#i just think his feelings and insecurities about his siblings are So. [incoherent]

[ac-liveblogs]

Fontaine's worldbuilding is ... yeah, very confusing when you think about it. It really looks like it wants to have the cake & eat it too, it wants to tackle Serious Issues (child traffic + sexual exploitation) while also making sure that the players like the playable characters who is supposed to be responsible for this. This game's ability to believably write narrative consequences is practically non-existent to begin with but ... why ... to this extent, huh. I hope you enjoy FSR at least?

They're just too scared to commit to the bit. Sitting through Lyney raging about Wrio imprisoning his siblings while Wrio is just throwing up his hands like "hey it wasn't that bad I wasn't that mean also I was justified also this is your fault +L +ratio" is like. I'm sorry. How am I meant to feel about this character or this situation? At all? Bad that Wrio hit Lyney's trauma buttons by accident, I suppose, what an unfortunate situation?

Or the absolute incoherence of Neuvillette not being able to ask Wrio about anything to do with Meropide - even to prevent an international incident - so he has to send us to investigate, but also, he and Wrio are on very good terms and Wrio is absolutely fine letting him and his employee (Clorinde) enter the prison all the way to the Forbidden Zone... nonsense, it's absolute nonsense.

I'm sure you could rationalise it if you treated them like real people, but in fiction it muddles the message being conveyed to the reader when you keep having characters backtracking on the traits they are trying to establish a person or place as having - especially if you're doing it mere sentences apart, Neuvillette. Is Meropide completely unwilling to work with Fontaine No Matter What or not? Whatever makes Wrio look better at that exact moment in time, I guess?

I think the absolutely incoherent writing in and around the trials were still worse, but like. It reads as super insecure? They have absolutely no faith that people will like their characters enough to buy them if they're Not Good People, so they just aim for the lowest common denominator every time (Fatui excluded, but even then...).

I don't understand why people accept this. Genshin has managed to, via cowardice, gameplay limitations and incompetence, crafted the most boring cast I have ever seen. It's incredible that they make characters like Wriothesely, Collei, Cyno or Dottore boring.

Samurai Remnant is fun! A way denser game than I expected though, I'm taking my time with it. I hope they revisit this concept again, I think it's a good format for Holy Grail Wars.

[digital-dhampirs]

a somewhat coherent breakdown of VnC 54.5

VnC 54.5 is out and I’m losing my mind over it. My thoughts are an absolute mess and I’m losing it and screaming and rolling on the floor. So! In order to try and get my thoughts in order (and, hopefully, figure out a tiny bit about what’s going on), let’s break down this chapter, my thoughts on it, and what it means for the world of VnC.

As much as I want to immediately jump into what I’ve dubbed the “Oh Shit Oh God Oh Fuck” part of the chapter, let’s start with something a little bit less horrifying but just as emotionally impactful..!

Dominique (and also Luca)

Throughout the Exposition Universalle Arc, we’ve been learning about Domi’s massive amounts of guilt and self hatred brought on by her family’s abuse and Louis’s death. We’ve realized that Domi’s confident, flirtatious persona throughout earlier chapters was just her attempting to be what she thought Noé wanted her to be/ what Louis would’ve been like had he lived. All this comes to a head when Mikhail uses Domi’s guilt and self hatred to hijack her mind.

But once Dominique realizes that her death would make Noé upset, she starts to take back control of herself. In 54.5 she finally faces the part of herself that she’s always averted her eyes from, and fully takes control. Her strength in this chapter doesn’t come from a facade or her trying to be someone she’s not— she’s finally looking herself in the eye, and she’s fuckin breathtaking this chapter thanks to it.

Dominique uses her formula revision powers to save Noé and Vanitas and trap Mikhail, along with all of the civilians he’s controlling. Domi is so strong and pretty and I love her—

We learn from Luca that all of the living de Sade siblings have ice powers, meaning that certain vampiric powers seem to run in families in the world of VnC. As a brief detour, I have to wonder if these abilities are inherited through blood or taught from generation to generation— I feel like the simplest answer would be inherited through blood, but the fact that Ruthven uses flames despite not being biologically an Oriflamme (along with the Teacher teaching Noé how to rewrite gravity) makes me kinda think it might be an inherited secret technique type thing. It follows to wonder…. are Archiviste abilities inherited through blood, or are they taught/ passed from generation to generation in some other way?

We also get another little piece of lore from Luca during this part of the chapter— there’s something called the formula dance that vampires can perform. We see a small panel of Luca (and Ruthven) watching Domi do this dance, likely during some sort of event. Luca specifically tells Jeanne that Domi was performing “as entertainment”, implying this dance can also be used for other purposes? I want to know more.

I mentioned this in my slightly more incoherent live review of 54.5, but Luca is even more mature and insightful than I thought he was. He acts like an innocent kid at times, especially when it comes to romance, but it seems like he’s great at understanding the people around him, even when those people have massive walls up and put on acts like Dominique. This makes his situation as a political pawn/ figurehead even more depressing, because there’s absolutely no way in hell he doesn’t know what the people around him think of him. This also makes me kinda want to rethink Luca’s relationship with Ruthven…

Going back to Domi!! She protecc Noé and Vanitas, she attacc Mikhail, she make my heart go doki doki, and she’s finally bacc. This chapter really feels like the climactic moment of Dominique’s journey throughout the manga so far. She’s incredibly strong, and that strength is finally not built over years of self- hatred and insecurity. Dominique and the two parts of her mind she’s been arguing with the whole time; the side that wants to emulate Louis and be like him, and the side that hates herself and harbors all of her darkest thoughts; are finally fighting together as one.

And,,, deep sigh,,, not to get all pessimistic on y’all but this climactic moment, as fantastic as it is, makes me about 13% more certain that Dominique’s gonna die (13% because this is mochijun lmao). Maybe not in the immediate future, because I still think she needs to work some things out about her family and Noé and all that, but at some point in the future… yeah I do think she’s probably gonna die. This really feels like the climax of her character arc, and mochijun has a talent for giving characters fantastic complete character arcs and then killing them.

So yeah, I am slightly concerned for Domi’s chances of survival. Now let’s turn from concern to screaming in horror with….

The Teacher

Oh boy.

The moment I’ve been waiting for for years has finally arrived— the Teacher has showed up in the main storyline (this reveal does pretty much confirm that the Teacher was indeed the person Noé was talking to during his dream in chapter 11, but it wasn’t confirmed at the time so it doesn’t really count). I don’t quite know how Mochijun was able to make him look so absolutely horrifying in just a few panels of gloves and a single page, but he is legitimately terrifying. I am fucking scared. I am screaming. I am crying over the fact that there’ll be at least another month till chapter 55.

Let’s try to think about this rationally.

SO.

It seems like everything that’s gone down in the Exposition Universalle arc was another one of the Teacher’s experiments. It’s still possible that Mikhail’s benefactor was someone else, but judging from how he’s holding Mikhail’s head, it seems quite likely that the Teacher is the one who saved Mikhail’s life and told him he could bring Luna back from the dead. And, thinking about it a bit, Mikhail’s ability to manipulate Dominique’s insecurities would make a lot more sense if the Teacher’s been the one pulling the strings from behind the scenes all along.

Along with confirming his presence in Chapter 11 and (likely) his identity as Mikhail’s benefactor, Teacher’s arrival in 54.5 also all but confirms another theory about his experiment with Louis— the Teacher was watching the whole crisis go down from nearby (and was likely the one who orchestrated the whole incident from the start), and only stepped in when he deemed the experiment to be over/ to stop Louis from killing Noé.

I am incredibly curious about what the Teacher was trying to achieve through this new experiment…. as well as why he interrupted it and revealed himself to the gang. Was he genuinely just interested in seeing what these people would end up doing if put into this specific situation? Or did he have another motive for pulling the strings?

The Teacher says two things about the experiment to Domi and Noé— firstly, he considered stopping them sooner; and secondly, “you’ve shown me something excellent”. Maybe we can figure out something about the experiment if we figure out these two things? Unfortunately I have no feckin clue what either of these things could be. My best guess for the former would be that he considered stopping the experiment when Noé surrendered to Vanitas and did the whole “I will never set you free” love confession speech, since Noé’s life was very much in danger, and the Teacher couldn’t have predicted whether Vanitas would stop or kill Noé. As for the latter… it could really be anything. Dominique’s internal transformation? Mikhail getting rewritten/ “eaten” by the book of Vanitas? Some sort of other information the Teacher can squirrel away for a future experiment? I really hope we’ll learn more in the next chapter..!

As for why the Teacher stopped the experiment and revealed himself… hmm… that’s another thing I think we’ll find out more about in chapter 55. Occam’s razor suggests that the Teacher wanted to prevent Mikhail from dying due to his injuries/ book induced madness and use whatever crazy alchemy magic he used to save Mikhail’s life the first time around again, but it’s also possible that something else is going on.

If ya couldn’t already tell, am insanely insanely hyped for the next chapter. I’m extreeeemely curious about what everyone’s reactions to him are gonna be. We don’t actually know much about Noé’s current relationship with the Teacher, just that the tone of his letters seem to indicate it’s a positive one… so what in the world is Noé going to do in this sort of insane scenario? We know very little about Domi’s relationship with her dear ole grandpa, what’s she going to do? What about Jeanne and Vanitas (although I don’t think Vanitas is actually in any state to be able to have a reaction at this moment, more on that later)?

And of course, there’s also the big question… can the Teacher actually bring Luna back to life?

Noé, Vanitas, and Mikhail

Moving on from the insanity of the Teacher, let’s head over to his two students and their mutual obsession.

Wait, that was supposed to be a joke, but it’s actually kind of weird. Assuming the Teacher is Mikhail’s benefactor… it seems very very strange that both of the kids he’s taken under his wing have both ended up revolving around Vanitas. Did the Teacher purposefully take Mikhail in due to his connection to Vanitas of the Blue Moon? Did he purposefully send Noé to Vanitas because he knew Noé would become increasingly intertwined with Vanitas? Did the Teacher specifically send an Archiviste to Vanitas because he knew that Noé might be able to see Vanitas’s memories and learn some sort of crucial information about the Blue Moon—

Ok let’s get back on track.

VnC 54.5 shows Vanitas and Noé continuing to be themselves and constantly throw their lives on the line to protect each other, and then getting mad over the other person trying to protect them. Noé’s first reaction upon seeing the Ferris wheel falling was to try and protect Vanitas as much as he possibly could and that hurts me.

Mikhail, meanwhile, has completely deviated from the calm and composed demeanor he had at the start of the Exposition Universalle Arc. His deteriorating mental state has completely fallen apart and, aided by whatever the hell the book did to him, he becomes dead set on one goal and one goal only— killing everyone in the park, but specifically Vanitas.

If I had to make a wild guess, I don’t think Mikhail is just fully having an “if I can’t have him no one can” tantrum here— I think he’s still quite aware of what’s going on and believes if he brings Vanitas to the brink of death (or even kills him), the Teacher can come and do whatever he did to Mikhail to bring Vanitas back. Mikhail is coherent enough to put on a desperate act and manipulate Vanitas’s kindness in one last ditch effort to kill him.

And when Vanitas falls for the trick, Noé saves him once more. Noé, Jeanne, and Dominique all rush in to try and protect Vanitas, but Noé’s the one who gets to him first. I initially thought Noé was just closer to Vani than Domi and Jeanne, but then I realized that if that were the case, Domi still likely would’ve been able to cast a formula revision before Noé reached Vanitas. Noé realized what was about to happen before the other two.

Noé slashes Mikhail’s face in a way that reminds me of… something, but my brain is too jumbled to piece together what it is at the moment. Mikhail starts screaming and Vanitas collapses to the ground, caught up in what appear to be his memories of what happened on “that day”. And then the teacher shows up.

the end (for now)

VnC 54.5 was delightful. The gang’s night out at the fair seems to be winding to a close, but I’m more hyped than ever for the next chapter. I’m super pumped to see what the teacher has to say, and how the characters all deal with the aftermath of this insanity. I didn’t talk about Jeanne much in this breakdown, but I think she’ll play a bigger role in the next few chapters as she’s the only main character who hasn’t had massive amounts of trauma dredged up this evening (…..yet).

As always… thank you very much for reading this chapter breakdown/ analysis/ insane rambling post thing! Please take everything I’ve said here with a grain of salt, as a lot of the conclusions I’ve come to are probably wrong. I apologize for this blog’s inactivity and miiiight try to do a few more analysis meta thingys based on this chapter if the stars align and I’m not instantly distracted by ooh shiny

Thanks again for reading!!

Fun Fact

We haven’t seen Murr in a while, have we? :)

[viterbofangirllovestheuntamed]

hello, thinking jiang cheng thoughts as per usual but since your meta is outstanding i thought i'd come here: it's kind of typical to read a bitter sibling dynamic as 'i was always trying to be better than *you* and never could' but although jiang cheng seems made for that perspective at first glance i feel like that's not how he thinks. yes he would like to be recognized and valued for his achievements. yes, he would probably like to not be compared as inferior to wei wuxian all the time. but it's not a case of one-upping for him, it's about being able to act and work on the same level without either himself or wei wuxian being left behind. and as for his capabilities, it's not that jiang cheng is necessarily bad, it's just that wei wuxian can be better. idk i just don't read his actions coming from him as a contest against wei wuxian, it's him wanting to stay on the same page so they can keep going together. thoughts?

(sorry if this is incoherent it's 1:22am for me)

Ooh, an ask!!! Thank you, @qi-ling! And thank you for the lovely compliment as well! ^_^ <3

I think there is definitely room for a "both/and" conclusion. I have not read the novel, but I do believe that it does make multiple explicit references to Jiang Cheng's envy-of-Wei-Wuxian-specifically, though there is at least a bit of wiggle room due to the novel being essentially from Wei Wuxian's POV. But there is also clear (if not always so explicitly stated) evidence that Jiang Cheng loves his brother.

It really all comes down to one inarguable and non-controversial point: Jiang Cheng is wildly competitive. And ambitious. He wants to be *good*. He'd like to be the *best*, if possible. But what does "good" and "the best" mean for Jiang Cheng?

If I can be allowed a brief digression, Jiang Cheng is one of the clearest examples of a Myers-Brigs ESTJ that I've ever seen. He is comfortable with (even thrives at) directing other people, likes order and organization, is not concerned with feelings over goals, and is more of a concrete thinker as opposed to an abstract one. But there is another aspect of this personality type that is pertinent to this discussion. The S-J type combination are conservative, socially conscious, and focused on society as a whole. They WANT to be pillars of the community because to them, the infrastructure of society is vital to healthy cooperative life. They want to be thought of as reliable and level-headed and dutiful. And because they believe in the importance of tradition and community, they will both instinctively and consciously choose the needs of the many over their own or the individual's needs.

What does this mean for Jiang Cheng's competitive nature? It means that- at the heart of it all- Jiang Cheng is not really being competitive for his OWN sake. Yes, it's nice to be admired and respected and lauded, and it hurts when his individual accomplishments are effortlessly eclipsed or ignored. But at the end of the day, what matters more to Jiang Cheng is that he becomes good, the best, for the sake of his family, his clan, his sect, and his ancestors. For the sake of Yunmeng Jiang maintaining its place as one of the major sects so as to protect and support its members and their dependents.

(IMHO, I think both Yu Ziyuan and Jiang Fengmian are individuality-focused types. When the former talks about dignity, duty, and propriety, she's really talking about how how it reflects upon her own self or image, while the latter is a total ISFP who hates conflict and rigid structure and is a very live-and-let-live type.)

As a natural cooperator, Jiang Cheng competes best when he can compete in the context of a higher goal. Being the best for his own sake alone is not sufficient long-term motivation for him, no matter how jealous or insecure he might be in the moment. But being the best so that he can keep up with his best friend, or please his parents, or lift up his sect... that is an endless well of motivation for him.

And as far as Jiang Cheng's natural abilities and talent go... well, as I wrote for one of my fics, talent is often ignored when genius is present. I think he is one of the most capable and promising young masters out there. I mean, look who he's keeping up with: Wei Wuxian the literal genius, the Twin Jades who have the advantage of Lan genetics and Lan Qiren's instruction from birth, Jin "access to the best cultivation instructors that money can buy and takes FULL ADVANTAGE OF IT because it's the one bright spot in his viper's nest of a home" Zixuan, and jacked-giant-with-a-semi-sentient-weapon Nie Mingjue.

And Jiang Cheng is one of the youngest among them, IIRC.

And this might be a controversial opinion, but one aspect of the golden core transfer is often overlooked: that of host rejection. The whole deal with transfers is trying to find the closest match to the lost original. We don't put adult hearts into baby chests. This is spiritual energy we're talking about; even if the core itself is a little physical thing, the likelihood of it SCORCHING THROUGH too-small or unprepared meridians is huge! In other words, Jiang Cheng could successfully host the powerful prodigy Wei Wuxian's golden core because he was close enough in power to him to not have it overwhelm him!

(I will die on that hill, btw.)

Now, I will be fair and say that I do think that Jiang Cheng would definitely have a lower cultivation level if Wei Wuxian's hadn't been at Lotus Pier. It still would have been *high* (what with the Violet Spider's standards, particularly for a child she sees herself in) but with Wei Wuxian (and Yu Ziyuan's own bitterness and jealousy) absent, she would have only had the other major-sect young masters to compare Jiang Cheng to. I still think her unhealthy pattern of "push for improvement by employing negative comparison" would have continued, but it wouldn't have had the same emotional impact as it did when weighed down by both Yu Ziyuan's indignation and Jiang Fengmian's obvious preference/neglect.

[yandere-daydreams]

hi! could you please write a scenario where the miya twins take an interest in the reader, and in true miya twin fashion, bully and harass her. it starts out small, but eventually escalates to where they just pin her against a wall and take what they want? thank you so much!

It’s a basic plot, but it’s a classic, especially with those two. I do like the idea of them tormenting their poor little manager, though, /especially/ if the rest of the team is grudgingly aware of it. They don’t seem like a helpful group at the best of times…

Title: Sibling Rivalry. 

TW: Harassment, Non-Consensual Touching, and Implied Stalking. 

~

For siblings who worked so well together on the court, you would’ve thought they’d learn to share, by now.

When it was just Osamu, Inarizaki had been tolerable. He was quiet, but he was sweet, too, a first-year with a puppy-crush on his team’s manager and no way to express that beyond constantly lingering behind you and attempting to hold your hand between your shared classes. You’d been able to brush off his behavior, back then, even when it bordered on something more than a teenager planning their first confession. It was concerning, but it wasn’t that concerning. Nothing you couldn’t laugh about with those less oblivious than your not-so-secret admirer.

It’d been tolerable, until Atsumu got involved.

He was competitive. That was what really made it hard, made it hell. His aggression was obvious, tainting everything from the narrow-eyed glance he threw to his twin through the dark of the abandoned gym to his grip around the collar of your shirt, the fabric balled in a tight first as he stopped you from fleeing. It was a silent stand-off between the two of them. Atsumu was only interested in you because Osamu was, and Osamu only indulged him because he knew Atsumu would get worse if he wasn’t given something to play with. This way, he got to cross his arms and stand in a corner and watch, acting as the conscientious voyeur to your torment. 

It was a game. Atsumu got to test how far he could push you, and Osamu got to see how long he could keep his silence. 

This was a game, and you didn’t even have the privilege of being their prize.

“Sweetheart, dollface, light of my life,” Atsumu drawled, his voice more of a drone than a proper greeting. His reward came from the way Osamu’s scowl deepened, the feeling of a glare prying into his back. Talking to you was just a formality. “‘samu and I have been arguing an awful lot, lately. We got into this fight, and… It’s really funny, actually.” He paused, taking a moment to shove you into the nearest wall, earning a hollow thud from the faux-wood and a whimper of protest from you. “The fucker thinks you like him more than me.”

You swallowed, biting down on the edge of your tongue. Your answer didn’t really matter. He just needed an excuse to keep talking. “Am I’m supposed to care?”

He shrugged. It was a sloppy, careless gesture, and just as messily, he gestured for Osamu to approach, beckoning him forward with an idle wave. With a frown, he took a tentative step towards the two of you, but the boy didn’t make any meaningful attempt to close the distance between himself and his brother's show. It was enough for Atsumu, though. All he needed was the affirmation that someone was paying attention to him, and he was content. “It really hurts my feelings, ya know,” He went on, rolling his free hand in some vague, arbitrary gesture. “Really breaks my heart. It’s unfair, honestly.”

“What’s unfair is how late I’m going to get home,” You spat, squaring your shoulders and doing your best to seem intimidating, domineering in spite of his taller stature and unwavering grin. Your success was minimal, barely earning an amused chuckle, but you refused to be the first one to step down. “Are you finished?” You asked, not bothering to hide your distaste. “I’m going to miss my train. I don’t have time to deal with whatever you and your asshole brother are feeling insecure about--”

“So mean,” He whined, cutting you off without a hint of remorse. He dropped your shirt, taking you by the chin instead, tilting your head back and forcing you to meet his half-lidded eyes. You tried to pull away, but he only had to tighten his grip before you gave in. Still, that didn’t stop his fingers pressing into your jaw hard enough to leave bruises, the kind you doubted you’d be able to hide before tomorrow morning. “I thought I was bein’ nice. Lettin’ down Osamu easy is the right thing to do, ain’t it?” The question was accompanied by a playful squeeze, the sudden pressure only making it more difficult not to cringe. “Just tell him I’m your favorite, and you’ll be on your way. He’s a big boy, I’m sure he’ll be able to take it.”

Osamu mumbled out a weak, incoherent objection, but you didn’t pay him any mind. “And if I don’t have a favorite, Miya?”

He smirked. He smirked, then he laughed, and he hadn’t managed to stop by the time he spoke. “I think I might be able to change your mind, sweetheart.”

You didn’t get to ask what he meant. As soon as you’d opened your mouth, his lips were on yours, trapping you against him with a renewed sense of control. Automatically, you tried to shove him away, but his hands were already on clamped around your wrists, keeping you defenseless, helpless as he pushed himself against you, making no attempt to be gentle. It wasn’t a kiss. It couldn’t be a kiss. Kisses weren’t so rough, they didn’t leave your lips aching and your eyes watering and your body frozen in terror. It was an invasion. It was wrong, worse than anything either had tried before. You tried to bite down on Atsumu’s tongue, but he only groaned, leaning against you and pressing forward with his intrusion. If anything, the taste of his blood on your teeth only seemed to excite him more.

A hand dropped to your hip, two fingers slipping underneath the edge of your waistband, but Atsumu didn’t have a chance to push you any further. Abruptly, he was jerked away, giving you a moment to gasp and pant and thank Osamu, the boy quickly taking the place of his brother in front of you, forming a protective barrier between you and a bristling threat. You smiled up at him, moving to breathlessly express your gratitude, but before you could, he turned against you. 

The only difference was, Osamu didn’t feel the need to give you a fair warning.

Unlike his brother, he was sentimental. He took his time, wrapping an arm around your waist and pulling you to his chest, but he was just as selfish, all jagged edges and greedy touches. He stopped when you dug your nails into his arm, aiming to both ground yourself and hurt him, but Osamu only moved down to your neck, sucking deep, violent marks into vulnerable skin. Leaving evidence that he touched you, at least as much as his brother had.

“I’m your favorite,” He growled, his voice too low for the words to be meant for anyone but himself. “I’m not going to let him change that.”

It was all you could do to go stiff, to register Atsumu’s weight pressing down on your shoulder and his jeers in the background, to breathe under all of Atsumu’s sharp smiles and Osamu’s predatory gaze. Suddenly, you were small and scared and so, so confused.

Or, you were confused about most things, at least. One ugly truth had become more than clear. 

Atsumu wasn’t the only twin with a nasty sense of competition. 

[haveyouseenthisskeleton]

A bit heavy, this is for UT, UF, and HT bros. S/O occasionally will get really riled up over intrusive thoughts of “hey what *this person or yourself* just DIED.” I’m pretty close with my parents and have kid siblings, one is just a toddler, and the idea of losing one of them or them grieving really hurts. It’s always in the back of my mind but sometimes something really triggers the thought and feelings of impending doom and I kinda break down for a bit. I don’t know how to end this. Thank you?

Undertale Sans - He doesn't really like that, because, you know, he knows quite well what it does and he doesn't want to experiment this ever again. If you keep insisting he might even just tell you straight away that's something you don't want to know because it can hurt you even more when it happens for real. He won't talk about the resets, because he refuses too, but he will get very insistant on you never talking about that again and more importantely never bring Papyrus into that. It's stressing him too much.

Undertale Papyrus - He's uncomfortable, but he can understand why you would need to know. He's asking himself the same thing sometimes, but thinking about him too much is giving him weird feeling of deja vu he absolutely hates. It's ok to be worry, but you have him and he can protect you and your family from whatever is scaring you, he's very good at that. Also, if it keeps happening, maybe he will suggest you to go see a therapist, maybe they can help more than him.

Underfell Sans - It depends of how close you are from him. If you're just friend, he will just stay silent and nods, but if he is closed, he might confess about his fear of losing his brother all the time while he was Underground and how terrified he was of suddenly be on his own. It's ok to get scared sometimes, but you're on the Surface and, well, at least hurting someone is illegal now. He's pretty chill about this and give good advice to not think about it too much, so come and tell him if you need.

Underfell Papyrus - He looks terribly distressed when you're explaining this, because he wants to protect you so badly and knowing you're still scared of losing him, it's like failure. He sees Red, fifteen years ago, begging him to not join the Royal Guard because he was scared he would get kill in a matter of weeks. It's like you just say you're not trusting him for this, and he is hurt. He knows it's probably not what you meant, but part of him is living this as a failure. He needs a moment, and then he will try to justify himself and explain you you don't need to worry for him because defending is the thing he knows best. When you tell him that's not because he's strong he can't get kill, he deflates like a balloon and all his worst insecurities came back to life. He prefers to leave for the day to calm down, and goes see Red to see if he can talk to you about this. Edge knows he's bad at talking, but Red is best. And after that, it goes like above.

Horrortale Sans - His eye sockets goes black. Why would you think that? Do you think he needs to think of that? He loses everything Underground, he watches some friends and his family fall into pieces, he kills humans, wondering for hours afterwards what their family would think, once they realised they were never coming home, worst, what would they think if they saw monsters eat them like steak? He's badly triggered. Oak left without a word. He needs to think. He won't come back before a few day, and act like nothing happened, as usual. If he doesn't have to deal with the problem, the problem doesn't exist. He just avoids this talk.

Horrortale Papyrus - Like Oak, he is badly triggered, but he doesn't want to seem weak, so he forces himself to answer you. But he is shaking more and more, and in the end, he is just incoherent and keeps crying, because he doesn't desserve you worry about him. Like Oak, he still thinks that if something bad happens to him, he would have desserve it for everything he done to these humans Underground. He can't stop thinking about Undyne too, and how, despite how relieved he should have been after his death, he only felt sadness, regret and compassion for her, and how he was scared to talk about this to other monsters because they would have all look at him as someone even weirder. Willow was never allowed to grieve properly Undyne, Alphys and some of his friends, the humans, and he still remembers all their names. You though he was healed of the Underground, but now you realised it's far more complex than that.

[apparentlyaswarmofbees]

Let's kickstart the reopening of requests with some Levi loving moments shall we~

I decided to kind of merge both of them together, I hope it ended good~

Have a good day too~♡

I wrote this while having the newest song from E ve, Aono Waltz on repeat the whole time. It's so good

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Wave Vortex - A Leviathan x MC mini fic

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Summary

It happened so fast. Too fast.

If anyone asked Levi if he had ever been in love, he wouldn't miss a beat before replying 'yes'.

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Warning: uncensored swearing, Leviathan being anxious and insecure af.

.

It was supposed to be a fun evening, he had finally put his foot down on his insecurities and asked his best friend, THE best of friends, to go on a date with him.

And they said yes, hells, they said yes.

He was on cloud nine for the entire week, day and night, during boss fights, anime episodes, even to the point of spacing out inside his fantasies while he was trying to rant to Henry exactly about said fantasies.

He was happy, so damn happy. But he was also scared shitless.

He was just so awkward, he couldn't do anything right except for being an otaku, he was ugly and couldn't even express himself unless he was roleplaying, he just knew he would ruin this, he knew.

But he was just so excited.

And now as he sat on a bench outside the human world Aquarium you two were supposed to be having a fun evening at, he couldn't help but think that he should have cancelled the plans and walked away as soon as he started having bad feelings.

Not that it wasn't fun at the start of course.

He may have had arrived one hour earlier than promised and probably made you feel bad about having him wait though for some reason you arrived only a few minutes after.

"I was just too excited to come" they had said, he knew they had to have known he left earlier and came rushing despise it all, he really is a pain in the ass isn't he?

But even so, the moment he bumped his hands with yours and you took a hold of his pinkie, his brain was mush all over again.

He tried his best to make it fun for you, speaking to every single aquatic life swimming around and translating to you whatever they were thinking.

"Oh... Oh!" He exclaimed

"What is it?" You looked back and forth between the demon and the silver fish staring at you two from the glass "what did it say?"

"I-It likes my eyes" he didn't know how to feel about being complimented by a fish, though Henry did cheer him up whenever he needed.

He could hear you chuckle from besides him and turned his head to look at you (he got a bit startled when he met your gaze, were you looking at him all this time?) "I like them too" you smiled, his eyes widened "your eyes kind of remind me of a sunset".

He was spluttering incoherent noises for a good five minutes after.

You guys even found a little place selling soft ice cream cones, he was a bit excited to find what flavor you would order, maybe next time you two hung out together he could pull one of those date moves and get an ice cream for the both of you...

"...What next time?" Leviathan hunched his back over his legs, hiding his face in his arms. Would there be a next time...?

It was all going so well, even though he was a nervous wreck and couldn't even fully grasp onto his best friend's hand because he was a coward just like that. Even then, even then, he believed the two of you were having enough fun, you told him so, and you were smiling, so at least part of it had to actually be true.

But of course, his younger siblings had to come a ruin everything.

And it happened so fast, too fast.

You asked to try his ice cream, now that he looks back at it, he isn't sure why because you two had gotten the same flavor afterall.

But he didn't think of that at the time and let you take a taste.

And he was just so hipnotized by your lips covered in ice cream, he seriously pondered if this was what Beel felt like while looking at food. That little smile, the small lap of your tongue as you cleaned the skin off the cold treat, and missing a spot.

He was going insane.

And that's when it happened.

"Just kiss already dammit!" Came a loud scream from not so far behind him.

It was familiar and high pitched, Asmo, and followed by a second familiar voice, Satan, telling the other to not yell.

But it was too late. The damage was already done.

The moment the lust sibling had finished his line the ice cream cone Leviathan was holding out for you fell off his hands in a jerk motion as he jumped.

Spilling all over your chin, neck and clothes.

Clothes you had specifically told him were your favorite and you had specifically dressed with because you spe cifically told him you also wanted today to be special.

Fuck

Fuck

"Fuck!" He exclaimed right there and then.

You looked down at yourself, mouth agape.

He couldn't stay there. He had to get away, away before you got angry, away before you officially declared all his hopes for naught.

And that's how he found himself trying to not have a full blown panic attack on the pretty damn unconfortable bench he found his sorry ass seated upon outside of the hellhole his brothers and their human housemate found themselves in. Well deserved for someone like him right?

Now that he thinks about it, he should have stayed and helped you clean up right?

"Fuck" he groaned before raising his head to prevent the tears gathering around his eyes to spill out.

He really just had to make a big deal out of everything and ruin it didn't he?

Why was he always like this?

"Levi!" Oh sweet lord of shadows he almost jumped out of his skin again, it was you. And you were running towards him.

He debated to himself if he should run away or stay, deciding that he already ruined things enough by not helping you clean up, he should start apologizing, maybe that will make you less angry-

He stood up, he couldn't make his feet move towards you but he was ready to speak, he could try to do damage control, he could do it.

He opened his mouth to speak but you were faster, you always were.

"Are you okay?"

And he felt so stupid all of sudden.

You weren't angry, you were concerned.

You shirt was clean though he could see it was still wet, why weren't you angry?

Well, he already knew the answer.

Because it was you.

You understood him, you knew he was already on a peak of anxiety the moment he asked you on a date a week ago, you knew him.

You knew him.

And so he couldn't help but start crying.

But this time he didn't hide, he didn't run. This time he reached for your hand first, this time he held onto it fully, this time he really looked at you.

"It's okay! I'm not angry!" He was making you even more worried and you didn't know if you should touch him or not "you're much more important than my favorite clothes! Well, it is still going to be a pain to wash it though-" he kind of wanted to let out a defeated laugh at that.

"I knoooow" he said in between tears. "I'm sorryyy"

He heard you sigh "I know" of course you did "and I forgive you" of course you did "and the day is not over yet, we can still do something fun today!" You paused, looking down, almost skepish "and I want to spend more time with you", he held his breath.

Of course you did.

"I'm sorry I didn't stay to help you clean" he finally let out in a husky voice. He wanted to blame Asmo, be angry at him for startling him in the first place, but either way he shouldn't have left you alone "if it stains I can try to find some kind of spell to get it off"

He looked down to his feet, his hand was still holding onto yours tightly.

You were quiet for a while, he was about to look back up when you did the job for him by lifting it up by his chin with your hand gently.

And you kissed him.

Deeply yet softly, gently yet passionatelly.

He didn't know what he was expecting but it definetelly wasn't this.

You cupped one of his cheeks with your free hand, his face stunned, but at least the tears stopped coming.

"I do love you Leviathan" was all that scaped those lips he was already starting to miss.

If anyone asked Levi if he had ever been in love, he wouldn't miss a beat before replying 'yes'.

Afterall he loved a lot of things: He loved his animes, he loved his games, he loved Henry and he loved his waifus and husbandos. He loved many things but, none of those things could ever reciprocate his feelings, not really.

And he was used to it, he was used to loving without being loved, it was safer, better, free of potential rejection.

But you loved him.

Even after so many times he ranted your ear off about something you probably weren't interested in, even after not being able to fully help when you felt bad other than keeping you company and entertained, even after he has proven himself to be too much of a coward to be fully honest with his feelings but still too stubborn to fully give up on them, even after he ruined your favorite clothes and left you alone to clean it up.

He really needed to step up in his game huh?

He felt his face burn and his heart burst, he wanted to look away from your eyes but couldn't.

Leviathan really did love a lot of things.

"I... I do, I love you too"

And one of those things was definetelly you.

[discotreque]

Disco 3.08: The Sanctuary

This week IRL was a real mixed bag for me: a lot of messy and barely-manageable anxiety about my health, my day job, and uhhhh *gestures outside*—but also I’ve recently fallen in love (from a responsible social distance)—so it’s been equal parts re-writing professional emails to edit the panic attack out of my tone and gazing dreamily at Discord notifications with cartoon hearts in my eyes. It feels like my life is going to hell in the cutest, coziest handbasket—which is to say that Michael Burnham could not possibly feel like a more relatable character to me right now.

I continue to have issues with the writing at a strange medium-level—somewhere between micro, where the dialogue and characters are really good, and macro, where I’m digging the pace of the overall season, it almost feels like something went wrong in the assembly process, and the script ended up a little bit less than the sum of its perfectly good parts. Again.

But that’s such vague criticism as to be nearly meaningless, and it’s hardly the most interesting level to spend time on anyway. If I zoom out, the parallel season arcs of “getting used to the future” and “the mystery of the Burn” are hanging together wayyyyy better than the Red Angel saga did last year.

And if I zoom in? This episode was funny as shit, wtf.

The discourse re: Tilly these past couple of weeks has been bullshit, and I have a whole angry thing to say about it—but honestly, if you can’t appreciate Doug Jones and Mary Wiseman as a comedic duo, I’m not really mad: mostly I pity the lack of joy in your heart.

Everyone on this show is so funny. Doug’s prissy little delivery absolutely slaughters me (“Execute!...?”), Mary will make a face sometimes that has me screaming laughter into my hands, and I’ve gone on before—and will again—about Sonequa Martin-Green’s egregiously underrated comedy chops.

They were obviously casting for folks w/ jokes in the new season too: David Ajada is no slouch in the dry-delivery or the goofy-face department; his energy and chemistry with Sonequa are as suited to comedy as they are to romance (i.e. extremely 🥵). Anthony Rapp and Wilson Cruz we knew about, but Blu del Barrio—a certified tiny baby!!!—holds their own and lands every smartass whiz-kid one-liner just on the right side of “too precious to stand.” (I almost always at least chuckle, and never roll my eyes, and for a “teen genius” character that’s literally as good as it gets.) And living legend Michelle Yeoh is clearly having the time of her life, omfg.

Disco’s not funny-funny like Lower Decks, but they do funny-on-purpose better than any live-action Trek except maybe DS9. They have such a deep comedic bench they don’t even need Tig Notaro—they have her on just to flex, I presume.

(I don’t know if I’m predicting, per se, that Strange New Worlds—with Rebecca Romjin’s deadpan, Anson Mount’s twinkly eyes, and Ethan Peck’s twinkly-eyed deadpan—is going to have a tone somewhere between Disco S3 and LwD—but I mean... it kinda has to, right? And you know they kept the number for Rainn Wilson’s agent.)

***

At the start of this episode, I was “sure, why the fuck not” about First Officer Tilly; by the end, I was completely on board. And to everyone who’s still wringing their hands about “the real military” this (always from people who have no idea how actual militaries work, lol) and “Lt. Nilsson” that (she... already has a job on the ship? And no character traits besides “stoic” and “furrows brow”? Oh, I get it—she’s skinny and blonde)—y’all are kind of embarrassing me.

“Rank” and “position” (and “seniority” and “day-to-day duties”...) aren’t the same thing, in Star Trek or any IRL military. Yes, the permanent first officers of normal-duty Starfleet ships we’ve seen have usually been command-division officers with the rank of Commander—but not always. Star Trek: Discovery-A, if you will, is a unique show about a unique ship in a unique situation: “B-b-but that’s not how they do it on Star Trek!!!” isn’t a legitimate criticism, not of this—it’s the mournful cry of an entitled pissbaby who isn’t having their hand held all the way to the fireworks factory.

Here’s what an argument supported by the text of the first 37 episodes of Star Trek: Discovery actually looks like: Sylvia Tilly is nervous and lacks self-confidence, but once she gets over herself—which she can do pretty much instantly in a crisis, even when hilariously intoxicated—she is competent as hell. In lower-stakes situations, without intense pressure to focus her attention, she sometimes gets sidetracked by her own insecurities; at her best, she channels that anxious energy into ambition, drive, and being scrupulously organized.

The only person Tilly doesn’t always get along with is Stamets, and even Stamets’s husband thinks he’s an asshole. Since Season 1, we’ve seen her easily socializing with the rest of the crew, who seem to universally adore her. And she’s also happy to leave her social comfort zone at a moment’s notice: she aligned herself with Ash Tyler (miss you, Shazad!) when no one else would, and she instantly befriended Po even when Po was in Weird Feral Alien Princess mode and Tilly had salad in her hair. She doesn’t like confrontation, but she’s brave enough to initiate it anyway if she needs to, and she’s compassionate with other people’s feelings while still setting firm boundaries. (Her graceful dodge of Rhys’s tipsy kiss at the party in 1.07 lives rent-free in my head to this day.)

No, Tilly didn’t finish the Command Training Program—but she started it, which is almost certainly more command training than any of the lieutenants whose names we know, all of whom are Ops or Science personnel with, presumably, specialized non-command training of their own. The same could be assumed for any unseen ranking officers on this science ship with an entirely volunteer skeleton crew.

And seriously, about Nilsson: she’s my #3 background bae after Octopus Head and the lady on Pike’s Enterprise with the spiky red face, but her job is Spore Drive Ops, not personnel. If she’s running after Saru with a holo-clipboard, who’s going to look serious and push holo-buttons when there’s a Black Alert? *drops holo-mic* Drumhead!

***

The stuff on Kwejian, though. Ooof. Ol’ Two-Takes Frakes directed this one, and between the kinetic energy he always adds to the camera and the scintillating performances he evokes, things stayed moving so briskly I almost didn’t notice Book’s entire “homeworld” was a rental house outside Vancouver, a couple acres of adjacent woods, and like six or seven people.

It’s a hot mess in retrospect, but in the moment it gave us the intensity of Book and Kyheem trying to hurt each other’s feelings by poking at 15-year-old wounds, which as a sibling with complicated sibling relationships I found both funny and devastating—not to mention Frakes directing “shaky bridge” explosion falls at an obvious intensity of “10” on an outdoor location shoot. It falls apart at the slightest scrutiny, but I can’t lie, on first viewing I was totally along for the ride.

***

I’m dying to see where this Georgiou thing goes. It doesn’t feel like a stretch to assume she got Cronenberg’d a couple weeks ago, probably to get her under the thumb of this century’s Section 31, and that her arc is going to take Michelle Yeoh off this show in a way that sets up the S31 show. But also, I don’t care so much whether I’m right, I just want to watch Michelle Yeoh—and Sonequa Martin-Green, and also David Cronenberg tbh, and bring back Shazad Latif while you’re at it—get wherever they’re going.

It’s also a fun and interesting direction to take the comically-evil comic relief character and show that her performative moustache-twirling is partly habit and partly a transparent emotional defence against very real fear and vulnerability. We’re all products of our circumstances, and a radical enough change in circumstances can afford almost anyone at least the opportunity to change. I can’t say Emperor Georgiou would have been my first choice of protagonist for that storyline, but it’s not like Michelle Yeoh’s not going to fuckin’ crush it.

***

Miscellany:

So the Burn had an origin point, and now that point is broadcasting a signal that’s somehow both a haunting melody that everyone seems to know—but no one can remember learning—and a Federation distress signal. What the fuck, y’all. I have full-body goosebumps just typing that.

Saru workshopping his own captainly catchphrase with the aid of Tilly’s extreme sincerity and organizational skills is probably the funniest thing that’s ever happened on this show—followed closely by the uncomfortably lingering reaction shots when he’s trying them out on the bridge 😂 (And omg please give Rhys and Bryce the dumbass buddy-comedy C-plots they deserve next season, I beg you.)

I would do a little “prop watch” entry on those Kwejianian(?) bolt-throwing rifles, but I’d have to stop drooling over them first. “Curvy polished hardwood” seems to be New Trek shorthand for “extra sleek and futuristic” (cf. the bridge of the USS Titan in the LwD finale), and I have to say: I am fully into it.

Restating my prediction that we will not see Detmer and Owosekun get together this season, because we will find out that they’ve been together for ages. Everyone knew—Pike even knew!—it just never came up in front of the audience before. That would be one of the cutest ways to do it imho, and one of the funniest too, especially as a meta-joke about how much character development didn’t happen in the first two seasons. (That said, if we get to see their first kiss, I will be screaming with incoherent joy for days, so this is a real win-win for me.)

Speaking of cute: IRL spouses Mary Wiseman and Noah Averbach-Katz, both Julliard-trained actors (it’s where they met!), can’t quite hide their chemistry in the scenes between Tilly and Ryn. I loved seeing Tilly be a hardass when Ryn was rude to the captain, but that sparkle in her eyes didn’t quite match the context <3

And speaking of people who are VERY OBVIOUSLY IN LOVE: that last scene with Book and Michael, and his nervous little “yeah, I said it” eyebrow lift, and her irrepressible giggle as she’s walking away... it was almost too much. Especially right after the queer-family scenes with Stamets and Culber and Adira. My poor heart is going through a lot lately, and I guess I’m just glad Season 3’s emotional intensity is melting it with soft sweet scenes like that instead of kicking it down repeated flights of stairs like Season 1.

***

Next week: everyone stops caring about the Burn and starts trying to solve an even more important mystery—why is this (holographic) dude wearing an early-2360s uniform with an early-2370s combadge?

[with-love-anu]

Desiderata: The Lines of Friendship

PART: 1

PAIRING: Sirius Black x Reader

WORD COUNT: 2.1K

SUMMARY: You had been best friends with James, Remus, Sirius and Peter. Read your journey of love, friendship and jealousy through your wonderful years at Hogwarts. Enjoy!

SERIES MASTERLIST

You’d known the Marauders for as long as you could imagine. They were your best friends and were inseparable and you could die for them as they would for you. You had a special relationship with each of them.

You were Remus’s reading buddy. You two could spend hours analyzing your favorite books and T.V. shows. The two of you could be seen in the library either doing your respective homework’s or gathering new information on various subjects of the wizarding world.

You came to know of Remus’s secret 3 months into the 1st year. You couldn’t sleep one night and were off wandering the castle corridors when you saw Madam Promfey leading him towards the whomping willow. You furrowed your eyebrows following them. The matron left him in the tree and went into the castle. You kept yourself hidden and waited. Your head was booming with questions. Remus had told you that he was going to see his sick mother. What was he doing in the most threatening tree of Hogwarts? Was he lying to you? All your thoughts were interrupted by a long howl that reverberated throughout the grounds. Then it all clicked. Everything seemed to fall into place. The scars. The absences. You cried each time you heard another howl or shriek. You knew about lycanthropy. Your mother was a predominant healer and had told you about the painful transformations, losing of mind during the best hours of a full moon night. So you waited. You waited for your best friend thinking why hadn’t he told you, why he chose to suffer alone, sobbing quietly into the night.

At dawn, the matron came out of the castle and you saw her taking Remus's limp bloodied form back into the school. You sneaked into the hospital wing and watched her cleaning Remus's wounds. When she left, you made your way to his bed. You let out a sob seeing his pale exhausted form. You let your hand run through his hair and pushed them away from his face. You pulled a chair and sat near his bed deciding to stay until he got up. You did not know when you fell asleep.

“Y/n! Y/n! Is that you?” Remus's hesitant voice woke you. You sat up slowly remembering last night events. “Y/n, why are you here?”

You studied your friend intently. “Rem, why didn’t you tell me you were diagnosed with lycanthropy?” his mouth fell open. You continued, “Why did you suffer alone? Am I that bad a friend that you wouldn’t tell me such a crucial part of your life?”

“I understand if you do not want to be friends me anymore. I am a monster, I know. A selfish part of me just wanted to make friends here at Hogwarts and the teachers agree-“

“What do you mean you do not want to be friends anymore?”  You asked incredulously. “And what are you on about being a monster?”

“Wait; you still want us to be friends? Are you not scared of me?” Remus asked disbelief prevalent on his eyes.

“Seriously! Are you mad or what? You said sorry to a chair! A freaking chair! After stubbing your own foot! Forgive me for not screaming and running into the shadows at the sight of you” You replied frowning. You could see a hint of smile tug at the corners of his mouth. Tears ran down his cheek and and he uttered a few incoherent words every now and then.

After that your friendship with Remus changed somewhat. He told you about his every insecurity due to his condition and you always made him realize how more human he was than any other person you ever knew.

You and James had a sort of sibling type relationship. You two goofed around cracking jokes, making the other laugh. You knew his love for quidditch and often bought him trinkets of his favorite team. He loved every single one of them and gave his thanks by hugging you until you were out of your breath. You were there for each of his practices often bringing him energy drinks from the kitchen and accompanied him listening him ramble about his workout strategies and how he wanted to be one of the best quidditch players. He knew you like the back of his hand and cheered you up whenever you got a bad grade. He actually stayed until you could perfect the spell you couldn’t get. You frequently thought how he wasn’t at all a cocky, proud Gryffindor everyone thought he was but was a sweet caring friend who would always be there for you no matter what. You’d also seen him cry. The thing about James was that he was a happy boy. No one ever saw him sad or his ever bright smiles fade.

So when one morning during breakfast you saw his face transform into a grim expression you knew something was wrong. He did not smile, laugh or make any kinds of jokes during the whole day. In the evening he said he wasn’t hungry and left the great hall as soon as he came in. The others all busy complaining about the latest assignment did not notice him leave. You followed him to the Gryffindor quarters and into the boy’s chambers. You stood outside their dorm thinking what to say when you heard him sobbing. You knocked and asked him to let you in. He slowly opened the door and you could see his pain stricken face. You immediately hugged his and let him cry on your shoulder. He slowly told you about how his father was attacked during his duty and was at St.Mungos.

“I got a letter from my mother this morning. Merlin! I want to see him so badly but she told me that I wasn’t ALLOWED! That it was important that I stay in school and she would do her best to keep me updated.” James said sniffing.  You placed a hand on his shoulder both of you sitting down on the bed. You kept quiet and waited for him to continue.

“Y/n, what if my father is heavily injured? What if he di-“you cut him off by placing your hand on his mouth.

“Your father is one of the bravest men I ever knew. I KNOW he will be alright. He has been in situations like these before. He would fight. He would fight for you, I know it. They have bought them to my mother, right?” James nodded. “My mother would do everything before she lets any harm affect him. I promise.” You said earnestly. “Anyways, I am sure that if it was anything serious Dumbledore and your mother would have allowed you to at least visit him.” You added. You knew it was a cheap shot but you knew it would help him and you could already see some worry lift off his features. Next morning when his father’s letter came in telling him everything was alright and it was just a small mishap, he smiled again and you promised yourself to do everything to never let it fade.

You weren’t as close to Peter but you were always there to help him whenever he needed. You could see him sometimes struggling with small things ashamed to ask others, so you often sat down with him assisting him telling him it was okay to ask for help and there were many others like him with the similar situation. You stood up for him when people teased him way too much.

Your friendship with Sirius went deep. Even though you had instantly become friends with him, it took him a long time to actually open up to you. You had often seen his expression dull at the sight of letters from home. He joked about it and laughed it off but it could never convince you that he somehow had stopped loving his family. Your heart clenched thinking of the tortures his parents subjected to him at home. One morning during your first years, Sirius got a particularly nasty letter telling him not to come home for Christmas. He kept laughing but you couldn’t help but feel distressed. He had shrugged it off saying, “Who wants to back to that to that pathetic place anyway?” It had sounded nothing but depressing to you. You didn’t say anything, but after dinner you held his hand and sneaked off to the astronomy tower. The two of you laughed at Filch and Mrs. Norris antics and fooled around. You grazed at the stars bathing in each other’s company. You slowly said, “So, you are staying at Hogwarts during the winter break?” You could immediately feel him tense up. He hummed in response. You scooted closer to him and draped an arm around his shoulder.

“Good, cause I was worried about staying all alone here.” You said. He raised an eyebrow looking at you. “Well,” you explained. “I am a not a Christian. I follow Hinduism. And anyways my mother is always busy being a healer and my sister; well you know she’s back in India. Plus, now I have one of family members staying at Hogwarts.” He looked at you, his silver grey eyes going through a whirl of emotions.

“Family?” he said, his voice suddenly dry.

“Ya… family.” You said simply. “You do consider me your best friend right?” He nodded still unsure.

“But you’re always on about how much you miss your mother and couldn’t wait to go back.” He argued.

“Well, I changed my mind.”

Sirius looked away. “You shouldn’t stay back because of me. I don’t want your pity.” He said coldly.

“I and you both know this much that I don’t just do things because of pity. I do love you and I do love spending time with you. And yes, you are like a family to me, James, Rem and Pete. And I would love nothing more than beginning the New Year with you. So if you think for one moment that I am faking this, my love for you, then remember that you are hurting me more than you could by humiliating me in front of the entire school.” You replied dejectedly. Sirius looked at you as if he was seeing you for the first time. There was so much vulnerability in his eyes that it made your heart clench.

“I just… I never thought that I meant that much to you, that much to anyone in fact” he croaked, tears welling up in his eyes. You held him and he embraced you so tightly that it actually hurt but you didn’t care. He broke down completely. He cried violently, like he was never allowed to before. He told you how he missed them, how he wanted them to love him, that there was still a part in him that wished to please them. You stayed there listening to him, holding this boy you had come to love so much within a short span. You would be lying to yourself if you said that you loved him the way you loved your other best friends. The way your heart fluttered a bit every time he smiled at you or the butterflies that erupted in your stomach every time he called you, “my best girl”. Now seeing him cry like this did bad things to your heart. You wished terrible things for his parents, something you’d never done before.

After the night in the tower, Sirius told you everything. Of course, he shut you out sometimes when his insecurities peeped, but you always managed to make him trust you. There were times when you two didn’t have to say anything to each other to understand what the other wanted or was thinking.

So, sitting in the common room the night after the full moon with Sirius on your lap making you run your hands through his hair, James telling the group yet another joke, Remus with such a wonderful smile and Peter listening intently you couldn’t help but wonder that you had everything you needed right now. You looked back at the past three years thinking how they went by so quickly. With marauders at your side you had spent the first three years at Hogwarts carefree, pranking, learning and having fun. It wasn’t that you hadn’t befriended anyone else. You were friends with Lily and Alice and loads other students from different houses but the best times could only be spent by the bestest of friends.  You had seen James, Sirius and Peter become illegal animagus to help Remus. You too, had helped Remus but in a different way. You had researched about the condition every free time you got. You had created innumerous healing potions and stretch potions that helped him during his transformations and various potions that did not let new wounds form any kinds of scars and even helped in nulling out old ones.

Hence, when you got your Hogwarts letter for the fourth year you couldn’t wait to hop back on the very familiar Hogwarts express.

[ocular-intercourse]

2, 3, 7,8, 11,12, 13, 18, 21, 23, 27, and 31 for Ace!!!

thank uu he’s talked about too little 

02. What is one of your character’s biggest insecurities? Are they able to hide it easily or can others easily exploit this weakness?

To be truly unlikeable. Not the front he puts out there to make sure to never learn if people would actually hate him. If he ever were to show to people who he is under all of it. If he doesn’t show it and acts actively unlikable he can at least pretend it’s justified and under his control. I think he does hide it pretty well. He’s just unapproachable, but he does not seem unhappy with it. If he’d sit in a corner bitter and angrily people would maybe suspect. But nah, he’s just a weird guy, class clown, too aloof to care. (He does though, care, very much.)

03. What would be their favorite physical trait about themselves?

He actually likes his broad build. Since he’s kinda small for a dude he can at least seem kinda intimidating if he’d set out to be. Other people would maybe be a bit insecure about it since he tends to gain weight easily but he doesn’t care so much. Cause he knows his body and what it’s capable of, it’s done him good deeds. Sturdy.

07. Is there a catchphrase or sound that they tend to make a lot (likely without being aware of it)?

Not a sound he makes with his mouth, but with every other part of his body probably. Give him a pen and he’ll find a way to make sounds with it. Usually they are pretty melodious though. There’s always a soundtrack running in the back of his mind. When he’s concentrated or spacing out he’ll just tap along with it. He is very good at being quiet though, if he has to be. In fact his constant producing of sound is pretty convenient for that and it might be part of why he does it. The more people associate him with being noisy the less they are expecting him to be quiet.

08. What is, perhaps, their biggest flaw? Are they aware of this or oblivious to it?

Ah. His brother complex. The guy has pretty much shaped every aspect of Ace’s being and then turned around and betrayed him. And Ace cannot accept it. He still believes there has to be some sort of explanation that would make it all okay and Dale just had no way of letting him know, for whatever reason. He tried to kill him, but he didn’t, see?!! That has to mean something! He is completely blind to every bad thing Dale has ever done to him, which have subjectively been a lot. And he will not listen to people implying things; he just refuses to believe that he’d been subjected to any sort of abuse. In his worst nights Ace is very much aware of it, but pushes the thought away very quickly. He’s not obsessed with his brother! And if he were it would be for good reason, because his brother is fucking radical.

11. What is something that would make your character fly into a rage?

Said badmouthing of his brother. But also just any type of situation where people try to be authoritarian and have control over his actions. If he does not want to do something, or rather if he does not agree or understand why he should do something, he won’t. Needless to say he’s no teacher’s favorite.

12. Is there some particular talent, skill, or attribute that they simply could not give up?

Is bothering people a skill? He just.. can’t stop.. pushing and prodding, being annoying, trolling people on- and offline. He likes to provoke, he refuses to conform. Second to that probably making music, ripping stuff apart and putting it together in new ways, audio collages in a way, remixes. He is a little compulsive about it. Interrupting conversations to record a certain sound and things like that.

13. What are your character’s sleeping habits? Heavy or light sleeper? Blanket stealer? One that always rolls onto the floor? Pushes their lover onto the floor? Sleep talker or walker?

He’s not a bad sleeper actually, his sleep cycle is just not exactly regular. It’s in his blood, he’s a child of the night, it’s when he feels best. It’s just not super convenient for regular life. It kinda works out though since his life is not really regular. He lives in an environment that knows about his and his half-siblings needs, so he does not have to make excuses at the very least. Of course it’s still kinda frowned upon. His most natural sleep cycle is probably from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m., he can do 3 a.m. to 9 a.m. though, for convenience. When he does sleep though, he’s out, like world going down around him no reaction kind of sleep. He talks in his sleep sometimes, but mostly just incoherent stuff, words by themselves. Snores when he sleeps on his back, good thing he likes to sleep pretty much trying to crawl into the mattress, face planted into the pillow. Ppl that have shared the bed with him, Dale, Ben, Ellie, might have feared for his life here and there, thinking he might choke himself to death, especially cause he can get very still and quiet when he’s really out. The biggest annoyance between him and his partners is probably the timing though, trying to find times that work for everybody. Ben tried to help out with his powers, sleep is his domain after all, but Ace is very unhappy with the thought of someone using their abilities on him, taking control away.

18. What kind of home would they want to live in? Where would they place this abode?

Any home that has running water, electricity, internet and not too much mold is a-okay with him. He grew up in a shitty environment. In an apartment that was falling apart and too small for two people to live in it, with bills not paid a little too often. They made do, of course, Ace has no bad feelings about the time (oh sweet denial). But a place for himself, nothing special at all, would seem incredibly luxurious to him. He’s not entirely aware how much that need is somewhere buried in his conscience. It would most definitely have to be in the city though, he needs the noise.

21. What is one of your character’s biggest fears? How would they react when dealing with this fear?

oh god. there’d be a lot of easy answers, having to do with his brother, or losing control, but really i think it’s actually just.. being seen, and seeing clearly himself. he is so entangled in this big web of deceiving others and himself, he got kinda lost in it. i think his mind only, ever so gently, tugs on the awareness of all of this but by now he’s terrified of untangling all of it, looking at the truth, and disliking what he sees

23. What is your character like when it comes to school? What subjects are they good/bad at? Do they get in trouble a lot or are well behaved?

like I said, ace is not exactly popular among teachers and the like. he’s disruptive, he talks back, his attendance is spotty, especially in the morning hours, and, worst of all, the things he does agree to working on are actually pretty well done. unconventional maybe, from time to time, but the kid is actually, regrettably, not stupid. which is probably the only reason he hasn’t gotten into too much trouble yet, hasn’t had to redo a year or anything, he does just enough, and those things well enough, to get by. not on top of the class, but that is never his goal ayways. he probably enjoys this equilibrium of perfect teacher annoyance, they don’t give up on him but they do wish he gave them a proper reason to, to free them from this peril.

27. If your character was going to get arrested, what would be the most likely reason for it?

Loitering? Vandalism, malicious destruction of property. Not enough for a serious charge, but a handful of misdemeanors. He probably actually has been picked up by the police before, being young and stupid and wild. Dale is pretty excellent at handling these kinds of situations though, so Ace never had to worry too much.

31. Would your character be the kind capable of killing? Would they enjoy killing or only use it when necessary or, perhaps, refuse to kill no matter what?

He did kill, though he probably did not stick around long enough to confirm anything. When the academy was attacked he fought to protect himself and others, he made sure people would not be able to continue fighting and did not think much more about it. But those were in self-defense. A hard thing, but necessary. He can handle that, now that it is done and he was forced to do it. He likes to believe he would not have a problem killing people either way. He likes to believe he could kill his brother, if it would come to a point where he learns Dale is not redeemable. He likes to believe he’d be able to kill people for the right reasons. He couldn’t, he wouldn’t. He was kicked out of the bad guy club Dale joined exactly for this reason. He’s too good at heart, too weak to do what’s necessary in their eyes. He has no memory of it, so he’s not exactly aware of his own hidden heroism.

[humanitysbridge]

im the type of dummy who procrastinates so hard that i have multiple written starters/replies in my drafts but I haven’t cleaned them up and put it off for.....like a week

no i’m not about to post them, i’m a dummy so here’s me rambling about vic’s sexuality/interpersonal relationships  because I wanted this somewhere on this blog eventually and i’d like to procrastinate some more 

(photo descrip: me, clutching what i think will be an eloquent dissertation but will just be full of run-on sentences and incoherent ideas. sorry in advance)

hi. hello. you brave, poor bastard. thanks for clicking. let’s just jump right into it

pls don’t steal my headcanons my galaxy brain tried hard 

let’s get it straight (ha), victor grew up extremely isolated--no friends until he was around 12--but his parents have always been on the liberal side. educated scientists who don’t see sexuality aligning with morality because they see its fluidity in nature so often. why should humans be any different? he’s never felt pressured by society to like cis women because it seems like such a small detail in this infinitely large world.  there was a bigger emphasis on monogamy (mainly bc his parents were soulmates), which has been engrained in vic. if he were to be in a relationship with more than one person there’d have to be a lot of trust, love, and communication between all partners. whether it’s a single partner or two (he’d cap at throuple), loyalty and faithfulness are imperative. 

his father and mother, though too preoccupied to spend time with their son, always found time for each other. it’s one of the few things that vic respects about his father---he loved elinore through sickness and past death. it’s something vic wants. his parents had him at an older age and weren’t interested in adoption, so having a sibling was out of the question. young victor jumped to the next best thing: daydreaming about growing up and having a big family. the idea of a partner was vague, he’s always just wanted someone to love him and show him affection without expectation. he wanted to have a bunch of children so they could have friends and never be lonely. he wanted to play catch and go to the zoo. 

 he’s never had a particular sway toward gender. heteronormativity is present, of course, but doesn’t hold a lot of water. the boy is a genius, and when he has complicated questions about self-identification, his parents are giving him something to read so they can discuss over a scheduled dinner. 

what am i saying, then? sick, thanks for asking. thanks for reading this far. drink some water if you haven’t recently. and stretch if you’ve been sat for a while x

i’m saying that by the time vic goes to high school, he’s interacting heavily with folks his age for the first time ever. he does not NEED high school. like, he was past high school learning so early on. but he needs the social interaction and that’s why he goes. so when he starts working out and joins the football team, he gets unexpected attention from a few of the girls at school. 

he dates them, gets a girlfriend, is pretty sure he’s in love, and everything is PERFECT. he’s going to play college ball until he gets picked up by the n/fl. he’ll ask his girl to marry him and then they’ll start a family. he’ll retire and just. be a dad. a husband. a friend. he’s a romantic fool every day of the week. 

sucks, though, because he gets blown up and sort of dies, wakes up and he’s got a whole new body and a steaming cup of self-hate waiting for him. his girlfriend wishes he died in the accident. his dad expects him to be grateful, but he overhears silas asking ‘did i make my son a monster?’ so......that’s less sick.

between dealing with newfound body issues, trying to control his new abilities, fighting with his father, grieving his body and his mother, and losing everything he’s been working towards in high school---vic has no time to date around. he can’t even fathom someone wanting to be with someone like him; a freak of nature (no, a freak of science. somehow that’s worse)

presently: in my main verse, vic has only been in 2 official relationships (high school gf & jinx--both taking place during his teens) but is presently single. he’s attempted dating with folks who identify various ways, but his own insecurities/heroic duties land him right back where he started. alone.  at the end of the day, all he wants is someone who wants him back. who really loves him and makes him feel less lonely on his dark days. someone who can pick up on his moods when he’s getting tired from shouldering the world. 

though vic might flirt with people he finds attractive, there’s rarely a lot of feeling behind it. he gets looked over for most romantic relationships---more often propositioned for meaningless sex, which he may take up but he’ll be big sad after---so he’s used to empty flirtations with friends and villains alike. in my main verse, vic has gotten comfortable with being single forever. he’s downsized his childhood dream to supporting upcoming heroes and being a needed authoritative/familial figure. 

IMPORTANT: interpersonal relationships are what vic thrives on. just because he’s given up on seeking romance, does not mean he’s  isolated. his friends, found family, and mentees are the WORLD to him. he’d do anything to protect them all. he just....knows that they’ll all move on eventually, so he has to be comfortable being alone. 

welp the sun is about to come up and i def have to be up soon so thanks again for reading this dumb long post that’s kind of about nothing 

[queerhargreeves]

Really feverish Luther? Very delirious and vulnerable, and ends up blurting all his insecurities and self hate and secret training that Reginald made him do (i have a headcanon that Luther has messed pain sensors bc Reginald would train him to have an unbelievably high pain tolerance bc of his strength and usefulness). The whole family ends up taking care of him as he sobs. Pls and ty!!

sorry this took so long!!! i hope this is alright

The second Luther opens his eyes he wishes he hadn’t. His now awake body was greeted with an intense pounding behind his skull. His entire body ached. He gulped and was met with the feeling of swallowing glass and gravel. He can’t remember the last time he was sick - it had to have been at least 20 years when he was a child.

Reginald never let him rest long enough to get sick. Or he just wasn’t able to tell anymore. Most training days for dearest Number One were spent in the gym or local junkyards. 5 hours a day on the treadmill, unable to get off until he ran at least 35 miles, was his warm up. By the time he was 4, simple dumbbells were too easy for the boy. He could deadlift 400 lbs easy, so the next step up was cars. Mobile homes, vans, semi trucks, weren’t even enough to please his father. He could swing an entire house across the yard, the home crashing in a loud boom and wood exploding everywhere. He’d look back at his father, grin on his face, looking for any sort of praise. Any sort of acknowledgment. But he was met with a scowl and complaint every single time.

Eventually, Luther’s body couldn’t feel pain like his siblings could. He had gotten shot, stabbed, sliced, even burned on missions and he would always finish the task at hand without fail. It didn’t matter how deep a bullet went or how severe the burn was, it would always feel like a simple graze.

Which is why this is concerning. But he had no time rest though; the Hargreeves had plans today. The entire fam was going to the beach, per Ben’s request. Now that he’s been fairly corporeal for a few months now and able to actually feel again, he hasn’t been able to shut up about the beach. And of course, they all happily obliged in their request. If they could make their brother, who they had all been without for so long, happy they would absolutely do it. Luther couldn’t take that moment away from him.

Luther took deep breath before swinging the sheets off his body and sitting up, wincing as he did so. The pounding in his head was damn persistent, he’ll give it that. He swiftly got up from the bed and made his way to his closet, avoiding the mirror along the way. He picked out a large sweater with, of course, an overcoat. Even if he was feeling uncomfortably hot he needed to appear as if nothing was wrong. He changed within a few moments and finished with his morning routine.

He could hear the light banter of his family as he made his way down the staircase and into the kitchen. The current topic of conversation was of course about their trip today.

“Hey Van, maybe you’ll finally get a tan, huh? Lord knows you could use some Vitamin D!” Klaus teased, his tone light and playful.

“As if you’re one to talk.” Diego snorted, flicking a blueberry at his brother.

“Brother dearest, not all of us are blessed with glorious melanin like you.” He retorted, catching the blueberry and plopping it into his mouth.

“Morning Luther.” Five greeted from the table, raising his coffee cup at the man.

“M-morning.” Luther replied, his voice raspy both from not using his voice yet and the gravel. He winced slightly, clearing his throat and beelining into the kitchen to whip himself a plate of pancakes to avoid any questioning.

Once he made made his plate he joined the rest of the Hargreeves at the table, next to Vanya on the edge. He eyes the plate of pancakes in front of him, the thought of eating them making his stomach churn. But he can’t let them know something’s up - he can’t ruin Ben’s special day. So he bring a bite to his mouth, attempting to keep his face as straight as possible as the pancake scrapes along his pained throat. He does it again, adamant on finishing his breakfast.

He may not be their leader anymore, but dammit he’s still the big brother. He’s not going to let this silly little bug get to him, he can’t. That’s weakness. He can’t show that to his siblings. So he trecks on.

The family is talking about something, but he can’t quite make it out. He can’t really make anything out. His vision starts to blur and he drops his fork, blinking furiously.

“…Luther?” He hears from somewhere around him but he can’t quite make out from who.

“Mmmm fine.” He slurs, taking his shaking hand and picking up the fork.  

“Jesus, Lu, you’re burning up!” He feels a cool hand on his flushed forehead.

“I said I’m fffine…” He slurred once more, but that was all Allison needed to hear before going into mom mode.

“Vanya, Ben, go to the infirmary and get some antibiotics. Klaus and Five, go upstairs and get the Queen size bed on wheels. Bring blankets and pillows. Diego, help me get Luther to the couch.” Allison stood up, pointing at each of her siblings as she explained.

They siblings all scurried off to complete their assigned tasks. Allison and Diego immediately went to Luther’s side. He was flushed, a thin sheen of sweat covering his face. He was shaking lightly, fork still in his hand.

“Lu, Klaus and Five are gonna get you a bed okay?” Allison explained softly, resting the back of her hand against her brother’s forehead.

“Shit.” She breathed, glancing over at Diego who had a matching look of concern.

“No, I’m fine…we have to go to beach today, remember?” Luther said in a strained voice, pushing his chair back stumbling as he attempted to stand.

“Woah there big guy, easy. You’re not going anywhere.” Diego put a gentle hand on his shoulder, shoving him back in his seat.

Luther let out a pathetic whine but complied nonetheless.

“I ruined the trip…” He whispered, voice cracking.

Before Allison or Diego could get a chance to respond, they heard Klaus’ cheery voice from the other room.

“One queen size bed fit for a queen sized brother!~”

“Okay bro, we’re going to stand now. Think you can do it?” Diego asked, tone soft.

Luther nodded, letting Diego wrap an arm around his waist as he wrapped his around his shoulders. He didn’t know when Klaus came in, but the wiry brother was on his other side. The three of them made their way into the living room where the bed was set up.

“Down we go…” Klaus and Diego gently helped Luther get seated on the bed. Vanya and Ben come down the stairs a few moments later, making their way into the living room with medicine and Grace’s infamous chicken noodle soup in tow.

“Hey bro,” Klaus started, his hand clutching the collar of Luther’s coat.

“ We should probably take that coat off, no? You’re practically a furnace!” He started to push the thick grey coat off his shoulder but was met with a strong hand on his wrist. He jumped a bit in surprise, looking up and meeting Luther’s eyes.

“Nooo.” He whined softly. “It needs to stay on, please.”

“Luther, I promise you’ll feel better once it’s off, okay?” Klaus insisted, breaking his grip and shoving the rest of the coat off his body.

“Jesus, you’re wearing a sweater too? Al, think you could go get Luther a t-shirt?”

Allison nodded and promptly made her way upstairs to do so. Klaus threw the coat on the couch next to them, plopping himself down on it himself. Ben did the same, both of them watching their brother with concern.

“No no no…you’re gonna see…I’m…” Luther started to panic, his voice trembling.

“See what, Luther?” Vanya asked, her voice calm. She was always the best at handling all of her siblings emotions. She had watched them destroy each other and themselves from the sidelines for so long. She could read them like a book (hah).

“Here, this’ll help.”  She placed a glass of water and meds in his hand, nodding at him to take them.

Luther silently followed orders, grimacing as he felt the pills go down. Vanya smiled, satisfied with Luther’s obedience and took the glass from him, placing it on the coffee table a few feet away. Allison came back a few moments later with a green thin t-shirt in her hand.

“Here Luther, put this on yeah?” Allison tossed the shirt on the bed and Luther furiously shook his head. She frowned, confused at his unusual display of stubbornness.

“Luther, why are you so adamant on wearing that sweater?” She asked, trying her best to not sound accusatory.

“Don’t want you guys to see.” He repeated, shaking his head once more.

“See what?” Vanya asked again.

“Jesus guys, he’s talking about his body.” Five finally spoke up, sighing loudly. He picked up the shirt and placed it in Luther’s hand.

“Luther, we don’t care what you look like, alright? We already know what’s under that thick sweater of yours, there’s no need to feel ashamed.”

“No, no, no. It’s bad! I’m…I’m a monster. I-I ruined Ben’s trip…I did it again. I ruin things.” His voice continued to tremble and each of the Hargreeves felt their hearts breaking.

“Oh Luther.” Ben got up from Klaus’ side and made his way to Luther’s. “You didn’t ruin anything, alright? It’s not your fault you’re sick, I’m not mad. We can go another time. I wouldn’t have fun knowing you weren’t feeling well anyway.” He rubbed his arm, offering a small smile.

“Think you can put the shirt on? We can leave the room when you do if you want.”

Luther clutched the shirt in his hands tighter, still refusing to believe his brother. He knows rationally he’d never lie of course, Ben was always the most gentle of the seven, but he doesn’t understand how he couldn’t be mad at him.

“No I did. I ruined your trip. I just break things. That’s the only thing I’m good at.. I’m no leader! I just hurt people. I-I deserved to be mutilated. Dad sent me away for a reason!” He was rambling incoherently at this point, tears streaming freely down his face. His voice was getting louder as he ignored his throat screaming at him to stop. “ I-I should’ve stayed on the moon. I can’t stand to look at what I’ve become…I’m hideous. I used to be so good for Dad. I would run 35 miles in a day for him! I-I’d throw semi-trucks and houses acres wide, no matter if I dislocated my shoulder everytime. I’d jump off six story buildings again and again, breaking my knees and ankles over and over. I was good I always did what he wanted…but I wasn’t good enough. I was never enough! I shouldn’t have come back I-I should’ve fucking stayed! I-I…” A sob escaped the man’s body, his body jerking forward.

Ben immediately wrapped his arms around his sobbing brother the best he could manage, his chest tightening at the way he broke in front of him. Luther’s shoulders shook violently with each sob that wracked his body. He glanced up to look around the room, all the siblings with matching looks of horror and shock.

Reginald was hard on all of them of course, but they never knew the extent of Luther’s training. Constant broken limbs? Strained muscles? God, they couldn’t imagine. They never knew how deeply what he did to him and his body affected him. They didn’t know how deep that pain ran.

“Jesus, Lu.” Klaus breathed as he got up from his seat and plopped down on the other side of Luther and wrapped his arms around him. Vanya silently followed from behind, Allison and Five doing the same. Diego crouched down in front of his brother and joined in on the group hug, all of them giving their brother the time he needed to break. To let it out, after all these years. Lord knows they’ve all had these moments of realization where their pain just hits them. But Luther hadn’t, not until now.

After a few minutes, Luther’s breathing eventually evened out. They heard a few sniffles, causing the hug to break. They all stumbled back, giving Luther some space. Vanya was the first to speak up.

“Luther I’m so sorry. But we love you, okay? You’re not a monster, you didn’t deserve anything that happened to you. You’re a good leader and even better brother.” She spoke softly, her eyes kind and brimmed with tears.

Luther cleared his throat, giving a weak nod and a small smile. He didn’t believe her, not yet at least.

“You think you can put the shirt on now, bud? We’ll stop pestering once you do.” Five asked cautiously, voice devoid of its usual snark and angst.

“Yeah.” He croaked out, “Thank you, guys. I’m sorry you had to see that. I-”

“Nope.” Five quickly interjected, pointing at Luther, “No apologizing. We’re here for you.”

Luther opened his mouth to object but closed it, knowing it was a lost cause. He just gave a shy smile and an appreciative nod.

“Do you want us to leave?” Allison asked, nodding towards the shirt in his hands.

“Uh…” Luther trailed before shaking his head. “No. I-It’s alright, you can stay.”

She smiled, “We’ll stay here as long as you need, okay?”

Luther let himself believe that, even just for now. And they did, they stayed. They stayed as he changed, none of their eyes lingering on his new body. They stayed as he got comfortable in the bed, as he ate Grace’s soup. They chatted about everything and nothing at all. Klaus even brought the TV over and they all cuddled around one another on the bed and couches. They made have not gone to the beach that day, but sick movie marathon was just as fun. Even if Five got sick after, it was worth it to see their brother truly comfortable and content for the first time in ages.

[nethwan]

Photograph

NedTai Week

Day 6: Jobs

Summary: AU where Fem Netherlands has a flower shop and Male Taiwan is a photographer.

Also here: 

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13220186/6/NEDTAI-WEEK

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17967203

“Why are you so nervous?” Ling asked her brother.

Tang combed his hair with his hand. How to tell to his sister: “We don’t need the flowers; it’s just that the girl of my dreams works here”. He could tell her, but he wasn’t ready. Probably she knew what was going on, because the idea of buying flowers for their older sister was unexpected.

“Really? For Chung-Yan?” Ling asked him when he suggested it.

“Yes, for her. She is our big sister and she always takes care of us”

Ling raised an eyebrow, her brother didn’t seem to be joking nor was he drunk. They were about to get in the flower shop when he stayed outside, looking his reflection in a car’s window.

“What are you doing?” she asked again.

“Nothing”

Both siblings got in the store and a young girl said welcome. Her hair was dark blond and part of her bangs covered her face, she seemed friendly. Tang couldn’t hide his disappointment. So Ling talked with her and asked for a bouquet of whatever flowers she had.

“Do you think Jia-Ying would want one?”

Tang made a gesture with his head. He was thinking that he had lost his opportunity, he murmured something that none of them could understand.

“Don’t pay attention to my brother, he has been acting quite strange today” she told to the other girl.

She just smiled and then made a comment about her own siblings. Both girls giggled and after a small talked they introduced to each other. Tang was so bitter with his sister flirting when it was supposed he’d do it. But the one he wanted to see wasn’t there.

They chose some flowers and when he was about to pay, apparently Marion was having some problems with the cash register.

“Wait a minute, I’ll call my sister”

Tang felt excited. And she appeared, she looked so pretty, with her hair tied with a silk scarf and wearing a floral dress. Tang and Meike had exchanged incoherent phrases, and then when she gave him his change, they touched each other’s hands and he blushed, and then Ling realized why they were there.

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

“You are really embarrassing. Wait that I tell Soon Jin” Ling said. “You used not only me, but Chun-Yan and Jia-Ying to get a girlfriend and at the end you couldn’t say a word”

“Don’t you dare” he said because he knew Soon Jin would make fun of him. “She made me feel nervous”.

Actually, Ling thought it was funny, and at least she also met that cute girl called Marion. However, she was worried about Tang, he was always so confident and smug, and so she couldn’t believe his reaction of a moment ago.

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

Meike was very quiet while her sister talked about a bouquet, she wasn’t really listening to her, but then she mentioned that girl she just met. Was her awkwardness evident? She wondered, but Marion seemed to not thinking about it. Meike looked at her hand, he touched her, she was still nervous. Why was he there?

She remembered the first time she met him. She was visiting the botanic garden, and she saw him taking some pictures. He seemed excited as a kid with a new toy. She thought he was quite cute. Then she noticed he was looking at her, he approached and they had a small talk. She wasn’t good at meet new people, but there was something on him that seemed nice.

“I’m Tang” he said.

“Meike” she replied, shaking his hand.

“Nice to meet you, now I have to take more pictures”

“Ok, nice to meet you too”

She thought that it was good to have met him, such a shame that it was the only time she’d see him. Maybe it was for the best, she thought. She was very insecure about herself, how a guy like him would like someone like her? She wondered. She was taller than him, he didn’t seem to notice it, but that would be a problem.

Meike got mad for delude herself. She was thinking nonsense about a person she just met. She was so lost in thought that she didn’t realize her siblings and sister-in-law were asking her if she was fine.

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

Some days later, Tang decided to go to the flower shop. It was Ling’s idea; she had gone before just to talk with Marion. Tang was very nervous. He got in and found Meike talking with a blond guy and a brunette girl.

“Hi, I would like a bouquet of tulips” he said awkwardly.

“Let me help you” she said as awkward as him.

The other couple could feel the tension in the air, so they decided to go. They knew for Marion about the situation, so maybe they could help if they left them alone. Meike seemed a bit calm when they said goodbye.

Meike and Tang looked at each other and smiled. After that everything got better. They talk almost every day, and sometimes they had lunch together. Meike thought Tang was an interesting guy, he was photographer and he liked films, he had always that sweet smile on his face. She didn’t know why he looked for her, but she was happy that at least being his friend.

“I would like that you come to my photograph exposition” he asked her.

Meike accepted.

When she arrived, she noticed that some people looked at her, as if they recognized her. She was so confused, because the only person she knew there was Tang. Meike admired all the pictures; Tang really knew how to capture the beauty of the world. Some of them were of the botanic garden, others of the streets, the nature, and finally she saw a picture of herself.

She was amazed. She never thought she could look that pretty. She was making a bouquet, her expression was relaxed, and her smile didn’t look fake. It seemed like a dream, like the work of some image editor. That couldn’t be her. All her life she thought she wasn’t photogenic and she was convinced that she wasn’t attractive.

“I’m glad you are here, but you look so pale, it’s something wrong?” Tang said when he saw her.

“What does this means?” she asked in surprise. “Why there is a picture of me here? When did you take it?”

“I’m sorry; I think I had to ask you first. I thought you would like it”

Meike looked down.

“Why did you take it?” she asked.

Tang didn’t know how to tell her the truth.

“Also, did you edit it?”

“No. Why I would do that? I wanted to show you how I see you” he said simply. “What I mean is that I like you” Tang said as red as his shirt.

Meike smiled. That entire situation was really funny and cute, she thought in surprise, maybe because this time she was happy to hear such nice words.

“I like you too” she said, shyly.

Both were happy. He took her hand and they admired the photographs together. He could capture the truly beauty of whatever he saw, and even if she was his favorite model, for him, it was better to see her with his own eyes instead that a photograph.

[whydidireadthis]

All-New Wolverine (#19-30)

One of my hugest pet peeves with superhero comics is “male character, but with tits”. I hate it. I’ve always hated it, and I’ll always hate it. The invention of X-23 in X-Men Evolution was a painfully awkward inclusion following that same creative approach, and I despised it; it was, like so many others, taking a character and creating a female clone -- literally -- so that insecure straight boys could feel less insecure lusting directly after the character.

It’s happened plenty of other times in comics, most notably when Rose Wilson, who had her own identity and powers, had all of her character annihilated so she could become Ravager, Deathstroke with Tits. This numbers as one of the worst characters ever massacred into that role. It’s insulting; Rose had something distinct going on, and then idiot Geoff Johns came along and decided that he needed an x, with tits character.

The thing is, this stunt always ends up being insulting for both the character being imitated and the character either created to fill the role or forced into it. It’s even more insulting when they’re already established as being someone and something else, but they’re required to redefine themselves anyway, especially when they’re expected to be accepted as a replacement for the character they’re obviously meant to out-appeal because they can be openly lusted after by the imagined primary demographic.

Sibling Clonery

So the long and short of it here is that I’m saying I am not a fan of X-23, or Laura as she’s come to be known. Going into this, my expectations were rock-bottom. But I love Daken, and I always considered him a far more subversive and interesting necessary examination of the character of Wolverine and everything around him: the machismo, the insecurity of writers overcompensating through Logan’s often comedically excessive libido and attitude, and of course the overselling of the character. Daken is openly bisexual (and actually leans more gay, more often), comfortable with his sexuality, uses his mind at least as much as, if not more than, his claws, and in general undermines all of the bullshit that’s been built around Logan.

He dressed up in Logan’s old costume design and masqueraded in his superheroic identity, and in so doing forced readers to examine what really made Wolverine. It forced scrutiny on the concept of the identity, and who was behind the mask and the name.

Daken is a complex character, but he’s also easy enough to understand and is often surprisingly sympathetic, or at least identifiable. Even when he’s doing awful things, it’s not really because he’s a consummately bad person or has no reason for doing what he does. I don’t think all of his writing is great or even good, and he’s been wildly inconsistent for periods over the years, but he seems to have finally found a place where he can find some blessed consistency and appreciation.

Aside from that garbage Iceman series that will be gone and not missed very soon, which seemed not to get the memo that Daken couldn’t be a villain running the Hellfire Club while at the same time being kidnapped by a group of Laura’s foes, but whatever. Like I said, that series is gone and soon to be forgotten, and it’s good riddance to bad rubbish.

We’re looking at the good Daken appearances recently, and they just so happen to be in All-New Wolverine.

Marjorie Liu did some solid work with Daken, even if I didn’t agree with her direction at all times, and the crossover between him and X-23 called “Collision” was an interesting look at the characters. Liu’s run on the X-23 series, which is really in many ways a precursor to All-New Wolverine, gave her a lot more to work with than the typical runaround she’d been given in most of the other titles. Before Liu got to do things with Laura and develop her as a person (and at the time, also developing Gambit in a way that treated him like a person and not the embarrassing caricature people have exaggerated from foggy memories of the 90s X-Men cartoon), she really wasn’t much more than Wolverine, but with tits. That was it. She couldn’t really outrun her stigma, because she was just another piece of window dressing from Logan’s titles.

But it’s important to note that Daken, too, really didn’t flourish until he got out from the shadow, out from Logan’s titles, and did something else.

Not Wolverines, because god knows that was hot garbage that turned into a dumpster fire, and I’m pretty sure nobody had any idea what the hell was going on by the end. It was about enough to make me throw my hands up and walk away again.

But writer Tom Taylor wisely just handwaves Wolverines and tosses Daken into the story “Immune” as a spectacular and dramatic appearance, and that makes all the difference. What went before is addressed, touched upon, and then moved past, and we see that Daken is also has developed as a person since the frankly lackluster, incoherent writing of Wolverines.

I found myself actually caring about Laura as a person, more and more, because while there is a kind of naiveté in Taylor’s writing, it’s the kind that makes you want to believe in it. It’s the way things really should be, and the way I’d like them to be, as someone who has read superhero comics for far longer than is probably wise.

Full of Character

The characters are engaging and enjoyable, and I like the fact that they also have humor in their interactions. I’ve said it many times before: without at least some humor, things are not only unpleasant, but also unrealistic and difficult to believe. Utterly humorless events only tempt resistance from an audience, and speaking plainly, it’s just silly to have a genre so steeped in action and the outrageous take itself too seriously.

All-New Wolverine, however, knows its audience. As seen here, there’s plenty of mixing it up and making things different from how they have been up to now, but there’s also a consistency that is comfortable. These aren’t the clunky female characters written clearly to pander, or to tempt people into arguments over genitalia or hormones or anything else. It probably happens, and I’m lucky not to have seen it, but the characters in All-New Wolverine have solid personalities and relate to each other like people. And nicely enough, even though there’s no such thing as black and white in Logan’s circles, the characters have redeeming qualities and make you want to like them.

And I’m not going to lie here, I think one of the best things about the title right now is the fact that “our” universe’s Logan is dead, dead, dead. The X-titles, Logan, and Charles Xavier all need a hard time out so that things can do a little soft resetting and they can slip back in and not be horrible, ruined characters impossible to like, as they are now. I think the “Death of Wolverine” thing they did around it was stupid and tacky, but I always think that of death events, and they should’ve learned this long ago: death is not an event, and killing off a character shouldn’t be made into one.

But that’s a conversation for another day.

All-New Wolverine’s “Immune” storyline places Laura at ground zero of a super-infectious alien disease and, through it, showcases really what defines the character under Taylor’s direction as a writer. It’s especially nice to see her show not a pandering sort of sensitivity, but instead emotion easy to identify with, which makes it easier to sympathize with her. It gives her more personality and character, as well as strength of character; her interactions with Daken and Gabby humanize her, which is something that has always been needed.

She spent too long coasting on nothing but the fact that she was Wolverine, but with tits. Even Liu’s stretch still relied at times on the fact that Laura wasn’t sure if she had a soul, which while engaging, is still a fairly done-to-death story. The clone who isn’t sure if she has a soul, the clone trying to determine her place in a world that also contains the person she was cloned from, the clone trying to figure out who she is when that person is suddenly gone -- they’re all potentially interesting starts, premises, beginnings, but they were most of the story for a long while. Too long.

Gabby is great, not to mention hilarious, and it really delighted me that they have a pet wolverine named Jonathan, who accompanies them on their adventures. Some might bristle at the thought of a team of Wolverine-themed characters having what amounts to a mascot, but it really makes them a lot easier to sympathize with, not to mention a lot more fun. A mascot, or even just a cute animal, is an appealing feature that, again, humanizes characters through their relations.

The especially nice thing is that, even though I came for Daken, I stayed for Daken’s interactions with Laura and Gabby. They form a great core to the team of similarly-themed characters, and there’s so much that is said between them that hasn’t been even mentioned before. It’s like nobody ever thought about half of the things Taylor does, with what he works into the dialogue. 

The title also isn’t afraid to show a bit of genre-awareness, but it knows moderation. This isn’t like the adventures of Deadpool or She-Hulk, which overtly show existential awareness and depend on (frequently absent) clever writing. All-New Wolverine is not a parody, but it can at times examine itself and shorthand that is rarely questioned and, by doing so, makes it easier to swallow.

It also doesn’t skimp on the Daken. And to be sure, Logan’s always been prone to nudity in his titles. There used to go hardly a month between seeing his hairy ass in something or other. So it’s nice to see it being used for something beautiful and even inspiring. I like the art a great deal, especially with the “Orphans of X” story, and what’s more, I respect them taking advantage of having Daken in the title to contribute a little heart-thumping eye candy.

But it’s not exploitation, it actually has a purpose and the art is really quite beautiful, like the sequence where he heals his arm back. It examines, in a way that only comics can, a zen meditative philosophy.

There’s unpleasant and violent stuff in All-New Wolverine, of course, but it’s not the tacky, gaudy, just plain nasty nonsense that seemed ubiquitous and overdone in the first decade of the 2000s. It has a purpose, and it has a role.

The Bad and the Good

It’s not all perfect, though. I will say that Taylor seriously needs to develop his pacing. Things take a long time to get moving, then reach a climax...and bunches of things happen between issues that would have been better dealt with at length instead of some of the things that were drawn out. He’s not the best at crafting a satisfying end to stories either, though it is important to note that his resolutions aren’t unsatisfying...they’re just not entirely satisfying either.

In “Hive”, which is basically the second leg of “Immune”, Laura goes into space with the Guardians of the Galaxy and fights the Brood. Things roll gradually in parts, then seem to pick up way too much speed. Events get a little confusing, and sometimes people seem not to say or do things because if they do, it will require the writer to develop those points. But in not doing them and not addressing some of them, it makes for a weaker story, with less impact.

I will totally admit, I laughed out loud at the resolution to “Hive”. It was the funniest thing I’d seen in a long time, and I’m probably a horrible person for that. It did actually give a fairly fulfilling ending, but it also failed to deal with several of the other issues brought up by the proceedings. The question was just never as simple as it’s often regarded by the story and its participating characters, and sometimes the unaddressed issues are the most glaring and most obvious when you’re reading it.

“Orphans of X” is exciting, thrilling, entertaining, and develops the characters significantly, every one of them. But it also has tacky turns and, in its extremely naive finale, seems to ignore the serious problems that it presented repeatedly before getting there. It’s too facile a resolution, and it’s one that is impossible to really accept; it can only be a temporary solution, because these people are not trustworthy or reliable, and they can’t be depended on. It makes Laura look a bit stupid for it, and it also damages the credibility of the proceedings somewhat.

But if you think about it in less of a “compare to real life” way and more of a “think of how superheroes are supposed to be” one, it’s a lot more agreeable. Honestly, it’s how things should go. People should be able to come together and make sense to each other. People who have been victimized by others should be able to unite against those others and be stronger for the experience, instead of fighting amongst themselves. Superheroes are supposed to inspire others to greatness; they are supposed to inspire bravery and courage, dignity and integrity, and all the majestic things that they show overtly, which we all must try to metaphorically exercise in things like strength of character and personal integrity, mercy, kindness, empathy, and a refusal to give up even when the odds are against us.

From Vat to Very Fond

So for the time being, I’ll just accept it that way. It’s not a perfect story, and neither is “Immune”/”Hive”, but they’re entertaining, the characters involved most all benefit from and are enriched by their inclusion, and I genuinely liked the comics. I enjoyed reading them.

I liked Laura. I’ve started to find her genuinely engaging and interesting as a character, for the first time since she came into being. Do I think she’s good to carry a title by herself? No! Not at all. But that’s also not the point of who she is. She’s not supposed to be alone. She functions better in a family, and the family dynamic is what makes her so much more interesting.

She’s fascinating in how she interacts with the others she is so close to, like Gabby and Daken. They all enrich each other, and they grow as characters in this mutually beneficial relationship.

I feel the same way about Batman, for example. There are plenty of characters who just aren’t really that compelling or interesting when they’re alone, or they’re fundamentally not likable. Batman needs a Bat-family, because he’s dull as a beige room when he doesn’t have anyone to interact with but his enemies.

Laura needs a Wolverine-family.

With Jonathan too, because he’s just too wonderful to leave out.

Many, even most, characters should not be in a title totally alone. There are remarkably few characters who can really carry a story solo, and a lot of those stories are just not interesting. Logan is one of those characters who has never been that interesting, but he’s been an extension of so much straight boy insecurity that he’s become indispensable to Marvel. In a similar manner, Batman has become so overblown and oversold that it’s a miracle when, in stories like The Hiketeia, he actually is dealt with realistically.

We do need an escape, and we need characters we can identify with, even vicariously live through. I’m not going to deny insecure people their escapes.

But I think the time has come, and I think it’s shown in the quality of the writing, the solidness of the art, and the sheer enjoyability of the whole product, that All-New Wolverine has at least a promising start of maybe bringing us something new and better in superheroes. It’s not perfect, but it’s the first title I’ve read in years that made me want to follow it and had me waiting eagerly, not dreading, the next issue.

I sincerely hope that Taylor can keep up his quality. He’s made me care about a character I despised for years and then felt neutral about for years more. He writes Daken beautifully and makes me fall in love with the character all over again. And of course, Gabby is a wonderful character rather than the annoying young character she could be, and Jonathan the wolverine is delightful.

In the words of RuPaul, Tom, don’t fuck this up!

Because you’ve made this jaded comic fan, who once upon a time was completely done with superhero comics, believe that good things are possible again. And you did it with the Wolverine title and X-23...two things that were among my least favorite in the world.

It’s worth checking out All-New Wolverine. Now if we can only have that kind of excellence in the X-titles so that people will actually give a fuck about the X-Men again, instead of being embarrassed they exist in the same universe at the moment.

But baby steps. Baby steps.

[ripple-rp-blog]

EAMON ELDRIDGE, 23                                      DADDY DUKE’S RELIABLE MOTORS

———————— “For someone with such an intense need to be liked you’d think I would have figured out how to be less of an asshole.”

On August 25th at 5am somewhere in Montana, at little boy was born. They named him Stella Eldridge. They looked down at their son and began to lay down the bright future they saw in store for him. He’d have his mother’s eyes and his father’s stubbornness. Mom always dreamed of raising a ballerina, so he’d take dance. Dad wanted a daughter with social skills, so he’d go to public school and summer camp. They’d raise him with love, and encourage him to follow his dreams. He’d be perfect and happy. They never dreamed that his name wasn’t the only expectation he couldn’t meet.

He started elementary school with a keen sense of pessimism. For the longest time, his life was mornings watching TLC with his mom and evenings playing with his hot wheels and weekends going to grandma’s house eating breakfast for dinner. Children his own age were unpredictable and elementary school offered an unwelcome break from routine. Each morning was met with protests and tears until eventually he grew accustomed to his new schedule. Once he accepted his fate, things began to fall into place.

He was never good at making friends. He wasn’t the type to say hi to strangers or go out of his way to talk to other kids. Luckily, there was a girl in his class who was. In second grade, she asked him to sit with her and her friends at lunch, and like magic, he found where he belonged. Suddenly, he had a group of friends that liked him simply because he was a part of 'them’. It was nice to have birthday parties to go to and people to play with at recess. Finally, school seemed to have a purpose!

On August 25th at 6pm at the dining room table, a little boy turned twelve. He only wanted two things for his birthday. First, he wanted music lessons; he wanted to play piano and guitar. Second, he wanted to be called Eamon; he found it in a baby naming book and when he whispered it to himself in front of the mirror, he felt whole. His parents balked at first, but they came around. They had once stood at a path that led to a beautiful, ballerina, and now they stood at the edge of the unknown.

Eamon always hated change and his mom was always trying to push him out of his comfort zone. Usually it was something as simple as switching from 1% milk to skim or making him go to yoga with her. If switching detergents was enough for Eamon to pitch a fit, moving to Arizona was the goddamn apocalypse. He didn’t care that his dad got a new job or that the dry air would be good for Grandma’s old bones. Eamon was old enough to start dreaming of his future and every plan he had involved him starting and finishing high school with the friends he’d known for years. His parents ripped this future away from him like rug beneath his feet. He was hereby sentenced to be 'The New Kid.’

No one can reject you if you reject them first. It didn’t matter if no one at school liked him as long as he didn’t like them first. Eamon set up the foundations for a fifty foot wall before the wheels of his flight even touched down. All the music he listened to was written by the misunderstood, and if he wanted to have deep, meaningful music too, he had to set himself up as a social pariah. On his first day of Freshman year, he wore all black and scoffed at anyone who dared to talk to him. If someone peaked his interest, he’d ask them about their taste in music, and if they gave a wrong answer, they’d be snubbed. Every one saw it but Eamon. He wasn’t 'misunderstood’; he was just an asshole.

Through the grace of some very patient (or at least very stubborn) people, Eamon managed to make a handful of friends in High School. Eamon was pissy and dramatic most of the time, even towards his closest of friends. However, his friends were the only ones close enough to see how deeply he cared about his friends, his music…everything. He was also fiercely loyal. Not that he’d ever be there when someone needed him; He was a huge flake and never kept his promises. Instead, his friends would always be his friends, no matter what they did or whether they felt the same way.

Eamon’s lyrical journals could stack from floor to ceiling in his bedroom. Each was filled from front to back with his neat handwriting expressing every feeling he’s had since seventh grade. At least half of it was incoherent ranting about mean teachers or dull schoolmates. His music painted someone who followed their dreams despite their insecurities. In his journals, Eamon would only give into the fear of failure for a few bars or a song. Eamon wrote each song with the hope that one day he’d write one about how far he’d come. Senior year, he packed up his journals into a box and set them on fire in his backyard.

After high school, Eamon disappeared. He cut off ties with everyone he knew without so much as a 'good-bye.’ He spent his life carrying his sense of superiority with him wherever he went, but now his dreams were sitting in the ashes of his inadequacy and everyone else was making steady steps towards their futures. Suddenly, Eamon’s entire life felt like a waste of time. There was no hope for someone unwilling to take a chance. Depression had deepened it’s claws in Eamon’s heart.

Grandma started getting really sick, so mom started reading the obituaries during morning coffee. She hoped to skim some inspiration on what to write when her mother passed. Eamon was hardly paying attention as she hummed and sighed sadly over those recently lost. It wasn’t until she gave a sharp gasp that he looked up from his own coffee and she gave him the news about Dean. That night he pulled out his guitar for the first time in months and tried to put words to how he felt. He felt like the loss of life deserved some sort of acknowledgement. It was the least he could do, but he couldn’t even write a song for a friend who had so much ahead of him. Dean was worth so much more than a dead end in his parents’ garage. He was worth so much more than Eamon ever was. Grandma made it through to the other side of her illness. The old broad still had years in her.

Eamon’s dad was disappointed. As far as he was concerned, somehow life had cheated him out of having a worthwhile daughter and landed him with a good-for-nothing son. He was tired of helping Eamon float through life with minimal effort. He reached out to an old friend, Duke Jackson, and struck a deal. Eamon was offered a job selling cars and his dad gave him an ultimatum. He’d work for Daddy Duke’s Reliable Motors and his dad wouldn’t stop paying his rent. What Eamon hated most about his new job was how good he was at it. He could fool people into thinking that he was charming and trustworthy all the while he was guiding them into buying a rotten lemon. No, he was wrong. What was worse was how much he liked doing it.

He checked his old facebook on a whim. After long days at work, when he felt nostalgic and wanted to prod at poorly healed wounds, he liked to look at old pictures and see what everyone was up to. No one had tried to contact him in years, so when he saw the little red notification, he thought it had to be a glitch or a mistake. He read the message with an invisible fist around his stomach. His friends were just more people he had grown to disappoint. Despite his fear of being rejection bubbling up, there was a part of him that wanted to see them again. He replied with two, simple words. “I’m In.”

Eamon made a half-hearted attempt at college. He was a bright kid, graduated top ten without trying too hard, so he managed a full ride at ASU. He lasted one semester before depression made it too hard to leave his off-campus apartment and he dropped out. 

Once upon a time, Eamon dreamed of being a singer/songwriter. However, fairy tales have this tendency of being complete fiction. Plans didn’t really pan out. His dad set him up for a one-time gig writing a witty jingle for a used car lot to play at the end of a commercial that would play in between segments of local news and weather. He didn’t expect to eventually be offered a job selling cars. Looking back, Eamon imagined that this was what his dad had planned all along. Now he works at Daddy Duke’s Reliable Motors pushing rotten lemons onto unsuspecting citizens who think they can spot a good deal when they see one. Eamon doesn’t really have a career goal anymore. Now, he’s just trying make bank. 

Eamon has a terrible sweet tooth. He’s obsessed with the sweet and the sour. He loves sour gummy octopuses and anything blue raspberry flavored.

Eamon might sell cars, but he can’t drive. He never got his license because he moved around the time he should have gotten his permit. He’s too lazy to deal with the beauracracy involved.

Eamon suffers from insomnia and has a hard time getting to sleep, but once he’s asleep, he has difficulty waking up.

As a kid, Eamon was really close with his grandmother, but she stopped talking to him after he came out as transgender. Eamon was disappointed but unsurprised.

Despite being so stingy about his music, he’s not actually that picky about the genre. He loves anything with lyrics he feels like he can relate too.

Eamon loves reality TV. He especially loves watching HGTV. There’s something satisfying about watching a rich, bitchy couple try and come to an impossible compromise over whether they should live in the city or the suburbs.

Eamon has two siblings.

Eamon’s near-sighted. He has glasses that he should wear, but he hates the way they look.

[miraculouspaon]

Where Have All The Heroes Gone And Where Are All The Gods?

Chapter Thirty: Emma

AO3

“Mermaids?” Emma asked.

“Not as far as I know,” her uncle replied.

“Dragons?”

“Never seen one personally, but yes.”

“Zombies?”

“Not any kind you need to worry about.”

Emma raised an eyebrow. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“There are certain branches of magic, mostly originating from the Caribbean, that can pull off reanimating dead corpses rather elegantly. But you're not going to die from a bite, or turn into one yourself. Fighting a zombie is like fighting a sick, disoriented person whose head and limbs are over-inclined to drop off. You're more likely to get seriously hurt fighting a house cat.” Not looking up, Jonathan handed Emma the sheet of paper he'd been writing on. “Check that.” He began working on a fresh sheet as Emma started plugging numbers into her calculator.

“Werewolves?”

“Nope.”

“Are they impossible, or have you just never heard of them?”

“I'd never say anything was impossible, after everything I've seen,” Jonathan said, “but logistically it’d be a nightmare.” He wrote a few more numbers down, then paused. “Well…” he said slowly, “shapeshifting spells are a thing, sure. I suppose it wouldn't be too hard to link one to the phases of the moon. It'd be very patchwork, but in theory… no, but making it contagious wouldn't work, you'd need an external power source every time a new person was cursed, it would count as a re-casting whenever a new person was bitten. Being able to pass it on indefinitely would violate the second law of thermodynamics.” He went back to working, then stopped again a minute later. “I mean, I guess it could work if each new werewolf was powering the transfer with their own energy, but you'd have to limit the pool of werewolves to people who generate enough magical energy of their own to-”

“Jonathan, have you seen-oh, there you are, Emma,” Emma’s grandmother said, poking her head in. “What are you doing in here?”

“Checking math,” Emma said. “And Uncle Jonathan’s teaching me how to make werewolves.”

Adele’s eyebrows shot up as she looked at her brother. “You're what?”

“I am not… okay, maybe I was a little,” Jonathan admitted. “Emma was grilling me on what is and isn't real, instead of double-checking my math like she said she would.”

“I can do both. Is that a one or a seven?”

Jonathan looked at where Emma was pointing. “Seven.” He looked back at Adele. “Look, now that I actually have an account of someone casting something like the Order’s spells, I can figure out how these parameters correspond to real-world locations. But backing out the latitude and longitude ranges is a little involved, so I'd feel more comfortable with a second set of eyes checking my work, okay? Actually I wouldn't say no to a third set, either, if you want a go.”

Adele shuddered. “Pass.”

“It's not that hard, Grandma, we’re just plugging these four-dimensional vectors into a couple of multivariate polynomials and then converting from polar to Cartesian-”

“Your brother needs you,” Adele interrupted. She glanced at the papers on Jonathan’s desk and made a face. “And I need to be as far away from whatever you're doing as possible, before I get roped into it.”

~~~

“What's up?” Emma asked, entering the study her brother had taken over. Louis and Dani looked up from the couch as Emma took three steps into the room before stopping. “What are you doing with Mom’s Miraculous?”

“Wayzz has been teaching me this advanced technique,” Louis explained. “Actually, it’s… it’s really advanced. Guardians don’t usually even attempt it until they’ve been doing trance states for a few years. But we thought it might be helpful, and we don’t have a few years. So I wanted to test myself, make sure it’s accurate, and I figured you’d be good for that. Don’t you think?”

Emma sat down across from her siblings and looked at the earrings lying on the small coffee table in front of her. “You haven’t said what it is yet,” she pointed out, and Louis’ face turned slightly pink.

“Right. Sorry,” he said. “I’m just… nervous. Um. It’s basically a way to see anything the Miraculous has borne witness to while active.”

Emma’s jaw dropped slightly. “Anything?” she asked. “You could… you could spy on any moment in Mom’s life since she was, what, our age? Since she got those?”

“Up through last August, anyway,” Louis muttered. “But yes, that’s the idea. But because I’m not experienced with trance states yet, there’s a risk that I just wind up imagining what I expect to see. Since you know way more about Ladybug history than I do, I thought you could give me a test. Ask me something I don’t know, some question about… I don’t know, an old akuma attack or something like that, from before we were born. And I’ll try to see what happened. If I get it right I’ll know we can trust anything else I see, too.” He paused. “Like the night Mom and Dad got taken.”

Emma nodded silently, then thought for a few minutes. “Do you… do you know how they defeated the Dark Cupid akuma?” Louis shook his head, then reached forward and gently scooped up the Ladybug Miraculous. He folded his legs under himself, took a deep breath and closed his eyes.

Five minutes later, Emma looked at Dani. “Did Louis say how long-”

“Shhhhhh,” Louis interrupted, his eyes still closed.

“Oh. Sorry, I didn’t-”

“Stop. Talking.” Dani and Emma exchanged an eyeroll, then did their best to wait patiently. They were both starting to nod off when Louis opened his eyes about half an hour later.

“Did it work?” Emma asked.

“First of all,” Louis said, “gross, you did that on purpose.”

“She did what on purpose?” Dani asked.

“Picked an incident where Mom and Dad kissed,” Louis told Dani, who snorted.

Emma grinned. “Traumatized?” she asked.

“I’m more traumatized from knowing exactly how good Dad looks in black lipstick. Anyway. The akuma was in a brooch, Dad tossed it to Mom, Mom stepped on it and broke it, then cleansed the akuma inside. Is that right?”

Emma nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. Are you going to look at when they got taken now?”

Louis glanced down at the earrings resting in his upturned palm. “Um… no, I think you’d better give me a few more tests first, just in case. I want to be absolutely sure we can trust this technique.”

Dani reached for Louis’ free hand and squeezed it comfortingly. “You’re doing really well,” she said, and Emma wondered how much insecurity Louis was hiding. She wondered if Dani was just always going to be closer now to the two of them than Emma and Louis were to each other. Dani glanced up at her, concerned, and Emma mentally shook her thoughts off.

“Another test sounds fun,” Emma said. “How much do you know about the Reflekta incident? If you liked seeing what Dad looks like in black lipstick, you’ll love seeing him in heels.”

~~~

Halfway through breakfast the next morning, Dani suddenly screamed. Emma jumped in her seat, startled, then got up and rushed to her sister’s side. Dani was grabbing her head now, still making incoherent noises, breathing heavily, and tears were streaming down her face.

“Louis. Louis, what’s wrong with her, what is it?” Emma asked, trying to suppress her rising panic.

“I… I don’t know,” he said, his eyes wide with horror. “I can’t see any spells on her.”

“What? Louis, this has to be magic, it-”

“Get your sister out of the city,” Emma’s grandfather interrupted. Startled, Emma looked over at the other side of the table. Her grandparents’ faces were both ashen, her grandmother looked sick, and her grandfather had a decisive look on his face.

“Do you know what-”

“Now, Emma,” her grandfather snapped. Nodding, Emma transformed as quickly as she could. A second later, she’d grabbed her sister’s shoulder and whisked them both to a bedroom of their grandmother’s country manor.

“Are… are you okay?” Emma asked. Dani straightened slowly, then nodded.

“Yeah,” she said, brushing her hand under her eyes, wiping tears away. “Yeah, I’m fine now.”

“What the hell just happened?”

“I have no idea. It was just… sudden, excruciating pain. I’ve never felt anything like it.” She looked around. “What are we doing here?”

“Grandfather told me to get you out of the city. I guess he knows what’s going on somehow.”

“Oh.” Dani sat down on the bed. “I guess you’d better get back there and find out what it is, then.”

“Right.” Emma hesitated. “Are… are you going to be okay here alone?”

Dani nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be fine. I, uh, think I’ll lie down a bit, actually. Call me and let me know what’s up, okay?”

“Sure.” Emma squeezed her sister’s shoulder before teleporting back to the kitchen in Paris. Her grandmother still looked slightly ill, holding her head in one hand and a cup of tea in the other, Louis and Gabriel on either side of her. All three looked up as Emma reappeared.

“How’s your sister?” Adele asked immediately.

“Fine now, she said,” Emma told them. “What’s going on?” Before Adele could answer, Uncle Jonathan walked into the kitchen.

“Where do you guys keep the aspirin?” he asked. “I’ve got this killer migraine all of a sudden, and-”

“Aspirin won’t help,” Adele told him, sounding miserable. “There’s tea, though, or coffee.”

Jonathan frowned. “Why won’t aspirin help?” He looked at the four of them and narrowed his eyes. “What’s going on?” Adele sighed.

“Do you remember that artifact the Louvre had on loan from the British Museum in ‘97?” she asked him. “It was… Māori, right?” she asked, looking at Gabriel. He nodded.

Jonathan raised an eyebrow. “That can’t be it,” he said. “Sure, my head hurts, but I’m not trying to claw my eyes out of my face like you practically were back then.”

“We’re both much weaker empaths than I was back then,” she said. “Dani, on the other hand, well. Emma got her out of the city right away, but before that… trust me, that’s what this is.”

“What are you talking about?” Emma asked. “I told Dani I’d find out what was going on and tell her as soon as I could. Is she going to be okay?”

“There’s nothing wrong with Dani,” Adele reassured her granddaughter. “This is something we’ve seen before. Back a few centuries ago, there was this artifact in New Zealand, the people of some small island had used it to identify psychics, to choose their next… shaman? Is that the right word? I can’t remember. Anyway, the thing eventually wound up on display in London, where it sat harmlessly until they loaned it to the Louvre about a year and a half into our superhero career. The curator decided it would be fun to activate, and wouldn’t you know it, whatever it is that it does to identify psychics does not agree with empaths.”

“Oh,” Emma said. “Well… okay, that’s good, you’ve dealt with it before, you know how to defeat it.”

“Defeat it?” Jonathan asked, leaning against the doorway. “We politely asked them to turn it off. They spent like a week publicly apologizing for the trouble. Something tells me that the people who turned it on this time aren’t going to be quite as accommodating.”

Emma blinked. “Wow,” she said lightly, “I cannot imagine how relaxing it must have been to be a superhero in a city run by people who actually want to help you, instead of people who are actively trying to kill you.”

“Yeah,” Louis agreed. “Sounds like a vacation or something.”

Adele sighed. “Yes, I’m certainly starting to appreciate how easy Gabriel and I had it back then.” She looked at her husband. “What are we going to do?” she asked. “It could be anywhere in the city, and-”

“It’s gotta be back in the Louvre,” Jonathan interrupted. “The pyramid was amplifying its signal. If it were anywhere else it would only have a radius of a couple of blocks.”

“Emma and I can check it out,” Louis said. “I bet if I get close enough I’ll be able to see whatever magic field it’s generating. And then once we know exactly where it is, Emma can get us in and we’ll shut it off and take it so they can’t turn it back on.”

“They must have some defenses around it,” Emma said. “But I guess step one is scoping it out either way.”

Adele nodded, then sighed. “This isn’t good,” she muttered. She slumped down, burying her head in her crossed arms on the table.

“It’ll be fine, Grandma,” Louis said. “I know we usually need Dani to take care of teleportation blocks, but I think Emma and I can handle-”

“This is the tip of an iceberg,” his grandfather interrupted, as he put an arm around his wife’s shoulders. “Perhaps dealing with this will not be difficult, but it signals more unseen problems to come. The Order is finally doing its homework. They’re finally doing actual research, instead of just attacking you children with their own brand of magic. They’ve figured out that your powers and the powers of Butterfly and Paon are one and the same.” He looked over at Jonathan. “Can you think of anything else the Order might have learned from researching that time? Any other weaknesses the children might now have?”

Jonathan shook his head. “Not off the top of my head. That was one of the few incidents that actually made it into the paper accurately back then. But… we should go through everything, just to make sure.” He crossed to the table, grabbed an unused mug, and poured himself a cup of coffee. “Now, I guess, since I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to get any real work done until you kids take care of this headache.” He sat down across from Adele.

Emma turned to Louis. “Guess we’d better get going, then.” Nodding, Louis got up and joined her.

“That first supernatural incident, with the amulet, that one messed with your powers,” Jonathan said to Gabriel, as Emma and Louis started to leave. “Did that part ever make it into the papers?”

Gabriel shook his head. “No. There were no witnesses, and we managed to keep the official account…” Emma didn’t hear the rest. It was tempting to linger, to listen to the three of them go through the history none of them ever seemed to want to discuss with the triplets, but Emma and Louis had a job to do.

~~~

The walk to the Louvre was long, but pleasant. The route lay mainly along the Seine, and Emma and Louis took it mostly in silence.

“Did you get a look at Mom and Dad disappearing?” Emma asked, after about twenty minutes of walking.

“Yeah,” Louis said. “I’m gonna look again, though. It cuts out the second they actually disappear, when their Miraculouses go dormant. And it happens so fast, it’s over in a second. It’s hard to get a good look.”

“So you didn’t get anything out of it yet?”

“I… I think they were pulled south. Or maybe southwest.” He sighed. “I know that's not exactly specific enough to be helpful-”

“Sure it is,” Emma said. “Uncle Jonathan’s working on narrowing down a range of possible locations. Knowing they’re south of Paris could cut the possible area in half, maybe more. Every piece of information helps.”

“Sure,” Louis said. He said nothing more, and Emma tried to think of something else to fill the silence.

“Do you ever think about…” Emma started, then trailed off.

“Think about?” Louis asked.

“Well… Grandma and Grandfather, at the start. Back in the nineties. I'm sure it must have seemed crazy at the time but overall they had a pretty easy beginning, right? They were adults, they didn't have any serious villains. Then Mom and Dad, they had it way harder. They were teenagers, they had to fight like three magical villains a week. But compared to us… we’re even younger than they were, our powers aren't as strong, and we're fighting an entire occupation run by people that, unlike Hawkmoth, are actively trying to kill us. They had all of Paris behind them, and we… I mean, we do in spirit I guess, but seeing as how helping us is a crime punishable by death there aren’t a ton of people lining up to do it. Anyway, it all just makes me wonder…”

“What?”

“How fucked are our kids?”

Louis’ had a split second of shock, of wondering if he’d heard his sister correctly, and then he burst out laughing. Emma grinned a moment later. “I’m serious!” she said, laughing a little herself. “If you look at how things have been escalating from generation to generation, I mean, jeez, our kids are just going to be straight-up fixing the apocalypse at thirteen, aren’t they?”

~~~

“Can you see it? The field?” Emma asked in a near whisper as they entered the pyramid that served as entrance to the Louvre.

Louis nodded, looking around. “Yeah, it's way more concentrated here.” His gaze wandered up, to the apex, and then down. “It’s a few floors down, right under the point. We can come back tonight, after closing, when everyone else is gone.”

“What about defenses?”

“The usual. Anti-teleportation field. I think I can rig something up to deal with it.”

“That’s it?”

Louis shrugged. “They’ve never seen us take one down without a Champion. I guess they think that’s enough.” Emma frowned. “What?”

“It’s just… after this they’ll know more about what we can do. They’ll know we can handle this kind of thing without Dani.” Emma bit her lip. “Every time the Order learns more about our abilities, it’s another advantage lost. We both remember what happened when they figured out my invisibility.”

“Yeah,” Louis agreed. “But I don’t think we have a choice here, Emma.”

“I know,” Emma sighed. “I just don’t know how many more advantages we have left to lose.”

[amateurwordbender]

oooooooooooooh i really shouldn’t but i’m going to do this anyway because i’m tired and i don’t want to do calc. also i apologize in advance if this is an incoherent mess

so obviously both ginny and edmund become entranced and manipulated by something/one they don’t fully understand and quickly spiral into a situation completely out of hand

and the reason they’re vulnerable to that manipulation is similar--ed feels like the estranged sibling and is bitter towards peter and susan as well as lucy for being the perfect younger sibling, while according to tom riddle (if i’m remembering correctly. might not be perfectly accurate), ginny was talking about how she was insecure about not being taken seriously as the only girl and youngest sibling and felt estranged from the other first years because she had secondhand robes

the white witch took advantage of that bitterness at feeling inferior by offering ed a fantasy: ruling over his brothers and sisters. tom riddle targeted that feeling of being invalidated by letting ginny be heard and telling her everything she wanted to hear

also they’re almost the same age (read: young and easily taken advantage of) in their respective books (just looked it up, ed is 10 in lion witch wardrobe)

the reason why the villains wanted to manipulate them was also similar--once she realized who edmund was and found out about his siblings, the white witch wanted to get to the other ‘son of adam and daughters of eve’; once tom riddle heard harry potter’s name and ginny told him about what harry did to voldemort, riddle’s motivation became to learn harry’s flaws and get to him instead

when they realize the horror of what they’ve been drawn into, they both take actions to try and stop it/get out of it--ginny tries to flush ol’ voldy down the toilet, while i think edmund protests against the white witch after she does something? (he did something for the white witch to decide to kill him right? it wasn’t just because he’d outlived his usefulness? i haven’t read narnia or watched the movies in a whiiile) anyways, he does end up joining his siblings and aslan’s crew to fight against the white witch

both of them end up inches from death and need to be saved because of what they did--when harry finds ginny in the chamber of secrets, she’s almost been completely drained of life; edmund is targeted by the white witch (i thinkkkk. i know he’s targeted and directly attacked by her in the movie but i don’t remember if this is the case in the book) in the final battle and would have died if lucy didn’t have her potion thing. 

also aslan has to sacrifice himself to free ed and harry sacrifices himself to save ginny (aslan comes back to life because of the ‘old magic’ in place, and harry doesn’t die because fawkes cries on him)

and later on they prove that they’ve learned from their experiences and become some of the strongest characters in their respective book series--in prince caspian, edmund has learned from his arrogance and is the first to believe his younger sister, while in half blood prince, ginny is vehement against harry using the potions book he found (also in order of the phoenix she’s the one who tells harry to get a grip on himself and gives him advice/shares her experience from being possessed by voldemort) (and i’m sure there are better examples than these but these are the first that popped into my head)

now ofc there are big differences in these parallels--edmund betrayed his siblings by choice and his story is really one of a kid giving in to his hunger for power my poor slytherin child and becoming a willing (at first) instrument in the villain’s plans, whereas ginny’s downfall was her naivete--she simply opened herself up to a cursed object and became possessed with no control over her actions and was essentially a pawn in tom riddle’s move to get to harry. but in any case, both of their stories are really chilling and reflect something that happens too often irl: vulnerable children being taken advantage of by older people and becoming more alone than they were in the first place

ginny weasley and edmund pevensie have similar story arcs in chamber of secrets and the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe discuss