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something-tofightfor · 4 years ago

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Magnetic; Din’s POV - Part 2 (Chapter 3)

Pairing: None... but Din meets you in person for the first time, so that counts, right?

Word Count: 5,459

Rating: None, really. Some thoughts of canon-typical violence, Bo-Katan being a horrible bitch.

Summary: Agreeing to spend time with Grogu is one thing - telling Bo-Katan that he’s leaving Mandalore to do it? Another entirely. When he meets you face to face for the first time, he’s got a lot to consider, but from the very beginning, you’re not at all what he’s expecting.

Author’s note:

So this.... got a lot more of a response than I thought it would. I’m so glad. I love getting inside of the tin can, and making Din more than a Mandalorian. We know what we can see... but hearing things from him? Experiencing them WITH him? Even better. Thank you so much for your feedback and for reading this. I want to cover a lot of the main events in this, but also would like to include some of the more ... laid back time? Because Din and Grogu aren’t always around Reader .... so there’s a lot to explore. If there are any specific scenes that you’re DYING to know about from his point of view, please feel free to send a message or leave a comment, and I’ll be sure to include them.

He paced the confines of the room he’d rented in Nevarro, arms crossed over his chest. Sure, he could have just stayed on the ship - like he usually did - but he knew that when you and the kid landed on the planet, you’d be staying in the inn. I don’t want to be so far from him. Din sighed, using the bare fingers of one hand to rub at his eyes. He’d landed early, arriving the early morning hours the day that you and Grogu were scheduled to get there, Cara meeting him as soon as he’d settled the Razor II onto the sandy surface of the planet and walking slowly back toward the town with him. He hadn’t brought much with him from the ship; just a small bag of the things he’d absolutely need, along with the Darksaber, his rifle and the blaster. She hadn’t spoken on the walk back aside from saying hello and that it was good to see him, and so Din hadn’t either, his mind focused on the fact that in a few short hours, he’d get to see the kid again after a year apart. Cara had showed him to his room, unlocking the door before handing him the key and telling him that the room was on her and Karga for as long as he needed it. Won’t be here for long. Just … here to get him. Despite his unease, it hadn’t taken Din long to fall into a light and restless sleep, stretched out on the bed in a way that wasn’t possible on the ship, even when he slept in the actual sleeping quarters. It’s the bed. It’s the noise. His dreams were filled with Grogu’s wide eyes, the swish of the Jedi’s cape, and the sound of your voice, telling him that you weren’t a Jedi, but you cared about the kid. He woke up to the air in the room slightly warmer than it had been before the sun was fully up, but Din was surprisingly alert, memories of the dream lingering. Does she? Could she care about him as much as I do? He slept on the ship, but it was almost too quiet for him. He knew that he should have been used to it - after traveling through hyperspace and the stars for so long by himself, but Grogu’s presence for so many months had changed the sounds of the ship, and Din had been reluctant to admit that after he’d gone, the silence wasn’t as welcome anymore. Instead, it was almost suffocating at times. But not on Mandalore. Not here. He groaned, standing, and began to pace again, the light filtering in through the small cracks around the windows and beneath the door a bright, warm color. They have to be almost… almost here. He knew that Cara would come and get him when it was time to wait for the second ship to land, but until that happened, Din busied himself thinking about the previous week - and what it had taken him to get to Nevarro in the first place. Bo-Katan hadn’t been happy about his decision to up and leave Mandalore to go and get Grogu, and she’d been even less happy that he’d be bringing someone back with the two of them. But it doesn’t matter, because he’s … my … “Dank farrik!” He growled the words, dropping back onto the edge of the bed and burying his face in his hands. The kid was something to me … but is he now? --- The morning after speaking to you and Skywalker, Din sought out the redheaded woman early, skipping out on his morning meal to be sure that he caught her as she left her training session. She woke before he did - always - and her routine was set, meaning that the man knew where to find her. Nearly vibrating with a mixture of excitement and apprehension, Din waited along the wall of the room that she and Axe used most often for sparring, the woman preferring the confines of the walls to open air. He didn’t understand it - the Mandalorian had always preferred to train outside, using the environment to his advantage whenever possible, but Bo-Katan was different. Doesn’t matter. She caught sight of him when she stood, reaching out with one hand to pull the other man to his feet before slowly making her way across the room, arms swinging at her sides and a sheen of sweat glistening on her brow. “Mando.” With a quick jerk of her head, she planted her feet and faced him. “You’re here early.” “I am.” He knew that she could hear the tone of his voice - even through the helmet - and Din continued quickly. “I … I heard from the Jedi last night. From Skywalker. About …” “About the kid?” There was a faint hint of concern in her tone, and Din nodded, feeling his chest constrict. “Everything OK?” “Yes.” The man paused. “No. I don’t know. It -” Bo-Katan’s eyes narrowed, but the expression wasn’t unkind; instead it was full of intrigue. “They … I’m going to get him. Next week. He’s going to spend a few months with me, on the Razor II and then I’m going to bring him here.” “You’re what?” The intrigue was gone, replaced with disbelief. “You’re going to leave? We’re in the middle of -” He looked past her, listening as the woman’s tone changed and the volume of her voice increased, frustration lacing every word. Axe was gone, the room empty aside from the two of them. I guess we’re talking about this now. “You need to be here, with us, planning for -” “No, I don’t.” He set his shoulders, rising to his full height. “And me leaving is good for everyone.” “How?” Her cheeks were red, upper lip curled in a snarl. “Leaving us to do all the -” “It makes it look like we’re really not trying anything. It makes us look disorganized, like retaking the planet isn’t my priority.” Was it ever really? “It gives you a chance to keep doing what you’re doing, and it makes it look like you and I aren’t working together.” He sighed. “But really, it … I’m showing people that family - my clan - is the most important thing to me, I’m … bringing him here.” I want to have him… with me. He’d thought a lot about it in the short time he’d been awake, and Din knew that even though it made sense in his mind, it likely wouldn’t to the woman. She just wants Mandalore. She doesn’t care how it happens. “This is The Way. I’m going. Grogu and I are …” “What if he doesn’t want to be here?” Her words were cruel, but Din forced himself not to react, even though they sent a chill through his entire body. “What if he sees you again, and doesn’t want to leave his -” “Then that’s his choice.” Din swallowed. I don’t want that. But I … would accept it. “It always will be.” He waited, seeing what else she was going to say, but the woman stayed quiet, hands curled into fists at her sides. “I told you I’d help you retake the planet. I gave you my word.” “And then you took the Darksaber.” She whispered the words, eyes glittering. “You faced Gideon, you ruined my plans, and now you want me to wait? While you run around the galaxy with your kid?” “Yes.” Din cocked his head to the side, deciding that he was done with the conversation. “I’ll look for others like us while I’m out there, send them here, to you and Koska and Axe. To the others.” He said her name, closing his eyes, even though she couldn’t see him do it. Doesn’t matter. “You can reach me on the ship if you need me. But I’m going. And I’m bringing Grogu back here along with the woman that’s bringing him back to me.” He thought that he’d get more pushback from her, more anger, but instead Bo-Katan’s shoulders relaxed, a slow smile spreading over her lips as she arched an eyebrow. “You’re the Mand’alor, you make the decisions.” --- They hadn’t spoken much for the remainder of the week, and Din knew that she was still unhappy, but he didn’t care. Because I was always coming here. She wasn’t going to stop me. Grogu not wanting to see him or be with him was his greatest fear, but even as the thoughts occurred to him, he was able to push them away. They could have canceled. But they didn’t the’re almost here. He’s almost here. Reaching into the pouch at his waist, Din’s fingers closed around the metal sphere, his breathing evening out. He’s my... aliit. It will be fine. But as much as the man hoped that would be the truth, he wasn’t entirely sure - and it had nothing to do with Bo-Katan’s words. When Cara’s knock came, Din was ready. He’d packed a small bag with a canteen and some snacks for Grogu, slinging it over his shoulder before heading toward the archway that led into town. There were two speeders waiting - like he’d requested, and Din wasted no time putting his bag into one of the sidebags, leaving the other open for Grogu. He didn’t know if the kid had had the chance to ride on a speeder in the time that they’d been apart, but the man knew that before, it was one of his favorite methods of transportation. It’ll give us time. Time to… He lowered his head briefly and then raised it, turning toward the open sky and stepping away from the speeders. The Mandalorian saw the ship before he heard it, a glint of silver against the otherwise blue sky, and he shifted his weight as he watched it land, smoothly coming to a stop thirty yards from him, a small cloud of dust rising into the air. Pilot’s good. It only took a few minutes for the ramp to begin descending, and at the movement, Din felt himself heading toward the ship, drawn to the growing rectangle of darkness. He’s here. He’s back. Before the ramp even hit the sand, Din heard Grogu and then saw him, fighting to keep his composure. Oh, you got big, kid. The sounds he made were ones Din was familiar with, cooing and crying, but relief surged through the man as he realized that they were happy sounds, in addition to the other excited ones that the kid was making. As the Grogu’s arms opened to him, Din dropped to one knee, reaching out with one hand.”Grogu.” It left his lips before he could stop it, the sound catching in his throat, but he didn’t care, and as soon as he felt the material of the kid’s robe beneath his fingers, Din’s emotions spilled over, tears leaking from his eyes and over his cheeks beneath the helmet, even though he made no sound. The kid was thrilled, Din could feel it, and even though he was taller, he was still short enough that Din had to lift him to get as close as he wanted to. Hey, kid. Welcome back. Trying to collect himself, Din blinked his tears away and stood, holding Grogu so that he could stare at him through the helmet. Without warning, Grogu reached out with both hands, Din lowering his head to rest the front of his helmet on the kid’s forehead, still unwilling to close his eyes. Oh, Maker. Dank farrik. They stayed like that for long moments, Din trying to collect himself, lengthening his breaths. But he knew that his shoulders shook, knew that the kid had likely felt it, and that you’d probably seen it, too. Wait, I haven’t… He straightened up, finally tearing his eyes away from Grogu and looking at you. She’s… He swallowed. She’s watching, but she’s not trying to get close. “Thank you.” He said your name, not recognizing the sound of his voice. “For bringing him ho...here.” It was a slip that he figured you’d caught, but Din didn’t care. “Of...of course.” Stepping closer, you gave him an easy smile, but he caught the pain in your eyes, hidden deep behind the happiness he saw as you looked between the two of them. “Of …” You swallowed hard, moving closer. “I’m more than happy to… And look how happy he is. Totally worth it.” The kid was facing you, Din cradling him in the crook of his elbow. Got heavy. “Right, kid?” You were just as good as him at hiding your emotions with the right words, but as Din watched you, he realized how much his helmet helped overall. This is hard for her. Grogu’s grip on his arm tightened as he spoke next, but the man forced himself to go on. “Your things, are they on the... are his things -” You cut him off, something that Din was grateful for, telling him that he needed to go, to spend time with Grogu, that you’d take care of unloading everything from your ship and getting it into town. She knows… knows how much I need this, how much… But as Din listened to you talk, he began to wonder how much of it was because you knew how much the kid meant to him… and how much of it was because of what you could do. You told him you understood his need for privacy, and Din made a note to ask you if you could read his mind the next time he saw you, but as the moments passed, all he wanted was to talk to Grogu - to climb onto the speeder and head off into the desert, stopping only when they were far enough away that it was safe to take the helmet off. Because I’m going to. As much as possible with him. You agreed to meet him at sundown in the cantina, telling him there was no hurry, and without speaking, Din turned away, holding Grogu more tightly as he walked toward the speeder. Your words echoed in his ears even as he loaded the kid into the bag, securing the straps. She understands. He swiped a hand over the kid’s head and then swung a leg over the speeder seat, hands gripping the bars. With a kick and a twist, Din brought the vehicle to life, turning it smoothly away from where it was parked and pointing it toward the open landscape. He couldn’t hear the kid, but a quick glance down as they picked up speed told him everything he needed to know - the top of Grogu’s head peeking out, ears flapping in the wind. This is … perfect. Cheeks still wet with the last of his tears, Din couldn’t hold back the smile from his face as they sped away from the town, the sun warm on his back. --- He stopped the speeder near an outcropping of rocks after nearly fifteen minutes, figuring that he’d gone far enough. He toed the kickstand into place and then dismounted, quickly unbuckling the bag and moving to place Grogu on the ground, but instead of letting him, the child grabbed hold of the Mandalorian’s cape, clawed fingers curling into the material. “Ok, kid. That’s fine.” Stepping into the shade, Din lowered himself to sit with his back against the rocks, Grogu still facing him. The kid’s eyes were wide, mouth open, and his head was cocked to the side, but the man could tell that he was happy. Let’s get this sand off of you. Removing his gloves and laying them down next to his thigh, Din began to brush the sand from Grogu’s robes, straightening them at the same time. Oh, wait. Continuing with one of them, Din raised the other, pressing the button beneath the chin of the helmet and lifted it off - again with no hesitation. “Sorry about that, pal. I’m still not used to…” But he went silent as Grogu reached for him, the man picking him back up so that he could lay the same hand as before on Din’s cheek. “It’s me, see?” He smiled, lips twitching into an almost grin at the sound of contentment Grogu made. “I can show you now, you know?” Din went quiet, letting Grogu look at him, and in turn, gazing back at the kid. There’s so much to tell you, pal. He watched Grogu blink, the huge eyes moving over Din’s face, head moving back and forth like he was trying to take everything in at once. I wish you could hear me like you can hear Ahsoka and your new friend. It would be so much easier. He didn’t know where to start or what to say, but he realized that for the first time in many months, he felt whole, having the small bundle back in his arms again. “Missed you, kid. When you went with the Jedi?” Din shook his head, frowning. “I know you had to go, and I told you it was ok, but that didn’t…” He trailed off. Mandalorians don’t do this. We don’t … “It was still hard.” He felt Grogu’s hand drop, and Din lowered him, the kid’s feet shuffling forward on his lap. “I’m sure you’ve been doing all kinds of Jedi things, right? Magic and making friends and …” But he stopped again, feeling as the child turned and tucked his face against the beskar covering Din’s chest. “That can’t be comfortable for you, pal. Let me -” But Grogu made a quiet noise and Din’s voice faltered, the weight of the small green figure comforting, even through the armor. “Alright. You can stay like that. Just for a little while.” As they sat in the shade of the rocks, Din realized that for the first time since the two of them had met, there was nowhere to be - no one was chasing them - and he was free to relax with the other member of his clan. You and me again, kid. Welcome home. --- He’d wanted to stay out in the sun with Grogu for as long as possible, but as the light began to change - rays slanting at a different angle over the landscape around them, he’d told the kid that it was time to head back. “I want to clean myself up, pal.” He scooped Grogu up - the child protesting loudly at the motion - and started walking back to the speeder. “You know how it is on the ship. There’s a real shower in my room here.” The Razor II had a fresher, sure, but it was small and cramped, and despite the fact that he made it work, Din knew that with two adults on the ship, rationing the water would be more difficult. So they’d had ridden back to Nevarro, though the Mandalorian had taken the longer route, looping through the desert much to Grogu’s delight before parking the speeder back where they’d been taken from. “You look tired, pal.” Din watched as Grogu yawned, eyes blinking closed. “You can sleep while I’m in there. Then you’ll be awake when we go meet your friend.” He said your name and the kid perked up, eyes darting to the door. No, she’s not here. But … is she close? Can you… He didn’t know what the level of your connection with the kid was, or what you could hear when it came to him, and that was one of the things that he intended to find out that night. “Cara’s going to come see you tonight, too.” Grogu made another excited noise, but then settled down into the blankets within the pod, pulling them up to his chin. “Yeah. That’s good.” He locked the door behind them, closing the blinds tightly and then began the process of undressing, following the same routine he’d adopted on Mandalore. By the time he was down to his undershirt and pants along with the helmet, Grogu was half asleep, breathing deep and even. You must have been trouble on that ship coming here. I bet you didn’t sleep much. With one final look at the drowsy child, Din stepped past him and into the bathroom, locking the door before he removed the helmet again. --- He was used to the way rooms went silent when he entered them; the way that people averted their eyes and found other things to look at until he’d passed. But she isn’t doing that. He watched as you turned toward them, seeking out Grogu, your eyes lighting up and a smile overtaking your face as you found him, the kid leaning forward to wave at you as Din moved through the room, closer to your table. She’s focused on him and that’s it. But he watched as you hesitated, pulling your arms back instead of lifting the kid from the pod, and Din frowned beneath the helmet. Why? “Can I sit?” He didn’t know why he asked, but when you gave him the go ahead, he didn’t hesitate, settling into his seat as you watched him, eyes on his visor. She didn’t look away. He didn’t either, even though there was no way for you to know it, and as the room came back to life, Din eyed you closely for the first time, trying to get a read on you. You started talking to Grogu, asking him if he’d eaten, and the man realized that despite what you’d seen and heard so far, you were treating it like a regular day - tone even, focus directed at Grogu, even though you were holding back. Her shoulders are stiff. She’s… anxious, but not about me.. He interjected into your conversation, letting you know that he’d fed the kid, but when you interrupted yourself to introduce the pilot, it surprised Din. He turned his head slightly toward the second woman, glancing at her before he looked back at you. You leaned in as he spoke, but were careful not to crowd him, and even though Din was speaking to the other woman, he was interested in you, keeping his eyes on your face, though the visor was pointed toward Terys. Is she trying to figure out what I’m thinking? Is she listening? He had plenty to hide - plenty in his head that he wanted to keep locked away, but he’d already made up his mind. Even if she knows everything, it’s worth it to have the kid back. Cara’s voice cut through his thoughts, and Din’s attention shifted again, watching as the woman lifted the child from the pod, but he could feel the pilot’s eyes on him, her gaze no different than the others in the cantina or those he passed on the street that were admiring the armor. Of course. He was shocked to hear that Karga would be joining you that night, and at that, Din decided that he needed to speak to you, finding out where you stood before the second part of his plan was revealed to you. The sooner, the better. Then I can… You agreed to go outside with him immediately, following him through the crowded space, the silence following both of you. I’ll have to tell her to get used to it. When you stopped a dozen yards from the cantina’s entrance, Din turned to face you, giving you a few seconds to look him over as he did the same to you. She doesn’t look… like Skywalker. I don’t … feel the same thing I … “I’ve heard about you. About people like you …” He began speaking, and to your credit you didn’t flinch, even though you seemed surprised he was being so direct. By the time he asked you if you could read his mind, Din’s own thoughts were chaotic, twisting and turning inside of his head. If she can, she’s… “Can I try?” He hadn’t thought you’d need to ask him for permission, but when you explained why, and what he needed to do to protect himself, he was stunned. I haven’t felt anything like that. He blinked rapidly as he gave you permission, standing as still as possible and waiting, but nothing happened. She knows Grogu’s seen my face, but seems to understand that it’s… she knows more than I thought she would. But when you asked to touch him - through the material of his glove - he was lifting his hand before he could stop himself. I need to know. You touched his hand and the only thing he felt was the pressure of your fingers and palm against his. Din watched as you closed your eyes, taking a deep breath, but after only a few seconds, you shook your head, the single word “Grogu” leaving your lips. That’s all? That’s all you can… It was a relief to him that the beskar he wore blocked his thoughts from you for the most part, but a small part of Din was disappointed at the same time. Another … separation. It was yet another way he was disconnected from the rest of the galaxy, and even though it meant that he wouldn’t have to carefully hide his thoughts from you every day and night, he realized that part of him had hoped for it to be different. Even … just a little bit. At your excitement about a quiet trip, Din smiled beneath the helmet, watching as your eyes again lit up, cheeks rounding as you grinned up at him before chewing on your lower lip. At least she’s excited. The rest of the conversation went smoothly - and as Din filled you in on the plans moving forward, he was surprised at the ease that you accepted his decision to bounty hunt with. I figured she would tell me it was too dangerous for the kid. He was equally surprised at the fact that you didn’t get offended when he mentioned trust to you, especially when he found out that you’d never met another Mandalorian before. But what threw him, Din sucking in a quick breath at the words, was your apology for what you figured was disrespectful by not calling him by his title. No one calls me by my title, because it’s not … not really my title. Yet. He didn’t miss the subtle tug upwards at the corners of your mouth as you called him Mando for the first time, and his eyebrow raised in response to the way it sounded leaving your mouth - like you were already comfortable using it. --- He talked business with Karga while Grogu slept on his lap, and even though you stayed quiet for the most part, he could tell you were engaged in the conversation. Wonder what Greef’s thinking. They negotiated payment, and just as Din was about to remind the other man that he’d have time for a few rounds of pucks, he heard you groan quietly, addressing the pilot as she made it back to the table, one hand reaching out to stop the woman from leaning in too close. What does she … oh. Din quickly transferred the sleeping child back into his pod, closing the top of it as the pilot continued to make her move. He didn’t look at her until he spoke, and from the corner of his eye, Din saw Cara and Karga disappearing toward the bar, leaving you to handle the situation. “I’m not… interested.” It was the kindest way he knew to put a stop to the woman’s advances, and as he looked into the woman’s eyes, he saw them flash with disappointment. It’s been a while, but… not tonight. Not with the kid back, not with… her. You stood, quickly interrupting and telling Din that you’d see them in the morning and in an instant, he was looking back at you, searching your face. What does she… He saw you look at Grogu’s pod, and Din immediately went to unlink it from his armor, but you stopped him. What? Staying with me? You were convinced he’d sleep through the night, convinced that the kid wouldn’t seek you out, and so Din didn’t fight you on it, instead settling down against the chair back, thinking. She stopped herself from picking him up, she’s just letting him stay with me. That isn’t … she shouldn’t… But the man’s thoughts were interrupted as the pilot touched his shoulder, Din’s body going rigid at the contact. He saw you flinch, too, and realized that you’d seen his reaction. She’s good. Without giving him a chance to say goodnight, or even to tell you which ship was his, Din watched as you helped the other woman through the still crowded space, not bothering to look back over your shoulder before you left. That was … interesting. He sat at the table in silence for a few seconds, but before he could get up, he heard Cara’s voice from behind him. “Pilot wanted to go back to your room with you, Mando.” She was laughing, shaking her head back and forth as she sat back down. “I know.” Cara watched him, waiting with one eyebrow raised, lifting her glass to take a long drink. “Not a good idea.” She snorted, rolling her eyes. “You can loosen up a little, you know that, right? Might be good for you.” He knew that she was joking with him - she’d done the same thing on Sorgan, with Omera. But look how that turned out. Even if I would have wanted to stay … Din lifted his hand and shrugged a shoulder. “It’s good to see you again, Mando.” Cara’s tone softened. “The two of you, I mean.” He turned his head toward the pod, still sealed, meaning that Grogu was sound asleep. Yeah. I know what you mean. “Can she …” He raised his head, once again looking at the woman. “Does her trick work on you?” “No.” He paused. “Not really. She knew I was thinking about Grogu, but -” “Everyone knows you’re always thinking about the little womp rat, Mando. What if it’s bullshit? What if she’s just -” “I don’t think it is.” He’d seen the way you and Grogu looked at each other, had seen the subtle changes in expression on both of your faces while everyone else was talking. “She has no reason to lie to me. And Skywalker… she was there, Cara. With them. They wouldn’t -” The woman raised her hands - and her brows. “I’m just … Mando, you’ve got a lot to handle, especially with Mandalore, and Bo -” I don’t want to think about that right now. “I know.” He gritted his teeth. “But the kid seems to trust her, so I have to … give her a chance.” He drummed his fingers on the table, letting amusement creep back into his tone. “You attacked me the first time we met, and I still gave you a second chance.” She laughed at that, picking up her glass and draining her ale before she stood, moving to his side of the table. “That’s true.” She set a hand on his shoulder, the man managing not to move at the touch. “Get that kid back to your room.” She cleared her throat. “Cantina’s no place for him this late at night.” She moved away before he could reply, but Din realized she was right - that it was time to go. Especially if we’re leaving early. There was no tab to pay, so when Din stood and walked from the table toward the door, the kid’s pod floating in front of him, no one stopped him. The inn was barely a two minute walk from the cantina, and as he passed room 5 - where the pilot was staying, he didn’t even glance at it. No reason to. His room was silent and dark, but as Din got ready for bed, once again taking off all of the armor piece by piece, he realized that it didn’t need to be. Reaching over, he pressed a button on his vambrance, Grogu’s pod opening to reveal his sleeping form. He could barely see the kid inside, and so Din reached over, pulling the helmet back on and pressing the button on the side to change the filter, the sleeping child coming into clear view. Hey, kid. Din rolled onto his side, folding his arm beneath his head, just watching Grogu as he slept, the rise and fall of his chest beneath the blanket in tune with the quiet snores. His helmet amplified the sound, and that night, Din fell asleep without even realizing it - still focused on the sight and sounds coming from the child within the pod next to the bed.

---

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mira--mira · 4 years ago

Note

Madara and Hashirama for the ask meme 👀

Hashirama

What I love about them:

I really love Hashirama's stubborn optimism. I say "stubborn" here bc I think after a certain point of pain in misery in someone's everyday life, in some way it is a choice to remain optimistic despite that suffering. I don't characterize Hashirama as constantly happy and he can recognize the more realistic/pessimistic possibilities, he just refuses to accept them. I have it in my notes for OoT but haven't worked it in verbatim but Madara would call him "ruthlessly optimistic " and while that's tinged with Madara's own bias, I think it fits quite well.

What I hate about them:

Hashirama is stubbornly optimistic LOL. It's a double-edged sword and I think by the time he reached adulthood in a canon setting, Hashirama was so desperate for there to be peace he maintained his "everything will work out" attitude when he otherwise shouldn't have. There were the concerns with Madara and the Uchiha, his own brothers views that he certainly should have recognized could become a problem, and, after depending on when Tobirama took on students/how old they were, the possibility of biases being passed down and a Danzo like figure coming to power. However this was not Hashirama's responsibility alone to fix. I don't think, despite his love, Hashirama alone could have kept Madara in a village that hated him and a clan that distrusted him. Tobirama was an adult and let his own bias pass under a veil of "logic" and passed that, either intentionally or unintentionally down to his students. None of this is Hashirama's fault, but I think part of the canon story being a tragedy was he was blinded by a bright, hopeful future that he failed to see the early signs right in front of him.

Favorite Moment/Quote:

"To me, Madara was like a gift from the divine."

Even thinking about it makes me melt. It's so sweet and really emphasizes how much Madara means to him. 🥺

What I would like to see more focus on:

In fics? Hashirama's mental health and how his childhood affected him. Most of the long fics I've read focus on Madara. Which I understand, Madara has an arc into becoming a villain while Hashirama is just kinda "there" and it's easy for him to fulfill a support role to helping Madara in canon Au fics. A sort of unshakeable, always optimistic stone for Madara to depend on and stop his downward spiral into villainy. But, what makes hashimada so great for me is that Madara and Hashirama are equals. There will be times one falters and needs to depend on the other, and they're capable of giving each other that support. It'd also be great to see Hashirama struggle yet continue to choose optimism and compassion time after time because that feels more weighty and important than an eternally optimistic characterization that never wavers.

Headcanon wise...this isn't something I've found but desperately want to see (and will come up in all of my own aus) is the connection between the god tree and the god of shinobi who's famed ninjutsu is wood release and who's cells can be used for everything under the sun and are specifically needed to control the gedo statue / ten-tails. 👀 Look when I got back into Naruto and only vaguely knew about the war arc plot I thought Kishimoto was Doing Something with that. He was not. I am.

What I would like to see less focus on:

This is pretty much mentioned above but Hashirama as mainly a support for Madara rather than getting his own (non romantic) arcs in long canon Au fics. Headcanon wise, this is such a small nitpick, but Hashirama constantly being the one described as warm whereas Madara is cold. The big tree can *retain* heat, but he pales in comparison to Madara's ability to *generate* heat.

Favorite pairing with:

Hashimada (Hashirama x Madara)

No one should be surprised. I can wax prose about this for days but it's about ultimately finding someone else in a terrible world that *understands* you that you can grow with and support. I'm a sucker for friends to lovers and battle couples so guess what's right up my alley?

Favorite friendship:

Canon/BoaF- Hashirama & Mito

I know Madara & Mito is more popular, and I do love their dynamic but christ Hashirama needs friends outside Madara and Tobirama and I think they'd be good friends. Canon!Mito would provide a good level-headed perspective and wouldn't have the messy, complicated history like the three founders have together and it'd be good for Hashirama to get a break from that. BoaF!Mito and Hashirama are cousins their relationship eventually progresses to a sibling-like bond. They’re quite protective of each other and gossip endlessly together. Mito’s not as good as gardening, but they do it together and incorporate Uzumaki sealing techniques for certain houseplant decorations. Mito also might know about Madara 👀

OoT-Hashirama & Sakura or Hashirama & Sai

His and Sakura's relationship is p similar to how I would characterize his and Mito's but with the added hilarity of Sakura being his "student" yet having 0 deference for him once they actually get to the "teaching" part (surprise: Hashirama's most uttered lines are "you do the thing, you know the thing, you know you just...do it. The thing. Madara "translates" a lot of their sessions.) Hashirama and Sai antagonize each other constantly and he *will* tease Sai into oblivion as any older brother would. Tobirama never reacted to Hashirama's mischief in ~fun~ ways and he felt bad about messing with Itama, who was even more emotional than he was and Kawarama, who hero-worshipped him. Sai is the perfect "if anyone messes with you I will personally make them regret being born yet *I* will tease you mercilessly to my hearts content" kind of little brother.

NOTP:

Hashitobi (Hashirama x Tobirama)

I don't do incest. At all. Even "non-incest" aus where they aren't technically related squick me out.

Favorite headcanon:

Hashirama can Speak to the trees.

Either humorously or seriously, I love this kinda, sorta, maybe not quite human power.

Madara

What I love about them:

Madara is kind and does his best to do what he thinks is right. The “kind” point is a lot of Hashirama talking/flashbacks and the “good” intention behind the Infinite Tsukuyomi. Making everyone a “winner” in the dreamworld, while absolutely insane and full of holes, is odd for a villain’s motivation. His role in the war arc is mostly focused on watching him wreck absolutely everyone he comes into contact with but I love Hashirama’s flashbacks and the glimpses of kid!Madara we get. Madara believed in his philosophy from a lifetime of pain that ended in him losing everything and being manipulated but he was still seeking a way to “help” the most people he could. He’s such a rich character that makes it easy to want to imagine other what-if scenarios where things turned out just a bit differently.

What I hate about them:

Madara takes all responsibility onto himself. This is more speculation because we don’t get Madara’s POV of his childhood or any significant scenes with the clan. However, I think this is one of the primary roots of most of Madara’s problems. If he blamed himself for mistakes that weren’t technically his, he could get into a cycle where he only blames himself and doesn’t seek help/support when he should have and purposefully reduces his support circle because he becomes paranoid that he won’t be able to protect them. A smaller issue that is both about Madara and not is he didn’t fall victim to the Talk no Jutsu, but was Madara aware of what was happening when he was possessed(?) by Kaguya? I forgot but if he wasn’t...I don’t think he’d agree Hashirama’s way was the right way at the end, merely his way was wrong. Because, in Madara’s point of view, the village may have been “better” (used very loosely) than becoming food/power for an alien goddess but it wasn’t good. It wasn’t the solution. Hashirama saying they were both wrong in some way saved the scene but Madara still jumped back to Hashirama’s dream being the right one too quickly imo.

Favorite Moment/Quote:

“What are you going to do about the second [meteor] Onoki?”

I’m sorry, that was just hilarious. We see this man slaughter an entire division and drop a meteor from the sky...two kages desperately try to stop it and it looks like they managed to succeed and he just...cool. What about the second? Really cemented Madara is Here and he is Dramatic. A close second fav is him flying across the battlefield to confront Hashirama only for the “I’ll deal with you later” line.

What I would like to see more focus on:

I really love it when fics fill in the blanks of Madara’s childhood/his time with the Uchiha so that’s always a plus for me. The other thing is Hashirama calls Madara a “fundamentally kind man” and according to Tobirama the Uchiha feel love “too deeply” so I like fics that do focus on these aspects of Madara’s personality while staying true to his prickly demeanor. For headcanons I love, love, love exploring kekkei genkai/ninjutsu/genjutsu and how they individually affect people/clans. Digging deeper so that “fire affinity” means constantly running hot/pushing into possibly having fire resistance/unable to distinguish “too hot” / or even affinity acting like a secondary blood type so even if two people had AB blood if one had a water affinity and the other fire their blood would be incompatible. Also the mundane ways powers can be used (I have some Ideas for non-combat genjustu applications that the Uchiha use and those will come up in OoT 👀)

What I would like to see less focus on:

This again kinda ties into the Hashirama segments, but Madara completely depending on Hashirama and Hashirama alone for happiness. Especially in long AUs where he’s still in Konoha but has a poor relationship with the Uchiha. That’s fine starting out! But if the fic ends or doesn’t seriously work on improving that relationship it just sits a bit weird with me bc I don’t think Madara could be truly happy in that situation. (NSFW start) The other thing I see commonly is Madara is extremely passive/submissive in bed with Hashirama which is...weird to me? There’s also a reoccurring thing where he doesn’t have a lot of experience but Hashirama does and this leads to embarrassment and the aforementioned passive/submissiveness. I understand lack of experience can be embarrassing and I do believe Madara could be embarrassed, but instead of withdrawing into himself I think he’d push through it with something close to bravado and his usual single-minded intensity, for better or worse. I do think Madara usually bottoms in his and Hashirama’s relationship but both of them are as enthusiastic about sex as they are fighting and neither is especially submissive or dominant. (NSFW end)

Favorite pairing with:

Hashimada (Hashirama x Madara)

See absolutely everything else 😂

Favorite friendship:

Canon/BoaF- Madara & Naori or Madara & Hikkaku

I really like focusing on the Uchiha clan and exploring the dynamics within it. We get nothing about Madara’s early life outside of Hashirama so this is almost completely speculation. For the angst of canon, I like Madara being close to his clan only to lose them after his friendship with Hashirama is revealed bc he awakened his sharingan over Hashirama and that can’t be easily hidden. For BoaF, a large part of it is exploring the clans’ cultures before they made the village so this necessitates actually fleshing out said clans. Naori and Izuna are v similar in personality and both live to prank Madara and annoy him, but they hardly ever team up bc they start squabbling amongst themselves. Hikakku is stoic and calm in contrast to Naori’s mania and Madara’s intensity but he keeps track of every little favor and Madara dreads the day he’ll act on them because he knows it’ll result in something embarrassing for him. But like all BoaF!Uchiha, they’re fiercely protective of one another and you really don’t want to insult the wrong person.

OoT - Madara & Naruto or Madara & Sai

I really Madara and Naruto’s dynamic, it’s very entertaining and fun for me to write and they’re both positive influences on each other. Madara gets more people to smother with his brand of affection and Naruto gets early recognition and training. Their weird non-training shenanigans (coupon collecting, gaming, etc.) also is p amusing. Madara and Sai have a similar relationship but I really like writing theirs from Sai’s POV bc he insists that he doesn’t feel close/like when Madara treats him like a little brother when he really does.

NOTP:

Madatobi (Madara x Tobirama)

Logically, I know why this pairing is popular. Fanfic is saturated with the enemies to lovers trope yet emotionally I Do Not Understand it. Personally, I don’t enjoy toxic relationships, to read or write. And, to me, that’s what a close canon Madara and Tobirama pairing would be. Tobirama tried to convince Hashirama to kill him, he killed Izuna, even if it was in war, and I don’t think Madara could or would get over that. If Tobirama has similar attitudes about the Uchiha it makes it worse. AUs exist to rewrite this, of course, but I still don’t enjoy their romantic chemistry. At best, I like Tobirama and Madara as reluctant frenemies who insult each other and try to one-up each other.

Favorite headcanon:

Madara is fire proof.

I have a whole rant about this in OoT’s author notes 😂 Sasuke’s Amaterasu should have been a serious threat when it hit him. Instead the man just lets his clothes fall off then kicks their asses. He’s fire proof.

In response to the ask game:

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ceterisparibus116 · 4 years ago

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How do you think the shows would have resolved the Matt-Karen-Frank thing. DD 3 made like Frank didn't exist but TP established Karen as a big person in Frank's life. Even if a think TP 2 made her a little OoC fact is it's canon that she wanted to run with him, or at the very least keep him in her life, and I didn't find it very platonic.I love both relationships so I don't mind as long as it's an interesting story without soap opera melodrama, but I'd like to read another take.

Hey! Thanks for the ask. This is such an interesting question. I’m probably not the best person to tackle it, though, because I’ve only seen part of S1 of TP and haven’t seen any of TP2 except what pops up in, like, tribute videos on youtube. However, if you still want my take, for whatever it may be worth, here it is!

(PLEASE DO NOT RESPOND WITH SHIP WAR TYPE COMMENTS. This isn’t about pitting one relationship against the other; this is just my analysis of the characters’ personalities. Thanks for understanding!)

First, Frank. At the end of the day, I think Frank’s character would have to change dramatically for him to be in a romantic relationship with anyone. His motivation centers so much around his family already, and the show(s) would have to be VERY careful to give him a new romantic relationship without making it feel like this new person is replacing his wife and kids. The new relationship would have to be about Frank healing—but not healing so much that he doesn’t still run around killing people, or else he wouldn’t be The Punisher. That’s a very fine line to walk.

I’m not sure, from a storytelling perspective, that Karen is the best character to fill that role. She obviously loves Frank, and I definitely think there’s a mix of sexual/romantic attraction in addition to the purely selfless “agape” love (Greek definitions, anyone?) that I think she feels for Frank. So the potential is there for her to fill that role for his sake. But…what would that say about HER character? Karen’s views on killing aren’t quite clear to me. I still can’t tell how much of her emotion regarding Wesley’s death is because she’s associating it with the emotions connected to Kevin’s death. I also can’t tell how much of the guilt she expresses is guilt over doing something she thinks other people thinks is wrong vs doing something that SHE thinks is wrong. Or what about the fact that she kept it a secret, when honesty and truth are supposed to be core to her character? Maybe that also contributes to the angst. Maybe when you push all of that aside, she has no problem killing people she designates as “bad people.” Maybe in that case, she could be with Frank without compromising her morals at all.

But I don’t know. The show hasn’t convinced me that she WOULDN’T still have a problem with killing people, even people she designates as “bad people,” in a moral sense—and if that’s true, then how can she be with Frank without compromising her morals? This would mean that, for her character arc to be positive, the show has to prove that the belief that killing bad people is bad is wrong. Which is awkward for Daredevil, because that’s the opposite of Matt’s morals. Or the show could give her a negative arc, portraying her shift in morals as a problem, but both shows seem to try to portray her as someone the audience is supposed to agree with (regardless of whether we actually do), which means Daredevil would have to suddenly shift how she’s portrayed. (This would also be true if it’s revealed that she the belief that killing bad people is fine has been her belief all along.)

Could the show do all that, and do it well? Sure, if the writers are careful. But personally, I think a more natural arc for her would be to examine how she projects her own flaws onto Frank, trying to essentially heal/discover/justify herself through him. (At least, that’s how I interpret her behavior throughout DDS2.) I would love to see Karen recognize that about herself, and reach a point where she can care about Frank while still being able to call him out when she thinks he goes too far. Personally, I think this would be a lot more powerful (and true to both characters) if they stay platonic.

And that still leaves the potential for some delightful conflict with Matt. Stories need some conflict, after all, but it in no way has to be a soap opera. First, let’s assume that Karen doesn’t renew her romantic relationship with Matt at all. There’s still conflict because, though Matt clearly respects Frank, I doubt he’d be comfortable with Karen being close to Frank. This is great to explore because Matt already has issues with letting Karen make choices that he thinks are bad, and it would be great to see him accept (as he started to at the end of DDS3) that she’s her own person and he can’t control her choices. It would also be great to see Karen be more honest with Matt about the way she projects onto Frank, which would in turn give Matt greater insight into Karen.

(All of that could also be true if Matt and Karen got together romantically; I’m just saying that for Karen to not be with Frank definitely doesn’t mean she therefore has to be with Matt.)

As the three of them resolve this conflict, it would be great to watch them team up to take down people they all agree are bad. Maybe, out of respect for Karen and Matt, Frank would abstain from killing during the teamups. Or maybe Matt, out of respect for Frank (and also kind of Karen), would accept that not everyone shares his morality (although that’s harder to write in a genuine way, because Matt is also all about protecting people, even bad people, from death, and I have a hard time understanding why he’d be willing to let someone die without redemption just so as not to annoy Frank). No matter how it shakes out, it would be great to see all three working semi-(but not totally)-cohesively together.

#daredevil #daredevil meta

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off-in-the-moors · 4 years ago

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Joseph Kavinsky analysis, part 2

aka no voice and no dream pack

Warnings: spoilers for the whole Raven Cycle, mentions of: drug-use, abuse, death, s*cid, xenophobia

Part 1 // Part 2

Before starting, I wanted to thank for likes and support, not only on part 1 but also on my other posts. I was writing this more for the catharsis, after months of seeing and not really speaking about a lot of stuff. It’s nice to know, somebody read it. Some say, Kavinsky is their comfort character and, well, he will stay with me for a very long time. But enough of that. Let's talk about the point of view, xenophobia and the Dream Pack.

PoV

The running motif in TRC is, all antagonists get PoVs. No matter if they appear in one book (like Whelk) or reoccur (like the Greenmatles). The reader gets multiple chapters with their backstories, internal thoughts and goals. This move by the author is a double-edged sword, on one hand we get a better understanding of them but on the other, by knowing them better they become less effective antagonists and the air of mystery and surprise of what they're up-to/what they know is lost. E.g. In TDT we are first told about Colin Greenmatle and what is he capable of, making him a good threat for our main characters. But when we finally meet him in BLLB, with his attitude and scenes like dissing Ronan's Latin grammar or making cheese crackers while his wife is held at gun-point, he becomes more of a comedic antagonist than a villain to fear.

But here's the thing: I already lied to you. In TRC, all antagonists get PoVs, except for Kavinsky. It's a odd exception from the rule, considering Gray Man in TDT and The Wasp Demon in The Raven King, also got PoVs. But why? There are two things to look at. One I already mentioned. By giving a character PoV, the reader gets better understanding of them. By not giving Kavinsky one, Margaret didn't give anything to make K or his actions clear or understandable. By not knowing his motivations, K is left to pure interpretations, but how the reader will do it mostly will be influenced by his demonetization. Of course, not everybody will just accept what the book tells them without thinking for themselves but most fans don't.

"Bang", he said softly, withdrawing the fake gun. "See you on the street."

Alone, this single line can be interpreted in many different ways. Is it K being angry and threatening Ronan? Or maybe Joseph breaking inside because he was proofen, he really has no one? It all depends on the reader.

Second, when asked on her tumblr, if she'll ever write anything from K's pov (in 2015, before The Raven King was published), M*ggie said she won't, because: she already explored that type of character ("the thoughts and motivations of a powerful, suicidal, creative person with few inhibitions") in Sinner (2014, spin-off/companion book of her older series, The Wolves of Mercy Falls, 2009-2011 for the main three) with Cole St. Clair; that writing through PoV of such character is emotionally and mentally draining for her (which is understandable); and even if she wanted to explore it again in the future, she would through a different character's lenses than K's.

Let's talk about St. Clair.

The characters of Cole and Kavinsky have some similarities: both are drug addicts, who are rich.

That's where they end.

Cole was a famous musician, having the stereotypical rock-star life (drugs, alcohol and sleeping with fans included) with good family relationships, while K was a son of a mobster who tried to kill him and a mother who was a drug-addict herself. While their perspectives would have similarities, there is also other problems. Cole St. Clair already got PoVs in his series and a stand-alone book, Joseph Kavinsky got nothing and will get nothing. Cole had friends that cared for him and helped him, Joseph Kavinsky had his Dream Pack (which whom we don't know what type of relation he had) and his customers who we can safely say, only cared for what he can provide them with, he tried to befriend or start a relation with Ronan who rejected even the idea of it and no one even reached out to him. Cole got his happy ending and (hinted at) a girl he loved, K got rejected by everyone and committed public suicide. (Now, I heard a opinion that K didn't commit suicide, because the dragon killed him. Here is the thing, K could move out of the way multiple times, even Ronan shouted to him to move. But he didn't. He watched the dragon fly towards him and just said "The world is a nightmare.". He choose death.)

People wanted K's PoV, because they wanted to know, what pushed him to do what he did in TDT. But, in my opinion, even if M*ggie gave K pov, she would use it to further demonize him than to make the reader understand him more. She already did write a whole post exaggerating and straw-manning the canon, just to also say "Kavinsky has a very logical backstory that leads him to this place". A backstory we as the reader never truly see and one she forgot to write into her book. At the end, she truly cared only about Ronan.

Xenophobia

The Raven Cycle is a very flawed and problematic series, there are already many other posts taking about racism, misogyny, lack of diversity and many other issues with it, but in regards to Kavinsky, I'll only touch on the xenophobia. (I could talk also about portray of metal-illness, but I'm not the person to talk about it and I would feel comfortable with it.)

Kavinsky is a stereotype of a Slavic person, one we see in American media since the Cold War, especially in 80s movies. The Evil Russian trope. The son of the mobster, drug-addict, forger who can get you anything even illegal stuff, a thief.

When describing Kavinsky, one of the things Ronan mentions is: "refugee's face, hollowed-eyed and innocent". One could argue, "refugee" has many meanings, but boiling it down, is a person who came to the country to escape and seek a refuge. Many people moved to America to find a better life, in the believe of the American Dream, and many of them where driven to do that, especially from ex-Eastern Bloc countries. Kavinsky's Bulgarian, unknown if an immigrant himself or a son of immigrants, but the point still stands.

About Blue’s comment "import from somewhere else" I don't need to say much. First, obvious: You don't import people, only foreign goods, like cars. Second: this shows, he is "the other" in the eyes of the characters.

There is more to it, then just the physical description. We need to look at the outfit he wears. White tank top, white sunglasses, a small earring in one ear and a gold chain around his neck. This gives two images: one of a typical douche-bag, party asshole and the rich kid; the second of a Slavic stereotype, especially of a Russian criminal. If Margaret wanted to make K even bigger stereotype, she would dress him like a dress/gopnik, in a tracksuit.

The thing is: M*ggie could had saved the situation if she had subverted the stereotypes. E.g. K didn't wanting anything to do with the crime live, his family was forced into by circumstances or K being the guy to get stuff from, but he isn't doing it for any gain.

The truth is, K being Bulgarian doesn't add anything to his character, except for xenophobia. (Personally, I tried to find where the surname "Kavinsky" came from. It is Slavic, that much I can tell you for sure, but the rest is my speculation and searching. My best guesses are: Russian (it appears most commonly in Russian, after USA and a use in Russia set novel) or Polish (because it has uncanny simulates to the surname "Kawiński", if it was anglicized like e.g. "Kamiński" into "Kaminsky"). This isn't a common surname and with Peter from the To All the Boys trilogy and the musician, it's hard to find any information.)

But for now, K's portray is one of the many issues.

The Dream Pack or the lack of it

The Dream Pack is the unofficial name for K's group, with whom he parties and races (the canon name is "Kavinsky's Pack of Dogs" which is ugh). They're unfortunately, a non-characters. It's bolt to even call them background characters. Their portray, or again, lack of it, leaves them as props, their only role is to be K's followers and to show K as a leader on a equal ground as Gansey. We're lead to believe, they are like Kavinsky, yet another raven boys, and to make are main characters so “not like the other raven boys”. Problem rises in connection to the previous point, out of four members, only one has an English surname.

Prokopenko is a Ukrainian surname and for his description, we get "ears like wingnuts", "crooked shoulders" and his voice as "milky with drugs". It's said he had "recently attained official crony status", and was noted being in close desecrate to K for a while. Later we discover Proko is a forgery, a dream creature like Matthew and Aurora. It's heavily implied the real Prokopenko is dead, but if K had something to do with it, is unknown. He is the only character to "chortle", which Margaret said she hates and also "fratty boys and the chortling men they turn into". From this we can deduce, that not only the Dream Pack and people at K's parties but all raven boys (with the exception of the main characters) were writen like this on purpose as the personification of everything M*ggie hates. We are also informed, he drives a Golf.

Skov, who according to a deleted scene, full name is Blake Skovron, is polish (or at least anglicized version of it). In said deleted scene he's described as "major asshole, minor bigot" (unfortunately I couldn't find it to confirm it). The only canon stuff about him is: he drives a RX-7 (Mazda RX-7).

Jiang is Chinese, making him one of three canon Asian characters we see in the series (not counting Henry's father, because he's just mentioned, same goes for the Vancouver crowd). Like Proko, his role is a little bigger. In the Raven King, after Ronan finally returns to school after a long time of skipping, he tells him: "Hey, man, I thought you'd died". Ronan doesn't respond, but tells the reader he doesn't want to see Jiang outside of his car, racing. The only other thing we know about him: he drives a Supra (Toyota Supra).

Swan is the only one with an English name, but all we know about him is: he drives Volkswagen Golf, one that matches Proko's.

(For future writers: what car a character drives, isn't a personality trait.)

With the already minimal diversity, this shows the non-Americans as the antagonists or at least "the worst". On the opposite side, we have our main characters. Richard Campbell Gansey III, who has the whitest and British name I ever saw; Adam Parrish, born and raised in Henrietta, Virginia; Ronan Lynch, son of a Irish immigrant, whose Irish identity starts and ends on tit-bits; Blue Sargent, who is half-tree and ambiguous, but was drawn as white by the author multiple times (Yes, I am aware of the Instagram post, but Margaret herself said, she isn't confirming anything that isn't already written in her books. She couldn't even confirm Adam's hair color and made a joke out of it.) The only exception is Noah Czerny, whose surname is Slavic (probably Czech), but this bares no effect on his character.

The Dream Pack are the whole communities babies, created by head-canons and fanons, their relations with Kavinsky and themselves are explored, who they are as people, their appearance, their interests... This is beautiful how many different versions and interpretations of non-existing characters is there. (I, myself also made a version for a rewrite, based partly on the fanon.)

But at the end of the day, the fans did the author's job of creating believe friend group and in the end, their only function was to show, Kavinsky is a king, just like Gansey.

#joseph kavinsky #the dream pack #anti maggie stiefvater #anti raven cycle #anti trc

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whenimaunicorn · 5 years ago

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Playing House Part 5.1

Vikings College AU, Dom/sub/Dom

This fic is so far away from canon that it should be accessible to anyone that can imagine being in college and wanting to be submissive to two hot frat bros at the same time. Read from the beginning here

Ivar x Reader, Ubbe x Reader

In this installment: Ubbe is finally getting his turn with you! Hope this scene gets us all back in the mood, warnings for mention of choking kink, public sex

Previous scene

You’re definitely distracted the entire next day. It’s Friday, and you had plans to go shoe shopping with your friends. After that it was a flurry of pre-gaming and dressing up for a house party which was supposed to be a real rager. Prior to last night, these events had been things you had looked forward to. Now, it’s hard to focus on anything your friends have to say. You float from one pre-arranged plan to the next, all the while just dreaming of Ivar’s hands, and Ubbe’s eyes.

Things had changed last night, and yet they hadn’t. The arrangement in your apartment was still, essentially, what it had always been. It’s just that now you’re getting orgasms out of it. You aren’t sure how you’re supposed to feel about the two boys now, though. And you find it too hard to explain the situation to your friends, so you can’t even get their take on it. You’re sitting together on the big couch at this house party now, and you still can’t imagine just how to begin to talk about what happened last night. You shift in your seat as surreptitiously as you can, ass still sore. You’re not sure they would get it. No one else seems to share this submissive little kink you have. It would be a long fucking night, to get these girls to understand well enough to be there for you.

Your friend Lauren bumps your side and points toward the door. “Isn’t that your roommate?” You feel a slight rushing in your ears as you see the tall blonde frame of Ubbe Lothbrok shouldering his way into the place.

“He just graduated, yeah?” asks Sonya, who’s sitting on your other side.

“Mhm,” you nod quickly. Your limbs are tingling as you can’t help but think about where his hand had been the last time you saw him.

“He’s cute.” Sonya waits a beat. “He seeing anyone?”

You shake your head, faintly. He had made some kind of declaration of his intentions toward you last night, hadn’t he? And yet if you bring this up to the girls, you’d need to talk about Ivar, too, and there’d be so much to explain.

Lauren saves you. “What, Sonya, I thought you were into that guy Aethelred.”

She leans back, contrite. “I am. I just… Oh! I forgot to tell you! Last week I ran into him at the gym, and his form was all off on his deadlifts. He was about to really hurt himself. So I went over there…”

Sonya went on, telling yet another story about how easy it is for her to talk to boys, and how she has no problem telling other people what to do. Usually you love that about her, but today it’s just making it harder for you to imagine she could understand the nuances of your own situation.

Your eyes rush back to find Ubbe. He’s already staring at you, even as he pretends to be engaged with the short blonde girl that’s greeting him. Your hand freezes before you can wave him over. You don’t really want your friends to hear whatever he might have to say, given the dark look in his eyes. And you’re hesitant to expose him to Sonya’s current mood.

As he moves through the party, you keep meeting each others’ eyes. There’s no nod, no smile, no greeting or invitation of any kind. Something deeper than that kind of politeness is going on, and it fills you with a bubbling anticipation even as it glues you to your seat.

He disappears through the door to the balcony.

You had already been hopelessly distracted; now it’s impossible to be even sitting still, faking it and nodding along with your friends. Now one of the boys is actually here, and though you can’t see him right now you somehow feel him, a seething presence dragging your eyes over and over toward that balcony door. Your heart jumps every time another body walks through it, though it’s never him.

You don’t even make an excuse for yourself when you finally stand. Maybe your friends can guess what’s going on, maybe the don’t have a clue, but you’ll just have to tell them the whole story later. Not now. Now is the time to step out onto that balcony.

The night air is only a little bit cooler than the packed room inside. There’s a trio of people you don’t know standing right outside the door; you step forward and lean over the railing, pretending you just came out the check the view, get a little fresh air. There’s no one to your left, and to your right you can’t quite see past the group of students chattering excitedly. You catch them saying the word ‘refills,’ and then they’re pushing past you back into the loud party.

Ubbe’s leaning into the dim corner at the far end of the balcony. Whoever he had been talking to must have left him out here to finish his smoke. He doesn’t say anything at first, just takes another drag, the cherry blazing on his inhale with about the same heat that the sight of him makes you feel between your legs. “Hey.”

You turn your body toward him, still leaning on the railing, trying to look casual. “Hey.”

He reaches out to flick his ash over the edge, but doesn’t take his eyes off yours. “If I tell you to come here by me now, would you do it?”

You take a deep breath, already nervous about what might happen. It immediately feels like you’re back in the darkened living room, the last time he made this request. “Try it and find out.”

Ubbe sucks on his cigarette again, lip curling into a smirk that looks a little heavy, a little bitter. He looks down at the tip, mostly burned down, and tosses it into the alley below. Then his low voice rumbles the command at you. “Come here.”

You walk over slowly. You’re not dressed as sexy as a French Maid costume now, but the scoop-necked sleeveless top and pencil skirt you’re rocking tonight are pretty flattering. Ubbe’s eyes rove over you as you approach, like they did that morning he found you on your hands and knees in his kitchen. You stop when you’re just about within arm’s reach of him, leaning on your elbow against the balcony railing and waiting to see what he’ll do.

Ubbe steps away from the wall, moving in close. The only good word to describe what he’s doing is ‘looming,’ as he stands up way too straight, way too close to you.

You let out an involuntary, nervous laugh. He’s not saying anything so you let your gaze float off the edge of the balcony, exploring the entirely boring alley below. “Nice night out here.”

“I couldn’t stop thinking about you all day,” Ubbe counters.

Your eyes flash up to meet his. His face is a little ragged, a little wild.

“The way you looked, under that fluffy skirt.”

Two guys step out through the balcony door, the screen sliding loud in its track. Ubbe puts an arm around you, not really grabbing you, just reaching for the railing behind your body and shifting his weight to put himself between you and the other partygoers.

He drops his face closer to yours, making sure no one else can hear what he’s saying. “Do you know how hard it is to hide a hard-on in business slacks?” he asked, his voice just a little reproachful. “I could barely get up from my desk all day.”

Some sort of strangled, chortling noise comes out of your throat as your pussy explodes at that particular mental image. You lean back against the railing behind you.

Ubbe closes the small distance you created right away, caging you in with his hands squeezing the railing to either side of you. One of his legs brushes against your bare thigh. “You like that? Knowing what you did to me?”

You bite your lip, looking up at him shyly. “I don’t want to make you suffer…”

“You don’t?” Ubbe challenges, leaning in closer, bringing his mouth to your ear. His voice drops low and intimate. “I’m going to start touching you now. Unless that’s not okay.”

Ivar’s words ring in your ears. You can do whatever you like with Ubbe. I can tell that it excites you, to become a plaything for both of us. But only, only, when I am not around. You had better not let me catch you with his hands on you. The new rules of the game. One of the many wonderful yet confusing things you’d been mulling over all day. But it means that you don’t have to feel guilty about nodding right now, and breathing a little “yes” against Ubbe’s neck.

A warm and firm hand scoops against your lower back. It’s the kind of touch that might happen during any casual conversation, but this one feels anything but casual. “Speaking of suffering,” Ubbe rumbles, that hand traveling down over the curve of your ass, “I was surprised to see you sitting down when I walked in here. After what I saw last night, I thought for sure you’d be so sore you’d have to stay on your feet, all day long.”

“I couldn’t bear to put on underwear this morning,” you confess.

“Really.” He explores along your cheeks, confirming for himself there are no panty lines. The injuries hidden under the smooth skirt make you exquisitely sensitive to even this light touch. Your breathing speeds up, and you’re sure he can tell from the way you’re exhaling into his neck. “Mmmmm.” The appreciative sound vibrates the shell of your ear. “How does it feel now.”

“Better,” you whisper, a little self-conscious because there are still people out on this balcony with you. A quick glance shows they are paying no attention, however. “Still sensitive.”

Ubbe makes an interested noise at that, and starts pulling up the back of your skirt.

You draw in a slightly scandalized little breath, but you don’t stop him. He’s angled in such a way that no one in the party will be able to see what his hand is doing. His fingertips trace up the back of your thigh once he manages to slip under the hem of the tight skirt. The mild ache of your bruised flesh turns to a prickling even before his touch reaches you there.

“Your skin is still hot,” he observes. He’s tracing little circles on one cheek of your ass, and his lips dip to kiss the side of your neck. “Did you think about me too, today?” he murmurs into your skin between nips. “Or was I suffering alone.”

“I-I did,” you stutter, remembering the idle fantasies of what Ubbe would have done to you had you followed him back into his room last night. His finger is so close now, to the place where you had imagined him assaulting you.

“I hardly got any work done today,” he complains, and nips a bite at your earlobe that he then soothes with a swipe of his tongue. “Just the sight of your pussy, throbbing while you cum, could drive a man insane.”

You moan a little, a tiny sound next to his ear, and hope the other people on the balcony will just go away soon. Then you yelp, much louder, because Ubbe has decided to pinch you right on one of Ivar’s welts, at the fullest part of your ass.

“Sorry, sorry!” He’s laughing at your indignant sound, but you push him away from you anyway. He doesn’t back off very far, trapping your forearms against his chest as he keeps apologizing. “I couldn’t help it.”

The two dudes also hanging out on the balcony are definitely looking at you now. You stick your tongue out at them and then fix Ubbe with an exaggerated glare. “Not nice.”

“I didn’t think you wanted me to be nice.”

The other guys on the balcony decide they’d rather be back inside the party.

You can’t think of anything clever to say. While you’re grasping for words your eyes drift down to Ubbe’s mouth, tempting lips framed in a close-cropped beard, and then you don’t need to say anything at all. He leans forward over your trapped arms and kisses you right there, bold as you please.

All awareness of your surroundings drops away. Ubbe’s kiss is firm and confident, and with just a few sucks worked against your lips as he’s already coaxing you to open up to his tongue. The grip of his hands spasms over your wrists, and he uses them to pull you in closer.

When the kiss breaks you stare up at him, watching triumph and curiosity light up his pale eyes. Then, with a playful growl, he tugs at your arms and whirls you around, so your back is against the exterior wall of the apartment. He captures your lips again, hungrier this time. Your head spins as you try to keep up, welcoming the crowd of his body against yours. Ubbe wants you bad. That much is apparent from the heavy drag of his caresses along the sides of your face, the way he can’t seem to make up his mind between tasting you and devouring you with his kisses.

“I’ve been waiting for you to be ready for this”—he cuts himself off in his need to nip at the corner of your jaw—“since Ivar first said the word ‘thrall.’” Ubbe’s teeth scrape down the column of your neck as he pins you into the wall with his hips. He’s panting against your skin, and winding his fingers into your hair. He takes a deep breath in through his nose, nuzzling behind your ear. “Sweet thing. Do you have any idea what you do to me?”

You draw in a shaky breath of your own. “I think I’m starting to get the idea.”

Ubbe rumbles a laugh into your throat, nipping at you again. “If you can make jokes about it, then no, you don’t have a clue.” He presses you harder into the bricks, his knee firm between your thighs. “I would fuck you right here if it was socially acceptable. Hell, even though it isn’t.” He starts pulling up the side of your skirt.

“Ubbe!”

“Fuck, yes,” he croons. “Love it when you call my name.” His hand slides up your skin, rooting under your skirt shamelessly. You stiffen and he slows. “Let me have just a little taste, while I’ve got you out here.”

You are just about burning up to be touched at this point. While you have no intention of climbing onto his cock out here on this very public balcony, it’s hard to see the harm in a little surreptitious finger play. Something that could be hidden quickly under the pretense of “making out” should anyone interrupt you. You make a yielding noise and relax your legs, angling your hips just a little closer for him.

With a pleased little growl Ubbe recaptures your lips, kissing you deeply as he angles his own hips back far enough to make room for his marauding hand. Something long and hard rubs on your left thigh. Your pencil skirt is so tight that he’s having a hard time getting his hand up high enough underneath it to reach the apex of your thighs. He’s also making the job harder on himself, because he’s started grinding his erection against your thigh, pinning that leg open wider and back against the wall.

You let him struggle to sort it out, enjoying the frenzied feel of his movements, the little grunts that seem equal part pleasure and irritation as he fights no one but himself to get to his prize. Even the slight sting of the way your welted ass is being ground against the brick wall is enhancing the experience, making you feel like a thing that’s been thoroughly used once and is under threat of being thoroughly used again.

When his fingers do finally press up against your pussy, you whimper into Ubbe’s hungry mouth. He pets it once, a curling slide along your outer lips, then presses between them with a twisting motion that has you crying out louder.

You squirm a little, and Ubbe’s other hand is at the top of your chest, holding you steady against the wall. His fingers find the path to your entrance wet and ready, and he slides them in and out slow, up to the knuckle and down again. You hum your pleasure into his kiss. His hand creeps higher on your neck, bridging your throat. It’s a gentle caress, but it makes you think about how amazing it would be if Ubbe were kinky enough to want to choke you.

He pushes your collarbones toward the wall again, while kissing you deeper and vocalizing his eagerness in another growl. You wonder if he even knows he’s teasing you with this pressure near your neck, or if it’s just a mindless side effect of his lust.

The stretch between your legs increases as Ubbe adds another finger. “I know you’re not sore here,” he teases, and thrusts in a little more roughly, “because despite all the abuse you went through last night, no one actually fucked you.”

You get a little defensive of Ivar. “How are you so sure?”

“Because I would have heard you, princess. You’re loud.”

You forgo any kind of response because the movement of Ubbe’s fingers is far more interesting than any conversation. Pleasure blooms up through your core, until it starts to cloud your good sense. You start moving to meet him, fucking yourself over his hand, no longer worried about appearing innocent to anyone that might step out onto this balcony.

But alas, with one particularly ambitious flourish of his fingers inside you, Ubbe withdraws his hand. Pulling his face back only a few inches from your own, he lifts his fingers to his mouth and sucks them deeply, letting you watch the pleasure light up his eyes at the taste of you.

You slump back into the wall, giving him your best pout. Ubbe grins smugly, then leans in to bite that puffed-out bottom lip.

“Y/N?”

The voice belongs to your friend Sonya. You turn your guilty head and see Lauren crowding behind her, both of them looking more than a little surprised at finding you in such a compromising position out here, crowded into the wall by your upperclassman roommate.

“We, uh,” Lauren says, her apology indicated only by her tone, “we want to go to this other party.” She flashes the screen of her phone vaguely toward you. “It’s kind of lame here.”

“Only for some of us, looks like,” Sonya observes, smiling a little lasciviously at you and Ubbe.

You stand up a little straighter, and Ubbe makes way. “Oh.”

You kind of stare at them for a second, waiting to see if they were saying goodbye or what.

“And you’re our DD.” Sonya might be glad for you and your chance to Get It out here, but she’s also not one who’s willing to let her own plans for the night be inconvenienced by a change in yours.

“Oh. Yeah.” You take a deep breath, running a hand over your cheek as you try to come down a little from this ridiculous high Ubbe was making you feel. You look up at him, apology already ready in your expression. “I guess I’m leaving, now.”

He looks over at your friends for all of one second, then his baby blues are locked back on you. “I’ll drive.”

Now your friends are crammed into the back seat of Ubbe’s hot little sports car. They would have had more leg room in the back of your vehicle, but there’s no way he would choose to drive that old beater when his own car was right there. And your girls don’t seem to be complaining about showing up to the next party in a ride like this.

You’re in the much roomier front seat, sitting on one hip so you can keep up a conversation with your girls in the back. And maybe also so that you can have an easy excuse to keep looking across at Ubbe. It’s kind of sexy to watch a guy drive, and Ubbe definitely does it with a swagger. His left arm drapes over the top of the wheel, while his right works the stick-shift with precise, powerful little movements that ripple the little muscles in his forearms.

Ubbe keeps stealing glances at you, too. His eyes are heavy with promise; you get the impression of looking at a lion in a cage. One that knows the bars will give way soon, with soft flesh to sink his teeth into on the other side.

A vague anxiety about your friends and one of your crushes together in the same car has turned you suddenly into a chatterbox, though you’re barely cognizant of what you’re even saying. As you prattle on with the girls, Ubbe’s shooting you dark looks at every red light, driving your excitement ever higher.

His hand catches your eye, dropping deliberately to his lap, palm smoothing flat over the hardened length of himself trapped along one thigh inside his pants. The sight of it sends a shock through your belly. Just listening to you giggle, just watching you twist half out of your seat is enough to do that to him? Or is he imagining what he’s going to do to you once he gets his next chance.

The urge to reach over and touch it is almost overwhelming. But the girls would see, wouldn’t they. Ubbe’s fingers and thumb sculpt around the outline of his erection, knowing you’re watching, giving you the tiniest show of him stimulating himself before he scoops it up into a less restrictive angle toward the top of his pants. The light turns green. He shifts gears with his methodical little movements and drives on.

When he pulls up in front of the next house party you’d love to linger, just staring up at him, but your friends can’t get out of the back seat unless you hop out of the two-door car first. So you tear yourself away from Ubbe’s eyes and let them climb through.

Ubbe’s not getting out. Your friends look at you as your gaze flits from the car to them, and back to the car again. “You know what, actually I have to get up kind of early tomorrow,” you tell them. “Family brunch.”

The two of them nod, knowingly.

“You good to find another ride home tonight?”

Lauren loops her arm around Sonya’s. “Sure thing! But you are definitely calling us tomorrow. I can’t take the suspense much longer. You’ve got some stories to tell.”

“Tomorrow,” you agree, your cheeks already heating up. You still have no idea how you’d explain what’s going on in your apartment.

You watch them walk up to the noisy house, the subtle bump of the bass spilling out into a louder dance anthem when they open the door up and step inside. You’re almost nervous to get back into the car with Ubbe. Or maybe you’re just savoring the anticipation, of what will happen when you settle into the leather seat of his sports coupe and the two of you finally have something approximating real privacy together.

“You’re not going in,” Ubbe says, after you’ve closed the door.

“Neither are you,” you point out.

He reaches over and takes your hand. “I’m not going to find anything in there more exciting than what I already have.”

You giggle a little.

His fingers curl between your own, tugging with a playful little jerk to pull you closer to him. He leans in and kisses you, slow and deep and dizzying. He breaks the kiss with one last little suck on your lower lip, then catches your eye with a mischievous little twinkle. “So let’s go.” He brings your hand to his lap, pressing your palm into the iron firmness of his continued erection. He leaves it there and puts the car in gear, driving off toward home.

Part 5.2 Here!

Taglist is open: @walkxthexmoon @swagmonstertoes @hanhanxx @perfectus-in-morte @xxdearlybeloved@littledeadrottinghood @persephone-is-here-omg @rekdreams247 @inforapound @creepshowzombae @tomarisela @vladsgirl@youbloodymadgenius @funmadnessandbadassvikings @trashqueenbitch @justlovelifeblog @earl-aive @supernaturalvikingwhore @equalstrashflavoredtrash @that-was-not-supposed-to-happen @ceridwenofwales @grungyblonde @pokeasleepingsmaug @hvittysmutanon @honestsycrets @wuxiesalt @thorins-queen-of-erebor @writingfromasgard @tootie-fruity @tgrrose @amy8220 @laketaj24 @lordsexmachine

#ubbe x reader #ubbe imagine #ubbe x you #vikings college au #ubbe fanfiction #playing house fic

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another-dra-anew · 4 years ago

Text

Chapter 1: Behind the Scenes!

To celebrate the end of Chapter 1, have some behind the scenes info! From various fun facts, screenshots from my working process, to explanations for how I worked out the trial, and snippets of conversations had with people who have spoilers.

Under the cut, to keep from spoiling anyone!

Fun Facts

-I only thought of the detail regarding Kurokawa fighting back (the spilled brown sugar) as I was writing that post! I just figured it would be nice to add in, and helpful to show later that Kurokawa was attacked in the Dining Hall -The exorcism scene would’ve actually happened, and I did briefly plan it, but I figured it may raise too many death flags, and just didn’t end up working it into my post schedule. Also, Maeda’s pendant he receives from Kurokawa in the prologue is based off of one of my own! -You were supposed to receive a gift from Kurokawa when her body is found, in the post stating that we’ve entered Deadly Life, but I forgot to include it when writing said post... Future gifts will be given when a student dies! For now though, they both get lumped in at the end of Nzo4s post -Speaking of Nzo4, I wonder why they were bleeding that much, and why we don’t seem to have had a casualty out of the thirteen members of current cast!

Post Schedule

Aforementioned briefly in section above, Fun Fact two! I use this minimal post schedule to organize how things will go in order of how many FTEs, Maedas general schedule, when my events are, etc etc! It’s helpful to have that as a reminder, especially when I’m writing Maeda’s selections for where he’ll go! Look at what I had for Chapter 1 at the very end!

Victim + Culprit

In most Beta drafts, Kurokawa actually lived to the end, or at least Chapter 4! Once I had her and Inori set to die in Chapter 1 though, that stayed the same, even as minor revisions were made. Kurokawa was generally set as traitor, or was up to something strange, even taking canon Kisaragis place at one point, while Inori just rotated as I needed her too- she was Chapter 3 killer for a bit though. Chapter 1 was the very first chapter I finalized for who would die, the others continued to shift around some, but once I had this one down the way it is now, I was finished!

Case

Did anyone notice Maeda’s lie that got uncaught? He claimed everyone had given their alibi, and only a few were verifiable- but we never asked Higa or Mekaru about their alibis. There was originally a scene wherein Tsurugi returned to his room, which would help prove his innocence later, as Tomori accompanied him, and didn’t see any guns. I made numerous mini post schedules throughout the trial trying to outline just what I’d do next, but I ended up deviating from all- at one point, you’d have had the first rebuttal showdown against Yamaguchi,

Motive

I figured it’d be fun to put a spin on the typical “Oh noooo, your loved one” motive; the motive was specifically designed to target Inori, as she was while not the one most likely to solve murders, the one most likely to prevent a death, due to her medical skills. Other characters are decent at First-Aid, but Inori stands alone as the sole person equipped to fix, let’s say, a stab to the spine, or to the lung. Here’s the full list of who everyone saw in their videos! Sibling(s): Maeda, Kurokawa, Maki, Uehara, Yamaguchi, Iranami Friend(s): Mekaru, Taira, Parent(s): Otori, Higa, Full family: Tsurugi, Kobashikawa, Tomori, Hatano No one: Inori

Execution Tidbits

The title (Adam of Loving Labor) is inspired by a line from Frankenstein! “I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel.” The original execution concept for Inori involved her operating on herself, being told that if she could save a certain amount of peoples lives, she’d be able to leave, having made up for what she had done, but she’d have to provide her own blood, organs, etc, in order to do it: However, upon removing the needed parts, it’d be revealed that she’d only help create more humanoid Monokumas. After an attempt to run while still extremely weak, she’d die of blood loss, and collapse, before being discarded of in some sort of way, with her corpse left to stay there, no one caring to come get her and mourn, showing how she was truly just disposable (in her view.) My decision to re-include Inori being operated on/having her organs used was really last minute- as I was finishing up her motive video post. For months, it would’ve ended with her dying as patient pushed her, due to wounds she had sustained while operating on him.

Quotes

From when it was thought Tsurugi was dead: “BRUH” “tfw everyone likes the optimism twink more than u so u try and get them all killed by killing him first” minor gore/head/brain trauma tw, in italics, skip whats italicized if that’d trigger you!: “haruhiko stomped on tsurugis head with his boots, thats what caused the wound” “how * stomp* dare * stomp* you * stomp* beat * stomp* teruya * stomp* you * stomp* bitch * stomp stomp stomp*" “haru walkin round the halls with tsurugi brain matter on his gucci boots “ all from one person - “shaFUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK /// AHHHHHH /// TSU!!!!!!!!!! /// FUCK YOU. IVE GENUINELY NEVER BEEN SO CRUSHED BY A CHARACTER DEATH BEFORE When it was discovered he was alive “MY SWEET BOY? HEZ ALIVE” “HE NEEDS HELP BUT IF WE GO WHAT IF HE DIES ALONE WAAA” “i was originally gonna post the "tsu is fucking dead" post and then the investigation post right after it but. decided a few hours of pain is good for the soul”

Misc

I’ll take note of some more of these to include next time, but a line from Tsurugi, vs what it was when I was drafting the post, and didn’t write it out in full: Tsurugi - Hey, can everyone stop for a sec? It’s overwhelming to have that kinda reaction and attention on you, especially when already breaking down. Tsurugi - …Good, good, thank you all! Now, Maeda? You hear me okay? Look at me if you can; you don’t have to make eye contact, just look over here. Versus Tsurugi - maeda. stop being a bitch My favorite characters to write during trial: Inori, Higa, Tomori, Maeda My least favorite characters to write during trial: Tsurugi, Hatano It was nice to explore Inoris dialogue, and how she’d try to subvert the trial to point fingers at someone else, and then setting up the other characters reactions and the like was very fun! I Hate Writing Hatano. I’m stupid and always forget her characterization so she feels bland, and like she doesn’t stand out... I redesigned her some, but right as the trial came to close... Then with Tsurugi, I worried too much about him coming across as a all-knowing character there to save the day.

Screenshots

i actually dont have anymore screenshots whoopsie 3 anywayss be on the lookout for more stuff ™ coming your way soon!

#dra #behind the scenes #dra behind the scenes #spoilers

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veryvincible · 4 years ago

Note

Do you think you could share some of your Tony Ty youth/relationship days hcs? hehe

Yours truly,

Tys obsessed fan

Oh boy! I have been sitting on this for a few days now, because there is, uh, a lot. Also, I adore you, and I love every Ty ask I receive.

I think this post would end up far too long if I responded the way I desire to in my heart, so I’ll keep it relatively simple (edit: it did not stay relatively simple, and also it branched out slightly into other topics. This is so very long. Be warned.)

Content warnings here for psychological/emotional abuse/domestic abuse/child abuse!

I like to think they didn’t really have a “let’s get together!” moment. I think they ended up becoming close, they were casual with each other, and it just kind of... became what it became. I think they probably ended up using labels at some point, but I don’t think there was ever an official, “Would you like to go out on a date with me?” or “Would you want to be, like, boyfriends?” moment.

I think Tony was a generally isolated kid (obviously, he gained acquaintances like Bruce and potentially Reed as he grew older, but you know) and Ty was... probably also a generally isolated kid. Ty may have had a few other “friends” around, given what we know about him; he’s certainly charismatic. I don’t think Ty would have really developed close friendships with many people, though, given that his personality seems more rotten the closer you get to him.

We don’t see a lot of their childhood together at all, so this is almost entirely shit I’ve come up with for the sake of fic writing and general note-taking for the sake of coherency with how I write Ty, but.

One thing I tend to lean toward is the idea that Ty had kind of an awful home life. This isn’t really an, “Aw, boo, so sad, what a tragic man,” sort of thing so much as it is that... I think Ty and Tony are at their most interesting when they’re contrasting forces, and the idea of Tony (a victim of abuse who broke the cycle) becoming friends with Ty (a victim of abuse who perpetuates the cycle) at a young age, not in spite of their differences but because of them, is something I really like to think about.

We don’t actually get much of Ty’s parents in canon-- they’re kind of implied to be, like, Fine Parents. They’re contrasted with Howard Stark, who pulls the shark-eat-shark business motherfucker thing and basically causes Mr. Stone’s business to, like. Drown, or whatever. You know. The contrast there is implied, and I respect that for what it is. That being said, that’s not what interesting for me to write, and as such, I’ve chosen to tweak these little details for the sake of my more personalized (and slightly more self-indulgent) fic writing experience.

I think there’s a lot of potential in considering the differences between how they act at home as opposed to how they act with each other, too. I think Home Tony is generally apprehensive and subdued, but more uncertain and anxious than outright fearful 24/7. In IM Vol. 1, Howard was shown to be unpredictable; we got to see a lot of bad, but there were also sparkling moments wherein they seemed to be bonding as a father-son duo, and Tony would actually get to work with his father and learn from his father. I think that very well could have exacerbated the anxiety he felt, because he’s not being taught to never touch anything ever-- he’s being taught that there are very specific circumstances under which he’s able to explore as he’d like to, and those circumstances are 1) virtually impossible to accurately predict and 2) subject to change at the drop of a hat. So, Tony has been shown to be at least a little bit capable of testing the waters with what he’s allowed to do in the house and what he’s not allowed to do. That doesn’t make it any less anxiety-inducing, it just makes him a tiny, tiny bit of a more active child than one who’s constantly paralyzed.

Home Ty, to me, would be the opposite-- he is fearful 24/7, and as such, his behavior as a child is kind of... flawless, at least in the eyes of parents who think that children should be seen, not heard (and sometimes not even seen). I think both of his parents were abusive-- his father more so than his mother, but certainly both of them, if only because I think it would be yet another nice contrast between him and Tony, whose mother wasn’t perfect but certainly tried harder and felt more for Tony than Howard did. I like to think Ty was kept on a very short leash at home; boundaries were predictable, there were no “glimmering moments” he could grasp onto in order to make him feel like there was ever a chance of having normal family dynamics, and he was too afraid to really... do anything about it.

In contrast, I think Boarding School Ty was probably a lot pushier, a lot more risk-taking, and generally just... took up more space. I think he was still pretty fearful of authority and nervous about punishment, but he was well aware of the fact that this was distinctly different from being at home and that most people at school didn’t give a flying fuck about him. It likely could have been both liberating and anxiety inducing for someone so used to being around people who found it important to control him. I think he was probably pretty manipulative at this point, but I don’t think it was at the point where you would point to him and go, “Oh, what a fucked up, toxic person!”, especially since he was, like... a little fucking dude. Like, a fucking young’un. But I think the seeds were sort of planted here, and given that he had no healthy relationships to model himself after, he worked off of the assumption that in order to have control as opposed to being controlled, he needed to 1) possess things, 2) protect them aggressively, and 3) make sure his authority wasn’t threatened.

Boarding School Tony (from what little we’ve seen of him, though we can imagine he was probably similar to pre-boarding school Tony for a while, just with more Issues now) was probably the opposite-- less willing to take up space and less willing to take risks. It’s not unimaginable to assume that he might have thought his (extremely) mild exploratory tendencies might have had something to do with the abandonment, and he very well could have adjusted accordingly; if him causing trouble for people was what pushed his parents to leave him, he would very simply not cause trouble. A lot of this is nabbed from Adult Tony tendencies, wherein pretty much everyone else is prioritized over himself and he’s practically incapable of finding himself worthy of anything at all.

It’s the classic “extrovert friend-adopts an introvert” trope, except... it’s a severely damaged child feeling gutsy enough to finally, finally take up space and find something to possess and control for his own for once... friend-adopting a severely damaged child who very likely feels like the best way to proceed in relationships is to very clearly identify boundaries, figure out what it is the other person wants from him, and try to adhere to those desires as much as he’s able.

Of course, canon portrays the relationship as a “friendly rivalry” that Ty takes much more seriously than Tony does. From what we’ve seen of Tony, though, Tony doesn’t actually want to be better than anyone. In fact, he tries his best to make it seem like the opposite. He treats everyone like they’re on the same level, he tries to simplify the concepts he’s explaining so no one feels inferior to him, and, generally, he just... isn’t much of a braggart. That isn’t to say competitive/proud people can’t be kind and gentle and want to level the playing field often, but in Tony’s case, it seems that competition is best for two things: 1) having two intelligent, capable people trying to outdo each other and, in the process, creating better and better technology for the betterment of society at large, and 2) lighthearted fun.

For Ty, it very clearly wasn’t just lighthearted fun, and I think most of their childhood rivalry would have become formulaic at a point: Tony would put a good amount of effort into their competitions, but if it seemed that Ty was lagging behind too much, Tony would simply back off and let things even out. I don’t think Ty was predictably a sore loser; in fact, I think he was unpredictable, and I think a part of Tony that had only known life to be unpredictable found some level of sick comfort in that.

For Tiberius Stone specifically, I tend to read more into the unintended consequences/implications of his character based on one-off lines that... weren’t really intended to say much. The story canon gives us isn’t incohesive, exactly! It’s a pretty good story, especially if you’re not hellbent on analyzing character motivations. There’s just a lot about Ty that doesn’t seem very stable. Obviously, he’s not a stable person, given that he, uh, freaked the fuck out and tried to take over the world. But when I say Ty doesn’t seem very stable, I mean his character doesn’t seem the most stable at a second glance; we’re given conflicting accounts about his motivations, his intentions, his past, and even what he’s trying to do in the moment. And some of these inconsistences can be found in dialogue from Ty’s own mouth.

Now, if you read into it from a point of view that’s canon-adjacent as opposed to canon-compliant (i.e., assuming there’s much more of a story there than canon offers, and canon’s “case closed!” for the timeline of Ty’s life isn’t actually a closed case), you can gauge not only some level of dysregulation, but also... a level of delusion, almost. Ty seems disconnected from reality, but it’s not like there’s one single alternate timeline of events that’s cohesive in his head. It feels like his view of the world and, most importantly, himself (and this is excluding dialogue wherein he’s explicitly lying to Tony in order to manipulate him).

Most notably, we can kind of gauge fluctuations in his own views of his self worth. He engages in constant competition with Tony, he refuses to come back to America after leaving until he’s more successful than Tony, and pretty much everything he does is to prove he’s better than Tony. So, he thinks he’s better than Tony, right?

Well, not really. Because so much of his life was spent with the understanding that he wasn’t better than Tony. That was the whole reason he was gone for so long. He said he’d come back once he’d beat Tony, and... he still hadn’t beaten Tony. The beginning of the narrative leads you to assume that he thinks his big victory was being richer somehow, but it was all a set-up to bait Tony into Dreamvision. He comes across like he wants to kill Tony at first, and when that doesn’t work, he wants to... keep Tony. Like a pet, almost. But he also wants Tony to... kill him?

It’s a lot. It’s messy. It’s inconsistent. And that’s kind of what’s interesting about it. It (unintentionally, probably) suggests that Ty doesn’t have consistent motivations, which is something you do see often in people who are in survival mode in environments that don’t necessarily warrant it. It suggests a psychological wound that’s easy to poke at.

Essentially, Ty just comes across as very... hurt. Which, y’know, doesn’t justify shit and doesn’t make him any better of a person, but it provides the opportunity for some interesting narratives to sprout. Figuring out all the ways that Tony could unintentionally pick at this psychological wound of his and all the ways Ty could poorly respond is neat, I think, and I feel like these kinds of narratives tend to be very... raw, I guess, is the word I’m looking for. They just kind of hit hard, especially for those who have experienced similar situations.

It’s just something that’s terribly common in abusive relationships-- any implication that the traumatized abuser is doing something wrong can be a trigger for a borderline nervous breakdown, which makes communication practically impossible and, if the victim of the abuse feels obligated to stick around or take on the role of caretaker, turns the relationship into a cycle of insecurity and misery on all fronts. That’s not to say the abuser and the victim are suffering equally or are equally justified/valid, but it is a kind of relationship dynamic that can be incredibly cathartic to both write and read, and it’s also just... I don’t know. It just, as the kids say, hits different.

So, rewinding about four paragraphs there (whoops, this is getting long), I think most of my feelings about youth/relationship days Ty/Tony kind of center around this concept of two suffering people handling their trauma in totally opposite ways. I think it’s especially interesting to look at it from the point of view of them as younger adults (or teenagers, or children) who aren’t so set in their ways quite yet. You see these redemptive qualities and you see these children and these teenagers who are so, so ready to be helped and saved and cared for, but with the knowledge that they just... don’t get that. Not for a long time, at least.

It can feel fatalistic from a narrative standpoint, and... I mean, it kind of is. There are very few circumstances under which I could see Ty getting a redemption arc of any kind, and that’s kind of what makes a younger Ty so tragic. Everything he does is born of insecurity and anger, and everything Tony does is born of insecurity and love.

I think (for a short period of time, at least), they molded each other. Ty’s anger and competitiveness only solidified Tony’s inferiority complex and Tony’s inability to really, genuinely stand up against Ty in a way that would make any lasting meaningful changes only cemented the idea in Ty’s head that this was an acceptable way to be.

Now that that’s out of the way, here are some more simple and concise headcanons, because you asked for them and I’m sorry this became so terribly long and broke off in so many different directions:

- I think Tony and Ty bickered a lot as they got older. I don’t think Tony was totally incapable of standing up for himself, but I do think Tony probably had a tendency to call Ty out in the moment, and when Ty became too agitated and too unreasonable, Tony just left it alone and let it settle.

- I think Ty can play house extremely well. He probably remembers all of Tony’s favorite foods, favorite songs, favorite fabrics, favorite... I don’t know what other favorite things you could have, but you get my point. I don’t think he always used this information, but I think it would be incredibly important for him to know how to make someone feel loved, even if he didn’t always employ these methods (and in some cases, may have actively withheld certain kindnesses as acts of pettiness). I think it was also incredibly important for him to know Tony’s dislikes, for... obvious reasons.

- As I said before, I think Ty had a tendency to become terribly dysregulated; I think he was more than capable of both premeditated manipulation and unintentional manipulation. I think he very likely could have fallen into a spiral of thoughts that could make it pretty clear just how easily his self worth and his view of Tony’s worth fluctuated.

- Tony’s just... a stronger person than Ty. That’s a given. That’s been proven. And I think a lot of Tony’s willingness to put up with Ty would have come from this idea that he was more resilient and Ty was more fragile and volatile, so if Ty needed to take shit out on him every so often, that was fair enough.

- Another factor that may have played into Tony’s tolerance of Ty’s behavior in their youth (which, again, wasn’t nearly as awful as what Ty did as a grown ass man, given how Tony responded to Ty post-Dreamvision and how he pretty much immediately broke things off-- though, I very much enjoy the concept of Tony making some effort to make amends and Ty failing to meet him in the middle yet again) could have been the fact that it feels like Ty probably didn’t have a lot of other friends at all, especially not close friends. I think Tony would very much carry the weight of this “Maybe I’m the only person in the world who loves him” mindset. He values human life quite a bit, and I believe that even on a less intimate scale, if Tony tried to view the situation through the perspective of an outsider, he would still feel terribly, terribly saddened by the very human tragedy of being forced to take more than you can reasonably handle and becoming difficult to redeem as a result of this-- not because there’s no good left in you, but because you’re so frightened by the idea of even touching the trauma that you can’t force yourself to acknowledge you have a problem to begin with.

- I don’t think Ty feels the same comfort and warmth from physical contact that most people do, not because of anything innate (i.e. a natural preference), but because the only physical contact he received for a long, long time was, uh... Awful! That being said, I think he enjoys physical contact on the basis of being the center of attention, and he probably initiated physical contact quite a bit. I think Tony’s very big on physical contact, and Ty would very much play into Tony’s preferences here, too. Just to make himself seem like a better, more attentive boyf.

- This one is less tragic-- I think Ty and Tony get pretentious together! While I adore in-canon comparisons between Tony and the rest of high society, I also think a long-forgotten part of Tony’s character in fanon is the fact that he really does fit in with a more yacht-having crowd just as much as he fits in with your average Joes. He was raised by them and with them, after all, and his education was shaped by this. Of course he doesn’t love a lot of the culture around it, but with regards to the more harmless aspects of being a privileged kid in the environment he was in (the experiences one might have that aren’t inherently negative, that is, like having certain extracurriculars or being exposed to certain educational content), I think Ty and Tony really mesh here. Tony’s sense of humor with Ty would be totally different from his sense of humor with someone like Steve, which would also be totally different from his sense of humor with someone like Rumiko. Tony’s incredibly well-rounded, and I think he could match Ty’s Classics-loving, borderline classical theater kid tendencies very well.

- This one is 100% headcanon, based on virtually nothing other than, like, one comic panel... that isn’t even awesome evidence. It’s just a personal hc. I think Ty’s gay. Like, obviously, he’s gay for Tony, w/e. But I think Ty’s gay as in, Ty is exclusively attracted to men. The only women he ever had eyes for (or showed interest in) were the women that Tony had shown interest in/dated first, implying that there’s more of a possessive/competitive aspect than anything really... genuine. Of course, that doesn’t mean he can’t be bi, pan, or anything else (or straight, obviously, but this whole post is about him and a guy he likes to fuck, so that doesn’t really fit into the theme, here), but I prefer to write him as someone who’s only really interested in men (Tony specifically), and I prefer to write Tony as a bisexual man with a preference for women. This wasn’t really intended to be a big contrast between them; I had the headcanon for Tony already set in stone (haha), and for a long while I wrote Ty as a bi man, but recently I’ve kind of shifted things around to better accommodate my feelings about these characters.

- I love, love, love tattooed Ty. Get this man a quote in Latin on the base of his neck. Get this man some symbolic tattoos. Let this man be a poet who simultaneously wants to appear profound for appearances and wants to have these symbols on his body just because he likes them, and he likes to look at them, and they feel reflective of who he is. I have very specific Ty tattoo thoughts that I do not remember at all, but this is the gist of it.

- I think Ty handles the “normal” adventurous stuff, but he’s far more of a, uh... I don’t know, a pussy? than Tony is. Tony deals with actual threats; Ty deals with fake, stupid threats. Ty is the guy who rids the dorms of cockroaches when Tony’s too afraid to and Tony is the guy who handles home invasions.

- I think the vast majority of Ty’s abuse is emotional/psychological, not only because this is what comes most naturally to him and it’s easy for him to fall into these manipulative tendencies without necessarily thinking about it, but also because physical abuse would cross a line for him in his head that would be very difficult to ignore. I think, if you take into consideration how volatile he seems, his flip-flopping back and forth between how he feels about both himself and Tony could become more exaggerated and more severe, possibly leading to an irreversible breakdown of his psyche. I think there could very well be an, “Oh, I’ve become my father” moment if that were to happen, which is exactly why it doesn’t happen. Ty’s too wrapped up in this idea that, so long as he doesn’t cross that line, everything he does can still be justified. Which is garbage.

- Tiberius did not like Sunset Bain. Sunset Bain did not like Tiberius.

There’s a lot more that comes to mind, but this is already upwards of 30 paragraphs, and I, uh. Do not want to make this longer than it already is! So, do with that what you will.

Again, obligatory note here that this is canon-adjacent and canon-inspired, but not an analysis of canon material in the sense that I’m attempting to pick apart what the intents of the writers were. What canon provides is much more straightforward. These are headcanons, this is for funsies, and a lot of less important background details have been tweaked for the sake of the narratives that I, as a fanfic writer, would like to write and see written.

Thank you so much for the ask! This was legitimately so nice to write. I rarely ever get to spam about this, which is very likely why there’s just so much text every time I receive an ask like this, but. Again, it was very nice and I’m very grateful for you, anon.

#obligatory note here asking people to please not come into my askbox telling me about how much they hate-#- even the slightest implication that there might possibly be a single abuser out there not 100% rotten to their core #i have received. a lot of asks like this #and again as a victim of abuse whose views do not align with this it is so so so distressing to receive these #once more i am not saying anyone is wrong to believe what they believe #or to process things how they process things #but please please please don't ask me again and again to explain why exactly it is so draining for me to respond to these asks #you are valid! you deserve health and recovery and happiness and you need to do what you need to do to get that!#but please extend the same kindness to me and allow me to have my little corner of fandom wherein i also am able to find myself represented #tiberius stone #tony stark #cassks #abuse tw #abuse #child abuse tw #child abuse #long post #tyny

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grandcollections · 4 years ago

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by @bonearenaofmyskull

Summary:

While isolated from the rest of humanity as they escape the United States on their own sailing vessel, Will grapples with what he wants out of his renewed relationship with Hannibal.

Comments:

God, what a lovely, perfectly measured, somber post-fall fic. This is one out of maybe three perfectly executed post-fall fics that are my personal canon. This one... oh, THIS one!!!.... A somber sailboat fic composed of quiet moments and introspection, surprisingly short considering the amount of emotion and resolution it packs in its small real estate, it's the perfect fic to read the very night after you finish the last episode of Hannibal for a good, cleansing cry and a full heart before you go to bed.

Will had been afraid those few weightless moments: afraid and at peace, warmed by Hannibal’s body in his arms, and it had been so right. Right that they should die there together, right that they had killed together, right that Hannibal had known what was coming and still given himself over to Will as they stood on the eroding edge together. It was right when Hannibal’s arms tightened— desperately, compulsively— around Will. In those moments, Will had loved him more than he could reckon.

But here was Will, only a few feet away from him, his fingers thoughtlessly caressing the silver circle of wheel with just the pads, gripping, releasing. There he was, the toes on one foot curling and pressing into Cetus’s decking, his bare feet peeking out from new linen pants, slightly too long without shoes on. There—impossibly there, undeniably there, inconceivably there. Close enough to touch, if Hannibal reached for him. Hannibal stored him up in his mind, in a room encompassing all the oceans of the world.

“You are so consistently insistent," Will said. Hannibal smiled. "And you so persistently resistant."

TLDR: The writing is exquisite— the tone belongs to the show, pairs perfectly with it. It’s full of restrained sensuality, has an amazing grasp on nautical terminology, a mastery of setting the scene in the loveliest way possible, and a real grasp on Hannibal-esque dialogue that was so, so satisfying. It treats both Hannibal and Will individually with such respect; Hannibal’s yearning and penchant for manipulation and his constant pushing, Will’s reservations and melancholy and frustration. Both of their fears and their pain. Hannibal is allowed to be vulnerable and afraid (while giving us heaps of pining and possessive Hannibal) and Will is allowed to be strong in a way that rings true to both their characters. It highlights the bitterly circular nature of their relationship, the way pain and tenderness seem to always be intertwined. The fic has so much angst and little resolution (just how I like it— a bitch likes blue balls). What’s unique about this fic is how it refuses to shy away from any facet of the twisted, tremulous place Hannibal and Will would be post-fall — the immense confusion, the yearning and learning and re-learning, the sea of blood and betrayal between them. This fic is not an ending; it’s a beginning, and that’s its true strength.

(much) more detailed review below the cut!

I'll talk about the writing first! (I'm being shockingly coherent here considering how much I incoherently screamed while reading/ in the fic comments). The TONE! is literal perfection. IMMACULATE. Only a few paragraphs in and I felt like I was watching the show, I FELT the bond between the show and the fic. The aesthetics matched — a feat, as the author manages to do that with such tight, contained writing while the aesthetic of the show is outrageously, extraneously beautiful. At no point does this author resort to flowery writing or extraneous detail— every word is measured, purposeful, bare, yet bursting with feeling.

This translates to one of my favorite aspects of the writing: its restrained sensuality. I say “sensuality” instead of “sexuality” because that’s what it is— gentle, but roiling eroticism, barely communicated in the slightest of details:

He became slowly conscious of Hannibal’s steady gaze on him as he moved. He halted as he came to his door, hand on the latch. Somewhere in the back of his mind those words echoed again—Is Hannibal in love with me?—and Bedelia’s measured tones as she answered... Will turned his head but did not quite look at him. Hannibal’s attention remained steady, intent, curious. “Will?” he asked. Will went inside. Thereafter the association had him and would not let him go. He became aware of Hannibal’s attention in a manner he had never thought about much before.

... but instead he stayed with Hannibal, watching Hannibal’s face just inches from his own. Hannibal licked his lips and continued to apply pressure, watching Will watch him. They remained in this tableau, waiting for deliverance.

Hannibal peeled the shrimp and removed the veins with deft turns of his wrists, his sleeves rolled up halfway to his elbows. “I can help with that,” Will said.

Will could not resist testing his hand’s movement and felt it brush against the seam on the inside of Hannibal’s thigh. “Try to be still,” Hannibal murmured. He ran his warm palm over the muscles of Will’s shoulder again, much the same as he had smoothed the blanket fifteen minutes before, and as he had once drawn a blanket over Will’s chilled form and caressed him, Will thought idly, mere hours after shoving Abigail’s ear down his throat.

Hannibal’s lips were parted, and Will could feel his warm breath. He knew the look without needing to see it clearly: admiration and ache warring equally over his chiseled features. Consuming, as always. Drinking him in. Taking. He wondered what Hannibal saw in his own face.

What’s glorious about this style of muted sensuality is that the power is all left to the implications — which are infinitely more than a scene in which a finite ~thing~ happens— to what’s unsaid, not done (but yearned for). Yearning (oh, there is so much yearning) takes a front seat. As a huge fan of Hemingway’s iceberg theory and contained writing in general, I loved this style.

The physical descriptions of the boat and the beauty of the sea were always lovely and anchoring. This author has a ridiculous command of the nautical world, and even if I didn’t understand all of it I deeply appreciated the attention to detail —

Hannibal had been a long time indoors and not a molecule of this natural beauty was lost on him. But mostly he watched Will. Will did not see this world of ultraviolet glare and sunblind desaturation as Hannibal did, but rather with the eye of a mariner and a fisherman. In the previous week, Hannibal had coaxed him into voicing some of his observations, and seeing life through Will's eyes had been in its way as fascinating as viewing death. A loon's laughing cry rose and passed on more than one occasion, and Will commented that it was a good sign for the fishery, that there must be a good number of menhaden, a baitfish, in the Bay that year...

A diffuse glow of sunlight illuminated his face from below, as the sun peeked through the skylights and lit up the woodwork and white upholstery in the saloon. It warmed the recesses of Hannibal’s sculpted face and made his eyes glow, more amber than brown.

There was no word on the weather, of the hot and unnatural stillness that held Hannibal and himself in its unrelenting grip.

The quotes at the beginnings of the chapters were also a really nice touch!

Hannibal's voice, his elite brand of dialogue— cyclical, cutting, seemingly random but never actually so— is captured perfectly; a difficult feat. It was so satisfying to read:

“Moments are all that we need, Will. Enough moments, strung together, make eternity.”

"To feel intensely is not a symptom of weakness, Will. It's the mark of the truly alive."

This makes the hannigram conversations feel so authentic, so classically them, with Hannibal's philosophical overtures, the religious imagery, the refusing to shy away from previous interactions/conflict between them, and prodding and digging into Will as he loves to do, as he can't resist doing. Combined with Will’s insolence and the way he can surprise Hannibal, can (briefly) render hims speechless, the conversations could be scenes pulled from the show.

I deeply loved and appreciated the instances of Hannibal pushing, of refusing to let things go (more on that later), of behaving instinctually (especially when Will pulls strong emotion from him). It rings so true to the character— Hannibal’s worst vice (with Will at least) is his inability to control his black impulses when he's overcome with feeling when it comes to Will, especially if it's negative, burning emotion like betrayal, jealousy, or hurt. (See: Mizumono, Dolce). Then Hannibal becomes a viper, lunging and striking without thinking, poisoning the space between them.

Hannibal’s continuous pushing was a product of the author refusing to ignore the latent issues that would lie between our favorite murder husbands post-fall. A lot of fics jump straight into murder-husbands epilogue or Will-is-immediately-as-bloodthirsty-and-happily-cannibalistic-as-Hannibal (and I'm not gonna lie there's a couple of those that are favorites, writing makes all the difference for me) but this fic doesn't do that. I’ll admit that it’s very much not a focus of the fic, there is absolutely no exploration of how Will feels about killing or cannibalism, if he felt powerful, if he wants to chase that feeling, no exploration of “it’s beautiful”. It’s not a weakness of the fic, just very glaringly not a part of it. This fic is severely focused on Hannigram’s complicated feelings about each other, in a dreamlike isolated place. The fic doesn’t bother itself with morality, doesn’t place judgement, positive or negative, on any of those acts. It also doesn’t dismiss them from the future, and any realistic future would involve such acts. As I said before, this fic is a beginning.

But, yes, back to my point! The fic touches on issues such as Abigail, Molly and Walter, and even the fall off the cliff by having Hannibal push Will again and again (even literally). I’m hesitant to say “explores” rather than “touches on” because it doesn’t do that, doesn’t provide a full resolution— it acknowledges these issues, establishes that they would be part of a continued conversation, and moves on. (Like I said; a beginning).

Although Will rarely (or may actually never) bring up any of his own issues— he only engages when forced to by Hannibal— he does display strength in typical Will ways, through resistance and insolence.

What Hannibal wanted was what Will had shared with Molly and Walter... He did not want to give these things to Hannibal.

A lot of fics will have Will either shy away from any discussion of Molly and Walter, because they’re ugly and difficult to execute well, and so they are erased as if they never existed— or they will simply have Will completely demote and reject Molly and Walter and the life he lived in Maine. But in this fic, Will is still protective of them, even as a memory, even as something that exists completely in the past, even as he moves forward with Hannibal. It’s a display of strength, of non-compliance, that I love.

Will shows strength in other ways, too. While he doesn’t start many of the difficult conversations as Hannibal does (as only insightful Hannibal can do), once engaged he’s present and sharp, sometimes unyielding and even hurtful. Will doesn’t shy away from the bitterness of the walls placed between them, walls that aren’t made of matter but of space— space Will placed between them, space Hannibal took (and continues to try to take) from him.

The result are many (beautiful) references to their past, to the rivers of blood between them:

The grief of their years apart flooded after, with the weight of what they had done to each other and what they had suffered at each other’s hands. The shadows of pain and stains of blood surrounded them, filling the boat, threatening to sink it and carry them both to the bottom of the sea.

He had been sure, and he was still sure- they had to deal with each other, to grope their way through their shared maze of long-stored griefs and the dead ends of failed trust.

Hannibal had awoken, and Will’s peace fled.

This last gutting quote takes me to another hallmark of this fic for me— a truly beautiful and mature display of their mutual unhappiness, a living example of “be careful what you wish for”. Both men have wished for this (for different lengths of time and in different degrees, yes, but they wished for it)— to be alone together, which is to not be alone, finally (“we are both alone without each other”). But now that they have it, they learn that they have to actually be together, and that perhaps they don’t know to do that, or at least how best to do that. They learn that there’s so much pain and unresolved emotion to contend with, when faced with the nothing but the other and time.

And so, after the story ends, they don’t leap into happily-ever-after. Instead, they leap into explorations of their unresolved feelings and their own failings. There’s such a deep understanding of both men’s failings, the unique ways in which their hearts are broken — there’s even a beautiful mirror where both men (separately) reflect on the ways in which they’re not enough for the other.

As then, Hannibal knew he had little with which to fight this enemy. He had no secrets left to reveal, no curiosity to exploit, no monsters to fight, no daughter to share, no one left to save but Will himself. He had only Hannibal Lecter, and that had never been enough.

Will wondered what equally tender and ravenous urge had brought Hannibal forward to watch over him while he slept... He tried to imagine if there might ever be any way he could give Hannibal enough to sate him. Maybe there was, if Hannibal had succeeded in sawing his way into Will’s head and eaten his brain after all. Will could not see it otherwise. The whole of Will’s entire life and being was not enough. It had never been enough.

This whole thing is both gorgeous and tragic, both of them harboring imagined shortcomings and impossible desires. Will wonders if literal consumption, to be eaten or allowing himself to be possessed in every other way, is the only thing that will sate Hannibal. And this Will is, very definitively, not willing to do that. (I’m not averse to fics where Will is— when done well, it’s supremely good). And Hannibal has always used Something Else to hook Will, to keep Will, and so the tragedy is in the hypothetical— what could have happened had he resisted some of his own worst impulses? Did Hannibal behave this way because of Will’s resistance, or would Will not have resisted him, rejected him, had he not been so manipulative, coercive, demanding, taking? *Sigh.* I also love that Hannibal is allowed to acknowledge his own failings and betrayals in this fic; it doesn’t always exists in post-fall fics (again, it's usually Will apologizing for his false life with Molly, etc). It makes for some delicious angst.

And my god, is the angst good! Striking, painful, gutting, love that for meee!!!! (I genuinely do!)

Will did not speak, not even to thank Hannibal. It stung.

BABEYYYY NOOOO why do the SIMPLEST sentences fucking destROYYYY me?!!

Does that make you feel better?” Will asked in a low voice. “It’s not enough that you take everything else—you have to take even the symbols of anything I had that wasn’t about you?”

Reaching out, he gripped the fabric of Hannibal’s shirt in his hand, closing his fist around it slowly. “Maybe that should tell you something.” Hannibal twitched slightly—Will had caught some of his chest hair—but he remained passive. It was Will’s weak arm, his right, and so the gesture was just that: a gesture, made for no better reason than emphasis. But it felt good to have Hannibal under him, looking surprised.... “What should it tell me, Will?” “Some things”—Will breathed deeply through his nose, trying to steady himself—“do not belong to you.” His voice came low and quiet. Hannibal’s hand came up and touched his arm, moving up to the recently injured shoulder, running his palm over Will’s shirt, passing his fingers over the roughness of scars beneath. “I only wish to know you.”

literally SCREAMING INCOHERENTLY!!! I haven’t even used the worst (best) angsty bits — gotta save something for the actual fic! so go go go!!!

This deep understanding of both Will and Hannibal as separate individuals shines throughout the fic, but I’d like to showcase some really strong character lines. On Hannibal:

Hannibal was pleased with his age and the experiences that fueled it: every moment he lived he had snatched from God’s own sticky fingers.

He knew that Hannibal could and did partition his mind against such associations, that his affection was every bit as real as his violence... He could only find and explore this newly tender and painful place within him, like a man who cannot keep from tonguing an aching tooth.

... the mercurial author of both his pain and his relief.

He had probably investigated all of Will's belongings at some point.

Hannibal could believe, but he could never know.

(^ one of my favorite parts of the fic; the recurring explanation of Hannibal’s desire to possess Will is a product of his fear of not knowing him. This line is so simple and well done, yet full of anguish.)

Will had seen Hannibal’s heart break enough times to recognize it in his stillness, in the slight thrust of his jaw beneath closed lips, in the shifts between denial and acceptance in his brown eyes, which could find no safe place to rest in the landscape of Will’s face.

(i’m EMO.) Okayokay, Will’s character lines are just as fantastic:

He would be unable to tend his right arm well with his left hand, and Hannibal would insist, and he would be forced to give in. Will wished it did not matter.

(THIS. LINE. So much communicated about Will's mingled frustration and acceptance, about the power imbalance in this relationship, in just six words.?

He was so tired of it-tired of the vulnerability, of dependency, tired of the torture of needing comfort, of wanting comfort from his tormentor.

Will had adopted his trademark flat affect by the second of these sessions. He would stare ahead, at the pulse at the base of Hannibal’s throat, following Hannibal’s instructions to the letter, but he might as well have been the walking dead for all the emotion he expressed. He spoke when spoken to and offered nothing. (my chest hurts, oh will)

Will was a dark presence near him, slim and sharp as a cutlass.

And then he smiled, gray eyes lifting to Hannibal’s, bringing Hannibal’s heart into his throat. He smiled that sad smile of his, the smile that could contain oceans of sweetness and bitterness all at once.

✨ and this line, that encompasses both of them:

It still hurt, to be so vulnerable. It hurt that Hannibal had turned on him and could have drowned him or let him drown, yet again after so many times down this path. It hurt that Hannibal lived day to day and moment to moment, awaiting Will’s next betrayal.

and oh, oh this fic is rife with lovely hannigram passages:

Hannibal seemed to sense his weariness. “We’re always braver in the face of our own pain than in the face of the pain of those we love,” he said quietly. He turned his attention back to Will’s arm and let the conversation rest.

Is Hannibal in love with me? he had asked... Will had been enormously afraid of either answer. Hannibal continued to cut the bell pepper in to a twisting spiral of red, his face and body still, only his hands working. “I thought of you,” Will said finally. “Often.” Hannibal’s breath released in a slow sigh. Will watched the words fill him up, set him to rest, with no outward change in his demeanor. He wished it were always so easy. Or had it always been?

His movements were slow and deliberate, less like a doctor at work than a supplicant at prayer.

(^ okokok i'm NOT going feral i'm NOT! supplication/worship/devotee imagery in tender moments between lovers/from a hopeful lover to the object of his/her devotion is my WEAKNESS)

What would you give me?” Will asked finally. “What would you have of me?” “Would you give me”—Will articulated slowly, deliberately—“Bedelia du Maurier?” Hannibal felt a thrill of surprise in his chest. Will was steady, studying. Hannibal watched the gray-blue of his irises. His pupils were constricted in the harsh daylight. “Do you want her?” Hannibal asked curiously. “No.” “I would deny you nothing.”

But, there is resolution. (Some). There is peace to be found. It comes in the form of Will letting go of the desire to ever kill Hannibal:

... dim memory of the thrill he used to get while imagining killing Hannibal came and went, just a phantom—powerless, soon forgotten. There was something freeing in the knowledge that he could not kill Hannibal even if he tried.... Will held himself over Hannibal for several long seconds. He imagined hurting him, pressing a knee to his throat and crushing his voice box, silencing that voice forever. No thrill accompanied the thought now. No pain, either. Nothing. He would never do it, he knew; he had taken his opportunity at the top of the cliff, and it would never return.

and is completed when he lets go: All of it was lost to the sea.

There is such tangible relief in Will’s deciding to let go of any illusions of killing Hannibal, and in releasing his pain to the sea. (And remember, the entire premise of this fic is Will deciding what he wants from Hannibal in this new life they find themselves in... and he decides.) With it comes such hard won, painful freedom. I literally felt a surge of relief and a burden dropped; Will’s. He is freed from having to "seek justice" or do the right thing. It's over. He can just, BE (whatever that looks like).

ps: I haven’t quoted too much from the last two chapters, as that’s where the most “plot” happens and they’re phenomenal and I can’t just copy and paste the whole chapters here. Please, just go read it! And I will link my comments: chapter 13 | chapter 14

I just... can’t say enough good things about this fic, but I’ve thoughtfully laid out everything major. It’s tremendous, satisfying, lovely. Go give it a read.

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fericita-s · 5 years ago

Text

Courting Secrets

“Secrets are the things we give to others to keep for us.” Elbert Hubbard

As Agnarr and Iduna grow closer during their courtship, Iduna struggles with how much she can reveal to Agnarr about her past.

Thanks @the-spastic-fantastic for editing this and especially for the great quote on secrets that really sets this up!

Part of When All is Lost, our canon-compliant (mostly) series on Agnarr and Iduna.

Agnarr came to the shop at closing time, greeting Mr. Visser on the way in.

“Good afternoon, King Agnarr. Iduna’s in the back. I’ll go get her.” Mr. Visser turned to walk towards the back of the store, but Iduna had heard the bell on the door and came into the storefront and Agnarr found himself matching her sunny smile.

Agnarr showed her the basket he was carrying with a meal prepared by the kitchen staff. “Minister Wollen suggested I take you on a picnic.”

“Oh? And will Minister Wollen be coming on this picnic?” Iduna tucked her hair behind her ear. She started the day with it in a long braid, but during her work some strands had escaped and Agnarr liked the way it fell around her face.

“No, but my guard will be nearby.” He gestured to where they stood at attention outside of the apothecary. “Discrete, they promise.”

Iduna took his arm, said good-bye to Mr. Visser, and they walked through the Market Square with Agnarr pausing to greet those who wanted to shake the king’s hand. As they left the town proper, they made their way up into the steep hills.

“Where are we going on this picnic? The North Mountain?”

“No, I thought we could go up to the waterfall. There is a nice flat spot there to lay down the blanket for us. For food. We’ll put the food out on the blanket and then sit down on it.” Agnarr was becoming flustered, nervous about their first time together since he had notified the council of his intent to officially court Iduna. He thought that after his confession to her in the woods of his affection for her, their kiss, his finally making his intentions clear, that all would be comfortable in their friendship once more. But this was unexplored terrain, as new to him as kissing her had been. Something he very much wanted to do but wasn’t sure how to do and wasn’t sure how to get right.

They continued their hike in what he hoped she would feel was companionable silence. His hands started to sweat and his grip on the basket grew tighter. He might not know exactly how to behave on this excursion, but he knew dropping all of their food wasn’t a good way to begin.

***

When they eventually sat down with the food spread out, the guard some distance away, Agnarr handed her a plate.

“Take what you’d like!”

They both served themselves from the generous dinner– fruits and cheese, bread and ham.

He tried to think of something clever to say, but it was Iduna who spoke first. And she seemed to also be feeling awkward about their designation as a courting couple. “This feels so strange! I know courting is the time to get to know one another well, but I already know so much about you. I don’t know what to ask, or what to say.”

He smiled at her, trying to help her feel comfortable. “Am I so simple that there is nothing left to learn?”

“Well, then, tell me something about you I don’t know.”

“And then you’ll do the same?”

“Certainly.”

Agnarr cast about, trying to think of something impressive to tell her. An award he’d received maybe? The number of languages he spoke? No, he had already confided in her how he didn’t deserve any of the awards he had been given for the failed Northern Expedition and she already knew how many languages he spoke. He suddenly realized what he could tell her.

“I call you Sunny. As a nickname.”

He could tell she was surprised. She stopped chewing her mouthful of bread and said “I’ve never heard you say that!”

He smiled, enjoying her show of being flustered. “Well I don’t say it out loud. It’s just what I’ve used in my head, when I think about you. You have such a sunny smile, and it makes me happy to see you. It’s like seeing the sun, all bright and cheerful, bringing light to darkness.”

Iduna blushed and he hoped that meant she was pleased. She smiled and he shouted “See! The sun. My Sunny.” As she continued to smile her cheeks turned a deepening shade of red and he asked “Now, what is something I don’t know about you?”

Iduna took a deep breath, her answer coming more quickly than his had. “I didn't know how to read when I started at the academy. Greet taught me. She was a very good teacher, it only took us a few weeks.”

“Or you were a fast learner.”

“Or both.”

Iduna looked at the view from the waterfall, the whole of Arendelle laid in the valley below, the waterfall a pleasant mist in the air. “You’ve done a lot for your kingdom already. I’m very grateful for the academy and for the chance to have a life here. And for the chance to know you.”

Agnarr set his plate down on the blanket, and took her hand. “And I you.”

***

That night in the boarding house, Iduna thought about the waterfall, and how she had swallowed the urge to say “I’m Northuldra.” That was something he didn’t know. But could she ever tell him?

***

From the lighthouse, they could see not only all of Arendelle, but the glittering splendor of the ocean all the way to the horizon. Iduna leaned over the railing, pushing her face into the wind, delighting in the feel. She missed her wind spirit and liked the chance to experience the echo of its embrace.

She thought about saying I showed you how to play with the wind in my forest– the wind spirit tossed us both in the air, and we laughed and you bowed to me and I wish you could remember it too. Instead, she said “I like the feel of the wind. It feels like a friend.”

Agnarr stood next to her, covering his hand with hers. “I’ve noticed that about you. That you like the wind. Whenever we sailed you would lean in to the wind, just like you’re doing now.”

“Hmmm. Then I suppose that can’t count as something you don’t know. I’ll think of something else. But your turn. You tell me something.”

“If I wasn’t king, I would want to be a sailor. Exploring the seas, seeing new lands. Kings don’t often travel to new places though we do meet people from new lands. When I’m in the sailboat or even the rowboat, I love that feeling of freedom.”

Agnarr brought her hand up to his mouth, and kissed it. “But I wouldn’t want to travel without you.”

He looked into her eyes, and began to lean in close. He watched her lips as she formed the words “You were my first kiss.” Then, shyly, “I like when you kiss me.”

He pressed his mouth against hers, the softness of her lips and the warmth of them better than akvavit.

He pulled back so he could see her eyes again and said “That’s another thing I already knew,” and kissed her smiling mouth with his matching laughter.

***

Agnarr took her inside the clock tower, showing her the gears and the moving dancers that came out to announce the hour. Each time they met, each time they had an official courting outing, he felt less nervous taking her hand. Less awkward. Until eventually it felt natural and calming to be touching her, a balm on a weary day, a shared joy on a good one. Now he had his arm around her shoulders, his other hand pointing to the gears and features of the clocks.

“These dancers were modeled after my grandfather’s sisters. So I was told, anyway. They died before I was born so I don’t know if it’s a good likeness.”

Iduna leaned into his shoulder, and stayed silent for a while. “Are we still sharing things we don’t know about each other? “

“If you’d like.” He stopped pointing and moved his hands so they were positioned like dancers, his hands on her waist and holding her hand, her arm on his shoulder and hand in his.

“I'm afraid I don’t know what my mother looks like anymore. It’s been so long since I’ve seen her. Sometimes I can remember, and sometimes I can’t.” She leaned into him, putting her cheek on his chest, and his arms came around her in a hug.

Agnarr stroked her back, wishing he had adequate words to tell her how much he wished to carry her sorrow for her. “I’m so sorry you lost your family. I’m so sorry you are far from them. But I am glad you are here. I’m glad you chose Arendelle to be your home.”

She spoke quietly, her voice muffled against his jacket. “Your friendship is why I didn't leave Arendelle.”

“That makes us about even then. I started the academy partly so I could see you again. I bet that’s something you didn’t know. ”

***

When he bade her goodnight at the door to the boarding house as the clock struck ten, Iduna thought of the words she kept from leaving her tongue when they were still in the clocktower.

My brother Duvka brought me a toy with gears like this clock once.

I tried to return home to him and my family but I couldn’t get through the mist.

The day I first noticed that clock tower in the Market Square was the first time I saw you after leaving you at the castle gates.

And you didn’t remember me.

***

After her riding lesson, Iduna was surprised to see Agnarr in the stables.

“Don’t you usually have a council meeting at this time?” She pulled off her gloves and wiped her forehead with them. It was sweaty work learning to ride a horse.

“We just finished. And I thought of something else you don’t know about me that I could show you here.”

“Oh?” She smiled at his raised eyebrows and playful expression.

“Yes. Lt. Mattias used to bring me here to play hide and seek. He told me it was a good skill for a soldier-in-training to have, which is what I always begged him to treat me as.”

“And how is it that you play this game?”

“I count to thirty and you find a place to hide. Then I come find you. One. Two. Three – “

Iduna shrieked and ran off, already determined to beat Agnarr. She squeezed into a small space underneath a saddle rack and turned towards the wall, biting her gloves to keep from laughing. She wondered what Minister Wollen would think of Hide and Seek as a courting activity.

It seemed less than thirty seconds before Agnarr grabbed her from behind, pulling her out from her spot “I won! I found you! It was easy, nothing in the stables smells as good as you.”

She playfully pushed him, pointing towards the stalls. “My turn now!”

She began to count, covering her eyes with her gloves. When she reached thirty, she began walking through the stables, thinking that with his tall frame and red hair, it wouldn’t be hard to find him. She was looking in the feed cupboard when he stuck his head out of a stall, shouting “Oh Sunny!” She ran to it, but he was already at the adjacent one, shouting “Here, Sunny!” Soon she was doubled over in laughter as he kept appearing in different stalls, the mystified horses whinnying and stepping lively near him.

“Come back out here before a horse kicks you!” she laughed.

Agnarr opened the stall door and grinned triumphantly. “You called mercy. I think that means I won.”

Iduna nodded in agreement. “I suppose you win this round. But I learned to ride pretty quickly. I’m sure I’ll get better at this too.”

They walked out to a bench outside of the stables, and sat down, Iduna enjoying the shade after her lesson in the sun. She turned towards him and asked “Do you still miss him a lot?”

Agnarr’s smile faded and he said. “I do. I loved Lt. Mattias very much. I admired him and wished to be like him. He was so patient with me, never made me feel like I was just his assignment. I know you’ve heard me talk about him before, but what I’ve never admitted aloud is that I miss him more than I miss my father. I was sorry my father died, and I do miss him. But he could be scary. When he was angry, I would hide from him. I think Lt. Mattias saw that and tried to turn it into a game.”

“It sounds like he taught you a lot of useful things.”

“He did. He also told me that you have to remember your loved ones talking. Remember something they always used to say or a conversation you had with them. And then you’ll actually remember their voice, and you’ll never really forget it. A voice might not be as good as a face, but it’s something to hold onto. So I do that with him. I try to remember what he said and the stories he told, and it makes him feel real.”

He picked up her hand and squeezed it. “The portrait I had commissioned of him, you remember, the one I showed you when you first saw the library?”

Iduna nodded, she remembered being awed by the sheer number of books, and delighted that she could read any of them at Agnarr’s invitation. And she remembered the solemn way he had told her about his personal guard and how he had been lost on the Northern Expedition. It had sent a shiver up her spine, a cautionary warning that being from Northuldra was still not a safe thing as long as Arendelle mourned their missing.

“I had that portrait made after he was gone. I described him to the painter, and some others who knew him well did too. Halima and some of the guards who stayed behind. And the painter got his likeness so well, I can’t believe he’d never seen him. So I thought we could try that with your mother. If you wanted to describe her, what you remember, the painter could make a portrait, and then you would be able to see it and remember her face always.”

Iduna leaned her head on his shoulder, a rush of affection at his thoughtfulness making it hard to speak. “Yes, I would like that.” Then, trying to dampen the emotions that threaten to overwhelm her, she cleared her throat. “I owe you something you don’t know yet about me.” She thought of another gift he had given her, and smiled. “The golden mortar and pestle you got me as a gift when I started at Mr. Visser’s was completely impractical, bordering on the ridiculous, completely unusable, and I love looking at it every day and thinking of your generosity.”

“I didn’t know gold was malleable! I thought a precious metal would be a good substance for a mortar and pestle! And besides, you’ve already told me that.”

The both laughed, and when a servant called them inside to eat dinner, Iduna thought about her mother and how she might still be alive, but with the mist closed, she would never know.

***

Iduna gathered her papers at the end of the council meeting on public health, determined not to let Dr. Wagner’s ill humor bother her. Just because he didn’t see the sense in washing fruit before it was eaten didn’t mean it wasn’t sensible. Agnarr put his hand on her shoulder and said “Come on, there’s something I want to show you.”

Iduna followed, and then stopped in surprise as he took off his boots, placing them in the doorway. “Here’s something you’ve never seen me do. Ever since I was little, I liked to skate down these long hallways in my stocking feet. It’s especially satisfying after a frustrating council meeting, which I believe we just experienced.”

Iduna gave a snort and took off her shoes as well. “Is it a race?”

Agnarr grinned. “It could be.”

They began sliding down the hall, pushing their feet against the just-polished wood, and Iduna loved the satisfying feel of her feet slipping on the floor. It was like the wind spirit was pushing her along. She laughed and Agnarr laughed but neither of them slowed down enough before they got to the end of the hallway, and they ended up in a heap of arms and legs and stockinged feet, their laughter echoing down the empty hall.

***

They sat at the top of the tallest castle tower, eating dessert and drinking glogg. The moonlight lit the stained glass in a way that reminded Iduna of the northern lights. She wondered if that’s what the architect had in mind.

“I don’t think I’ve learned something new about you today, Sunny,” Agnarr said, offering a piece of chocolate to Iduna.

Iduna looked down at the castle, to a balcony she recognized as the one where Agnarr had given her a necklace on his eighteenth birthday.

“I left your birthday ball early because I couldn’t stand to see you dance with those women, so perfect in their gowns and their titles and their money.” She tried to keep her voice light, to make it seem like a joke.

Agnarr seemed to understand, and kept his answer light as well. “You didn’t miss much. I accidentally called Lady Alexsandra by your name and she…did not like it. But it did save me the trouble of having to let her down gently later.”

They kept eating, and as Iduna cuddled closer to Agnarr, she had the urge to tell him about the first time he met her in the northern forest. The first time I told you my name you called me Lady Iduna.

***

Agnarr and Iduna walked hand in hand over the bridge, Agnarr excitedly telling her about the construction, how it was the first project completed by academy graduates, and how it heralded a new era in Arendellian technical achievement. She liked hearing the pride in his voice, the joy he took in the accomplishments of others. And her thoughts to turned to what she couldn’t say.

I remember the dam your people build for mine. A project that was supposed to bring peace.

If I told you who I was, would you still be happy to be here with me?

Instead she squeezed his hand and said “Did you know that when we were younger, Eir told me I had to stop holding your hand? She said it would give me a deplorable reputation that would never be unsullied.”

Agnarr turned to hold her other hand as well. “I always wondered why you stopped. I’m glad we can hold hands again now.”

***

Sitting on the castle rooftop, eating sandwiches and waiting for the northern lights to wake up the sky, Iduna breathed in the salty air and wished the breeze would pick up. Feeling the wind made her calm, and she craved that feeling. The longer she sat there, the closer she and Agnarr got to an engagement that everyone from Mr. Visser to Eir to Greet to the kitchen servants told her was imminent, the more she wanted to tell him the things he didn’t know about her that might really matter.

The first time I saw you you were lost in the woods, helping a sheep, and right away I could tell you were kind.

I saved you from the battle.

When the trolls found us, I was worried they were harming you but I was too scared to do anything. They told me you might never remember, and I’m both afraid you will and afraid you won’t.

I brought you to the castle and then ran in the shadows so no one would find me. Sometimes I worry no one ever will.

I have a shawl that my grandmother made. Her name is Elsa. I miss her.

I want you to know who I am, but I’m afraid.

#agduna #mama and papa arendelle #when all is lost #lt. mattias #king agnarr #idnua

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bthump · 5 years ago

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Thx 4 your compelling answer! You made me curious about what do you think Guts and Griffith would be like as a couple, how do you imagine their dynamic would develop and grow. Not super chill I agree lmao but it's very interesting given their respective baggages. And kind of unrelated but I was soo mad that Casca insisted Guts to leave the 2nd time even when Guts was like: HEY I WANNA STAY FOR REAL. But Griffith never knew that. Hurts but that's the kind of element that makes for a great tragedy

ikr! Man that scene where Griffith overhears them is so painful. Like it makes sense that Casca would tell Guts to leave imo for a few reasons (mainly because Guts successfully convinced her after they had sex that it was what he ~really truly wanted~ lol, and also I think there’s some interesting selfishness on her part there too) but man, it’s tragic.

Anyway back at you, thanks for the interesting questions. lol idk where to start with this one really because like, there’s so much to potentially say, and so many potential ways for their relationship to go, like I don’t really have One True Concept of their relationship, there are so many possibilities and options.

Holy shit this got ridiculously long lol, sorry. I just used the opportunity to throw out like as many of my griffguts opinions as I could reasonably fit lmao.

I guess there are a few things that I tend to stick to when I’m imagining them together in like a Golden Age AU where everything worked out, tho ofc none of this is set in stone.

Like, if this is an AU without the whole overheard Promrose Hall speech that changes everything, I tend to think Guts is more likely to make the first move. Like say Guts didn’t hear the speech but still fell off the cliff with Casca and got her monologue, and without his feelings of inadequacy clouding his understanding he actually starts to get it, like, I pretty much think Guts would’ve kissed him during Tombstone of Flame 2. Griffith being openly afraid of Guts’ judgement -> Guts impulsively demonstrating exactly how he really feels about him.

But also just in general I think Guts is more likely to act on his feelings without thinking about potential consequences or how it could’ve gone wrong until afterwards, so I can imagine a lot of scenarios where he’d make the first move. Whereas even if Griffith did figure out how he feels and what he wants, it’s harder for me to see him going for it. On the one hand yeah he does have that “I must obtain what I desire” attitude, on the other hand what he wants is for Guts to love and want him, and he’d know that, and he’d know that kissing Guts is not necessarily going to get him that, and might end up ruining everything he does have.

Like, dude has a major fear of rejection.

But I guess I could see him also impulsively going for it in a more extreme moment - like the way his mind shuts off and he runs to save Guts from Zodd, I could imagine a thank god you’re alive type kiss, eg. But imo he’d need more of a push than Guts would.

And yeah I think both of their respective traumas would affect things, but I’d prefer to delay that a bit? I want them to have a good positive sexual encounter before they start sorting through all their issues together, basically so they have proof that it’s worth persisting lol, and I think that’s pretty easy to manage. Like, they start making out and end up jerking each other off and no one has any flashbacks, easy peasy.

I could see them getting past a bad first time, but it wouldn’t be easy lol. Like first off they’re both overly likely to take it as a personal condemnation, even if logically that’s not how trauma works, because they both hate themselves, and they both canonically have a fear of being monstrous/predatory. Griffith asking if Guts thinks he’s cruel and tbqh most of his speech to the King in the dungeon is indicative of this imo, and Guts seeing himself as a monster after killing Adonis and also in canon flashbacking from his rapist’s perspective.

And yk, if they do start having sex without immediate issues, I imagine the first problem that would come up sooner rather than later would be Guts flashbacking. I tend to assume he would be upfront about not wanting to get fucked without saying why, and Griffith would be fine with that, and then Guts would still eventually have a flashback while topping and it would take him by surprise like in canon. I could see Guts reacting basically the exact same way he did with Casca, rambly confessional and all, and I think Griffith would be supportive and comforting and understanding in the immediate aftermath. Hopefully Guts would make it very clear that it had nothing to do with anything Griffith did or anything about him and he still wants to get laid on the regular, because otherwise I could see something stupid happening afterwards like Griffith withdrawing out of fear of his potential to Guts and Guts blaming himself for making things weird and neither of them talking about it until something gives.

Anyway if they do successfully navigate that, the next problem would be more insidious, and it would be Griffith, and the way he views sex as transactional. Like when I say Griffith would be fine with never topping, I think that holds true entirely regardless of what Griffith might actually want personally from a sexual encounter. He’d let Guts fuck him even if he hated it, because what he wants is the emotional closeness and Guts needing him and wanting him. I think he actually would want sex with Guts for its own sake and enjoy it, like he’s attracted to Guts and he wants him and I def don’t think he would hate it in any way. Buuut I see him as very detached from his own physical desires, yk? Dude has never had sex because he wanted to have sex, even the evil personification of his inner darkness didn’t lol.

And along with that you could have the additional problem of enjoying sex with a man being another potential source of self-loathing for him. I’m thinking because of ‘am I dirty?” in the river, and again the scene in the dungeon w/ the King lends itself to this really well too. Like it’s so easy to read internalized homophobia into his narrative imo, even the entire structure of it, with Charlotte and the dream on one side and Guts on the other.

And basically I think those issues would combine to make him see sex as something he gives in return for Guts’ love/loyalty/presence, and avoid seeing it as something he personally wants. So like basically I think in a way he’d use that transactional framework as a justification for doing something he really really wants to do (sex with Guts) but that he doesn’t want to acknowledge he wants because it makes him hate himself because a) internalized homophobia and also b) deep down he knows he wants Guts more than the dream which also makes him feel guilty.

Also like, when it comes to Griffith and his issues I don’t think any of this is required, like canonically we know Guts’ csa trauma affects him but we don’t really know how Griffith’s csa trauma affects him. I wouldn’t see it as out of character if he was ultimately fine with his desire for Guts and doesn’t contribute any issues to the griffguts sex life. But it’s really really easy to see how he could have a metric ton of issues with sex to work through, and I think those would be really interesting to explore, basically.

Plus I don’t necessarily think this would actually… matter? Like I could easily see Griffith never giving Guts any cause for concern, they never talk about this, Griffith himself barely notices that he’s got a messed up attitude towards sex, and eventually he just internally works through it himself as his relationship with Guts progresses and he gets more comfortable with wanting Guts and wanting sex for its own sake and he achieves his dream regardless of his emotional priorities, etc. Like this could all easily work itself out in Griffith’s subconscious without any external drama lol. (Tho if Guts ever picked up on this it would def fuck him up and the fallout would be big.)

ANYWAY so that’s all the trauma stuff I could see influencing their relationship.

Overall I think there’d be way more good than bad. They’re perfect for each other. Griffith wants Guts to know him and see all the stuff he hates about himself and want him anyway, and Guts would absolutely do that, and demonstrate it thoroughly, and it would do wonders for Griffith’s self-acceptance. Guts wants Griffith to pay attention to him, to love him and respect him and look at him, and being in a relationship with him would give him everything he wants. The way Griffith looks at him after they kiss or while they’re fucking or whatever, like he’s the only thing in the world, would be the highlight of Guts’ life. Guts fucking Griffith like he needs him, or making love to him with reverence, or demonstrating casual closeness and affection, would be the highlight of Griffith’s.

I think Charlotte and the dream would be a bit of an issue for Guts, like I could see him being jealous, but I could also see him being totally able to see Charlotte as business and himself as the person Griffith wants. The fact that they’re fucking behind Charlotte’s back would itself be probably enough proof of how much Griffith wants him and is willing to risk for him to make Guts feel secure. Like basically I could see jealous insecure Guts telling Griffith they should break it off because the risk to his dream is too much and Griffith refusing out of hand, and that being a big moment for Guts and his feelings of security in their relationship.

Eventually I think the most satisfying direction their relationship could go would be Griffith decisively choosing Guts over the dream and having grown enough in their years together that he’s able to live with that choice and be happy with Guts instead of a big exaggerated dream lol. As far as I’m concerned that’s the secret Berserk happy ending that they never got a chance to get to, but is wholly telegraphed by the story as something that could’ve happened if everything hadn’t gone wrong.

Hmm what else. Random details I guess: I think they’d start out with Guts exclusively topping when they have penetrative sex but Guts would absolutely eventually want Griffith to fuck him imo, and their first time switching it up would be pretty emotionally intense but extremely good and positive. They’d be really close and trusting and more effectively communicative by then, and it would work great and Guts would bask in the attention as Griffith v thoroughly makes love to him.

Also when Griffith achieves his dream and runs Midland they would both be extremely into Guts getting a little possessive and staking his claim on him, like by fucking him hard enough that he can feel it throughout the next day, or scratches/bruises under clothes, etc. Nothing super kinky, I think they’re both pretty vanilla lol, but Guts would love knowing Griffith is being constantly reminded of him while he’s at meetings with nobles or w/e and Griffith would love that lingering reminder.

I think at some point early on they’d have to have a talk in which Guts asserts that he wants to stay with Griffith and the Hawks and doesn’t feel obligated because he lost a fight when they were 15. I could see that thought eating away at Griffith for a while if they don’t. Also because the question of whether they’re equals or not is kind of hammered in in canon I think they’d have to navigate around Griffith technically being Guts’ commander. I don’t think Guts would think twice about it (again assuming he hasn’t heard the Promrose Hall speech) but Griffith would worry, especially given exchanges like “that’s why I’m asking you to do this” “just order me to do it” lol. So they’d have to at least talk about that.

Or conversely they could not talk about Guts potentially feeling obligated and it could blow up in their faces and lead to miscommunication drama. I mean there are so many potential ways they could fuck things up by not talking and assuming the worst at the first sign of an issue lmao, it’s like, you want relationship drama just take your pick.

Also relatedly, I think this is a little bit of an unpopular opinion, at least judging by most of the griffguts fic I’ve read lol, but I really don’t see Griffith as likely to behave possessively at all, unless he thinks Guts is about to leave him and is like next to having a breakdown about it, and even then… idk. I think the second duel was extremely atypical - Griffith defaulted to trying to fight Guts for his loyalty because that’s how he won his loyalty the first time and it was the only way Griffith saw to keep his loyalty, he was extremely out of his depth emotionally lol, and I think there’s some big indications that he hated himself for it afterwards.

He wants Guts to want him, to choose to be with him of his own desire, he wants Guts to love him. I think he would abhor the thought that Guts was obligated to stay with him in any way, and any indications of that would freak him out and add to his self loathing. So he wouldn’t tell Guts “you’re mine” as part of sexy foreplay or whatever, and he wouldn’t order him to do shit lol (along with this like I don’t think Griff is dominant at all, and trying to be with someone he loves would fuck him up).

I think the biggest problem for both of them would be a tendency to assume the worst and just blame themselves for whatever instead of talking. But I also think the longer they’re in a relationship the better they’ll get at not doing that and at constructive positive communication lol.

Like at the end of the day again I think there’d be way more positives than negatives. We’re shown how perfectly they fulfill each others’ needs. Guts wants attention, Griffith wants acceptance, they both want to be loved, and before the misunderstandings get in the way and fuck it all up their relationship benefits both and starts helping both heal emotionally. If they stayed together and added romance and sex to the mix I think overall they’d be pretty ideal partners.

Ooookay I think I’ve talked more than enough about this lmao. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to just ramble for ages about a bunch of griffguts stuff. Honestly if anyone reads through this to the end I’ll be slightly surprised lol.

#Anonymous #griffguts #berserk #a #b #headcanons #character thoughts #canon divergence #ship: griffguts

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arosnowflake · 5 years ago

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That Broken String of Fate

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Fandom: Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance Wordcount: 10590 Summary: It had never bothered Ike that he didn't have a soulmate, but for some reason, it really bothered the world.Or: being aromantic would suck in a world where soulmates exist.

Warnings: (internalized) arophobia/aromisia (not from the main character), swearing, a little bit of canon-typical fantasy racism.

Notes: I haven’t finished playing the game (got stuck around chapter 19 due to a non-functional laptop), so major thanks to @siryamsalot for helping me out with chronology, canon details, and brainstorming! Also, if you reblog this, please keep spoilers out of the tags. Written for @aggressivelyarospec‘s Aggressively Arospec Week 2019.

///

During those first few years, when they were still moving around, the Greil Mercenaries didn’t exist. There were mercenaries that traveled alongside them, sure, but there was no trust between them, no stability. They were there because it was convenient, and although they were friendly, in the end, they always left.

After the fourth one, Ike stopped smiling when he was introduced. There was no point in putting on a mask when he wouldn’t know them for more than a few months.

“What’s with that kid?” he’d heard one of them say, once, late at night after a successful raid on a Daein fortress. “Do you think his face got damaged and is stuck in the frown position?”

There was laughter from below, and Ike curled up tighter in the rafters. The laughter was too loud for the joke; they were drunk, celebrating a job well done by shittalking the boss’s kid as soon as he wasn’t around to hear them.

“But seriously though,” a brown-haired woman (Ike had been introduced to her, he knew her name, but he couldn’t bother to remember it) slurred. “Kid’s fucking creepy. He does nothing but stare with that dead-eyed look. Doesn’t even smile when he’s playing with his sister.” She took a swig from her bottle, exaggerating her movements and nearly falling backwards in the process. “It’s almost like he doesn’t have any emotions at all.”

“Wonder if he’s even got a soulmate,” a red-haired guy (Gert?) mused.

Ike gritted his teeth.

“Oh Goddess, can you imagine?” the woman groaned. “Pity the poor soul that gets stuck with him.”

“I’ll drink to that!” one of the others called, and they all laughed and opened another bottle. Or tried to.

“I think you’ve had enough.”

The group stilled, and Ike leaned forward on the wooden beam in order to get a better view.

In the doorway stood Dad, too far away for Ike to read his face, but he knew him. He never raised his voice, always maintaining a calm tone, but when it trembled at the edges, he was angry.

Right now, every word shook, and he was livid.

“Pack up your drink and go to bed,” he said. “I suggest you do not test me right now.”

The group wasn’t so drunk as to defy him, and within minutes, they’d scrambled out of the room, probably to claim one of the newly empty cells for the night.

A deep sigh echoed off the walls.

“You can come down now, Ike.”

Ike hopped down from the rafters, scaling the wall with the confidence and precision of someone who’d been doing this his entire life. Rafters were good vantage points, and although dad wouldn’t let him do reconnaissance just yet, he’d been taught how to climb almost as soon as he’d been taught how to walk.

With the last push, he jumped straight into his dad’s waiting arms, and burrowed his head into his neck. His dad’s hugs were always comforting, even when he couldn’t stand the touch of anyone else.

“How long have you been up there?” he asked, his voice low and soothing, no longer trembling.

“Couldn’t sleep,” Ike answered. It was pitch dark outside, the fire casting long, eerie shadows over the room’s high walls, sizzling in the deep silence of night.

Dad held him tighter.

“They don’t know anything,” Dad said, a hand stroking Ike’s hair. “Don’t listen to them.”

“I don’t. Why should I care what a bunch of jackasses have to say about me, especially when they’re gonna leave next month anyway?”

“Language,” Dad scolded half-heartedly. “But you’re right. You don’t need to prove anything to anyone. You don’t need to smile to make them comfortable, and you certainly don’t need a soulmark.”

“Soulmarks suck,” Ike mumbled, trailing off into a yawn. Dad sighed his Maybe-I-Shouldn’t-Raise-A-Kid-Between-Swearing-Mercenaries sigh, and carried him towards the cell he and Mist had claimed.

“C’mon, let’s go to sleep.”

“Mist snores,” Ike protested, but he slept before they even reached their room.

///

The group had gone and been replaced within three months. The red-head (Gert-Jan, apparently) had found his soulmate, a short woman with hair like straw and a nice smile, and he brought her over to the camp to introduce everyone. Ike was hiding in the treetops so that he wouldn’t have to. Dad didn’t even scold him.

The others scattered to the winds soon after, hope to find their One rekindled in their hearts.

When Ike had first realized that the beautiful white flowers climbing up Mists’s arm were a soulmark, he’d thrown a fit, yelling the whole camp into a frenzy until Dad finally dragged him off to the side and told him that they were going to have a talk.

“Soulmarks make people leave,” Ike said, looking at the floor, kicking his feet angrily. “Mist can’t leave. She needs to stay here.”

Dad had kneeled before him. He didn’t make Ike look at him, so Ike stared stubbornly down at the ground.

“When people want to leave, they leave,” Dad had said, voice soft. “Soulmarks are just a convenient excuse. If you say ‘I’m going to explore the world because I just kind of want to’, people will protest, try to stop you, and you’ll doubt yourself too, questioning whether you should really leave your friends and family behind, whether your choice is worth it.”

His dad shifted a bit. “But if you tell yourself and everyone else that you’re going to explore the world in search of your soulmate, people get it, and you don’t need to worry about leaving your friends behind because you can tell yourself that you’ll find your soulmate, and that’s something that comes before everything else.”

Ike looked up, gaze resting slightly above dad’s eyes. He didn’t say anything, shoulders still tense, rocking back and forth slightly. Dad closed his eyes for a bit, and when he opened them, he pulled his shirt down. There, on his shoulder, was a tiny little dove. The white was off, closer to grey, and the lines were smeared, like it had rained on the picture before the paint was dry.

Ike blinked. “Is that -”

“My soulmark.” Dad confirmed. “I - before I met your mother, I was... stuck, somewhere. I should have left, but I didn’t, for a lot of reasons, and one of them was that I had a trainee. And every time I thought about leaving, I asked myself ‘But what would become of him?’, and I’d back out at the last moment.”

“But you did leave,” Ike stated, gripping the tree branch so tightly his knuckles turned white. “Because you loved her more than you loved him.”

Dad smiled. It wasn’t happy; it was sharp-edged and bitter, a look that he’d never seen on his father’s face before. “No. I left because that life didn’t suit me anymore - I wanted out, and if I had to leave him behind, then that was a sacrifice I was willing to make.” Dad let go of his sleeve, and the shirt shifted back in place. “Your mother was my excuse. My reason not to worry about the people I left behind. If I loved her, then I couldn’t be wrong, right?”

Ike’s voice was sharp. “Were you wrong?”

Dad was silent for a beat. “I’ve thought about it a lot, and while I might do some things differently if I could turn back time, in the end - in the end, I made the right choice. I’m glad I left, and I’d do it again, if need be.”

“Then what’s stopping Mist from leaving like you did?” Ike demanded, his palms getting rubbed raw by the bark as he twisted them around the branch.

“We’ll make her happy,” Dad said simply, finally standing up. “We’ll keep her happy, and she won’t have any reason to leave.”

Ike blinked. “Just like that?”

“Just like that,” Dad agreed. He spread his arms open, and Ike accepted the invitation, burying himself in his hug and trying not to think about wrong smiles and secrets.

///

One day, Dad carried a lady into camp, shouting for their healer. Even from a distance, Ike could see red, both from her hair and from the blood dripping onto the grass.

Turns out her wounds were relatively minor; a large gash on her left arm being the only thing that would leave lasting damage. The worst of it was malnutrition, the healer said. Ike looked down on the lady’s pale, gaunt face, and didn’t doubt her.

Mist was helping the healer change her bandages, while Ike waited for her to be done so they could play, when the red-haired lady woke up, gasping.

The healer quickly shoved Mist out of the way, instructing her to get some water, while Ike ran out of the door to get his father.

“She’s awake!” he yelled, and his dad followed him without further questions.

Mist fed the lady water, slowly, sip by sip, while the healer rattled off simple yes or no questions that she could answer with a shake of her head.

When Mist saw them, she hastily gave the cut to the healer and met them in the doorway.

“How is she?” Dad asked.

“Not bad,” Mist answered. “She can’t strain herself too much, but she’s lucid and responding.

Dad nodded and went over to talk to the healer.

“Can she talk?” Ike asked softly.

“Yes, but the healer thinks she should do it as little as possible,” Mist whispered back.

And just then, a weak, unfamiliar voice sounded through the tent.

“Sir,” she said, then coughed. “You’re the one who saved me.”

The lady tried to sit up, but Dad grabbed her shoulder and carefully pushed her back onto the pillow.

“Please don’t strain yourself,” he said. “You’re still very weak.”

The lady did as he said and sunk back into the pillows, but still bowed her head. “I must thank you, sir. You had no cause to save me, yet you did. You have my eternal gratitude.”

“There’s no need for that. It’d be very lousy payback to let someone die after they saved my life by axing my would-be murderer.”

The lady laughed, or tried to, because she trailed off into a cough almost immediately.

“Like I said, don’t strain yourself.”

“I’m alright,” the woman said, after she recovered. “Nevertheless, I must insist. Many others wouldn’t have been so honorable.”

“Then I must thank you the same, for not many would have interfered to save a stranger from bandits while wounded and exhausted themselves,” Dad said, voice sliding into a strange accent.

Mist leaned over to Ike. “You ever head Dad talk like that?”

Ike shook his head.

“Are you a knight, sir?” The lady asked.

“Not at all, just a simple mercenary,” Dad replied, taking up his usual drawl again. “Although I get the impression that you are one yourself.”

There fell an uncomfortable silence, and the lady looked away. “I -”

“You don’t have to explain yourself if you don’t want to,” Dad interrupted. “You wouldn’t be the only one here with a secret.”

The lady was silent for a while. “What is your name, sir?” she finally asked.

“Greil,” Dad answered. “And please, drop the sir. Makes me feel like a nobleman.”

The lady inclined her head. “Greil, then. My name is Titania. I am at your service.” A pause. “Although at the moment, that’s not quite so impressive, I’m afraid.”

Dad laughed, and that was the first time Ike saw Titania smile.

///

Over the next couple of weeks, Titania recovered, being fed broth and later soft bread to get back on weight. Her wounds healed quickly, although as expected, the one on her arm left a scar.

As soon as she could walk without assistance and eat solid food, Ike found her sneaking out of camp.

“Are you leaving?” he asked, feeling little at the prospect. It was expected, after all.

Titania hesitated. That was new. Most of the time, people were eager to leave, or at least not particularly remorseful. But the way Titania stared around the sickroom, it was almost like she felt sorry for going.

“I’d like to stay,” she said, and Ike didn’t believe her, although she sounded honest. “But I don’t think I’d be welcome here for much longer.”

“If you’re gonna leave, at least own up to it,” he said, folding his arms. “Don’t pretend like you care, or try to make it our fault.”

“I’m not -”

“We’ve been nothing but nice to you, Dad never told you that you had to leave, and I know he’s been thinking about offering you a place in the group because of your skills. You’d be welcome here. You just don’t wanna stay.”

“Of course I do!” she protested. “It’s - nice, here. Nicer than alone on the road, at least. But I need to go. You wouldn’t want me here.”

“And why not?”

She hesitated. She hesitated for a long while. She hesitated so long that Ike began to question whether she meant for him to leave while she was silent. Well, if that was what she wanted, then she could wait a long, long while, because he wasn’t going anywhere.

But she did speak, finally. “I’m cursed.”

Ike raised an eyebrow. “Haven’t noticed much of that over the last couple of weeks.”

“It’s true, though,” she insisted. She wasn’t looking at him anymore, gripping her single pack in a vice-like grip. Ike felt a twinge of pity before he pushed it down again. No use feeling for someone who he’d never see again, anyway.

“We’ve got at least five clerics here. Surely one of them could help.”

“They had clerics in the army, too. They were the first to push me out.”

Immediately after saying that, she bit her lip, as if she hadn’t meant to let that slip. Ike cocked his head, just slightly, not enough for anyone other than Mist or his dad to notice. “The army kicked you out?”

Titania took a deep breath. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m cursed.”

Ike made an annoyed noise. “You keep coming back to that curse, but you refuse to tell me how you’re cursed. Sounds like an excuse to me.”

“It’s not!” Titania snapped, and Ike flinched back, surprised at the anger in her voice. “You think I like being alone in the woods? I’d much rather stay here, but I can’t! I can’t be kicked out again! I wouldn’t survive it!”

“Why the hell would you assume we’d kick you out?” Ike snapped back, balling his fists. “We’ve never kicked anyone out! They always leave by themselves! Why would you be the exception?”

“Because I don’t have a soulmark!”

She slapped a hand against her mouth, eyes wide and trembling. Ike blinked, leaning back on his heels and unclenching his hands.

“That’s all?” he asked.

She stared at him, completely frozen.

“I mean, neither do I.”

That made her move. Slowly, she lowered her hand, took a tentative step towards him.

“What?” she asked, her voice a whisper.

Ike shrugged. “There’s not much to tell? I just don’t have any. Dunno why you’d think that’d make you cursed.” He frowned. “Or why the army would kick you out for that. Sounds like their loss.”

Titania lowered herself on the bed, her pack still clutched in her hands. “And nobody minds that you do not have a soulmark?”

“Well, I don’t exactly go around telling everyone, it’s none of their business. But Dad and Mist know, and they don’t mind, no.”

“Oh,” Titania said. “Oh.”

The pack slipped out of her hand, landing on the ground with a large thunk.

“I think,” she whispered, “that I could stay for just a little longer.”

///

“A little longer” turned into months, then a full year, then two, and tentatively, carefully, Ike began to believe that “a little longer” meant “forever”.

Titania trained him when his father was too busy; although her axes were her specialty, she could still teach him how to hold a sword, how to parry attacks from various weapons (soon, he knew every last way to duck from an axe), how to search for weaknesses in your opponents. Her hair grew longer, and she tied it back into a large, thick braid, and let Mist comb it sometimes. She rode with dad to battle, and came back laughing, often with a little trinket for him and Mist, or sometimes, with little kiss marks on her neck. She blushed when Dad pointed them out, laughingly.

“I’d’ve never guessed that she’d be such a ladykiller,” he teased, and suddenly, she remembered that she needed to clean her tent, immediately, and left with her face bright red.

But she never brought one of her girls back home, never showed up proudly with a straw-haired woman with a sweet smile and proclaimed her to be her soulmate. She couldn’t. She didn’t have a mark.

///

She was the one who pointed out the fortress.

“It’s empty,” she explained, coming back to the camp. “We could stay there for a while, at least.”

Ike hid in the rafters of the main building for the first night, and overheard her say to Dad: “I think it’d be good for Mist and Ike to have some stability. A place to come home to. For Ike especially.”

And again, the days turned into weeks turned into months, and they didn’t leave. Mist started filling their room with little trinkets she found, and Titania bought him a nice quilt from the nearby town, after she’d gotten a deal with the shopkeeper because she liked her.

And one night, when she let Mist brush her hair and taught him how to braid it, he realized that she’d become family, and the fort had become home.

///

He gained a brother when he found a young boy with a strange soulmark on his forehead crying at the foot of a mountain, beat up and near starving, looking even worse than Titania had when she first came to them.

So of course, he gave him his lunch. The boy stared at him, then back at the bread, and snatched it out of his hands and gobbled it up the way only the dying could.

“Don’t eat too fast,” Ike warned, too late, since the bread was already half gone. “It could make you sick.”

Right on queue, the boy heaved, and Ike patted his back until he could sit up again and eat the rest of the bread, slower, this time.

After he’d eaten, the two of them sat back, the boy watching Ike with suspicious eyes.

“What’s your name?” he asked. The boy didn’t answer. Ike sighed.

“I could share my lunch with you tomorrow as well?” he offered.

The boy looked startled, and nervously began to chew on his lips and comb his fingers through his hair. They kept getting caught on matted blood, and Ike tried very hard not to wince, and even harder not to drag this kid back home with him as fast as he could.

Finally, the boy nodded.

“Good!” he said. “I’ll be here tomorrow too, then.”

And that’s how he first met Soren.

Later, watching him sleep in a warm bed, with nicely washed and brushed hair, Ike was convinced that this was the best decision he’d made in his life.

///

Soren was... damaged, there was no other way to put it. When he first joined their family, he didn’t speak, not a word. He looked at everyone with suspicion, clinging to Ike like his life depended on it, and outright refused to be in the same room as Dad for more than an hour. More than once, Ike woke up to Soren huddling near his bed, staring at him like he was going to disappear if he blinked too often.

It got better, slowly. He wrote notes, at first, and then haltingly spoke a few words when it was convenient, and finally talked in full sentences, only using his notebook when he was particularly stressed. They discovered that he liked to read, and Dad did his best to get him books, bargaining with nearby merc groups that had access to the capital to get the truly difficult, expensive ones. He had prior training in magic, although he refused to say where he learned it, and Mist loved asking him question after question about it, and it made Soren flourish like a flower in the sun. And although he still didn’t like to leave Ike’s sight, Titania did manage to convince him to come with her to town, sometimes.

Ike stopped waking up to Soren staring at him in the middle of the night, mostly. There were outliers, and when it happened, he simply tapped the spot on the bed next to him, and dragged Soren under the covers so that they’d both go to sleep.

But one night, Soren just kept staring at him, chewing his lip.

“Something wrong?” Ike whispered, shooting a glance to where Mist was sleeping.

Soren shuffled a bit, before finally taking a deep breath and asking: “Can I see your soulmark?”

Ike blinked. “Why?”

“It’s -” Soren rubbed his arm. “I just want to see if it matches.”

“Oh.” There was a churning in Ike’s stomach he couldn’t quite identify, but he didn’t like it. “I don’t have a soulmark.”

Soren’s eyebrows shot up. “None at all? Is that even possible?”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Ike bit out, surprised at how hostile he sounded.

Soren took a step back, holding up his hands. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I was just - surprised, is all. Do you know why you don’t have one?”

Ike shifted a bit, folding his arms. “I was just born like this. It’s never really bothered me.”

“Even though it’s...” Soren’s voice trailed off, the way it sometimes did when he realized he was about to say the wrong thing.

“Just say it.”

“Even though it’s abnormal?” His voice was trembling a little bit, like forming words was getting difficult again.

“Yeah.” Ike shrugged. “Honestly, from what I’ve seen, soulmates just make you do stupid things. I’m glad I don’t have one.”

Soren stared at him for a bit, then shook his head, a small smile on his lips. “You continue to surprise me.”

Ike snorted. “Good, that’s what I’m here for. Now come sleep.”

///

Ike took note of Oscar’s arrival for one reason and one reason only: he brought two of his brothers along.

Rolf was young, younger than Mist even, which she delighted in, because it meant that she could now tease someone else for being the baby of the fort. Boyd was a little older than Ike, but still young enough that they could spar together without any one of them getting the upper hand out of sheer strength.

No, Ike got the upper hand in their spars because he was better.

“You’ve been training with knights for years,” Boyd complained. “It’s just unfair!”

“Your bother is a knight,” Ike pointed out, leaning on his sword as he watched Boyd scramble up out of the mud. “And my dad and Titania are mercenaries.”

“Well, my brother isn’t a knight anymore, either,” Boyd grumbled. Then, hefted his axe and grinned. “Rematch?”

Ike raised his sword. “You’re going down.”

It was nice to have someone his age to spar with, and Mist and Rolf seemed to be getting along for the same reasons. Soren was wary around them at first, but eventually, he got used to sharing camp with two more kids (and Ike with Boyd), and he seemed to enjoy calling up fire to impress Rolf. Ike was going to miss them when they left.

As much as he saw Rolf and Boyd, as little did he see Oscar. It seemed that he was always running ragged somewhere, cleaning weapons, training, going out into battle, helping to cook, and whatever else adults did all day. He never sat still, and so, Ike only ever really saw him during dinner, when he was almost too tired to talk to even his brothers, let alone some other kid. He seemed nice enough, Ike supposed, but he wasn’t around enough for Ike to really care for him.

Three months in, he caught a scrap of a conversation between him and Titania while hiding in the rafters.

“You can afford to sit down, you know,” he heard her voice say. “Your brothers miss you. Spend some time with them.”

“I’d love to,” Oscar answered, and the echo of his voice sounded sincere. “But I need to make sure I’m useful to Commander Greil. I can’t afford for this to fall through.”

Titania made a noise that was hard to identify from up here. “Greil is a good man. Do you honestly think that he’d sent you three back home to starve?”

Ike peeked over the beam to see Oscar shrug. “I - no, I don’t. But he’s not the only one I have something to prove to.”

Titania’s braid moved as she cocked her head. “Did you leave someone behind in the army?”

“Yes.”

“Someone important.”

“Yes.”

“Was it your soulmate?”

Oscar choked. “How did you -”

“Educated guess,” Titania’s voice was carefully neutral, the way it always was when she talked about soulmates. “Why didn’t they come with you?”

“I uhm, never told him?” Oscar rubbed his neck. “I think he knew, probably - I mean, how can you not know if you met your soulmate? But we never really, you know, talked about it. I was working up the nerve to do it, and then my parents -” his voice broke off.

When he recovered, his voice was louder, and a little higher - there was an emotion there, but Ike couldn’t quite recognize it. “So do you understand? I need this to work out. Otherwise I let that go for nothing.”

A deep sigh echoed through the room, and Titania grasped Oscar’s shoulder. “Oscar,” she said, so soft that Ike had to strain to hear it. “You worry too much. You don’t need a soulmate. We’re a family here, and we’ll keep you safe. You don’t need to run yourself ragged to prove your worth.”

“I -” Oscar’s next words were too low for Ike to hear. But Titania hugged him, and they walked out of the house soon after.

Ike stayed up in the rafters until dark, just thinking about the conversation. When his dad called him down for dinner, and he saw Oscar, tired, but still digging up the energy to listen to Boyd and Rolf’s enthusiastic stories, he didn’t feel entirely alright. Not really bad either, just - weird. He couldn’t quite place it.

And slowly, over the following months, Oscar quieted down. He joined Ike and Boyd’s spars, helped Rolf chose the weapons he wanted to learn, and offered to teach Ike and Mist how to cook (both took him up on the offer, Ike was banned after almost burning down the kitchen). Slowly, he seemed to come alive again, teasing his brothers and laughing along with the others, instead of drooping tiredly over his supper.

At the year mark, Ike decided that they were probably here to stay, and let Boyd win his first spar to celebrate.

///

After that, they acquired member after member, all here to stay, until slowly, the Greil Mercenaries grew into a stable force that didn’t need to take up contractors any longer. Ike didn’t care much for that. He only cared for the fact that he’d gained a family, one that was here to stay, and that, when Soren left to study with another merc group at the capital, he could safely trust him to come back.

He just didn’t expect to see Soren back this early.

That’s about when everything went to hell.

///

And then his dad was dead.

///

The sun was low on the horizon, casting long shadows in the room. They’d just raided Daein’s fortress, and they’d ride out for the king’s court tomorrow.

“Hey, you alright?”

Ike looked up from packing to see Oscar standing there, leaning against the wall.

“Sure, why wouldn’t I be?” Ike answered, not looking at him as he pulled the bag’s twine tight. From afar, he could hear Oscar sighing, and footsteps sounded as he walked closer.

“Are you okay to be touched right now?”

He shook his head. Oscar’s knees came into view as he sat down before him.

“When’s the last time you slept?”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re really not, and that’s okay.” Oscar’s voice was soft, soothing. It grated on him. “Look, I get how you feel.”

Ike said nothing, twirling the twine in his hands, pulling it taught and letting it loose again. He focused on the coarse feeling of rope against his skin, on the slight pain it caused when it caught off his blood circulation and dug into his skin.

“Remember when my parents died and I first joined the mercenaries?” Oscar said. “I felt like I had to be in constant motion, like everything would fall apart if I stopped for even a second. But I was wrong, of course. When I stopped, the world didn’t fall through, and it was fine.” Oscar shifted a bit, coming to sit cross-legged. “You can afford to rest, I promise.”

Ike tugged on the twine, feeling a white-hot sting of pain. “You’re wrong. You didn’t have to lead everyone. I do. I can’t afford to rest, because everything would quite literally fall apart.”

“Titania’s here, she can pick up the slack for a while. No one would blame you. You’re grieving.”

“Just shut up.” The twine snapped. “I’m fine. I mean, yeah, it was a shock at first, but I’m fine now. Not like Mist, she was bawling her eyes out just this morning, and I don’t - I don’t know how to help her. If you want to play healer for someone, pick her. Or just leave already, if you’re that worried about my leadership capacities.”

“Ike, we’ve talked about this. I trust you completely. I know you’ll be a great leader. Why would you think I’d want to leave now?” Oscar sounded genuinely hurt, and Ike could almost get himself to believe him.

There was a laugh from outside.

“You have your soulmate,” Ike said brusquely. “Boyd is old enough to take care of Rolf for a bit while you’re away, and besides - with the way things are going, it’s probably more dangerous for them here than alone in a house somewhere. You could - fuck, I don’t know, join with another merc group, or start your own, or something. It’ll be better for you, anyway.”

“Wait, how did you know that Kieran...” Oscar trailed off. “Okay, yeah, it’s probably obvious. But it doesn’t matter. Ike, seriously, it doesn’t matter. I’m not leaving you guys.” The stones were cold under Ike’s palms as he pushed himself forward slightly, rocking softly back and forth. Oscar was still talking, above him. “We haven’t even talked about the soulmate thing, yet. I think he’s waiting for me to bring it up. And even if he did want to leave, I wouldn’t care. I left him behind before, I can do it again.”

Oscar leaned forward, his voice growing more intense. “Frankly, I don’t care what the Goddess has to say about this. You guys are more important than whatever random person she decided to put me up with. You’re my family, and I’m not leaving you.”

“Shinon and Gatrie left.”

“They’re idiots. I’m not leaving. Besides, I’m pretty sure Boyd would axe me if I tried.”

At that, Ike couldn’t help but snort. “He might.”

“He would.” Oscar’s said. “He doesn’t want to go, and Rolf doesn’t either, he’d use me as target practice if I tried to leave Mist behind now. And most importantly, I don’t want to leave. None of us want to leave, so we’re staying. We trust you to lead us well, okay? You don’t have to run yourself ragged to do it.”

Ike dragged in a ragged breath, finally looking up at Oscar. He was smiling, little dimples forming in his cheeks. “Do you understand?” he asked.

“I - yeah,” Ike breathed out, looking at Oscar’s chin. “I’m just not sure if I can, right now. I feel like I just need to push through. That if I stop, I won’t get up anymore, and we can’t afford that.” I need to make Dad proud, he didn’t say.

Oscar nodded. “I understand. But let us help you, alright? No more skipping sleep.”

“Okay,” Ike said. “I promise.”

“Good.” Oscar went to pat him on the back, before hesitating. “Is touching alright?”

His back was still tense, his fingers still jittery, and Ike could feel every bump, nook, and cranny on the floor. “No,” he said. “Thanks for asking.”

“Any time.” Oscar waved. “I’ll be outside for now. You want to join us when you’re ready? We still have a while before the sun sets.”

Ike nodded. “Yeah, I’ll be out in a minute.”

Tomorrow, they’d ride for the king’s court, but for now, they had a little respite.

///

Gallia was certainly different from Crimea, not that this was surprising. For one, seeing Laguz everywhere was something of a shock, although it was easy enough to get used to. Getting used to the different customs was harder.

Laguz didn’t believe in tools or weapons, and so when their group trained in the courtyard, people stared at them, and the kids eventually got up the nerve to ask them about their swords, axes, spears and lances. It was strange to explain these things to others; for Ike, they had always been a part of his life, and the feel of a sword in his hand was almost as natural to him as breathing.

There were other differences as well. The language that people around them spoke was foreign, and it set Ike on edge more than he expected, to always be reminded how far he was from home. Much of the furniture was different, as was the layout of their rooms, and the architecture was strange to him as well, although he’d never had much of an eye for such things.

Social customs were completely different here, too, although this wasn’t something that Ike minded much; he’d never cared much for false politeness, and the fact that the Beast Laguz apparently didn’t want people to look them in the eye was something Ike could get behind completely. Less nice was the fact that physical contact was normal and expected in Gallia, even among strangers, which meant that Ike had to duck under more arms than he ever had before in his life.

But Gallia wasn’t any worse or better than in Crimea, as a whole; it was simply different.

The customs surrounding soulmarks were perhaps the only thing that truly grated on him. Although, to be fair, there was very little about soulmarks that didn’t grate on him.

“I’ve heard Beorc don’t display their soulmarks,” Mordecai said to him one afternoon while they were training. “Is this true?”

Ike wiped the sweat of his forehead, leaning forward on his sword while he watched Soren call the wind. In the end, he’d had to tell him that if he couldn’t say anything nice to the Laguz, then he shouldn’t say anything at all, which had lead to complete silence. He was disappointed in Soren, to say the least; while he’d always been a bit prickly, he hadn’t thought that he could be this much of an asshole.

“Think so,” Ike said with a shrug. “I don’t know much on the topic, to be honest. Apparently, our group has an unusually lax attitude to them.”

Mordecai cocked his head. “What do you mean?”

“We don’t much care for them. If you ask me, they’re nothing but a nuisance.”

“Huh.” Mordecai rubbed his nose. “Perhaps you should tell Lethe that.”

Ike leaned back slightly. “Why?”

“She doesn’t have a soulmate,” Mordecai said easily. Ike blinked.

“Is it okay to just go around telling people that in Gallia?”

“It is not in Crimea?” Mordecai shook his head. “Of course not, if you cover up your soulmarks. Here, we display them proudly. It makes it easier to find your soulmate. If someone doesn’t have a mark, you notice it quickly. No use keeping it secret.”

Ike threw a glance at Mordecai. Of course, he’d noticed the blue tiger streaks on him, and he’d assumed that those were his soulmarks, but since Lethe also had them (albeit in yellow), he supposed that he’d guessed wrong.

“Where’s your soulmark, then?” he asked.

Mordecai tapped the bandages on his left arm. “Here.”

Ike frowned. “You cover them up? Didn’t you just say Laguz didn’t do that?”

“Didn’t say that Laguz always show their soulmarks. Only here in Gallia. We don’t all have the same customs.”

Ike nodded. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed. Does that mean you’re not from Gallia?”

“No, I was born here.”

“Then why do you cover them up?”

Mordecai looked at Lethe, who was resting on the other side of the field from sparring with Titania, after having reluctantly agreed to join them only on the condition that she be allowed to fight their strongest warrior. They’d been evenly matched, laser focused on each other. Now, they were speaking, seemingly even civil, with Lethe’s tail lazily swaying in the sun.

“Solidarity,” Mordecai said simply. Then he patted Ike’s head, got up, and left to join the sparring group again.

///

Now that he was paying attention, Ike could notice the difference in the way that the other Laguz treated Lethe, verses the way they treated Ranulf and Mordecai. With Ranulf, they were respectful, as people often were to their superiors, and on ease the way someone would be around a friend or brother. Mordecai was treated with a little more wariness, but none of the Laguz actively went him out of the way. When Lethe walked through the hall, people parted around her, as if they’d get sick if they touched her.

Ike and Titania threw a glance at each other, and joined at her side.

“What do you want?” Lethe bit out.

“I wished to ask if you’d join us for a spar,” Titania answered, tapping the axe strapped to her back.

Lethe’s eyes narrowed. “Then why is he here?” she said, pointed at Ike.

Ike shrugged. “Had nothing better to do.”

Lethe’s tail gave an irritated swipe, before she glanced at the Laguz pressed against the walls, and snapped “Fine. See if you can keep up with me.”

She stormed out of the hall to the courtyard, and behind her back, Ike and Titania threw a smug glance at each other.

///

That night, Soren asked: “What was that for?”

“What was what for?” Ike replied, as he pulled off his shoes.

Soren’s fingers drummed against his leg. “Since when are you friends with the su-”

“Maybe you shouldn’t finish that sentence,” Ike warned in the mildest way he could, which still involved threateningly raising his shoe. “What is it with you, anyway? You’re hostile to everyone here for no good reason, and you’ve been off since you came back from the capital. Did something happen?”

“Aside from seeing the entire merc group I was with being slaughtered and watching Crimea fall to Daein?”

“Yes, aside from that.”

Soren crossed his arms, hugging them tight to his chest. “Nothing happened.”

“Soren, you’re not fooling anyone.” Ike sighed, leaning forward on his knees. “Look, if you don’t want to talk about it, fine. But whatever it is, you don’t have a right to be a dick to people who’ve done nothing to you.”

“Lethe’s rude,” Soren protested.

“So are you,” Ike countered. “And from what I’ve seen, she’s got a much better reason to be rude to Beorc than you have to be rude to Laguz, and she’s actually been willing to spar with us, whereas you’ve been ignoring Mordecai and Lethe like the plague.”

“On your orders!”

“No, I told you not to say anything to them if you couldn’t say anything nice, and you decided yourself that it was easier to avoid them than to just not be an asshole for three seconds,” Ike snapped, finally losing his patience. “Look, I know that something’s bothering you, and I really want to help, but I can’t if you insist on bottling everything up and not talking to me. If you’re ready to tell me what’s wrong, I’ll listen. But in the meantime, I’m not going to let you get away with bad behavior. I have a right to make friends with whomever I want, and if you have a problem with it, then that’s your issue to deal with, and I suggest you do so, because right now, even Lethe is better company than you are.”

As soon as that last bit left his mouth, he knew he shouldn’t have said it. Soren looked as if he’d slapped him. Ike winced. “Soren -”

“No, it’s fine, I get it,” he interrupted, and before Ike had the chance to say anything else, he spun on his heels and left the room.

Ike fell back on his bed, covering his eyes with his arm. It had barely been a week since his dad died, and already, things were falling apart.

“Fuck,” he groaned.

///

The next few months were spent on a boat, looking out at nothing but waves, in close quarters with everyone. Ike was used to living in other people’s personal space, more or less, but the tension between him and Soren hang heavy in the air, and he didn’t know what to do about it. He’d apologized, of course, as soon as he could, and Soren had apologized in return, but it had been stiff and formal. Whatever was wrong with Soren, Ike had only made it worse, and he wished he knew how to fix it. But he didn’t, and so he spent most of his time busying himself around the ship, learning whatever he could about seafaring. Which meant that he spent a lot of time around Nasir.

They got along well enough. Nasir had an easy way of talking, and he was an excellent teacher, knowing when to slow down and when to skip ahead a few lessons. But there was something gnawing at Ike, something that buried itself deeper and deeper into him the more time he spent with Nasir. For the longest time, he couldn’t quite put his finger on it, until one morning, when Nasir was teaching him how to tie knots, and the sun caught his face just so, the mark on his forehead starkly standing out from his skin.

“Is that your soulmark?” Ike asked, then flinched immediately. “Sorry, that was a rude question. Feel free to ignore it.”

Nasir blinked, before chuckling and absently rubbing his forehead. “No, it’s not, although the fact that many Beorc assume the same thing has proven to be an excellent cover. It’s my Laguz marking.”

“Oh,” Ike said, tugging on the rope. “I thought it seemed familiar.”

Soren’s mark looked much the same.

///

He met Kurthnaga for all of five seconds, but those five seconds were long enough to notice certain similarities between him and Soren. The tilt of his smile, the shape of his jaw, and of course, the red mark on his forehead - they might not be things that other people would have noticed, but Ike knew Soren almost better than he knew himself. And this prince felt undoubtedly familiar to Ike, even though they’d never met.

But still, he wouldn’t have been sure. It could’ve been coincidental, or he could have simply been imagining things.

But if he was, why would Soren hide inside the ship? Why wouldn’t he show his face?

Ike was beginning to suspect what was bothering Soren. The pieces fit. It made sense.

Now he just needed to figure out a way to broach the subject.

///

Apparently, Ike was a coward, and before he managed to get up the nerve to do anything, they were in Begnion, which was quickly rising up the ranks to be Ike’s least favourite country. Granted, he’d only been to three thusfar, but that was still two more than most people, so he felt qualified enough to say that Begnion was probably a shitty country by everyone’s standards. Unless you loved rules, cowards, corruption, and the Goddess, maybe.

Those four things just so happened to be on Ike’s Top Five Most Hated list, right alongside ‘soulmates’. Which were also of great importance to Begnion’s ruling class, unfortunately.

The subject of soulmates was first broached by Tanith.

“Your group has a very... casual attitude towards soulmarks, doesn’t it?” she asked, glancing at Mist’s uncovered mark.

Ike shrugged. “I guess,” he said, trying to end the conversation at quickly as possible.

“Don’t you think you should be encouraging everyone to cover them up?” Tanith pressed.

“Not really,” Ike said curtly. “It’s their body, they can do with it whatever they want.”

“But soulmates aren’t just part of their body,” Tanith protested. “They’re a blessing from the Goddess; they are but one half of you, the other one somewhere else, and you should search for them, but do so discretely, so as to not disrespect the Goddess’ gift.”

Perhaps I really am cursed, if I have to listen to this drivel every other week, Ike thought.

He didn’t say that. Instead, he gave her a short “I don’t care. Please leave.”

Next to him, Titania made a choking sound. “He didn’t mean that,” she tried to placate.

“I did. Please leave,” Ike said.

Titania pinched the bridge of her nose. Tanith looked... affronted, maybe? (He couldn’t quite identify her expression.) She opened her mouth to say something else, but Ike walked away before she could.

Frankly, he had more important things to do.

///

The day before they were set to leave Begnion, with his usual tact, Ike blurted out: “I know you’re a Laguz.”

Soren’s book fell on the floor. “Excuse me?”

“I know you’re a Laguz,” Ike repeated, sitting up straight on his bed. “I figured it out, it’s okay.”

“I’m - I’m not-” Soren sputtered, clenching his hands together. “Why would you even think that?”

Ike pointed to his forehead. “That’s not a soulmark, is it? Both Nasir and Kurtnaga have similar markings, and they’re both Dragon Laguz. In addition, you hid inside the ship when we met Kurthnaga. Like you were afraid he’d recognize you. It would explain why you’ve been so rude to all the Laguz we’ve met; it bothers you, and you’re lashing out at other Laguz in order to overcompensate. It fits.”

Soren stared at him, mouth hanging open, before he finally buried his head in his hands. His shoulders shook, and for a second, Ike thought he was crying, before he heard smothered laughter coming from him. “Fuck. Fuck, I’m -” Soren said, voice muffled by his hands, before taking a deep breath, sitting up, and looking straight at Ike again, with dogged determination on his face. “You’re half right.”

Ike blinked. “Half right?”

“Yeah.” Soren carded his fingers through his hair, twisting the strands nervously. “I’m - I figured it out in the capital, it was written in one of the books I read. It’s possible for Laguz and Beorc to - procreate, but the offspring isn’t quite right. They’re cursed by the Goddess herself. You can recognize them by their brand, which is why they’re called the Branded.” Soren waved vaguely in the direction of his forehead. “So no, that’s not a soulmark, but it’s not a Laguz mark, either. It’s a sign that I’m cursed.”

“Oh.” Ike could see that this was bothering Soren, but - honestly, he couldn’t understand why. “And what does that matter?”

“Didn’t you hear me? I’m cursed!” Soren’s voice was high and panicked now. “The Goddess Herself gave me this brand to show everyone how cursed I am! I don’t - how can you even stand to be near me?”

“Soren -”

“Why are you keeping me around? You have better mages, and full-blown, not broken Beorc and Laguz, and I’m cursed, I just -”

“Soren!” Ike yelled, cutting Soren off. He flinched, but stayed quiet. “I’m keeping you around because you’re hands down one of the best mages we have, because you’re definitely the best tactician we have, and because you’re my friend and I love you.”

Soren blinked, dazed. “But -”

“No ‘but’s,” Ike said firmly. “You’re my friend and my brother, and I’m keeping you around because you’re a valuable asset to the group and, most importantly, because I love you. It’s that simple.”

“But I’m cursed!”

“Soren, if I threw out everyone who was supposedly cursed by the Goddess, I’d have to throw out at least three members of our party, including myself.” Ike gestured wildly around him. “Seriously! Ask any of the pegasus knights what they think of people without soulmates, it’s not going to be pretty. Lethe gets treated like shit no matter where she is, either because she’s a Laguz or because she doesn’t have a soulmark or, you know, both; I’m pretty sure Tanith would personally run me out of Begnion if she found out I didn’t have a mark, and as for the last one - well, that isn’t for me to tell, but they didn’t exactly have fun, either. And all that because we’re supposedly ‘cursed by the Goddess’ or whatever.”

Ike leaned forward, making a point to look Soren straight in the eye, no matter how much it made his skin crawl. “I’ve never given a fuck about what the Goddess has to say, or who she’s supposedly cursed. Hell, if anything, I’m proud of the fact that my mercenary group is a safe haven for people she supposedly spit out, and if she’s got a problem with it, she can come and strike me down herself.”

He took a deep breath, two, and said, calmly, this time: “You know that. You’ve known that I don’t care about how abnormal I am or am not since we were little. And if I didn’t care about it then, why would I now? Why on Earth would you think I’d kick you out?”

Soren bit his lip, and his shoulders shook, and this time, he was actually crying. Ike stood up, hands hovering over his shoulders, unsure what to do, before Soren pulled him down into a hug and buried his head in his shoulder. Ike hugged him back, tight to his chest, like his dad used to do.

“It’s just,” Soren stammered out, once he managed to catch his breath. “The woman that took care of me when I was little was only doing it out of duty, and she liked to make that pretty damn clear, and then someone else took me in only because he mistook my mark for the sign of a spirit charmer, and the sage never cared for me, either. It’s - nobody was ever just nice to me, before you came me along. They all wanted something, and they didn’t care about me. It was comforting, back then, knowing that there was at least one person out there who’d love me unconditionally. And now - now I find out that what I thought was a soulmark was a brand from the Goddess all along, marking me cursed, and I don’t have anyone -”

“You’ve got me,” Ike interrupted. “You’ve got the entire mercenary group. We’re family, and if anyone wants to leave you behind, I’m personally going to kick their ass.”

Soren let out a strangled laugh. “I - I know that, I think. I’m just -” he sniffed. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Ike said, and kept hugging him until they fell asleep.

///

It was the last day they were in Begnion, and so far their stay hadn’t been... great, but they had secured the help Elincia needed, and Saneki liked them, and the Herons (all two of them, and didn’t that still make his blood boil) had their forest back, so Ike was going to count it as a win.

And then something went wrong, because of course it did.

“You’re an abomination before the Goddess!” he heard Tanith’s voice yell as he approached the hallway, and he had to stop for a second and sigh, deeply, before pushing open the doors and coming face to face with disaster.

“Do you really want a claw in your fucking face? Are you absolutely sure you wanna be mutilated?” Lethe snarled, only held back from following up on the threat by Mordecai, who held her in a death grip against his chest. Tanith stood before her, her face scrunched up, while the pegasus knights behind her, shuffling akwardly, as if unsure how to react to Tanith’s blatant breach of professionalism. Or maybe unsure how to react to Lethe. Either way, they were no help.

“What’s going on here?” Ike asked, attempting to seep as much authority into his voice as possible. He’d gotten very good at it over the last couple of months, and Tanith and Lethe stood to immediate attention.

“My lord,” Tanith said with a small bow, and Ike suddenly hated this situation so much more than before, if that was even possible. “Excuse my language, but I’ve uncovered an important detail about your... traveling companion. It seems that she doesn’t have a soulmark.”

Lethe looked about ready to murder Tanith, and in all honestly, Ike wouldn’t mind much if she did, in this moment. But he could acknowledge that that’d be a bit of a drastic solution to the problem at hand, so instead, he took another deep breath, and said: “I’m aware. Do you have something relevant to inform me of?”

Tanith blinked, and murmurs started up in among the pagasus knights. “My lord,” Tanith said again, louder this time, as if volume would make her bullshit any more true. “She’s cursed by the Goddess. She cannot be allowed to travel with us.”

Ike and Tanith stared each other down, for one, two, three seconds, before Ike looked away, unable to take it any longer. He balled his fists, unballed them, and finally decided that he simply didn’t care enough to maneuver out of this in a manner that would be approved of by Soren and Titania. This was his mercenary group, and if someone insisted on being an asshole to them, he didn’t care how important they were, they were going down.

“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Ike said, in his most neutral voice. “It’s regrettable that you won’t be traveling with us, then. We could have used your strength, but I’m sure we can manage without you.”

The pegasus knights went dead silent, all staring at him with open mouths. But he didn’t care for them; he looked at Tanith, whose eyes were wide, and whose mouth was threatening to fall open, too.

“I’m sorry, I don’t suppose I heard you correctly,” she finally managed to choke out. “What did you say?”

“I said,” Ike repeated calmly, “that if you insist on demonizing one of my trusted companions over trivial matters, then I neither want nor need your help. Was that clear enough?”

“Trivial matters!” Tanith exclaimed, and - huh, was that real pain in her voice? He might be getting that wrong. “Soulmates are anything but trivial!”

“They are to the task at hand, namely restoring Princess Elincia to the throne and defeating Daein.” Ike’s hand went to grab his sword, so that he had a grounding weight, but he aborted the movement quickly, realizing just in time that it would be taken as a threat. “And furthermore, in case you are of the opinion that not having a soulmate makes you inherently cursed and therefore untrustworthy, you might like to know that I myself am not in the possession of a soulmark.”

Tanith looked like she’d been slapped. A pegasus knight stepped back, and he saw some of the other’s hands go for their swords. He’d probably do well to get out of here as quickly as possible.

“We leave in an hour,” he announced. “If you think that you’ll be able to conduct yourself civilly, you may leave with us. Otherwise, I suppose we are done here.”

He gestured at Mordecai and Lethe to follow him, and marched out of the door without looking back. It slammed behind him.

“Pretty rude,” Mordecai remarked. Lethe was uncharacteristically quiet.

“So were they,” Ike snapped. His hand had found his cape, and he was fidgeting with it. Outside, a bird chirped, and horses neighed, and he couldn’t shut it out, so he knew it was time to leave. “I’ll come find you in about an hour.”

He disappeared before anyone could answer.

///

It might’ve been half an hour before Titania found him in the rafters of the attic (was it still an attic in a castle? It might have a fancier name. Anyway, the highest point that wasn’t the roof).

“Ike?” she called out in the silence of the room. Ike startled, his hands stilling against his cape’s fabric.

“Here,” he said, letting the echo carry his voice.

Titania looked up, straight to where he was hidden, and began to climb. She plopped down at the beam opposite to his.

“How did you find me?” Ike asked.

She smiled. “You like hiding up high. You’ve been doing it since you were a kid. Did you honestly think I didn’t know?”

Ike shrugged. He’d never really thought about it, but it made sense. If anyone knew him, it was Titania. And Mist, too, but he could guess why she wasn’t here, currently. In this matter, Titania could relate to him better than Mist ever could, with her pretty white flowers.

“So I heard you blew off our reinforcements,” Titania said, but there was no harshness in her voice.

“Sorry,” he said anyway. “I knew I shouldn’t have done that, but I -”

“I’m proud of you,” Titania interrupted, and that shut Ike up. “Yes, we’ve lost some crucial reinforcements. I’m not happy about that. But in all honesty, I’m afraid that this was always bound to happen.” She sighed, leaning back on her beam. “It’s just the same as what happened in the army. We scare people. We force them to look at their own lives, their own priorities, and if they acknowledge that we’re not cursed, then they need to acknowledge that they themselves aren’t blessed for having soulmates. That maybe, the way they’ve been living their lives, longing for one single person who is supposed to solve all of their problems, isn’t entirely healthy. And that thought scares them, so they lash out. It happens. It’s not your fault, and it’s not Lethe’s, and it wasn’t mine.”

Ike focused on his cape, running his fingers over the coarse fabric. “I hate this.”

Before Titania could answer, the door opened the second time.

“Ike?” Lethe yelled from below. “Titania? You guys here?”

“Lethe?” Titania yelled back, leaning over the beam to look at the floor. “What are you doing here?”

“Followed you,” came the answer. “Figured you were probably going to search for Ike, and I wanted to talk with him.”

“I’m here,” Ike called down. “Up in the rafters.”

Lethe looked up, and although Ike couldn’t see it from up high, he’d be willing to bet that her expression was irritated. Quickly, she transformed, and jumped up the walls, finally landing on the same beam as Ike with the grace of a cat. “Why would you be hiding all the way up here, asshole?” she asked, once she transformed back.

“Would you ever have found me if you didn’t know to follow Titania?” he replied.

“Point,” Lethe admitted. She settled down on the beam, her tail swiping in the air, her ears pressed flat to her head.

“Look,” she started, crossing her arms and looking stubbornly down at the beam. “I wanted to thank you, I guess. You didn’t have to do that, but it was - nice, to have someone other than Mordecai defend me for once. So thank you.”

“Tanith was being an asshole,” he said simply. “You’re welcome.”

“Good. You’re not getting this out of me a second time, and I’ll deny I ever said it.”

“I have a witness, though,” Ike noted dryly, pointing at Titania, who waved.

Lethe let herself fall backwards against the beam. “Fuck. Should’ve planned this better.”

Ike snorted, and Titania outright laughed, and Lethe threw them the finger.

They still had half an hour left, and nothing else to do, so they stayed up there in the rafters, talking.

///

When they were set to leave, to his immense surprise, he saw Tanith waiting for him in the hallway. Lethe bared her teeth, and Mordecai put a calming hand on her shoulder. At his side, Titania twitched slightly, not enough for anyone else to notice, but enough for Ike to know that she was on edge.

“Can we talk?” Tanith asked.

“Can you be civil?” Ike retorted, genuinely surprised when Titania didn’t stop him.

“I - yes,” she turned to Lethe and bowed. “I apologize for my outburst earlier. It was completely uncalled for, and it won’t happen again.”

Lethe’s mouth opened and closed like a fish, and finally, she just bristled and walked away without saying anything.

“She appreciates it,” Mordecai said, before following her.

Ike nodded towards Titania. “Go with them.”

She glanced down at him. “Are you certain?”

Tanith was still standing there, and she looked - well, Ike couldn’t be entirely sure; he was famously bad at reading people he didn’t know well, and Tanith’s body language was very subtle. But she’d sounded genuine, earlier.

“Yes,” he confirmed. Titania nodded and left, leaving only him and Tanith in the hall.

She took a deep breath. “First, I would like to apologize to you as well. Like I said to Lethe, my outburst was uncalled for and completely unprofessional.”

Ike nodded curtly. “I appreciate your apology, although you should be aware that I will be wary around you, from now on.”

“That might be fair,” Tanith admitted. “While I can assure you that I will not be repeating such a scene, I can’t promise to be completely civil from now on. I -” she broke off her sentence and looked away. “I’ve been taught from a very young age to value soulmarks, perhaps above all else, as a gift of the Goddess. I’ve never quite known how to reconcile that with myself, and I suppose that has lead to me lashing out. I can’t promise not to do that in the future.”

Ike took a few moments to process her words, and then the pieces fell together. “You don’t have a soulmate.”

She winced. “I implore you not to tell anyone else.”

“I won’t,” Ike reassured her. “You’re welcome to join our group, on the condition that we be allowed to speak up when you’re being rude. While I sympathize with your issues, they aren’t an excuse to hurt other people.”

Tanith nodded. “I understand, and I agree. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.” They nodded to each other, and Tanith turned to move out. Ike began to do the same, then hesitated.

“And Tanith?” he called after her, and she turned around to look at him.

“Yes?”

“You’re not alone.” He moved to stand beside her. “Really. It’ll be alright.”

She stared at him for a while, before a small smile played on her lips. “Thank you.”

They moved out, to the snowy mountains of Daein.

#aggressivelyarospecweek #my writing #fire emblem #my posts #i know that there's a way to do fancy page dividers in tumblr bc i've done it before but i cannot for the life of me remember how #so i'll just keep it in my normal editing format for now

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wackygoofball · 6 years ago

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Can you tell us why you’re so positive? I’m having a hard time imagining any positive scenario with Jaime being dead now but I wasn’t wondering what you’re hoping for in the last episode that we can hope for

Well, my positivity comes from the very fact that no matter what, I have an awesome fandom experience. I made the most amazing friends with whom I now share connections reaching beyond the shipping material of my choice, JB. I’ve had and continue to have illuminating and interesting discussions, share in crazy theories, make fun edits and enjoy my wacky life. I never had that until I was guided to the beacon of hope of the JB fandom, and now that I am a part of it, I wouldn’t want to miss a single thing.

So I don’t really see why I would be feeling negatively? Why I would lose all hope, fall into despair, curl in on myself ino a tiny wacky ball, and never dip my toes into the JB fandom again… I can’t see it because I have those things and literally no one other than myself can take them away from me again.

It’s actually the exact opposite for me. I may have come to the fandom because of JB, but I stayed for the whole package. I stayed for the social and emotional connections I made with fellow shippers. I stayed for the debates, not just about JB but all kinds of things. I stayed for the fun and the fanfic, for the gift challenges and roundrobins, for the fanvids and latenight chats.

And so I continue to stay for my friends, I continue to stay for what we canonically have and what can otherwise be explored within the realms of fanon, fanfiction, fanart, and the like.

Because, to me, being part of the JB fandom grew to be so much more than being a fan of Jaime Lannister and Brienne of Tarth, it was becoming a part of a community I don’t want to lose ever again.

But now, I guess your question is more aimed towards what gives me hope for show *canon* turning out satisfactory for JB in any so such way, considering the current… brick odds. Since that post turned out longer than it should (it’s currently 3.00 a.m. and I should be sleeping… so please excuse additonal rambling), I will put this below the cut:

I mean… let’s go through the scenarios from worst case to best case (at least some, there are too many variants to list, really), but for the sake of the argument, let’s roll with the following selection:

1) Even if show canon now ends with Jaime having died last episode and that being the end of it, I have all the opportunity in the world to read and write fix it fanfic and theorize about those what ifs canon would then have left unexplored. So I don’t see why I would be angsting about it. I’ve been to other fandoms before, I shipped pairings I either knew would never become canon or was iffed about when they did not. However, that then leaves me with the sometimes hard but productive task of going back over my earlier theories and see where I went wrong, perhaps, in my analyses to draw the wrong conclusions, where I may have led my shipper goggles distort the source material too much. That can be a kind of painful experience, but it can also be greatly rewarding as it can help me sharpen my views for future analyses of other source materials I may come to enjoy. However, even if we stick to the in-canon expectations here. JB have made love to each other, more than once. They had a beautiful journey together and unless Bran sets it all back in time and we start over somewhere else, no one can take that away from us ever again. And that is amazing.

2) A more hopeful scenario: Jaime still stays dead but either through Tyrion or Bran we at least get the in-canon acknowledgement that Jaime *was* in love with Brienne and also went off to King’s Landing to protect her. Imagine, for instance, a scenario whereby he was being told that Brienne bears his child now. Jaime may have felt like he was a danger to that child (considering the Bronn situation) and/or may have found himself unworthy of that kind of life and may have wished to remove himself from the equation. He may even have been pushed into it by Bran in a number of ways. That would at least give us some kind of closure. It may stil hurt as hell, but the one thing that lies in the air in the narrative at present is that neither Jaime nor Tyrion, in any fashion, addressed his relationship with Brienne. Tyrion didn’t even bring it up during their conversation in the tent, which I would have fully expected as the show bothered to have Tyrion in the know about Jaime’s relationship with Brienne. Why didn’t he ask him something along the lines of “Why do you want to die with Cersei now? You had something good there with Brienne, it made you happy. Why did you just leave that behind?” But no such conversaion took place. Why? I don’t know. I remain puzzled about it. And that is where I am curious to know whether there is something else to that other than “we didn’t have the time to address that” or “we forgot/didn’t bother” storytelling-wise.

3) Jaime may still die but he is not dead as per status of episode 5. He will die of the injuries, but not until Brienne held him in her arms (”to die in the arms of the woman I love” as opposed to holding his sister in what I truly found a way of him acting like a brother to her who was trying to console a hysteric woman who knew she was close to dying and became younger and younger inside her mind the deeper they went). Still all the more tragic, still would suck ass for Brienne as she would have the Renly scenario almost exactly as before, but she held Jaime before he died. They made love before that. So this may at least be the acknowledgement that by the end of the day, Jaime and she had something true, but that circumstances kept them apart and that Jaime would have liked to stay with her in another life, if only life hadn’t made him make certain choices that led down this road.

Now we dig into the really more hopeful scenarios that suggest he is not dead. There are reasons that support this thesis (I don’t call authority to them as, per Occam’s razor, the simplest solutions are ofentimes those that hold the greatest truth). So again, I am not holding my breath for any of those options, all that is to say is that the options *exist*. That is not to fall into hopeful hyping, only to be disappointed if it does not come around, but plainly pointing out arguments that support the thesis.

Reasons that may be used in support of the hypothesis:

a) the show’s really outdone itself to stick a letter to Jaime’s back reading “dead man walking”: Brienne assumed he’d ride to KL to die with his sister, Tyrion said he’d die, Jaime said he’d die, Euron said he’s the one who killed Jaime Lannister, Cersei saw his wounds and kind of implied “you ded”, and then bricks ex machina. Like. Say it one time, foreshadowing, perhaps. Say it two times to make sure. But 4 fuckin’ times is like beating us with a stick.

b) This show has had characters survive despite greater injuries, and now I am not even pointing to Jonesus or Daenerys being fireproof in the show. Remember how Arya got stabbed repeatedly, fell into the water and bled out fast and still she did fine and later on did parkour with the Waif and killed her? Good times. Jon, even after the Julius Caesar stabbination, had it a lot of times when he he should have been dead of injuries and/or pneumonia (see Suicide Squad Beyond the Wall). Arya had buildings drop on her and fire spew at her the whole episode and she got the pale horse showing he the way out (I still hope the horse is Jaqen H’ghar). Tyrion had a ship’s mast drop on him and he did not die. List goes on and on and on. Also, Euron brought a long ice pick to a sword fight. Dude may have missed some major arteries, is all I’m saying.

c) Speaking of injuries, what was the point of having him gravely injured, for what looked and sounded like at least 1 collapsed lung and his kidneys likely looking like a pincushion? The guy still made it all the way up to the map room and then all the way down again without breaking down just once. While Cersei had a sudden unexpected surge of caring for the dude she sent an assassin after not long ago (seriously, let’s never forget that tidbit), the blood on his shirt was not as much as I would have expected from the injuries he’s received. But more to the point: Why have him so gravely injured if the upshot was, all along, he gets there, they get trapped, and then they die together. Why go through the lengths of having Jaime so greatly injured if there is no pay off for him dying of those injuries? Why is it then death by bricks? Why the overkill? I find it odd, is all.

d) There was no single verbal or otherwise recognition by either Jaime or Tyrion about the JB relationship. There was no “tell her I am sorry” or “Could you send her a raven on my behalf?” Nothing. They didn’t even mention her.

e) Jaime seemed awfully jumpy with his reasoning for being there. First he says the odds are even and Cersei may win, implying that he’d want to support Cersei against Daenerys in some way, or rather, keep damage at a minimum by trying to ensure his sister doesn’t pull anything that puts the people in danger. Then Tyrion goes on about how Daenerys will win and Cersei will die. Jaime switches back to Tyrion’s (and Brienne’s) suggestion of him wanting to die by Cersei’s side, which is contrary to his first statement. Then Tyrion points to the people. He says he doesn’t care. Which directly contradicts what he did to save the people of King’s Landing when he slew Aerys. For the sake of that argument, let’s just never forget that Jaime Lannister is one of those characters who builds on “say one thing, mean the other” many, many times. Why am I to assume that there is no hint of that in this cryptic converstaion he’s having with his brother?

f) Why does Tyrion try to get a promise out of Jaime to get Cersei and himself out of KL with the boat? Why does he make him swear? Shouldn’t pointing out the opportunity be enough to convince Jaime to go with it?

g) Others have theorized about it before, I also came back to it. There still is the BATB trope that JB have been following *a lot*. And by that I mean their trajectories were largely reliant on it. Now of course, just because characters are inspired by a trope doesn’t mean the author/writer is obligated to continue it till the very end, but it’s odd how we’ve been following almost all beats, only to stop at what would now be the fakeout death of Beast for Beast to be reborn.

h) Outside of what’s going on within the show’s narrative - NCW’s been all kinds of excited about his arc in season 8, and he’s expressed frustration before, which nearly always related to Jaime staying with his sister for longer than is necessary. This scenario, as it stands right now… does that sound like something NCW would be totally hyped about? I don’t really know. Also, the guy’s been seemingly gagged by HBO in some basement full of free T-shirts since there are no goodbye interviews as we have seen them for Conleth, Pilou and Lena. We only got a couple of instagram posts, but other than that? Am I the only one getting the “Jon Snow is totally dead, guys!” vibes? Perhaps to throw us off, but again, it is something that would support the hypothesis.

i) While we now got a MUCH darker Daenerys *ahem*, and it may well be that she will be wiped off the slate next episode, but that’s another topic… isn’t it AWFULLY neat how that basically removed “all the bad guys” from the narrative? Gregor dead, Euron dead, Qyburn dead, Cersei dead (furthermore, look at all the other baddies we put in the ground, and even those with redemption like Theon are now biting the dust). And then we have Jaime. A character who’s been hated by most for what he did to Bran and for the incesting, a character who continued to be hated by many parts of the viewership based on that, no matter the deeds he did thereafter. The point being, it seems awfully convenient if all the “good guys” lived and all the “bad guys” of varying degrees were to die. GRRM aimed for that bit of dramatic fantasy realism where we have morally gray characters, some grayer than others. Odd enough that this would leave much of the so-perceived morally more or less sound members of the clan right where they are. If I were writing such a thing, I’d keep some of those ambivalent characters, if only to show that the good vs. bad dichotomy does not hold in the real world and that in the real world, sometimes, do not only good guys die but also not-always-good-guys live.

j) What was Jaime’s plan? While he came back to “I am the stupidest Lannister”, Jaime is… not. He outsmarted Tyrion in terms of battle tactics. He is a gifted commander. He certainly is not as dumb as Cersei claimed him to be as she herself was not always the brightest pebble with an evil T’Pol haircut. He’s covered his hand with the glove when he rode away from King’s Landing at the end of season 7. He covered it again until he came back into King’s Landing and then took it off, for what it seems in the hope to use it as a VIP card to get the soldiers’ attention and thus entry into the Red Keep. That means he was in possession of the glove by the time he was captured by Daenerys’s forces. Why would he not wear it, then? Did he want to be caught? Why would he? Was he told by someone with the power of foresight that he needed to be there, that he needed to learn what signal was to be given (the bells) in order to give order to have them ring? We don’t know if he gave the order, but it’s not unlikely. Did he have a plan he didn’t let on even in front of his brother? Was there information Jaime protected and was that the reason why he seemed somewhat off? Who knows. Only the next episode will tell.

k) We are still due some kind of a reaction from Brienne.

l) Where the fuck is Widow’s Wail?

m) Why did the show bother giving us JB making love and playing house if the entire idea was to have him run back to his sister and just die by bricks? Why wait with this till the very last episode, to make it, for all it seems, the literal FINAL big bang of the series?

n) There is something to be said about how realism is not just “everyone dies and all is terrible”. Right now… everything is. We are in worst case scenario land for basically everyone. Jon became complicit in a mass murder, he could not prevent what Jaime did when he slew Aerys before he could nuke the city. Daenerys… committed a mass murder (she lost everyone safe for angry Greyworm and and is now a Queen of the Ashes). Cersei was cast down. Jaime coudln’t make his happiness with Brienne, for all it seems. Varys, for now, it seems, is proven right in that he hoped to be proven wrong and that shit would not go down like it did. Tormund won’t ever get his Emobear back. Bran is an emotional vegetable. Arya just had houses drop on her. Sandor died in fire, aka his worst enemy. Sansa may just have helped put Jon and/or Arya in danger if Daenerys continues to be crazypants. Hundreds and thousands of people got burned, injured, raped, murdered, kabloomed. Tyrion may just have lost his entire family, may still face the wrath of his Queen and continues to be kind of a stupid idiot. This is not some balanced kind of scenario of good and bad, this is just… bad.

o) If we only consider POV characters from the books, there are only three pairings where they are both major POV characters, the three Jays: JC, JD, and JB. And of those two… two are varying degrees of incest, as Varys would otherwise point out to you, and the other barely left the ground before bricks came raining from the sky. The point being… am I to believe that no single 2-POV-romance has any kind of a future? I find it odd.

The list could probably be longer but I am getting tired here. Suffice to say there are a number of reasons that *support* such a hypothesis.

Back on target of scenarios that give me hope - the Jaime lives somehow edition:

4) We may still be in for a Branception. He may pull back time and try to right things (he may also turn out the ultimate villain whose only goal, from the beginning, was to obtain the IT for all we know). He may have seen the worst case scenario unfold as we saw it now, and we may go back to him trying to make it right this time. But those are scenarios that involve a kind of mojo that continues to leave me far too baffled to dive into further. Suffice to say, he may have his hands in that somehow.

5) Suppose both of them survive somehow. Further imagine a scene of someone waking up on a boat, blinded for a moment, only to come around and look at a very scowling Brienne of Tarth, only to realize that yup, we are seeing things through Jaime’s eyes. And as he turns around he sees a dishevelled but alive sister in the boat, and a very pissed off sellsword turned assassin who complains about how he did not sign up for nearly getting buried alive in those tunnels if not for that warrior woman forcing him to wait out there and pull Jaime and Cersei to safety in the skulls or whatever else when it mattered. Evidently, this would have to be followed by some kind of trial for Cersei as she remains a shitshow of a person who held a city hostage, kabloomed a sept because she could and smirkily drank wine while doing so and gettting helluva murderboners over this. AKA her ending with Jaime still sounds to me as far too nice for a woman who’s done so much horrible when there was no need for it and did nothing really other than supposedly being pregnant with a child (will continue to believe that it is/was a tumor until I’m proven otherwise… even then I will stick to it because history parallels are awesome!) to deserve a “nice” and somewhat comforting exit with her brother by her side, without a single sign of acknowledgement of her being a shitshow of a person. Anyway, that leads too far astray. The point remains on the idea that I wouldn’t even exclude Cersei living at least for a longer while (end of episode 6), but ultimately proving that Jiame will outlive her (as was kind of hinted at by the book’s weirwood dream).

6) Since we have Davos and Tyrion in place as well as a body that conveniently is deposited near the Red Keep now and maches in height and so and such, and since Daenerys would not want to see Jaime Lannister alive right now… how about the good old switch game? Demolish Euron’s dead face a bit more, cut off a hand, stick the golden one on, maybe crispy him a bit more and present that to Daenerys. Would she ask questions beyond that? The point being, I can perfectly see a scenario whereby Jaime will emerge from the rubble (either by sheer luck or by having dived or been pulled into one of the dragon skulls) or will be pulled ou of it, and everyone has to be quick to get rid of him to hide him from Daenerys’s wrath. Off into a boat and let him be brought somewhere to heal and live a silent life where nobody knows what became of him. Tarth is supposed to be beautiful around the season, hm?

7) Brienne pulls Jaime from the rubble. He explains himself to her, believing he is about to die, just that he isn’t. Maybe he will ogle at her, going on about how Bran even told him how he was destined to die and how there was no future beyond (for him). Only for Brienne to drop it on him that there is, if he decides to live at last because sure as hell she won’t be taking care of a kid they both made and have responsibility to. Perhaps Jaime recognizing that Bran hinted at that the baby he was referring to was not Cersei’s (if there is) but Brienne’s. And that all that needed to happen so he could be reborn.

8) Jaime being the one to ring the bells becoming some kind of unsung hero alongside Brienne if she has any part in getting rid of the current usurper. Imagine Brienne badass-single-handedly getting rid of the living nuke aka dragon.

9) In a scneario whereby Jon offs Daenerys or Daenerys offs off to Essos and Jon does not push the claim… and if we hopefully overlook Gendry because the guy should not be assigned manager jobs he does no have the expertise for (*eye roll*) - I mean, don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Gendry but he is by no means a politician or anything close to it… just briefly imagine of the reborn Jaime Lannister, the former Kingslayer, suddenly being confronted with the reality that he is heir to the Iron Throne. Just for funsies. Hm?

10) All ends with Jaime waking up next to Brienne, dozing in bed with their ten kids sleeping in the other rooms of Evenfall Hall, going like “Brienne, honey, I just had the shittiest dream ever.” And then the two cuddle.

Yeah no, for real now though. I can spin myself more scenarios than that, all of which bear hope in some capacity, both within the canon as well as how I have set up my shipping habits. Which means I basically feel invincible right now. The worst that can happen is that I am dissatisfied with how their arcs will conclude, in which case I still have my community and fanfic to fix it. If it ends tragically but at least with recognition of feelings for one another, I will be sad but satisfied. If Jaime survives at least long enough to see Brienne one more time, I will cry like a baby but I will be okay because it will make clear where his heart was at last. and how it will always be hers. If it’s one of the more and most positive scenarios, I will be a happy customer and may gloat more than I should.

My most basic hope is that we get coherence where I currently find myself confused as to where the narrative is heading. There are things I don’t understand or can’t currently, based on the limited information we have, make sense of. I would hope for the show to clear up that much.

My more elaborate hope is that we get the confirmation of their mutual feelings for one another. That can go a multitude of ways, as outlined above, but that’s something I would really want/need to feel like their arcs came full circle, even if Jaime winds up dead.

My HYPE hopes are of course the rebirth scenarios. I don’ find them unlikely, but I don’t hold my breath for them to happen. If they do, I am happy. If they don’t, I won’t be disappointed enough to be sadder than I ought to be. I will try my best to use it as inspiration for fanart, fanfic, and editing.

So yeah… how can I go wrong? How can I be anything but hopeful? I hope for the best, accept the worst if it comes, and simply go on with my fandom life because that is the important aspect about it for me personally. I have amazing friends in this fandom and I can look back on years of one of the best shipping rides I ever undertook. We are canon in every sense of the term and that can’t be taken away from us (as someone once said so elegantly: you can’t unfuck someone). So my hopes are that I simply get to go on enjoying my fandom life in this fandom, then waiting for the books and taking the liberty to dissect the narrative in the light of its full context instead of only ever theorizing based on limited information. My hope is to continue to have awesome, inspiring, and productive discussions and theories and headcanons.

Those are my hopes, and I don’t see how they will ever be disappointed, no matter what may happen in the show next week, or in the infinity and beyond it will take for GRRM to finish those books. And I think that’s not just wishful thinking because the power to remain hopeful actually lies with me. I am the master of my shipping experience, of my fandom life, and as such, I can have all the positivity no matter the canon outcomes.

So yeah, I am a happy Wacky right now and I will continue to be.

And I do hope that some of that positivity will reach you, anon, and anyone else currently feeling like… a bunch of bricks are raining down on them. Sorry, I have to cut back on those puns, I know.

Anyway. To close now.

I am hopeful because I put my hope in my fandom experience, and in that way I cannot possibly lose - and anyone who decides to follow down the same path, you can’t lose either! So how about we continue to win together? I’d very much like that.

#jaime x brienne #Jaime Lannister #brienne of tarth #game of thrones #got spoilers #got theories #wacky rambles #anon #thanks anon #got speculation #headcanons #fandom happiness #wacky hopes #jb positivity #got positivity

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thesffcorner · 5 years ago

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Book Couples of 2019: Ranked

I stole this idea from Sam at ThoughtsOnTomes, and I’ve done it two years in a row. So why not keep the tradition going in the next decade too and rank all the couples from books I read in 2019.

Before we start, some ground rules:

SPOILERS AHEAD;

All of the couples are from books I read in 2019;

All the couples must be canon; they are only on the list if they are written as explicitly romantic;

Worst to Best, i.e. couples I liked the least to couples I liked the best.

Let’s go!

TERRIBLE TIER:

50. Erika and Michael from Corrupt by Penelope Douglass

Is anyone surprised that these two are the worst couple of the year? If you are, you must be new here.

This pairing has all the tropes I hate in literature: an abusive, possessive alpha male hero who treats the girl like shit, but it’s ok because he loves her. He’s also willing to destroy her life over his friends, who as far as he knows raped her, so that’s fun too. Oh, and also it takes for her to almost die for him to tell her he loves her. We stan an emotionally stunted idiot.

As for Erika, she’s entitled, dumb, naive and completely virginal, in spite of being in a committed long term relationship. She has no personality other than her unrequited 14 year old crush, but somehow she’s supposed to be smart and independent? Sure, Jan.

49. Joe and Beck from You, by Caroline Kepness:

I don’t think I need to explain to anyone why I hated these two. They are both pretentious, horrible people and I’d say they deserve each other, except no one deserves Joe, not even Beck.

48. Marcus, Maria and Saya from Deadly Class by Rick Remendeer:

2019 was a bad year for love triangles, which is a trope I’m not a huge fan of anyway, but man did this year make me hate it even more. As the first example we have Marcus, Maria and Saya, who are by far 3 of the most obnoxious characters I have ever had the displeasure of reading from.

First we have Maria, who is just ‘crazy’, because women be crazy y’all! She’s promiscuous, even though she has a boyfriend, who she then cheats on with Marcus, back-stabs her best friend over him, and then gets dropped like a potato when Marcus realizes he can sleep with Saya too.

There are some attempts in the latter volumes to give her some depth and explain why she was dating Dio to start with, but you know, I’d rather you had opened with that.

Marcus, outside of being the absolute worst person in existence, treats Maria poorly, talks shit about her behind her back, cheats on her, let’s her take the fall for stuff he and Saya did and in general doesn’t want to be with her, but stays because sex.

His relationship with Saya is even worse; they like the same shitty music, and are both horny. Also Saya is a horrible tsundere cliche, which is already annoying in anime and manga, even well written ones, let alone when an American writer tries to emulate it. Badly.

BAD TIER:

47. Mariko, Akira and Taro from Empress of All Seasons by Emiko Jean

The second love triangle on the list, and this one wins by being the dumbest, most underdeveloped one of the year.

Mariko was the character I liked the most, but her connection to both Akira and Taro was tenuous at best, and more than a little frustrating.

Akira gets put in the friend-zone, except not really because he actually is proactive and tries to show Mariko that he values her, but then the book forgets about him so we can develop Taro, who is somehow even worse. At least Akira had a connection to Mariko before he fell for her; Taro sees her and decides she’s the one because she talks back at him thinking he’s just an ordinary samurai, not the prince, a trope that needs to fuckin DIE. Not to mention his faster than Kylo Ren turn to the darkside.

46. Odessa, Evander and Mereday from Reign of the Fallen by Sarah Glenn Marsh:

The next triangle on this list, and this one hurts more because it actually had potential.

There is something really compelling about two women coming together to grieve the loss of a loved one, with the idea that Mereday has nursed a crush on Odessa since childhood, but because of social norms and her brother, she’s stayed away.

What we get instead is an uneven mess, where neither character feels like they are progressing at all, and a ton of contrivances as to why they won’t talk to each other, instead of building on the existing conflict of ‘Odessa’s boyfriend and Mereday’s brother is the same person, and he is dead’.

45. Poe, Auden and St Sebastian from A Lesson in Thorns, by Sierra Simone:

Speaking of potential, these 3.

This is one of those triangles where all 3 legs should be, and are written to be equal, but unfortunately, the author clearly liked the one I liked the least, the most.

I liked Auden and St Sebastian, wanted to find out what happened to make Auden treat St Sebastian the way he did, and why St Sebastian let him do it. I even liked the pull they felt for each other and the jealousy Poe brought up in them.

I also really liked Poe and St. Sebastian, their angst over being separated, their bonding over feeling like outsiders in Auden’s world, and the loss of their respective mothers.

The couple I liked least were Auden and Poe, which is the one Simone spent the most time on. I hated Auden’s entitlement, the blindness to his privilege, the unnecessary engagement to Delphine, and I likewise hated how horny Poe was 24/7 even when she’s supposed to be finding out what happened to her missing mother, which uh… is not good.

44. Arthur and Ben from What If It’s Us by Adam Silvera and Becky Albertali:

I wasn’t a fan of this relationship from the start, because I just couldn’t stand Arthur as a character. Even though he improved, the relationship didn’t.

The two didn’t have any chemistry, they weren’t compatible, and Ben had rather serious issues he should have been solving, instead of jumping straight into a new relationship. Arthur also fixated on stupid shit like a box of stuff, which is appropriately immature, but didn’t make me root for them to succeed as a couple.

Also I hated the ending.

43. Penelope and Sam from Emergency Contact, by Mary H K Choi

In theory, these two would be in the meh tier, but what pissed me off about this relationship is how underdeveloped it was. Sam was a character who needed serious counselling and therapy, not a girlfriend, and Penelope was just an immature teenager. I didn’t root for them to get together, I rooted for them to get help.

42. Malachiasz and Nadezda from Wicked Saints, by Emily Duncan:

These two absolutely have to go to the bad tier, even though they had potential and worked with tropes I like.

I love the idea of a villain-hero romance; it can be done right, and the push and pull between power and control, light and dark, etc can be invigorating. This, was not that.

Firstly we don’t know that Malachiasz is a villain for most of this; at most we think he’s some kind of assassin, but considering the whole mission the characters are on is to destroy Kalyzin and kill the King, that’s not exactly damning. Second, what should be these characters’ conflict, their religious views isn’t at all explored and Nadezda falls for Malachiasz way too quickly for someone who has been indoctrinated from birth to kill people who do blood magic.

Also there’s a set up for a love triangle in book 2, and when will my suffering end.

41. Celine, Bastien and Grimaldi from The Beautiful, by Renee Ahdieh:

Speaking of love triangles, we have possibly the worst one I read this year, in that it wasn’t even properly established!

I had the same issues with Bastien as I did with Auden; he had no personality, other than being rich and handsome. He also does the whole ‘this woman talks back to me, so she must be the one’, which is strike 1 against him.

Celine was fine as a character, but her connection and love for Bastien felt unwarranted, considering both his behavior and everything she knows about him, not to mention it somehow felt rushed in a 500 page book.

Grimaldi I just plain hated. Him stepping in to pretend that he was Celine’s lover when she’s lost her memories and clearly doesn’t love him, but ESPECIALLY him deciding out of the blue that he loves her after he detains and humiliates her for his own amusement made me rage quit this series.

40. Daisy, Camila and Billy from Daisy Jones and the Six, by Taylor Jenkins Reid:

Yeah, I know it’s weird to put the couple(s) from a favorite book of the year in the bad tier, but I really, really didn’t like these pairings.

Billy and Camila were infuriating. I get that people like that exist but Camila was far too forgiving considering everything Billy put her through. Billy was trash.

I also hated the way Billy treated Daisy, and I was furious that she had to live with knowing what was happening between them for decades while he got to go home to his wife and pretend nothing happened. Yeah, this book hit a personal spot, read the review if you want more coherent thoughts.

39. Noam and Dara from the Fever King, by Victoria Lee:

I am genuinely shocked they are this close to the meh tier, because boy was I not a fan of them.

I wrote a really detailed review of this book, and all my issues with Noam and Dara, from their age gap, to the weird sexual politics, to substance abuse, and especially to Dara reading Noam’s mind for months without telling him anything. Their relationship made me uncomfortable, and that was without adding the third leg of this Godforsaken triangle which is Lehrer, a man who is like 100 years old.

But hey, I still want to know what goes down in book 2, so they get to close out the bad tier.

MEH TIER:

38. Runa and Indigo from The Boneless Mercies, by April Genevive Tucholke:

Runa was a great character, but this romance is barely worth mentioning. It’s introduced at the very end, and it’s underdeveloped.

37. Jack and the Village Girl from Down Among the Sticks and Bones, by Seanan McGuire:

I tried to look up the girl’s name, I really did, but I couldn’t find it and I don’t remember it. I also don’t have the book so I can’t check.

I don’t know what I expected from a book about Jack and Jill, but Jill killing Jack’s girlfriend because she was jealous of Jack is… well not it.

36. Lowen and Jeremy from Verity, by Colleen Hover:

I struggled with whether to put these two in the bad or the meh tier. On the one hand, I cared not one bit about their relationship, even after we discover that it’s founded on lies and an attempted murder. On the other, there was nothing inherently wrong with their interactions and they did care for one another, even if was painfully boring.

In the end, I decided that boredom is a meh trait so, meh tier it is.

35. Annaleigh and Cassius from House of Salt and Sorrows, by Erin A Craig:

Instalove, the couple.

There was some potential, with the whole not knowing when it’s the real Cassius and when it’s Kosamaris or the Trickster pretending to be him, but it’s barely taken advantage of. In the end it’s just another ‘we’ve known each other for a week, but let’s die for each other’ plot.

34. Mei and Kai from The Bride Test, by Hellen Hoang:

I really struggled where to put these two, because as individual characters, they were fine, great even. As a couple? Yikes.

I loved Mei and wanted her to be happy, but the secret she kept from Kai was genuinely horrible, and I still can’t believe that the book resolved it by just not addressing it until the very end.

Kai was fine, not nearly as developed or likable as Mei, but the way he treated Mei in parts of this book were horrific, even if he struggles with expressing feelings and boundaries.

I ended up placing them in the meh tier, because at least they were never malicious to each other, which is more than can be said for the couples in the bad and terrible tier.

33. Rachel and Delphine from A Lesson in Thorns, by Sierra Simone:

These two get to be in the meh, not the bad purely because I actually understood their dynamic. I really liked the idea of Delphine discovering her sexuality, both in women and in BDSM, and overcoming trauma by taking charge of her own body and desires.

I also liked seeing Rachel realize that she had actual feelings for Delphine and having to deal with them. Too bad I’ll never get to find out how their relationship will pan out, cause fuck this series.

32. Stevie and David from Truly Devious, by Maureen Johnson:

These two were perfectly fine, even interesting at points, until the ending, which made me so angry that they get to squat in the meh tier.

Also Stevie going through David’s stuff? Not cool.

31. Yen and Vu Con from In the Vanisher’s Palace, by Aliette DeBodard:

The dynamic between these two was more than a little uneven, with the constant threat of murder and the knowledge that Yu would never be able to go home and see her mother, which is enough for me to resent any character no matter how cool of a dragon she is.

But… that human-dragon sex scene. Wildest thing I’ve read all year.

30. Henry and Diego from We Are the Ants, by Shaun David Hutchinson:

While I liked the book a lot, Henry and Diego were… not great. Diego was a character that at points came off more unreal than the aliens, from his wildly dramatic life story, to him not going to jail at the end, and his limitless patience when it came to Henry. Truly a manic pixie dream boy.

29. Olive and Ethan from the Un-honeymooners, by Christina Lauren:

This couple would have been in the great tier, had it not been for the last third of the book. Ethan not believing Olive, telling her that she’s jealous and dramatic for wanting to warn her sister that his brother is a cheater, and then making up for it with a stupid, grandiose gesture instead of, actually talking to her and learning his lesson? Nah, we don’t stan that kind of manipulative behavior in this house. The only reason they are in the meh tier is because they really were cute the rest of the book.

28. Isobel and Julio from An Alchemy of Masques and Mirrors, by Curtis Craddock:

Not much to say about them, mostly because they met in the last third of the book. I would take a bullet for Isobel, and judging by the blurb for book 2, Julio might have beat me to it, so he gets to be in the meh.

27. Emily and Haskel from Passing Strange, by Ellen Klages:

Like Mei and Kai, I liked these two as separate characters more than as a couple. It’s not that there weren't any chemistry between them, it’s that they weren’t developed enough for me to care. If this were a longer work instead of a novella, they’d probably be higher.

26. Jonas and Florian from The Monster of Elendhaven, by Jennifer Giesbrecht:

I liked the idea of this relationship more than the execution. Jonas being horny 24/7 for Florian’s dainty wrists was understandable, but Florian being sad that Jonas isn’t his dead twin sister… less so.

However this does get points for having the strangest sex scene in any book I’ve read this year; yeah even stranger than the one in Gideon the Ninth.

OK TIER:

25. Ruby and Dov from The Wise and the Wicked, by Rebecca Podos:

While I didn’t love the book, Ruby and Dov were fine. I appreciated the trans rep, I liked the way their relationship developed and the oddball humor the characters shared, and I thought they were cute together.

24. Lila and Cassel from the Curse Workers Series, by Holly Black:

Lila and Cassel grew on me substantially between White Cat and the rest of the series. I liked the angst in Red Glove because of Lila being worked and I liked the rod trip they get to go on at the end of Black Heart.

23. Aurora and Kal from Aurora Rising, by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman:

There is nothing wrong with Aurora or Kal, even their bonding/imprinting thing reminded me too much of Twilight/Avatar.

They do have cute scenes together, but I’m just not a fan of the alpha male, macho boy ‘protecting’ the girl and deciding for her what he will do with their relationship. There’s room for improvement, is what I’m trying to say.

22. All the couples from the Witchlands Series, by Susan Dennard:

I was originally going to split these up in different tiers, but seeing as it’s been exactly a year since I read these books, and I don’t remember much about these couples, they all get to go in the OK tier.

First we have Ryber and Kullen from Sightwitch. I liked Kullen’s humor, which contrasted well with Ryber’s seriousness and diligence, but there’s very little of them as an actual couple. I hope we get to see them again in Bloodwitch.

Aeduin and Iseult were also fine. I know they feature more prominently in Bloodwitch, but what little we get from them in Truthwitch and Windwitch was some solid set up for a good Ben/Rey, Zuko/Katara type relationship.

Safi and Merik are my favorite, but that’s only because I love Safi. Merik is the weaker part of this duo, though I do enjoy their banter, and the scene in Truthwitch where they dance and start levitating was amazing.

21. Sam Cade and Gina from Stillhouse Lake, by Rachel Caine:

I was really surprised by how much I still like these two as a couple. The only reason they aren’t higher, is because they don’t stay a couple by the end of the book.

I genuinely loved how tender and slow their relationship developed, and how much character development Cade got to get to it. Him bonding with Gina’s kids, was super sweet and the scene where he asks Gina if he can kiss her warmed my shriveled heart.

GOOD TIER:

20. Frey and King Roth from The Boneless Mercies, by April Genevive Tucholke:

I think the theme for the good category is my surprise at how much certain couple stuck with me. When I read the book, I wasn’t thrilled with Frey and Roth, because a different romance for Frey had been built up.

But now, a year later, I still remember their scenes, especially the one where Roth tells Frey he is writing an epic about her, and asks her to come back to him. Good sh*t.

19. Kate and Shepherd from This Is Our Story, by Ashley Elston:

I was surprised at how much I liked these two as a couple. They were supportive and cute, while also dealing with some serious issues and angst. The ending was a bit dramatic, but the scene where Kate likes a 4 year old picture of Shep on instagram by accident SPOKE TO MY SOUL.

18. Grier and Shafeen from STAGS by M A Bennett:

This is another pairing that surprised me with how much I liked them. The book claimed that Henry was charming, but Shafeen was the real charmer, and I could actually believe that he is a gentleman who went to private school.

Grier was a bit dim, and more than a little naive, but I liked how she got through the huntin’ shootin’ an’ fishin.

17. Levi and Enne from Ace of Shades, by Amanda Foody:

I loved these two and they had great chemistry and banter, but they aren’t yet an official couple so I can’t really justify putting them any higher than good.

The scene where Enne plays for Levi’s life? Amazing.

16. Harrow and Gideon from Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsyn Mur:

I wanted them to be in the great tier, but they just weren’t.

I loved Gideon; she was funny, a true himbo. But Harrow? I hated her for about the first 300 pages of the book. And when I finally stopped hating her, they had that weird bath sex scene and then Gideon DIED.

So I can’t put them any higher knowing that I liked only 20% of their actual relationship.

15. Cat and Tyler from Aurora Rising, by Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman:

Cat and Tyler? Now that’s some good sh*t.

I am a sucker for the captain and his/her pilot pairing, especially if one of them is a smooth talking pretty boy and the other a daredevil always ready to fight. These two were excellent, not just in their chemistry and banter, but also in the angst because what kept them apart actually made sense.

I love that Cat broke a chair off of Tyler’s head when they met, Anne of Green Gables style, but I also love the scene where they first got together at the bar. Chef’s kiss.

14. Sebastian and Emir from Running with Lions, by Julian Winters:

Seb and Emir were really close to making the great tier, but there were just too many contrived reasons to keep them apart.

I liked the slow build from enemies to friends to lovers, but I just wish we had gotten more time on the lovers section without unnecessary drama keeping them apart.

13. Poppy and Cerenic from Sleepless, by Sarah Vaughn:

I freaking love Poppy and Cerenic, and they would have been in the great tier, had it not been for the rushed ending.

They were still excellent together; supportive, trusting and caring, and that scene where Cerenic kisses Poppy so she can’t put him to sleep? God tier.

GREAT TIER:

12. Mia and Grace from On a Sunbeam, by Tillie Walden:

I loved how cute and realistic, Mia and Grace’s relationship was, which a wild thing to say for a series set in space. I loved their friendship, how it slowly became a romance, the heartbreaking way they split apart and then found each other again.

The only reason they aren’t higher on the list is because they don’t end the comic as a couple, which works perfect for the story, but less so for my, uh, list of couples.

11. Millie and Flora from Her Royal Highness by Rachel Hawkins:

I am a sucker for the stuck up snob falls for the earthy dumbass, and Flora and Millie were exactly that. They were a really cute couple; I liked the discussion of homophobia in the royal family, letting someone else define your life and the overall way the two of them got together. I also appreciated Millie being the one to fuck up and doing everything she could to fix her mistakes.

10. Daisy and Miles from Prince Charming by Rachel Hartman:

Daisy and Miles beat Millie and Flora just because reading their banter put tears in my eyes. I don’t think I’ve laughed out loud at any other book like I did this one.

There were so many great moments in this book, starting from Big Bird Hat to Sebastian getting punched by Alex, but the scene I love the most was the scene between Miles and Daisy in the cabin.

9. Severin and Laila from The Gilded Wolves, by Roshani Chokshi:

The amount of angst and sexual tension Laila and Severin have makes me wonder if this book perhaps should have been an adult.

I like both characters on their own, though I’m always a sucker for the trope of two competent and smart people making the other an absolute fool just by being in the same room as them.

I would have put them higher, but I just hate the way this book ended. Though since I’m mentioning scenes that were great… the dance. If you know you know.

8. Jack Zimmerman and Bitty from Check, Please! By Ngozi Ukazu:

Jack and Bitty are too cute for words. I love the way their relationship developed, I love their dynamic, how positive their relationship is while also dealing with real world issues, like families and gossip magazines.

Also this comic is amazing and free, go read it.

7. Hypnos, Zofia and Enrique from The Gilded Wolves, by Roshani Chokshi:

I didn’t know that my perfect pairing is where every character is Jonathan from the Mummy, but I guess that’s my jam.

Enrique and Zophia using their skills in math, languages and history to solve riddles together was great and hilarious, especially Enrique antagonizing Zofia just to see her reaction.

Hypnos is my favorite character and the banter between him and Enrique was excellent; I’m always a sucker for smooth-talking rich, misunderstood anti-heroes with tragic backstories (ahem, Lando, ahem). If this is to be a love triangle with one pairing at the end, I really don’t know who I’m rooting for.

6. Zara, Beatriz and Nadim from the Honors Series, by Rachel Caine and Ann Aguire:

Finally, some good fuckin food.

This love triangle fed me. It was the only one that was properly developed and established, I loved all 3 characters in it, and they all complimented each other amazingly.

Zara is a great lead, I really loved her journey; I would die for Nadim, though I’d probably have to fight Zara for that because her commitment to him was so wonderful. I also really love how slowly and carefully Beatriz was introduced as a love interest, and how well balanced the three of them are. Can’t wait to see what happens in Honor Lost.

5. Bri and Curtis from On the Come Up, by Angie Thomas:

Listen, their banter alone was enough to make me root for them. Also Curtis saved Bri from a freaking SWAT team so like… what more do I need to say.

They were just super cute and entertaining ok?

GOD TIER:

4. Nax and Ryan from The Disasters, by M K Englnd:

The only couple that came close to making me laugh as much as Miles and Daisy, except I related to Nax way more as the bisexual disaster he is.

I loved the way Nax’s always on the edge of a panic attack, and yet somehow still so charming personality was complemented by Ryan’s cool calm and collected demeanor, and their banter was hilarious.

I especially enjoyed Nax’ inner monologues, and the scene where they have to hide in a herd of goats had me in stitches.

3. Neil and Andrew from All for the Game Trilogy, by Nora Sakavic:

People should learn how to write an angsty slowburn from this series.

Andrew is an absolute piece of shit and Neal definitely deserved better, but I am not about to sit here and tell you that the scene where Andrew let Neal put his hand on his chest and Neal didn’t move it, didn’t send me into a weeklong crisis.

2. Rachel and Sana from Tell Me How You Really Feel, by Aminah Mae Safi:

Sana and Rachel were like two halves of my own personality and yet somehow infinitely cooler than I’ll ever be. Their romance was an excellent homage to every great teen rom-com, and I loved every page of it.

Sana was amazing; I loved her personality, the way she stood up for herself and dealt with problems. I also loved that for once the more feminine of the duo was the one who took charge of the relationship.

The only gripe I have with Rachel was that she finished the film before the screening, like hello, ex-film student here: I call bs.

1. Alex and Henry from Red White & Royal Blue, by Casey McQuiston:

Was there any doubt here? Henry and Alex were hands down the best written couple of 2019. Not only were both individual characters fleshed out and so well developed, their relationship, going from enemies, to beruging friends, crushes, and finally lovers willing to upheave international politics was amazing to read about.

Alex Claremont Diaz is my favorite character of the year and maybe even top 5 of all time, and if you haven’t read this book, read it. It will make you a happier person.

And there you have it, 50 couples ranked. Happy reading in 2020!

#book couples 2019 #book couples #reading #moni talks

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