governance or in military matters? The thing is… they might have tried. In episode 61, when Zitan asks his faithful pair of retainers if he would be able to best Xiao Qi, their first answer is not that he’s the Emperor so it’s a given. Well, that too, but the first, immediate response? You studied the art of war. Which, okay, might be a reasonable guess when it comes to any prince, but those retainers are rather young and only recently-promoted. Before their soujourn at the Imperial Mausoleum they probably served somewhere within the wider imperial household, but not close enough to any great personage to be knowledgeable about what the princes might or might not have studied. Also, that answer, should Zitan’s lessons be limited to his early childhood, would make them look like idiots or bootlickers of the worst sort. But let’s say that Zitan actually studied the art of war and did so longer than his brothers. Or, alternatively, with more famous masters. That would naturally be a subject of some talk, if only within the imperial household itself. If so, then the female retainer, who seems rather astute in general, gave the best answer she could give.

Okay, so maybe somebody actually tried to help Zitan along. It still failed. Zitan at twenty or so is singularily useless and strangely unambitious, and no, calligraphy doesn't count as useful, not if one is an imperial prince and Emperor-to-be!

It's not Zitan's uselessness or even his refusal to feel any kind of reponsibility for his own people (as shown in the Huizhou arc) I have the most issue with. Although the latter is simply disgusting. And... really, really short-sighted. If Huizhou falls, as it surely must, Jianning and Co. get a clear way to the capital, leaving Xiao Qi to play deadly catch-up. Which means that Zitan's family is pretty much done for. Now, he might not care about Potato and Zilu, but surely he should feel something towards his father? Some filial piety, if not actual love? But no, screw the people of Huizhou and screw Daddy Emperor. Still, does he think that Jianning wouldn't pursue him to the ends of the earth in order to eradicate a potential claimant?

No, what really angers me is the way Zitan treats the women he claims to hold dear. And I'm not even speaking of Awu, although it's rather obvious that he cares little for her internality and rather more than is healthy for his idealized image of her. Xie Guifei dies for him, which is not his fault in the least... or is it? See, I'm pretty sure that Zitan's insistence on marrying Awu despite his mother's reservations was what provoked the Wangs to take certain... steps. Provoking a power struggle is all fine and good, if you're at least somewhat prepared for the consequences. Zitan is no fifteen year old well-bred young lady, he's an imperial prince right in the middle of a delicate balance of power, how the hell does he not know or care about possible ramifications? Naivety is theoretically not a crime, but that surely is criminal naivety. Which begs the question - how hard was that boy coddled by his mother? My guess is a lot. But Xie Guifei is but a trifle compared to the elephant in the room.

Xie Wanru. Xie Wanru, who supported Zitan as much as she could while being in a precarious situation herself. And whom he had no problems with asking for further support, going as far as to aim for the throne, disregarding her own and her children's potential interests. Xie Wanru, who didn't make the first move, even knowing Zitan to be a potential threat to her and hers. Xie Wanru, whose baby got a full portion of avuncular love in form of actual torture and was lucky to get away with his life. Xie Wanru, his sister, whose ghost must have screeched with fury upon hearing Zitan laud himself as this paragon of brotherly feelings in comparison to the well-intentioned Turnip.

Oh, and he just sat there like an offended child while the country kept sliding into chaos, simply because some evil old men didn't let him kill Cheng's entire army with his sheer incompetence. Those dastardly old bastards! Let them scramble around and let the people in the provinces keep dying; they all deserve this for not recognizing Zitan's awesomeness! I'm not saying he should have fixed everything. I'm saying he should have done the bare minimum. He killed a brother for that throne, now he should actually do something with it. Other than purposefully provoking the only guy who actually restored peace and stability simply because the man happens to be married to Zitan's first love.

I'm sorry, I cannot with Zitan. There's a lot more to be said about that twerp, much of which has already been said, but at this point refraining from plowing on it's a matter of mental hygiene.

[angelofthequeers]

Not a Good Look: Chapter 7

@thequeenofpotatoeunicornss @lady-charinette @elmokingkong tagged as requested :)

Chapter 6 | AO3 link

Disclaimer: I don’t own ML.

Thanks to everyone who’s enjoyed this fic! It was just a little something I had to get out because of this whole quarantine crap…and then I misplaced my brain cell and picked my presentation topics with the same due week as my essays, so this was a welcome break from four assessments at once.

Because I got a few queries about Gabriel hearing the conversation after he was Venomed and realising that Adrien is Chat: considering that the driver in 'Queen Wasp' was delirious and didn't know what the heck was going on, I see Venom as freezing all the senses and basically making you black out. So no, he doesn't have a clue what happened after he was Venomed.

Also, you'll notice that I don't actually mention Emilie at all. That's because the investigation's still ongoing and they'd have to know to look behind the painting, let alone the combination to it, and they won't have that without Gabriel telling them or without some good tech if they did suspect it in the first place. Unlike in 'Hold Me', it's only been a few days since the takedown, not a few weeks, and Adrien doesn't have the knowledge about Emilie and the secret lair here that he did in 'Hold Me' when Gabriel physically showed him, so he can't go and tell any of the authorities. Just figured I'd throw that in before people start asking XD

“I can’t believe it!” Alya throws her hands up and almost steps onto the road in front of a speeding car, which honks furiously at her as it passes. “All that evidence against Lila and you’re not letting me air it?”

“Hawkmoth is fair game,” Marinette says. “And they’ll probably use the footage in court to prove that he was grooming an underage girl. But if you air that footage, you’re giving her a free ticket out. She’ll have solid proof that she was being manipulated by Mr Agreste. And honestly…Adrien’s right. Sure, we can expose her over the internet, but what then? It follows her everywhere she goes. She’s got no chance of ever growing past this evil, self-absorbed phase that she’s in because it’ll haunt her for the rest of her life.”

“That’s surprisingly mature for someone whose life was almost ruined by said phase,” Alya mutters.

“You think I’m happy about this?” Marinette says. “I want nothing more than to throw all her lies in her face and cackle like a witch about it. But I don’t want to sink to that kind of person. Being her for five minutes, even though it was an illusion…it made me pity her. She’ll do anything for her fifteen minutes of fame, even if she has to make deals with creepy old men who try to intimidate her, and she’ll squash anyone who gets in her way. And honestly? That’s just sad. I’m the one with true friends. I’m the one who’ll still be standing when the dust settles. Not her. I told her I had faith in my friends and look where we ended up.”

Alya reaches over and rests the back of her hand on Marinette’s forehead. “Are you sure we got the Butterfly and Peacock on Wednesday night?” she says. “You sure there’s not an akuma that’s making you say this stuff? Or that you’re not a sentimonster?”

“Oh, ha, ha,” Marinette says, rolling her eyes. “And besides, the police may or may not have told Ladybug that they were arresting Lila yesterday for colluding with a terrorist, since there’s enough doubt in the footage of me as her to at least claim that she had a clue that he was Hawkmoth. And even though she’ll most likely wriggle her way out of it because that proof’s not a hundred percent solid, at least she won’t be playing everyone like a puppet anymore. There’ll be just enough doubt that they’ll start to question her and then her lies will just…fall. And it’ll kill her more to have no attention than to even have bad attention.”

Alya blinks at her. “No, seriously, who are you and what have you done with Marinette? I know there’s no way you’d come up with that all by yourself.”

“Okay, fine!” Marinette crosses her arms. “Tikki talked me down from going ballistic last night, and Adrien, Kagami, and I had a good talk about what to do about her.”

“I knew it!” Alya says, jabbing Marinette in the chest. “That’s way more complex than your single brain cell can handle!”

“Excuse me?” Marinette splutters. “How dare you? I’m the saviour of Paris! You have my posters in your room!”

“And I’m also your best friend, so I’m allowed to ruthlessly roast you,” Alya says smugly. “Too bad, so sad.”

Sure enough, as Marinette had predicted, Lila’s at school today and is holding court in the classroom, strategically sobbing into her hands when Marinette and Alya enter the room.

“Oh, Marinette! Alya! I’m so glad you’re here!” Lila cries. “Marinette, I’m so sorry for everything I’ve done to you! I never wanted to hurt you but, well, Mr Agreste took advantage of my lying disorder and our natural rivalry and he – he –” She sniffles and blows her nose, and Marinette resists the incredibly strong urge to roll her eyes at the theatrics. “He manipulated me! He promised me modelling contracts and favours and that I could spend time with Adrien, since I had a crush on him, and – and oh my gosh, I feel so dirty!”

“It’s okay, Lila,” Rose says soothingly, patting her on the back. “He took advantage of you. It’s nothing to be ashamed of!”

“I always knew that Mr Agreste was a dirty old man,” Alix growls. “On top of being a shitty father and a supervillain!”

“I mean, we were all used by him as akumas,” Chloé scoffs, delicately touching up her mascara in her compact mirror. “You’re nothing special, Rossi. And Adrikins is staying at my hotel now, so which of us ended up winning, hmm?”

“Well, we might never be friends, but I forgive you for everything you’ve done,” Marinette says as everyone glares at Chloé. Kind of rich of Chloé to say that, considering what she’d done as Miracle Queen, but no one actually remembers that, so…oh well. “And I’m…sorry for the way I treated you. I should have believed you about your disabilities even if you didn’t have that lying disorder.”

As much as it pains her to do so, this apology is necessary. As Tikki and Adrien had pointed out, their classmates had in fact been in the right to believe Lila about her disabilities instead of forcing her to prove every little thing, and Marinette had wilted when Tikki had asked her to remember how she’s felt whenever anyone’s doubted her claim of being autistic because she “seems normal enough” and demanded that she provide evidence. But Marinette’s not apologising for or excusing Lila’s evil manipulations and every other lie of hers, especially the ones that got her expelled, and Tikki and Adrien had thankfully taken her side on that point.

“Oh, of course I forgive you!” Lila says dramatically. “And I agree! Even if we never end up being friends, I’d much rather be on friendly terms than unfriendly!”

“So, what happens now?” Sabrina says. “My father told me that you were arrested yesterday!”

Lila’s face falls. “Oh, yes, they had to arrest me for colluding with a terrorist, but it’s all a formality and I’m sure to be let off in the trial! Especially since their only evidence is some footage of me talking to Mr Agreste that’s clearly doctored, since I’ve got an airtight alibi, and Alya’s interview of me that she had to get as more evidence against him! Ladybug had to summon an illusion of me to trick Mr Agreste into confessing, of course, and I was so scared that he would take it out on me if our plan failed, but I’m fully prepared to give media statements, even if Ladybug can’t confirm or deny that we were working together for my safety…”

Marinette’s eye twitches as Lila spins some tale about the grand plan that she’d been part of to take down Gabriel Agreste. But, to her surprise, their classmates aren’t falling over themselves to ooh and ahh at her story. They’re not calling her out, of course, but they’re just…losing interest the longer she talks about herself. Huh. That’s never happened before.

“What’s going on?” Marinette turns to whisper to Ivan. “You don’t believe her?”

Ivan shrugs. “She’s got a lying disorder. She can’t help it. Not gonna be mean for something she can’t help but…yeah, I don’t believe Ladybug would use a civilian like that.”

“I pity her, honestly,” Nathaniel pipes up from behind Ivan. “But I’m also kind of wondering what else she’s lied about, especially if Mr Agreste made her. Even if she wasn’t doing it to screw us over…she was still lying to us.”

Marinette could sing to the heavens. Finally, someone’s using their brain! It might not be immediate, but Lila’s downfall is just around the corner, and honestly? Marinette had been telling the truth earlier; all she can feel right now is pity for when Lila’s eventually left alone, surrounded by nothing but her lies as her empire crumbles around her. And honestly, maybe fading into obscurity like that is a worse punishment for Lila than being targeted and called out, since that would still be giving her the attention that she craves. But this? This is nothing.

Although Marinette keeps an absent eye on the door for Adrien’s entrance, she’s not expecting to see him, since she already knows that he’s not coming to school today as well. Not that she can blame him, really, after the whole “Hawkmoth exposed” thing that Alya had posted on the Ladyblog that’s generated so much traffic that poor Alya can’t even check up on it since it keeps crashing (much to her gleeful annoyance). Marinette doesn’t think that anyone will accuse him of being in league with Hawkmoth but, well, it’s inevitable that there’ll be some dicks who pull the whole “like father, like son” crap, so it makes sense that he wouldn’t want to expose himself to that.

However, that doesn’t stop her from making a beeline for Le Grand Paris after school, where Adrien and his bodyguard are staying temporarily since the mansion’s now considered a crime scene. It’s so…weird. Hawkmoth and Mayura have been taken down and Adrien’s life has been utterly turned on its head and shaken some more, yet the sun still casts its weak rays down on Marinette’s back. The pigeons still coo and rustle their wings, with Mr Ramier no doubt nearby. The cars still zoom past, leaving acrid trails in their wake. The world just…keeps on keeping on, with no regard to the massive shock that’s turned people’s lives upside-down. All these people – these animals – they won’t know, they won’t care, what she and her friends have had to go through, being used like pawns in a chess game and giving up so much for the greater good, in ways that will stay with them forever –

“Marinette!” Warm hands grab her by the shoulders and a pair of brown eyes root her to the spot, grounding her so that she doesn’t float away from everything that’s currently assaulting her brain. She lets out a shuddering gasp and slumps forward, allowing the person to fully embrace her, and she buries her nose in the damp skin of their neck and inhales sweat and sharp deodorant, along with the faintest traces of what smells like some kind of incense.

“Kagami,” she croaks and digs her fingers into the back of Kagami’s blazer. “Why? What did Adrien do to deserve this? What did we do to deserve this? Lila – Mr Agreste – am I really that bad that they teamed up to break me –”

“What they did to you isn’t a punishment for anything,” Kagami says, firm but soft at the same time. “They colluded like that because they’re awful people.”

“But the way I treated you and – and stalked Adrien – I stole his phone, I followed him around, I tried to sabotage you with Chloé at the movie event because I was jealous – it’s been bothering me but I didn’t – it didn’t hit – not until now, when I realised how Mr Agreste and Lila treated him like – like a toy –”

“Marinette –”

“Why do you even like me? Why does Adrien like me? He said I’m good but I’m not. I’ve done bad things and it’s like – everyone acts like me being Ladybug makes me a saint but I’m not, I’m just a teenage girl and I can’t cope, I can’t do this –”

“Yes, you can.” Kagami undoes Marinette’s pigtails so that she can run her fingers through Marinette’s hair, stroking it in a rhythmic pattern that hypnotises Marinette into a blurry trance. “Hawkmoth and Mayura are dealt with. I’m here to talk to Adrien, just as you are, and we’ll figure it out, okay? We always will. And I can’t say that I haven’t acted jealously before either, because I definitely clung to Adrien to make a point to you and Chloé at the movie premiere, so you’re not a bad person just because you did a few bad things. And your flaws don’t mean that Adrien was lying when he said that you’re a brilliant girl. I wouldn’t have feelings for you if you were anything less than extraordinary. Why do you think I like Adrien?”

“God – I’m a mess –”

“It’s okay. I moved us to an alleyway, so no one will see. And now that there aren’t any more akumas, you deserve this, Marinette. It’s okay.”

Dimly, Marinette registers her legs caving underneath her as she sobs into Kagami’s shoulder and clutches fistfuls of the other girl’s blazer, finally exorcising everything she’s had to keep bottled up for fear of akumatisation, because Kagami’s right: now that there aren’t any akumas, there’s no threat for expressing her emotions, and it’s so good to be able to just break down like this, rather than having to suppress everything and paste on a smile for the greater good. She almost jumps out of her skin when someone leans against her back and wraps their arms around her from behind, but then she gets a whiff of their musky, earthy smell and she melts into their embrace because it’s Adrien; it’s her kitty, and he’ll always be there for her no matter what.

“Wow, you weren’t lying when you said she was a mess,” Adrien murmurs, his voice distorted as though they’re underwater. “What brought it on?”

“I don’t know what triggered it, but I believe the underlying cause is not being able to express any of this with Hawkmoth around. She just…exploded.”

The voices turn to a dull buzz after that as Marinette gasps in air and her tears finally start to die down. The next time she’s able to discern individual words, it’s Adrien talking to her as she finally stops crying and just slumps against Kagami with her eyes closed and her limbs like lead weights.

“It’s okay, Marinette,” he’s saying. “I forgive you for stealing my phone and following me and Lila home and everything else. And Kagami forgives you for trying to embarrass her.”

“But why?” Marinette croaks. “It’s not normal. I’m not normal. Why don’t you h-hate me? I’m a creep.”

“After what Hawkmoth and Lila did, you still think you’re a creep?” Adrien says. He gently pulls her back, detaching her from Kagami, and he pulls her into his lap and tangles his fingers in her hair, his warm breath ghosting across the top of her head. Through her blurry eyes, Marinette sees Kagami snuggling up to Adrien’s side and pulling Marinette’s legs into her lap while she rests her head on Adrien’s shoulder. “I said I forgive you, bugaboo, not that you didn’t do anything wrong. So, you know, that means that I know you messed up and I’m okay with it. It’s not like I’ve never made mistakes either.”

Somehow, it’s the admission that yeah, she’d screwed up, but he forgives her for it, that manages to calm Marinette down the rest of the way; if he’d tried to excuse her actions and brush them off as her never doing anything wrong, that probably would’ve just brought on a fresh emotional meltdown. She sags against Adrien and closes her eyes, allowing the last of her meltdown to seep out of her and into the world around them, and when Kagami shifts under her legs, she acts purely on instinct and wraps her legs around Kagami to pull her closer.

“Looks like Ladybug never skipped leg day,” Adrien says when Marinette pulls Kagami to lean back against her. Although Marinette can’t see him, she just knows that he’s wearing that shit-eating grin that Chat Noir always has, so she punishes him by elbowing him gently in the gut. “Meowch!”

“So, I’m guessing this means we’re…a thing?” Marinette says. Her voice cracks halfway through her sentence, like she’s a teenage boy in the middle of puberty, but thankfully, neither person around her calls her out on it.

“I’m happy with that if we take it slow and don’t jump straight into the deep end,” Adrien says. “It’s pretty lonely in the hotel, but hopefully Gorilla or Nino’s mother gets custody of me soon. I don’t know who they’re leaning towards. And after what just happened…well, if both of you want to give me kitty cuddles, I won’t say no. And, uh…I have to confess. One of the times I messed up as Aspik was because I…couldn’t stop staring at Multimouse’s butt. So, uh, I think that beats out any creepy things you’ve done.”

The shock of hearing Adrien confess to looking at her butt like he’s a little kitten confessing to being naughty jolts a laugh out of Marinette, and then she’s sagging against Adrien in a fit of piercing laughter as tears roll down her face. Alya had been right the other night. What the hell is wrong with them? How did they end up in a two-person love square that turned into a tangled polygon when Kagami had entered the room?

“Then it’s official.” Kagami laces her fingers with a hysterical Marinette’s and rests their hands on her stomach. “I have a tentative boyfriend and a girlfriend. But Adrien has a moral obligation to punch anyone who makes any disgusting remarks about him having “two girls”.”

“You act like I wasn’t gonna do that anyway,” Adrien grumbles. “I’ll also throw in an additional punch if they ask you two to make out with each other.”

“Our hero,” Marinette tries to say dryly, but the effect is ruined when she chokes it out in the middle of the hiccups of her dying laughter. “Whatever would we do without you?”

“Well, your life would be –”

“No, wait, don’t finish that sentence. I know you’ll make a pun out of it somehow and then I’ll be forced to punch you for it.”

“Aww,” Adrien whines, while Kagami snorts. “But that’s half my charm!”

“Getting punched? I agree,” Kagami says innocently. Adrien whines again and Marinette can’t help but laugh again and realise that, while navigating the territory of having two partners at the same time won’t be easy, the extra support is probably exactly what she needs right now. With her two partners and her two best friends by her side, there’s nothing the five of them can’t do; especially with no more supervillain terrorising Paris and no more attention-seeking teenage girl trying to ruin everyone else’s lives.

It really hadn’t been a good look for either of them after all.

[wavemaker9]

I don’t know when i accidentally tricked myself into being so toni/arthur but also i was thinking about the one dw xover with kyle and ivan as amy and rory and then arthur as the doctor and was trying to figure out a good river and i don’t know if it’s an exact perfect fit but toni as river wouldn’t be /bad/. Mainly hard to imagine toni idolizing someone like arthur the way river does the doctor, especially doubting that arthur genuinely loved him because of how important arthur is to the universe + him having other relays over the years of travelling as well. ‘you can’t expect the sunset to admire you back’ matches less with toni’s style, though i will say it’s not IMPOSSIBLE by any means. A, Toni’s self-esteem not being quite so high as normal in this AU because of the same situation of river as being raised as this weapon and then trying to flip his morals wildly and suddenly while also serving a long sentence for murdering arthur. It’s easy to see how that can unintentionally add a ‘i’m not a good person’ factor onto one’s mindset. Also just not just self-esteem for doubt source, but it’d also make sense for toni to doubt because hey he /did/ almost kill arthur that one time. Twice really if we’re thinking about it. Arthur seemed to have not been upset about either time but also yknow. His classic tagline is that he lies, so. Like in GTA AU distrust because of potential hostility is what causes Toni to emotionally distance most relationships so that’d track. Also in defense of the choice, Arthur already isn’t a /perfect/ fit for 11 either given how energetic and playful 11 is, so it’s like whatever. We adjust it’s fine

Anyway, other factors I remembered during work that are very good here:

Toni just being raised his whole life to kill Arthur since he was a baby. Good fucking get him, my boy. Toni just being sly and looser morals in general.

Arthur telling a room full of bad guy aliens that Toni can at least kill 3 of them before X or whatever. Toni corrects, no he could kill 7 of them. Arthur, ‘Seven? Really?’ Toni, ‘For you, Eight.’ Arthur teasing for him to stop it and Toni coming right back for Arthur to make him which immediately gets a countered “well maybe I will” before they have to remember to focus, they’re here to save kyle.

This whole exchange: Arthur: Are you married, Antonio? Toni: Are you asking? Arthur: Yes. Toni: Yes. Arthur: ...No, hang on. Did you think I was asking you to marry me, or asking if you were married? Toni: Yes. Arthur: No, but was that yes, or yes? Toni: /Yes~./

Toni coming back from dealing with a Dalek he thought killed Arthur Kyle: What happened to the Dalek? Toni, coldly: It died.

Not sure if this still applies since can’t have the direct pregnancy plot thing between kyle and ivan, but also. I’m upset at how cursed yet believable the concept “toni as kyle and ivan’s kid” is. We already joke about toni and ivan being a lot alike but take that + kyle’s darker hair/skin, charming personality, and also the spanish factor i added to kyle via summer and it’s like. Upsetting how much that tracks. It’s not even that important because river’s like at least 2 regenerations away from the ‘rory and amy’s baby’ appearance she would have had, but yknow.

Toni just shooting off all the hats Arthur gets because toni’s an asshole sometimes and loves fucking with arthur even if he also loves him

Toni holding kyle back from running to arthur’s side when he’s shot but ALSO unloading his entire gun at the person who shot arthur. Get you a man who can do both.

This bit fits better than the rustralia version of doc/river let’s be honest: Arthur: I’m being extremely clever up here, and there’s no one to stand around looking impressed! What’s the point in having you all? Toni: (teasingly to Kyle and Ivan) Couldn’t you just slap him sometimes?

Toni trying to convince Arthur to do something based on trust and Arthur coming back to grill toni on a bunch of vague mysteries about him. Admits he loves a bad boy, sure, but /trust Toni/? /Seriously/?

The back and forth “oh i hate him/you” from toni and arthur “no you don’t” + Arthur saying toni has a ‘he’s hot when he’s clever’ face. Toni countering this is his normal face??? Arthur ‘yes, it is’ and toni just laughing and telling arthur to be quiet

Toni pulling Arthur into a kiss and Arthur immediately !!! surprised about it because from his perspective, have not done that before so surprising! Good, but surprising!

God just the back and forth flirting + out thinking each other as early toni tries very hard to kill arthur with arthur stopping him at every turn. Toni: Is killing you going to take all day? Arthur: Why, are you busy? Toni: Oh, I’m not complaining.

TONI SLOWLY DE-AGING TO FREAK PEOPLE OUT. not quite as good as the version where it’s ivan + kyle and then the mels version is just sergey but yknow. 

Toni being jealous of himself without realizing it is just very good. Him just growing more bitterly upset about Arthur being so in love with this other person until it’s finally revealed ohhhhhh /i’m/ the other person. It was me all along, whoops! And finally, at Kyle and Ivan’s prompting, helping to save Arthur’s life at that point.

Arthur: We’ve got 10 minutes. Get dressed. Toni: That’s so close to the perfect sentence.

Toni being told by Arthur to get his wrist free from a Weeping Angel’s grip without breaking it to prove that time can be re-written and that Kyle can be saved from whatever bad thing is expected to happen to him in the future. Toni eventually coming out from where he’d been held, shrugging off that he did it, no need to ask how, Arthur asked so he did. (Arthur “[He]’s good, yeah? Have you noticed? Really, really good.”) Until Arthur goes to grab Toni’s wrist to lead him off to their next destination and Toni reacts in pain, revealing he did have to break his wrist, but didn’t want to let Arthur know because he knew it’d only upset him.

Arthur sitting Toni down to ask why he lied and Toni explaining that idea, Arthur doesn’t like to dwell on the pain and the sorrow, to let it show that it affects him. And so, because Toni loves Arthur, he hid the damage to make that easier for Arthur.

Arthur trying to talk Kyle into staying with him instead of letting the Angel take him to where Ivan was taken to. Toni doing the more responsible thing (technically???) and reassuring kyle that he should go be with ivan. Never pass on a chance to get rid of Kyle, even in an AU where you’re family, huh toni?

Though also just. Arthur realizing later that he didn’t even consider how upset Toni must feel because this is also him losing his parents, but Toni doing like before and hiding the damage to reduce the pain arthur has to address.

Toni admitting to being a terrible influence on Arthur, that’s valid. They really should not be allowed to travel together long term, the most responsible choice toni’s made.

Arthur not talking to Toni after Toni’s death because. Yknow. That’d be arthur addressing an emotionally upsetting thing and he just simply will not do that.

Arthur revealing that he could see Toni as the ghost hologram before, but didn’t want to talk to him because he thought it would hurt him too much. Toni offering he thinks he could have dealt with the pain just to talk to Arthur again, but Arthur countering he meant it would hurt /himself/ too much. And he was right.

Technically it shouldn’t be arthur for the ep with 12 but yknow. Fuck it i don’t care, still gonna refer to arthur even if it’d be a different face

Toni calling some other guy as an act “the only husband [he]’ll ever have” and arthur just rolling his eyes SO hard.

Little bits:

Toni /basically/ married this guy’s diamond instead of him.

Arthur: You’re talking about murdering someone! Toni: No, I’m /actually/ murdering someone.

Toni: I’ll kill the lights, you kill the patient.

Arthur “I haven’t laughed in a long time” awh

Arthur “Stop holding my hand, people don’t do that to me!”

Arthur’s frown being audible

Arthur and Toni fighting each other’s attempts to stay behind to try and save a crashing ship before finally just insisting they won’t let the other stay because there’s nothing on that ship that’s worth more than the other person’s life.

[rorykillmore]

so this is a birthday present for @numinousbones  that also doubles as like. a general... congratulatory thing, i guess, because they’ve gotten through a lot this year and i wanted to do something nice for the end of their semester.

it also happened bc we haven’t rped together in ages now but we HAVE wistfully talked about a few ideas and dynamics and this crossover thing just kinda popped into my head. it will never rival the legendary transformers/grey’s anatomy masterpiece but ENJOY IT ANYWAY

storm...  i know life often seems like. A Lot right now for way too many reasons, but i have seen you persevere through so much and i will never stop admiring that about you. right now it might feel like there’s no end in sight but you’re so talented and so smart and so passionate and!! one day that’s all gonna come together and feel less like “persevering” and more like. living the life you deserve. okay this is getting way too sappy but i just felt like maybe you needed some sappy in your life, ANYWAYS. happy birthday!!! <3

Ivan Becke is dead before Villanelle can get to him.

It would actually be kind of cool, if the idea of competition didn’t piss her off so much. His throat has been cut, and the wound is neat and deliberate but a little too broad to be from the kitchen knife on the ground a few feet away.

Is it someone’s deliberate attempt at deception? It might work on a less trained eye, but she muses idly on why the other assassin would need to cover up their method if they were going to let him bleed out anyway.

She pouts down at the pale, lifeless face petulantly.  “Look at you. You’re a mess. See what happens when you don’t wait for me?”

As if she’d been planning on leaving him much better off.

Sighing, Villanelle begins to straighten up. Agitation and pent up energy cling to her like static electricity. She hates being denied a kill when she’s already built it up this much, it’s like --

“They told me to leave a mess. I’m usually much cleaner.”  A voice Villanelle doesn’t recognize echoes from -- not behind her, but in front of her, and she doesn’t know how she could have missed the figure in the shadows of the apartment, the pair of unnatural red eyes suddenly glowing back at her.  “Something about making an impression.”

Villanelle wonders whether this is one of those times - so frequent, in her line of work - when it’s better to shoot first and ask questions later. But what the mysterious assailant just said sinks in, and her curiosity gets the better of her. She straightens fully.  “Were you trying to show off for me?” she asks, mockingly flattered.

“...Hardly.”  The eerie gaze never leaves her.  “Or at least, strictly in the most professional sense.”

The figure ripples into full view, and Villanelle can’t him but start at it -- him? Openly. The other assassin is not a person, but a machine. A robot. He’s more cat-like than anything, although he’s much closer to the size of a car than a cat, and now Villanelle is certain there is no way she could have missed him unless he came equipped with some kind of... invisibility trick.  

There are a lot of questions she could ask, right in this moment. A normal person would have probably been sputtering with hundreds of them. But Villanelle knows she would not be the Twelve’s favorite if she was not so extraordinary with things like this: compartmentalizing shock, confusion, fear, no matter how unprecedented. 

So what she says instead is, “Wow. Wasn’t sending you kind of overkill?”

The robot-cat-assassin stares at her, unimpressed.  “Trust me. He wasn’t my usual variety of target.”

“Wait! Let me guess.” Villanelle hardly lets him finish.  “You’re here from the future. Your target was the father of some heroic asshole who’s going to lead a revolution, and you had to come all the way back here to stop him because just killing him as a baby would have been too easy, or something.”

She gets no response this time, but she swears something dubious flickers in the other assassin’s eyes.   “Seriously? You really need to be more genre-savvy.”

“Right,” the cat says. “You know, I don’t know how you can be half as effective as I’m told you are. You never seem to shut up.”

“I’m just trying to make conversation! Getting to know the people in your field is always so awkward.” She leans back on her heels, eyeing him speculatively, wondering what might be her best chance at taking him down if he proves to be a threat. She doesn’t have any weapons on her currently that seem as though they’d be remotely effective against a giant metal predator.  Perhaps she could try electrocuting him, but that would require some luck and some very quick thinking.  “Did the Twelve send you?  They’ve really been holding out on me.”

Some kind of bizarre, technological experiment on their part would be... well, maybe not the strangest thing Villanelle has ever heard, but up there. The other option is that someone else sent him, in which case her life is almost definitely in danger. She watches him carefully despite her casual outward demeanor.

“Not exactly.” The cat’s tail flicks slowly to one side, but he has yet to make a hostile move. “But it turns out that my superiors are interested in yours. Insofar as my superiors can be interested in yours.”

“Are they robots too?” Villanelle asks, taking his dig at the Twelve in stride.

He sniffs disdainfully.  “We’re not robots. We’re Cybertronians. Aliens, as you would call them.”

“Oh. Okay.” Villanelle guesses that isn’t really much weirder than assassin robots from the future. Or the secret, mechanical army the Twelve had suddenly been building in her head.  But a thought suddenly strikes her, and she leans in just a little, quirking a brow.  “Are you invading?”

The thought of the Twelve getting wrapped up in something like this is mildly hilarious. Villanelle can’t think of any other reason aliens would take such an immediate interest in them, though.

“It’s more complicated than that,” the cat says impatiently, which Villanelle is pretty sure is just bullshit. He probably just doesn’t want to admit that whatever devious scheme his superiors have conducted has been done a hundred times in science fiction movies before.  “We’re in the middle of a war, and we could use your organization’s information, and your resources. And no doubt you could use ours.���

There’s definite disdain dripping from his words, this time. Villanelle can’t help but grin a little.  “Oh, you hate this.”

“I’m not particularly fond of working with humans.”

“You’re so much better than us. So much older, so much more technologically advanced... right?”

“Something like that.”

“And yet... you and I do the same work.”

He eyes her coolly for a long moment.  “I do mine better.”

Villanelle laughs. She wanted to hate him - she really did - but he’s making it difficult for her.  “So why did you do this?” She gestures to the corpse on the floor.  “Why bother making an impression on an inferior species?”

Something rumbles in his throat, like a growl.  “Your handler seems to think that getting your attention is the only way to keep you manageable.”

Ah. That does sound like something Konstantin would say. But why --

“...And if we’re going to be working together, I had to think of something that wouldn’t necessitate immediately mauling you.”

Just like that, Villanelle’s smile drops. Working together?

“I work alone,” she states with simple finality.

“You think I like it any more than you do?” he snaps irritably. “Orders are orders. I hear you don’t like following them, but if you make this more difficult than it has to be - draw it out, make things complicated - I really will kill you.”

Inwardly, Villanelle seethes, though more of her anger is directed at Konstantin than her new coworker. He knows she doesn’t play well with others. What is he doing? What are the Twelve doing?

“It sounds like you know all about me already,” Villanelle notes with a clear voice and a smile that is now forced.  “What about you? Do I even get to know your name?”

He watches her for awhile without answering, and Villanelle suddenly starts to feel that he can see through her. She doesn’t like it.   “Ravage,” he says finally.

“Huh. Good name.”

“You may be obnoxious, but I know you’re also talented. For a human.” Ravage gives the half-compliment begrudgingly, seeming to relent a little, and Villanelle can’t help but feel suspicious of that too. “Don’t cause problems, and maybe we’ll even work halfway decently together. Then this will be over more quickly for both of us.”

Villanelle is already thinking of a million and one ways she can cause problems. But she sighs.  If nothing else, she’s curious about Ravage, the way he works, the way he kills. Maybe that will keep her entertained, for a little while.

At least until she gets her next chance to complain to Konstantin.

“Okay, partner!” she says at last, deliberately too cheery.  “What do you say we get out of here before this body starts to smell?”

“Technically, you all smell,” Ravage tells her. She shoots him an offended look.

“I do not smell. Badly, at least.”

“You’ve sprayed something chemical all over yourself. It almost drowns out the reek of your emotions.”

The idea that he can somehow smell her feelings brings Villanelle up short. 

Maybe she’ll start overdoing the perfume, from now on.

“Hey, you’re not going to do that invisibility thing again when we go outside, right?” she asks over her shoulder, heading for the fire escape and already filing away her prickling concerns.

“Yes, actually,” Ravage responds dryly. “Seeing as keeping a low profile would be ideal for both of us.”

“But then it’ll just look like I am talking to myself,” Villanelle complains. “I will look crazy!”

“I don’t think you need my help with that.”

Villanelle laughs again, because he hasn’t seen anything yet. Maybe while she’s trying to learn everything she can from Ravage, she’ll teach him a thing or two as well.

[jesspeonwrites]

Chapter 2: Electric Boogaloo (Oh I’m definitely using that for Stormy Weather)

Of all the blunders that had occurred throughout Bridgette’s short life, this was by far the worst. A superhero? Her? She shouldn’t have bothered in the first place. She’d only done it that time because Alya was about to get herself killed. Seeing those earrings inside that little box only cemented her failure as Paris’ savior.

But now the task fell to her to find Paris’ true superhero. Someone who could wield the Ladybug miraculous properly.

Someone who would actually remember to purify the akuma…

“Why do you want to go to school?” Plagg’s voice dripped with disgust as he looked up at his chosen.

“I don’t know, why do you eat the most foul-smelling cheese that exists?”

“Do you need school to turn snobby rich boys into superheroes?”

Felix huffed and kept up his brisk pace. No doubt Nathalie and the Gorilla would be after him soon. He just had to get inside those doors.

Inside the collège, Alya was ranting and raving about her journalistic prowess while Bridgette tried to find an opening to slip the earrings into her bag. And she would have, if she hadn’t been filled with terror when Chloé started antagonizing Ivan, again. She had to keep him calm and de-akumatized long enough for her to pass the earrings off.

Thus, she missed Felix’s debut as the newest member of her class. And Chloé’s little gum-stunt. At least Ivan was writing a song to express his feelings for Mylène… now all she had to do was sneak her Miraculous into Alya’s bag. Then she’d be all good.

What wasn’t all good was Felix. Felix, in fact, was awful. The boy he was supposed to sit next to for the rest of the year wouldn’t even look at him, and apparently it had something to do with Chloé. The rest of the school had been fawning over him, begging for autographs, and while it wasn’t his favorite, it was better than his father’s constant cold-shoulder. But, hell, even Gorilla was nicer than his seat-mate.

What hand did Chloé play in all of this? She was his childhood friend, and although she hadn’t always been kind, she was never explicitly mean to him.

And then.

The gum.

Felix may have been homeschooled, but even he knew it was wrong to put gum on someone’s seat. But, he couldn’t just call out Chloé. Her reputation would be ruined and she would retaliate by bringing down the wrath of Paris on the Agreste family.

Felix mustered his best look of disgust and set about removing the gum from the chair. He was nearly done when--

“Hey! What are you doing?”

A girl with blue-black hair tied in pigtails gave him a look he’d never forget. No one had looked at him like that before. He was a model, for god’s sake! And this girl was giving him the coldest glare he’d ever seen before. For all his good breeding, he was at a loss for words.

“Uhh, I--”

Her head whipped around to Chloé and Sabrina, snickering in their seats.

“Oh, I get it. Haha, very funny you three.”

And he finally snapped back. “I was trying to get rid of it!”

“Oh, really? You’re friends with Chloé, right?” She shooed him away from her seat and pulled the gum off with a napkin before sitting down.

Seriously, what is with these guys and Chloé? He mused, staring at the girl across the aisle. Her face was a deep shade of red. Not a blush like he was used to, but fury.

“See what I mean about respect, Felix?” Chloé whispered over her desk at him. He sighed quietly.

“Dude, why didn’t you tell her it was Chloé’s idea?” His classmate looked wary. Like he still didn’t quite trust Felix’s motivations.

“It’s a long story, but it boils down to she’s my childhood friend and I can’t throw her under the bus.”

“Well, it’s time for you to make some new friends. I’m Nino.” He held out his hand.

Nino.

Felix accepted the handshake. He had a lot to think about, especially for it only being his first day of school.

“I swear I’ve seen him before.” Bridgette hissed in Alya’s ear, shooting daggers at Felix’s back as he talked to Chloé and Nino. Why, oh why, did that jerk have to sit next to her best friend? She’d known Nino since they were kids! Not that she hated sitting next to Alya, but she needed to protect Nino. He was like family. Scratch that, he was family. Looking back at her, Bridgette saw an image of Gabriel Agreste’s newest magazine. It clicked.

“That’s Felix Agreste! Alya, his father is my favorite fashion designer!!” She groaned in frustration. Now she’d have to find someone who didn’t raise garbage children to look up to.

Alya had to stop herself from busting out in laughter. “Daddy’s boy, teen model, and friend of Chloé? Forget him.”

Once again, everyone quieted down as Mlle Bustier started taking roll. Roll call?

“Agreste, Felix?”

“Present.”

“Bourgeois, Chloé?”

“Present!”

“Bruel, Ivan?...”

A freshly akumatized Stoneheart burst into the room to announce that he, too, was present. “Present! Mylène?”

Fffffuck.

Felix made it out in no time flat. Chloé wasn’t quite as lucky. Stoneheart grabbed her and Mylène, then left through the wall. Alya, ever the survivalist, saw no choice but to take off after them. Only, of course, after entrusting Bridgette with her bag. The bag that had the miraculous earrings in it. The bag Bridgette specifically put them in so she could get rid of them. That bag.

The powers that be really didn’t want Alya to find those earrings. But Bridgette did. So she took off after her.

“You know, Plagg, I’m starting to think you’re a bad luck charm.”

“Aww, how sweet of you! Here I was thinking it was that blonde brat causing problems.”

“Very funny. Now, transform me.”

Felix tore after Stoneheart with very little heed to the fact that he was running out of a school locker room. It sure was a good thing Francois-DuPont didn’t have cameras to catch Felix running in and Chat Noir running out. Hm.

Chloé, far from afraid, was berating Stoneheart for daring to lay a finger on her designer top. “You have no idea who you're dealing with. My daddy, the mayor, will bring in the police, the army, the entire cavalry!”

“And don't forget the superheroes!” Chat Noir chimed in. He landed an easy hit on Stoneheart with his baton mere moments before remembering what Ladybug had said about his powers. “Oh no. My bad.”

Chloé rolled her eyes. “Ugh. Super incompetent, you mean.” Even she’d remembered not to hit the damn akuma.

Stoneheart called for his legion of mini-mes and sicced them all on Chat Noir so he could make his escape.

“Ivan! Where are we going?”

“To deliver a message. Then we'll be brought together forever by a pretty black butterfly.”

“Ugh. All this lovey-dovey stuff is making me sick.” Chloé groaned. She hadn’t exactly meant to say it out loud.

“Don't worry, little monster. I'm gonna take care of you, too.” Ew.

Meanwhile, Alya was having a lovely time watching (and recording) Chat Noir get his shit kicked by a bunch of Stonehearts.

“If you can hear me, Ladybug, I could use a little help!”

That couldn’t be good. “What's she waiting for?” She whispered to her camera.

Bridgette was waiting for Alya to accept her destiny as Paris’ new Ladybug-themed savior. Alya, unfortunately, was trapped under a car. Chat Noir could handle himself while she saved Alya, right? No? He’s being forcibly trapped in a hug by another Mini-Heart? Ok, cool. Fine.

“Let go, you rockhead!”

“HELP!!” Bridgette may not have been made of superhero-stuff at that moment, but she was always 100% made of friend-stuff. And if that meant becoming Ladybug to save Alya, so be it. She pulled the box out of Alya’s bag and popped the earrings in, half expecting to have to shush Tikki’s incoming hero-lecture. That’s what magical creatures did when their chosen were acting childish, if superhero shows were anything to go off of.

She was a little surprised when all Tikki said was, “Mmmm!” but that wasn’t going to stop her now.

“I think I need Ladybug!”

“I knew you'd come around!”

“Well, I'm still not sure I'm up for this, but Alya's in danger. I can't sit back and do nothing. Transform me, Tikki!”

Bridgette wasn’t positive a child’s toy could move an entire vehicle, but neither was she sure her super-strength would work.

Thankfully, her yoyo managed. “You can't stay here. It's too dangerous.”

Alya was very different when her life was in danger. Gone was the kick-ass reporter persona, replaced by an almost childlike wonder at the red and black superheroine standing above her. She took Ladybug’s advice and decided to record from a bit farther away.

With Alya heading to safety, Bridgette could focus on the akuma. The Mini-Hearts had wrestled Chat Noir’s baton away from him in the confusion. She snatched it from one of them and chucked it back to him, hoping his reflexes were better than the akuma’s. “Chat Noir! Extend it!”

He launched himself away from the akuma and barely landed on the roof Ladybug was waiting on.

“Sorry I was late.”

“It’s fine, you’re here now.” He refused to look her in the eye when he spoke. She figured out why when she saw what he was staring at.

The Mini-Hearts were starting to swarm up the side of the building.

“We gotta get out of here!”

“We’re not going to take care of 'em?” Chat Noir was incredulous.

“No. If we wanna save them all, then we go to the source. That one!” She showed him her yoyo, now displaying a map of Paris with a large red dot at the Eiffel Tower and roughly a hundred smaller dots on their location.

The police were trying their best to deal with the situation at the Tower while Ladybug and Chat Noir fought their way through the sea of akumas. Even the mayor turned up. Once he realized Chloé was in danger...

“I demand my daughter's safe return!”

“Daddy!!”

Against Andre’s expectations, Stoneheart gave in. “You know what? You're welcome to her!”

He threw Chloé from the Eiffel.

In a moment of pure terror, Chloé decided to pray to anything that would listen to her. “Help! I promise I'll be nice to everyone, say please and thank you all--”

Ladybug answered by catching her.

“I didn't promise.”

“What?” Bridgette quirked an eyebrow at the seemingly random greeting before landing both of them on the ground.

“My little princess!” Andre and Chloé rushed each other for a panicked hug.

With the mayor’s daughter out of harm’s way, Roger was given permission to launch whatever he wanted at Stoneheart. And Mylène. “We're clear to attack!”

Ladybug nearly shrieked when she heard him. “Wait! Don't attack them! You know it'll only make it worse!”

“I have a new plan, unlike you! Move aside and let the pros do their thing. You've already failed once!”

Her indignation gave way to shame almost immediately. “...He's right. If I had captured Stoneheart's akuma the first time around, none of this would have happened! I knew I wasn't the right one for this job…”

Chat Noir wanted to agree, but  he needed his partner at full strength. “No. He's wrong, because without you, she'd no longer be here. And because without us, they won't make it, and we'll prove that. Trust me on this. Okay?”

“Okay.” She heaved a sigh and steeled her nerves.

No matter how steeled she thought she was, nothing prepared her for Ivan coughing up hundreds of black butterflies that arranged themselves into someone’s head.

“People of Paris, listen carefully. I am Hawkmoth.”

“Hawk Moth?” Both the heroes furrowed their brows.

“Ladybug, Cat Noir, give me the ladybug earrings and the cat ring now. You've done enough damage to these innocent people!”

Bridgette’s earlier indignation returned tenfold. “Nice try, Hawk Moth, but we know who the real villain is. Let's not reverse the roles here. Without you, none of these innocent victims would have been transformed into monsters. Hawk Moth, no matter how long it takes, we will find you, and YOU will hand us YOUR Miraculous!” In a fit of righteous rage, she embraced her powers fully and whipped her yoyo into a frenzy. “Time to de-evilize!”

Even Chat Noir had to admit he was impressed by that.

“Let me make this promise to you. No matter who wants to harm you, Ladybug and Cat Noir will do everything in our power to keep you safe!” Ladybug turned around, dead-eyed the reporters that had managed to get through the chaos to film, and released hundreds of snowy-white butterflies.

A true power move.

“Agh! That's the problem with superheroes. They're too...heroic! Stoneheart, they're trying to take your loved one away from you. You must snatch their Miraculous so they will be powerless against you!”

“Okay, Hawk Moth.”

Now, one would think that after vomiting up 100 butterflies, Stoneheart would’ve rethought the mysterious magic man’s motives. But no.

“Help me!” Mylène yelled down to the heroes. Had everyone forgotten about her just because Ladybug made a dramatic speech?

“You'll never take Mylène from me! Come to me, my stone beings!”

Chat Noir was powerless to do anything but watch as the Mini-Hearts started appearing all around, blocking off any chance of escape.

“We're surrounded! What do we do now? We can't attack him.”

“Yes, but we know where the akuma is.”

“Yes, in his clenched fist, I know. The one he's holding Mylène with. So--”

“--So we know he's in love with her. That's it! We don't separate Stoneheart and Mylène: we bring them closer together! They're made for one another! It's just that they don't know it yet.” The fiendish glint in her eye didn’t put Felix at ease. What his partner lacked in grace, she certainly seemed to make up for in cunning.

“Not really following you, but guess I better trust you. Something tells me that this is how it's gonna be from here on out.” His partner, while a bit of ditz, seemed to be one used to giving orders instead of receiving them. Just when he thought he was going to get out of being bossed around. Look here, tilt your head down a little more, now give us a pout!

He was pulled out of his sulking by Mylène’s repeated call. “Help! I'm scared of heights!”

“Everything's going to be alright!” Ladybug called up.

“How are you planning to get them closer than they already are?”

“With this! Lucky Charm! ...A parachute? What am I supposed to do with this?”

Chat Noir shrieked as he was thrown from the Eiffel by a Mini-Heart, again barely catching himself in time before calling back up to Ladybug. “You sure you know what you're doing?”

“We'll find out soon enough! His hand! Get ready!” She wrapped Stoneheart’s hand with her yoyo and leapt off the Eiffel, pulling his hand away from him, and then releasing it once he pulled back hard enough to make her plan work. His fist slammed back into his face, Mylène with it, and resulted in a very awkward kiss. Stoneheart dropped her and the paper in surprise. Mylène grabbed his finger and managed to cling on through sheer willpower while Chat Noir grabbed the akumatized paper. He launched it to Ladybug with his staff, and she destroyed it.

“No more evil-doing for you, little akuma. De-evilize! Huh?” Her celebration (and purification) were cut short by the sight of Ivan and Mylène falling fast. “Chat Noir, take care of Ivan!”

“On it! Cataclysm!” The Eiffel started to crumble. He made a staircase of the rubble pile and caught both of them.

“Gotcha! Bye-bye, little butterfly. Miraculous Ladybug!” She threw the parachute into the air and witnessed her first miraculous reversion. There were now hundreds of civilians where the Mini-Hearts once stood. More amazing, the Eiffel Tower was back to normal.

“Are you seeing what I'm seeing?” Chat Noir sidled up next to her, taking in her handiwork.

“Yeah. It's beautiful and amazing. It's...um...miraculous!” She whispered the last part, watching as everyone helped each other up. Then she remembered the bigger issue that had started this hell-day in the first place. She turned around and approached Ivan, blushing something furious while he refused to look at Mylène. “I think you two have some stuff to talk about, hm?”

He stuttered out… something, but it wasn’t coherent.

Ladybug realized she now had the lyrics to Ivan’s song in her hand instead of Kim’s note. She turned to Mylène. “Maybe it would help if you read the lyrics to Ivan's song.”

She took the paper timidly and scanned a few lines. “Wow, it's really beautiful. It's a shame you can't hear them when you scream. I mean, when you sing.” She had a very soft blush on her cheeks that Ivan mirrored when he looked over at her.

“It was scary, wasn't it. Is that why you left?” Mylène quickly reached over to hug as much of him as her comparatively smaller arms could reach. “I'm sorry, I'll be gentle.” He murmured as he hugged her back. Most people didn’t know that he’d struggled with his emotions for most of his life. He always felt things too intensely and no one had ever taught him how to deal with it. Perhaps Mylène could give him meditation lessons… if she wasn’t too afraid of his outbursts, of course.

Ladybug sauntered back over to Chat Noir with a very proud look on her face. “They’re so made for each other.”

“...Um?” Felix would’ve said more, but his ring chimed.

“Oh, see that? Time to split. See you soon, Chat Noir.” She gave him a cheery smile before zipping off to who-knows-where on that enchanted yoyo of hers. Really, a yoyo. His weapon made sense. But a yoyo? That was ridiculous.

And why did she sound so happy that there was a supervillain somewhere who was specifically targeting them? He’d have to think all of it over later. Now, he just needed to get back to school.

Hawkdad, being his edgy little self, didn’t even know his son was out of the house. He was too busy monologuing at Nathalie. “This is just the beginning, Ladybug. You and Cat Noir may have won this battle, but I will win the war. I will get your Miraculouses. I will get the absolute power! And then my secret dream will come true!” Did he really think it would be that easy? Just tell these two teenagers to hand over their new magic powers after gaslighting them? Really?

Nathalie, the paragon of patience, waited for Gabriel to finish his monologue before explaining that Felix had snuck out to go to school.

“What?”

She was going to be fired on the spot, she knew it. “Monsieur Agreste, Felix snuck out this morning to go to Francois-DuPont Collège. He managed to get inside before his bodyguard and I could catch him. He is safe, and still there.”

“Go get him, Nathalie. Immediately.” He was terrifyingly curt with her, but she hadn’t been fired... yet.

Classes had been cancelled until the police gave the all-clear, so the students just milled about the front of the building trying to make sense of what had just happened.

“...So, by the time I went to the Eiffel Tower, it was all over! I'm way bummed.” Alya was raving to Bridgette about Ladybug and Chat Noir. It all sounded very glamorous, the way she described it.

“Don't worry. You'll get your scoop eventually.” Bridgette gave her a sympathetic smile and patted her shoulder.

“You're right. Next target: Ladybug, an exclusive interview!”

“Ooh. Sounds exciting.”

“Oh, wait! Even better: finding out who's really under that mask.”

Bridgette was lucky she didn’t scream. “Uh-huh. Good luck with that one.”

If Alya was on her case, she didn’t know how long she’d be able to hide her identity. If only she’d managed to give her the earrings… too late now. After that speech, she was committed.

“You disobeyed me, Felix. Take a look at that school.”

“Yes, Father.” He was staring at the school already, not wanting to even look at his father. He’d gotten the attention he wanted… it’s a shame he didn’t think about what sort of attention that was going to be.

“You will never, I say, never go back there again…”

Obviously he’d be put back under house arrest. The, “Father, no…” that rolled off his tongue was practically dripping with sarcasm. So the next sentence caught him quite by surprise.

“Without your bodyguard. He will drop you off and pick you off every day. Nathalie has offered to organize you a new schedule. You'll be continuing your music, Chinese, and fencing classes and your photoshoots.”

His eyes widened imperceptibly. “Thank you, Nathalie. Thank you, Father!” He could’ve hugged his father’s secretary, but Felix wasn’t one for hugs. He launched himself out of the car just to feel the air on his face. Perhaps his father did care.

He headed inside with the rest of the students in a giddy stupor. Not that anyone could tell through his scowl.

That’s why he missed Bridgette and Alya sitting down behind him and Nino.

“Uhh... You're in the wrong seat. Go on, get lost!”

That is, until Chloé opened that big mouth of hers.

"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good people do nothing." Bridgette deadpanned.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

God, her voice is so irritating. “It means that I'm not putting up with your crud anymore, Chloé, and neither is anyone else around here, so take your attitude and get lost!”

“Good job!” Alya bounced her arm up and down.

Felix had listened to the exchange with equal parts intrigue and irritation. That was his friend she was yelling at. Then again, she had put gum on Bridgette’s chair...

Nino caught on to his train of thought. “Dude, you wanna make friends, right? Well, go talk to Bridgette. You know, about the chewing gum.”

“What do I say to her? Hi, I’m Felix, and my only childhood friend, who is clearly your enemy, is the one who put the gum on your seat. Please be my friend? I don’t think that will go well.”

Nino rolled his eyes. “Just be yourself.”

And that’s how Felix found himself standing just under the entryway of the collège, staring at Bridgette as she felt the raindrops on her hand.

Now or never.

“Hey. I just wanted you to know that I was only trying to take the chewing gum off your seat.” He was gruff, but… he seemed to be telling the truth. And he was offering Bridgette his umbrella. Perhaps…

She would give him a second chance. Provisionally.

“Thank you. For telling me. And the umbrella. I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

Bridgette took the umbrella gingerly. But, as luck would have it, it snapped shut over her head. And Felix just couldn’t stifle his giggle.

Oh no, she’s going to think I did it just to embarrass her! He was a little more than relieved when she started to laugh inside the umbrella.

“S-See you tomorrow.” He managed through the chuckles.

“Uh... see you to...mo... tomo... Haha! Whoa, why am I stammering? See you tomorrow!” She gave him a wave as he got into his car.

“Hey! I think I might have an idea!” Tikki giggled from inside her purse, peering over the lip to watch the new boy drive off.

“First day of school and we already have two lovebirds.” Plagg snickered from inside Felix’s vest.

“Whatever. She's just a friend… Oh… A friend…” His eyes lit up just a little as he got into the car.

Neither of them noticed the little old Chinese man sitting on a bench across from the school.

“Excellent choice, Master.”

“Those two are made for each other!” He grinned down at his kwami, the very image of self-satisfaction.

[withachanceoflaxus]

grand magic games circa x791 - the Jones family perspective 

GMG DAY ONE—x791

“Of course, that old bastard would be there at the Games.” Isley said, glaring at the Lacrima as it scanned the Fairy Tail section of the crowd and there he was, Makarov Dreyar, looking like the proud parent he presented himself to be. Isley huffed and tended to her indoor plant. “I bet he’s only in it to regain some sense of former glory. Bastard.” From the couch, Jio teetered softly and sipped her tea.

“It’s not all bad, Isley. Look—there’s Laxus!” and at that, Isley turned back and saw him. There. Leona’s son. Isley couldn’t help but smile at seeing him there, though she thought he could do without that fur coat and frown. She remembered him as a small, sickly, sure, but happy child. He was always happy to assist Isley with the guild plants even though the only thing Isley let him do was water them with her. Leona would always be there in the background and cooing over him, my beautiful boy, she would say her voice gone so soft. He was a handsome young man now and if Isley closed her eyes, she could imagine an older Leona in the crowd, cooing over how handsome he was. Even with that frown. Though, Isley thought bitterly, maybe he wouldn’t frown so much if Leona was alive. If Makarov was a better guild leader. If Ivan hadn’t…

“He looks so much older.” Isley said instead, finally sitting down on the couch. “I don’t trust that Raven Tail though. I hope Ivan doesn’t have it in for his son.”

“Ha! Leona’s child?” Jio raised an eyebrow. “I don’t think he would ever seriously injure Laxus. Granted, him and Makarov probably did a number on him already. He looks so…uncomfortable.”

“But strong.” Isley added. She looked at the image of her old friend’s son and sighed. “I hope he kicks everyone’s ass.”

Jio elbowed her and Isley smiled over at her. “We should have kidnapped him. You are his godmother.”

“I’m a shit godmother.” Isley said and. Well, she felt that was the truth.

“No, none of us could have seen the future.” Jio told her and she put the tea down and wrapped an arm around Isley, putting her head on her wife’s shoulders. Isley felt herself comforted by this action and breathed out slowly. “We couldn’t have known. We left the guild and…do you really think Ivan would have let us get away with it? He loves his son—I know it. Gildarts was there for him, too.”

“Gildarts is a sensitive fool who probably cried himself to sleep whenever Laxus so much as smiled at him.” Isley told her.

Jio laughed. “Maybe. But Gildarts has a good heart. There’s no way he would have stayed in Fairy Tail without something anchoring him—other than misplaced guilt. Ivan may have fallen, but we know Porlyusica and Gildarts were there. That’s all we can count on.”

“If he ever comes around, then I will owe him.” Isley said softly and she smiled when Jio kissed her cheek.

“If he comes, we will have to invite the kids home. I’m sure after this, little Laxus will be a celebrity and they will never forgive us.”

Isley laughed, thinking of their kids. Georgi was the head of a restaurant now and probably in Crocus at this very moment. And Carol, well, she was off in Era being a bookkeeper in Era. “I forgot that’s what we called him back then. Little Laxus.”

“Leona was right—he was an adorable child.”

“Beautiful boy.” Isley corrected and the two, for once were able to laugh at the memory of their old friend. Because they both knew if she was there, standing with them now, she would correct them. And probably complain about being third wheeled as they were now cuddled up on the couch.

GMG DAY 3—X91

“There’s no way Leona’s son would get beat so easily!” Isley was standing now, watching the screen. Jio was still sitting, but still in shock. “C’mon Laxus! Pull it together, boy!”

“Maybe he’s just playing that Raven Tail guy along.” Jio said from her couch. “I don’t think he could be taken advantage of so easily.”

And then—it happened. The Illusion fell apart and Isley squinted and then swore loudly as Ivan and the rest of Team Raven Tail was on the ground and there stood Laxus. Lightning zipping around him and standing tall. Jio clapped but Isley glared at the image of Ivan. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Ivan?” Isley said as she fell back onto the couch.

“Let’s not ponder that.” Jio said next to her. “Look at Laxus instead! Oh, he reminds me of Leona so much right now. She did have quite the punch.”

“Ivan’s fucked up nose shows it.” Isley huffed.

Jio laughed. “And that was an accident.”

Isley found herself smiling, though she was still angry. At least, at the very least, Laxus was crowned the victor of that battle. Good for him, Isley thought. Though Leona would be rolling in her grave at the idea of Ivan purposely trying to fuck his son over—again. But. Then again, if Makarov wasn’t such a terrible excuse for a Guildmaster, none of this would be happening.

“Isley—don’t let your anger get ahold of you now. We left the guild for a reason.” Jio said softly next to her and Isley breathed in and out. “It’s not good for your heart to hold onto such anger.”

“I know.” Isley said and when she looked at the cheering crowd, she felt a little better. “It’s hard sometimes.”

“I know.” Jio told her and Isley looked over to her wife. She was frowning now, too, and in her light eyes, Isley could see her old sadness there. What they carried were wounds that turned into ugly scars. They were young once and happy. They were still happy, most of the time, but the thought of what became of their friend’s family after her passing was something that hurt them both so much.

But they couldn’t have stayed. Not after witnessing for a final time what careless leadership wrought. Ivan had fought with his father—everyone in the guild heard the screaming match. Jio was about to jump in before Leona did and put an end to it.

And then Gildarts…he was so broken after.

But they all were.

“Oh!” Jio jumped up. “Carol’s calling us!”

Isley’s mood lifted then. Carol was a good kid—er adult now. It was always good to hear from them. If only Georgi called them more. Though he was no biological child of her’s, he seemed to inherit Jio’s hard working sense and worked himself ragged. Carol often sent over gifts to Gerogi, to make sure at least he had clothes that were not too old. They were good kids.

Isley peered over at the screen again, a reply of Laxus’s victory playing. So was he, Isley knew. Because no child of Leona’s could be anything but.

GMG DAY 5—X191

“HA! Another landing punch! Take that Jura!” Isley jumped up as she cheered. Beside her this time was Carol who came home to watch the final day with her mothers.

“No way Jura Neekis is taking these games too seriously. Besides, I doubt the terrain is fit for him to seriously go all out without killing everybody.” Carol pointed out and Isley huffed as Jio laughed.

“That’s his fault then, isn’t it?” Isley said. She was too busy smiling at Laxus’ victory. “You never met his mom, little girl. Her punches were legendary.”

“She used to say electrifying.” Jio added with a smile. Carol laughed and Isley shrugged. Leona sure did do that.

“He is strong, though.” Carol pointed out. “I’m surprised you guys are rooting for him, considering you certainly don’t hide the fac you hate his grandfather so much.”

“Because as much as we don’t like Makarov Dreyar—we loved Leona Floros more.” Jio told their daughter. “The world can compare him to that man, but we are smarter than that.”

Carol hummed and watched as her mom looked at the Lacrima crystal with pride. It was the same look her mom gave to her and her brother when they so much as remembered to put their pants on right. Ever since she was adopted by these two, she’s felt nothing but unconditional love from them. Even when Carol went through her regrettable ‘I Hate you’ phase in her teens. They never attempted to replace the family she lost, but instead gave her a new one.

She looked past her mom and to the form of Laxus Dreyar. She hoped he had something like that. It wasn’t until he disappeared seven years ago that she found out about her mom’s old friend Leona Floros-Dreyar and why her moms were against her and Georgi joining any guild. But Carol put her magic towards work for the council, as not very dependable as they were (seriously, making a Saint out of someone who did their job?) but at least she could help somewhere. And Georgi just liked cooking and he was good at it.

“As much as I want Laxus to win—I’d hate for a Fairy Tail victory.” Isley said finally sitting back down on the couch. “That Bastard doesn’t deserve it.”

“True.” Jio said and Carol looked over at her Momma then. It was not often that her Momma agreed with bitter words like that. “He doesn’t.”

Wow, Carol thought, Makarov Dreyar must really be a fuck up to anger even her Momma.

X794

Isley was tending to the plants outside of her house. War had come and gone and even though Isley didn’t have evidence for it, she felt like the entire reason why her garden was supplanted, and she was separated from her family was Makarov’s fault. It was only too easy to blame catastrophes on him, after all. Still. The world moved on as it always tended to do, so she used her magic and began to regrow her garden. It was fun and busy work. And if her and Jio were thinking of taking in more child again because there were always innocent casualties again, then that was only a good thing. Isley was feeling some of that empty-nest syndrome for a while now and Jio always did have a bigger heart than most.

A shadow came over her and Isley frowned and fixed her hat as she looked up and blinked. Before her stood none other than Laxus Dreyar. She found herself smiling as she stood up. A part of her expected this, she thought, for him to come here.

“Are you Isley Kane?” he asked her. He was uncomfortable, she could tell by his body language even if his face looked confident. He was huge in person and he was definitely no longer Little Laxus.

“Jones now,” Isley corrected him kindly and she found herself smiling bigger now. “Ever since I got married to Jio Jones. You know—I always wondered when you’d come find me, Little Laxus.”

“You know—”

“Of course, I do.” Isley interrupted him. “I am sorry I never reached out…but well, I was never a fan of Makarov after. Everything. Does he know you’re here?”

“I don’t have to report everything I do to him.” Laxus told her and she laughed. He seemed quite petulant! She liked that.

“No, you certainly don’t. My wife is in town right now—our son, Georgi is visiting soon, and she is intent on getting him a new wardrobe. But please, come in, stay for a while. I am guessing you have…questions?”

Laxus nodded. “If that’s alright with you.”

“Oh, Little Laxus.” She said fondly. “I loved your mother; she was a sister to me. I will answer any question I can for you but only if you promise to stay for a while.”

He swallowed. “I can do that.”

Isley walked past him and towards her front door. “Later, you can help me with my plants. I’m sure now at twenty-six you will be a better helper than you were at three.”

[gospacegay]

LRTIHEW: Part Twelve

The title stands for “Longest Rusame Thing I Have Ever Written”.

First Chapter: https://gospacegay.tumblr.com/post/165808913233/lrtihew-part-one

Previous Chapter: https://gospacegay.tumblr.com/post/166240316908/lrtihew-part-eleven

There is swearing, fluff, eventual smut, insanity, and lord knows what else

Not really knowing how to proceed, Ivan improvised. He pulled Alfred into a crushing hug without warning. “You may be stupid and cruel, but I do not hate you either.” Russia admitted, despising every second of this. It was leagues outside his comfort zone. “Good.” Alfred hummed in approval, immediately twisting out of the grasp. Ivan was solidly hit in the gut, not expecting it. “That's for punching my face!” Alfred growled.

“This is for spilling hot chocolate on my best sweater!” Ivan replied, engaging the somewhat violent play fighting. “Stealing my pot brownies!” another punch was dodged as America advanced on him. They exchanged blows evenly, dodging most as they screamed increasingly silly accusations at each other. Somewhat bloodied, Ivan towered over a tripped Alfred. Wielding a broken lamp, the situation made him pause.

Alfred, shielding his bruised face with his arms, relaxed slightly and perked an eyebrow. Ivan chuckled as the ridiculousness of it all. The chuckle grew to a rolling laugh, making him set down his weapon so he could breathe. “What?” Alfred asked curiously, sitting up. “I was about to kill you with a lamp over a twitter post!” Ivan answered, breaking into low riotous mirth again. “Yeah!” Alfred giggled, joining in. They laughed until there was no energy left in them, dropping onto the broken couch. Ivan felt relieved, almost human.

After pulling shards of glass and wood out of each other, the duo sank into plush furniture and mindlessly watched TV. Alfred's phone rang at some point. “United States of Amazing speaking.” he answered the device cheerfully. “Of course. Breakfast in bed in the best.” he replied after a moment. “I know. I think I'll save that post like forever.” he said while picking  fluff off the couch. Ivan felt exasperated, certain they were talking about the inane twitter post. “Yeah, yeah. See you there.” he bid goodbye casually, hanging up.

“It's Mattie, We have to be ready in... thirty minutes.” Alfred explained as if he wasn't about to be late for the most important party of his president's career. Ivan stood, grimacing at the holes and clotted blood on his silky pyjamas. Oh well, more pairs where that came from. “Where ya going?” Alfred asked in standard obliviousness. “Unlike some animals, I care about looking good in public.” Ivan scoffed, heading off to change.

A tailored suit from long ago. Silver cuff links that had seen more bloodshed than any human alive. A tie in a shade of red passionate to symbolize life, yet dark enough to resemble blood. Ivan did a quick shave, then wrangled his hair down with product. Yes, he would look royal in his eloquence.

When Ivan entered the living room, Alfred was ready to go in a navy blue suit with red tie. How he finished before Ivan was a mystery of physics, considering he started later than the Russian. “God you took forever man. Let's go.” the American teased, up and ready to depart. The drive was endless insults and jabs. Sometimes Ivan wanted to stab his driver, other times he didn't.

Due to endless rain, the party was being hosted away from the traditional site. A nearby convention center was stuffed with people of sky high rank socializing and sipping flutes of golden liquid. Ivan was right to overdress for the occasion, on par with the wealthy around him. Alfred was quite plain, clearly unhappy mingling with the upper crust.

“I fuckin' hate this, big guy. The fake smiles, the attitudes, it's fake. It's fake and I hate it. I wish I could eat beer and chicken wings.” the honey blonde muttered to Ivan, not even trying to mingle. “Oh little America, this is the stage where all change begins. A handshake could destroy the world, or save it.” the Russian assured, feeling at ease in the posh atmosphere. It was really the commoners Ivan had trouble reaching, even after all this time.

“That's a lot of big words coming from a bear like you.” Alfred replied, smirking. Ivan rolled his eyes and gestured to a plump woman in a royal blue gown. “Watch and learn.” Ivan instructed seriously, walking over confidently. “Excuse me madam, but your dress is an exquisite shade of blue.” Ivan greeted, using his archaic royal charms. It worked flawlessly.

“Why thank you, mister... ?” the woman greeted warmly, trailing off into a question. “Braginsky, a humble diplomat of the Russian Federation.” Ivan introduced himself politely. “I'm the state secretary for Nebraska, but you can call me Anita.” the state secretary gushed, enjoying the attention. A few other women and a bored looking senator flocked over at her beckoning.

“You must meet Mr. Braginsky. He is such a charmer.” the fat woman insisted, nudging who was obviously her friend. After exchanging compliments on each other's state of dress, Ivan excused himself. Alfred followed closely behind, looking rather shocked. “Oh man, you're like the rich people whisperer.” he praised in a mostly non-mocking manner.

“You were not watching. I have now given a positive impression to a state secretary. Secretaries know things and talk to people. I would not be surprised if this simple interaction benefits any Russians in... what was it? Nebraska? Yes, a single compliment will benefit many men.” Ivan explained slowly, understanding why England was so frustrated with him in the past.

The American truly was a wild dog among the delicate nobility. His strength and usual clarity were not welcome here. Ivan pitied the younger nation. Had America come from a different age, he would have thrived alongside a warrior king. Ivan had not been keen on battle personally, at least not at first. Surviving as a sovereign state in 862 AD needed a grizzly set of skills.

Not wishing to dwell on his blood stained past, Ivan noticed Alfred was gone. That was fine, Ivan wanted to fraternize a bit more and improve his country's imagery. His boss would be hopefully be impressed with the extra effort. Still, it was a rather artificial and draining process. Soon, he slumped in a chair, sipping vodka from his flask. Wine was quite disgusting.

“Is the prince of the snobs done prancing around already?” Alfred snorted derisively, sitting beside him. “I have finished as I was told. I wish to sleep. Perhaps I will eat chocolate frosting while watching stupid American shark movies with you.” Ivan replied tiredly. When he didn't hear an insulting answer, he looked over in concern. Alfred was smiling like he'd won a prize. Why was he so happy? No one was happy with the isolated Russian when they met his true self.

“If I am not welcome, I can find other means of entertainment.” Ivan continued softly, wishing he could hide in his long white scarf. “No, you're welcome. That's just... That's the best thing I've heard you say ever!”  Alfred replied finally, looking far too excited. “You like eating junk food?” the younger nation asked, clearly scheming. Truthfully, Ivan would have ate all the frosting if he wasn't caught red handed. He had a rather incurable sweet tooth he kept under control for health reasons. “Does it matter?” Ivan countered, wishing so badly he could have a cigarette right now.

“We could... bake something the next time you break into my house. Like cookies or whatever.” Alfred offered. “No. You are England's colony. Anything you cook will be charcoal.” Ivan refused bluntly. “Nuh-uh. You'll nag and bitch at me like a bastard harpy until the food is edible.” Alfred insisted, so unbearably smug. The thought of baking with someone else seemed... wrong. Ivan couldn't nail down why at this very second. “Perhaps.” he replied mysteriously, not giving a true answer.

“Sweet! I have to get baking stuff, and... Oh! I forgot, the speech is going to start soon!” Alfred rambled, only to run off. True to his word, people started pouring into the auditorium area. Ivan's seat was reserved near the front, alongside top notch politicians and other nations. Canada appeared to be Ukraine's latest victim, the pair talking quietly. How many tears had it taken for him to bend to her whim? Ivan had no doubt the wheat blonde Canadian had a hidden chivalrous streak. He was the twin brother of America after all, self titled hero of the world.

Not caring much for the forgettable nation, Ivan turned his attention to a point of interest. There was man fidgeting in his seat, looking tense. His ill fitting coat was misshapen ever so slightly. The odd stranger had caught Ivan's attention right away, clearly not here for social reasons. Ivan had prevented enough attempts on his boss's life to know an assassin when he saw one. No one was going to interfere with Ivan's long term elaborate plans for the United States of America.

[valkyrie-echo]

Project Echo, Part 2: Chapter 12 (Agent Ivanou)

Part 2 Summary: A new enemy surfaces with a team of the Avengers’ greatest foes, hand-picked for their destruction. Meanwhile, Inessa’s pre-Hydra past begins to surface, casting doubt on where her loyalties truly lie.

Chapter 12: Agent Ivanou

"Verify Location, Agent Ogden."

"Sector 7G, all quiet," she yawned loudly over comms to illustrate just what she thought of these patrols.

Her C.O. was impatient, "You think I like running this B.S. every night? Grab a coffee from Mess and drink fast- you're due in 7H in twenty."

"Sir yes sir," she turned to the security camera and saluted sarcastically. Between SHIELD raids and break-ins world over by agents of just about every intelligence agency, Hydra was stepping up security big time. That meant everyone pulled 12-hour duty. Even when they came out of the shadows, Hydra wasn't this on-edge. Agent Dennisson had really fucked them over in New York. Ogden was there- though she thankfully never saw combat. Whatever the Avengers unleashed, it was enough to scare the pants off the upper echelon. They were on full lockdown lately- even she didn't know what precisely had gone wrong nearly two months before.

Agent Ogden walked the dark halls, filling in a mental map of the base as she explored. The only good thing about all this- she hated only having a partial knowledge of the layout, but now the patrols were providing her with valuable intelligence. If she could visualize where she was going, she didn't have to rely so much on faded (and often misleading) signs painted on corners.

Project Echo. That was all she knew. Whatever the hell went wrong in New York, that's where the answers were to be found. Some failed experiment to make a second Asset, just like the Winter Soldier (who, incidentally, is what turned it into a threat against Hydra in New York). Ogden would kill to get her hands on that file.

Three lefts and a flight of stairs later, she was in Mess. Half the base was there working their way through the coffee supplies. Commander Burke kept threatening to ration it- not that supplies ever got that low. He just liked to bitch. "Your biggest cup of your strongest stuff," Agent Ogden flashed her security card to silence the grumbling of scientists waiting in line, "I know you've been waiting, but I've got to keep your asses safe, so quit bitching."

"Always the charmer," Ogden smiled and accepted her cup from the cook.

"Agent Calvin, I thought you were the day shift?" it was nearly two in the morning, his lot wouldn't be making their appearance until around five.

The young man returned her smile, "And miss seeing my favorite Agent? I was thinking we could patrol together. It's tough, very lonely work."

"And I've always preferred it for just that reason," Ogden walked over to a condiment station to hunt down some cream. Calvin followed.

"You've been off since New York," he pouted, "it can't have been that bad. You didn't even see action, right?"

She headed out of Mess back towards section 7. Calvin followed, "I was with the clean-up crew, and we didn't exactly have anything left to clean up once the Avengers came in."

"The Avengers we could have handled. Have you seen the footage?"

"No," Ogden stopped, interested, "you have?"

"Sure, I was acting as Burke's errand-monkey a couple days ago and got a view of it. They've been playing it non stop in the briefing room. There are three new Avengers- all big threats."

"Three? Seriously?" There was sudden feedback in her comm and she jumped. After a second, it cleared.

Calvin winced, "Sounds like Supervisory Agent Hayes is getting started on the sauce a bit early- or is it late for you guys?"

"He sounded sober enough when we cleared 7G," she grumbled.

"Where were we?"

"Three Avengers."

"Oh, yeah, well, how much do you know about the fall of the Triskellion?"

"I was at the Academy then," she shrugged, "I know about the helicarriers, Captain America and Black Widow working with some new face. Oh, and we lost the Asset then too."

Calvin nodded, "So they are two of the new Avengers- the Winter Soldier and Falcon, as they're calling the second guy. We'd have been OK in New York if that was it- Dennisson probably would still be dead, but we had armies all over. The third was this shadow-chick. Some failed experiment run loose. The kid literally made an army of shadow-monsters to cut through our men in the streets. Really freaky sci-fi stuff. They think the Avengers got the kid out of the Asylum after it exploded. How weird is that?"

A chill crept down Ogden's spine, "Shadow-monsters?"

"I guess that was the ability they were trying to harness. She could, like, summon shadows and apparently teleport with them- analysis of the footage has the top-brass crediting her with gathering the lot of them in one place before the massacre began." Calvin abruptly noticed the color draining from Agent Ogden's face. "Hey, you alright?"

She ignored him and pressed the 'talk' button on her radio, "Agent Hayes? Do you read me?" there was nothing on the line. She switched to a general channel, "Anyone read?"

Again. Nothing. Calvin cursed, "How many times do we have to send engineering to fix that shitty transmitter before they finally just get a new one?" She turned back towards Mess and walked quickly. The air was almost growing colder- or was that her imagination? "Yo! Ogden! Where are you go-" his voice cut out suddenly. Ogden didn't break stride, but she glanced behind her.

Half of him was under the hall light. The other half had ended up on the far side of the hallway. Agent Ogden picked up her pace- running now. She activated her imbedded comm- the one Hydra knew nothing about, "Agent May, do you read?"

A moment later there was a reply, "Agent Ivanou, we weren't expecting you to check in for another three hours."

"Was SHIELD tracking what happened in New York?"

May's tone was hard, professional, "That is not part of your mission parameters. You are to observe and report only. You don't concern yourself with our end of New York, just Hydra's."

"Agent May, just tell me one thing because it's important, I have to know- Project Echo, was it a person? A girl?"

"Yes, why? Do you have intel on her?"

"What was her name? Who was she?" Agent Ivanou rounded the corner into Mess- and walked in on a massacre.

What was a moment ago a room full of soldiers, scientists, and personnel was now a room of corpses. Several lights had been damaged, throwing shadows across the room. In the darker shadows, creatures moved. Bodies would occasionally vanish, leaving no trace they were ever there. It wouldn't take too long to empty the entire room. That was what she'd been sent on patrol against- attacks that left no evidence anyone had ever been to Hydra's bases. It was worse than the attacks by Captain America or the Winter Soldier. An enemy they couldn't track.

"You aren't cleared to know that, Agent."

"Please, I'm not asking as a SHIELD agent, I need to know who she was!"

Ivanou felt a shiver and turned abruptly. Behind her was a girl- older than she remembered, but younger than she should have been. Evidence of torture- now healed- showed clearly on the rippled skin of her arms- burns, cuts, the shining skin that grew back when the original was peeled away. The girl hesitantly looked up, met her eyes. "Nadi?" Ivanou whispered.

Inessa couldn't tell at first who the Agent was, not until she spoke. She'd changed so much. Without realizing what she was doing, she spoke, "Mallory?"

Chapter 13: Tough Decisions

[fanesavin]

𝒴𝑒𝒶𝓇𝓈 𝟣-𝟦 𝒸𝑜𝓂𝓅𝒾𝓁𝑒𝒹

𝐵𝒶𝒸𝓀𝑔𝓇𝑜𝓊𝓃𝒹:

HP!Fane comes for a long line of morally grey pureblooded figures who are pretty shady. They’re an incredibly old-money family and essentially a more Eastern version of the Blacks.

His father is relatively neutral on the stance of elitism, his mother however takes her job as a pure blood very seriously and he has several siblings and has a pretty large family unit in this AU: at least one or two sisters, an older brother and a younger brother. His father is versed in but doesn’t practise dark arts whereas his mother and other siblings do and since the laws are more lax where he grew up they got away with it more easily.

At least one of his sisters is an animagus and can turn into a jaguar as well as being another legilimens. She’s also a generally very skilled witch and none of the other siblings are sure which version of her is scarier; her being a Legilimens and an Animagus. Essentially they’re just like like damn leave some talent for the rest of us please.

The Savins/Alois family have been on most watch lists for years as there are many rumours that they are a very long line of Dark Arts witches and wizards and at least considered very dangerous people. However, no one has ever managed to prove anything and any allegations are very circumstantial because they’re careful about what they do get up to and don’t actively associate with any cult figures or leaders that draw attention to themselves; Grindelwald and Voldemort being such examples.

His ancestors go back to viking origins and very archaeic and ancient runic based magic and runes is a subject he’s particularly skilled in. He’s also very good a potions because the Savins had their own greenhouse and apothecary at home in Romania and he had a decent amount of practise brewing potions growing up.

Same with flying

Fane comes from a very long line of pureblood witches and wizards with his family tree dating back to the viking era where many of his ancestors practised seiðr and galdr which was a sort of shamanism form of magi They were pretty well known for their skills in the arts of divination, clairvoyance, transformation and legilimency. There are also a few metamorphmagi in the family tree as well. His ancestors were some of the first students admitted to Durmstrang and almost every generation since has attended and graduated from their curriculum. He’s one of the few students who never completed his entire education there. 

Father: Alistair Savin (former head of the Romanian Department of International Magical Cooperation and now working as a European liaison with the Ministry of Magic)

Mother: Katerina Savin (works for the international magical office of law)

Older sister: Alexandra Savin (journalist, animagus and legilimens)

Older brother: Ivan Savin (legilimens)

Older sister: Christina Savin (healer)

Himself: Stefan Savin (parseltongue)

Younger brother: Erich Savin

Cousin: Daniela Octavia Savin/Lovel (Seer)

𝐹𝒾𝓇𝓈𝓉 𝓎𝑒𝒶𝓇 (𝒞𝒽𝒶𝓂𝒷𝑒𝓇 𝑜𝒻 𝒮𝑒𝒸𝓇𝑒𝓉𝓈):

Fane’s family moved to London just after he completed his first term at Durmstrang and he was consequently transferred to Hogwarts around Christmas.

Fane’s a parseltongue and he thinks he’s going mad when he can hear the Basilisk in the walls. Half the school is convinced Harry is the heir to Slytherin and the other half think it might be this transfer student from one of potentially the darkest Wizarding schools and long-standing dark arts lineages in the world.

During his first year Fane’s father goes missing and it’s a big scandal but the family do try to keep it hush hush, Katerina Savin is convinced muggles killed him. Fane isn’t entirely sure what he thinks about it honestly. His father wasn’t really ever very present in his life.

Fane gets so fed up with Lockheart. 

“We never learn ANYTHING useful in his class” 

He really enjoyed DADA at Durmstrang and was so looking forward to that class and it’s such a disappointment.

This explains why he began teaching himself things outside of lessons, between Lockheart, generally being seen as a bit of an outsider due to his late start and transfer status along with the rumours that circulate about his family resulted in him not being particularly ‘close’ to many other students at the start of his education and mostly just delved into his studies.

He likes Snape at first, because Snape seems to like him and treats him as if he is special and little Fane is very hungry for that. He's a Savin so of course he gets preferential treatment from Snape and he's too young to see anything wrong with it. It's only when Snape starts picking on the few people Fane has sort of become friendly with that he discovers he doesn't like that as much and he's not sure what to do. 

𝒮𝑒𝒸𝑜𝓃𝒹 𝓎𝑒𝒶𝓇 (𝒫𝓇𝒾𝓈𝑜𝓃𝑒𝓇 𝑜𝒻 𝒜𝓏𝓀𝒶𝒷𝒶𝓃):

Fane was considering not returning after all the heir of Slytherin nonsense but Alex convinced him to come back.

Fane on the train with the dementors: he still has all the self doubt after the heir of Slytherin nonsense. He doesn't faint but it’s definitely rough and he sits there in the compartment with his head between his knees for a long time-- Looks pale, feels a bit sick. Faye’s with him, they’ve gotten to know each other a bit and they’re getting closer. So it’s kind of alarming to see him like that.

This year he has the dementors to contend with because of it, along with him beginning to doubt his place within his family. Fane struggled first year with being a transfer and the legacy of his family overshadowing him a lot with a lot of speculation about who he was and what he might be capable of being thrown around. He’s low on positives and struggles even more with the dementors around especially considering he’s from a dark lineage combined with his own self-doubt it’s acts as a bit of a magnet drawing them to him. 

𝑅𝑒𝓂𝓊𝓈 𝐿𝓊𝓅𝒾𝓃 :

Second year Fane bonds with Remus really well, mostly because this small second year is perceptive enough to tell that Lupin is lonely too and Fane finds his DADA lessons so good that he’s always bombarding him for more things to practise.

Fane joins the Quidditch team at the suggestion of Remus. Quidditch is how he ends up finally starting to make friends, pretty natural in the air he became a keeper in his second year and eventually over the years became the Ravenclaw team Captain. He also 10000% goes flying if he needs to clear his mind for any particular reason.

Fane seemed even more natural in the air than on the ground, when Fane was unhappy about something he'd always go flying.

Fane was the only Ravenclaw that Malfoy would actively suck up to but there were certainly some spirited fights between them after which Malfoy stopped sucking up to Fane and began resenting him instead "he's a year younger than me, he's not THAT great"

Between Quidditch parties and stuff he’s mostly just lounging on his bed in the dorm practising and recruiting Faye who is one of the few people who doesn’t seem to pay much attention about the rumours regarding him for practice duels. He knows duelling is against the rules but he doesn’t particular care, it’s practice after all and they go to the room of requirement.

Honestly, I don’t see him very much like Soapberry!Fane he’s quieter and minds his own more.

Lupin and Fane sitting in his office after class, and maybe Lupin tries to teach him how to cast a patronus but unlike Harry who manages to figure out how to cast it Fane never does. To which Lupin just pats his shoulder and tells him that everyone has their own different gifts. Fane gets frustrated because he’s able to do other advanced things and Lupin knows he can so he just can’t understand why he can’t do it.

Fane actually develops an immunity to dementors later in his life, but that comes as a consequence of events that happen during his 6th year.

Mostly it just leaves younger Fane wondering if he’s evil or if this is just a sign he’s going to become evil.

For a time Potions was his favourite class, mostly because he was shown preferential treatment by Snape and it was one of his favourite classes because it was the only real sort of attention he was given. But he starts to not enjoy it so much since Lupin is different and lets him come over to his office to study when he needs some space. He crosses paths with Harry occasionally since Lupin is helping them both.

Also at the end of second year when the truth comes out about Lupin Fane goes up to him and gives him some chocolate. “They’re wrong about you. I’m sorry… You’re the best professor I’ve had so… um. Thank you? For… um helping me this year.” He pauses and then is like “please, please please don’t go.” "I’m sorry, Fane, I have to”

“It’s not fair. You’re better than all the other professors, you helped us all. It’s not fair.

"The world rarely is, Stefan.” And Lupin just gives him a sad smile and leaves and Fane is left so angry over it despite himself. He doesn’t forgive the world for letting it happen.

But before Lupin leaves Fane is just like “wait- Can… Can I write to you still?” Which makes Lupin pause and you can see his shoulders crunch a bit “Please…”

As gently as he can, he says, “I’m not sure that would be safe for you, Fane.”

And it just makes him frown because why can’t he do that, why can’t he just write letters Fane doesn’t understand why being told this hurts, his own father vanishing didn’t have this kind of impact so why should this hurt? And it’s the first glimpse anyone gets of how much anger this little boy is carrying around inside of him. Much like Harry I think Fane kind of found an actual father figure he never had before in Lupin since what he had before was just expectations.

And Lupin sighs, “from what I know of your family, it’s very unlikely your mother wants you writing to a werewolf, and it wouldn’t be good for you if someone found out. I want to, Fane, I want to, but I can’t put you in danger for it” Lupin pauses again and says “maybe we will meet again one day.”

𝒮𝓊𝓂𝓂𝑒𝓇

Over the second year summer Fane frees his house elves. Like he keeps doing it and Katerina is just like “STEFAN THAT IS THE HELP”. Having talked to Lupin and been on the Quidditch team he started to blossom a bit. There are still two of course but what even is this "we are getting a new one immediately and YOU WILL NOT DO THIS AGAIN”

“Why do we need slaves if we have magic?” He’s starting to get more clued about free will.

“It’s just the way things are done, Stefan, you will not interfere with the running of this house in an orderly fashion. Unless YOU want to do the chores yourself and I am quite sure you don’t, darling.”

“Why not?”

“That’s what the house elves are for, they’re happy this way.”

“They don’t seem happy..”

“They’re created to serve wizards, darling.” Katerina bends down and kisses his forehead and shoos him very firmly out of the kitchen before he can do anything else to the other two. They are under orders not to take anything from him directly in case it has clothes in it. He can set it down and they will pick it up but they can’t take it directly. Fane also confuses them by going and helping them with things.

Leaving them all like why is this small master helping us?

𝒯𝒽𝒾𝓇𝒹 𝓎𝑒𝒶𝓇 (𝒯𝓇𝒾𝓌𝒾𝓏𝒶𝓇𝒹 𝒯𝑜𝓊𝓇𝓃𝒶𝓂𝑒𝓃𝓉):

It all starts with the ATTACK AT THE QUIDDITCH WORLD CUP, the Savin’s go and have great seats and all and then that happens. Katerina isn’t actually in a mask but she certainly approves. She took Erich and Fane as a treat and the elder siblings have arrangements of their own so they don’t have to stay with mum. 

Fane’s younger brother Erich joins this year, he got sorted into Slytherin which is no huge surprise. Fane by now is kind of popular from Qudditch and stuff so Erich tries to be cool like them. No one ever paid much attention to Erich back at home and so he’s mostly just a face in the Slytherin crowd.

Fane hit a growth spurt and just shoots up like a beanpole overnight, suddenly where Faye and him were almost the same height he’s just like towering over everyone. It’s Triwizard year and his main concern is that literally none of his clothes fit anymore. XD Most people are now just looking at his solar plexus. He starts to fill out a bit too and when he’s older he starts to get this dark stubble. And suddenly even the Gryffindor girls are like, oooh there’s Fane and he rivals Cedric as Hogwarts heartthrob.

Fane also finds out his mother betrothed him to @gracevilliers but he did not want that at all. He went along with it for a while but eventually was just lmao NOPE and that went sideways pretty fast in a dramatic falling out.

Due to his dark arts background and exposure Fane is one of the few who are suspicious of Moody because he’s so used to sensing/paying attention to people/seeing through their excuses. He’s perceptive and uses that especially in their DADA classes, he can tell something is off especially with the flask and something about his antennae just go off with the Unforgivable Curses. Maybe even goes so far to start trailing Moody on the down low and he keeps trying to tell someone but nobody believes him because of course the Savins want that Auror out of here. But then of course the reveal happens and he’s like WELL…

Fane in his element during the ball, because loads of people want to go with him and SO MANY BEAUXBATON GIRLS. He also sees some of his old Durmstrang cohort and spends time with them. But Fane ends up dancing with Faye at the end of the night because… oF COURSE HE DOES.

Fane being all smooth yet gentlemanly whilst he dances with Faye and not being able to take his eyes off her. So many genuine compliments that make her blush, she thinks he’s joking and tells him to stop kidding around. He doesn’t look too bad himself with the sharp cut black robes and white shirt and tie, after the growth spurt earlier in the year he’s not quite there YET but it’s clear he is only going to get hotter. Everyone can tell he’s just going to get even more attractive as he gets older proven when she runs into him running his shady business in Knockturn alley DECADES LATER and Merlin’s beard he does age amazingly. She is momentarily speechless, because okay, by sixth year he was pretty damn fine BUT THIS IS RIDICULOUS.

Also in third year aka Triwizard year Fane taking Hermione’s SPEW campaign seriously. He buys a badge. He doesn’t wear it but he at least buys it.

𝒮𝓊𝓂𝓂𝑒𝓇

Fane finally gets kicked out from home by his mum because he’s being rebellious. With his father gone she’s the matriarch of the family and her word is law. With all these rumors of Voldemort’s return, his family is at the dead centre. And mum essnetially gave him an ultimatum to return with her to the death eaters or be thrown out, and Fane chose the latter.

Fane has to drag his trunk out of their mansion because he can’t use magic, until his presence summons the Knight Bus. And the trunk is pretty damn heavy and like Harry he just ends up sitting down on a roadside and there are Muggles staring at this boy with a trunk in the middle of nowhere. In some little village close to their countryside mansion. Because their mansion is along some country tracks or something. This is essentially how Fane got to the leaky cauldron that summer. Fane has an undetectable extension charm on his trunk so he could take all his stuff but then he realises it doesn’t really amount to much. His school stuff and broomstick and a few clothes along with a few other bits and pieces.

𝐹𝑜𝓊𝓇𝓉𝒽 𝓎𝑒𝒶𝓇 (���𝓇𝒹𝑒𝓇 𝑜𝒻 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒫𝒽𝑜𝑒𝓃𝒾𝓍):

Fane seems to become a lot wilder at the start of this year but no one can quite pinpoint why though.

The teachers realise that taking points from him and giving him detention is what he wants them to do and it’s not helping. So they try just completely ignoring him. McGonagall is the one to realise it. She realises he’s acting out for some reason and something is definitely off but neither him nor Erich will spill about it. He’s banging on about something she is like that’s fascinating Mr. Savin, now please transfigure your newt or stand outside in the hall. 

And he keeps trying to get a rise out of her or for her to take more points but she just proceeds with the lesson ignoring him and at the end when he is the only one who has not transfigured his newt he feels stupid. From then on he pays attention in her classes, and everyone is like Minerva how did you do it and in her classes he’s back on track to being a great student. Because his disruptive energy is being focused again. Eventually he calms down again and sorts himself out but it’s definitely post the raver he threw (tbd next).

Generally Fane’s behaviour is very questionable at the time and he throws a monster party this year. Fane is of course there, probably doing body shots and having a riot.

A school rule has to be made that the enchanted cups CANNOT fill with alcohol precisely because of this legendary raver that year because he finally cracked it how to make them do exactly that. He figured out how to bypass the usual restraint and came up with an original way to conjure it and it was really quite a brilliant piece of magic and everyone is like “of course that is what you apply your talents to, Savin”

Fane & Umbridge: outwardly he is EXACTLY WHAT UMBRIDGE WANTS but in reality he hates her guts. She keeps trying to recruit him but this is fourth year when he was just thrown out. He just ignores her rules and dares her to punish him. The raver is his major fuck you to Umbridge.

Somehow he avoids getting caught but when he does oh boy does he get punished, Umbridge has been waiting a long time to pin something to him. Ends up making Fane write I must not tell lies until it’s physically scarred into his arm and all the murtlap essence in the world can’t remove it. Explaining why he refuses in most cases to refrain from outright lying to people.

Faye sees his hand and knows what happened and he will barely let her touch it. It’s turned him upside down. And Faye sees he’s literally vibrating in kind of a middle range between rage and upset, because this is ontop of his family drama.

𝒞𝒽𝓇𝒾𝓈𝓉𝓂𝒶𝓈

Everyone gets post and presents and he’s one of the only people who doesn’t receive anything at all. Fane’s just sat at the table trying to act like he isn’t bothered but really he’s pretty upset by it.

Faye shares some of her things with him though. Tries to cheer him up since she’s noticed something is up. Most people have.

Probably a little while after that and they’ve kind of gotten to know each other better Faye finally broaches the subject that she has noticed he seems even more out of control than usual, and Fane clams up but she puts a hand on his arm like you can talk to me, he of course tries to flippantly brush it off but it isn't the same level of suave as usual

Finally he admits he was thrown out of the house which he tries to make into a joke but she’s persistent and Faye is shocked, wants to know where he's going home for the holidays. "Some den of debauchery no doubt, don't worry about me, I'll be fine"

And it all makes sense And he gets himself back on track eventually.

He ends up staying in the castle, pretty much just exploring passageways and learning all the secret routes. Perhaps even finding more than the Marauders, but one day Faye invites him over to her place for a day to celebrate with her family because she keeps thinking about him having nowhere to go.

When she gets back after break the first thing she does is go find him and ask how he spent the holidays and he shrugs and is just like, oh, here, it was fine and tries to change the subject to quidditch. “Hope you're prepared to be flattened Faye”

𝒮𝓊𝓂𝓂𝑒𝓇

Fane convinces Faye to take him to the Muggle world because he's curious, only ever having experienced the Wizarding world. Fane wandering around the West End and just stops and looks at Faye like "they have shows?" Ends up getting them some tickets to go see something

Faye’s not sure where he spent that summer. He visited her a few times but mostly he was just off the grid the way Fane goes. She worried about him as is usual.

He spent most of that summer bouncing aimlessly between wizard and muggle London. Took a room at the Leaky Cauldron with his school things just piled in the corner, all these rumours of Voldemort's return but he didn't care and besides he knew they were true not that anyone ever listened to what he had to say on it.

After Voldemort was sighted in the Ministry there wasn't much doubt anyway, Tom and the Leaky Cauldron witches were a little concerned that an almost 15 year old appeared to be living there alone. 

When he wasn't out wandering London, he worked obsessively on his magic he didn't even care about the Reasonable Restriction of Underage Wizardry. He had figured out ways at the age of 15 to make himself undetectable to the Ministry, just tied in his magic to the magic that the rest of Diagon Alley was doing so it wasn't traceable specifically to him as long as he did it only there and nowhere else, he could practise without being caught. 

So long as he didn't disturb anyone though they didn't mind too much. He also helped out to earn some money for himself, because he no longer had his family fortune to rely on. He refuses to tell anyone that he's working at the Leaky Cauldron to make a bit of money for himself though because he will not admit he's been kicked out either. 

Only Faye knows. 

He has literally never worked a day in his life until now, the Savin’s had three house elves not just ONE house elf, what with several children, but three.

At first he's really worn out by it because he's never had to work like this before but eventually he just gets into a routine, helps out during the busy periods and is allowed to go explore London in the quieter hours. He goes to various landmarks - museums, galleries etc just to learn more about Muggles.

He struggles sleep, he sees Umbridge's face every time he closes his eyes for too long, and the night he got the scars on his hand she had him writing until he could literally feel the quill scraping out bone because she had been waiting so long to nail him for something after how long he refused to become her poster boy, when he was everything she wanted for the Inquisitorial Squad. Erich was a big member.

He goes out at night a lot finds a cafe that’s open late where he sometimes slips out to, sits by the Thames at night. Just with a warm drink, coat pulled tight around him as he just watches the city go about its business. He gets back to the Leaky Cauldron rather late.

By the time it comes for them to return he’s calmed down and seems to have gotten his act together a lot more than what he had before.

[ruleandruinrpg]

CONGRATULATIONS, KAITLIN!

You have been accepted for the role of ANTON LANTSOV with a faceclaim change to Reece King. Admin Bree: Choosing Anton’s player was probably one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make as an admin, and for that reason alone, I’d like to congratulate the three of you for writing such brilliant applications. Each of you captured him in your own unique way, and it took me hours to decide which I liked best, because each of your portrayals brought something wonderful to the table. But I’m incredibly confident in my decision to offer him to you, Kaitlin, because your application was stunning in more ways than one. His dialogue in your samples, your headcanons—all of it was so incredibly him, so much that I don’t doubt for a second your ability to portray our beloved Crown Prince. Beautiful work! You have 24 HOURS to send in your account. Also, remember to look at the CHECKLIST. Welcome to Ravka!

OUT OF CHARACTER

ALIAS:  Kaitlin.

PREFERRED PRONOUNS:  She / her.

AGE:  20.

TIMEZONE & ACTIVITY LEVEL:  I am more or less available all of the time. I’m currently in the middle of hunting for a new job, but it will be part time so I’ll still be around all the time. Obviously muse wavers and fluctuates and such, but I’d say around a 7 out of 10.  As a quick sidenote: I do have to say that the first two weeks of the group I’m probably going to be a bit busy. Opening weekend we are celebrating my mom’s 50th birthday by going into the city for a night so I may or may not be on at all during that time. It depends on how busy we are that night. Then a week after opening I’m going to Italy on a family vacation with my Dad and Stepmom and siblings etc. During that time  I’ll be around at night for sure, but not likely at all during the day! 

CURRENT/PAST ACCOUNTS:  My only current active muse is Adeline Calore.

Also… please don’t hate me for how long this is.. I got really carried away… Love way too strong. Yikes. 

IN CHARACTER

DESIRED CHARACTER:  Crown Prince of Ravka, Anton Matvei Lantsov.

WHAT DREW YOU TO THIS CHARACTER?  By Saints I wish I could make this short and sweet, but it feels like there’s just about a million things about Anton that are screaming my name. 

I really really really wish that I could say something like “his was the first teaser that I read and I’ve been hooked on him ever since,” but in truth it took much longer for the Fox Prince to sink his canines in and really hook me. When the group was first coming out and posting things to the teaser blog and such, I knew I would be crazy chaotic busy pretty much from the time of your guys opening (As in like, when you started posting teasers. I’ve been busy so long I’m about ready to start crying, but this app has been surprisingly stress-relieving.) until about two weeks after your first acceptances: I’d resolved myself against applying for that reason. 

But like all deliciously attractive roleplays, I couldn’t help but keep my eye on the group, take a peek at the main every so often to see how things were going. I wasn’t paying close attention, and originally my gaze fell to Anastasia (partially because Ashley Moore is the love of my life, as she should be everyones, and partially because I am quite partial to princesses). I had no real plan to apply… and then I read Anton’s bio, in an attempt to learn everything I could about Ana, and fuck was I done for. 

Just like that, he had wormed his way into my heart. All I wanted to do was spread my volcra wings and start screeching because holy shit was I in love. I had 12 million other things to be doing every single day and yet, I’d be driving in my car to pick my sister up from a friend’s house and Anton fucking Lantsov would start running through my mind. (Coincidentally, I have a feeling he has this affect on a lot of people, not just me.) I’m thinking about things that he might say, how he might react if someone slighted him – is he the sort who would cut off a man’s hand because he questioned his authority as a war general (answer: maybe, possibly probably) or would he tear him down using a combination of carefully chosen words (answer: maybe, probably, he’d do both)? For a while, to be perfectly honest, I struggled a lot with finding his voice. It’s not that I couldn’t figure out why he says the things that he does, or even why he acts the way that he does because I think that I figured that out pretty early on. (At least, in my opinion. I hate when people make declarations about characters as though they know them better than the admins and so if I sound like that…. just, kick me. Seriously.) I legitimately mean, his voice – the things that he says, the words that are so carefully crafted on his lips. A big part of this is likely the fact that I am not particularly charming, and that’s legitimately the core of Anton’s persona; he is a charmer through and through, able to mold himself into any situation to make people like him. I, on the other hand, am a potato who doesn’t even like talking on the phone because it relies so much on words and that is a lot of pressure on a very small thing. But honestly I was obsessed and couldn’t stop thinking about him. Little devil snaked his way into my heart, the same way he snakes his way into everyone else’s.

What first drew me to Anton was, honestly, just the first line of his biography. I am a genuine sucker for royalty, especially the glorious and the tragic – of which Anton is both. He is legitimately everything that the crown could ever want from a prince, which makes it all the more confusing as to how exactly he got to where he is. It’s not exactly that he’s ambiguous, because his goals and motivations come to me with crystal-clear clarity: he wants better for Ravka, and that’s the be-all, end-all of it. It’s a lot like the quote by Nikolai in S&S: “I’m a prince, Alina. I can’t afford to be myself.” This is what I’m trying to get at, in essence, but it goes even further beyond this in Anton’s case. It’s not so much that he can’t afford to be himself, but rather that who is he is defined by his nation, what his people need from him. Who he is, therefore, is whoever his people need him to be. Ravka is everything to Anton, and he would never compromise his nation or his people for the sake of a single person, including himself. 

Anton may not have been born for the throne, but he is absolutely made for it. Anton, for all intents and purposes and for the sake of understanding him, strikes me as a sort of conglomeration of many of the male Greek deities. He has the wit of Ares and he has the savvy of Apollo, a boy as equally loved by the son as he is scorched by it – he has simultaneously gained everything and lost everything with his ascension to crown prince, his love his family his friends, it’s all been pulled away from him for the sake of the crown. He doesn’t complain, but he’s still been put on a pedestal he never expected to be put on. He’d grown accustomed to the battleground, allowed the gaze of war to settle into his skin alongside muted war-crys. He was a soldier though and through, racing towards victories on the horizon, a blade in his elder brother’s palm used to cut down Ravka’s enemies. 

But then Zeus crept in, making way for the true king Anton could become. Suddenly war and ruin were not all that he need know; he could know what it felt to hold a crown atop his head, to hold lightning in his hands and command where it might strike instead of being the strike. He was right to get involved with the war effort, was right to believe that war was entwined with his fate, but he had it wrong. He’s not the boy born for bloodshed, not the boy born to carry out the wars, but the one born to stop them, the boy born to bring peace to a nation that has too long been under siege by a darkness none of them knew how to fight. Or maybe the wars will kill him. Who knows. 

Honestly? I’d be crazy to not want to explore a character with that kind of weight on their shoulders, wouldn’t I? 

WHAT FUTURE PLOT IDEAS DID YOU HAVE IN MIND? 

LANTSOV MEN DIDN’T DIE: Anton, the word-lover, Anton, the wordsmith. I would love for Anton – who always had a quick remark to make before words could even enter his opponents thoughts – to be at a loss for words, for ideas. Perhaps it comes because he finds himself suddenly on not only uncharted, but also uneven ground, a place where not even his wide comfort zone can reach. Anton is brilliant, but there’s always someone out there smarter, someone just that touch more clever, and maybe they’ll put him into a position where he is in over his head. I think this is the kind of situation that would be really great for his character development; he is a selfless prince, to be sure, but he is also a vain prince, and to see him knocked off the pedestal he’s been put on, or even just knocked a rung or two down the ladder would be really fascinating. After all, the world around him is fast changing and he’s just have to learn how to run faster, talk quicker, be that much smarter. It’d be interesting to see someone pull ahead, even if only for a moment. Lantsov men, after all, are gods walking – but even gods can be killed, can be outsmarted. Just ask Ivan. 

E’YA STA REZKU: I am become a blade. In this case not in the hand’s of the Sun Summoner, but in the hands of Ravka, of his home, of his nation, of his people.  Da Vinci (my light, my life, my idol) wrote this thing: “every whole is greater than the part.” As much as I hate to so obviously take inspiration from Nikolai, I can’t help it in this case. Ravka is Anton’s first love. Therefore, to be perfectly honest, all I want is to see Anton come to grips with the fact that he will legitimately, finally, one day be at the helm of this nation. Anton, sun-haloed, war-torn, hungry Anton Lantsov is to find himself wholly consumed by his nation, and I’m wondering if he’s truly as cut out for it as he believes himself to be. He does, after all, have his weaknesses – his pride, his preference for alliances rather than relationships; when everything is skin deep it’s easy for him to betray, but just as easy for him to be betrayed. Anyways, this is kind of already in the midst of happening, but I’m really excited for Anton to morph from General into Crown Prince.

BLOOD IS THICKER: I don’t actually know if I really want this to happen or not because Anton will be in for a world of pain if it does, but I would love for it to be revealed that he is in fact a bastard. I’ve been talking about it a lot recently in various Skype chats, and I have a feeling it’s because I’m a sucker for angst, but can you imagine the pain that fact would put Anton in? He’s lived his entire life under the burden of whispers and doubts, but those he could handle; he could do it because Anton is a Great Man™ in the traditional sense of the word great in that he is pretty much designed to bring about revolution, to bring about an end to the nation’s suffering. He is a god through and through, with equal parts capability for mercy and ruthlessness when it comes to the good of his nation, and he knows it. He didn’t always, but as the people allowed him to be more volk than sobachka, he began to see himself for what he was. To have it revealed that he is in fact a bastard, that he cannot and will never again wear the crown, would be to rip the very fabric of Anton’s soul from his chest. I don’t think he would know who he is if the crown was ripped from his head, it’s too big a part of the destiny he sees for himself now. It would be a fascinating thing to have happen, and a fascinating thing for me to get to explore, but honestly I’d be very worried about his mental state if this came to fruition. 

THE SPARE SEEKS AN HEIR: The most obvious and most discussed thus far would have to be Anton finding himself a wife, considering it’s an act as future king of Ravka that will help to define his reign over the people. Who he chooses to have by his side while he rules will reflect back on him a great deal, and I would really like for it to be someone that he doesn’t necessarily expect to fall in love with. I feel like a lot of people at court tip-toe around him, or at least they should because he’s going to be the king for Saint’s sake. He is a king of the people as much as a king can be, but he is still going to be a king, is still a god walking among mere men. Probably because of that fact, there’s a kind of attitude that I want to see from Anton’s future wife, someone that isn’t afraid to call him out for being a douche – charming as that douchery may be. I also think that a kind of defiance would be something that Anton would greatly appreciate. After all, he spent his life as the spare, the prince that no one needed but they got anyways. He was someone that people needed to respect, and he commanded that from them, but he was never going to be king and he got used to that part of his life – that possibility of comfort, of familiarity, of casualness. As future king, he probably lost a lot of those casual relationship that brought easy smiles to his cheeks and was left with so much distance. I want Anton to find someone not only unafraid of that distance, but who crosses it with confidence and ease. 

GOT YOUR SIX: I would really like to see Anton training a second, and farther beyond this, Anton involved in the war efforts in general. This might be something that develops in Anton’s past, in the sense that it’s a position / relationship that already exists that just isn’t written in his bio is this makes sense. Anton with his soldier friends, joking around as they all lose themselves to the drink around him, tossing back glass after glass of kvas, their lives pressed into the dirt and destruction all around them. I feel like there’s no really an established relationship for Anton that involves the war brigade, and given that’s such an integral part of the man he became, I’d love to get to explore it more. 

WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO HAVE YOUR CHARACTER DIE?  I want to be really cool and say yes, no problem, but I have a feeling if I was accepted I would cry and be really protective over my little bastard king and cry even more if you killed him. I’d probably let it happen anyways though, you know, for the Angst™ 

IN DEPTH

IN CHARACTER PARA SAMPLE(S): The sample(s) may be as long or as short as you see fit. It must be in third person and in-character.

REASON IS NOT AUTOMATIC. – I really just wanted a glimpse into how Anton handles the men in his army. I had intended originally to write about the kindness he shows them, but since I wrote a headcanon about how he treats the good men (remembers their names, their lives, remembers they are people and not just blades in his collection), I thought it might be interesting to see how he handles the ones who are in the war for the blood, not the loyalty.  

 “We’ll probably be able to catch a few more of them lurking around in the woods, then we can have some more fun with them. Damn Fjerdans, always thinking they can take what’s not theirs, what’s ours.” There’s a pause, a silence a bit too harsh to be stagnant, as though the speaker was looking forward to the other man’s answer to his next question. “You take any alive?”

“Yeah,“ the other man says, and the tone of disappointment caught in his throat makes Anton sick to his stomach. These were his men, not the Fjerdans who ridiculously thought Grisha to be witches, or men from Ketterdam entwined with the drug industry; his men, and he thought they would be better than this. It’s a bitter reality for him to swallow. “One of them actually surrendered,” the man says, his words crisp on the cold night’s air. Anton cannot see the voice that it belongs to, but somehow he knows they are not someone to make a friend out of. “Rest of the company was around though, so I had to turn him over.”

“We aren’t taking the live ones to prison are we? We don’t need any more damn mouths to feed. I’m hungry enough most night as is.”

“Nah, just the ones who seem like they might know what their men were doing crossing into Ravkan territory. Think Popov, that new interrogator, is in with one of ‘em now. I know the live one I caught is going to be executed once the interrogator is done with him, but what I wouldn’t give to kill the Fjerdan myself.”

“Well, at least Popov gets to have some fun tonight.”

His voice is distinct when he begins – slow, deliberate, regal, in the most patronizing of ways. Men like this must be kept in line. “Now, boys,” the Prince begins, removing himself from the shadows of the tent to expose himself to these bloodthirsty wolves, calling them boys so as to make them remember that as much as he build himself into friendship with his merry men, they will forever and always be below him. And in this moment, disappointed in the cruelty of man, he needs all the status he can get. “I would say have you been paying attention, but it’s clear you haven’t. I sent out stealth parties into the trees not half an hour ago so that they might ambush the remaining Fjerdan invaders as the moon rises. Worry not; we will take and protect that which is ours and march home with any spoils. Or did you doubt your leaders?”

It’s casual, the insinuation of treason, of insubordination, of treachery. It’s the most powerful weapon against men who dare to let thoughts of such nature to take hold in their minds – the notion that it makes them weak, that it makes them lesser. (Wonderful, how the pride of men can be used so easily against them.) It often pulls men like this back, dragging them from the edge of the dark abyss and into his own arms -- where he may use them as he pleases.

Anton is never certain how he should feel about such men, the wolves of Ravka made into human flesh, but he doesn’t dwell on the thought, instead choosing to turn away from these devils in tattered clothing. It’s been almost a year to the day since Anton has stepped his foot in the Grand Palace, in his home. Tomorrow will be the year mark, and he finds more and more often that he itches for the palace, for the ability to stride through the halls, no longer sobachka but volk, no longer a weak-hearted little boy but a man as sharp as volcra talons.

Becoming a god had come at a lofty price.

( What he doesn’t say, cannot admit, is not so much that he fears he is beginning to forget; beginning to forget the sound of Anastasia laughing, the way his father’s voice curls around consonants – sharply, as though every word must be a knife to cut down his enemies – or the way Darya tended to favor certain words over others.

This? This separation? He is afraid to admit that he does not mind.

Foolish for him to have thought it would ruin him. )

Anton sits at his desk, scrawling word after word, letter after letter, pouring his mind into the pieces of parchment bound in leather.

I told Ivan this morning of the terrors, the absolute horrors, that the Shu invaders used against me and my men. There have been rumors for years about the technology they have been developing, and I fear I’ve witnessed those beginning to come to fruition.

Yet still, he doesn’t listen to me when I try and tell him my designs. I don’t understand how a mind so built for war, for weaponry could be so opposed to hearing about the developments that another thinks they could make. Dawn begins to breaks along the snow-covered horizon and he is off, walking away from me in the middle of my words, his mind too distracted by the battle his is about to wage to see the bigger picture: Ravka is going to fail .

I fear what he is going to do to our nation by keeping it as he has always known it. Ivan is no fool, but is he a king either? We need him to be. Ravka needs him to be, more so now than ever.

Every morning he wakes to desire of the most unholy sort: treason. The second son, greater than none. Funny, truly, how desperation can drive one to greatness. Nothing, however, could be done about fate, about birth order. He way be a god, but the second tier was the only level he’d be able to call home.

Anton doesn’t hear when his brother enters the room, barely notices that Ivan has entered unannounced and unwanted to come and stand at Anton’s shoulder as he hunches over the desk before him. But then his elder brother is leaning over and he can feel the breath – warm and hot, unwelcome – touching the bare space between his hairline and the top of his shirt and suddenly the journal is being slammed closed as he shoves away from his chair.

He recognized it as Ivan before he even saw him with his own eyes, even before his brother began to speak. He would know Ivan anywhere, though he may pretend not to. All he can hope is that he hadn’t read any of what has been put to paper.

“Saints, boy. You’d think I’d just held a knife to your throat the way you jump.”

Boy – the slight cuts Anton more than he’d care to admit. (Instead he’d just blather on about it in his diary later.) At first he shrinks away from the casual reprimand, knowing with sharp clarity what the small word insinuates -- he’d used the same method only minutes before. Anton, of course, had learned his tactics from the best.

“Don’t you think I know my nation well enough to know best how to handle it?” Ah -- so he had read it.

“Brother, of course I know you’re worried about what lies beyond our borders; we all are. But don’t you see? The Shu to the South and Fjerdans to the North? And right between lies our nation – while great, vulnerable; we sit cut off from our trade routes along the Western borders. All it will take to overcome us is an army strong enough, technology that we in our wildest dreams have not been able to craft. I will not allow them to take what is ours and call it their own.” Anton is alive now, caught up in the feeling of greatness, of the divinity that Ivan himself had shown him existed in Lantsov blood.

“Ivan, If the Shu decide to attack us, and I mean really attack us, we will lose. The Shu are expanding their army and I’ve seen their weaponry; if they decided to come together with Kerch to attack us by land and sea, well, even the Grisha won’t be able to protect us from that kind of machinery. Our neighbors want to expand their borders and swallow Ravka whole. We cannot continue to be a nation divided. If you would just allow -- ”

“It’s very romantic and all how you wish to save the world, but I think we both know it takes a man like me to actually do it. People respond to strength and strength alone, young brother, not reason; and while I must credit your mind with the cleverness it is due, it has nothing on the Ravkan army’s brute force.”

Sometimes he wonders about his brother; Ivan the great, Ivan the Terrible. Is he unable or perhaps just unwilling to understand that fear is a temporary solution? After all, is it more difficult to learn how to be cruel, or to learn how to be soft? Anton was beginning to think the gods knew not of humanity, knew not the workings of a human’s mind. He was beginning to think that it was a good thing he’d been forced to remain half-boy for so long, that being a god meant he would forget how to bleed.

And so long as he remembers what it is to bleed, he will remember to protect that humanity his brother had seemingly lost.

OTHER GIRLS WERE FAINT STARS. – A bit of a timeline, this sample more or less shows the rise and fall of Darya and Anton’s relationship, at least the ways in which I imagine it.

 The truth of the matter is this: Anton Lantsov would do anything for that which he loved. He’d written it once in his journal before:

Love for me is different, I think. People say that love feels like home, but it’s not. It’s like a religion. It’s so much bigger than a building where I can be myself – It’s terrifying. It’s a black night and a single burning star. It’s building them a city and calling it Church. It’s taking all of human history and bending it to their will. Forget the ending, I will build them a story anew.

He finds her in the gardens, and in spite of himself, he grins from ear-to-ear at the sight of her. He thinks it’s her back (It’s always the back with him – the way a person’s spine curves and the ridges where their shoulder blades end, the little dip between the two. He quite enjoys mapping out those places, and he does so with as much vigor as he puts into his campaigns.) that truly gives her away, the dark cascade of hair that falls over her shoulders and grazes the spot where fabric covers spine. The set of those shoulders really should have acted as a warning sign, but even if it did he chose to ignore it. (Anton, of course, does nothing without choosing to do so.)

“Miss Voronov, are you enjoying the evening?”

He almost laughs when she whips around, her face a delicious shade of red. He’d always loved the sight of a flush in a person’s cheeks – spoke to wonderful things happening below the surface, inside of a person’s mind. Perhaps she, too, was thinking of their midnight rendezvous under the influence of a tad too much champagne. He knew she was a dangerous game to play; he’d go back to war soon (too soon, really) and to dance with his emotions now would be to play with fire -- but, then, when had love or war ever been fair?

“We should probably pretend it didn’t happen,” she begins, moving quickly beyond pleasantries to address (or rather – not address, seeing as she seemed to want to forget) the kiss he’d shared with her the night before. His lips stayed in place, a smile commanding its hold as a hearty laugh rolled its way through his chest.

“Pretend what didn’t happen, you taking advantage of me or kicking me out after you did it?”

“I did not take advantage!” She sounds taken aback, and it’s all Anton can do to hear the gasp of air in her throat and not press his mouth to hers again. Instead he clicks his tongue in disapproval, his head shaking in mock innocence, though the warmth in his eyes is a dead give away for the fondness that’s settled across his skin. And he knows she can see it for she’s clearly holding back laughter, small chuckles escaping her with each word. Each sound tastes like cherry wine. It’s sweet in a quiet sort of manner, gentle but assured – as though she laughs like that every day, as though he makes her laugh like that every day, as though she may just allow him to stay by her side from now until eternity just to keep her laughing like that. He makes it his gospel.

“Oh, I was drunk and extremely handsome.” His head tilts to the side as he pauses, looking at her with obvious endearment. “You took advantage.” (What better way to show affection than with humor, no? His brothers always told him otherwise, but he finds this woman’s laugh intoxicating – he’d worship at the altar of that sound if only she’d let him.)

“I think extremely handsome is being overly generous.” The corners of his mouth tilt down in mock distress. He knows that she will come around, that she is pretending for the sake of honor, or perhaps self-protection; he can see it in the tilt of her mouth, the repressed grin.

“Oh no, last night I was wearing my good shirt, the deep blue colored one. Compliments my complexion quite nicely. Last night I was extremely handsome. You took advantage.”

“I did no -- ”

“Would you care to take advantage again, say tomorrow evening?” he says, interrupting her. He’d probably pay for that later.

“Your Highness – ”

“Please Darya, call me Anton.” He uses her given name, and he can feel the weight of it on his tongue like Atlas bearing the world, can feel it on his tongue like intimacy made concrete. The set of her mouth is what makes him smile again, the determined way in which she forces it into a straight line.

“Your Highness,” she says again. Determined little star; he could already feel his gravity shifting, anchoring him to her instead of the grass beneath their feet. “-- don’t you take anything seriously?” She knows the answer to this is yes, that he takes everything seriously, devotes himself completely to everything his nation needs, but it’s not what he says.

“I find life tends to get rather dull that way.” Sailors always tell tall tales of mermaids luring men to their deaths beneath the waves, dragged down to the shadowy depths; he thinks he’s found his siren call.

She pauses, shaking her head, but the smile he’s been trying to coax out of her is finally beginning to show, the walls beginning to crumble as he so desperately wished they would. “You really ought to stop looking at me like that,” she says.

“Like what?”

“Oh, I think that you know what.”

And he does know what, because he looks at her like he finally understands the Apparat’s preaching, like she is the moon and he a lone wolf desperate for a response. He looks at her like she’s the sun, and he’d gladly raze his wings to ash if she’d only asked him to come near.

It could be daunting, he supposes, but Anton had never walked away from a challenge before. He wasn’t about to start now.

He had been right: love and war were certainly not fair. They were vicious opponents, each as demanding as the other, both entwined together like the strings of fate. He tells himself that he is not at all bitter, that the war is where he belongs; it’s easier when she isn’t so near.

He is throwing rocks at her window and to be fair, he knows it’s all entirely absurd, but he can’t help the smile that colors his cheeks rose. Too long had he been ruled by sulfur and gunfire, by glory and victory. Too long had he been away from peace, and Darya was nothing if not solace against broken bones and battlegrounds.

He told himself that he wouldn’t do this, that the first stop he made when he returned from war wouldn’t be her, but the moment he was alone his body had taken over his mind and carried him here, for he’d missed her more than he could ever put into words. It was unbearable, really, to even think her name –  Darya Voronov, Darya Voronov, Darya Voronov, Darya Voronov, it took over everything if he let it seep in – when she wasn’t near. Thoughts of her made him tremble with it: humanity.

It terrified him.

(Perhaps it’s why he needs the jurda: to tame his heart, to strengthen his hands.)

There’s a certain euphoria he feels whenever she is near, and even the simple sight of her leaned over that balcony edge is enough to make his heart ache in ways he never imagined that it could, in ways he hopes will never fade. Her gaze meets his (truly, it hasn’t been that long but it’s been far, far too long) and suddenly everything else pales in comparison to her eyes, all the other beauty in the world pale stars in comparison to her full moon. For a moment his breath hitches in his chest and he counts one --  two -- three -- before he can breathe again.

“Anton, what are you doing out there! Someone may hear you!”  She half-whispers her words, chiding, but the smile that winds its way onto her cheeks is a dead give away, her tell. He knows she is as happy to have him home as he is to see her once again. Seeing her standing there, the delicate weight of her lifted onto toes so that she might lean over the railing, makes him smile crookedly. (Really, what other sort of smile can a boy with fifty faces have?) He’s unsurprised at her delight, remembering that with every letter he sent her, she sent one back with equal fervor: come home, she would write. I miss you, too, he would send back.

“Well, you know how I feel about taking risks,” he replies with a smile to match her own blossoming one. Like calls to like, he would suppose.

“Don’t you know what my father would do to you if he caught you out there? What your father would do?”

It doesn’t matter to him what her father would do, what anyone would do. The only reason he hides her is for her benefit, for her own safety. She deserved so much better than to be put under scrutiny, under the watchful eye of every other woman at court who may have thought to seek out the hand of a prince; Darya was already an outsider at court, despite the efforts of Ana to make people see otherwise. She was not from a high house, did not come from money, no, far from it. He loved her, and as he does all the things he loves, he protects her whatever the cost, even if that means he needs to hide her from the rest of the world.  

Hearing her speak he realizes that it’s true what they say about distance, about separation. The first thing to go from your memory is the voice, and hearing Darya’s now, fluttering along the gentle breeze, it sounds something like church bells, the notes of a choir’s hymn at sunset.

He feels grounded, anchored to her. A disciple at his knees before the saints.  

His eyes are alight with mischief when he finally replies. “Make me marry you, perhaps?”

A dangerous game to play, indeed.

Anton barely thinks twice about being called to his father’s study. He’s almost grown accustomed to the man now, barely registers anymore that the man standing before him is twice the god that Anton will ever be, that his father is the titan who taught him how to shed the sobachka pelt Ravka had put on his shoulders. He knocks -- a succinct rap rap on the mahogany door frame -- before entering, passing through the entryway to Olympus only when his father’s voice calls out come in.

“Darya Voronov?” Ivan had never been one for playing games, and tonight was no different. If Darya was Anton’s own personalized version of an addiction, then his father was buzzkill incarnate. He crosses his arms over his broad chest, and Anton immediately feels smaller; he almost crumples in on himself with the weight of his father’s gaze. Please, father, he wants to beg. Let’s not do this.

He keeps his gaze apathetic, the guarded prince guarding his heart; he cannot afford to give too much away. The king stands (Do kings ever truly sit, even when they are planted on their thrones? When they are always so high above all others?) and waits for an answer from the spare, but for a moment Anton finds himself absent a quip to allay the situation, absent a tongue. The bonds between father and son, no matter the complexity, no matter the darkness, no matter the questions (Are you proud of me? Do you love me? Do you love my mother? Am I hers?) are unshakeable though, and as cleverly as Anton my try to shed the weight of his father’s gaze, may try to escape the imploring eyes, gods do not know the meaning of the word no.

Anton should have known better than to think he could hide her from a man who saw the bigger picture like it was marked out for him on the floor in dotted lines. “I know all, my boy.”

Anton wants to laugh it off, to pretend like his father is being absurd. He knows his words are thin, that his father has eyes even in the statues that decorate the Grand Palace, that nowhere is safe, but he lies anyways.

“Father, I never pegged you as the type to listen to petty gossip.” He pretends not to feel the way his heart has begun to beat more quickly between his ribcages, growing so large with every pump of blood that it surely is on the verge of explosion. The young prince should really know better by now than to try and lie to a man who could lie for a living. (Old habits die hard, I suppose.) “Do you pay all such rumors credence, or do you consider me a special case?”

His father is shaking his head then and he is looking straight through Anton as though there is a shining star buried in his chest setting his every secret aflame, bright and burning for all the world to see. And maybe there is something buried there, a piece of Darya stuck like a burr on his heart, his body drowning with the gravity of it. He wouldn’t be surprised.

“You’re a skilled liar, Anton, but not skilled enough.”

Gods don’t care for weakness, and love is surely one.

She hates it when he smokes, but to be fair, he only does it when he’s away from her, like when she is around his need for vice is sated. Without her Anton is a burning pyre, and when there’s smoke the pipe is too tempting not to give into. Coming back to the palace he finds it difficult to quit, and standing beside the lake makes him nostalgic for the ocean -- his hands needs a distraction or they may just begin that insufferable flexing that happens whenever he wants something he cannot have.

“You know, once of these days they’re going to tell you jurda can kill you,” she says, her voice suddenly breaking through the night, just as flame is approaching pipe. How quickly he smiles; he needed a distraction, and Darya was be a much more appealing addiction to indulge himself in. Dangerous, the intellectual part of his brain days, for they are in public and much to his own chagrin, Darya is a well-kept secret.

Delicious, the wolf says.  

“You think you know what it’s going to feel like, but this” he says, a general of war suddenly gentle in the hands of his flower, gesturing clumsily at the empty space between their two bodies. “This is nothing l could have predicted. I don’t know why anybody bothers with drugs when they could just fall in love.”

There are a million words on the tip of his liquor-lacquered tongue. My throat, mine. You left stars in my heart and now I claim this space between your ribs as mine, mine, mine. I am in your heart and it is paradise; I am in your light and it keeps streaming into me. “Never leave me,” he says instead. His head is shaking, a mind caught in incredulity. How had she claimed him so? A man who was everything, reduced to a man in love, a man at his knees?

“Is that what you’re afraid of?” She says it like a joke, like it’s nothing, but Anton knows better.

His lips brush hers and it tastes suspiciously of wildflowers.

“Who says I’m afraid of anything?”

You get to be the King. This isn’t the way he thought it would feel. For a momen\ it felt like magic, but now it feels like getting stabbed to death. You get magic gloves! You’re all cotton candy pink and glowing! He feels strangely trapped, like a princess in her tower or the dragon stuck in the dungeons.

She finds him in the gardens. and while there is no longer a tear in his eye, salt has clung onto the peach fuzz that covers his cheeks. The faded tears tighten his skin, just as the noose he’d placed around his own neck so many years ago had finally grown taut; just as he’d always wanted. The gravity lines that had once held him spinning in her orbit had been severed, and he hung precariously from the hands of the Ravkan people. His fate belong to them now, not her.

If he was going to put the noose around his own neck, he supposes he should at least do it right.

“Anton,” she calls when she is only a few feet away. Here he’d been thinking they wouldn’t even say goodbye, wouldn’t submit themselves to the pain of such an endeavor. But then again, he’d always been the dramatic sort, and much as he wanted to save himself from the war of love, he knows that a wound left to fester would surely kill, that neither one will be able to move on without the safety of a clean cut.

He didn’t do it on purpose (or maybe he did, he can’t be sure), but everything about him is stark sobering; his clothes are crisp and free of blemish the same way his face remains smooth, unburdened. He had to make it look easy, had to make it as pure and unblemished by the loss of his brother as possible. It will be easier this way, he thinks, and maybe he’s right. (He usually is.)

“My dear Darya – ” he begins without thinking, something he thinks he’s never done.

“Please don’t call me that – yours, as though I ever will be.”

His eyes cast themselves towards hers and it’s not exactly painful; perhaps nostalgic would be a better word. She looks like a morning glories unfurling at down, she looks like home. It’s instinctual, the way his hand nearly floats away from his side to stroke her cheek; he’d just washed them recently, and he knew she’d be able to smell the lemon on them. It’s all he can do to not surge forward, to wrap her in his arms to keep her safe and tucked away from the pain and darkness now threatening to take over.

Instead he breathes, and flexes his hand once, twice, three times over. He knows she deserves something better than this, better than the role of dirty secret. Doesn’t change the turning in his abdomen at the thought of her lips on his.

He wants to apologize for all of the things that he ever said to her, wants to take it all back. What good is it doing either of them now? When they’ve known happiness, pure and unbridled love, only to have it ripped away by something as heavy as blood? Sorry about taking your heart and making myself a home there, sorry about walking with you through the gardens under a black sky alight with bright stars. I’m sorry that I built a cathedral at your feet, and I’m sorry for the sacrilege I’m about to commit. Sorry about the casket I’ve already buried our love in.

Sorry about ruining everything before even saying it aloud.

Is this what destruction looks like? Or maybe it’s something else, something like construction. Maybe it takes clumsy hearts at twilight to realize that what was underneath the floorboard was what he was destined for, that the perfunctory kiss goodbye he plants on her rosebud mouth was something he should have been prepared for all along.

It’s love or it isn’t; does it matter anymore? It does. Of course it does.

“Our nation needs strength, Darya. No matter the cost.” He doesn’t say it aloud, not exactly, but he knows her to be clever enough to hear the words he cannot say: the cost is you, the cost is you, the cost is you.  

He would pay it time and time again, and he wouldn’t think twice.

“I know, my love. I know.”

He turns away from her then and there’s the same unmistakable set of his shoulders, the one he learned from his brother, from his father. It’s the stance of a Lantsov. It’s the stance not of a boy turned men, but of a man turned god.

The truth of the matter is this: Anton Lantsov loves Ravka, and he’d do anything to protect it.

CHARACTER HEADCANONS: 

MY HEART ON YOUR SLEEVE: Anton is always giving away his heart in the form of material objects. With his men, the ones who did right by him, by a man not just their general but their friend, he would give them little trinkets that he had invented that would make their lives easier – an especially powerful telescope that would allow men to see an enemy approaching from further distances, a jacket made from the same material as his own kefta, a seemingly simple pair of gloves that have metal in the knuckles so any hand to hand combat would be just that much more dangerous, and so on and so forth. It’s not necessary by any means, but it adds to his charms, makes him more friend than other, makes him more human if people are able to carry little pieces of his mind around in their pockets. Similarly, he lavishes his lovers with gifts. There haven’t been too many, and besides Darya they were all frivolous teenage trysts, but each and every single one of them found themselves adorned with jewels. Darya, of course, was always telling him that she didn’t need it, but that never stopped him. He can’t seem to help it, the ways in which he loves to inject himself into other people, to don his peers with little bits of himself – perhaps it’s a way of claiming ownership, of claiming power, but it’s also something that gives him pride; to see people wear and use the things he has given them, it lets him know that they appreciate what he does for them, and he loves to be appreciated. 

HEAD ON, HEART OFF: For the greater good, he tells himself. I think it probably scares him a little bit, how easily he was able to walk away from Darya. There’s a great many nuances to this situation, but at the end of the day I don’t think that, once he knew of his brothers death and what that entailed for his own future, he ever thought twice about keeping Darya in his life. He’s far too smart to ever truly believe that Darya could be his queen, and so he let her go without a second thought. Part of it was for her own sake; if he held onto her until he found himself a wife, then he would be doing her not only a great dishonesty, but also a great disservice. He knows that she deserves far better than to be the king’s mistress. And he thinks about her, often – sometimes it’s late at night, when there’s no one there to distract his thoughts from the image of her sprawled across his silk bed sheets, and sometimes it’s when he hears something funny or something beautiful; she is who he wants to share those moments with. But still, he left her like it was nothing, like it was easy, because that’s what his kingdom needed, what the crown demanded. It scares him how quickly the man he wanted to become has vanished, a crown prince left to fill his shining shoes. 

BATHE IN STARLIGHT: I am dead convinced that Anton has an unshakeable love for all things that live above his head: the birds that live in the trees, the trees themselves that grow so big and tall and will outlive him by millennia, but most important the sky, and what is beyond that. The galaxies and the cosmos fascinate him, and he is constantly staring up at them, clambering his way onto the roofs of buildings in an attempt to get closer to them. What secrets do they hold, those floating little balls of light? He can see them there, flickering in the sky above – they’re the only absolute constant in his life. Out on the Vy, or making camp near one of the Tula Valley’s many abandoned farms, even lost in the vast otherness of Tsibeya, the stars remained the same, guiding him through the darkness and to safety. 

EXTRAS: 

I do have a mockblog, which I’ve linked in this whole sentence! As per usual, I think it’s probably more helpful for me than it will be for you, but it’s there. :) I’ve also made Anton a pinterest board! 

Some extra things, a number of which are just more headcanons:

a playlist that i made for anton… here’s hoping you have spotify. it’s more or less instrumental songs that made me think of him, but there’s a couple of lyric songs in there as well. 

i forced myself not to make a darya & anton playlist, but listen to moondust by jaymes young and try to tell me it doesn’t make you cry. i’ll wait. 

birthdate: december 31st: capricorn. This sign is, above all else, ambitious. And while I don’t think that Anton necessarily lusted after the crown when he was the second son, he absolutely fought tooth and nail to make sure he was not only well-liked, but well respected. He rose through use of his own merit and skill to the title of General, and he did it because he’s patient. He’s resourceful. He gets what he wants. Capricorn’s other common traits tend to serve their ambition in that they are usually quite disciplined and quite intuitive; I think this lend nicely to the notion that Anton is very good at reading people – their wishes, their desires, they all come easily and quickly to him, allowing him to be whoever the person needs him to be. Capricorns often are very good with their words, which fits with his ability to but charm people and put them in their place, with his ability to bring nations to their knees with a twist of his tongue rather than his wrist. 

gender identity: cisgender; he/him. Anton’s entire life he was bred for war, for the life of a general. He was taught to keep his hair cropped short, his posture straight, and his muscles coiled tightly. He was taught walk like a man. This is why I’d suspect he’s never considered what life would be like if he were able to separate himself from his gender, from the constriction of the pronouns he’d been given at birth. The phrase be a man was so wound in with his identity that I doubt he could have ever given much thought to abandoning that which he was born into. 

sexuality: heteroperformative, but likely unopposed to the idea of sex with any and all genders, and more than likely has tumbled with his fair share of people of varying genders. To be perfectly honest, I don’t think he’s given a terrible amount of thought to his sexuality, always just assuming that he would have to marry some noble girl regardless of his own choices. The fact that he found and loved Darya wasn’t something that happened every day in Ravkan court, and I don’t think he was expecting it at all. Sure he’s the second born son and so his marriage wouldn’t have been nearly as important as any one made by Ivan, but Saints forbid Anton end up marrying anyone other than a well-mannered lady capable of matching his own level of wit and sophistication. No, Anton’s own personal willingness to cross all of those boundaries never mattered because he knew that in the long run he likely wouldn’t be marrying for love. 

hogwarts house: In my heart of hearts I love Gryffindor so much and was honestly trying to figure out a way to justify putting Anton in Gryffindor, but I just couldn’t manage it. I think he’s very probably in Slytherin given his pension for ambition and bringing armies to heel, but I think the sorting hat may think twice about not putting him in Ravenclaw. 

books: It’s not surprising that someone with an ability to connect to a vast array of people is then able to connect across a different field: the page. For as long as Anton can remember he’s always loved books, and the worlds that different stories can create. Before the spare was the heir, he was generally free to spend his days as he pleased. Prior to his introduction to the battalions, Anton could pretty much always be found in the library and anyone who walks into Anton’s personal quarters int he palace likely could have mistaken the room for a second one. His room is practically littered with stacks of different books, some of them historical and some simply novels to be read for pleasure. They cover every surface – piles on the floor beneath his desk and on the chair in the corner of his room. Books on his nightstand and at the foot of his bed. All of varying lengths and topics and age. His favorites always turn out to be about historical leaders, sometimes monarchs sometimes dictators sometimes usurpers. Men and women of great power and prestige who did great or ( sometimes and ) terrible things for their nations. Sometimes he pretends he’s not, but he’s always taking mental notes of what those Greats did that made them the ruler that they were. Even before he had the crown Anton was ready for it. 

languages: As the great wordsmith that Anton is, it makes sense that he would make sure he could be as such in as many languages as he could get his hands on. While out at sea, there is little else to do on passages than read a book, or perhaps practice a bit of swordplay (not that he really needs much help in that department). So read he would, plowing through books on Kerch and Shu Han, devouring the language and attempting to form the sounds on his tongue even without the aid of a native speaker. But eventually a vague understanding wasn’t enough, and he pestered each speaker of foreign languages that he could find into showing him to to move his mouth, where to put his tongue exactly behind his teeth. He loves words, and the more the merrier.

mars: For the longest time he couldn’t justify with himself getting a dog, unable to reconcile his want with the amount of time he would spend away from the creature. When his brother died, when he was made Crown Prince, he found himself spending more time at the palace than he had since he was a teenager, and he found a true friend in the small Golden Retriever puppy that he acquired. His father had said Get a Great Dane if you really must have a pet, but Anton loved the unbridled loyalty that came with his Golden, and he wouldn’t trade Mars for anything. The puppy now follows him everywhere, and he grows bigger and bigger every day. Mars, he finds, is very good at listening to his secrets. 

sailing: Anton, beyond a shadow of a doubt, loves the sea. There were a great many things that kept him from it while he was growing up ( namely The Unsea ) but even the darkness couldn’t hold Anton back from the place he was meant to be. Being out on the water was as close a thing to religion as Anton has ever felt, despite the preachings of the Apparat that he alway had to sit through while growing up. The language of the Saints had never resonated in his mind until he witnessed what it was to feel the wind kissing his skin, salt getting caught up in his too-long eyelashes. There’s something so liberating about being out on the water, an emotion that comes only when the land begins to fade from vision. In my head it was the first thing that was truly, incandescently Anton’s. He was the Second Born battle-savvy son, but Ivan was ruthless in battle in a way that made Anton’s pension for clever tricks instead of brute force not only less popular with his father, but it made the battlefield less his. Maybe that’s a selfish thought, but being at sea was the first thing that he was really, really good at that his elder brother hadn’t already claimed – the almost rhythmic slapping of the hull and the crooning of seagulls, the rigging creaking as it tightens around the pins.  **As a sidenote, I did come up with this headcanon prior to reading the Grisha trilogy – it is entirely possible that I was projecting my own love for the sea onto Anton, but I think it fits beautifully with his instiably curious, restless mind – but I am really really pleased that it aligned with Nikolai’s character because I love him and I just think that King of the Sea Anton is a beautiful Anton. 

good men: This one ties in kind of closely with my “HEART ON YOUR SLEEVE” headcanon, but I wanted to expand on that one just a little bit more down here. I think that Anton is the kind of General that remembers every single soldier that he served with, and even many of the ones that he was only commander to. He is just that kind of man, the one who cares about people far more than they very well may care about him. He asks men he hasn’t seen in three years how their lives have changed, remembering that one man’s wife was pregnant when they first met and so will ask if he ended up with a spitfire who can’t sleep through the night or not, will ask about anything he can remember from his past with them and the people love it, and it’s why not a single person out there questions the fact the the prince is the general – they know he wasn’t just given the title for the sake of the title. Anton damn well earned it. 

drinking: As a dastardly teenager with a face far too beautiful for it to be any good for Ravka’s women, kvas was more than likely one of Anton’s very best friends, as it would have been for any other young teenage boy. But I don’t think Anton drinks anymore, at least not really, and I think this is probably a fairly recent development. Obviously champagne and the occasional glass of kvas is necessary in the life a royal – for entertaining guests who prefer brandy to warm the hearts rather than the talk of alliances, or for wooing a woman into bed with the sultry glance above the rim of his glass – but I don’t think that he really drinks to excess. He’s too focused on Ravka and making it the kingdom he believes it can be: grand and powerful. He wouldn’t risk any modicum of control for the sake of waking up nauseous and bleary-eyed – no matter how attractive the prospect of liquor may seem in the moment. WIP.

grisha: Anton acts all holier than thou sometimes (read: all the time) but it’s more or less a facade to entertain while still commanding respect, and his emotions about the Grisha are not any different to how he feels about other citizens of Ravka: they deserve protection. As a child, his vision was tainted by the glasses of prejudice, but as soon as he began coming into his own, as soon as he began traveling through Ravka, he stopped seeing abomination and began to see allies, to see the human beneath the Small Science. It mattered not to Anton the fact that Stasya Belov could command air particles; he wanted to go for a tumble with her in shadowy corners just the same way Darya Voronov made his abdomen tighten. He saw beyond the prejudices he had been taught, and that newfound vision has stuck with him – and he’s determined to carry it not only through Ravka, but into Kerch and Shu Han and past the Fjerdan borders. He has a vision for the world, and it’s colored in acceptance. 

charms: I find the fact that Anton is extraordinarily charming quite fascinating if I’m being perfectly honest, because every persona that he dons is as genuine as the last – a feat not easily accomplished. The Grisha have odinakovost and etovost, that strange ability of theirs to call to the small sciences, but Anton has something equally as powerful: that ability to see into a person’s soul and know exactly what they need from him, who he must be to gain their trust. He’s a golden kind of charming, the kind of boy who lights up a person’s world, the kind of boy who creates warmth wherever he goes. Sometimes it makes a hearth, sometimes it burns men to the ground – it depends on what will serve him best. 

knives: Anton has always been skilled with knives. Anton, to be fair, tends to be good at everything that he puts his mind to. 

letters: Every single time he was away from the palace (and, to be sure, it was a great many times, for many months at a time) he sent letters back to his two favorite ladies: Anastasia and Darya. When he first began going to war, it was only to his sweet Ana that he would send mail to regularly, but as soon as Darya came into his life he was hooked on her, drowning in an all-encompassing love, and he’d pour and pour and pour himself into the pages he sent to her until there was nothing left to pour. More often than not he would press a flower he found near camp and include it in the letters he sent; even when he was away he wanted to give people a tiny little piece of himself, even if that piece was only a bit of where he was in the world at the time of mailing.

jurda: He smokes the root from a pipe, but only when he’s away from the palace (read: only when he’s away from Darya.) He tried chewing it, like all soldiers do, but he found the feeling it left in his mouth uncomfortable, and quickly moved onto using the pipe instead. It’s not quite that he needs a vice, but more so that it’s the only thing he’s found that can sate his appetite, that can calm the wolf every time he gets agitated. It’s strange, perhaps, but Anton needs no aid in finding energy as many who chew jurda do, but rather that thoughts of Darya often used to distract his energy from where it needed to be. The smoke focused him, smothered the want to make way for the war. 

prayer: Good sailors. Good soldiers. Let the sea carry them to safe harbor, and may the Saints receive them on a brighter shore. Anton repeats the Sailor’s Prayer to himself after every single battle, whether the men he’s lost have been sea-lovers or not. Sailing is as close a thing to religion as he has ever truly believed in and he can’t quite shake himself of the habit. Sometimes it’s a simple Saints receive them and sometimes it’s the entire prayer, but either way the sea is always with him. 

CONNECTIONS – These are, of course, player approval contingent, but I tried to keep them mostly Anton-sided to avoid potential variations in interpretation! I know that there’s a lot of these, and so that some of them may need tweaking, but given Anton’s status, he knows a great many people and I wanted to really explore his thoughts about Ravkan court given it runs his life. 

ivan – Fascinating, isn’t it, the bonds between brothers? If manipulation were a two-sided coin, then Anton and Ivan would be on opposing sides: Ivan, the physical, Anton, the mental. Where one was all fists, the other relied on wits. Where neither was overly tender or merciful, one knew what the words meant where the other pretended the words didn’t exist. How do you live with yourself? Anton occasionally thought to ask, though he knew what his elder brother would respond with: a haughty laugh, an innately valorous twist of his mouth (everything Ivan did was fraught with grandeur, with glory, with darkness). By always being the last man standing. Little did he know.  

viktor – He is Viktor fucking Lantsov, a harbinger of the kind of darkness that he saw in his elder brother’s soul as well. The two, it would seem, are cut from the same cloth, and for that reason there’s a terror that fills Anton’s mind every time he thinks about the youngest brother – the same terror he once felt when he stood in Ivan’s presence. If Anton’s destiny was always to be the crown, then Viktor’s was always to be the spare; for that reason he is filled with wounds and they are leaking gasoline, leaving Anton to navigate the precipice between comrade and competition, weapon and wary. It has never been easy, loving his brother, especially when he knows that Viktor’s fury knows no bounds, his anger raging with a kind of frenzy even the strongest hurricane couldn’t stomp out. He has already incurred his brother’s wrath, and he has no desire to incur his fury. Only the tides will tell him what he will do next, and even those he’s not sure he can rely on.

anastasia – His printsessa. God he loves Ana; he loves Ana so much that sometimes it hurts, so much that he makes her think of bringing knife to rope so that he might cut himself from the Lantsov noose around his neck, away from the kingdom. But that’s all he does: think. He will never take action to mend the fragile broken thing that now rests between them, will never put blood above country. Like all half-gods, Anton had come to accept this tragedy – it shocks him every single day how easily this acceptance came to him. There was no blackhole of sleepless night where he mourned the loss of sister and brother, of lover or friend. There are few people that Anton will openly admit to having loved in his life, who have seen him in the most vulnerable of places, and while Ana is one of those special few, he is no longer the sweet little sobachka he once was. With crown came kingdom, and that needs to be more important than any love, even family.

tatiana – Fuck if he doesn’t absolutely loathe the time he must spend at his cousins side, though he would never admit to his dislike aloud. As close to the edge as she pushes him (and, to be sure, Cronos’s cool embrace often sounds more appealing than listening to Tati screech on about this or that – but, hey, we don’t choose our family) he would extinguish any star that dared to threaten her, the same as he would for Ana or Viktor, despite the distance and coldness between all of them.

darya – He would give anything is this world to make Darya happy, anything but himself. There is no easy way from Earth to the stars, and if Anton’s blood calls to the sea beneath the hull of his ship, then the fabric of Darya’s soul is made of stardust. He once thought that this would never be the way of it, with his heart abandoned on her sleeve, his ability to love suddenly gone, but now he sees the truth for what it is: this is his destiny, no matter the steps it took for him to get here. He loves (he would desperately like to believe it to be loved, but he isn’t in the habit of lying to himself) Darya, and he knows that he always will. The fox that he once was will love her until the sun rises in the west and the sea turns to sand beneath his feet, but the volk that he has become, the volk that was always lying in wait beneath his skin, will never allow himself to feel for her what he once did. To do so would be to put himself above his country, and Ravka deserves better than a king who cannot abandon the boy he once was for the GOD they need. 

the darkling – Anton sees him for exactly what he is: a plague made flesh. It’s not a warm thought, neither is Anton filled with the kind of warmth others at court are when the Darkling enters a room. Pain makes noise, and despite all the pain he causes, the Darkling is silent as the moon. Anton can’t very well trust a man who feels nothing can he?

gemma – He thinks about marrying her more and more often, and not for any frivolous reason such as love. He sees her not for her beauty and not even for her brains, but for what the people see in her: hope. If Iskra is his hope for a better future for himself, then Gemma is his hope for his nation. He sees in her illuminated cities, at the very center of her is a well to satiate the thirst his people have been suffering under for centuries. It’s not fair, but what is fairness anymore? When the fate of a nation is not just in your hands, but in your blood, in your bones, you cannot turn away: Anton will ask everything from her, and he will do it without a second thought. Here is my hand. Here is my throat. Here is anything you want, even the marrow from my bones if you ask it. He doesn’t believe in religion, but he would build one to her if that’s what she needs. The nation needs her and just as he would give himself to his people, he will do anything she asks if she’ll just be his ally, his hallelujah.

iskra – She flinches, and he would be disappointed. He thinks her beyond something as trivial as fear. Perhaps it’s strange, or perhaps unfair, the way he holds her up, places her so high above all of the others. He mounts her on a pedestal as though she is one of Donatello’s masterpieces and Saints help the soul who dares to call her anything but a marvel. He plucked her from the masses, just another bastard in a crowd, an Etherealki whose fate he could see from the moment his night-darkened eyes fell upon her face, and he helped to turn her into something glorious. When he found her, she was already a sight to behold: a dragon to set fire to each of his enemies, a warrior in soft skin. She was a bastard who had left everything she had ever known to start a new life someplace foreign. Even then he knew that she was something meant to be spoken of in legends, a girl turned woman, turned blade. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. And like a phoenix, she rose from the ashes of her former life, and Anton made for himself a home at the hearth of her. Like calls to like. He sees in her both what he fears and what he dreams of – a bastard who has created a life still worth something, a bastard who rises above what others seek to drag them down for. I rise. I rise. I rise. “Nadeyus moya,” he calls her when no one can hear. My hope.

inessa & feliks – He compares them both is Iskra, and time and time again he is disappointed in them. It’s not fair, not in the slightest; it’s like comparing kings to gods, of which Iskra is certainly one. Inessa is remarkable, to be sure, but she is a snake in snakes’ skin, a girl whose veins seem forged from gasoline not unlike his brothers – just waiting to be set aflame. Feliks comes from an equally, though differently, violent background, and it’s not that he doesn’t trust the guards with his siblings lives (he does, cautiously, as he does all other things), but he worries about the darkness that seems to color their lives, worries that it will follow them from past and into the present. Too many have wound up dead in both of their pasts for Anton to truly trust them, no matter how often and thoroughly they prove themselves capable. 

arisha – Arisha is… a force to be reckoned with, to be sure. She’s a clever sort, the kind of wolf that would dare to challenge his status as alpha is he left her with an opening to do so. He thinks she would have done well with his brother, both creatures of equal part gods and terror. She’s a good actress, with the kind of poker face that most men would sacrifice entire nations just to crack, but Anton holds a stack of cards that she can’t even begin too imagine, with plays that she’s never seen before. (Or so he thinks; tragic, Anton is, remember?) And while the minx makes him uncomfortable, while he makes sure to never turn his back in her direction for fear she may slip a knife between his ribs – to be fair, he makes every effort to never turn his back on anyone – he listens to what she has to say about the kingdom as intently as his mother does, as his father does. Until she proves herself an enemy he will continue to treat her as ally, but he waits with bated breath for the moment she will show her true colors. 

oyun – There are so many vipers in Ravkan court; Oyun Kir-naran is one of those many, and she makes no apologies for it. Anton finds he can respect that, despite the soft-edges she paints herself with. She speaks with a tongue like velvet, like the sun’s rays filtering in with dawn, and it sounds like lust, tastes like intimacy, and it’s all on purpose. Saints know Anton sees through it because he does the same thing: play on people, use their tells to be the kind of person they spill their secrets to. Oyun is exactly the kind of person he needs to be wary of, just as he is who she needs to worry about – each wants to bring the other’s nation to it’s knees, and if he could he’d say Scurry back to Shu Han, Oyun, his voice collected and his face unreadable. You can’t win here. As it is he bows his head respectfully and smiles. Let the games play on. Gods do not bend their knees to wolves in sheepskin.

ANYTHING ELSE?

And FINALLY I have approximately 12 million favorites, but the book I’ve probably read the most times is Inkheart by Cornelia Funke, just because it’s filled with book-lovers and I am nothing if not one of those! Thank you for reading my app & can’t wait to keep a weathered eye on this group even if I’m not accepted. ♡

[outtathepressbox]

Thank you Mr. President It's been less than two weeks since our newly appointed President Donald J. Trump was sworn in as the 45th President of the United States of America. Now let’s all be honest. Who saw this coming? Honestly, I sure didn't. If you're like me you kind of live in a bubble. My main concern for nearly 36 years has been my immediate family, close friends, will the New York Mets finally win the World Series, and how many dates do I have to go on with this woman before I can....well I digress. The reality is most Americans have lived their lives like me. If it doesn't affect them or anything they care about, they just don't care. Since we are being honest, I found most activist and protesters annoying. I would always turn the page or change the channel. "Shut up it's not the 1960s! We got it good here." Back to Mr. Trump who has become the most powerful and important man in the world. I must say that feat is impressive for any man but for this guy…Wow! The first time I ever heard of Donald Trump was when I was kid. I remember watching Wrestlemania IV which was held at the Trump Plaza Hotel. My main concern that night was watching my man "Randy Macho Man Savage" finally winning the World Wrestling Federation Championship. While the anticipation was killing me, the camera kept flashing to Trump in the first row and the announcers kept praising and thanking this man. Seriously, I just wanted to watch wrestling! "Come on get back to the wrestling!" I yelled several times. A few months later I watched Mike Tyson absolutely dismantle Michael Spinks. The fight lasted 91 seconds but there was that Trump guy again. He sat yet again in the first row being praised. They praised him longer than the length of the fight itself. The 80’s were gone and the 90’s rolled in while I remained in my bubble. I still heard of this Trump fellow but it was rare. Much like those protesters, he didn't grab my attention for long. I turned the page or clicked that dial, but at least I found him interesting or entertaining not like those cry baby activist. Entering the new millennium, I didn't change much. I continued to concern myself with whatever I considered "important" or "entertaining". As for politics, I guess I was a liberal but not really because I really didn't care. Time continue to pass and then I entered my 30’s where again, not much changed. If you weren't at an arms distance to me physically or emotionally you guessed it... I just didn't care. But then it happened…the 2016 Presidential election. Prior to the news covering the 2016 election, there was no doubt in my mind that Hillary Clinton would win in a cake walk. Despite having his critics, former President Barack Obama had soaring approval ratings. A black man was President of the United States for two terms. Surely this great nation was ready for a woman. Not just any woman but an accomplished woman with over 30 years of experience. Then that Trump fellow came riding down that escalator to announce he was running for President. I didn't give it a second thought I laughed it off along with many others. As the candidates began dropping like flies, I noticed a swarming overwhelming support for Donald Trump. I must admit that I still didn't take him seriously. Trump talked about banning Muslims and my reaction was "He's all talk and he won't get elected". When he insulted Mexicans by implying they were all murders and rapists, threatened to build a wall, and separate millions of families, I still didn't take him serious. As a Latino, I should have been outraged but "Hey I was born here! I'm not Mexican… who cares!" When Trump mocked a physically disabled reporter I thought it was hilarious. Mocking a disabled person isn’t humorous to me. I just thought Trump was a clown, who's going to support this clown. Again it was a topic that should have hit close to home since my eldest brother is mentally disabled. This insulting act should have put me in an uproar but shamefully again… I didn't care. I remained in the bubble. Then came election day. I made sure to get my vote in. It wasn't because of shameful comments or whether an email was deleted or not. I did what I did my whole life only got involved because something may personally affect me. My 9 to 5 relies heavily on the Affordable Care Act or the dreaded term "Obama Care". So I got my vote in because suddenly I was taking this Trump fellow a lot more serious. He wasn't a reality star, a rich dude hosting a boxing or wrestling event, or some fool uttering nonsense on Twitter. He was a candidate using the word "repeal" which to me just meant unemployment. After President Tweet got elected, I thought to myself that the election results could have been different. But at the end of the day, he will turn into a typical politician and just be all talk. Well Mr. President you've been criticized and held under heavy scrutiny during your first two weeks in office but, I am here to praise you. Mr. President you're not like every other candidate. I have never heard the words "executive order" used so much in my life. You've kept your word and are acting out your campaign promises. Promises like trying to build a wall, repeal Obama Care, implementing massive tax cuts for the rich, and ban all Muslims from entering the United States....wait my bad Muslims from countries you don't have business ties with. Hold on wait ....is this America? The "United' States of America. I've watched my country become divided. Ironically enough much like the 1960’s. All of sudden the protesters and activist aren't annoying to me. Now I'm searching for articles, watching different news networks, and studying laws. I am horrified of images of a room full of men signing a bill telling a woman what to do with her own body. Families possibly being ripped apart. Refugees being detained in airports. The press being threatened and censored. My fear is much like the 1960’s. Will the peaceful protestors be met with hoses and canines by a man that seems to rule with an iron fist? Is this our new America? Will future generations watch in shock and horror the way I viewed the 1950’s and 60’s? You know when America was "great". After all this, I realized something. Despite our differences we are still United. Even those like me that have lived in a bubble our whole lives need to know what a crucial and important time this is in our nation’s history. We are a nation built for and run by the people. It's time to step out the bubble and end corruption. We are not a nation run by a few imposing fear with an iron fist. We are the land of the people and should join hands. It's time to step out of the bubble. Yes even for me- Ivan Tolentino. So Donald Trump, I just wanted to take this moment to thank you...thank you for making me care Mr. President

[bounnostra]

existential on main | koji | endgame 2.1

It isn’t until others take their seats that Koji recognizes a wheeled leather office chair as his own. The seat possesses traits of chairs he’d encountered in the offices of important people, but he wouldn’t recognize it as something specific. As he sits down and rolls to Simone’s side, he can’t help but wonder if the chair helps him look older or more mature around this lizard person he’s never met before. Figuring it’s a persona he could stand to lean into, he buttons up his shirt and puts on his tie.

Koji’s accustomed to doing something to fix his situation when he’s feeling useless, but the previous day’s revelations were starting to make him feel like an asshole for ever trying to fight against his fate. He reclines in his chair and nods at others as they contribute the info Lizard Mom asked for, happy that no one is expecting him to do heavy lifting when he’s as shaken up and confused as anyone else.

It's a self-centered line of thinking, but why should he be expected to exert effort for this person he doesn’t know or trust, when his efforts were so easily taken advantage of in the Don trial?

The bitter thoughts subside somewhat as Evie seems to hit all the right notes - taking ownership, wanting to help others in the future, and wanting to make it up to Simone. She had expressed these sentiments before, but hearing it summarized in a context where he isn’t certain he’s about to die feels a bit more convincing. Koji waits to see Simone and Finlay’s reaction before nodding at Evie as well.

Koji keeps his hand on his chin and looks at the others at they speak, even Sute. (Why not, when she is so clearly making the effort to reach out.) He takes the awkward silence after Ivan's chair speaks as an opportunity to pipe up.

“Guess we’re all unleashing our heartfelt soapbox speeches here, huh? In that case, let me have a turn…”

He coughs to clear his throat and addresses the komodo dragon.

“So, my name’s Koji Abrams. I can’t think of any particular reason why I, above others who have died before me, deserve to come back to life. I’m not sure anyone deserves that level of special treatment based on their talents or other personal traits. To put it kindly, I don’t think a cohort of people less talented than us would be any more or less deserving of living again.”

Were he completely incapable of reading the room, he might have asked if coming back to life was something the class would even want. Thankfully, the class seems to have already taken these doubts about resurrection into consideration.

“As for me, I’m just some guy. And even if I wasn’t… if there were something special about me and the things I could do in life… that’s not really something that would qualify me to break the laws of nature. Sure, there are circumstances under which someone can come back to life, revenants and whatnot. But those conditions don’t apply to me.”

If offered a second chance at life, what could he uniquely do to make the world a better place? He could make amends with Sonoma in an attempt to fix a disappointing institution from the inside, but if he took a powerful position, he’d have to dirty his hands with difficult decisions. Any minuscule change deliverable by one dissenting voice could theoretically be implemented by a like-minded living person.

“I suppose it’s… less accurate to say I believe I’m a special case uniquely deserving of a second chance, and more accurate to say I just don’t want to be here, enduring who-knows-how-many killing games in a rapidly deteriorating space. Which, fair. I don’t know if we’ve given you enough information to enable you to send us back, or if that’s something you’d even be willing to do, but… maybe steps could be taken to keep our situation from being any worse than it has to be, regardless.”

He bites his lip for a few seconds, anxious about how his next words would be perceived.

“This realm is breaking, yes? It’s tough to pin down exactly why, but the condition of this space seems to be getting worse as the cycles go on. Maybe it’s the fact that we keep getting revived. Maybe it’s thanks to our intense *relationships* with each other, as Claire suggested. Who knows, really. My point is that if we’re forced to continue existing here in the manner we have been, this place may just break completely… I don’t know what that would mean for us, or this purgatory we’ve been placed in.”

He decides it’s tasteful to let the implications of what happens to the class if Nostra breaks with them inside to go unspoken. He moves onto his next point as soon as he catches his breath.

“Allowing us crabs to continue pounding at the walls of our bucket doesn’t sound like an ideal scenario for anyone, does it? No, we can’t escape, but we've succeeded at wrecking this place up in the process of trying. Like, our last killers somehow connected this realm with the school realm, and I’m not sure if that part was even intentional. So, um. If the structural integrity of this purgatory is something you place a lot of value in, then we can’t be put through any more killing games.

Worst case scenario… If neither you nor your colleagues can help us pass on or return to life, then at least let us exist in peace indefinitely, preferably somewhere that isn’t falling apart. No executions, no memory wipes, no murders. If there is seriously no other option, then turning our continued existence into… something we could learn to appreciate would be something to consider.”

He offers a weak smile, much like his father’s employees when they feel compelled to listen to their boss’s latest tone-deaf rant.

“Sorry if that sounded presumptuous. I get that if the execution was still on, it probably would have happened by now. And I get that us being revived isn’t anywhere near off the table. It’s just… tough to trust that I’m really safe right now.”