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nejibaby · 4 years ago

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Afterglow

Pairing: Portgas D. Ace x Y/N

Summary: Without Ace, your nights are back to being long, dark, and empty. But when you finally reunite, Ace refuses to just be your Daylight.

Daylight - Part 1 | Afterglow - Part 2

Word Count: 4.3k (my hands slipped, I’m so sorry)

Loosely based on: Taylor Swift’s Lover album (but mostly about the songs Daylight and Afterglow)

A/N: I really think Whitebeard is a great father, yk? So I see him as someone who you can always seek and rely on. He looks tough (and he’s actually tough), but he’s soft too! And Ace too, in that respect is similar to WB. I really believe he’ll be such a good boyfriend 🥺 Anyway, I really enjoyed writing this so much! Thank you to everyone who read this, I love yall 🥰

Sailing by yourself in a boat for one reminds you how vast the sea actually is. With the rowdy Whitebeard pirates, sometimes the sea, no, the world, seems a lot smaller, a lot more manageable, but alone, it feels so massive it’s almost frightening.

It’s easy to get lost, except there’s no such concept like that for someone like you who doesn’t have a destination to go to in mind. Quite simply, you’re wandering, but not lost.

You drift from one island to another. Your initial intention is to get as far away as possible from the crew. Now that that’s achieved, you’re unsure of what to do next.

You allow yourself to observe and to experience some sort of normalcy at the islands you dock at. It’s a good thing that you don’t really stand out so no one suspects you’re a wanted pirate.

Walking down the streets of random towns, you’re reminded of how lonely being a Celestial Dragon was. No one wants to interact with a World Noble, afraid of the consequences if they’re angered. Things changed drastically when you became a pirate though. People don’t shy away that much with pirates in certain places. They interact with you, albeit hesitantly sometimes. Nevertheless, you felt so free and happy.

Now, you’re still a pirate, as marked by Whitebeard’s infamous tattoo. But with the unsuspecting townspeople and the lack of the presence of a crew, you don’t feel like one. Somehow it makes you feel empty.

The void is immeasurable. Despite it being unbounded, you’re sure that a single person can fill that emptiness: Portgas D. Ace.

But there are oceans separating you from Ace— a distance that you put. With the space between you, there’s silence in your voyage, however, it’s quite mystifying how every island you reach seems to scream his name.

There’s an island where you’ve docked at that’s snowing all year long. It brought back memories of when you were fairly new to the Whitebeard Pirates and had landed on a similar island. Back then you’ve worn a coat as you disembarked Moby Dick, however, the cold continued to seep through your layers of clothing. You couldn’t handle extreme temperatures that well but you didn’t want to make a big deal out of it so you continued to walk alongside the crew to scout the area. The thing was you may have been terrible at hiding it because Ace noticed the way your body was shivering and your teeth chattering. You were only acquaintances back then but he went to your side and striked a conversation with you. You didn’t understand why you became comfortable when he approached you all of a sudden, but then later that night you realized that he used his devil fruit abilities to warm you up.

At one island with a bustling town, there’s this restaurant that serves a variety of meat. You’re reminded of Ace and his bottomless pit of a stomach, and of his narcoleptic episodes while eating. He has a tendency of eating and then running, and the first few times he did it with you had you reeling. When you’ve finally realized that he’s never going to change, you start to keep a pouch of gold coins with you, reserved for paying for the food he eats. You leave it on the table just as Ace pulls you to run, and he has no idea about it. Owners or servers at the restaurants would still follow you out, but not to berate the both of you for not paying but to return the extra gold coins because you pay too much. Like usual though, Ace pretends not to hear them and they never got to catch up with you and Ace.

On another island, there’s a huge wild boar thrice the size of a human. It reminded you of the time you got so excited to explore an island that you speedily ran towards the forest alone, only to be met by a wild boar. The size of the boar stunned you and its glare kept you frozen in fear. A loud scream escaped your lips when it lunged at you, except the impact never came. When you’ve gathered your bearings, the wild boar was dead and… cooked, courtesy of Ace’s devil fruit abilities. He saved you, but he played it off as if he had his eyes on the wild boar since the beginning “to hunt it down.”

The current island you’re at is in famine. As soon as you docked at their port, a group of men has drawn their swords at you. For a moment, you thought they were bounty hunters so you grabbed your daggers and took a defensive stance. However, from the way they keep looking back and forth to you and your boat, and from hearing the faint sound of their stomach grumbling, you can tell they aren’t. Behind some trees, you can see the heads of some children peeking with worried yet hopeful looks on their faces.

Slowly, you raise your hands up in surrender, dropping your daggers in the process. You can’t turn your back on them — figuratively and literally — so you walk backwards towards your boat. The men look at you curiously but they don’t ever lower their swords.

In a quick motion, you grab a bag containing all of your food supply and throw it at them. One of the men catches it. “You can have them. It isn’t much, but that’s all I have.”

The man who was able to catch the bag carefully opens it and sees food. He almost cries at the sight of it. The rest of the men lowers the sword after you offer no sign of aggression. They start calling the other citizens of the area afterwards.

The children are the first to come running towards the men — all of them conveying excitement. You couldn’t tell how long they haven’t eaten but judging from how thin they are, it has got to be quite some time.

A small girl stumbles and falls near you and you quickly come to her aid. There isn’t much damage, just a scraped knee so you carefully patched her up.

“Thank you,” she gives you a toothy smile and then starts heading to the men who are distributing the food.

She comes back a moment later, arms outstretched to hand an apple to you. “For you,” she says.

Something blossoms in your heart because of her sweetness. “Thank you, but it’s fine, you can have it,”

She doesn’t object but then she hugs you tightly. “Thank you so much.”

Surprisingly, even on an island like this, you’re reminded of Ace. You remember his story about coming to Wano and meeting a child named “Tama” who seemed to be as charming as the child you helped and is under the same fortune.

Now that your mind has drifted to thoughts of Ace, you didn’t want to think of anything else. Even as the people gather around you to offer their thanks, and even as they usher you to a bonfire to celebrate for the food to eat, the thoughts of him linger in your head.

And just like in all the previous islands you came to, you wish he’s here with you too.

There’s longing in your heart, but there’s also something else— something pleasant that you can’t quite describe— and you attribute it to the gratitude of the people.

The mother of the child you helped, Sito, offers their spare room for you to take and you graciously accept. Soft snores almost immediately fill your ears after a few minutes of them bidding you good night.

The longer you stay awake, however, the pleasant feeling you felt a while ago starts to leave a bitter taste in your mouth.

You’ve always criticized yourself for not being able to do more when you were still a Celestial Dragon but now that you did something good, you start to feel selfish for doing it because it makes you feel better about yourself.

It’s at times like this that you seek Pops. There’s a sudden urge to hear his voice and his thoughts. So you grab your Den Den Mushi, but you hesitate.

You’ve lost track of the days since you left Moby Dick. And in that time frame, you never once called Pops. Although you didn’t really promise to call, maybe he was expecting you to, especially since you know he wouldn’t do it first.

You sigh. Maybe this call is long overdue after all.

You step outside the house and start to contact Pops using the Den Den Mushi. It only rings once and then it’s answered, almost as if Pops was waiting by the Den Den Mushi. The thought brings a smile to your face. “Pops—”

“Why on earth are you only calling now?!” His angry tone welcomes you.

“I’m so—”

“Is that Y/N?!” Marco interrupts. Ah, how could you have forgotten? It’s at this time that Marco reports to Pops. “We’re so worried about you -yoi!”

You can hear sounds of struggling on the line and then there’s a loud smack followed by an even louder crash. There’s a moment of silence which makes you wonder what’s going on in the ship.

“Why didn’t you call earlier?!” Pops’ voice booms. “If you’re going to leave a Den Den Mushi, I’m going to expect your reports but I received none of that.”

“I’m sorry Pops. I have no excuse,” you sheepishly say.

“Everyone’s worried about you,” he pauses but then his voice rings louder once again, “Some are even outside my room trying to listen in on our conversation. But if they know better, they should leave us alone.” The sound of rushing footsteps could be heard in the background as Pops finishes his sentence.

You chuckle, imagining the crew eavesdropping. “How are you Pops?”

“I’m doing fine.”

“How’s everyone? How’s… uhm… Ace?”

“Everyone’s just missing you. You didn’t say goodbye after all,” he says. “I put Ace on a mission because he won’t stop pestering me about you. He won’t come back in a couple of days.”

“Oh.”

“He misses you a lot,” he sighs. “He strides to me everyday to demand your whereabouts. Each time I wouldn’t tell him but he never learns. Vista says he’s on his 56th attempt the other day.”

The brief image of Ace that your mind comes up with brings a small smile to your face.

“When are you coming back?” Whitebeard breaks your reverie.

“Ah, I’m not sure yet… It might take a while.”

He hums. “So how are you? Have you been eating well?”

“I’m doing fine, Pops. No one’s been coming after me yet so everything’s going well,” you respond. “But… Can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“There’s this island with people who haven’t eaten in so long so I gave them everything I have.” There’s a loud growl coming from Pops so you immediately continue your speech before he could scold you for doing such a thing. “I feel really good about what I did as they thanked me. But then the longer I thought about it, I started feeling ashamed because... wasn’t it selfish since I did it to make me feel better about myself? Then I started to wonder if it was wrong to do good things just because I wanted to be absolved of my parents’ sins. Was I wrong in doing this, Pops?”

“No, you did the right thing.”

“Really?”

“Yes, you’re not an inherently bad person for getting paid in gratitude.”

“But…”

“Making yourself happy by making other people happy is how it’s meant to work. If one of your key motives to doing good things is to feel good, then you’re still doing something good and there’s nothing shameful about that.”

Hearing his words puts you at ease. You’re glad you called him. “Thank you, Pops. I’m sorry for worrying everyone there and for disrupting Marco’s report. I promise I’ll call more often from now on.”

“It’s fine. Just don’t forget to take care of yourself too. Where will you be headed next?”

“I’m not sure. I’m just going where the sea leads me.”

“Be careful.”

“You too, Pops,” and with that, you bid your goodbye and hang up.

By morning, you start preparing your things to leave. You didn’t want to stay for too long because you didn’t want to consume even a portion of the small amount of food they have.

Sito offers you to stay another night, worried that it would be uncomfortable to sleep on a boat. “You can stay one more day. There’s still enough food for us to share.”

“Oh no, I don’t want to impose,” you decline. “But do you mind if I ask what happened here?”

There’s sadness in her eyes, it was easy to tell the memory pained her, but she tells you everything anyway. “This island is one of the few lawless areas in the world, hence, it’s a place where pirates would dock at. A group of men once docked here and kidnapped the leaders of our town. They were sold off to be slaves, because apparently the Nobles like to enslave people of power…” Her words start to fade on you upon the mention of the World Nobles.

Anger flares up in your system immediately. How low can the Celestial Dragons go? It’s sickening to think that you share the same blood as them. It’s because of this revelation that something becomes clear in your mind.

Ever since leaving Moby Dick, you’re just wandering aimlessly. But after hearing Sito talk about this island, you’re finally sure of what your destination should be.

Sabaody Archipelago.

Specifically, the Human Auctioning House.

From the sudden fury that overwhelms you, not even the fear of being within arm’s reach of the Marines, and possibly dying, could stop you from going there.

It’s reckless and foolish, but isn’t this the reason you left Moby Dick that night— to face your nightmares instead of running away from them?

You listen politely as Sito explains everything else but her words enter and leave your ears without you having to comprehend them. Fortunately, she doesn’t notice your inattentiveness, probably because she wants to pour her frustrations out to a stranger.

You offer your sympathies to her and promise her you’d come back with your crew and help them some more. It’s a simple promise yet for someone who hasn’t been offered help for so long, it means a lot, enough to even bring tears to her eyes. And just like that, you leave.

There are two more islands to stop at before you reach Sabaody Archipelago. You gather provisions on one island and buy explosives on the other.

The only thing you’re sure you can actually do alone is to blow up the Human Auctioning House. Facing the World Nobles is for another time, unfortunately. As for the Marines, well… You’d worry about that if they indeed come. You know you’d be able to handle them as long as they don’t send an Admiral after you.

The thing that worries you the most, however, is Pops’ reaction once you let him know of your plan. While you can always just not tell him, it feels wrong, and you promised you’d report to him, after all. And it’s hard for you to admit, but you secretly want to be saved in case your plan goes askew. That, and well, you still want to make up with Ace, may it be just strictly as friends, but preferably as lovers.

You decide to call once you’re about to set sail towards Sabaody Archipelago. You’re sitting in the middle of your boat, still anchored at the port when you told Pops your plan. And as expected, he’s mad.

He demands you to go back to the crew immediately. “Captain’s orders,” he says. But after a few moments, he retracts his words and says, “Your father’s orders.” You feel the weight of his words when he said that and you almost concede. But the faces of the slaves your family had flashes into your mind and it solidifies your decision.

Interestingly, despite the weeks you have spent away from the crew, their ship is nearer to you than anticipated. As confirmed by Pops himself when he angrily said, “Enough! I’m sending Ace to get you! Two or three days is enough for him to catch up with you.”

But quite frankly, that’s also enough time to execute your plan. And if the odds are in your favor, then Ace might just come in time for your escape.

Arriving at Sabaody Archipelago, you keep your face hidden underneath the hood of your cloak. It’s normal for pirates to walk around the place without having to hide their identities, but it’s a luxury you can’t afford. If someone catches wind that you’re here and reports it, the Cipher Pol just might come and capture you before you can even execute your plan. That just won’t do. So on the first day of your arrival, you only scout the area of the Human Auctioning House and retreat back to the inn you stay at.

You carry out your plan on the next day. You place a bomb where the side of the stage is supposed to be. It’s a distraction so people inside would leave the premises. The plan is to find the keys and free the slaves while the people are panicking from the explosion. Then eliminate the head of the place, Mr. Disco, and finally blow the place apart. It sounds simple but with you having to do all the work, you know it isn’t.

Now that you’re here, your nerves are spiking up. Arriving at the entrance of the building, you take a deep breath, your hand automatically reaching for the bracelet that Ace made you. It instantly calms you down.

It baffles you how fate works because on the very day you decide to free the slaves that are being sold off at the Human Auctioning House, Ace’s brother, Luffy — along with his crew — is at the same place to rescue their friend who was kidnapped.

Somehow even on a dangerous mission like this, there’s still something or someone who’d remind you of Ace. It makes you wonder: has he really embedded himself too deep into your life that there’s no escaping the thoughts of him? Not that you mind; the thoughts of him bring you peace, after all. But still, it’s fascinating that even in both mundane and dangerous settings, he makes himself known to you.

Upon entering the Human Auctioning House, everything happens so fast and unexpected. And quite frankly, a lot happened that wasn’t part of the plan.

Aside from finding the Straw Hat Pirates, you got yourself injured when you used your body to shield their fish man friend, Hatchi, from Saint Charlos’ gunshot. Then you confronted Saint Shalria personally despite you not planning to get involved with the Celestial Dragons. As for the slaves, it was the Dark King, Silvers Rayleigh, who actually freed them. The only things that you personally executed from your plan were Mr. Disco’s elimination and the bombing of the Human Auctioning House.

Escape is easy once the building starts to explode because the Marines would have to lessen the forces who're chasing after the pirates in order for them to successfully put out the fire. Without any Admiral on the scene yet, it’s not hard to slip away from them and/or fight them.

Even with the gunshot wound on your arm, you’re able to take down each and every one of the Marines who are chasing you. But halfway through your journey back to the grove where you left your boat at, you lose your adrenaline.

You start to feel the sharp and stinging sensation on your arm once again, yet, you couldn’t help but smile. You have gotten out alive. The slaves have been freed. With both Mr. Disco and the building gone, the Human Auctioning House will no longer be operational, or at least not yet until someone steps up. But that won’t be after a long time.

It’s a wonderful day.

You look up at the afterglow of the sunset with a serene smile. You have a feeling your nights are going to feel shorter now and less frightening than they were before.

Your peaceful moment is cut off by someone rather abruptly. You jump in surprise as someone wraps their arms around you from behind all of a sudden. “I finally caught up with you.”

Your breath hitches at the sound of the voice. “Ace? What are you doing here?”

He doesn’t answer your question, but he mumbles, “I’m sorry if I only came now. Pops wouldn’t tell me where you were, but I came as soon as I could.” Then he tightens his hug. “I was so scared, I thought I’d lose you…”

“Ace, I’m sorry about—”

“Hey, it’s on me, okay?” He interrupts. “I blew things out of proportion, and now you’re blue.”

You pull away from his hug to face him.

“Y-your arm! You’re bl-bleeding,” he stutters after seeing your injury.

But you pay no mind to that. “Ace… I’m really sorry about us—”

“Ssshhh, baby…” he rubs his hand on your back.

He looks at your figure carefully, focused on looking for any more bruises or wounds. When he doesn’t find anything more, he gently holds you by your waist. “Don’t blame yourself, I’m the one who burned us down, but… it’s not what I meant.

“It was all in my head, okay? It’s just that the Celestial Dragons are all grouped in my head as scums and that they’re inexcusable because… my brother was killed by a Celestial Dragon.”

A wave of guilt flows through your body, enough to weaken your knees. Before you could fall, however, Ace catches you and brings you to his chest. But this doesn’t stop you from sobbing on his chest. “I didn’t know, Ace. I’m so sorry.”

“No, that’s the thing, baby. It isn’t your fault. It wasn’t you who pulled the trigger. And… I have to admit I failed to see that at first,” he says as he hugs you tighter. “I shouldn’t have stood there frozen after you told me your story. I’m supposed to be the one who understands you...

“I’m not trying to make excuses and I’m not trying to make this about me but it’s just that… for so long I thought that I inherited the bad blood of my father, and I spent my lifetime failing to see that his sins aren’t my sins,” his voice cracks as he cries. “So when I found out about you… My mind automatically held you liable for the sins of the Nobles…

“But I talked to Pops and he straightened me up. I understand now. Our parents’ sins aren’t ours. It never was ours to begin with. So I’m sorry for blaming you for something you didn’t do…”

Ace stares at your crying form. He cups your face and sincerely says, “It’s so excruciating to see you low,” as he wipes the tears on your eyes. “I’m sorry if I hurt you…”

“It’s fine Ace, I forgive you. But…” You look directly into his eyes. “I’m at fault too,” you confess. “I was the one who left... I was so used to living like an island and isolating myself that it didn’t occur to me that I was punishing you with silence… I should’ve waited patiently for you but I ran away…”

Ace rubs your back gently and presses his forehead against yours, “I forgive you too.”

You smile in relief.

After a couple of minutes in silence, Ace tilts his head. “Y/N?”

“Hm?”

“Remember when you said that you saw daylight after sleeping in a long, dark night?”

You give him a curious look but nodded anyway.

“Beside wishing that I was there for you sooner, it had me thinking...”

“What?”

“Uhm… The world is terrible and cruel, and no one can ever really stop the dark nights from coming.”

You frown. You don’t really understand what Ace is trying to say.

“I guess what I’m trying to say is,” he rubs his neck while his cheeks starts to blush, “if you ever have to go through those dark nights, I wouldn’t want you to wait for daylight.

“I want to be there with you on those nights until they’re over. I don’t want to leave you when things get rough and only show up when you’re better. I know you see me as your daylight but I don’t want to be just that.”

His words warm your heart, and makes it skip a beat. “You know, Ace, there are remnants of light that linger in the sky even when the sun has long gone down and the night starts. It’s the afterglow,” you mumble.

“Yeah, but that goes away too after a while,” he frowns.

“Well, lucky for you the moon reflects the sun’s light during the night, huh?”

He grins. “Yeah, yeah. I like that. I want to be your source of light, may it be the daylight, moonlight, or the afterglow.”

A moment of silence engulfs the both of you. Under the soft afterglow of the sunset with your arms wrapped around each other, you feel at peace.

Once upon a time, you used to believe love is black and white— that it’s straightforward. It was either you love Ace or you don’t, there were no gray areas. No matter what he feels, says, or does, your love for him never ceases.

But then some other days you believed that love is burning red— that it’s full of passion, lust, and romance, much like the nights you spent entangled in the sheets with Ace.

However, right now in Ace’s arms, all you could ever think about is that love is golden. It was warmth and comfort, like what daylight brings. It was contentment and serenity too, much like the feeling of lightness one gets when seeing the afterglow of the sunset. Either way, it’s Ace who makes you feel those.

No matter what color love actually is though, for you it’s always embodied by Ace.

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ginkgomoon · 3 years ago

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I Like You A Latte- Gavin ☕️

Happy blog birthday to @cheri-cheri. Another gift would like to present itself to you! 💙

“The exam is officially over,” you sigh.

All those years of studying and recurring late nights pouring the blood, sweat and tears for you push towards the finish line were all worth it.

You are now free.

Kind of… but not really.

For once, you were outside not catching the train to go university, heading off into another library or exam room. You had thought to savour this rare time to yourself before heading off to find a job. Thankfully, public transport is convenient enough to take you just about anywhere in Loveland City.

With only your phone, wallet and keys in hand, you stroll along the all too familiar building blocks near your home, pondering on where to go for the long awaited first day out by yourself. Should you go for some udon? Bingsoo? Pudding, perhaps?

While breathing in the sweet air of freedom, you admire the city that you grew up in, absorbing the view from down below and up at the infrastructure that the city was so renowned for.

The height, distance and those buildings haven't changed. But you- the stages of your life, experiences and perspectives have. The city almost seemed a little bit more… brighter. More alive. Or maybe… would it be for just this once?

This, you fear.

The glare of the sun continues beating down, its light reflecting off the glass buildings passing its judgement on the entire city. The heat is suffocating and you long for a cool drink or nice air-con to rely on to keep you sane.

A vision suddenly intrudes, presenting the clean pastel coloured store-front of the café that had just opened up nearby. You remember that you had power-walked right past the “WE ARE OPEN” sign on your way home from a past exam to prepare for the final one a few days ago.

You know you rarely enter any cafés at all, but your love for coffee and urge to explore someplace new begin to steer your legs into the walking direction of where you had remembered it to be.

As you soon reach the entrance, the sign you saw from the peripheral of your memory greets you.

“BRUNCH CAFE. WE ARE OPEN.”

You push open the heavy glass door, instantly entering a world of relief. Still in between the two opposing temperatures, you hastily swing the door back and encase yourself in paradise.

You take a moment to briefly scan your surroundings. The café, although it claims to be open, has everything but the barista. It wasn’t as big as the Starbucks down at the shopping centres, but it was humble enough for its size and able to fit all the requirements a café needs.

Soft instrumental music starts to reel you in further, like a siren hypnotising a sailor. You feel... peaceful. Though you wonder if you were hearing the non-diegetic music of the film occurring right in front of your eyes instead of your almost-dream café.

The minimalist designs, the ambience, and the extremely posh and elegant windows that you didn’t admire enough the first time strikes your appeal. You also confirm with yourself that this was the café that you would choose to break the cycle of drinking instant coffees everyday.

Just this once.

On the left side, those posh windows were flaunting on display, and to the right had little cubicles laid out perfect for providing spacious privacy. You marvel at what a genius idea the store owner had to create such a comforting and unique interior for a café. There was not a thing out of place.

Except of course, the barista.

You head over to where the cubicles were waiting and as you turn into the corner, you almost trip over something that looks like… a foot?

Following the coffee-stained sport shoes, your eyes slowly drift up on its owner, locking on a sleeping figure on the seats of the cubicle.

A young man with a soft aura.

You squint in confusion.

The poor cubicle clearly wasn’t big enough to fit his entire body. His hair seems to have fallen into place like dominos having slightly covering his eyelids, and appears to be breathing in a gentle rhythm with his chest following in sync. Your eyes also end up emphasising his jawline as you continue to stare.

His chest- wait.

A little badge on the right corner of his shirt immediately becomes the salient object.

So, he is the barista.

Barista… Gabin?

You lean closer at the words printed out on it.

No, it’s Ga-vin.

Apart from how attractive he looks, you question yourself- why is the barista sleeping during opening hours?

The man’s eyes slowly crack open, like a shell opening to display the pearl from inside, and you finally see his eyes of beautiful amber squinting back at you. Though, you can’t tell if it was because of the bright lights inside the cafe, or if he was solely observing you- and why you were so close to him at this very moment.

“Oh, I am so sorry,” you cry, instantly retracting from your forward-leaning position. Your brain tries to racks up reasons why you two were in this situation incase he asks.

“There was something on your face” or “your foot was in the way” could work. No- “sorry, I’ve never seen another human being before” sounds a lot more believable.

Gavin, the barista, furrows his eyebrows in confusion then seemingly in frustration.

Your body tenses.

It’s coming.

“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to fall asleep…” he sighs softly.

You do another quick scan and take that only the two of you were in the cafe now, unless there was another sleeping barista somewhere else you didn’t notice.

“If you're here for coffee, it’s on the house. An apology for what you saw just now…. Just don’t tell the boss if he’s here,” Gavin lightly coughs.

“Oh okay... Thank you. A latte please,” you say, rather not wanting to question it further. For now. But free coffee made by this gorgeous barista? How could anyone refuse this offer? All you did was stare. In that case, you would gladly do it again.

You settle your belongings on the table and catch Gavin rolling up his sleeves, putting on the display of his toned forearms. Luckily, your cubicle entrance was facing the direction of the workbench allowing yourself to watch him set up.

You start to wish for your coffee to be as hot as him.

Scalding hot.

Gavin steadily handles the jug and effortlessly pours the milk into the latte glass with the espresso already inside. Despite your sight of his expertise, he still can’t hide the subtle droopiness of his eyes and the slight furrow of his eyebrows again.

You figure it would be better if you come up to him instead so he wouldn’t have to travel the whole way to your cubicle with his current state being like this.

You gingerly make your way to his workbench while fumbling for a topic to break the awkward silence in your head.

“Is it just you working here today or…?” you ask.

“Is there another hot sleeping barista I should know about?” you continued in your head.

Gavin hands you the transparent cup accompanied by the saucer, a little spoon, a packet of sugar and a complimentary ginkgo-shaped cookie on the side.

The art displayed formed a symmetrical heart with perfect one centimetre foam to present the perfect latte.

“There’s the chef who’s actually the boss of this place but sometimes he dashes in and out. Especially when there’s no customers as of late. I have no idea where he goes, actually. Right now is no exception,” he replies, sweeping the remains of the coffee grounds into the knock box.

“And you do all the work for him? That doesn’t seem fair. Does he allow you to make your own cup of coffee at least?”

“Well, not exactly. I just work over-time till late. Plus, I think my body is practically immune to caffeine by now,” Gavin laughs.

"Me too," you comment.

As tired as he looks, he still has the energy to light up a smile, even with a stranger. His mouth forms an effortlessly handsome arc and you feel something emerging from within your heart, so subtle that you almost think that you could have mistaken yourself as the protagonist in a romance novel.

Though working overtime till late… at a brunch cafe?

You don’t question him any further. You take a whiff at the single delicate-looking plain ginkgo cookie and have a bite. This moment of peace and serenity was offering the much needed break from all that tension and pressure you were under- apart from Gavin being here, though he didn’t seem to mind your presence.

You lean forward to place your elbows on the counter and stare at the coffee in front, frowning a little at the reality of ruining the beautiful heart. You rip open the sugar and pour in half, then give it a stir with the spoon. The foam is perfectly silky and frothy, fusing with the crema like a starry galaxy.

You remind yourself that "it was okay" because this moment would forever remain in your own heart instead. Delicious, creamy arabica coffee.

Like those ginkgo leaves dancing in the wind that autumn day.

You smile at the memory before multiple begin to overlap with another. Ones where you had passed by the senior classrooms catching a glimpse of a boy staring out of the window or down in a random alleyway on your bicycle.

You didn’t think much of it back then either, but he had always looked familiar and seemed to be everywhere you were too. Crossing paths in hallways and even at the library, reading. That upperclassman boy named-

“-Gavin?”

He looks up.

“From school?”

You wonder why you hadn’t realised.

His facial features are now more defined, sharper, and still a head taller than you. Who would have thought the hot barista was actually an old schoolmate. You put your coffee down and internally scream.

“You remember me?” he softly asks.

“Just a little bit. Wait, do you know who I am?”

“Just a little bit.”

Gavin smiles.

You break eye contact and continue drinking, not wanting the coffee to get cold during this exchange. But even now it tastes different than before.

“So, what brings you here?” he asks.

“Taking a break before I find a job. See if any place will accept me…”

“Of course they will. You’re brilliant at what you do. I have no doubts that you will be successful.”

You smile in response, taking in the last of the remaining coffee.

“How do you know? We haven’t seen each other in so long. And I don’t think we’ve ever interacted this much in the past."

“I just do… Trust me.”

You look back up. His eyes light up with so much sincerity that could power a whole entire city’s electricity.

"I never thought I'd see you again," you say.

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know. You seemed like... you were just so difficult to figure out, especially for people like me who don't know you that well. So I never gave it a second thought either. And now here you are, making my coffee. Anyway, this is probably not making any sense..."

"No, I understand," Gavin states. "In your opinion... what kind of man am I?"

Before you could formulate a proper response, hot heat suddenly finds its way in, corroding with its cooler counterpart and signalling the entrance of another person.

Your eyes catch sight of a tall and handsome man, his aura so dominating that the heat you feel could just be from him instead.

“That’s the boss,” Gavin whispers.

The boss saunters his way in straight towards you two. His black hair matches his suit and tie, making him appear more like a CEO than of a chef.

“Don’t worry, I’m just going to the back to restock some things, I’ll be right back,” Gavin says, shooting you a comforting smile.

While trying to process all of this, your eyebrows are the ones to furrow now instead. How could this boss treat an employee like this? Working overtime without proper breaks? This to you was appalling and certainly see this as an act of injustice. Being the good and lawful citizen that you are, you decide to treat this like one.

“Excuse me.”

Before he enters the kitchen, he turns, offering his full attention to you. You thought you had a good grasp on what you wanted to say, but it seems that your head had disconnected from your voice box.

“Your employee…” you begin, “he seems very fatigued. I think you should be sharing the workload equally instead of leaving the cafe. Haven’t you ever heard of a collegial workplace before?”

His eyebrow lifts- in amusement, mockery or consideration, you don’t know. After all, your words carrying the “sense of justice” did sound a lot better in your head.

“I don’t interfere with anyone’s personal lives,” he said, his deep voice shattering your “prosecution”. But before you could have another go at him, he retreats into the kitchen.

Gavin returns with takeaway cups and lids and sees you standing flabbergasted at your interaction with the boss.

“You okay?”

You reply back with a little “humph” at the direction of the kitchen then turn to Gavin restocking the items on the cup warmer of the coffee machine.

"I-it’s nothing."

After all, this was your first and last time here, and maybe you shouldn't have acted so impulsively on a situation like this. Plus, how would Gavin react if you push the topic further?

You sigh. Hopefully the plan to have a drink and catch up with an old friend later in the night will settle the agitation you feel.

A soft ding is heard from your phone reminding you to get ready to leave.

Perfect timing.

As you reluctantly pack your things, you glance at Gavin’s way, who looks like he’s about to end his shift for the day as well.

You don’t want to be supporting a business owner who treats his employees like this, but yet seeing Gavin this way made you feel helpless. It’s a shame that you won’t see another handsome barista like this again. Or see him again. Or probably enter another cafe at all after this.

“I have to go.”

Your voice interrupts his workflow, and he frowns.

“Now?”

“I have somewhere to be, unfortunately.”

Gavin takes a moment to process this.

“Why don’t you wait till I leave? That way, I can see you off. It will only be a minute.”

More like a minute's time to sob about this man who could have been your boyfriend in a parallel universe. But as long as you won’t be late to meet up with your friend, you agree to wait for Gavin to finish up.

You linger by the entrance, not wanting to intrude his workspace again and steer clear from the awkwardness that could arise from watching him up close.

But after that literal minute, he steps outside with you and the heaviness in your heart starting to simmer back up again. The air already seems to have to cooled down, providing a thankful comfort to your surroundings.

Looking at him now, you almost change your mind. You could maybe see him again when you have time in the future. To... catch up.

Just maybe.

“Thank you for today," you say. You remind yourself to not get too attached, having really not know if you would be ready for all of that, especially for what was to come in the future.

You slowly walk backwards into the direction of your home, back where you need to get ready for the night out again.

“Thanks for coming. It was nice meeting you again,” he replies.

As you turn to leave, in your peripheral vision Gavin tracks forward to cover every step you took away from him, pulling a hesitant arm up to say something more.

But by then, you were already turning the corner and out of sight.

-And after all this time, your thoughts keep returning to those moments.

A couple of hours pass and your mind still orbits Gavin and that café. You wonder if there was something more you could have done or said. Hopefully he didn’t mistake your hurried steps for something else.

You soon arrive at the venue that you and your friend unanimously agreed on, though as you tippy-toe your way through the crowd to spot her, it seems that she hasn't arrived at the agreed time yet.

As you wait, you fiddle with the side of your dress. You decided to go with the classy minimalist look- a black dress and simple ginkgo drop earrings you bought recently. You didn't want to draw any attention to yourself, but you were satisfied that you were well-dressed enough to feel glamorous for the night. However, wanting to avoid the additional heat of the weather sticking on your body like a tattoo, you decide to head in first.

The music gradually becomes clearer and definitely louder as you weave your way through the hallway entrance towards the heart of the club, with the lights dimly lit and its walls enclosed for the darkness to rule.

You haven’t been in a place like this for so long, especially when you got used to the quiet and calm environment of libraries, the home, and the café earlier…

You could feel everyone’s body heat from a good healthy distance away, even at the seat of the bar. You don’t plan on getting drunk tonight, but you know your alcohol tolerance is so low that you figure it would be best if you should order a little fruity mocktail first instead then perhaps have a real drink with your friend when she arrives later.

You give a quick text notifying her of your location and place your phone back into your purse, ready to order.

Darkness continues to stir as you struggle to locate the bartender.

What kind of bartender is this person if they’re not at the bar?

Lights rotate and blind its way in every direction. For a fleeting second, it lands on the person across from you, illuminating those unforgettable eyes and smile of its owner.

His eyes are just as wide as yours.

"It's you."

The barista- no, bartender, was Gavin.

#I had so much fun with this one #happy birthday Cheri #I CANT WAIT FOR YOU TO READ THIS SIDISJSJS #3k words!!#THIS WAS THE SPECIAL POST I WAS TALKING ABOUT #mlqc #mr love queens choice #love and producer #恋与制作人 #gavin #mlqc gavin #mlqc fanfic #Gavin week

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kj-1130 · 4 years ago

Text

HIRAETH

Chapter 5

Main Masterlist

Karima walks down the dingy halls of the rundown motel. She listens to every little sound, trying to distinguish the steps of rodents from the steps of any potential witnesses that she doesn’t need.

Beginning to turn a corner, a door opens near the end of the hallway, catching her off-guard. She quietly gasps, and pushes her back against the wall and becomes invisible to the human eye. The person slowly proceeds forward, each of their thudding footsteps vibrating the floor and echoing against the walls. It was as if they were walking in slow-motion or trying to fuck around with someone.

But that theory was quickly debunked as Karima saw a heavy-set man walk by with a cigarette hanging out of the side of his mouth and his eyes closed.

“What the fuck,” the teen muttered quietly to herself.

She needed to get in and get out cause this place was really giving her the heebie-jeebies.

She stealthily continued her way down the hall, keeping aware of her surroundings knowing this wasn’t the most trustworthy place. As she neared the last door, she reached to her side, her hand hovering over her knife. She unsheathed the weapon and rested her other hand on the doorknob.

The teen quietly twists it and finds the room clean (well as clean as this place could be) and empty as if no one had ever been there. She walked in tensely and flipped the lamp on, causing a dull light to emerge.

She surveys the room and after finding no immediate threat, Karima begins to scramble through everything; the draws, the bathroom, the closet, all of it. She then reaches the bed. She doesn’t want to look, if she’s being honest. Because if she finds nothing, then she has no leads. If she has no leads, then she loses her. And she can’t lose her. Not again.

She inhales deeply, and exhales deeper. A trembling hand reaches out and starts to pull back the covers. Her hand pauses briefly before she decides to rip off the band-aid.

After the covers, it was the pillows. After the uncomfortable ass pillows, it’s the whole damn mattress itself. She assesses the bed frame and finds nothing. She looks through the pillow cases and finds nothing. She cut open the pillow and still nothing.

Karima takes a breath, trying to calm down her rapidly beating heart.

“C’mon, c’mon,” she mutters to herself as she cuts open the mattress.

Her arm slips through the well-sized slit she created and immediately, it comes into contact with a folder. She immediately snatches the material out and rips the orange holder open.

Inside of it was over two thousand dollars and a section of a map.

Karima let out a sigh and ran a hand over her flushed face. Putting the items she found in her jacket, she headed towards the door.

Right before exiting, a glint of light flashed against her eyes. Looking on the headboard, she stalks towards the furniture and reaches out for the shiny metal. In her hand was a chain with a pyramid pendant. The teen turns the object over in her palms and on the back, it read, “I pledge.”

Karima bowed her head, then lifted it, giving the room one last look over before shutting the light off and leaving.

Natasha Romanoff was never one to be vulnerable. Whenever she got a splinter, the woman never whimpered or winced. It was simply a task of finding something small enough and yanking it out. Whenever she had gone undercover, she never shed tears over the mental and emotional toll pretending to be someone else took. She just did her job, no questions asked or hesitation given

Growing up, she was taught that being vulnerable equated to being weak. It has been engraved in her brain like her mind was some sort of headstone; it was all she would ever be.

A weapon that never wept.

When the Avengers were first assembled, Natasha was... skeptical, one could say. These were people she didn’t necessarily trust, but she had to for the fate of the world.

It was a whirlwind, to say the least. She had been trained to be a spy and use her body and reproductive organs to her advantage. She was never taught how to deal with aliens or other-worldly creatures. But she did it because she was, however, brought up to believe that failure results in punishment. And Natasha refused to fail.

As time went on, the heroes slowly became people she could rely on. They would always have her back and vice versa. Regardless of that, she would never share her deepest, darkest secrets or thoughts.

So when she jolted up from her bed, sticky from sweat, the woman quickly wiped those few tears that had been mistakenly shed and went to the shower which washed away any remnants of the involuntary recollection of her past.

It was as if her mind was on auto-pilot as she made her way to the kitchen, ready to prepare some tea. And it was only then that her mind became aware of her surroundings.

At the counter, someone was hunched over. They were holding a small glass before bringing it to their mouth.

“Tony?”

The man shot his head up and straightened his back. He cleared his throat and nodded at his company.

“Hey.”

The red-head continued walking over and sat across from the genius and gave him a once-over.

He looked tired; drained.

He slouched over his drink and stared into the abyss that was the liquid.

“Why are you up?”

“Couldn’t sleep,” he shrugged. “You?”

She nodded in response and muttered a quiet ‘same’ before they were both forcefully sucked back into awkward silence.

Tony let out a sigh after a moment and pushed himself up to grab a second glass. He reached under the counter into the cabinet and grabbed the bottle of vodka.

The man pushed both items to the woman who had an apprehensive eyebrow raised.

He gestured towards the liquid in encouragement and went back to sipping his own.

Letting out a sigh, Natasha filled her cup and slouched against the kitchen counter as well.

The philanthropist raised his glass. In response, the former spy copied his actions and clinked them together.

It was a silent vow to at least try.

-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_

Hiraeth Taglist

@lizlil, @bellero, @ravennight41, @yasminwashere, @cay-writes-fan-fiction514

Permanent Taglist

@stillmanicc, @annestine

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incoherentbabblings · 4 years ago

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Tim gets himself turned into a cat for a week and is forced to stay at Stephanie's until the spell wears off on its own. Honestly, it's not as traumatic as it sounds. For Tim.

“I refuse to take responsibility,” Damian said. He was holding a glossy short haired black cat with a long face and sharp features. It had big bat ears and lovely big blue eyes whose pupils dilated when Stephanie looked at it. Damian held it out for Stephanie to take, lower legs dangling from a slim body. Its tail whipped from side to side, irritated.

Apparently, it was Tim after one ill-informed altercation with that magician villain who the Teen Titans and the Flash fought occasionally.

Stephanie smiled tightly to the point where Damian thought she was in physical pain.

“Do you want to come in? Have a cup of cocoa maybe?”

“Not even slightly. I have a litter box and some compostable wood pellets for litter,”

Oh my God –

“and father insisted that someone within Gotham care for him until this passes whilst he is off planet. Zatanna says it will end on its own in a week and is less likely to end in permanent brain damage than trying to reverse it artificially. More brain damage than Drake already –”

“Yes, Damian, I get it.” Stephanie sighed, pouting as she inspected Tim, still patiently dangling in Damian’s outstretched arms. “Do you understand us Tim?”

The cat – Tim – yowled in a way which sounded partly like a Siamese cat and partly like an car engine struggling to start, but Damian shook his head.

“No. His brain has shrunk to the size of a peanut. Apparently, he will remember nothing, which is good, all things considered.”

Stephanie frowned, then leaned down directly into the cats eyeline.

“Would you rather stay with me over Damian?” she asked it, regardless. “I guess it makes sense, mom is visiting Florida for the week…” she mused out loud, feeling supremely stupid.

Tim yowled again, and his pupils impossibly grew bigger.

Groaning, Stephanie conceded. “Fine, but –” wasting no time, Damian practically tossed the cat into her arms. She caught Tim clumsily, and he meowed in distress, scrambling up to cling to her shoulders.

“Ow, ow, ow! Claws. Claws, Tim ow!”

She held him tight under his little bum, and as she watched Damian run back to the Alfred chauffeured car for the bits and pieces she would need. Stephanie turned, leaving the front door open, and went upstairs to her room. Tim clung to her tightly, little claws making an imprint in her skin. When she reached her bed she leaned forward, letting him turn on his own and land on his feet in the centre of the mattress. He plopped down, sitting perfectly straight with his tail still swishing, and watched her as she proceeded to help Damian move all the pieces of kit inside. She placed the litter tray in the bathroom, wondering briefly about those YouTube videos she’d seen of cats using the toilet could be applicable. She sighed as she sat the plastic tray down, wiggling little wood pellets a couple of inches deep. Tim had come over to join her in the door frame. He looked up at her, and she looked down at him.

“Tim, I’m going to be scooping up your poo and pee. You better give me a big boon when this all over.”

Tim mewled, and to Stephanie it sounded like a bargain had been struck. Damian handed her a plastic bag filled with cat food – whatever Pennyworth did not wish to eat he explained – then left her to it.

“Do not let him go outside.”

“Yes, Damian.”

His round cheeks puffed up, and the bridge of his nose turned red like it did when he was embarrassed.

“Thank you, Stephanie.”

Somewhat mollified, Stephanie said he was welcome and then Damian and Alfred were gone. Shutting the front door, she turned around to see Tim sitting on the stairs, watching her.

Stephanie jumped, unnerved.

“How much of your peanut sized brain is like… at human level smartness?” she asked.

Tim sat quietly for a moment, watching her with those unnatural icy blue eyes. His tail, disproportionately long, smacked against the floor with a heavy thump.

“None then. Well, still, let me know when you want feeding. Or bathroom breaks so I can clean it up before it stinks out the house. I have to work on college. So… go take a nap or something. You probably need one.”

Tim blinked, stepped down the stairs, went through to the living room, sat on her sofa, and rested his head down. Like the cat he was, he was soon asleep in the late afternoon sun.

Stephanie followed him curiously, peered over the back of the couch, admiring his glossy coat then shook her limbs loose.

Just another day in the life, she told herself.

Having her ex-boyfriend slash transmogrified cat living with her for a week. Sure. Cats were distant creatures, and so were her and Tim in recent years. They could get through this week, surely.

Oddly, having another creature in the house made her feel more lonely.

*****

Tim had enough self-awareness to realise he was in fact a cat, but also not enough self-awareness to realise that there were certain behaviours he should not indulge in.

Nobody believed him that he could understand what was being said, so he decided to just go with the flow for the next six days. Abdicate all responsibility. Be feral. Receive the occasional pat on the head. All in good fun. Bizarrely, he was enjoying the drama of it all.

The first issue came about at dinner. He had woken from his nap with a hunger that he had never in his eighteen years (did that make him around two years old in cat years?) of life felt before. It was as if he had not eaten in weeks he was starving he was voracious he –

Needed help in opening tin cans.

Dammit.

Honestly, Tim would have been feeling much more humiliated and more willing to jump out of a window to end it all if he was not so sure that he would instinctively land on his feet.

Just a week. And Stephanie would take care of him, loathe as he was to admit it. She would find it uncomfortable and painful with each interaction, so he would take great care in staying out of her way. Things were awkward enough between them without the knowledge that she was going to have to brush him and feed him and clean up his poops and hairballs (he loathed how easily the concept of grooming came to him). He didn’t need to inflict anymore grief on her than she had already reluctantly accepted.

None of this stopped him from being very hungry when he woke up. He needed food. Preferably ten minutes ago.

He leapt down with a solid thud from Stephanie’s sofa, shaking his head to clear any remaining nap time fuzziness, then plodded upstairs. To his own ears, it sounded very cheery.

She had left her bedroom door slightly ajar, and Tim slid in. She did not hear him enter on account of her having a giant pair of red headphones blasting music at far too loud a volume to be good for her hearing. Or rather, he assumed they were red. He knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that his vision had been altered. Shades of red and green blended together in assorted shades of yellow and brown, and even the blues of the world was washed out and pale. Everything had a slight blur to it, especially for objects further away. When he had first been held up to Stephanie, he realised that the blue of her eyes now seemed almost grey, and her skin was sickly. Of this change, Tim hated the most.

She was leaning over piles of notes, hands stained with highlighter and pen ink. Tim noted her expression and found he did not like it.

She looked very sad.

He meowed to try and get her attention, but with her music playing as loud as it was, she did not hear him. Drastic measures were needed. He would soon be dead from starvation before too long.

He slinked up to the side of her chair, noting the convenient space between her lap, chest and desk. He looked up at her, yowling one more time to try and give her warning, but she did not notice.

Tim blinked slowly. Her eyes were wet.

He leapt up onto her lap, fully expecting her to shriek, to lift and throw him across the room reflexively. However, she just gasped gently, surprise quickly fading, and laughed. Good. The wet look in her eyes vanished with genuine joy. She paused her music, clumsily taking off the headphones and setting them on the desk. She adjusted her lap so Tim could sit more steadily and rested her hands at the base of his back and tail, scratching absentmindedly. He chittered at her and she raised her eyebrows expectantly.

“What?” she whispered conspiratorially. Oh, she was enjoying this. Tim grumbled, body vibrating, then hopped up another level onto her desk. With a purposeful tap, he smacked her wrist.

“What is it you little goblin?”

Rude. Tim yowled, and paced back and forth. Stephanie huffed, reaching to pick him up and put him down. When she turned, she saw her alarm clock on her bedside table. It was six o’clock.

“The time?” Her eyes widened with realisation. “Oh? Dinner time?”

His loud, drawn out meow made her wince, but she nodded all the same. “Alright then sir, come on. Let’s see what we can do for you.”

He merrily leapt down from her arms, jogging away down the stairs to the kitchen. Jumping up on the counter, he pawed insistently at the food still in the plastic bags Damian had brought. Food. He needed food. He was wasting away; why couldn’t she see…

“Right, what did Damian gift us with… Oh. Biscuits huh?”

Tim froze. Cat food. He was going to have to eat cat food.

He was a cat. But not that much. He was finding it difficult enough to imagine going in that litter box in not too long. He quietly made a little meow, distressed.

Stephanie opened the bag, and the smell of dry crunchy biscuits filled the air. Tim visibly gagged, and Stephanie quickly resealed the container.

“Yeah, I agree there Timbo. I can’t give you the wet food either, that jelly is disgusting... but your stomach can’t handle human stuff. You’re a carnivore now bud.”

She hemmed and hawed, opening assorted cupboards, looking for something suitable. Tim meowed mournfully. He was going to starve unless he ate the biscuits, but he so did not want to eat the biscuits.

“Oh!” Stephanie chirped, pulling a tin down. She held it up to him for inspection. “Tuna in spring water. That’ll do, right? But how much…”

Tim paced frantically back and forth as she googled portion sizes. Starving, starving, he was skin and bones, no chance for recovery. It had been eight hours since he last ate, how did she expect him to –

She placed a shallow dish in front of him, half of the can placed sweetly in front of him. She then placed down a small glass bowl, filled with fresh water. Uncaring of his dignity, he began to eat voraciously.

Stephanie leaned on the counter, watching him do so.

“I’m sorry there’s no milk. I heard cats are actually lactose intolerant, so just water for you this week.”

Tim ignored her, so delighted with the taste of fresh tuna that the lack of milk was so far down his list of priorities. It was only when Stephanie, in an apparent act of madness, reached down and ran a hand from his temple all the way along his back to the tip of his tail did he look up. Somewhere in the back of his little kitty brain, he noted that his muscles had tensed up, rising to the pressure of her hand as it made its way down his spine to make the contact firmer. Her hand was warm. He looked up from his feast, confused.

She was still smiling, but it looked melancholy to Tim.

“I don’t think you can actually understand me,” she said quietly, half speaking to herself. “Which is pretty expected for us. I think it’s just the fact that you’re a vocal kitty who isn’t going to remember anything in six days’ time. Which is just as well. I can tell you all my secrets then?”

Tim wanted to protest her falsehoods but found the taste of tuna too distracting.

Stephanie continued, “I’m going to go on patrol now. There’s been a monster of a case I’m getting nowhere with. I’m having another go tonight. Don’t sleep on my bed when I’m away okay?”

Tim wanted very much to yowl, to let her know that he could understand, and to ask her why she was being so mopey. It seemed more than just a sadness over his situation. He wanted to explain that, honestly, he was fine with it. Well, not fine. But he had endured much worse. He knew it was temporary, he knew things would return to normal soon, and he was warm, looked after and almost looking forward to a week’s peace.

So what if he was a slightly goofy looking black cat who had the sudden urge to lick himself clean every few minutes? In the grand scheme of trauma he had undergone in his short life, shitting in a box was pretty low on the list.

He tried to tell her it was fine, only to drop tuna all over the counter. In a fumbled attempt to clean up after himself, he licked the surface clean. Stephanie groaned, then rose away from him.

“Enjoy the evening Tim. Don’t bother me when I get back. Don’t puke anywhere.”

Tim, in fact, did not puke that night. He did use the litter box however and hated it. He tried very hard to make as little mess as possible, ensuring all the litter stayed within the box. He was here because of Stephanie’s good nature; he was not about to blow it.

He did, at around 3am, however, experience what he had heard Selina refer to as ‘the zoomies’. It was a frantic pent-up energy that he did not know how to expel. The only way that came to mind was to dash across the house in a desperate attempt to tire himself out so he could return to sleep. So, he ran, up and down the stairs, leaping off the banisters and hopping over chairs and coffee tables. He did so, bored out of his mind, until he saw the lights of her vehicle pull up. He ran up the stairs in time for Batgirl to crawl through her window. He sat patiently in her doorway, waiting for the right moment to greet her, when he saw she collapsed to the floor with a distinctive and heartrending cry of pain. His little heart pounded painfully at the sound, but he did not move.

He watched as she cursed up a storm, correcting her position so she could take off her costume piece by piece. She did so wincing, crying out, and swearing with each painful movement. If she had someone to help her, she would have been able to get ready for bed in much less agony. Whatever she had dealt with this night, it had been rough.

She crawled around on the floor, apparently unable to walk now that the adrenaline had worn off. She remained in her shorts and sports bra, and without showering, crawled into bed. Tim watched as she reached into her bedside table, pulled out two painkillers, and like a baby, swallowed them with some water from a sports bottle that stood nearby.

He thought he heard her very quietly cry to herself, but that couldn’t be. Stephanie did not cry. His hearing had been different since the transformation last night, sounds and noises did not compute the way they used to. The sound she was making very quickly stopped though, and instead Tim heard her very determinedly whisper to herself,

“Always better in the morning.”

It wasn’t a philosophy he completely agreed with. Sometimes the morning just brought clarity of the previous day’s horror. But her odd breathing stopped, and soon it was replaced with the deep gentle snoring of someone sleeping. Finally, Tim moved. He wanted to curl up next to her. Stephanie was warm, and he had discovered recently that he liked warm places. He wanted her hand to stroke him again.

But no. She had said to stay off her bed for sleeping. She has asked him not to bother her. She certainly would not be happy to find him sleeping next to her. Tim tried to remind himself that he was only getting away with certain behaviours because of his size, and there were some boundaries that he should not cross. What if she woke up in the morning, only to find that the spell had worn off early, and there was a naked human Tim Drake in her bed?

Oh no. That would be very embarrassing.

Besides, he didn’t have that kind of relationship with her anymore. He didn’t have the right anymore to insert himself into her space. They had decided not to pursue it. Not good for her, she’d said.

Tim could no longer remember his own reason. He suspected it was moot after she had become Batgirl.

And yet… she’d been crying. Tim wanted to help her. How could that not be good? Surely if he could provide comfort, if he wanted to provide comfort, she would allow it?

He turned away, not liking the way it felt like turning away from someone calling for help and returned to the living room sofa. He curled into a ball, and slept until the morning, whereupon the hunger pains hit him once more.

And so, a routine began. Tim would yowl like he was dying outside Stephanie’s door, reluctant to intrude whilst she slept. Eventually, Stephanie would emerge, ready to feed him chicken or another half a tin of tuna. He was not so secretly delighted at the way her eyes lit up with humour when she saw him, spinning in circles unable to contain his excitement, though Tim would note locations of bruises that had not been there the night before. She was struggling, it seemed.

She would then go take a shower, clean out his litter tray with a pithy comment, then go to class, leaving Tim bored until she would return after four, ready to clean his litter tray once more, provide dinner, then spend a couple of hours doing homework before leaving again for patrol. She would return at first light, looking more defeated with each passing sunrise. She would be smiling come the morning, but – even with a brain the size of a monkey nut – Tim saw it was shallow.

It did not escape Tim’s notice that she was going out of her way to avoid him. He understood it. She did the same thing when he was human. He would call for her help from time to time with a case, which she gave without reservation, just as she had done now for kitty him, but rarely, if ever, did she call for his aid.

Her stubborn independent streak had not abated with time it seemed, even when it came at the price of her safety.

That and she just seemed sadder than usual. Or was this usual, and he was just never around and allowed to view it?

His tiny mind whirled and churned, and with no outlet, he stewed, glaring out the window at passer-by’s and their dogs.

Regardless, on the fifth night, after hearing her stilted heart-rending sobs and half-hearted and self-inflicted words of comfort, he decided to break the one boundary she had set.

He jumped up onto the bed, moving until he had clambered on her sternum, then folded down into a loaf position. Stephanie tensed, unsure what game he was playing, until she felt him begin to purr.

She laughed brokenly, more of a whimper than a genuine expression of joy and reached up to scratch behind his ears.

Tim purred louder, to her delight.

“I’m having a bit of a rough time,” she spoke quietly in the dark, as if reluctant to break the thick, dark blanket of warmth and comfort. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to be a burden.”

Tim gave a small ripple of a meow in response. She was not a burden.

“I can’t get a crack on this case,” she explained. “I make a dent, get hurt in a fight and am fine in the morning, but then so are they. I’ve hit a wall. But I have to do it alone. Bruce and Babs expect me to now… I have to…”

Her voice broke and she cut herself off. She smiled crookedly, painfully trying to dispel her sadness. Tim began to make biscuits. He didn’t understand why, but he thought the pressure would help. She was a little furnace beneath him, and he purred loudly, drowning out her shaky breathing.

Stephanie chuckled at the sensation of his little vibrating chest. She ran a hand down his back again, enjoying the smooth coat. Contradictorily once more her eyes became wet.

“Do you think, when you are back to normal, we could talk? There’s…there’s no-one else who would understand. Though I think I’d make Cass sad if I told her that. But I miss you. And I think it’s my fault.”

Tim shifted upwards, until his nose rested under her chin. He continued to purr loudly, nearly trilling with the force of it. Steph nuzzled in close and kissed his forehead and flicked his large ears.

“Silly boy. I hope you don’t remember this. You’d hate me for it.”

Tim meowed grouchily. How she could lie to herself like that…

They’d burned their bridge long ago. He knew this. And him being a cat for a week was not going to mend it. But it made his heart ache like nothing else to see her despondent. He silently promised himself that he would extend an olive branch before the end of next week. They couldn’t continue like this, tip toeing around each other with Tim occasionally stepping too close and making Steph flinch back away.

She wasn’t flinching away now though.

She picked him up so she could sleep better and set him on the pillow next to her. Turning on her side, she reached up and placed a soft, warm hand on his shoulders, rhythmically petting the fur there.

Her quiet sniffles died off, Tim’s purring acting as a lullaby, and she fell asleep before the sun rose.

Throughout the night he shifted closer, until he was practically resting on her head. He rested his chin on the crown of her head, her long golden hair acting like a silken pillow, and kept guard for the rest of the night.

*****

Stephanie awoke to her nose being licked. She opened her eyes blearily, and realised it was Tim cat. She blushed, remembering what had transpired last night. She told herself it was fine, opening up like that. It was only a cat. It was only Tim. Tim, who would be blissfully ignorant come the evening. Though that reminded her, she better lay out some clothes for him. Her mother was coming back at some point in the next forty-eight hours. The idea of her walking in on a naked Tim would cause a conniption.

She smooched Tim’s head, and he meowed cheerily at the wet smack, and continued to press up against her.

She had kept her distance at first, struggling to reconcile Tim with the little sleek gremlin cat meowing at her feet. It felt weird, so she – for a lack of a better term – ignored him. He would be so angry when he changed back, she wanted to avoid anything which he could extrapolate from the week as her being mocking or patronising.

Bruce’s anger she had learned to ignore, Tim’s she hadn’t figured out a knack for yet. It hurt, in a physical manner that she could not explain. Like he was kicking her in the gut again. She found herself actively taking steps now to avoid it. Avoid the concept of it.

But she was exhausted, physically, and emotionally. Years ago, when she would reach such a state, Tim would somehow figure it out and slink in through her window or take her on a quiet date. The two would hold on to each other, and let Stephanie catch her breath and perspective with a warm pillar of support behind her.

Despite Tim now being a cat, it seemed he still had this perception, and had sought her out to give comfort. Weird how animals could sense those sorts of things.

Fuck it, she thought. It was the last day, she was feeling miserable, and there was a perfectly cuddly vibrating fluff ball in her arms, who showed no signs of irritation and instead was offering comfort that she didn’t get much of in recent years. She was going to milk this for all it was worth. Maybe she could take some photos and videos later – humiliate or blackmail Tim later. All in good fun, of course. She never wanted to genuinely upset him.

She continued to give him sweet pecks on his head back and sides, which she thought he liked, as he meowed and headbutted her.

“Sweetie,” she praised, and she picked him up to cradle him properly. He flipped over, being held like a baby, as she continued to croon, “Last day as a kitty. Tomorrow you won’t remember a thing, and we won’t be able to talk like I am now… isn’t that sad? I think we should spoil you today. Lap of luxury and all that. It’ll keep my brain busy, if nothing else.”

He pawed at her chin, and she kissed his toe beans.

She spent an embarrassingly long amount of the day starfished on the floor, playing with Tim. He was a chatty little cat, more so than he ever was as a person. His meows sounded like a revving engine and were as long as he could hold his breath. He was graceful though, despite his lanky limbs and giant ears. He leapt from surface to surface and straight into her arms with seemingly no effort, and whenever she let him roll out of her embrace, he landed neatly on his feet every single time.

Stephanie couldn’t help it, but when she pulled out a little laser from her Batgirl belt, she recorded Tim’s feral delight, chasing a speck of red across the house. She laughed more than she had in a long while, partly because it had been so long since she had seen anything so unabashedly goofy as Tim as a cat, shaking his little bum, pupils dilated larger than dinner plates, in preparation to jump a red point of light.

It was delightful and made her wonder if she could convince Crystal to adopt a cat once she returned. Poor Tim, he’d have no clue what he’d endured come the morning, but at least in that moment, he seemed happy.

When it reached eight pm, Stephanie sighed, realising she had another night of patrol to face. Selfishly, she wanted to linger, to keep company with the cat, but she quickly shook that thought off. People needed her. She wanted her case over and done with.

“One last go,” she whispered. “I can do it tonight. I’m nearly there.”

Tim hopped up onto her lap and she was sliding on her gloves. She chuckled lightly and scratched under his chin. He purred, craning his neck to allow her better access.

“I’ll lay your human clothes out for you on my bed, okay? If it’s not fixed by the time I’m back… I’ll put you in your boxers and jeans and hopefully come morning…” She got up, hoisting Tim to rest on her shoulders, and tugged one of the plastic bags Damian had left for her. To her growing dismay, she realised there was only a pair of underpants. She looked sideways, Tim peering over her left shoulder. “Oh dear, Tim. Damian really is out to get you, huh?”

He chuffed, like he was grumbling to himself. She pecked him once more, and he meowed more firmly, hopping off her shoulders as she made her way to rummage through her wardrobe.

“I don’t want my mom to come back and find you in your undies in my room and me being AWOL. That would just be one step too much for her, I think. I still have some baggy sweatshirts…pants though… pants…”

She tossed clothes haphazardly, at one point burying Tim under a pile of bras and underpants that she shrieked at, loudly and joyously, when she realised what she had done. Eventually she found a pair of jeggings which she hoped would suffice. Tim looked almost suspicious. If he had eyebrows, they would have been raised.

“You have skinny legs,” Stephanie justified, feeling insane talking to the cat. “It’s fine. Just until the morning. I’ll drive you back and no-one will see your shame. Not even Damian. We’ll sneak. Promise.”

She carefully laid out the clothes, and shoved what she had carelessly tossed out her closet back in with equal zeal. Pecking Tim once more on the head, she moved the litter box into her bedroom and shut the door.

“I can’t have mom coming back to a half naked boy in my living room and a box of used kitty litter. You’ll have to stay in here. Hopefully, I’ll be back before she is. She said she’ll drive the whole way and not stop. So, maybe by seven in the morning? Fingers crossed.”

She opened up the windowsill, slinking her leg over. Tim hopped up on her desk, as if to follow her out.

“Uh-uh,” she warned, pressing on his wet nose firmly. “You have to wait here. Damian made me promise you’d stay inside. I can’t risk losing you.”

She caught herself speaking more desperately than she intended and shuddered. “You know what I mean. Naked boy CEO found running through the streets of Gotham is not the kind of attention the family needs right now. Be good, Tim. And thank you. You cheered me up so much today.”

One more kiss, then she was out the window, sliding it definitively shut. As she mounted the bike, Tim perched himself at the windowsill, watching her shoot off down the street.

When she was out of sight, he jumped down and paced endlessly, stressed and worried. She had been struggling so much with patrol, and he was unable to help her. Feeling utterly helpless, he jumped up onto her bed and settled on her main pillow. Curling up into a ball, he settled in to wait, praying that she would return home safely, and before Crystal arrived back.

He awoke, briefly, when he felt a soft pair of hands lifting him up. He chirped and chuffed, and it was Stephanie hushing him. She wrapped him up in his boxers and sat him next to her under the covers.

She was smiling, albeit a tired smile.

“I did it,” she whispered, scratching his ears. “Tim, I did it.”

Tim meowed a congratulatory chitter, and Stephanie smiled wider.

“Sleep now. I’ll explain more in the morning.”

In an act which utterly took Tim off guard, she pulled him closer, curling around him in a crescent moon shape. Under the covers in the dark, surrounded by her scent and soft breath, Tim began to purr once more.

*****

“Steph? Steph…”

Stephanie grumbled, then opened her eyes when cold fingertips pressed against her cheek. Looking at him with an expression Tim could not decipher (relief? Disappointment? Fright?) Stephanie inspected Tim up and down. He had put on his boxers and her sweatshirt but had yet to touch her trousers. Nevermind. He was kneeling on the floor next to her bed. According to her clock, it was just after six in the morning.

Right, Tim needed context.

“I suppose you are very confused right now… Being in my room in your undies… so let me explain—”

She yawned then, arms emerging from her duvet to stretch dramatically. Tim watched the muscles in her neck, then chuckled to himself.

“No, Steph. I remember.”

“Oop.” She froze, watching him anxiously, like an antelope faced with a lion. “Everything?”

“Everything.” He then snorted defiantly, “despite what Damian insisted, I was still me. Shockingly, he is not omnipotent.”

Chewing her tongue, Stephanie narrowed her eyes, not having it at all.

“Oh c’mon, you are lying out your butt.”

“Am not.”

“Are too! There’s no way you’d lower yourself to chasing my laser pen across my living room. Oh gosh, Tim, it must have been horrible…”

Tim shrugged, making a noncommittal noise.

“Maybe I wanted to catch that point of light, huh?” he teased. He then conceded, “Maybe I had a bit of trouble keeping cat me and human me straight in my head.”

“Yeah, that I believe.”

“But honestly, having a week where my biggest concern was whether I was getting tuna or chicken for my next meal was sort of refreshing.”

“I can find a way to turn you back if you like.”

“Hmm. Pass.”

Stephanie giggled, but cut off abruptly when Tim shuffled closer. She felt herself grow cross eyed as she watched him move in so intimately. Tim’s warm breath blew over her as he continued,

“Yeah well, having said that… You mentioned that I helped you. Cheered you up.”

Tim’s teasing look softened, and in that moment looked at Stephanie with such unabashed and unfiltered affection that she felt incredibly self-conscious. Tim was only in his boxers and her sweatshirt, and she was only in a baggy nightgown that she had tossed on when she had arrived home; the first time in weeks she had been uninjured enough to change her clothes.

“Maybe,” Tim continued, “I wanted to see you smile. You were so sad all this week… I needed to help you. Even if it was as dumb as chin scratches – as good as they felt – and chasing lasers. I… I heard you crying, Steph.”

Her arms came down from their stretch, and rested on his shoulders, fingers gently stroking back and forth.

“I’m okay,” she promised, like she was the one comforting him.

Tim’s eyebrows furrowed. “I could have helped you before now.”

There was no chiding in his tone, only pleading, but it made Stephanie feel guilty, nonetheless.

“I had to do it alone.”

“No, no you didn’t. You don’t have to be alone for anything.”

“You’re such a big softie.”

Tim laughed gently, “With you, sure.” Taking a deep breath, he moved even closer until he was practically leaning over her, tips of their noses touching. “Steph… I need to ask you something.”

Stephanie nodded, eyes growing damp. “Shoot,” she whispered, voice cracking and betraying the nonchalant words.

“Could we –”

Crystal opened Stephanie’s bedroom door, and the pair froze. Instinctively, Stephanie raised an arm with a shocked cry, slamming Tim in the face. He wheezed and shot up into standing, which only proved to give Crystal a good view of him in his underwear and daughter’s clothes. Looking somewhat dazed and yet unsurprised, she looked to Stephanie for whatever lie of an excuse her daughter could conjure up.

“Mommy!” Steph cried out. “I did not hear you get back. How was Florida?”

“I was being quiet since it was still early,” Crystal grumbled, unamused by Stephanie’s glib tone. “But then I heard talking.”

Crystal glared at Tim, who fidgeted, finding no dignity in any pose he maintained. Stephanie scrambled upwards so she was sitting, thankfully she had managed to put on pyjamas last night, and clambered for some excuse, any excuse.

“Tim was… It’s not… ”

Seeing her daughter fail to come up with some vaguely plausible non incriminating reasoning, Crystal turned to Tim, glaring holes through his head. He would crack in a way that Stephanie would not.

“Why are you here, Tim?” she demanded.

“I… I…” Tim began to shiver with nerves, face flushed red and eyes bright with panic.

“Where are your pants?”

Tim choked on air. “…I don’t have any. With me.”

“And no shirt either?”

Tim very much wished the ground would swallow him up.

“No.”

Stephanie groaned, throwing herself face down into her pillow. “Good job, Tim.”

“It’s the truth, Stephanie!”

Crystal’s fingers twitched on the door handle, and Stephanie could see one of her pressure headaches building, like a throbbing in her mother’s temple.

“You know what – just leave Tim. And we won’t discuss it again.”

Tim would take that and run. At least this time he wasn’t being chased out of a house with a shotgun like Ariana’s uncle had done.

“Sure. Sure. Can… Steph. Can I borrow your phone?”

“So someone can come pick you up?” Crystal snorted. “What? Don’t you have shoes either?”

Tim realised if Crystal had her way he would have been forced to run back to the manor. Death at this point really would have been preferable. Weakly, he just stated, “No, Mrs. Brown.”

Stephanie spoke at her mother and into her pillow, unable to look the embarrassing situation in the eye.

“Mom, please. The guy’s dignity has already been shot. Please don’t make him walk back to Wayne Manor in his tidey-wideys. I can give you a lift Tim, I said I would.”

“No, no,” Crystal insisted. “I’m sure you’ve done enough Stephanie.”

Stephanie shrieked, muffled but distressed. Dramatically, with exaggerated movements, she removed her phone form under her pillow and unlocked it without looking, then tossed it up the air. Tim scrambled to catch it, then dialled for the manor. Crystal stood aside, indicating it was time for Tim to leave the room. He looked back to Stephanie, still buried in her bed sheets. It was a look of desperation on his features that made Crystal feel almost guilty for separating the pair, but honestly, she did not trust her daughter, and she did not trust Tim, however soft spoken he may have been.

When Tim exited the room, Crystal shut the door with a definitive slam behind him. Turning back to Stephanie, she saw her daughter’s shoulders shaking with quiet crying. This only served to befuddle Crystal more, but before she could say or do anything else, a shallow container on the floor by her daughter’s desk caught her eye.

“Is that a litter tray?” she asked, confusion reaching fever pitch.

Stephanie raised her head to stare at her mother, eyes wet and pout overwhelmingly sad.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you the truth.”

*****

“Alfred washed it. Got rid of all the cat hairs.”

Tim held up the blue sweater for Stephanie to take on her doorstep. She took it reverently and inhaled deep. Alfred always used an excess of fabric conditioner that made clothes smell lush. Tim, for his part, looked apologetic.

“I’m sorry you got drawn into all of that. I’m sorry I made you and your mom fall out.”

Stephanie said nothing, keeping Tim on the doorstep as she set down the sweatshirt. When she looked back to Tim, closing the front door behind her, she was struck by the thought that he seemed much younger than eighteen. He was scuffing his feet on the concrete, hands behind his back, like a bashful child.

“It was all because I was careless with Abra Kadabra and it bit me in the butt and Damian didn’t want to have to deal with me so he burdened you with it. I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t a burden,” she replied quietly. “I liked it. The last day.”

“Oh,” Tim blushed, looking anywhere but in her eye. “Me too. For what it’s worth. Honestly, it was actually really nice. Relatively. In context. You know. In a not creepy way.”

“It must have been a bit weird. Like, don’t pretend it wasn’t. All that chicken and tuna you ate for one thing…”

Tim chuckled to himself, finding something very funny.

“Yeah my digestion has been wild the past week and... too much information. Sorry.”

Stephanie tried to catch his eye, but Tim kept his head stubbornly down. His feet must have been very interesting.

“You… you were going to ask me something, before my mom walked in,” she pushed.

He coughed, choking on nothing but his nerves.

“Was I?”

“Tim.” She reached out and took his hand. Tim flinched, then relaxed and finally gathered the courage to look her in the eye. She smiled, beautifully, always beautifully, and he squeezed her fingers.

“I’m sorry if it took me being turned into a cat to actually ask.”

“That’s okay. It happens for people like us. In a way I think it puts things into perspective. So, please ask.”

“You…”

He stared at her, admiring her, before finding words couldn’t do the job well enough. Instead, he leaned forward, meeting Stephanie who was also moving closer, and the two kissed on Stephanie’s front doorstep. She broke away with such a delighted laugh that Tim chuckled himself.

“Ask me,” she insisted.

Tim shook his head and kissed her again. Falling back against her front door, the two made out for a moment too long before Stephanie regained her senses. She pushed him back, laughing louder and more hysterically.

“Tim! No! You need to ask!”

Another kiss, this time accompanied by him picking her up and swinging her in a circle. Finally, Stephanie gave up and held him tight. Tim made a noise that she could only describe as a chirp of delight in response.

“You’re a little gremlin,” she muttered into his mouth. “Cat or otherwise.”

#dc #tim drake #stephanie brown #timsteph #my fic tag

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aspoonofsugar · 4 years ago

Text

The Way Back Home

Lila’s shoes are always red, just like the Handler’s. It is a nice bit of foreshadowing and symbolism that links the two characters.

At the same time, this detail reminds me of The Wizard of Oz (the movie). I don’t think that this is a planned reference, but I think some aspects of the story fit with The Umbrella Academy and especially with season 2.

REGINALD AND THE HANDLER: THE WIZARD AND THE WITCH

Five is ironically both proud and ashamed of this talent. This duality aka his wish to be a hero and his pride as a killer are well conveyed by his relationship with both his father and the Handler.

As stated in this meta, the Handler and Reginald embody two different tendencies of Five, aka his pride as an assassin and his wish to be a hero. These two things are opposite, so one would think the same about the two people connected to them. In a sense, this is true. As a matter of fact the Handler and Reginald’s objectives are at odds. On one hand the Handler does not really care about the world. On the other hand Reginald wants to save it.

Because of this, it might seem that the Handler is the Big Bad, while Reginald is the Big Good. However, it is clear since season 1 that this is not the case. In particular, it is true that the Handler is a villain, just like the Wicked Witch of the West. Still, this does not make Reginald a hero, just like the Wizard of Oz is an ambiguous character in the original story.

In short, the Handler is a completely negative character, while Reginald is a more complex one. She serves as the main enemy this season, but he is the character the protagonists need to face to complete their journeys. This is why the Handler works as a foil to Reginald. In this way, she underlines his negative traits:

Both Reginald and the Handler pursue kids because of their extraordinary abilities and abuse them trying to mold them in who they want. Not only that, but in the end they both discard these children to take in “better ones”:

That said, the reason why the Handler and Reginald abandon their respective kids is the opposite.

On one hand the Handler dicards Lila because she turned out different from her.

The Handler is unable to love, while Lila is mainly motivated by love. She tries her best to be an assassin out of love for the Handler. She falls for Diego and refuses to kill him. Finally, she wants to kill Five to avenge her parents. For better or worse, Lila is always motivated by love and this is precisely why the Handler can’t keep using her forever:

On the other hand Reginald refuses his children because they share his own flaws:

Reginald: “Despite years of training and weeks of preparations, you allowed Number Six to die on this mission”.

This is pretty clear in the scene above. There Reginald blames the kids for Ben’s death, but fails to recognize his own role in it. Reginald keeps telling his children to take responsibility. They should take responsibility for their powers, for their lives, for the world. However, he himself is a character, who always fails to recognize his own mistakes. Similarly, the things he criticizes his children for are usually traits he himself has.

Let’s consider this:

In a maybe simplicistic way, I am going to divide the siblings (minus Ben) in two groups:

a) Five, Luther and Diego want to be heroes, so they tend to be focused on saving the world.

b) Vanya, Allison and Klaus want to have fulfilling personal lives, so they tend to be focused on their relationships.

Some of Reginald’s children are focused on their mission of saving the world, while others simply want a fulfilling personal life.

Reginald fails at both things in ways that are incredibly similar to his kids.

On one hand Reginald, like his kids, is a failure hero. Just like Diego, he wants to save JFK, but fails. However, he is in a much better position to save the President than Diego and he is even warned by his children, who literally come from the future. Still, Reginald is too focused on antagonizing them and this leads to JFK’s death.

Similarly, he has trouble with a romantic partner just like Vanya, Allison and Klaus. Moreover, he eventually breaks up with Grace because he is not honest with her. This is exactly the same problem Vanya and Allison have.

Still, the two sisters in the end tell the truth to their partners and mendle their relationships.

Reginald instead refuses to open up to Grace and loses her.

In short, Reginald is a failure like his kids and he is even worse than them because he is less open to learn from his mistakes.

This is why in season 1, he ends up being involved with the apocalypse in all the ways the Umbrella Academy is.

Firstly, his mistreatement of Vanya and his cruelty to Harold Jenkins are among the factors that lead to the apocalypse. In short, Reginald is the heart of the dysfunctionality of the family and it is this dysfunctionality that leads to the end of the world.

Secondly, he deep down has the same delusion his sons have. He believes that to save the world it is necessary for the group to be together. However, him actually bringing the siblings together is what kickstarts the whole chain of events of season one. This is not to say that the siblings should be apart. In general, if they wanna grow as people they all need to solve their family issues. However, Reginald, like Five and Luther, is not being honest with himself. As far as we know, there is no logical reason as to why the Umbrella Academy should save the world. Still, there are plenty of emotional reasons as for why the characters want to bring the group back together.

In a sense, Reginald is probably the same. He too wants to bring the family back and for them to be heroes (so that he can succeed through them). However, instead of simply trying to reconnect with his kids, he chooses to kill himself.

This solution is a highly traumatic and manipulative one and it ties with Reginald not really wanting to put in the emotional work to make things better between him and his children. He gives them a trauma and leaves a bunch of secrets and of things unsolved.

In short, Reginald keeps reprimanding his children, but he fails to see how the flaws he points out are flaws he himself has. Differently, whenever one of the kids tries to call him out, he is ready to dismiss them.

In conclusion, Reginald, just like the Wizard of Oz, is looked up by the protagonists as the person that can fix everything. He can fix both them and their situation. The truth is that Reginald is just a normal person, who is even more flawed than his kids.

This is why he gives Five the same answer about the Apocalypse as the Handler:

It is not really because Reginald is not interested in saving the world, but because symbolically he can’t and his flaw is that he thinks he can. His kids should be more objective about what kind of person Reginald is and see him not as a hero or a villain, but as a human, who is greatly flawed to boot.

THE YELLOW BRICK ROAD TO BECOME WHO YOU WANT TO BE

To summarize, the season starts with a blue vortex taking the siblings to a far away world.

In order to go back home, they have to face a Wicked Witch:

And they seek help from an ambiguous Wizard, that is actually a person from another world:

However, this Wizard can’t really help them and the most he can do is to highlight that they already have within themselves the means to reach their objectives:

Reginald: “You only scratched the surface of what you were truly capable of. If only you had focused”.

Klaus: “Wait, wait, wait. What…What potential?”

Reginald: “Maybe your appetite is disproportionate to the size of your abilities. Start small. Seconds, not decades.”

As you can see, there are some similarities (very loose ones) with the Wizard of Oz basic story-line.

What is interesting is especially the last part. Reginald manages to be useful to his kids in mostly two occasions. He manages to make Klaus realize he has more potential than what he thinks. And he manages to make Five think about the way he has been using his power.

Both times, the characters are able to unlock new powers in the finale because of their father’s words and they use these new abilities to save their siblings:

The siblings unlocking new abilities is important because their powers symbolize both their flaws and the way to overcome them. I have analyzed each sibling here and in many cases I have shown how their powers are symbolic.

Here, I will make a quick summary and highlight that the siblings’ powers represent both their problems and their solutions in ways that are often ironic.

1) Luther’s power is superstrength. However, this power contrasts with his sensitive personality:

In order to grow Luther must become a “stronger person”, not in the sense that he must be physically strong, but in the sense that he must be stronger psychologically.

Moreover, he has gorilla DNA, but, especially in season 1, he wants to act as a superhuman. The truth is that he is neither a monster nor a superhuman, but just a person and he should accept it.

2) Diego’s power is trajectory manipulation. Despite this, he is not really able to change his own trajectory to one different from the one Reginald chose for him:

3) Allison’s power is that she can turn lies and illusions into reality. Her voice can literally control others. Despite this, she often finds herself losing it and she does not realize that it could actually change the world for the better, if she learnt to use it correctly:

4) Klaus’s power is that he can communicate with the deads. Despite this, he is scared of death and does not accept it:

He is annoyed by his siblings not listening to him. but he himself does not listen to the voices of the ghosts, who would like to convey a message to the livings. He prefers to use drugs to keep them at bay.

He is literally a medium, someone who should create links between people, but he refuses this role. He isolates himself from the major conflicts and refuses to involve Ben in the family conversations.

5) Five’s power is that he can control space-time. Despite this, he has never enough time:

Five (every two seconds): “We have no time for this!”

This is a recurring motif in Five’s story. Not only does he always have no time to stop the apocalypse, but he is also the one, who has spent the least amount of time with his family. Moreover, he is the one, who has “lived” the least, despite being the oldest.

This is why him rewinding time at the end of season 2 is important:

Reginald: “ So much can change in a matter of seconds. One can overthrow and empire. One can fall in love. An acorn doesn’t become an oak overnight. “

It is because is focus is switching on the idea that a bunch of seconds matter and that it is small moments that are important in one’s life.

6) Ben’s power is to be a portal for a monster. Ironically, he is actually the one, who more openly conveys the feelings of love for his siblings. He is the one, who comforts Vanya this season and he generally works as the heart of the family in everyone’s memory. It is possible more focus on him will make a more in depth analysis possible, but as for now this contrast between his personality and his power is the only thing we have.

7) Vanya’s power is that she can convert sounds into energy. It is also clear that her powers are strictly connected to her emotions. Despite this, she usually represses her feelings:

This repression is symbolically conveyed with her always ending up imprisoned somewhere:

The physical prisons she finds herself in are nothing more than representations of her constricted mental state. It also ties with the paradox that she always ends up victimized despite being the strongest among her siblings.

In short, the siblings’ arcs are conveyed also with them learning to control their powers better because their powers are nothing, but underdeveloped parts of their personalities. If they were to better understand themselves they would be able to perfectly control their abilities.

They are like the Lion, the Tin Man and the Scarecrow. They are all searching for things they already have. It is just that they fail to notice and search them outside themselves.

It is because of this ignorance that they lose against Lila.

LILA: A CHILD AWAY FROM HOME

Lila is just another version of The Umbrella Academy kids:

She is them and who they could have become. This is why her power lets her copy theirs.

Hopefully, Lila will be back and we will be given more insight on what her power means for her character. For example, @hamliet suggested that Lila does not really know who she is and this is why she copies others. This reading fits and will probably be explored more in future seasons.

However, it is clear that the choice of Lila’s power has mostly to do with the Hargreeves’ siblings.

She copies their powers because she is them. After all, she is one of the children born the 1st of October 1989 and was stolen and trained by an abusive parent. Moreover, she foils each sibling in a specific way and her fights (or lack of a fight) with them say how.

First of all, she copies Vanya’s power and uses them to create a barrier and to destroy the farm with an energy wave:

She is emotionally distancing herself from them (creating a barrier) and lashing out on them (energy wave). She is acting on her negative feelings toward them and attacking them. This is precisely what Vanya does at the end of season 1. If Vanya is the angry child they have to fight and to save in season 1, then Lila is the lost and angry child they have to confront in season 2. If Vanya has been hurt by her family, then Lila has been hurt by Five. Both characters have their reasons to be angry and even if these reasons do not justify their actions, they need to be aknowledged.

Then Lila confronts Luther and copies his superstrength. While they are fighting she mocks him in this way:

It is ironic that she says so because what makes she and Luther similar is that they both lack self-esteem. They both feel that they are not enough and want to prove to their parent their value. This is why Lila shows jealousy over her mother’s treatment of Five, for example:

Both Luther and Lila must overcome their parent’s shadow and start living for themselves, so that they can figure out who they are.

At this point, Lila faces Allison and she is able to take Allison’s breath away thanks to a “rumor”:

It is an occurrence of Allison losing her voice (a recurring motif in her arc). Why does Lila manage to steal it? It is because Lila is a liar, just like Allison herself:

Lila too builds her major relationships on lies. On one hand she is on the receiving hand of this by the Handler:

On the other hand she lies to Diego:

Lila and Allison are two people so scared that they won’t be loved if they are their true selves that they have the tendency to lie to both themselves and others.

Finally, Lila finds Five aka his major target and they start fighting each other. The truth is that Five dislikes Lila because she represents everything he dislikes about himself. Not only she is an assassin of the Commission like Five used to be, but he has unknowingly done to her what the Handler did to him:

Lila is the direct consequence of Five’s violence. Moreover, she is also the character that challenges Five’s pride the most directly:

Five has tied his identity with his talent as a killer, but Lila is clearly as skilled as him, if not more, and they are able to go toe to toe. Of course, the thing is mutual. Lila too is proud of her talent and wants to prove herself. This is one of the reasons she dislikes Five since the beginning.

Both Lila and Five are victims of a system that has manipulated them and tied who they are to killing. They should both overcome this imposed identity and let go of a pride that is negative for them.

At this point, Diego and the others come. This scene is symbolic of the whole family facing another version of itself. What is more, they attempt to do what they did not in season 1 with Vanya. Instead of trying to kill Lila, they try to reconcile with her and to have her join their family:

In particular, Diego is the one, who does so and it is because Lila represents a positive quality in his case. She represents Diego’s potential to “change trajectory” and they manage to influence each other positively. It is not by chance that when Diego arrives Lila is holding a knife aka his signature weapon. That knife is supposed to hurt Diego and his family, but he manages to change its trajectory:

This is because both Lila and Diego are two characters, who are clearly able to change and improve. Lila, like Diego in season 1, is obsessed with revenge, but is able to let go because of a loved one. In other words, Diego teaches Lila what he had learnt from Patch.

However, in the end Lila does not join the family (at least for now) and runs away. Why is that so thematically? Moreover, what about Klaus? Why did she not face him?

She does not face Klaus because she is unable to face her own grief, just like Klaus runs away from his own. Ironically, Klaus’s power is the one that could let Lila contact her dead parents and find closure. However, the two do not meet and Lila’s story in season 2 ends with more grief:

Sure, the Handler never cared about Lila, but she was still her adoptive mother and Lila will have to process her loss. It is the same for Klaus, who will have to process his unsolved feelings for Ben:

Both characters have to process loss and grief (let’s think that Klaus’s focus this season was mostly about accepting Dave’s death), but they struggle to do so. This is why they are similar and this is also why they do not face each other. It is because they are both running away. Klaus runs away from his power and from its potential for catharsis and reconciliation. Lila too runs away and it is actually the last thing she does on-screen. She runs away in time to avoid facing the pain and conflict she has in front of her.

In a sense, she is following in The Umbrella Academy’s footsteps. They ended season 1 time-travelling to escape the apocalypse, while Lila ends season 2 time-travelling to escape her ghosts and contradictions.

The question then is if she will manage to go back home. It won’t be easy because as Allison says in the last episode:

Allison: “I wish I could tell you it’s gonna be easier from here, but it’s not. It’s going to get worse before it gets better (...) before we fins the right way home.”

This is true for the Hargreeves as well. They might have managed to leave Dallas, but they are still far away from home:

Just like Dorothy initially loses her chance to leave Oz with the Wizard, they are still stranded. That said, they just have to remember that the means to find their place in the world is something they have within themselves. They just have to realize it.

#tua #tua meta #the umbrella academy #the umbrella academy meta #hargreeves siblings #lila pitts #reginald hargreeves #the handler #my meta

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commanderrivercc-3628 · 4 years ago

Text

Rose Petal: Chapter 1

pairing: Wolffe x fem!Reader

warnings: cursing, horrible views towards clone(I’m sorry)

word count: 1,951

Fluff/Angst

notes: I would like to give a special thanks to my best friend (@jelisnail) for coming up with the baby’s name. Thank you to everyone who encouraged me to post this. I hope you like it.

Tags: @jelisnail, @catsnkooks, @queenchaos-5

Wolffe sat in the back of the cab, holding a small bundle of blankets close to his chest. Tears that had once poured down his face had long since dried, leaving stained streaks on his cheeks. Wolffe’s eyes were still puffy and the tip of his nose was pink. Wolffe was in a daze, lost in his own thoughts as he stared out the window next to him, hardly able to focus on the speeders rushing past him. The lights of the other speeders blurred at the speed.

‘Why couldn't you have stayed?’ Wolffe thought. ‘How can you expect me to do this? I don’t know what I’m doing.’

Wolffe wanted to cry again, but he had no tears left. He was at a complete and utter loss. He hadn’t felt this broken since the Separatists killed the majority of his original battalion. His vod. Leaving only himself, Boost, and Sinker.

He was pulled away from his thoughts by soft cooing coming from the bundle in his arms. Wolffe looked down at the bundle, seeing the face of the small baby it held. He smiled softly at the baby, who was looking up at him with big golden-brown eyes. His baby. His daughter. Wolffe slowly lifts his hand and lightly boops her nose, drawing out a little giggle from the baby. Wolffe leans down and presses a small kiss to her forehead. As he pulled back, Wolffe saw a big smile on his daughter’s face.

“Alright, buddy, we’re here.” the driver said, as the cab slowed to a stop.

Wolffe passed him credits and carefully exited the cab. He watched as it sped away. He sighed and started walking back towards the barracks, trying to figure out what to do with his daughter. He wasn’t just going to abandon her.

‘This wasn’t part of the plan. Sera wasn’t supposed to-’ Wolffe thought.

He sighed again. He needed a new plan. Who could he go to for help? Wolffe’s eyes widened in realization.

“(Y/N),” Wolffe said out loud, looking at his baby, who only blink at him in response. “She’ll help us, ad’ika. I know she will.”

You were Wolffe’s best friend, but it wasn’t always that way. You two met when you arrived to the 104th as a civilian medic. You two instantly disagreed on everything. Wolffe refused to believe you actually cared for the clones. That is until he got hurt. Ventress attacked him with her lightsabers, resulting in Wolffe losing his right eye. You were the one who treated him, took care of him. After that, Wolffe saw you differently. He actually talked to you. Not because he had to, but because he wanted to. And one thing led to another.

You were the only one who knew about the baby. Though you both suspected Plo Koon knew and he just didn’t mention it. Though neither of you knew for sure. That’s why Wolffe instantly thought of you. Not that he didn’t trust his vod. It’s the fact that they wouldn’t know what to do any more than he did. Since you were a civvie doctor, however, he figured you were his best bet.

He quickly made his way to your barracks. He’d apologize later for how late it was. He checked the chrono on the wall: 0300 hours. He sighed and pounded on your door. He heard grumbling on the other side. The door opened and revealed an extremely grumpy you.

“Do you have any idea what time it-,” You paused, realizing who was at your door. “Wolffe. What’s wro-.”

You stopped when you saw the bundle of blankets in his arms. Your eyes doubled in size. You instantly looked up at Wolffe’s face, seeing nothing but anxiety, fear, and sadness.

“Come in.” You said, moving out of the doorway for Wolffe to make his way into the room.

You closed the door behind him. As you turn back around, you see Wolffe standing awkwardly in the middle of your barracks. You could tell he was trying to think of what to say. You’d never seen Wolffe at such an utter loss for words. It hurt you to see him this way.

“Wolffe?” you asked, drawing his attention. “What happened?”

He sighed, still clutching the baby.

“She left. Sera left. She kriffing ran away!” He yelled.

The baby began wailing. Wolffe winced and tried rocking her, but she wouldn’t stop crying. You stepped forward and looked at Wolffe. Wolffe nodded and reluctantly handed you the baby he hadn’t let go of since he left the hospital. As soon as the girl was in your arms, she instantly calmed down with the help of your gentle rocking and soothing shushes. Wolffe let out a sigh of relief.

“I’m not even gonna ask how you did that.”

“What do you mean she ran away, Wolffe?”

“I just… I just went to go get caf.”

“She’s beautiful, Sera,” Wolffe said in awe as he stared at his sleeping daughter.

“Yeah.”

“Have you thought of a name yet?” Wolffe asked.

“No.”

“Um, al-alright. Hey, I’m-I’m gonna go get some caf real quick. I’ll be right back, okay?”

Sera didn’t respond and Wolffe decided just to take it as a yes. As he made his way to the mess, all he could think about was the precious baby girl in her mother’s arms. From the moment he saw that little girl, he knew he’d protect her with his life. He’d do anything for her. She was his world. And if doing anything for her meant he’d have to live the rest of his short life with Sera, then he would. He’d do it in a heartbeat. As much as he’d hate to do so.

Wolffe got his caf and made his way back to the hospital room. Once he got there his brows furrowed in confusion. The baby was there, but Sera wasn’t. In her place on the bed was a note.

‘Wolffe,

I’m not going to do this, and trust me I’m not sorry about it. I can’t raise a baby with something like you. A clone, not even a real person. Just an object owned by the Republic. Something for me to use for my own pleasure. Something to die alone and forgotten on some battlefield. And then I got pregnant with your spawn. A punishment I didn’t deserve. I’m not going to sit around and raise your baby, if you can even call that thing a baby at all, while you go running around the galaxy, leaving me to do everything. But I’m not going to do that. We both know we don’t love each other, and I certainly don’t love that thing you put inside me. And I know you were going to leave me. That is until you found out I was pregnant with your whatever it is. Don’t even bother trying to find me. I’ll be long gone, starting a life with a person, a human, a real man. Not some freak laboratory experiment like you. Oh, and name the little monster whatever you want, I don’t care.

Sera’

Wolffe crumpled the note in pure anger. But then tears started to fall, but not for Sera. She was right he didn’t love her, and he was going to leave her until he found out she was pregnant. No. He cried because of his daughter and how Sera called her a ‘thing’. And be really couldn’t care less about what Sera thought of him, because he already knew it was true. He was just a clone. Expendable. Property of the Republic. A weapon, created to destroy and die. But that beautiful baby girl was NOT a thing. NOT a monster. She was a person. One who deserved the world.

‘It’s my fault,’ Wolffe thought. ‘If she hadn’t been my baby, she would still have a mother. She could have the life she deserved. Maybe I should give her her best shot and give her to a couple who can take care of her and give her a normal life.’

He dropped the note, letting it fall to the ground, and made his way other to the small bassinet that held his world. His heart. Tears still pour down his cheeks. He looked at the small girl. He gently picked her up, and gently held her in his arms, making sure to support her head just like the nurse had instructed him to do. His heart melted as she slowly opened her eyes to look up at him. They were golden-brown, the same as his. He knew then and there, that he’d never give up his daughter. He would fight until his last breath to keep her.

“Wolffe, I am so sorry.” You paused looking down at the now sleeping baby. “I can’t believe Sera said all those horrible things about you and the baby.”

“Yeah, Sera shouldn’t have kriffing said banthashit about my daughter.”

“She shouldn’t have said that banthashit about you either, Wolffe.”

“It’s the truth, (Y/N).”

“Gods, Wolffe, no it’s not. You’re a man, not an object. You’re a person. You’re not something she can use. You’re a human being with feelings and emotions. I wished you’d understand that.”

Wolffe didn’t meet your gaze as you both stayed quiet for a few moments. Wolffe broke the silence first.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do, (Y/N). I want to keep her. I have to keep her, but I don’t know how I’m going to do it.”

You hummed at that. Thinking of how you could help Wolffe. You rolled your eyes.

‘Damn Republic and your stupid prejudice and you unfair rules towards the clones.’ You thought.

If clones were allowed to have children this would be a lot easier to deal with. Wolffe could get decommissioned if this got out. You knew his vod would protect both Wolffe and their new niece. And General Plo certainly wouldn’t let anything happen to them either.

“I’ll help you, Wolffe.”

He smiled at me.

“I figured you would, but I just don’t know how to do this. How do I even be a father? How am I gonna watch my daughter while I’m planetside, trying to keep myself, the General, and my vod alive?”

You think for a moment, then smile. You still hold the baby in your arms.

“Well, I don’t know what to tell you other than you’ll figure out how to be a father. That’s what everyone has to do. As far as watching the baby… I can watch her.”

Wolffe’s brows shoot up and his jaw drops.

“No, I can’t ask you to do that.”

“You’re not asking, I offered and I’d be glad to do it. Look, I’m not a field medic, meaning I’m almost never planetside. Meaning your daughter will be safe with me away from all the shooting and explosions.”

Wolffe sighed, seeing no other option that didn’t involve giving up his daughter. He nodded reluctantly in agreement.

“What do we do now?” Wolffe asked.

“Well, for right now, you need to sleep.”

Wolffe went to protest.

“No, Wolffe I’m guessing you haven’t slept in hours because of the baby being born. I’ll stay up and watch her. We’ll figure out what to do tomorrow. I already have some ideas I need to think more about.”

Wolffe nodded and you gestured to your cot. Wolffe plopped down on it and closed his eyes.

“Wolffe?”

He hummed in response.

“What’s her name?”

Wolffe opened his eyes and looked at the bundle in your arms. He thought for a second before smiling at the baby.

“Rose.” He whispered so softly you almost couldn’t hear him. “My little rose petal.”

#commander wolffe x reader #wolffe x reader #wolffe x you #commander wolffe x you #wolffe #commander wolffe #rose petal fic #the clone wars fic #the clone wars #(Y/N)

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project-rebirth · 3 years ago

Text

A Certain Irregular Mental Academy

Prologue - Reality Assimilation: New_york_disaster.

10 years ago, May 2nd, New York City, 3:27 PM

May 2nd was nothing more than an unremarkable day.

In the ever busy city that was New York, this day was as normal and average as the previous, and there was the expectation that the proceeding days after it would be the same. Every one was living out their own lives, free of the dangers that were lurking in the shadows.

Several children were playing in Central Park, a business man was getting off of work early, several politicians were in a meeting inside a building talking about public security, and a traveling business man had just gotten on a plane which took off and was now on its way back to japan, all so he could return to his wife and son.

It truly was an unremarkable day.

But within the next instant, that all changed.

A tremendous sound resounded through the air, followed by a blinding flash of light. The light was so radiant, it was even brighter than the sun itself. But those who were not in the immediate area, safe from such a light like the japanese businessman realized one thing and a fitting term for such settled on their minds before it was even revealed through the smoke.

Destruction.

A section of NYC had been utterly devastated by an explosion of great size. From that alone, one could already tell the number of casualties was going to be tremendous. There were not that many people that could have survived such an event in the immediate area.

The man, one Kamijou Touya was thankful that he was on a plane heading back to japan when he did. He had almost missed his flight and even though the airport he had gone to was away from the blast site, there was no telling what could have happened to him if he remained there for any longer.

The children that were playing in central park was not that lucky.

They were caught in the blast, but did not suffer a instant death like those in the epicenter. Those people had had their bodies burned by the flames, charred to a crisp while some were fortunate enough to only get a fatal burn, others were hit by shrapnel from buildings and other objects that pierced through their bodies, and then there were those who were completely blown away, landing on a tree or other object that either fatally injured them or had killed them on the spot due to the nature of the injuries.

A girl, age 7 and Japanese as well, probably was the lucky one out of everyone there. She had burns, cuts and bruises all over her body, but she had not suffered extremely severe wounds or died instantly. She laid on the ground, unable to comprehend what had happened, unable to even scream in pain as her mind had not been able to process the event that had occured so suddenly.

Only a few moments later did she scream, but not out of pain from the state of her own body, but rather from seeing the state that her parents, her friends and their parents were currently in.

Their bodies were unrecognizable.

Her screams were loud and haunting, but it was only one of many that were crying out for someone to save them.

The businessman that got off work and the politicians were all killed in explosion, as they were in the immediate area. At the end of the day, this was a great disaster that New York had not seen since the fall of the World Trade Centre, a fact that many thought would not have to live through again. At the end of it all, over 678,000 people were killed in the explosion, and 1,010 were injured, however most of those people had died as well due to blood loss.

But this wasn't just an accident.

At the end of the day, American politicians on both the Liberal and Conservative parties blamed the disaster on Syria, who they believed had planted a bomb to kill the politicians who were meeting at the time in Ground Zero, which not only led to their deaths but the deaths of many others who were unrelated.

Some felt that World War 3 would have started then and there, however in the end, the result was a war constrained only to the United States and Syria which was devastating in its own right. The results of that war was still being felt in that region to this very day.

But in reality, this had nothing to do with Syria. They were merely the scapegoat for such a disaster because the relations between the two nations was rocky at the time.

No. This event had far more reaching consequences than what was told to the public.

On that same day, an incident occured on the other side of the world. Over in japan, there was Academy City, a landlocked sovereign city-state whose territory consists of a walled enclave within the Tokyo Metropolitan Employment Area. It is a city of several schools and institutions of higher learning from kindergarten to university level that learn side-by-side along with the scientists who research on psychic powers and higher technology, the latter being one of the primary reasons for its establishment. It is the most advanced city in the world and its technology is said to be 20 or 30 years ahead of the world. It stood at the top of the world of science and technology as a result and has remained virtually unchallenged, even with the Romefeller Family and their many private institutions among others being competitors.

But Academy City had not avoided its own disaster.

This was not as bloody or destructive as the event in New York, but it was concerning in its own right. That day to Academy City had been known as Dark Thursday.

It was an event that caused the city to enter a citywide blackout, causing all systems to go dark, and to add on that, every esper who was in the city, regardless of level or status had entered a coma that lasted for 24 hours straight. To this day, officials had no idea how this happened and as a result, urban legend enthusiasts and conspiracy theorists had talked about both incidents on the internet. Some believe the NYC disaster and Dark Thursday were unrelated, that they were two separate incidents that happened at the same time, but some believed that there was a connection.

And although that was the case, no one was closer to the truth whatsoever.

Except one person.

Yes.

The disaster was not caused by Syria as the world believed, and Dark Thursday was not just a random spontaneous event that happened at the same time. The disaster was caused by one person who lived in Academy City,

His name is---

***

"Kihara Eiichiro-kun."

The cute looking teacher in a classroom of Nagatenjouki Academy called out, the name of the student garnering recognition from those inside. They of course knew who he was --- who didn't? As far as everyone there was concerned, he was a genius in every sense of the word. He was technically brilliant enough that he did not need to go to school, however he chose to do so anyway.

But that genius student was no where to be found.

"Eh? Where's Eiichiro-kun?"

The teacher asked, using a less formal way of addressing him. That would have raised some eyebrows in other classes, but this was normal here.

"Ah! Y'know, he did say something about taking the day off! Something about working on a project?"

"Is that so? Haaa, I suppose it's fine then..."

The red haired girl's comment caused the teacher to sigh. Of course, the boy in question did have excused absences due to projects he was undertaking, so this was not out of the ordinary as far as he was concerned. Still, it couldn't be helped and the class continued about its day.

But speaking of which, where was Kihara Eiichiro?

***

The genius was currently in his laboratory in District 19.

It was where he undertook more of his experiments which primarily consisted of himself as a test subject. He was a bit strange as far as espers went and even stranger as far as Kiharas were, partly due to his nature as a humane scientist. He refused to take part in experiments that violated the rights of other human beings, and it was because of his stance on this that he was shunned by most members of that twisted "family". Only those like Kihara Noukan were among the few that could tolerate him.

It was currently Janurary 25th, a Thursday. Indeed, thursdays gave Eiichiro a sour feeling due to the event it was linked to 10 years ago. He was the cause of Dark Thursday and the Cataclysm of New York due to an experiment he was undertaking at the time. Of course, no one save for the Board Chairman, the Board of Directors and most of the Kiharas knew that it was Eiichiro who had done this, but even so, it didn't matter that much.

Since that day, he had sworne that he would never experiment on anyone ever again, that he would only experiment on himself and himself alone. He didn't want for anything like that to happen again.

Of course, Academy City had been recently rocked with incident after incident, the more notable ones being December 23rd, or the Red Moon Sky Event, an incident that resulted in many deaths, injured civilians and personal, and trillions of yen in damages. It was officially explained as an Esper going rouge but the similarities between that and the Cataclysm of New York was stark. It gave Eiichiro a bad feeling.

And then there was the event that happened on the 21st of this month, ust a few days ago where bizarre creatures were rampaging about, along with a tremendous explosion that had been felt throughout the world, another event that shook the world to its core. The fact was these sorts of incidents on the scale of what was happening 10 years ago and in World War 3 did not sit well with Kihara Eiichiro at all. Something was coming, and it was only a matter of time before that something made itself known.

"...."

But perhaps the most startling thing for him was the fact that something within him was...changed. To put it simply, he had something he did not have before.

A strange power in his right hand.

This power had the ability to send things somewhere, but where he did not know. All he knew was that he had this power and he had to learn how to use it, to understand it before doing anything else. One wrong move, and this power would send someone to a place they could never return from.

But despite not knowing of its origins or nature, one name came into his mind. It was a name that he felt was fitting for such a power.

"....World Rejector. I've read about a similar power confined in the right hand of another, but this is on a completely different level."

Kihara Eiichiro remarked, staring at the hand which held such a power.

These were not normal times.

There was much to be done in terms of researching and investigating.

So he would do it. As a researcher of his own standing, he had to look into this.

"I suppose this is where my secondary role as an investigator also begins."

---

A Certain Irregular Mental Academy

@tetsuwan-atom @xbloodsoakedx @musexcongregation @graceful-cure-swan @strykingback

#A Certain Irregular Mental Academy (Main Verse)#The One Who Wields Magic and Science // Kihara Eiichiro

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realm-sweet-realm · 4 years ago

Text

Audrey and the Dark Revival: chapter 1- First Encounters

Audrey and the Dark Revival is intended as a sequel series for Bendy and the Ink Machine. May the actual sequel come out soon and completely blow mine out of the water.

I was going for a “first chapter of a puzzle/action game” vibe for this.

Sorry for the little hiatus, I was making the plot outline for this. It will have at least five chapters.

---

Audrey took one last look at the letter in her hands.

Audrey,

This is your mother. About a year ago, your father purchased a mysterious machine, and as of now, he’s missing. What I’m about to tell you will sound crazy, but you have to believe me. The machine has the ability to create a dimension that your father is now trapped in. He is literally at the center of his own little world, and he’s continuously making it bigger. Every night before he disappeared, he would come back later, more ink-stained, and less coherent than he had the night before. I tried to get him to stop, but he wouldn’t. As of now, he either can’t leave, isn’t sane enough to, or doesn’t want to. The dimension is growing to the point where it can’t be contained anymore. Objects in our house are beginning to look like the ones he creates. It’s as though the dimension is leaking. One of the creatures from the dimension appeared in my room yesterday. I can’t call the police- I don’t think they’d be much help, and I’m complicit in so much that he’s done. Audrey, I need you to go in there and save him. If you don’t, I fear the dimension will spill into this world more and more. He can control the dimension. He’ll help you.

-Mom.

Half of the room Audrey stood before was her father’s old study- though the carpet and some of the fine furniture had been replaced since he’d kicked her out half a lifetime ago. The other half of it defied explanation. Its colour had completely faded to nothing but white, with black lines at the edges of objects like they’d come out of a newspaper comic strip. It was all surrounding one door- a door which when opened, revealed a simple storage closet, and which had a meter-wide pentagram in front of it.

Why had she come here? Why wasn’t she at home with her husband and daughter? Loyalty to Mr. Arch (Audrey refused to call him a ‘father’)? Sheer curiosity? She supposed it didn’t matter. Whatever the reason, she’d come across state lines for this.

Audrey rifled through her father’s chestnut desk until she found a key within an open, unmarked envelope (apparently, he hadn’t switched hiding places in nineteen years), and used it on his locked filing cabinet. Amongst the files, there was an unmarked black book- each page of which contained a pentagram and some instructions on how to activate it. Kneeling before the pentagram her father must have drawn, Audrey paged through the book until she found the closest matching pentagram. It was identical, except for a foot-wide center of its star- on the page it had been blank, but on the ground, its design was as intricate as the shrunken-down blueprint of an unknowable labyrinth.

The page contained a picture of what appeared to be a tattooed hand, a knife taped to the page, and the following instructions:

The dimensional pentagram enables one to move a dimensional portal from one place to another. In order to do so, draw the following pentagram, with the layout of desired dimension at its center. In to become a person who can operate the pentagram, cut your hand in the following pattern, and offer up your blood.

The design on the hand was in the shape of a spiral, centered on the back of one’s hand, but extending to the palm to and around the thumb.

Audrey dropped the book. Nope, she was not doing this. She strode back to the door out- but it was locked.

“Mother!” Audrey yelled. “Mother, I’m locked in here! Let me out!” She stopped. Surely she’d been loud enough that her mother would have heard. But no one came. A few hours passed, with Audrey calling for help periodically. Audrey didn’t even hear footsteps or distant voices. Audrey supposed she should have counted on her bitch of a mother to pull a trick like this. It seemed that the only way out was through.

Audrey took the knife in her right hand, and cut into her left, carving that spiral design and grunting with pain as red blood fell to the ground and flowed onto her pantlegs. Her craftsmanship was rather shoddy, but who could blame her with a flesh canvas to work on? By the time she finished, she was panting. She drew her hand over the pentagram and let the blood drop. As soon as the blood hit the pentagram, her cuts began to scar over, leaving her hand looking as though it was tattooed.

Audrey tried the door again. It was unlocked. The second Audrey stepped through the door, it slammed hard behind her. The hallway within was still in that cartoonish style, and it was also gloomily dark. There were posters on the walls for Bendy cartoons and comics.

Oh, Hello? A greasy voice called- apparently from nowhere. It was her father’s voice- albeit a more deranged version of it. What’s a pretty girl doing in such a dangerous place all by herself? Oh, don’t answer that. I know. You’re here to come get me, aren’t you? Well, it’s a long ways off from here. Why don’t I give you a little power to help you along?

Audrey’s left hand shook, then crackled with electricity. Suddenly, her scar was glowing.

Oh, but what’s power without the opportunity to use it?

The wall at the end of the hall opened up in a swirl of black goo, and a massive blob of ink made its way through it before splitting off into several man-sized black blob abominations with arms and tortured faces. And they were coming straight for her. With a cry of panic, Audrey jerked out her arms to try and protect herself. Electric sparks flew from her left hand, arcing to one of the monsters, which fell over, melted into a puddle, and disappeared. Suddenly empowered, Audrey repeated the motion to take out the rest of them.

Very good. I think I’ll leave you be to wander a while. Oh, this will be so entertaining to watch.

“Wait, Nathan, where are you?” Audrey called out, “I’m here to come get you.”

Silence.

“Nathan!”

Still nothing.

“Father?”

Of course it wouldn’t be that easy. With that, Audrey continued on. The place mostly just seemed like a ghostly, abandoned animation studio, with the addition of spilled ink and pipes everywhere. She also found a few audio logs of her father’s employees, but nothing that brought her closer to finding or rescuing her father.

Eventually she came to the art department, sporting rows of desks with unfinished Bendy cartoons upon them and puddles of rubber ink upon the floor. A small, chimp-like creature was huddled under one of the desks, drinking a can of soup. Cautiously, from a safe distance, she knelt down to its level.

“Hey, there. Um, can I ask for directions?”

The creature stood up and came after her, babbling in gargled tones. She stood and shocked it, but to her terror, a similar creature- or a spider-like one, or a decapitated pirate-like creature- was coming out from under every desk. Audrey ran. It was clearly too many to take on. Eventually, she ended up at a dead end at the end of a hallway. She’d put a solid twenty feet between her and the butcher gang, but it wasn’t nearly enough. Frantically, she tried all the doors for an unlocked one while shocking as many of the abominations as she could with her left hand.

Then, one of the doors burst open, and a horned woman with a machete and an axe-wielding cartoon dog with a mechanical arm stepped sprang out of it. Audrey, now frozen from confusion, watched as they stabbed their way through the horde. Then, the wolf turned to her and lifted his axe to strike.

Audrey put her arms out. “I mean no harm!” she yelled quickly.

The horned woman came over to her. She appeared surprised to see Audrey. “Oh. Okay. Who are you? I’ve never seen you before. But I’ve seen someone like you. Are you a human? State your name and business.” Her voice and demeanor was gentle, aside from the fact that her machete was pointed directly at Audrey.

“My name is Audrey Arch.”

The swordswoman’s eyes grew wider. “Daughter of Nathan Arch?”

“Yes. And I’m here to rescue him.”

Allison’s eyes hardened. “Tom, take her arms. We need to take her to our base and decide what to do with her.”

In a moment, Tom was restraining her, and she was blindfolded and walking to who knew where.

“Don’t worry too much about this,” Allison said gently, “Tom and I have to take precautions like this, but if you really do mean no harm, you have nothing to fear. Honestly, it’s a hopeful sign that we’re seeing another human.”

#Bendy and the Ink Machine #my fanfiction #Audrey Arch #nathan arch #Allison Angel #butcher gang #Audrey and the Dark Revival

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taliel-strykidz · 4 years ago

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Avacado

Huannie stared down at it like it was the end of her existance, like it was about to grow into an animal and eat her alive. She stared at it as if the longer she did hopefully the printed words would change. She glanced over to her phone noticing that Luhan would be back from filming any time soon, so she paced around the bathroom for a couple of minutes until she wanted to scream.

"This can't be happening." She mumbled to herself, fiddling with the object and placed it next to her phone which held a news article of the screen. "It's impossible."

She sat down on the toilet seat lid after a good ten minutes of pacing she put her head in her hands wondering what the hell had occured over the past month. Out of pure confusion she dialled Jinyoung's number into the facetime and bravely waited for it to connect.

"Is it possible for you to fly out here for a couple of days?"

"I told you last week that I don't have time to fly out there Ai-Huan. I barely have enough time-"

"But you have enough time to have dinner with that co-host of yours?" She wiggled her iPad with the Dispatch article on it and slammed it onto the counter. "It hasn't even been three months yet and you do this to me? Even when I was about to call you to tell you-"

The phone hung up. She didn't know what to think at that moment, she felt like the late night calls and the facetimes weren't cutting it for him and he was bored. Like she wasn't worth waiting for. Out of every person she could have been virtually married to and dating, she never thought Park Jinyoung was the type to do this.

But actions speak louder than words.

Media outlets were Idol's worst nightmare, especially those who catch you in your worst moments to the whole world Jinyoung was now a man who had been caught red handed,

Then Jinyoung called 14 times.

"What do you want Jinyoung?"

"It wasn't my choice Huan." He attempted to reassure her, his eyes boaring into the screen.

"You kept texting me that, but it's bullshit." She let go of the small bit of hope that the media had just twisted a friendly lunch out of proportion, but when she got sent pictures of him kissing his co-host she could no longer wrap her head around it. Jinyoung had been texting her whilst she drowned in panic that it wasn't his fault and that it had been staged to promote Got7's new album.

"Please hear me out." He pressed as he watched her start to gather something off of the bathroom counter, refusing to acknowledge the fact he was trying to justify his disgusting actions. In Huannie's mind no matter whether it was a real affair or it was a PR stunt, they were both as disgusting as eachother.

After the show We Got Married had agreed to film the two and how they cope in a long distanced relationship, they didn't think much of it. But that morning when the producers were claiming they'd be pulling the show off air if Jinyoung's news continued to circulate Huannie thought it was time to air it out into the open.

"What do you want me to say Jinyoung?" She stopped angrily, stopping packing up whatever was on the counter to stare at him with frustrated tears.

"That you're not angry with me, it's only until you're back Huan. It's just PR." It really was too much for Huannie to handle.

"Are you kidding me right now?" She burst out. "You actually agreed with this bullshit?"

"It isn't that big of a deal as you're making it, you're there for another two months or so, then everything will be back to normal." He tried to recover his pride, but the damage had been done already.

"So I have to sit and suffer, people telling me that my boyfriend is a cheating scumbag. I have to sit here whilst the father to my child fucks around with another woman? Is that what I have to do Park Jinyoung?" She should have known not to answer the phone again.

The words left him. He stared into those deep brown eyes burning with anger and heartbreak, and his own heart fell silent. "Answer me!" She yelled. But he couldn't will his lips to move. As if he was stuck underwater, everything was slow and warbled as she showed the pregancy papers with a shaky hand to the camera. "Do you have nothing to day? I have done nothing but suffer for the past few days, now tell me what you were thinking when you agreed to that stupid idea!" She demanded. But his mind was blank and his eyes wide as he stared at her in shock. Her eyes desperately searched the screen... waiting. He had to say something, but as he searched his mind for something to say it fell on deaf ears.

"I'm sorry Huan, I didn't think it would be like this." Jinyoung began to panic on the otherside of the phone upon the realisation of what she had just said.

"Don't go on these terms, you've just found out we're having a baby you're just overwhelmed-" She cuts him off with a laugh void of any humour or amusement present.

"So, i'm supposed to let go the fact you went on multiple dates with this girl, because i'm pregnant with your child?"

Something in him told him that she was going to do something that neither of them wanted, he believed she was going to end it there and there. Afterall Huannie could be petty when she wanted to be.

"It's just PR right? That's what you said?"

"Huan don't do this. I didn't mean to-"

"It's just PR right, two months."

And with that she hung up on him and cried until Luhan got home.

"Ge, where have you been? I called you two hours ago?" Luhan calls as Li Chen, Bao's father, finally found himself in the two's apartment and placed himself infront of Ai-Huan's bedroom door, giving Luhan a worried glance.

"I was head hunting, Bao told me what happened." He lent his head against the door and closed his eyes. The news of Huannie being pregnant was circulating through those closest to the two, they couldn't imagine how panicked Huannie must be. Afterall Jinyoung and Huannie had only been together properly for a year. Li Chen moved to put the radio to put on some kpop on spotify and pressed shuffle, adter he did so Luhan tried to knock on the door again. The door could be heard unlocking, until she heard the velvety voice that she wished not to hear so she hesitated exiting the room. Luhan on the otherhand automatically scrambled to changed the song.

"I'm sorry baba, I didn't know." Li Chen apologised, bringing the broken girl into a hug as she cried into his chest.

"It's okay Pa." She mumbled, she closed her eyes trying to find some words.

"That bad, huh."

"Bad isn't the word i'd use to describe this." She slumped onto the sofa, running her hands through her hair, the two men could only be sympathetic.

"How did it end up like this?" Li Chen questioned handing her a glass of warm water.

"I'm still trying to figure it out myself, things were going well for us, it must have not worked because Jinyoung is in Korea having dates with another woman." She pointed to the laptop which had the news articles with the pictures of them kissing.

"Well that's him, I'm asking about you." Li Chen saw through the facade, taking a hold of her hand softly. "Other than the obvious, how are you feeling?"

"I guess I fell in love Pa, I'm scared that I can't do this parenting thing like everyone keeps telling me." She sighed.

"How far along are you? What did the doctor say?"

"I'm sixteen weeks, the vomiting and the backache is completely normal considering it's because there's a human the size of an avacado in my uterus you know. I'm just scared that people will think i'm weak for being scared of it."

"You're not weak, it's perfectly understandable. You're whole career is built up on being in the public eye, you're young it's normal to be scared Baba." Li Chen denied.

"It is weak, I should be excited. But i'm scared i'll turn out like my own mother. I can't leave my members for nine months. I already feel like i'm not doing my part for them."

"We will get through this Baba, I can get rid of that scumbag if it makes you feel better?"

"No, he's still the father of my child at the end of the day."

#NCT 19th member #nct scenarios #nct imagines #female addition #kpop female idol #Got7 imagines #We Got Married imagines #Kpop imagines

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lady-divine-writes · 5 years ago

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31 Days of Ineffables - “The Perfect Proposal Rejection Present” (Rated Mature)

Summary: Aziraphale wants to marry Crowley. Crowley wants to marry Aziraphale, but he’s too afraid of Aziraphale Falling to say yes. And no matter what Aziraphale says, Crowley refuses to be persuaded. So in honor of his 100th rejection, Aziraphale gives Crowley a gift that’ll prove good things come to those who listen to their spurned not-yet-fiance.

Notes: Written for @drawlight’s ‘31 Days of Ineffables’ prompt 'gift’. Also, this is a trope. I know you all know it. Could probably smell it a mile away. I write it for every one of my fandoms. Sue me. I also rated this Mature for one comment that I’m sorry, I could never make in front of my teenager XD

Read on AO3.

Arguments start flying at Aziraphale fast and furious the second the mere suggestion they get married slips past his lips.

‘Oh boy,’ the angel thinks as he watches Crowley recharge his glass of whiskey, fueling up for the discussion ahead. ‘Better strap in. There’s no escaping this one.’

Because the only thing on Earth Crowley talks about more passionately than marrying Aziraphale, is not marrying Aziraphale.

“Angel, we’ve talked about this,” Crowley says, sinking against the edge of Aziraphale’s desk while Aziraphale retains his comfortable seat in his favorite chair. “I want to marry you. You know that. More than anything. But …”

“But …” Aziraphale leads in a teasing tone. He has no intention of letting this conversation become serious.

Not with what he has planned.

“But there are dangers. Risks. We’ve examined them … at length. And as much as I’m trying to find a solution, we haven’t found a way around them yet.”

“Crowley, I want to get married. I want to get married to you. I want to be married, and all that that entails.”

Crowley looks at his drink, the tops of his cheeks staining. That’s all Aziraphale needs to say for Crowley to know what he’s referring to.

The thing Crowley struggles the most with them doing, no matter how much they both want it.

They don’t need to be married for them to take the plunge and make love. Crowley simply feels it would be more proper. More befitting of Aziraphale.

But by creating that ultimatum, he’s also devised the ultimate bargaining chip – no sex until marriage, and no marriage until they find out definitively that Aziraphale marrying a demon will not cause him to Fall.

“Crowley, dear, my Falling is a possibility. A very real and, I’ll admit it, frightening possibility. But I’ve come to peace with it. I have no control over whether I Fall or not. Not really. I could Fall tomorrow for reasons that have nothing to do with you. It’s not something we should live in fear of. It’s not something we should put our future together on hold for.”

Crowley sighs. Without looking up from his glass he takes a drink, soaking in those words he’s heard Aziraphale say dozens of times. They make sense. And they’re definitely chipping away at his armor. But he has to keep rebuilding. He has to stick to his guns and believe that what he’s decided is what’s best.

For both of them.

Crowley’s fears about Aziraphale Falling don’t simply surround the Fall. Aziraphale becoming a demon doesn’t frighten Crowley as much as he thought it would.

It’s the thought that Aziraphale might resent Crowley afterwards. That he’ll blame him.

That he’ll never want to see him again.

That is Crowley’s one true fear – losing his whole world if Aziraphale Falls.

“Look …” Aziraphale rises from his seat so he can talk eye to eye with his demon “… I know how you feel. You have expressed your apprehensions over this very well. I just wish you had more faith in me.”

“I do have faith in you.” Crowley sets his glass aside, wondering when it suddenly became empty. “But I have to believe that the decision I’ve made on this is the right one … whether you see it or not.”

“And that’s your final word on the matter? Regardless of what I have to say?”

Crowley gulps. This is the question Aziraphale asks at the end of this argument every time.

And every time, it’s the hardest to answer.

Crowley doesn’t like seeing Aziraphale sad. He doesn’t like being the one to break his heart. When Aziraphale looks at him with those baby blue eyes, Crowley usually crumbles. Gives his angel anything he wants.

But he can’t. Not this time.

“Yes,” Crowley whispers, wishing he had another glass of whiskey to dive into.

Aziraphale sighs. “Well, I guess if that’s your answer, that’s your answer.” He turns his blue eyes away. Deep inside Crowley’s corporal form, beneath the lie of his human façade, his entire body weeps.

“I have something for you.” Aziraphale leans past Crowley and pulls a shimmery wrapped box with a curly bow on top from a drawer in his desk. He holds it out to Crowley, urging him silently to take it.

“What’s … what’s this?” Crowley asks, eyeing it in confusion.

“It’s a gift, you idiot,” Aziraphale says, dropping it in Crowley’s unprepared hands. “I figured you might object to yet my hundredth suggestion that we get married, so I decided that instead of battling your logic with my logic, I’d appeal to your baser instincts. You being a demon and all.”

Crowley snickers. This is new. “You’re battling my so-called baser instincts … with a gift?”

“Technically it’s what’s in the gift that I’m battling your baser instincts with.”

Crowley gives the gift a shake. It doesn’t make a sound. It’s also incredibly light for its size. “And that is …?”

“You’ll need to open it to find out.”

Crowley looks at the gift. He looks at Aziraphale. He looks down at his empty glass and groans.

“All right,” he decides, forgoing alcohol - for now - in order to get this over with. Then that’ll be done, and they can run out for lunch – crepes, cheesecake, a nice brioche – and put this behind them for another day. “I’ll do this your way …”

“That would be nice for once.”

Crowley pulls off the bow and tosses it over his shoulder onto the desk. Then he tears into the wrapping paper and drops it to the floor. Underneath the glittery gold and silver paper he finds a plain white box, the kind department stores give their customers to wrap gifts of clothes in. He pops the lid off and drops that to the floor as well, all under the watchful eyes of his angel. But when he finally opens it, Crowley sees nothing. Nothing in the box whatsoever.

He looks into Aziraphale’s eyes, at his passive expression, but finds no answer there.

Crowley brings the box up to his face to take a peek, scans it from corner to corner, but there’s still nothing. He examines it using his demon senses, tries to divine any magic present.

But no. There’s nothing in the box.

The gift Aziraphale gave him … is nothing.

Kind of like what Crowley gives him when they have this conversation – no assurances, no promises. Nothing but excuses.

“Aziraphale?” Crowley says, hoping to find an answer to the empty gift that’s less depressing than his own assumptions.

“Yes, my dear?”

“There’s nothing in this box.”

“Exactly.”

“What do you mean exactly?”

“I mean you’re right. There’s nothing in the box. Exactly nothing. Like what I’d intended on wearing for the entirety of our honeymoon after we’d said I do.”

Crowley’s forehead creases as he considers the gift along with Aziraphale’s explanation.

“Nothing?” he mutters with a derisive snort. “How were you going to wear no—?” The box falls from his hands. Crowley’s eyes snap up. “What?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Aziraphale crouches down to pick up the discarded box and turns it over in his hands, giving it a shake to emphasize how utterly void of matter it is. “Nothing. Not a stitch. Not even my socks and garters.”

“You would … you would do that?” Crowley pushes off the desk, stands close to his angel.

“It was my intention all along, my dear. Pity.” Aziraphale sets the box gently down. “Seems a shame it’ll never happen.”

“Never happen …?” Crowley’s thoughts muddy, stick to the sides of his skull and along the outskirts of his throat. Yes, yes, he’s still afraid of Aziraphale Falling. That’s something his heart might never let go of. But this new revelation …

Every time Crowley had pictured them together, pictured them being intimate, it was making love, and the whole complicated production that goes with it – champagne, roses, four-poster bed topped with a sheer canopy, bubble bath beforehand. All the bells and whistles. And Crowley would do it, every single time if that’s what his angel wanted, because Aziraphale deserves that.

But it felt so stressful. So laborious.

And over and over again?

So dull.

It never occurred to him that Aziraphale might simply be down to fuck.

Why had that not occurred to him?

Oh, yeah. Because he didn’t ask.

And, in reality, that’s the root of their problem. Not Aziraphale Falling.

Crowley’s fears still abound. This hasn’t washed them away. But Aziraphale has a point. They’ve been slamming the brakes full stop because Crowley has said so instead of moving forward with caution. If they’re not going forward, they’re just standing still.

And they’ve been standing still for over 6000 years.

Crowley thought they’d been communicating fine about this, but that’s only because he’s been the one getting his way. But he hasn’t done such a good job at listening.

That empty box proves it.

And those baser instincts his angel mentioned?

They’re starting to tingle. Crowley never let them have a horse in this race before. He’d refused to be persuaded by his libido. But they’re suddenly joining the argument.

And they’re much more easily swayed.

Crowley winds an arm around Aziraphale’s waist, gazes at him fondly.

“Nothing?” he asks again, but it sounds more like, “Are you sure?”

“Nothing,” Aziraphale assures him with a one-sided smirk.

“Well, then.” Crowley tightens his grip, pulling Aziraphale so close to his body their chests meet, their hips meet, and everything in between. “Have you ever been to Vegas, angel?” he asks, but he doesn’t wait for an answer before he snaps his fingers and the pair of them are gone.

#good omens #good omens fanfiction #ineffable husbands #anthony j crowley #aziraphale #31 days of ineffables #aziraphale x crowley #crowley x aziraphale #frankie writes

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eyesoneyesoneyesoneyesoneyson · 4 years ago

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I was looking through the information I was granted to utilize this blog and I found something that I belive I should share, it is a summery written explaining the eternals in more detail then I covered

Now mind you I did not write this and so can't vouch for its accuracy, in fact it seems to be rather explicitly biased aginst me but it should serve well enough as a base of information on what exactly i am I will provide my own commentary within it

I will add my commentary in this color as to make it clear what is original and what are my additions

The Eternals

General information

The eternals travel the multiverse, when they reach a world they manifest bodies and are born naturally to some family within the world, they grow they live and then they die before moving on to the next world, most manifestations will never know of their extra dimensional history

When manifesting, the personality and traits of each individual eternal can vary a bit depending on which one it is, in rare circumstances they can be quite drastically different from any other version of themselves. this is somewhat missleading it implies more flexibility then we are capable of, all manifestations will show characteristics contained within the possibility space of our essence

It is possible, though rare for an eternal to manifest as an inanimate object, in these cases the manifestation will have powers and abilities representative of their eternal’s personality, the manifestation may or maynot have sentiance depending on the circumstances

It is possible, though rare for 2 or more eternals to manifest into a single body, this new manifestation will have some combination of the traits and personalities of the component parts. Again not inaccurate but still misleading, fusions manifestations will exist within the combined possibility space of their component essences.

even more rare is for a single eternal to manifest more than 1 body within a world, when this happens each individual manifestation will act as an entirely independent entity, the manifestations will not be identical to each other each showing their own unique interpretation of their eternal. I take umbrage with the use of "eternal" when what she is actualy referring to is our essence, eternal referers to the totality of our existence and the manifestations are a part of that while the essence refers to the abstract aspects of our existence.

Every manifestation can summon any object that their eternal has manifested as in a past life with all the powers they possessed, each eternal also has a unique power that is all their own which their manifestations have access to, both of these powers only work if the manifestation in question remembers the truth of their existence, given that this is rather rare, most of the manifestations will not have access to these powers.

Specific eternals

Title: The first

Common object manifestation: blood drinker blade, a living sword which feeds on the users blood to fuel its power

Unique power: martial prowess, she will always be the most skillful fighter in the world, if she encounters a better fighter, then her skill will instantly increase to become better then them

Common name: Maria

Common appearance: a woman with long black hair and many scars

The first is incredibly kind and caring, she is always the first to help, but she’s not naive, she is used to pain and mistrust but she doesnt let it consume her. Her desire to help everyone leads to her putting herself into danger more than is healthy (hence the scars), she has a strong friendship with the forgotten and an intense rivalry with the aware. She remembers their origin roughly 10% of the time. This is infuriating the first is not some noble hero, shes a self-righteous arrogant prick, her "friendship" with the forgotten has nothing to do with him and is entirely built on trying to anger me.

Title: the inhuman

Common object manifestation: Yamyaywan, a spear that generates lightning

Unique power: expedient healing, he is capable of fully regrowing a limb over the course of a month

Common names: Yamyaywan (in fantasy settings) jeff gorge chad or some other generic mans name (in non fantasy settings, he's not vary creative)

Common appearance: some non human entity typically some kind of werewolf

The inhuman is pretty simple, eat, sleep, fuck, repeat, thats not to say hes violent or even a bad guy, hes actually quite sweet and friendly when he wants to be. fiercely loyal to those of his pack and honest to a fault, but he is not a complex man, his motives are all base and predictable, he enjoys indulging in lifes simple pleasures. He holds great respect for the first, and despises the aware for her deceptive nature. He remembers their origin roughly 1-2% of the time

Tittle: the lovers

Common object manifestation: unbreakable shackles capable of binding and holding nearly anything

Unique power: shared everything, they can transfer wounds, damage, heat, cold, physical and mental attributes, powers, magical effects, pretty much anything back and forth between each other

Common names: Mikol and Kiloka (though this varies greatly)

Common appearance: two people

The lovers are as the title suggests, in love, or perhaps it's more accurate to say they are the embodiment of the concept of romantic love as seen by whoever is writing for them, the concept of sexuality is irrelevant to them as they will always fall for eachother and only each other. Their really isn't much else to say, these two are the most variable of all the eternals even their genders aren't consistent, sometimes they’re male, sometimes female, sometimes nonbinary, sometimes theyre the same gender, sometimes different, sometimes theyre of a species where the concept of gender straight up doesnt apply. They will only ever remember their origin in those rare times when all the manifestations remember. I really don't have much to say on the inhuman or the lovers, they tend to keep to themselves and I am content in leaving them be, it is worth noteing however that "rare times when all manifestations remember" does not refer to a random event where everyone happens to remember based on their individual odds but rather worlds in which we collectively agree to all manifest with awareness, functionally this means they have a 0% chances of remembering and so will only remember when probability is not a factor

Tittle: the aware

Common object manifestation: she has no object manifestations as she refuses to be anything other than a human

Unique power: pocket dimension, she has an extra dimensional space where she can store and remove anything non-living, the space has infinite size, while anything is within this space it will be locked in time at the very moment of its entering preventing any kind of decay or change, she can store things of any size, though larger object take more time to add and remove and she must maintain contact with the object for the entirety of its transfer, she always has perfect knowledge of what is within her space

Common name: none, i never gave her a name and she refuses to take one, denying any that others give her, because of this some who know her call her Nameless

Common appearance: a generic looking woman, she tends to make herself fairly unassuming (whatever that might mean for the world she's born into)

The aware is the most dangerous of all the eternals, she has a very wide skill base, you would be hard pressed to find any skill she isn't at least competent at, jack of all trades does not however imply master of none and she has three specialties in particular, you would be hard pressed to find anyone better than her when it comes to military tactics, economics, and above all engineering, she loves take apart technology and magical devices and putting them back together to form entirely new and even more powerful creations. Her collection however is limited in its uses, each relying on the magic or physics of its respective world and thus will only work 1 or 2 times before ceasing to function entirely, however her collection is so massive that she is not likely to run out any time soon. Because of this fights with the aware are less about skill and more about psychology and economics, you have to convince her that what she would get for winning isn't worth what winning would cost her

Everything after this point in this entry is, to one degree or another, inaccurate, unfortunately because the nature of our deal i do not have the capability to delete or edit it in any meaningful way, instead i will ask that you ignore it and simply move on to the next entry

She does not believe that other people exist, she views everyone outside of herself as philosophical zombies, empty husks that simply go through the motions without having any sort of internal lives, this leads her to be selfish and callous, she feels no remorse killing entire worlds as she does not believe the people she is killing have any kind of sentiance

She is a manipulator to her core, knowing exactly what to say to get inside of people's heads, she avoids violence and seduction whenever possible seeing them as base and beneath her, however she also has a grand temper when she doesn't get her way, and has been known to kill people out of sheer spite.

She is lonely, her view of other people has led her to a sort of self imposed isolation, the only person she truly cares for is the forgotten, she emotionally and psychologically abused him but she does love him in her own twisted way

She hates the first with a fiery passion, both because she knows that she is my favorite and hopes that hurting her will in some way hurt me, and because the first helped the forgotten break free of her abuse and leave her.

She wants nothing more then to break into the real world so she can kill me, short of that she hopes to break free of my mind, and enter the collective unconscious by being known by other people in the real world

She wields a very special sword named ashbreaker, it is an anti magic sword that she stole recovered from the tomb of a great hero, the sword is only slightly stronger than the average anti magic weapon, however it has infinite power in that it will never run out of its ability regardless of the world it is in, because of this it can dispel most anything so long as it maintains contact for long enough, the aware has over time began to see this sword as a part of her identity, if she knew i had the audacity to name another sword ashbreaker she would be furious beyond belief. This one actualy is accurate, and she is right i am furious

The aware is ALWAYS aware of their origin without exception

Title: the forgotten

Common object manifestation: a dragon mask, the left eye is broken off the mask, the right eye is covered, this mask grants truesight in that it will see through any illusion.

Unique power: magical savant, the forgotten will have any and all prerequisites to develop all types of magic of whatever world he is in, additional he learns and masters magic far more quickly than normal, he is capable of going from knowing nothing about a magical system to being the best in the world at that system in around 10 years assuming he has access to the knowledge and time to study it

Common name: Caliph

Common appearance: a very scrawny very pale man with black hair, if he remember their extradimentinal origin he will have a large burn scar across his left eye perfectly matching the shape of the break in his mask

The forgotten is rather timid in nature, he avoids speaking as much as possible, he's kind and compassionate but also prone to paranoia caution instilled in him by Nameless, he has severe self worth issues and generally a poor view of who he is as a person

He's very intelligent and quick to propose solutions to problems, more than anything he wants everyone to be happy

Though he now acknowledges that Nameless abused him he still loves her and thinks fondly on the better times in their relationship, it can be a challenge sometimes to remember all the ways she broke his will and made him feel worthless in an effort to keep him with her, she never hit him, others sometimes but never him. More blatant lies

The forgotten remembers their origin roughly half of the time

Title: the puppet

Common object manifestation: a puppet

Unique power: connection to the real world

Common name: N/A

�� Common appearance: N/A

The puppet is an empty vessel whose sole purpose is to act as a conduite to the real world, depending on the nature world this could be as an author insert or as a conduite for a player, manifesting as a fusion with the puppet does not change the nature of the eternal that manifests with them, instead it merely grants them the same connection the puppet has.

#info posts

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funkymbtifiction · 5 years ago

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how to find enneagram fixes?

hi funky, thanks for your reply to the “hey here’s how I found it” ask! I’m the same infp anon here. so I’ve been trawling the blog for a while as to my enneagram fixes and I’m sure of the 6w5 part and partially sure of the 1 fix, but how do I determine my last heart fix (it could be anything and confirm the 1 fix (make sure it’s not 9)? thanks so much for all your resources so far, but maybe if you could please tell me how the fixes in this order relate to the 6 core and how to figure them out. (not asking for one size forcefits all answer ofc) (oh, and sorry for the long and rambling message the other time. :P)

What helped me was a variety of things, but it mostly came down to thinking about how I handled various things in my life as relates to the different centers of the Enneagram. You need to look for proof in your life of those centers.

Centers are as follows – head fixes deal with fear (how do you cope, what do you do?); image fixes deal with how you relate to other people (what do you want from them?); gut fixes are what you do with anger and what angers you.

It’s sometimes helpful to compare with others you know, but also to think about what people observe of you and have said about you in the past. What about you fits the stereotype for your type, or does not fit the stereotype?

IMAGE CENTERS:

I felt a pull toward 4, but after reading Enneagramer’s 4 and thinking about it, and my own interactions with 4s who are exactly like that, I realized I am not a 4, because my problems never defeat me. I never wear them as a badge of honor, and I am never so devastated by them that I can’t keep producing until I have dealt with those feelings. My 4 friend told me, “When you speak about the bad things that have happened to you, you downplay them / make no big deal out of them. I know they must have hurt you terribly at the time, but you have healed the wound and moved on in a way I can’t.”

My image fix was the toughest to figure out – turns out that is because it was 3; they become what they need to be, and focus on finishing things, because they are “goal-oriented.”

A couple of things helped me realize this – the comment a friend made once that I do nothing by half, it’s “as if you are getting paid to do your hobbies, because you have to be the best at them, and you work hard to ensure you ARE the best.” I also thought about the fact that people in real life are shocked that I identify as a 6. Why would that be? Because the confident persona I put on in front of them all doesn’t lend itself to projecting anxiety. 6 is blending into 3’s self-confidence and making me project confidence, even if I do not have it.

Then too, I am incredibly aware of what “others may think.” I am always thinking about presentation, about how this will be perceived, about what people may say. Once, when a girl attacked me on the internet, I backed off and thought, “She is going to make a fool of herself. I meanwhile will look like the powerful, sensible, reasonable, and in-control one, since I refuse to react in public.”

I am quite good at blending into an unnatural environment despite being a Fi. (I find it impossible to write anything I disagree with, but I find ways around it, so people think I am “one of them” without me lying about it.) I do not relate to any of the soc-first 3 chapters or profiles I read, because they are all too arrogant and care about social climbing techniques, which I don’t give a fig about – what I DO relate to is the tendency to put my self-worth into my writing; I am what I “produce.” What I “create.” If one of my beta readers finds a mistake, I am mortified. Because even my beta is supposed to think it’s 99% amazing! ;) And it’s damn near impossible for me to take two days off, or even an afternoon off, unless I’ve worked myself into exhaustion, without feeling like I am being a slacker. I NEED A PROJECT AT ALL TIMES. I have literally not gone for more than a week without working on a novel for over 17 years. Because in doing nothing, in producing nothing, I am nothing.

(I decided I am a 631 for obvious reasons; co-mod said my sp3 is so strong I could be a core 3, but I’ve always known I’m a 6. :P)

Comparison to people in my life with the other image fixes:

2s: care way less than I do about presentation, about looking the best, about having their stuff perfect, because to them, what they create is not reflective of their worth as a human being. They will extend themselves more to help people, and feel good about it, while I will do it out of duty and then gripe about it later.

4s: dwell in their negative feelings way more often and almost never want to solve their problem (which is problematic for me, since I’m here to fix you ;). What most shocked me once was when a 4 said they can’t create unless they are “in the mood.” I just kind of stared at them, like “What’s the mood got to do with it? You show up and write!” I believe diligence and daily working at it gets things done, which is how the 3 operates: it’s not about whether I “feel” like it today, I’m doing it!

Think about it. Which do you do? Which can you prove you do? Which have people commented on, that you do? If it’s 2, I expect you to have a list of times you selflessly helped others. With 3, I expect to see a list of accomplishments and things to show for your hard work. With 4, I expect to see an emphasis on being “in the mood” and needing it to have your own personal stamp on it for it to be good.

GUT CENTERS:

The evidence for my 1 fix is right in front of you. I lecture people all the livelong day about finding out their type and its weaknesses and blind spots SO YOU CAN ALL BECOME BETTER PEOPLE, AND GET ALONG BETTER. That is the 1. I see how you could improve yourselves, how the world can be a better place, with the 1’s idealistic zeal, because right now, IT IS IMPERFECT. This is why 1’s write de-cluttering books, and teach you how to get your finances in shape, and tell you to stop wasting your money, and teach the Enneagram, so you can all fix yourselves! Proof? I have been called judgmental more times than I can count. I’m not proud of it, sometimes I’m ashamed of it and wish I could be less hard on people, but sometimes what someone else is doing is WRONG and HURTING OTHER PEOPLE.

In comparison to the other fixes:

9s: are far less judgmental and want to get along way more. The only reason I don’t tell people off more often is my 6 is afraid of the fall-out and hates fights. That does not change the fact that my 1 wants to, and will on occasion, assert itself and point out what is wrong / inaccurate / imperfect / immoral / bad about whatever you just did. 9s are also less focused and more easily distracted than my 1 fix. I am tapping my foot impatiently and irritated with the 9 who is “always late” while they are happily going about their comfy morning routine.

8s: are far more inclined to blow up and not apologize for their anger or feel bad about it, unless someone they cared about got upset. 1s tend to sit on their anger, repress it, and try not to show it, because that represents a loss of control, and GOOD PEOPLE (what a 1 wants to be) only get angry over righteous causes. 8s do not care whether leaving a pop can in a parking lot and running over it for fun on their way out is littering or not. 8s do not think about the right / wrong about encouraging someone to lie on a warranty claim, since “it only expired 48 hours ago!” A 1 would never even ask; warranty’s expired. Too bad, but that’s the rules. Breaking the rules makes you “bad.”

Head types:

Not that you need to figure out your head type, but I’m forever being told that I need to “trust myself more,” “trust my gut more,” “go with my first hunch,” and “stop letting other people pollute my clear-headed thinking,” the bane of a 6 who is reliant on and swayed by others unless she’s careful (or in a stubborn mood that day; the plus side is, I’ll never become so arrogant that I won’t consider an opposing argument). The minute I read that 6s feel like they missed out when God was handing out an internal guidance system made me go “YES.” Why is it other people can just know what to do? And move forward confident, even arrogant, that they can do it? Can I get some of that, please?

In comparison to the other head types I know:

5s: are way more secretive, private, paranoid, and unrealistic in some ways, also far more argumentative and certain of being right. They are much less emotional and far more removed from their own feelings. They are more able to be objective, but also more rigid in their refusal to change their mind, because you are wrong and they are right.

7s: are far more flighty, irresponsible, and not inclined to see things through. 6’s show up and put in the long hours; 7s get bored after a week and skip on down the road. They are also more optimistic, funnier, and a ball to be around, but that comes with a dose of “I don’t want to talk about anything negative” and a lot of refusal to look at the bad side of life or admit to their mistakes.

Does that help? I hope so.

Also TAKE YOUR TIME. This is about internal reflection and is not a race.

- ENFP Mod

#question #enneagram #enneagram 1 #enneagram 2 #enneagram 3 #enneagram 4 #enneagram 5 #enneagram 6 #enneagram 7 #enneagram 8 #enneagram 9 #submission

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anikoku · 6 years ago

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Mini-essay: How the narrative of KH3 was damaged by the compulsory heterosexuality and gender norms of Japanese society

Major spoilers of Kingdom Hearts 3 are below. Please don’t look unless you’ve finished the game!

One more disclaimer: this is coming from a Japanese perspective, and it’s not meant as a xenophobic attack on the culture I was raised in.

Light-and-darkness logic, time travel, and bosses who are giant ships, I’ll ignore. That’s just part of the Kingdom Hearts package, and despite the headache they might give me, I’ve come to accept these wild ideas and take pride in my ability to handle them. But when we stray from the fantasy, it becomes difficult confronting the cultural context that the Kingdom Hearts series is birthed from, and how these ideas have affected key plot points and the characterization of our beloved heroes. Despite its stunning popularity overseas, the Kingdom Hearts series is still conceived in Japan (by middle-aged Japanese men, no less) for Japanese audiences. I’ve always felt that Square Enix as a company remains disconnected from the input of its non-Japanese audience. Whatever catering is done towards overseas players is limited to game mechanics, not plot. I expect there’s something of a よそはよそ、うちはうち (“That’s fine for them but not for us”) mentality when it comes to structuring the story in a way that may appeal to overseas (specifically Western) fans. The writers do not know how to do this, and they do not wish to. I don’t believe that any culture should have to adjust its creative output to make it more palatable to the outside world, but considering the sheer size of the Kingdom Hearts fanbase, such a blatant refusal to consider modern storytelling trends in the gaming world will—and has—damaged its enduring legacy. Let’s not forget the fact that Japanese society itself is not suspended in time; its younger generation has different ideas about gender, sexuality, and romance. I’d like to discuss three examples in KH3 where the writers leaned heavily on traditional gender norms and heterosexual romance to the detriment of the plot and the integrity of previous characterization. First, there’s the matter of Subject X, the amnesiac girl who became the reason why Ansem the Wise shut down his experiments. We learn late in the game that she was Lea and Isa’s missing friend, and the reason why they chose to infiltrate the castle and join Organization XIII. Before this piece of knowledge was revealed, Lea and Isa remained the only (human) pair whose friendship existed outside of the boy-girl-boy dynamic that Nomura is so fond of. Like Axel and Roxas prior to Xion’s introduction in 358/2 Days, Subject X was retconned into their friendship, altering their dynamics and diluting the significance of the homosocial relationship. Putting aside shipping perspectives, it is important to be able to portray two men (nevermind the prospect of two women, that’s too much to hope for in this franchise) sharing a strong emotional bond. Falling back on the trio concept not only feels like lazy and tired writing, but seems to speak to a fear that without a female presence, the love and connection between two male characters is simply too homoerotic. In an interview, Nomura remarked he was surprised by Aqua’s popularity since she did not resemble previous Kingdom Heartes heroines. He and other writers (Masaru Oka and perhaps others) have a clear idea of what femininity means and what role female characters should play, and that was never clearer than the portrayal of Kairi and Aqua in the final half of the game. After being chosen as a Guardian of Light and spending the entirety of the story training with Merlin, after promising Sora that she would be the one to protect him, Kairi’s helplessness in the final battle was appalling to witness. She is depicted as weaponless when Terra-Xehanort charges at her. Sora and the others throw themselves in front of her to protect her, and this leads directly to Donald’s self-sacrifice. Later, she is easily kidnapped by Xemnas and killed by Master Xehanort to fuel Sora’s anger. This act of textbook ‘fridging’ absolutely disregards Kairi’s agency and her wish to fight alongside her friends. She represents the worst depiction of the traditional female role in storytelling: she is an object of desire to be rescued, damaged, and won over. In other words, it’s bullshit. Likewise, although she is one of the three Keyblade Masters present in the story, Aqua is constrained to a passive role. She is first rescued by Sora, then by Ventus, then assisted by Sora once more against two opponents (Terra-Xehanort and Vanitas) she had previously beaten. When confronted by the Demon Tide in the Keyblade Graveyard, Aqua whispers “no” and lets her Keyblade slip out of her hands, defeated. This is not the same Aqua who survived over a decade in the realm of darkness, defined by her bravery and strength of will. In an era with an increasing number of female-led titles and queer, non-traditional characterization, the female characters of Kingdom Hearts are still relegated to the role of nurturer and caretaker. In a game released in 2019, that hurts. Finally, I’d like to argue that the narrative focus on Sora and Kairi’s romance came at the expense of the friendship between Sora, Riku, and Kairi, something I believed so thematically important to the franchise. The other trios (Axel, Roxas, Xion and Terra, Aqua, Ventus) are depicted as being equally close and connected, yet KH3 does nothing to showcase Riku and Kairi’s bond. Riku is about as affected as Mickey when Kairi is threatened. The two of them never have a private conversation, not even the day before their final confrontation with Master Xehanort. Riku doesn’t volunteer to help Sora search for Kairi at the end of the game, despite him being aware of what damage it could cause Sora. And that is the other piece of the puzzle: Sora and Riku’s relationship has also been severely downplayed. During the events of KH3D, Riku becomes a Dream Eater out of his strong desire to protect Sora. His character arc has always been about “protecting the people who matter most”. Why, then, is he willing to let Sora abuse the Power of Wakening on his own? Why doesn’t he get to have a conversation with Sora before the final battle? Why is he shown racing against Terra and Roxas in the epilogue, while Kairi sits by herself and mourns? The lack of bond isn’t just present on Riku’s side. When Kairi and the others are swallowed by the Demon Tide, Sora falls to his knees and laments that he has no power now that he’s alone. His grief would have been more convincing, had Riku not been right there by his side. With such a strong bond remaining, there’s no reason Sora should have given up there; it was a deliberate narrative decision to highlight Sora and Kairi’s relationship while downplaying Sora and Riku’s. It seems that Riku was forced to take a step back to make room for the game’s heterosexual romance, and I believe the integrity of Sora, Riku, and Kairi as characters suffered because of this. Many of the reunions in the final portion of the game were an emotional catharsis for me, and I did enjoy aspects of the story. That being said, the storytelling in KH3 makes me fear that Square Enix is either unwilling or unable to adapt to the gaming frontier now led by the West. For now, I’ll submit to the fact that the most satisfying conclusion to the series I’ve followed so long lies in the hands of the fans who are willing to do it justice.

#kh3 #kingdom hearts 3 #kingdom hearts spoilers #critique

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homespork-review · 4 years ago

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Homespork Act 3: Insane Mindscrew Haymakers (Part 2)

CHEL: Rose finds a transportaliser platform in the centre of the lab.

FAILURE ARTIST: The sylladex misadventures come to something this time. Jasper’s corpse lands on the pad.

CHEL: The dead cat vanishes; Rose assumes it was vapourised but we know better, though we don’t see where it went. She finds an unlocked hub and plugs in, noticing another ominous countdown on the wall, with only three minutes left till the lab will be “UNESTABLISHED”.

Years in the future again, PM beheads the worm creature, which turns out to be a robot. The bunker landed on its side so PM stands on a pile of mailboxes to press the button, which causes more robot worms to emerge from beneath the bunker, pushing it upright, and a propeller to emerge from the top and carry it away.

Dave’s strife with Bro continues, getting more and more ridiculous and animesque, until Dave ends up plummeting down the stairwell. In a realistic work, this could quite easily break his neck, but here we just get some comical flailing and a SBaHJ IT KEEPS HAPPENING macro. Again, Dave looks more angry than afraid.

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 8

FAILURE ARTIST: I think Hussie said the Bro slicing the Abscond box is symbolic of the trap of child abuse and shows this guardian fight isn’t like the others but it is still an animesque fight that ends with a fucking meme.

CHEL: Yeah, he seems to be expecting us to pick up on these details which don’t mean anything until he actually explains them, which would be fine and in fact clever if they didn’t conflict so strongly with what’s actually noticeably shown. If he wanted us to take it seriously, he’d have done better not to put the Abscond button there at all.

Rose finds, in the lab, a console showing SBurb sessions in the northeastern US where her home is located, monitoring the time to impact of their respective meteors. There is a large cluster of already-landed ones around her house, with a much, much bigger one centred directly on the lab, with an even bigger one centred on the house. She zooms out, and finds the second-biggest upcoming impact in the world is heading for Texas, while one bigger by an order of magnitude will later land in the middle of the Pacific. "Oh look, up in the sky/ It's a hole about the size of Texas..."

"Circus Contraption - Hot Potato" (Watch on YouTube)

Checking on John’s house, Rose finds it overrun by imps, the building shaking violently. Investigating this, she finds the ogre fight; John is at least getting a few blows in now, but they’re still not doing much good. Nannasprite is able to provide support with eye beams, but the ogres are still standing, and Rose’s attempt to drop a fridge on one is useless too. Nannasprite’s teleportation proves more useful, allowing John to take a flying leap out of a hovering oven to strike with greater force and allowing her to drop a full avalanche of household appliances on the ogre. With Rose’s assistance providing him a platform to bounce off again, John strikes the final blow on one ogre, exploding it into grist pieces bigger than himself, and Nannasprite and John occupy the other ogre until Rose drops the alchemiter on it.

FAILURE ARTIST: Seeing a fight like this not long after the Bro and Dave fight makes it hard for me to take the serious one seriously. John should be dead.

CHEL: John has a backup healer and Dave doesn’t, but yeah, cartoon physics prevail here.

Rose checks in, explaining that Dave’s not connected yet, but that she’s determined that activating the cruxtruder does not actually cause the meteor to strike. John levels up to BOY-SKYLARK and collects tons of grist and boondollars, although he still doesn’t know what those actually do.

You can't wait to find out what amazing items this new supply of grist will be just barely insufficient to produce.

Hehehe. We’ve all been there.

John sees that more grist fell down to the platform below, including one huge piece stuck in the hole leading into Dad’s room.

One of those big SOUR GRAPE ELECTRIC HOLOCAUST FRUIT GUSHERS is jammed in the hole in the platform. CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 9

Yes, because Holocaust references are a perfect way to describe candy flavours. Technically “holocaust” can refer to, I quote from dictionary.com, “a great or complete devastation or destruction, especially by fire”, and I’m guessing it’s a parody of all the flavour names with words like “explosion” in them, but, especially when it’s not obviously uncapitalised, that’s very much not what the immediate association of the term is!

FAILURE ARTIST: John asks Nanna why she doesn’t just throw him up to the gate and she says it’s important he build up himself. Though later we do see a character that just jumps up to the gate.

Then we switch to a mysterious castle all in purple. Dad is fighting some imps with shaving cream. A new yet somehow familiar character wearing harlequin clothes watches with disgust both Dad and John on strange window screens.

We cut away yet again to Peregrine Mendicant. PM is still stuck in the mobile station with a letter addressed to David Brinner. There was a real person who went by the alias Doctor Brinner on his Portland-area radio show where he played a mad scientist. Dr. David Brinner is also a comic Hussie made before Homestuck. I’ve never read it myself. I didn’t even know it existed until I googled David Brinner.

Anyway, PM refuses to open this letter and gives stirring speeches that sound like they come from a movie (Kevin Costner’s Postman?) but I don’t think they do.

BRIGHT: PM believes very strongly in the purpose of mail delivery as the bedrock of civilisation. It comes across as funny, but not as mocking.

FAILURE ARTIST: PM then turns to the terminal. Jade appears on a screen shrouded in green static. PM finds Jade familiar. Unfortunately, before PM can converse with Jade, the terminal explodes.

Cut back again to Rose in the lab. There’s lots of cutesy pink little girl stuff down there that Rose decides to ignore. Why is it down there? Did Mom expect Rose to live there one day?

CHEL: I thought it was supposed to signal that Mom was living down there herself.

FAILURE ARTIST: Anyway, Rose also finds a mutant cat.

We cut away again to John contemplating going into his father’s bedroom through a hole in the roof. He decides to do it.

Cut to a fireplace with a portrait of Jade above it. It looks similar to Nanna’s shrine, minus the urn. But Jade isn’t dead, is she? She scampers right into the room the next panel. She arms herself with a huge rifle and tries to sneak across the room. However, her Grandpa appears, shadowed by the huge fire that suddenly lit up in the fireplace. She tries to run away only to fall asleep.

We cut to Dave’s final round - or rather, Jade fighting her Grandpa. Who, in another surprise, is a taxidermed corpse.

She talks to him like he’s alive, though after it, she says he was easier to deal with when he was alive. This disturbing state of affairs is never treated seriously.

CHEL: This, more than anything else, is why we set up the ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY count. Horrible as Bro would be by any realistic standards, at least Dave’s guardian is obviously living and Dave is not merrily talking away to a dead person. We later find out that Jade was the one who taxidermied Grandpa, while she was barely more than a toddler. Not only was she actually able to do this to professional standards, at an age when she shouldn’t have been handling sharp objects at all, but she displays no trauma from it, nor from having had to raise herself. And yet we’re supposed to take Dave’s issues seriously, and to a much lesser extent Rose’s, with no real indication that they’re any different.

TIER: It's one thing when an author's intended depiction of “an abusive household” for the most part flies over people's heads due to the absurdity of the whole situation when it initially got presented, that happens sometimes! Especially when one factors in Bro's total screen time, how he generally ticks the boxes for “absurd but really cool” guy visually, and how late in the game this knowledge was spelled out. It all comes together to make the whole Strider situation kinda come out of left field to judge people for finding the absurd situation funny.

But when it's sitting right next to the arguably worse scenario (stuffed.dead.guardian.) and the latter pretty much never gets brought up while the former gets a big ol’ spotlight shining down on it, yeah that's what the folks call Fucking Weird and in my personal opinion, suspect Ò_Ó.

CHEL: While I can’t really state one way or the other at this point, I do think it’s worth considering a reason that has already been brought up by a non-Homestucker; in the scenarios we’re not supposed to take seriously, the children are girls. I doubt this was even slightly what Hussie intended, but it certainly explains a lot about the fandom’s reactions. The more likely scenario regarding the canon explanation is probably that the ones we’re not supposed to take seriously are not Hussie’s self-insert.

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 9

BRIGHT: Not to mention, Jade grew up on an island in the middle of the ocean, physically isolated from any other people and with only an animal for company. There are known cases of children who grew up in similar circumstances in real life. Suffice to say, it generally does not end well.

You could argue that Jade is pretending her Grandpa is alive because she’s lonely and needs the company, but this is in no way implied by the text.

At any rate, Jade informs her grandfather that the rifle she has is perfectly adequate for killing things and she doesn’t need his oversized blunderbuss.

CHEL: To be strictly fair, we do later find out she had some contact with other people, but not in a way which I feel would be a substitute for having a living human parent in the “real” world.

FAILURE ARTIST: With Jade out the door, we go again to PM. They are fine except for some cartoon burn marks and a fire on their hood. The metal snake saves their precious mailbox.

BRIGHT: It earns PM’s affection for doing so.

Back at the lab, Rose utterly fails to ignore the four-eyed mutant kitten. She carries it over to a peculiar machine that turns out to be another Appearifier. This one is locked onto her cat, Jaspers, nine years ago. Not only was he alive, but the younger Rose was holding a psychotherapy session with him.

Rose attempts to appearify Jaspers, but since this would cause a time paradox, the machine leaves Jaspers in place and instead produces a ‘Paradox Clone’, which swiftly collapses into green slime. The machine next to the appearifier sucks up the paradox sludge, analyses its genetic sequence, and spits out another cat, rather more mutated than the last, in a process referred to as ‘Ectobiology’.

CHEL: John’s screen name, we remind you, is “ectoBiologist”, so it seems he heard of the concept somewhere, perhaps?

BRIGHT: On the appearifier’s screen, Jaspers reveals a stunning secret to young Rose, and is appearified to an unknown location before he can clarify anything. Two weeks later, his corpse reappeared. Oddly, the appearifier can’t see his whereabouts for the intervening period.

It can, however, see where his body went when it landed on the pad earlier! Rose appearifies the corpse and hightails it out of the lab, using the transportaliser to make her escape before the meteor can hit.

FAILURE ARTIST: If you click on the pink horseshoe that appears at the end of the Rose: Fast Forward To Now flash, there’s a little animation of Rose enjoying Maplehoof. I guess she’s making up for the loss of her precious Jaspers.

BRIGHT: We make a brief detour back to Jade, who’s searching for Becquerel. Two new things about Jade’s mysterious abilities: One, Becquerel is invisible to them. Two, this is unusual enough that it used to disturb her. Becquerel appears briefly in the background, and there’s clearly something strange about him…

CHEL: Additionally, it was clearly his face that was carved on the pumpkin we saw earlier, and he looks canine but it’s hard to make out details at this point...

BRIGHT: But before we can find out more, the comic jumps back to John.

Now in his Dad’s room, John is struck by an unwelcome discovery — there aren’t any clowns. Not on posters, no figurines. His father’s briefcase, rather than being full of the tools of a street performer, holds only boring papers and spreadsheets. In fact, the room is pretty boring...like his Dad is just a normal businessman?

"[S] John: Examine your dad's room." (Watch on YouTube)

FAILURE ARTIST: I wish more had been made of Bing “Douchebag” Crosby in this comic but that’s just me being an old movie nerd.

BRIGHT: While John attempts to recover from the BSOD this causes, his father breaks out of a jail cell armed with a safe. This is watched with displeasure by another black figure in brightly-coloured clothing, whose name is not Spades Slick. (He likes the ring of that, though.) No, he’s Archagent Jack Noir, and he oversees the affairs of a dark kingdom through three fenestrated walls.

CHEL: He usually has a fourth one but it got stolen.

FAILURE ARTIST: Those fingers typing the name Spades Slick are a suspicious color...

BRIGHT: He also despises the jester outfits everyone has been forced to wear, and refuses to don his comical hat until the Queen hijacks his fenestrated wall and orders him to wear it. The wall cuts back to Dad, who has now disarmed an especially burly-looking agent and is punching him in the head.

CHEL: Jack Noir makes mention of his carapace at this point; I don’t remember if his species is also referred to as “carapaces” in the comic but that’s the name the fandom knows them by. Guess we’ll see if they are as we go on.

BRIGHT: Meanwhile, John opens some birthday presents he found in his Dad’s room! He gets some Fruit Gushers, a very dapper suit, and best of all, an Array Fetch Modus, which lets him retrieve an item from any card in his deck! Of course, this would be too straightforward, so he combines it with his other Fetch Modii until he gets something properly inconvenient.

FAILURE ARTIST: How much do Modii cost and does everyone in this universe have one?

CHEL: The implication is tech like this is how Skaianet made its money, but since we never really see anyone who’s not involved somehow with the game, we don’t really get a good sense of the company being part of the world, so we don’t know. If I had to guess, though, I’d think getting the sylladex in the first place costs a big lump sum and then the various fetch modii cost much smaller amounts, sort of like apps on a phone or programs on a computer.

When prompted, John closely examines the Fruit Gushers box, this flavour being “MASSIVE TROPICAL BRAIN HEMORRHAGE”. Tasty…? John thinks so. However, in the corner of the box is a small, easily-missed logo…

THE HEINOUS BATTERWITCH HAS HER GNARLED CLAWS IN EVERYTHING.

After the destruction of his planet, the disappearance of his father, the appearance of his ghost grandma, and fighting numerous monsters, THIS is what finally sends John over the edge into a full-out meltdown, despite the onscreen caption declaring that THIS IS STUPID.

FAILURE ARTIST: I actually have a box of Fruit Gushers signed by Andrew Hussie.

CHEL: Back on the island, Jade, accompanied by dramatic music, attempts to retrieve a blue package from the ruins, but just as she reaches it, Becquerel appears between her and it, and we snap right back into STRIFE!

"[S] Jade: Retrieve package." (Watch on YouTube)

Becquerel, as we can now see clearly, is an enormous white dog, lacking facial features of any kind and emitting crackling green lightning - worthy of the description “devilbeast”, I think. Jade aims her rifle at his head and takes multiple shots, but none hit. The first heats up and melts into nothingness. When the second is fired Becquerel turns into green fire and next frame he and Jade are both riding on the now-enormous bullet which carries them across the lagoon to the other side of the island. Becquerel teleports the third bullet into space and himself and Jade to the top of the frog building, and he teleports himself out of the way of the fourth, the background flashing through several different locations. Finally, Jade shoots a bullet in the opposite direction with the instruction GO FETCH!, which Bec does, giving Jade time to grab the package. She rewards Bec for fetching with the irradiated steak and announces that he is a GOOD DOG, BEST FRIEND. After dancing around in celebration, she very abruptly falls asleep again, and Bec scoops her up on his back, takes her back to bed, and tucks her in.

FAILURE ARTIST: The music in Jade: Retrieve Package

is another replacement. Currently it’s An Unbreakable Union by Robert Blake but originally it was Mutiny by Bill Bolin. The original is very retro science fiction and the replacement is safari.

CHEL: For the record, real dogs are not horses and are not built to carry people like that, even very small children can damage a large dog’s back by riding it, but given Bec’s abilities, I don’t think that applies to him.

Rose comes out the other side of the transportaliser, she and the cat having both kept their atoms unmingled, and discovers she’s back in the house, in the room she thought was her mother’s bedroom. It seems the cutesy pink bed and stuff in the lab was in fact her mother’s bedroom, and this room is a well-stocked bar.

You decide not to be especially melodramatic about this revelation.

Good idea, Rose; there isn’t time, as the lab is promptly unestablished by a meteor, sending flaming debris flying through the window. The booze-filled room is especially endangered by this, so Rose decides to flee.

John punches some more cards and complains that he’s the one doing the work while Rose is just messing around on her computer, while Jade dreams and little red lights on her bedposts glow. A metal cabinet in the corner of her room has similar red lights on top, and it bursts open, revealing a Jade-shaped robot.

Sudden cut to a mysterious copy of Jade’s bedroom, except with pink walls, in which Jade stands, wearing a golden dress. Back in her real room, the DREAMBOT stands in the same position. The gold-clad Jade is, we find, a depiction of Jade in her dream. Dream Jade tries to get into bed, but complains of a heavy weight pressing down on her, as the robot is copying her actions and is now lying on top of the real sleeping Jade. Instead, she decides to fly, which of course she can do since it’s a dream (and the robot has jet propulsion).

The dream room also contains the blue package, addressed to “GG” from “GT”. This isn’t John’s current handle, but she knows it’s from John, and that she must deliver it to somewhere else without opening it.

Flashback to the previous winter. In a shot of John’s window, we see his calendar and the edges of some of his posters. The calendar is marked with smiley faces in party hats in green, red, and purple, marking Jade, Dave, and Rose’s birthdays, but more noticeably, there are creepy faces with jester hats and huge teeth scrawled on the wall and posters. I didn’t notice it until just now, but there are some purple lines on the arm of one of the poster characters which might just be part of a drawn-on clown outfit but from this vantage point look like self-harm scars. Brr. Ominous.

John at this point in time is going by “ghostyTrickster” on Pesterchum, hence the “GT” nametag on the package. He’s chatting to Jade about having sent off everyone’s birthday gifts, and how he hopes Jade’s will “help you solve those problems you’ve been having lately”. John is embarrassed to realise it will take much longer than he thought for the package to reach Jade’s island, but she assures him it will arrive “exactly when it needs to”.

BRIGHT: With the reveal of John’s previous handle, and from the characters in the Trollslum, we also get the theme of the handle initials being the letters of DNA. (GCAT.)

FAILURE ARTIST: Jade complains about “trolls” and we have the first time this beloved and perhaps overshadowing species is named. However, John calls the “trolls” the r-slur so that’s another point.

CLOCKWORK PROBLEMATYKKS: 10

CHEL: Also, the trolls are why he changed his handle, in an attempt to avoid them bothering him.

FAILURE ARTIST: We go back to current day. John is peeved at the graffiti on his posters. He thinks it’s the imps. However, we just saw it was there months before. What is going on, hmmm?

Rose decides to name the cat Vodka Mutini. She then talks with John. Rose wonders where Dave is and John figures that Bro is kicking his ass. Considering that this ass-kicking is later treated as serious abuse, this is a callous thing for a friend to say.

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 10

CHEL: I’d also say that counts as HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING. There’s not much an internet friend can do about someone’s abusive situation on the other side of the country but they could at least support Dave and tell him to call the police, if it is supposed to be that bad. Or at least, you know, be worried. Then again, Dave might not have told them what the ass-kicking entails, but Rose knows about his brother’s websites, and given that we know Bro made at least one film in which Dave was involved and may or may not have been on camera, and the film certainly would show the state the apartment was in…

HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 4

FAILURE ARTIST: Anyway, when John complains about his posters being defaced, Rose says they always looked that way. John naturally freaks out at this creepy revelation.

We cut to WV. They are trying to get down from the mobile station without sacrificing the MAYORAL SASH. While working the Appearifier, they get John’s present with an envelope addressed to “Mister Mayor”. After WV gets more cable, they rappel down the mobile station with the package under their arm.

Meanwhile, a figure in yellow caution tape watches WV through a sniper rifle. This is Aimless Renegade, a wonderful but forgotten character.

We go back to John and Rose. John discusses the mystery of the defaced posters while he futzes around with the Alchemiter. Rose thinks that John had blocked out the memory of defacing the posters and the revelation that his father isn’t who he thought he was unblocked his memory. She thinks maybe his father thought he was interested in clowns because John drew clowns everywhere. Yet John also wrote “LAME KID”? Maybe Dad should have taken John to therapy.

CHEL: “Lame kid” with arrows pointing down at his bed, to be exact, among other insults, and the clown faces don’t look like the product of someone who liked clowns at all!

ARE YOU TRYING TO BE FUNNY?: 11 HURRY UP AND DO NOTHING: 5

Yet Dad Egbert is supposed to be the good parent of the group, so here we go with a new count:

RELATIONSHIP GOALS?: 1

This one’s primarily for romantic relationships, but other relationship fumbles apply too.

Rose thinks that the drawings are the result of John trying to express something subconscious, possibly a repressed past memory. John changes the subject to the upward building process; Rose complains that chimneys weren’t meant to bear such a weight, and considers switching to walls now they can get grist more easily, but she’s running out of time as the house proper is now on fire. John blames Dave, so I think we can assume that either they don’t know his brother forces him into swordfights or they don’t think it’s a problem. Which one is hard to determine.

FAILURE ARTIST: We cut to Jade playing a bass solo so advanced it doesn’t have a bass line. Another Bolin replacement. We find out Dream Jade is in a castle on a planet that’s a gold copy of the one Jack Noir and co are on. While flying around, she sees an inhabitant that looks familiar. CHEL: This is what I was referring to when I said Jade did have some contact with people; she is able to contact the carapaces in her dreams. However, the carapaces are, as we’ve seen from WV and company, somewhat childlike in behaviour, living in a society that’s nothing like Earth’s, biologically not the same as humans so they couldn’t easily advise her if she got ill or injured, and they don’t appear to be able or willing to speak, at least not most of the time and/or in a way the humans could understand, not to mention they would have no way to physically assist her in the waking world so she’d still have to raise herself from a very young age. Hence, why I don’t think they’re a substitute for an actual human parent.

#Homespork #homestuck #homestuck review #homestuck meta #homestuck reread #let's read homestuck #literary critique #sporking #Let's read

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