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papercorgiworld · 8 months

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If you had known, would you’ve come?

Tom convinces his brother to help him get a date with a girl that actually doesn’t like him one bit, but Tom has it all figured out, except for maybe the falling in love part. Leave it to a Riddle to underestimate love. + brother dynamic Mattheo/Tom

Last cameo is Daisy ( @musingsofahufflepuff ). This sweet Hufflepuff is Mattheo’s girlfriend and Mattheo convinces her to help him set you up with his brother.

Tom II Riddle won the poll thingy I did a few days ago, so here it is, my first Tom II Riddle x reader. I loved writing Tom and Mattheo as brothers. I don’t know a lot about the popular opinion on Tom II, so I kinda just went with a general Tom vibe. Tomorrow I’ll start working on the requests so expect the first one to pop up one of these days. But for now, happy readings!

I added part 2

“Hey, little brother.” Tom appears next to Mattheo, startling the younger Riddle. After a second Mattheo regains his composure. “So, am I in trouble or you?” Mattheo asks, making Tom smile. “You, it’s always you.” Mattheo rolls his eyes. “You’re failing potions.” How does he know everything? “Yeah, I missed a few essays. Nothing, I can’t fix.” Tom raises his eyebrows. Sure, you can, you little overconfident bimbo. “Well, I’ve been so kind as to write essays for you that can get your grade up.” Mattheo stops walking and turns to face his brother. “Kind? Funny. What’s the catch?” Tom stares dryly at his younger brother, annoyed with his witty attitude, but nevertheless grabs a bundle of papers out of his bag. “I’ll even give you my notes and summaries.” Mattheo nods as he curiously eyes his brother. “Ask your redhead girlfriend to set me up with (y/n), they’re friends, so it shouldn’t be a problem.” Mattheo tilts his head like he didn’t just hear his brother ask for a date with (y/n). “Why not ask her yourself?” Tom looks at Mattheo with dull eyes, like he just asked the most ridiculous question possible. “Cause she hates me.” Mattheo opens his mouth, but Tom interrupts him. “No more questions. Do you want these or not?” He waves the papers in front of Mattheo. Mattheo’s tongue pokes his cheek as he stares at his stoic brother with dark eyes, considering his options.

***

”How’s the most beautiful girl at Hogwarts doing?” Mattheo slings his arm around Daisy and kisses her cheek, making her smile. “You skipped class.” She says with judgy eyes. Mattheo licks his lips and stares her down with playful eyes. “Because I was busy dreaming about you.” Daisy rolls her eyes and pushes him away. “Very funny.” Mattheo follows her and whispers with a cheeky smile. “It’s true though.” A soft giggle escapes her and he smiles genuinely happy to have her, but then his face turns serious. “I hate this, but I need a favor.” Daisy frowns. They had been dating for almost a year and never had he asked for a favor, so she was immediately intrigued. “My brother wants a date with (y/n).” Daisy starts laughing out loud, before realizing Mattheo was serious. “No.” She says sternly.

“Hey, hey, what happened to all that hufflepuff kindness?” Mattheo argues as he pulls her closer. “You brother’s not the kind of guy who I want to set up with my friends.” Mattheo’s shoulders drop. “Why?” The hufflepuff averts her eyes, not liking what she’s about to say. “Cause he’s scary?” Mattheo’s lips form a line. “Right.” He lowers his head. “But you gave me a chance.” Mattheo’s eyes are innocent and Daisy purses her lips, thinking back to how Mattheo ruined every date she went on before admitting he liked her and actually asking her out. “Yeah I did, but I also knew there was a soft side to you.”

“My brother has a soft side, I’m sure, somewhere.” Mattheo frowns, seriously wondering for a moment if his brother had a soft side. “Look, he needs someone in his life, unless you want him to be the weird uncle that tells our kids that life is meaningless, downs a bottle of wine and murders people, not necessarily in that order, I honestly don’t know with my brother. The thing is he deserves a date, a chance.” Mattheo sighs, struggling to defend his brother. “Our kids?” Daisy questions with shiny eyes, loving the idea that Mattheo thinks about having kids. Mattheo feels himself get flustered and shakes his head. “Not the point of this conversation.” Daisy nods knowing that her boyfriend is right. “He deserves a date.” Mattheo smiles. “(y/n). Tonight. 7pm sharp at the wooden bridge. He has something planned.” Daisy frowns and sighs. “(Y/n) hates him. She’ll never agree to go out with him.” Mattheo nods. “Just tell her it’s a blind date.”

***

You were a bit nervous as you walked down the long wooden bridge, but mostly excited. You hadn’t been on a date in a while so when Daisy proposed to organize a blind date with a handsome and intelligent guy, who was one year older and wiser, you were easily convinced. Though, considering she was dating Mattheo Riddle you probably should’ve known her taste in men was worrying, not to say alarming. However, you fully trusted the sweet hufflepuff and chose to wear your most fancy dress, ready to impress. As you neared the end of the bridge you started to worry that you might even be overdressed. The wind blew through your perfectly done hair as you scanned your surroundings. “Seven sharp.” You whisper to yourself and check your watch, before looking around and softly chewing your lip. It’s then that you notice a small glimmer, only a few steps away. When you take the last step of the bridge your feet don’t land in the grass, because suddenly you’re in a room.

You twirl around admiring the beautiful decor. Someone conjured an entire room? A soft sound of admiration leaves your lips and you hear a soft chuckle. “I knew you would like this.” Your blissful face falls when you meet the man with the gentle voice. “Tom?” He walks towards you. “Shall I take your jacket?” He offers a hand and you stare at it. “No, I- I have- uhm a date.” You stutter and he pulls his hand back, watching as your eyes search for the way you came in. Your back is turned towards him when you realize there are no doors. “I’m aware you have a date. Since I’m your date.” Tom says dryly and you quickly turn around. “That can’t be. Daisy would never set me up with-” You fall silent when you look around the room and spot a perfectly decorated diner table, when you meet Tom’s eyes you see something you’ve never seen in his eyes, vulnerability.

“You didn’t know I was your date, did you?” Tom asks and you feel your heart sink. No of course not, no one I know would willingly go on a date with you. Tom doesn’t need an answer, he already knows and averts his eyes. “If you had known, would’ve come?” His voice is serious and yet filled with so much emotion. However, as soon as the question is out there he decides he doesn’t want the answer to that question either and reaches for his wand. “I’ll conjure a door for you.” Immediately you take a step towards him, making him lower his wand. “I honestly don’t know.” He examines your every expression as your eyes dart around in search of words. “Maybe I would’ve come, maybe not. I don’t know.” You chuckle and take another step towards him. “I wouldn’t have believed it. I mean you and I on a date, that’s ridiculous, who would come up with that.” You let out a short laugh. “I did, it was my idea.” Your eyes shoot up to meet his and you frown. “Why? We hate each other.”

Tom smiles and puts his wand away. He seems more relaxed and licks his lips. “You might hate me, but I definitely don’t hate you.” The surprise and confusion on your face makes Tom chuckle. “We have our differences, but I admire you.” You shake your head. “No, no, you’re Tom Riddle, you treat everyone like they’re less than you. You don’t organize sweet dates with.. uhm.. scented candles, and.. my favorite flowers and .. my favorite snacks-” You feel yourself get flustered as you notice every small detail is for you. “I treat everyone like they’re less than me, because they are.” You roll your eyes, but he ignores it and continues. “Except for you, your determination and consideration makes me believe you might be my equal.” There’s genuine admiration in his voice and you’ve never felt so recognised by anyone before.

You open your mouth to say something, but can’t find any words and just purse your lips, while staring around the room. “Can I have your jacket now?” He asks and after a moment of silence you turn your back towards him and let it slide down your shoulders for him to take. You take a few steps to the dinner table, before turning around to face Tom again who’s carefully scanning you down. When his eyes land on yours you tilt your head judging him for his staring and making him chuckle. “You caught me off guard. I’m used to you being beautiful, but tonight the English language fails to have a word that honors you.” Your lips part and your cheeks heat up. “Normal guys go for something like you look good or hot.” Tom nods and walks to one of the chairs at the table, moving it for you to sit. “And you wonder why I think they’re less than me.” You take a seat and shake your head at his words, but don’t argue with him.

Your eyes scan the table and you can’t believe how perfect it is. A small paper unfolds itself and announces the upcoming dishes and your eyes move to Tom. “A normal date would have sufficed.” You smile at him but he’s not pleased with your words. “I’m sorry if anyone ever made you feel like anything less than this should be enough for you.” You laugh nervously and lean over the table. “Are we on a date or are you courting me?” You whisper with a slightly amused smile, until you see his reaction. “Well, I’m an ambitious man, but I know where I stand so I’ll be patient.” At first you’re baffled by his honesty, but then you smirk. “There’s something about you Riddle men and having a serious amount of confidence, you’re different, but in heart you’re very much the same.”

Tom rolls his eyes. “I rather not be compared to him.” You laugh and he smiles as his heart warms seeing you happy. You notice the warm glint in his eyes and just know that tonight will be lovely.

***

“You know I have muggle friends.” You blur out as you’re both walking the wooden bridge in the direction of the castle. “I’m aware.” He says dryly, but still relaxed and sweet. You need to know his honest opinion, if you truly want to let yourself fall in love with him. “No one’s perfect.” He shoves his hands in his pockets, something you’ve rarely seen him do and you look away, feeling the disappointment squeeze your heart. “You despise me for it.” He says and you look up at him. “Yes.” He stops and so do you, there’s a soft silence as he looks at the water and you just look at him. “I believe I can convince you that my view of mudbloods is the right one.” His voice is stern, but not mean. It takes a moment, but to his surprise a smile tugs on your lips and you close the distance between you two. “I think I can turn your whole world upside down.” You whisper, while he stares you down and feels himself heat up at your closeness. “Cute, but-” You don’t let him continue and snake an arm around his neck, before leaning in and kissing him tenderly. When you break the kiss your eyes lock with his and you can feel his heart race. His arm wraps around your waist and he pulls you closer. Tom’s tongue moves around in his mouth as he’s obviously overthinking something. “Maybe.” He eventually admits, but it’s the smile that now creeps up your lips and your shiny eyes that make him seriously worry about how truly madly in love he is with you.

***

“How was the date?” Mattheo asks from his usual spot on the couch and Tom scans the empty common room. “You seriously stayed up to ask me how my date went?” Mattheo shrugs. “Well-” Tom starts, but immediately stops himself from talking about it. “I’m not telling you. We rarely talk and that’s not going to change. It was one date. It means nothing. I’m still the same person I was before this date.” Mattheo raises his eyebrows and tries to hide his amusement. “Sure.” Tom groans at his brother’s annoying attitude and turns around heading for his room. “Whipped.” Mattheo whispers, just loud enough for his brother to wonder if he actually heard that right, but he chooses to ignore his younger sibling and enters his room.

Word count: 2082

Feedback is always very welcome!

#slytherin #slytherin boys #tom riddle #tom II riddle #tom riddle imagine #tom riddle x reader #papercorgiworldwritings

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sufferu · 11 days

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Do you think Emilia suffer/may suffer from " Creator's Pet " syndrome? It seems to me she does fit two of them: Hated and despised by some fans Loved (or worshipped) by the writer(tappei),is his favorite

I think that’s her main problem, tbh — and honestly, it’s the only real writing critique that I have about Re:Zero as a whole. It doesn’t matter to me what other fans think about her character in this regard: that’s always like. A bit of a coin flip, who exactly is gonna become the widespread favorite or whipping boy. What matters to me is that Tappei 1) leans on what he seems to consider her inherent likability, often without actually justifying it to the audience, and 2) is terrified of actually making her unlikeable.

That first point first: Tappei tends to Assume that the audience likes Emilia just as much as he does, and because of this I feel like he doesn’t tend to lay the groundwork necessary to actually make that the case.

This is pretty subjective, I don’t have a whole lot of really objective moments to point to here, so someone else might think I’m totally off the mark — but I feel like sometimes we’re expected to believe that Emilia is some amazingly capable and talented person while the moments where she’s actually allowed to back it up are few and far between. Most of them are also — honestly really simple? And very much tied up in her being a super powerful fighter, instead of in her being intelligent, or quick-witted, or even in her being particularly empathetic. That last one works a LITTLE bit, because that’s basically the whole reason Subaru fell so hard for her, but even then I think I can count on one hand the number of times Emilia’s boundless kindness has actually earned her a powerful character moment/victory in the main storyline (first loop of Arc 1 + the reveal that she always stopped to help Plum, Lap Pillow Scene, Emilia’s conversation with Madelyn…?? Maybe there’s something in her conversation with Ram in Arc 4???) and otherwise it’s only really Referenced rather than Shown. And when that’s one of your LEAD CHARACTERS, it’s just not enough.

The second point, though, is the one that I actually consider more important: Emilia isn’t given enough moments where she’s allowed to be genuinely unlikeable.

The whole reason why Subaru is such a beloved character is because he’s allowed to be a fuck-up sometimes. He is allowed to fall, and fall HARD, and get raked through the coals so bad for it that you can still taste the blood three arcs later. Fuck, he’s allowed to fuck up so bad that he becomes the Reason so many people straight up dropped the first season. And that makes him interesting, and multifaceted, and it makes his good moments mean so much more. This is what I consider the Secret to good character writing: if you want the audience to like that character, give them moments where they are genuinely, unapologetically ugly. This is why Bakugou is the best character in BNHA (fight me): Bakugou is allowed to be UGLY.

And the thing is: Tappei doesn’t normally HAVE this problem. Ram comes off like she’s being a fucking asshole for basically no reason, Otto is a conniving little shit, Julius introduced himself by beating the everloving snot out of the then-self-insert character, Felt abandoned Subaru to get beaten bloody in an alley in her very first scene, Anastasia, Priscilla, and Crusch all had a moment where they basically spat in Subaru’s face (even if Anastasia was trying to help it was very much a Tough Love moment), Wilhelm basically caused the Astrea Family Circus, Rem gets all of Arc 7 to throw her very carefully constructed Waifu persona completely out the window — fuck, Subaru is the MAIN CHARACTER and Arc 3 is basically just “Subaru Cringe Compilation.” So when Emilia is basically the only character who isn’t allowed to be ugly — it stands out, and not in a good way.

We have had Emilia as the secondary lead for basically eight arcs at this point (six if you don’t count the Vollachia Saga), and — look, I’m not an Emilia hater, but can you really say that she has anywhere near as much depth as Subaru does, or even as much as some of the secondary characters? She just doesn’t, or if she does then it’s not adequately explored, and it’s because she’s not allowed to be Nasty sometimes. In fact — there is exactly one moment I can think of where she’s genuinely, unambiguously allowed to be in the wrong: Arc 4, when she runs away from everyone to hide from her responsibilities currently threatening to crush her and has to be found and chewed out by Subaru. And it is one of her BEST moments. Arc 4 in general is considered Emilia’s greatest arc so far, and it is BECAUSE she was allowed to have a moment where she was WRONG.

But Tappei has basically never given us another moment like that because he wants the audience to like her, and at some point it just — look, at some point the hand of the author becomes obvious. When you have basically every character Emilia meets talk about how much they like her and have That define her kindness more than any actual Moments on her part, when you refuse to make even the most vicious of characters dislike or talk shit about her despite everyone else getting a chance to earn someone else’s ire in some form or another, when you spend two whole arcs away from her and then immediately open back in on how amazing she is without even giving us a reminder about Why she’s supposed to be so amazing (having another character describe her as amazing doesn’t count) — it becomes too obvious that Tappei just Really Wants the audience to like Emilia, and at some point That Alone becomes aggravating enough to make people biased against her just on principle.

Anyway those are my thoughts lol. This is legit the only real criticism I, personally, have of the story — but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t aggravate me a LITTLE bit. I don’t want to like Emilia, I want to LOVE her — I want to love her as much as Tappei does — but she has to earn it like everyone else, and Tappei seems a little to adverse to actually letting her Do That.

#emilia #meta #my inbox #me tag

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fioras-resolve · 1 year

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okay so hear me out here, ace attorney fans

pressing a statement is a defensive action. it's like blocking in an action game. in most cases, it carries no risk, and lets you look for an opening to strike.

those strikes are presenting evidence, or anything else that comes with a penalty. it's an offensive move that puts you at risk, but has a high payoff if it does work.

fundamentally, a lot of players like to hold the block button. and you can see why a witness like moe or tigre would incense us so much. by penalizing pressing, they make it impossible to defend without risk.

some testimonies require pressing. sometimes pressing in ace attorney 1 is literally the solution, while other times pressing is what creates the opening to take the risk of presenting evidence.

it's worth noting that ace attorney 2 and 3 have a particular habit of putting you on the defensive. barring the tutorial, every first trial of justice for all starts off by making you gather evidence. this requires that you press every single statement just to get the full picture. you cannot present anything, you are just pressing.

this could be viewed as the game forcing you to block for two minutes, thus making bad, boring testimonies. but i actually wanna be more charitable here. these moments are the prosecutors putting you on the defensive, which says something about their characters and how they operate. in some moments, like the bellboy's testimony in turnabout sisters, gives you no offensive options as a way to convey helplessness. i think these kinds of testimonies can be valuable for storytelling reasons, even if they are "less compelling gameplay."

ace attorney investigations, on the other hand, is all about compelling gameplay. i might be biased, because i have miles edgeworth as an alter in my head, but i do like both investigations games a fair bit, and consider aai2 the peak of the series. but the thing with these games is that they focus in on the core gameplay of ace attorney: finding contradictions and presenting evidence. it's a very offense-focused game. every single argument (the games' equivalent of testimonies) ends with presenting evidence. it's actually incredibly stripped down from the rest of the series, you might have to press just to get a bit of new information, but you will then have to find the contradiction in that information. you cannot proceed without landing a decisive blow.

i have a few problems with shu takumi's contributions to the series after the original trilogy. most of them are a topic for another time. but something i wanna focus in on here is the repeated mechanic of "mob cross examination." essentially, you're questioning multiple witnesses at a time, and sometimes when you press someone for more information, others will perk up at what they say. you can then question them and ask them what's on their mind. i think this is a cute mechanic in theory, and it does lead to some good storytelling moments. but it also makes these games very press heavy in a way that i don't like. it kind of ruins the tension of the thing, you know?

i feel like i'm one of the only people who actually gives this stuff any attention. like, a lot of people in the ace attorney fandom essentially see the games as visual novels, caring more about the story than anything you actually do in the game. this is, i suspect, why there's aversion to "filler" in these spaces, because a lot of people just aren't here to play a mystery adventure game. to be clear, i recognize myself as one of the weirdos here. i'm a game designer who cares a lot about mechanics. but like, there's genuine room to talk about game design in the ace attorney series. how these games feel to play, how you make a court drama also a fun game. or maybe i'm just looking for something to do with this series that is likely not getting a new installment for a very long time

#ace attorney #game design #ace attorney investigations

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forasecondtherewedwon · 3 years

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Stare Enough

Fandom: The Falcon and the Winter Soldier Pairing: Sam Wilson/Bucky Barnes Rating: T Word Count: 4034

Summary: Bucky's got a new stare. Sam spends all afternoon and most of the evening working up the courage to meet it.

Both Sam and the food are the main attraction at this party and the problem with that situation is that it takes so damn long for one main attraction to get a second to enjoy the other.

He’s grateful—god, is he grateful—for the turnout. Friends, neighbours, the kind of people he and Sarah call family without there being any actual relation by blood, they’ve all shown up. Since the Blip, Sam’s felt like he’s always around, but this feels like a real homecoming. No sadness, nothing bittersweet. It’s a celebration and he’s at the center of it. Him and the food.

At last, Sam’s done the circuit with his plate, spooning creamy salads and grilled vegetables, stacking shellfish pink as a sunrise. There’s a fresh-baked roll perched atop a scoop of sweet potatoes and caramelized onions that smells so fucking warm and mouth-watering he has to resist walking with his nose buried in it. He collects a set of utensils furled in the middle of a paper napkin (courtesy of an efficient assembly line of old ladies, chatting and twisting neat rolls of cutlery), plate bowing into the palm of his other hand, and that’s when his damn phone vibrates in his pocket.

Sam halts and makes a sound of frustration. Nobody’s come to this thing empty-handed, so there are dishes crowding the surface of the tables, no place to set his plate down. His phone vibrates again. A teenager comes up to peruse the spread in front of him and Sam sighs, knowing what he’s about to do.

“Here,” he says heavily, offering up his beautifully arranged and wonderfully fragrant meal. The cob of corn shining with the butter he lovingly smeared over it nearly rolls over the edge. “You’re the luckiest kid in the world.”

Quickly, Sam turns away, sliding out his phone and bringing it to his ear. He doesn’t want to witness the boy digging in. His stomach growls as he greets Joaquin Torres.

“Sam,” Torres says. “Uh, I mean, sir. Mr. Captain Am… Captain Wil—”

“Take it easy,” Sam laughs. “You know me, Torres. Don’t get starstruck now.”

“Honestly, I never really got over you being the Falcon. Now that you’re Captain America… Apologies if it takes me a little while to be cool about it.” After a pause—taken while Torres attempts to become cool with Sam being Captain America, Sam assumes—he asks, “You celebrating?”

Not far from where Sam’s standing, there are two little girls singing along to their clapping game. At a table behind them, a trio of elderly gentlemen are arguing over which one of them it was that caught that 50-pound snapper off the dock back in 1978. There’s a sear of meat and fish being rotated onto and off of the grill and, bouncing over everything, music from a speaker someplace.

“Yeah,” Sam says with a broad grin. “Yeah, we are. I’d save you a plate, but I can’t even manage to hang onto my own.”

He doesn’t mention that Torres is responsible for that situation; he’s aware that, besides being a fan, the Lieutenant is a little bit infatuated with him. Sam’s trying to be gentle until the day he can respond to Torres with friendly smack-talk, the way he would Steve or Scott or Bucky. Maybe not exactly like he does with Bucky.

“Don’t worry about it,” Torres cheerfully insists. “I wasn’t calling for that, I just wanted to give you a heads up about something.”

“Alright. Let me just…”

Sam strides away from the heart of the party towards the water, seeking quiet. Kids dart in front of him and that’s nothing unusual, but when he follows them with his gaze, he sees they’re running towards Bucky. Bucky, who has his Vibranium arm extended and two kids dangling off it already, one of whom might be Sam’s nephew. Of course, Mr. Casual, Mr. Smiles, Mr. Social Butterfly, is carrying on a conversation like his arm isn’t being used as a jungle gym. A conversation with Sarah.

For just a moment, Sam stops in his tracks, considering whether he should go over there and break up any potential flirting. But then he watches them. Bucky’s just talking to her, not flicking his gaze up and down while he checks her out. And Sarah, she’s relaxed and smiling, totally at ease, like Bucky’s another member of their community. That makes him a friend. Family.

That’s one thought too far and Sam jerks himself into motion again, walking until he’d be swimming with another step.

“What’ve you got for me?”

“Well, I’ve been trying to watch as much of the coverage of the fight outside the GRC vote as I can, trying to get a sense of how they’re spinning Walker’s reappearance, the legacy of the Flag-Smashers now that Karli and her inner circle are gone… Anyway, there’s a lot of footage and you’re at the center of most of it.”

“Guess the new suit draws the eye. And the cameras.” It’s no surprise to Sam. Part of the job of being Captain America.

“Yeah, but…”

“What is it, Torres?”

“Bucky’s in the background a lot,” he explains in a voice that tells Sam there’s more Torres isn’t saying.

“Makes sense. He was in the thick of it as much as I was.”

“He’s there at the end too. When you were talking to the Senator about power and the common struggle. Man, that was a great speech. Do you think—”

“Torres. Please. The point.”

“Right, for sure, man. Bucky never takes his eyes off you.”

That flusters Sam for a second. He wasn’t expecting the blunt delivery, especially of those words. He squints down at the water where it’s lapping the side of the dock. He knew Bucky was there; they spoke right after, when Bucky tried to feed him that bullshit (and he knew it was bullshit at the time) about texting and missing the exact speech Torres is apparently still hung up on.

“So Bucky was actually listening to me,” Sam says carefully. “That’s a surprise, but it isn’t really the kind of thing that’s significant enough for you to bother notifying me about, is it?”

“I’d say that depends on what you consider significant.”

“Torres.”

“I know, but he’s not just listening! It’s how he’s looking at you!”

“Like he’s wishing I would wrap it up?” Oh, Sam remembers Bucky’s miracle from their session with Dr. Raynor.

“Like he’s totally into you! Major heart eyes. Sir,” Torres hastily adds.

And Sam should reprimand him for this. Calling with a trivial piece of information when he must know Sam’s already being very selective about which of the hundreds of recent calls (and it’d be more if more people had this number) he chooses to pick up. Calling to speculate on how Bucky was staring at Sam that night in New York.

“I don’t need to tell you this is gonna be one of those investigations we keep between you and me,” Sam states.

“For sure. I just thought maybe you’d wanna know.”

“Uh huh. You get any real news, you pass it along.”

“I will.”

Sam ends the call and turns. He looks to his right: the sparkling river. His left: his people, all the way down to the squirt with the glasses who’s hanging off a metal arm, and the man that arm belongs to.

He’s felt it, the way that Bucky stares. It’s not like it used to be though, when it irked Dr. Raynor at the police station in Baltimore, or confused Walker and Hoskins in the back of that jeep in Germany. This new stare of Bucky’s isn’t one Sam’s ever caught him doing. Bucky hasn’t quite let him. That’s actually how Sam noticed it was happening—Bucky would immediately glance away instead of leaving that dead expression on his face when Sam met his eye. Now that he has proof of it, proof he’s certain Torres would send him footage of in an instant if he asked, he’s scared to look.

Instead, he watches Bucky look at other people. Like Sarah. Like kids from the neighbourhood. His literal hangers-on disperse as Sam observes, scattered after Bucky leans towards them to say something. Sam sees half his smile and even that much has his heart swelling up in his chest. Bucky weaves through the tables and standing groups, the dancers and the kids who’ve broken out a skipping rope. (After eating from that buffet? Kids are crazy. Gonna make themselves sick.)

Without thinking too hard about it, Sam returns to the noise and the smells, trailing Bucky with a stealthy eye on his ass in those jeans. There’s no friction here between him and everybody else Sam cares about, he can see that in every short, friendly exchange someone engages Bucky in as he walks. Things flow as smoothly as the butter oozing off the corn Sam reluctantly gave up. Clearly, they remember Bucky from when he was here helping with the boat. They respect him. They like him. They’ve gotten to that last thing faster than Sam has, which makes Sam feel a little embarrassed as well as a little overwhelmed by how much the two of them have actually been through. He’s seen Bucky as a mindless killer and it almost brings a genuine tear to his eye—here on this glorious day in front of all these folks—to see the dork who rushed out to get his hands on a copy of The Hobbit in 1937 return in his current form as the dork who’ll take a fake punch from AJ and blush over brazen old women telling him how handsome he is.

Bucky stares different? Well. Sam feels different about the staring.

Sam keeps his distance until Bucky reaches the food, then his stomach gurgles a reminder than he hasn’t eaten yet. No ass is nice enough to distract him from his meal. He sidles up beside him and Bucky seems unsurprised, not even glancing over.

“Anything important?” he asks.

“What?”

“Your phone call,” Bucky clarifies, adding a heap of glossy green beans to his plate. Damn, those are some of Sam’s favourite. Bucky better not take all of them. “They need us somewhere?”

“Oh. No.”

Bucky shoots him a suspicious look after this stilted response, but he doesn’t say anything until Sam grabs a plate of his own, hungry eyes roving the feast that’s diminishing now that people have started coming back for second helpings.

“Put that down,” Bucky instructs. He doesn’t wait; he takes the plate out of Sam’s hand and tosses it back towards the pile. Thankfully, the plates are made of paper.

“Buzz off, man,” Sam tells him, reaching for the plate again. “I’m starving.”

“I figured.”

Wait.

“That’s for me?” he guesses, gazing longingly at the plate Bucky’s preparing.

“Yep.”

When Sam doesn’t reply, Bucky pauses with the plate in one hand and a serving spoon in the other and sighs.

“I didn’t want you to miss the good stuff. This party’s for you.”

“I think it might be for both of us.”

Bucky seems too self-conscious to say anything to that. He goes back to loading up Sam’s plate while Sam quietly feels his throat close up with emotion as he watches. He clears it gruffly.

“I woulda had to eat the cake you brought,” he jokes. “Pretty sure only the really little kids have eaten any. You know, people who don’t know better.”

“I was tryin’ to be a good guest.”

“I can’t believe you brought a store-bought cake,” Sam says, laughing as he grabs a set of cutlery for the second time and continuing to shuffle along next to Bucky.

“Have you ever seen me cook?”

“…No.”

“Exactly. Trust me, what I did was kinder.”

“If you say so.”

“You know what, Sam?” Bucky demands challengingly, turning to face him. “I do say so.”

Sam’s eyes go from the plate Bucky’s holding between them up to Bucky’s face. He’s close. And he’s got this look, this dancing look in his eyes that undercuts the shit out of the hard line of his eyebrows. Trying to seem all stern. All Sam can think for several seconds is that, if he just grabbed Bucky by the chain around his neck and hauled him forward, they’d never get the food stains out of their clothes. But their laundry would smell delicious.

He clears his throat.

“Then you better stay for a while.”

The corner of Bucky’s mouth twitches up and he hands Sam the plate he’s prepared for him.

“I plan to.”

When Sam picks a table to sit at, he makes sure there’s enough room for Bucky too. When Bucky sits next to him, he sits so close that their thighs press together and claims that’s all the space there is. Bucky talks and laughs when other people at the table talk to him. He’s easily drawn into conversation now and Sam feels weirdly proud of having brought this great guy home to meet everybody, even if he’s not here like that. People tells stories about last week and last century interchangeably, one old smartass making Bucky howl with laughter when they toss out a memory of Little Sam Wilson streaking from his house to the river for a naked swim. This is the danger of welcoming Bucky into the community. Sam, suppressing a smile, doesn’t really mind.

Elbows up on the table so he can eat, talk, and gesture emphatically with his fork, Sam feels Bucky’s stare creeping up on him. Slow, like the sun slides across the landscape when the clouds blow past. Bucky didn’t make this food, but Sam can feel his satisfaction as he watches Sam accept what he provided. Feels like there are grasshoppers springing around in his stomach. He still has a roll on his plate, one side soaked in family-secret barbecue sauce, and he tears it in half. While the rest of their table are caught up in some story being boisterously told by overlapping voices, Sam turns to Bucky and wordlessly offers the bread, edges dimpled where he gripped to split it. They watch each other chew and Sam’s closed mouth is smiling.

Inevitably, somebody pulls Sam back into the conversation and he does his best to laugh and heckle, covering the fact that he wasn’t listening, that he dropped the thread. The voices rise and rise and fall like water slopping over the side of a bucket.

In the next quiet moment, Bucky inclines toward him slightly and says, “You wanna talk later?”

And Sam says, “Sure.”

The day feels long, long, long, and Sam’s face gets sore from smiling, tired from talking. He does not confess that to Bucky, who’s almost always at his side. Lights go on overhead and beers come out of coolers, leftover food packed up and redistributed among neighbours, small children with drooping eyelids toted home. At first, Sam thinks Bucky’s leaning into his side because he’s drained from so much socializing too, but when he meets his eye, he just sees an invitation.

“Where are you two goin’?” Sarah asks when they slink past her carrying a too-big Cass in her arms.

“Just walkin’,” Sam tells her.

“Gotta stretch our legs,” Bucky contributes.

She looks from Sam to Bucky and back, smiling knowingly.

“Uh huh,” Sarah says.

Sam grabs Bucky by the shoulder to turn him forcibly away from his sister’s insinuations and just… forgets to let his hand fall as they wander along the water. Bucky’s steps angle towards his until his arm’s bumping Sam’s side, Sam’s arm slung around his shoulders. Is this still the body language of a couple buddies on a warm Delacroix night? Is it now, when Sam drops his arm and brushes the back of his hand across Bucky’s?

They leave the party lights on the horizon with the lazily setting sun, scrabbling off the end of the dock and onto the riverbank. Sam reaches up to give Bucky a hand down, so he won’t step in the soft mud and sink to his ankles. Bucky clasps his hand firmly and jumps.

The sound of people drops off down here and the sound of wind in grass, frogs hiding between reeds, rises.

“Are there alligators in here?” Bucky wonders, scanning the river’s edge.

Sam laughs.

“For sure.”

“And you swam here when you were a kid?”

“Even then,” Sam boasts, puffing his chest out, “my courage was legendary.”

“Yeah, and your nudity. Is there anyone within a mile of here who hasn’t seen your bare ass?”

Their eye contact holds. Oh right. Sam breaks away with an awkward, hiccupping laugh, directing his gaze at the dirt.

“The gators haven’t gathered too close to the dock in decades,” he promises Bucky. He stares out at the undisturbed water, enjoying the sun on his face. “Got skittish of the boats. Most of ’em, anyway.”

“Consider me not entirely reassured.”

“You scared of a little Louisiana lizard, man? Didn’t you grow up with Creature from the Black Lagoon?”

“Nah, that was after my time.”

“Damn, you’re old.”

Bucky snorts a laugh, refusing to look at him.

“You wanna take a dip?” Sam goads.

“No.”

But by the time Sam’s pulling his shirt over his head, Bucky’s peeling off his socks. Sam spares him a smile and keeps going, the ground soft underfoot. It could be like the few times they’ve changed in proximity to one another before, but it’s not. He senses Bucky’s eyes on him the whole time. Face hot, he takes a quick look in Bucky’s direction as he’s unzipping his jeans. His heart feels like his new suit—wings just waiting to unfurl.

When they’re down to their underwear, they wade in.

God, it feels nice. The water’s cool and the sun’s clinging to the horizon.

“Just don’t get any water in your mouth,” Sam instructs, then dunks his face and comes up squirting water at Bucky from between the gap in his front teeth, a trick he perfected as a kid. “That arm ain’t gonna rust, right?”

“You asked for this,” Bucky warns. He points a menacing finger and plunges below the surface.

Sam twists as he treads water, trying to see what’s going on down there, searching for a ripple or bubbles of released air. His legs move in twitchy kicks because that’s where he’s expecting Bucky to grab him. But the idiot is playing some kind of psychological game first, making Sam wait a full minute. Two minutes. Three.

He’s opening his mouth to call out Bucky’s name when he breaks the surface. Sam’s ready to swap the concern he was about to form into words into a taunt instead—did Bucky get down there and decide the scariest thing he could do was let Sam’s imagination take over?—until Bucky shakes his head and slicks his hair back. Then the words get caught in Sam’s throat and he just kinda stares.

“There was a really gross fish down there,” Bucky informs him. “Do you guys have eels there? Mighta been an eel. Maybe we should get out.”

“Alrighty, scaredy-cat, let’s get you to shore.”

Bucky propels himself out in front, arms moving in powerful strokes, and Sam’s hand darts out on instinct, fingers closing around Bucky’s hard calf muscle. Bucky jerks and Sam burst into loud laughter.

“Did you think that was an eel? Did you?”

“You’re lucky I…”

I’m lucky you what? Sam wants to ask when Bucky trails off, but he just swims after him.

During their game/possible eel panic (there’s no way it was an eel), they weren’t always fighting the current, so they’ve drifted downstream some. Bucky takes sloppy, sloshing steps out of the water, underwear that might’ve been light grey now dark and plastered to his ass. Sam feels like he’s choked on river water, though his mouth is dry. He lumbers out too and they begin the march back in the direction of the dock and their clothes. The water tickles as it runs down Sam’s legs; must be bugging Bucky too because he plucks his waistband away from his skin before letting it snap back. Clenching his jaw, Sam stops himself from trying to see too much.

This end of the dock is made of old boards before it transitions to pavement farther down, wood smooth on Sam’s feet when he and Bucky haul themselves up, dropping their collected clothes and shoes into a single pile. No point getting dressed until they’re dry, so they sit on the edge of the dock, feet swinging. Feels good. Feels home. They don’t speak until the sun’s set, the sky orange, then grey, then rich, velvety blue.

“You know, don’t you?” Bucky asks softly.

“Know?”

“Yeah, you know. Whenever you don’t know something, you talk and talk—”

“Sometimes I can work through a problem better if I vocalize,” Sam explains.

“But when you do know,” Bucky goes on, ignoring Sam’s input, “you’re quiet.” He looks at Sam. “You’re quiet.”

What else is Sam? Nervous. His skin’s prickling with it, and because even the warm air feels cold when he’s just climbed out of the river. There’s a wet patch spreading around him that he can barely see with evening rapidly deepening into night. He lifts a hand from the dock and sweeps it up his neck, brushing water droplets away.

Without glancing over, he says, “You’re doing that thing you do.”

“What?”

“Staring. That new stare you do.”

“Maybe,” Bucky acknowledges. A bird starts calling, the sound drifting in and away like the sway of a hypnotist’s watch and Bucky’s silent until it’s over. “Maybe I’m staring for the same reason you’re quiet.”

Sam waits. Bucky doesn’t add anything, so Sam turns to look at his face, hung with cool shadows.

“You’re not gonna say it, are you?”

“I thought you would say it,” Bucky argues defensively.

“You’re the one who’s been staring at me like that for a week. You should go first!”

“Please, you don’t even know how I’m staring at you, I only do it when you’re not looking.”

“Do it now then and see what happens,” Sam dares him.

“Fine.”

Just like that, Bucky locks in like Sam’s attention is the only handhold on a sheer cliffside. Vital and stable, a last chance, the one thing around him that wants to help him higher instead of watching him fall. A lot of that’s familiar from his regular hard stare, but then something opens up behind his eyes. Some fragile thing (that might be Bucky’s sense of caution) breaks. Suddenly, Sam’s seeing what Joaquin saw in the news footage and amateur cell phone video. Except he’s seeing it two feet in front of him. It’s intense. It makes the air a little harder to breathe.

Bucky’s lips curve into a smile, then part as he says, “I love—”

Hopefully, he wasn’t going to end that sentence with ‘store-bought cake,’ because Sam can’t really take back his reaction. The finger slipping behind Bucky’s ear as he cradles his face, the mouth sealed to his. Especially that. Thankfully, Bucky kisses him back, just as hard, and then harder.

“Thank god,” Sam pants when they break apart.

“You interrupted me.”

“I got you to stop talking? Guess we’re in my miracle.”

“I’d complain…” Bucky shrugs. “…but your miracle is pretty nice.”

“Not bad, right?”

He sighs and looks out over the water. Bucky pushes up on his fists and sits closer, offering his hand for Sam to interlace their fingers.

“Hey,” Sam prompts when it hits him that it’s super dark outside and they aren’t gonna dry much more like this, “did you book a hotel room again?”

“You kiddin’ me? I spent all my money on that cake.”

Sam laughs.

“Right, well, I guess you need a place to stay tonight then.”

“You know anything nearby?” Bucky asks with a soft smile.

Getting to his feet and bracing to pull Bucky up after him, Sam uses his free hand to motion towards their clothing pile.

“Put your pants on,” he says, “and I’ll see what I can do.”

#my writing #tfatws #tfatws spoilers #The Falcon and the Winter Soldier #CAPTAIN AMERICA AND THE WINTER SOLDIER #Sam Wilson #Bucky Barnes #Joaquin Torres #Sarah Wilson #sambucky #Sam Wilson x Bucky Barnes

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trutrustories · 3 years

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Okay, this will be probably long and with many errors (my english isn´t very good) But I saw several posts here on Lokius tag, talking about this ship as result of gay fetish, and about non existing chemistry and how this ship doesn´t make sense etc… And from what I understood there is tagged Lokius because of genuine interest to understand others point of view, so here is mine: I wil try to explain where my frustration comes from, and how I feel about Lokius, Sylkie, AND representation + some other things which I saw here somewhere. But first of all: I like Sylvie, I don´t hate sylkie shipers, and after so many years reading fan fictions, I don´t mind selfcest – I read weirder things. I have some issues with this ship (the mainlythe fact that it isn´t Lokius), but this is not one of them. Also, I am not about to tell anyone, they shouldn´t ship sylkie.Ship whatever. And I LOVED the show as a whole.

I just want to defend my standpoint, that Lokius does make sense, people shipping it does make sense and whether it will happen or not, (I don´t have my hopes very high, and I learned to be very skeptical in this regard ) it is more than just about crack ship, or fetish. I´m honestly blown away that people are still surprised that this ship became a thing :D First of all, let´s look at some romantic story telling and tropes: I mean the way they introduced them in the first two episodes set the tone for all series and how the heck this isn´t romantic? Somehow there are all these romantic tropes existing in a show. They´re just there. Just chilling between Loki and Mobius and large portion of audience can´t even see them. (and some of those tropes were used for Sylki as well, so you could actually see them side by side)

For example: 1) traveling to the apocalypsis 2) breaking law/rules for the other 3) literally changing for the better thanks to the other 4) arguing like old married couple 5) saying secrets, personal things to the other 6) sharing glances, touches, visibly being happy around each other - in case of Loki happier then we´ve ever seen him before 7) being completely themselfs around each other 8) One knowing everything (even the worst) about other and still accepting him completely 9) teasing, being comfortable and domestic around each other 10) one being literally enthusiastic FAN of the other 11) Mobius defending Loki whenever he has a chance 12) Freaking amnesia trope that they pulled of in the end??? (It could be different Mobius, but point is he suddenly doesn´t know him - and Loki knows more, in contrast with the beggining) 13) the jealousy in ep4 14) Misunderstanding - when Mobius thought Loki betrayed him and Loki (thanks to Ravonna) thought Mobius betrayed him... 15) witnessing death of the other and being absolutely broken afterwards 16) The goodbye hug with romantic music in the backround 17) Saving life of the one (even when it means problems for the other ) - like Mobius saved Loki´s ass at least three times when he was trying to stop others from pruning him. 18) sharing deep conversations about meanings of life, freedom and how it would be fun to make some chaos and ride that fucking jet ski!!! 19) Inspiring the other 20) looking for each other (Mobius didn´t believe for a second, that Loki would die in the Void and the way how in the last minutes of the series Loki run through all places they were together when he was looking for Mobius... and I could go on. Point is, even if they are not planning to make Lokius canon, all these things are used on a daily basis to describe romance in media and they are used here. On top of that it´s just very poetic and cute, that this drama queen and powerful god of Asgard who looked down on people would find his match in someone, who is so quiet, ordinary on the first sight, and basically is just human from 90s, who loves jet skis. Mobius can´t even fight. But is highly inteligent and he also happen to be as good manipulator, such as Loki himself. - That´s why they work together so well. Mobius sees right through him and once Loki understands that, he drops his evil persona. Almost nobody expected to ship it for real. But story itself and chemistry between them just made it probably the most exciting duo in the whole MCU. And I mean it genuinely. Third episode, even though it was beautiful and Sophie was great in it (and is literally dipped in bisexual colors), is the least favorite for a reason. And that reason being, there is no interaction between Loki and Mobius whatsoever. Lot´s of people though that series slowed down a bit. Even when in fact there was more action, then when we watched Loki and Mobius working at the TVA.

(and let´s just talk about evil!Mobius narative for a bit and how some people say he is manipulative and toxic for Loki: show itself explore heavy themes and one of them is in Loki´s line: no one bad is ever truly bad and no one good is ever truly good. And as a theme in a fictional world, it is working as it should, for the story. When Loki and Mobius meet, one of them just killed lots of innocent people and destroyed almost whole city. The other one is a part of fascist organization – and in the beginning of the series they both believe what they´re doing is right. They´re both bad, they´re both good, they´re both broken. And they are changing with the help of the other.) From all reactions I watched - and there was many of them, lots of people actually didn´t see dynamic between Loki and Sylvie as romantic in the third episode. So it´s not like Sylvie and Loki had unequivocally love story right from the start.

The only difference is that lots of people won´t see romantic tropes, when it comes to two men in a mainstream show – show that isn´t primarily about relationships and problems that queer people has to face. Because in super hero story and science fiction we have to warn audience, that they´re about to watch two man in love, right? At this point It´s just frustrating really. There were many M/M dynamics that used similar story line, as for example Lucifer, or X-files, or Bone collectors. - But unlike those M/M pairings, no one was making fun of people for shipping main characters in these shows. But when it comes to two men suddenly you´ll see from all corners of the internet: “why can´t it be just platonic?” “There is not enough platonic relationships” “why can´t two man just be friends?” (They can and they almost ALWAYS are) and “if you think there something romantic between them, you´re delusional” “fetishist“ “And for god´s sake just let them be friends, Loki needs a friend more then....” oh wait, but Sylvie is allowed to kiss him. Sylvie doesn´t have to be just friend. (And I must say, that I love Sylvie, I liked most of the interactions between her and Loki and I think she is a great character ((I hope we learn more about her in the future)) it just doesn´t work for me as well as Loki´s dynamic with Mobius. Maybe partly because of chemistry between actors, partly because combination of characters and they´re personality and also because I had two whole episodes to fall in love with the pair before Sylvie was even introduced.)

First of all: people can be friends and then evolve into lovers. Not only it is common romantic trope, but it is also the most realistic one. And those relationships are usually strongest. second: If people want to see Loki in a platonic friendship so desperately, why can´t it be a woman for a change? They were acting like chaotic siblings for most of the episode three anyway. The age gap aspect is also very funny. Owen is only about 12 years older (That is not that much. But I imagine, some people would get uncomfortable. But If it was man and woman, most of them wouldn´t even blinked. But two men, that has to be somehow automatically son and father figure dynamic) And If you want to dive into age of an actual characters, then good luck with that in a series about gods, variants and time travel. Almost nobody cares about age gap between Lucifer and detective Decker, or Bella and Edward. On top of that, it was heavily implied, that Loki slept with older, silver haired guy in Ragnarok, so it´s not like he would have problem with that.

Different standards are projected in a way how we see romantic dynamics between fictional characters depends on what we are used to, how are we perceiving world around us, what we are expecting to see and ALSO, what we would like to see, that much is true. When people are used to make no differences between heterosexual and homosexual pairing, then everything what happens to the characters is measured with the same meter. (Even though I experienced queerbaiting many times (( Once upon a time, Sherlock, Supernatural, Good Omens – the last one hopefully is not the case, but I guess we´ll see)) I also saw lots of lgbt shows like Queer as folks and Sense8.) And when we are not used to see it the same way, well… then it looks basically like that one comment under Castiel´s “I love you” scene on youtube, that said “what a beautiful friendship”.

If we forget about all that chaotic mess behind the scenes (all those articles and contrary messages) What is happening in a show between Loki and Mobius can be objectively considered romantic and what is happening between Loki and Sylvie in a series can be objectively considered platonic (until the kiss) and vice versa. And then to see comments about how absurd it is to even think they have chemistry, and about gay fetish - it´s hard to swallow. I read posts about absurdity of a ship and how there is absolutely nothing that would suggests romance. Well there is, actually. But whether creators are going to work with it or not, that´s something we can only speculate. They already made Loki officially bisexual. So why should it be so absurd to assume, that there is an actual possibility of romantic subplot between Loki and Mobius? Oh right… it´s Disney and Marvel we are talking about.

So on a subject of bisexuality: Bi people can date whoever they want. But It is a little frustrating, when there is so many heterosexual pairings in the mcu and disney but when there is a promise of lgbt character (speaking of endgame) we get one line about date from a man we´ll never see again. And when there is a promise of lgbt representation you can´t even blink during movie, or you´ll miss it (Star wars, Beauty and the beast). And then Loki said “A bit of both, I suspect the same as you”. And I won´t lie, I was happy. And I think creators made biggest step yet with this one line (which is honestly terrible, that “a bit of both” coming from Loki of all people, is the biggest step forward.) But they played it VERY safe. Obviously, both Loki, and Sylvie are bisexuals, and in three episodes, we had Loki flirting with female flight attendant, Sylvie talking about her relationship with POSTMAN and then they fall for each other. So the only thing that suggests they are really as bi as Lamentis 1 is that little sentence, that can be edited out, or easily overheard. It´s the bare minimum. And I think that frustration with how freaking slowly we´re moving into some progress is understandable. From all those great M/M dynamics I talked about, those, that could make great love story, nothing happened, because too many people “don´t mind gays but don´t need to look at them” or are scared for their children. In 2021.

It is not a fetish to wish for a gay love story in superhero movies/series. (But anyway, I don´t think there is anything bad about it. Some men like to watch lesbian porn, some woman like to read gay porn. AO3 wouldn´t be were it is today, without people reading and writing slash :D – but that has little to do with what we actually see on tv)

I´m not delusional. As much, as I love these two characters together, I know how little chance it has. I´m not delusional. I´m just in the future, old and tired, waiting hundreds of years for at least one of my OTP to finaly become a fucking canon.

#Lokius #loki series #LOKI AND MOBIUS #mobius m mobius #loki

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redxblueihateloveyou · 3 years

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Hey i really love your blog!!! I just plucked the courage to actually send u an ask fhdjhd but GOSH i love your video edits and your gifs and your meta article posts, you're so articulate and you can explain/describe moments in a way that makes me go "oh wow, i cant believe i haven't seen it that way before!!" Haha ANYWAYS i'm just here to say that i completely agree with what all u said, Free creators might do a lil fanservice here and there for the 25 ships that exists within the fandom's circle, but rinharu's storyline is clearly the most romantic one! And i'd argue it's the one closest to being canon esp after part 1, i mean the fact that they put such an explosive emotional outburst right at the end of the second to the last movie means a lot. It's like reinforcing the fact that this series has always been about them, and everything that has happened only happened either because they met or they grew appart and miss eachother. I kinda feel like maybe.. juust maayyybe there's a chance KA wants to make the ship canon, since it's the last movie and they want to end it on a highnote maybe (bcs honestly i think the only reason they've been holding back is purely bcs of the merch sales, since they don't have a problem showing a wholesome lesbian love story in kobayashi maid dragon) butt i could be wrong, maybe i'm just overly optimistic and delusional, they could somehow ruin it and give an ending that panders to all the ships again 😅🥲, but at least there's a clear-cut guarantee that part 2 would dedicate a large portion of it fixing rin and haru's fight!!! Oohh how can i wait another 6 months now!!😭😭 (sorry for the long ask btw!! 🙏🙇‍♀️🙇‍♀️)

OMG thank you so so much!! For watching my vids too! ❤️❤️❤️ It really means a lot to me! Ahhhh wow, thats the longest ask I've ever recieved! 😍 I'm trying to explain myself so hard lol I'm glad its appreciated, bc sometimes I'm like "I don't fucking know how to say this" xD

Well, you know me, I only care for one ship, which is the only one with confirmed info that they're both actually gay and have mutual feelings for each other. There are some other ships in free! I'm fine with (those do not include Rin or Haru in them xD), but I just mostly don't care, bc after reading all the stuff, you can see that in some of those to one the other one is actually like his second option, which I just do not like. Others I just don't even see, bc again to me who witnessed great close male friendships and having two sisters who I'm very close to, I just do not see anything romantic in that.

It's not just Free! tbh, it's like any sports anime these days. They see two guys walking together, it's a ship. And like no one cares if they're just bros. Like I'd get i they did some fanservice fanservice, but like I never saw anyone in Free! crossing the line the way rinharu do. I can without thinking much name you 10 rh moments that no matter how hard you think can't be explain as being bros, but can't name one when it comes to others. I just find some ppl shipping everyone with everyone weird sometimes. It's like western fans see like some eastern actors or singers slap each other ass lovingly and they're like "oh they're fucking" I'm like "yeah, ofc all 500 of them, you're absolutely right". And Free! doesn't do anything even like that, I just do not get sometimes like what moment even brought on some ships. I'm genuinely confused. Albert and Haru? You fucking fell from a sakura tree or smth? I'm...

I'm especially confused when it comes to guys, whose character type is who I call "I only want this one and if I can't have it, then I'm ok" xD. It just always surprised me, when they try to pair up them with someone else, it's like a complete ooc.

I'm also not into this whole "well, if there are gays in this anime, than everyone there is gay". I'm like... huh. It's like with KNB and MDZS I had same feeling. It's like you have already couples there who are canon/borderline canon, why do you need another 10 who don't even interact or just don't even go there? I'm always so confused in those situations. Or like wangxian is married and some are like "no, I actually don't like it, let me write a fic when they're with other ppl". Lan Zhan... being in love or having sex with someone else? Yeah, that's not Lan Zhan, dude, you're writing about someone else. Might as well change the name at this point.

But last time I went to twitter someone had a thread about how if they make s4 of Free! they should mainly explore there Momo's angst (and no, it wasn't a joke), so I'm already like, I'm just.. nothing will surprise me no more. But I'm forever gonna be confused.

Yeah, I eel you about "going there". I mean seeing part of it, it just kinda cemented my confusion, bc I do not get how it can be considered platonic. We were just discussing since yesterday with @freeseafirefly how I now even more perplexed and do not understand how they will resolve it without going into relationship territory. It's just our point here is that like... no one forced them to go there (I mean its not like this whole fandom has some wild expectations or anything already), we were waiting or our usual friendship and swimming and maybe tiny conflict about struggles of pro-careers and some usual rh implications (maybe all the rh gay in dramas as always). Not some pure fanfiction coming to life here haha.

Like why I'm laughing is bc I twice used in my "fics" bringing up him leaving Haru as a force to push the confession, bc there's no way if he adresses this it won't lead to this. And now we not only have this (bc Haru just basically layed it out there), but an actual scene of him playing on their feelings for each other and a literal image of Rin leaving and "taking Haru's heart with him" to the point when he's for the first time in his life openly crying on the ground. And it's not like this scene can be interpreted as anything else, the whole fandom talks same, bc the whole fight was just about them, what Haru said was just about them, there's a literal boom of his heart getting out of his chest, before he falls and now he's heartless.

So our question is like... why go there?

It's like some say that they might still resolve it with "they're special to each other" and swimming, but still like we already knew that, there was no reason to go that far is what I'm saying. And to think that it was planned since forever giving the clues is like... ???

The whole spoon theme also throw me on the loop because like, lets be honest, it's wedding themed. And that part of the interview about part 2 there also made me go...?????? Because I mean, huh?

This is just all in all very interesting turn of events to say the least. I do not see the point of all of this if its not what I think it is, esp after seeing tweets like "even I see a rh wedding and I'm mh T_T". It's just all very unsubtle, that's why we're confused.

Like who knows, maybe we'll really by some magic turn of events get lucky and they really decided that since its the ending, it's okay to go for it. But I also don't wanna to hype myself much, I'm already really happy with it, just bc again, this scene already proves all of my points.

And yeah, I'm sure they'll pander to everyone, bc it's the end and etc and we have to handle everything on the good note and there's a whole line of ppl who's obsessed with us, esp with Haru xD, but like bromance pandering and romance pandering are different things, you know *wiggles eyebrows* and u know who always gets the second one.

#answered #a-girl-with-a-ponytail #rinharu #harurin #free! the final stroke #free!#free #rin matsuoka #haruka nanase

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iamnotparticularlyproud · 3 years

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PPB Square: Kink Discovery | @peterparkerbingo

word count: 2.7k rating: mature warnings: none ao3 link: https://bit.ly/3xpiBdx

Summary: Bucky and Peter have been together for a while, but Peter can’t bring himself to talk to his boyfriend about how their sex life is a bit - uh, well, boring. Instead, Peter searches Bucky’s laptop while he isn’t home for any sign of kink whatsoever. To say it doesn’t go as he planned would be an understatement.

Bucky’s amazing. So, so amazing, and Peter could go on about it for days - about his silly nicknames, the way he makes the Brooklyn drawl sound adorable, his unexpected dorkiness and razor sharp wit, how his hands are so calloused but he holds Peter so softly--

Days, Peter could come up with these for days.

So, it’s not like there’s anything he wishes he could change about their relationship. It’s - they’re - perfect, everything’s been perfect. Bucky’s just so nice, and after Beck, Peter wasn’t sure he’d ever be in a relationship again, let alone one so - so good. So healthy, and so supportive.

It’s just--

Their sex is so vanilla. Painfully vanilla. The most unconventional Bucky gets is with his dirty talk, and, yeah, Peter loves how his boyfriend will call him his sweet lil boy, and tell Peter how good he takes a thick cock in his tight ass, but that's about as far as Bucky ever goes.

And that - that isn’t a bad thing, Peter knows that, it’s just. Boring, sometimes, is all.

Peter wishes he could talk to Bucky about it, because the man always stresses communication and talking problems out, but it’s just so embarrassing. Peter’s just thinking about it and he’s flushed, so how could he say the word kink out loud?

He can’t. He really, really can’t.

So Peter does the only other thing he can think to do.

He steals Bucky’s laptop and rummages for any signs of kink - anything to suggest his boyfriend isn’t as vanilla as it seems. Peter knows he doesn’t have long - Bucky’s out getting takeout from their favorite Thai place, and it isn’t too far - so he doesn’t waste time as he searches all the keywords he can think of in Bucky’s unorganized folders, his internet history that’s never been cleared, the hard drive Peter got him because he complained about memory but Peter was 99% sure he never touched - he was right - and then tries his luck with the recycle bin, but--

There’s not just no sign of kink.

There’s nothing. There’s no porn at all.

Peter’s mind is blown. He hadn’t even considered that he wouldn’t find porn, he thought that everyone watched porn - and unless Bucky knew how to delete specific pages from his browser history, which Peter heavily doubts, because, c'mon - but apparently, Bucky doesn’t.

He considers that, maybe, since Bucky is nearly a decade older than him, he consumes his porn in a different way. Maybe physical movies or, godforbid, magazines.

Peter’s considering looking through Bucky’s drawers and closets until he finds proof of pornography consumption, but then someone’s clearing their throat behind him.

“Jesus, how do you--” Peter exclaims, because it’s nowhere near the first time this six foot hunk of a man has snuck up on him. Then, he glances at the clunky computer in his lap that is obviously not his, and back at Bucky, who’s looking at the laptop, and then at Peter.

“What’re you doin’ with my computer?”

Peter panics, not because Bucky seems upset, because he doesn’t, just - confused, but it’s such a weird thing to be doing, and he can’t lie at all, and this isn’t--

“Does that say porn?” Bucky asks, suddenly leaning over Peter’s shoulder, and he just sounds amused, but Peter goes on the defensive anyway.

“I-It’s just, you never, and I - this isn’t me wanting you to change, or--”

Bucky moves quickly when Peter starts that familiar stress-ramble; he circles around the couch, puts the plastic bag filled with food down on the coffee table and sits next to him, wrapping an arm around his back and shushing him kindly.

“Slow down, doll.” Bucky smiles, sincerity etched in his crow’s feet, “Can’t understand you when you’re talkin’ too fast, remember?”

Peter stops. He nods, then he takes a breath. When he lets it go, Bucky tells him to take a deeper one, so he does, and as he breathes it out, he feels the alarm fade.

Not completely, though. Not with the evidence of his snooping in his lap.

With a glance back at where porn is still typed out in the recycle bin’s search bar and a chuckle, Bucky asks, almost laughing, “What were you doin’, sweetheart?”

Peter doesn’t expect it, but the fight drains from his body. It’s him accepting his fate, he realizes belatedly.

“I, uh,” Peter pauses, because it’s still so difficult to say the words, “was looking for porn.”

Bucky laughs for real this time, and Peter closes his eyes with a sigh. That wasn’t what he meant to say, at all.

“No - I was looking for y-your porn, like, what you watch,” Peter explains, and Bucky is still laughing, but he waves a hand.

“Yeah, I got that.” He says, making an effort to curb his laughter, “Why, though?”

Peter bites his lip. "Do you watch porn?”

He was scared that meeting Bucky’s question with a question would frustrate the man, but he only looks more amused.

“Why would I?”

Huh?

“What?”

“Why would I watch porn?” Bucky sounds genuinely confused, “We have sex almost everyday.”

Almost, Peter nearly stresses, but catches himself. Obviously, he’s dramatically misread the situation.

“Y-Yeah, but,” Peter tries to come up with something, anything, “like, maybe, before we dated?”

“I know it’s kinda old, but I got the thing not too long before we met, actually.”

That bit of information also sends Peter reeling, and he almost argues about it - because the laptop isn’t 'kinda old,' it’s ancient - but Bucky speaks before he does.

“Were you lookin’ for the kinda porn I’m into?”

Peter nearly sags with relief. How does he always manage to get it before Peter has to explain?

“Yeah.”

Bucky’s smile shifts, and it’s - he likes that, Peter notices, and, it’s - it's sexual.

“What, did you wanna tease me?” Bucky licks his lips, “Rile me up?”

Oh. That works, and it’s pretty true, even. Peter can work with that.

He nods. Bucky continues, and he looks so pleased.

“It’s you, sugar,” Bucky brings his hand to Peter’s cheek, and his hold is so gentle, but the calluses are rough, and it’s such a satisfying dichotomy that Peter can’t help but lean into it, “You get me wild.”

If only. Peter’s never seen him be wild.

But he couldn’t say that. Not when Bucky sounds like he absolutely means it, and it makes Peter’s heart flutter.

Peter has been a bit weird lately.

Well, Peter is always a bit weird, but it’s a part of his charm. He’s been acting extra weird lately, Bucky’s noticed, and while it’s just as endearing, it’s confusing, too.

He almost calls Peter out on it after he’s found him searching for porn on his computer - more than he had already, anyway - but he just gets so tense when Bucky tries to make him really talk about something. He doesn’t want to bring up that energy - not so late, anyway.

So Bucky plans to talk to him about it tomorrow.

And Peter thwarts that plan as soon as they wake up. Usually, he’s eager to spend the last day of their shared weekend off together, but before they’ve even had their coffee, Peter’s rushing out the door with the excuse of meeting up with his college friends at a cafe. Not too long later he texted they were going to do an impromptu study group for an upcoming quiz, then, after five hours, texted him they were going to hang out more.

Bucky tries not to be suspicious of or retaliatory to Peter even more than he’s learned to be with his partners, because the kid’s not had a great track record with boyfriends, to say the least, but this is ridiculous. When he’s been gone for a whole seven hours, under the guise of shoddy excuses, Bucky decides his curiosity needs to be sated more than Peter needs to be coddled, and his new plan is to snoop into Peter’s computer like the kid tried with him. Obviously, if he assumed Bucky would have porn on his laptop, Peter’s got some on his.

Bucky doesn’t plan to look until Peter texts that he’s on his way home, though. He thinks it’ll be funny if the kid finds himself where Bucky stood last night.

So, after Peter texted that he’s omw, Bucky pulls out his computer. It’s so sleek, thin and light, yet wide, and he hates using it, but he’s dying to know. How much porn could Peter possibly watch, considering how much they have sex, and how busy he’s kept as a student and part-time employee?

Not very much, Bucky assumes.

And holy fuck is he wrong.

He takes a wild guess and searches porn in the convenient - but too bulky, and ugly - search engine in the toolbar, and a stupidly obviously labeled folder, not porn don’t look, comes right up. There’s several subfolders - distinguishing the videos by kink, dear God - and dozens of videos in most of them, over a hundred in a few.

What the fuck.

Bucky’s surprised - Jesus Christ, so surprised - at so many things, but - where the fuck does Peter find the time to watch so much porn? What does it mean that he’s amassed such a collection? How has Bucky never walked in on him watching it? Is there a way to see how many hours of it there are, because it’s a stupidly high amount, definitely--

Bucky takes a breath. He leans back, too, because the little previews are too much to look at, and he takes a moment to appreciate just how understandable it was that Peter was so confused yesterday. It must be unthinkable, to not watch porn, to him. But - Peter’s never even mentioned porn before, not in the half-a-year they’ve been dating, so what was so different about yesterday?

The question has Bucky sitting back up, ready to delve deeper. He starts by reading the names of the folders closer, finding it’s not just organized by kink, but by his favorite pornstars, too. The kid’s got several, all with typical pornstar names, and according to the previews, he’s got a type for big and buff. Checks out.

With another deep, grounding breath, Bucky clicks on the folder name Ultimate Favorites. It’s only got thirteen videos in it, but all the titles are a fuckin’ doozy. It’s shit like Small Twink Fucked Hard, and Daddy Pounds His Boy Until He Cries, and - Jesus fuck - Dom Verbally Abuses Sub While Anally Abusing Him.

Bucky’s nauseous just reading that last one. He never would’ve guessed Peter was into such rough sex. Not just because the kid gets all wide-eyed and stuttery whenever sex is even mentioned, but because Peter’s just so - soft. In all the ways a person can be, really.

Bucky doesn’t know how to reconcile what he knows Peter to be like with this new information about him. He distantly knows that he doesn’t have to - that Peter’s kinks don't reflect anything about his personality, and acting like they do is only reductive - but the instinct is so strong, he can’t help but fruitlessly try.

Before he can reconsider, Bucky’s clicking on one of the more mildly titled videos - not that any of them are mild at all - just to understand better what Peter’s so into.

The video loads almost immediately, and it doesn’t waste time with any kind of introduction - there’s suddenly two men on the screen, their size difference resembling Bucky and Peter’s to a ridiculous degree, and the larger one pushes the smaller onto a bed carelessly before climbing on top of him. It’s a bunch of shoving and aggressive groping along with cruel words and name calling, and Bucky’s never been more turned off in his life. He can’t believe this porno is among Peter’s favorites - his boyfriend’s never once let on that this is the kind of sex he’s into.

While he’s staring, Bucky’s on screen lookalike finally quitting with the rough teasing and moving onto the brutal fucking, he hears Peter enter his apartment. Bucky doesn’t mute the video, and Peter’s light footsteps stop immediately. Bucky can just see the look on his face - that caught-in-the-headlights one that makes Peter look more like a deer than Bucky thought a person could - and he stifles a laugh as the steps pick back up, this time much more hesitant. When Peter’s a good foot into the living room, Bucky turns around, acting as if he hadn’t heard him coming in.

With the computer filling the room with sounds of slapping and exaggerated moans, Bucky greets, struggling to keep a smirk off his face, “Hi, honey. How was your day?”

Peter doesn’t answer him and - yep, there’s that look. Instead, he gapes like a fish at where his computer is steadied on Bucky’s lap, eyes wide and frantic.

“Why’d you never mention this, doll?” Bucky asks, dropping the act as Peter keeps looking like disaster is seconds away. He pauses the video and sets the laptop to the side, motioning for Peter to join him on the couch.

Peter does join him, albeit uncertain and his eyes still trained on the graphic image on the computer screen. He’s quiet as he sits as far as he can from Bucky.

“I--” Peter starts, gaze transfixed on the laptop. “Can you - close that?”

Bucky does. Peter keeps looking at it.

“You okay?” Bucky asks, chuckling.

Peter finally looks at him. He seems scared, Bucky realizes. He closes a bit of the distance between them, leaving some incase Peter feels suffocated, and puts a hand on the back of his neck, a touch Peter always leans into.

He does this time, too. He relaxes some, and Bucky prompts, “Were you scared to tell me?”

Peter relaxes even more, his shoulders falling. He nods. “I know you probably don’t care--”

Bucky interrupts to confirm with a nod of his own, “I don’t.”

“But it’s just--” Peter huffs, eyebrows furrowing, “Embarrassing.”

Bucky nods more. “It doesn’t change how I think about you.” He reassures Peter, “At all.”

“That's good.” Peter breathes, and Bucky can’t help but laugh softly. “I was starting to think it would gross you out.”

It kinda does, but Bucky doesn’t say that. It isn’t important how the porn he’s into makes Bucky feel.

“No, baby. It doesn’t.”

Peter leans into his side, and Bucky shifts to embrace him. Silence attempts to settle around them, but Bucky can’t help his need to tease.

“So… where’d you find the time to make such a collection?”

Peter cringes. “I, uh, started it years ago.”

Bucky raises his eyebrows. He doesn’t know why he didn’t assume that - it’s a seriously massive collection - but thinking of how far back years suggests, and how Peter is just twenty-two, he can’t help but ask for clarification.

“How many years you talkin’?”

“Uhh…” Peter trails off, seeming to really think about it. Bucky can see the moment he finds the answer, and his expression closes. “...several.”

Bucky decides to wager a guess. He doesn’t really know why he wants to know this answer, but he thinks it might help him understand just how into kink Peter is.

“Sixteen?”

Peter whines. “Jamie.”

Bucky’s eyes widen. “Fifteen?”

Peter pulls away a bit to cover his face with his hands, and he whines unintelligibly this time.

“Christ, it wasn’t younger than thirteen, was it?”

Peter shakes his head. “N-No, I--” His words are muffled by his palms, “I was fourteen.”

Bucky breathes a sigh of relief. Peter can’t lie for shit, so Bucky can tell he isn’t just appeasing him.

Then it hits him just how long Peter’s been fantasizing about this kind of sex.

“You’re really into this stuff, huh?”

Peter burrows further into his hands. Bucky rubs his back, and considers his next words carefully.

“If you want, we could explore some of the tamer stuff you have in there.”

Peter drops his hands from his face and he looks excited for all of two seconds. Then, his expression falls. “None of it’s… tame. I mean, I guess--” Peter cuts himself off to cough, wincing as he tries to get the words out, “uh, im-impact play isn’t, you know, hardcore, I guess.”

“Spanking and stuff?”

“...and stuff.” Peter says with a flush.

“We’ll start with spanking,” Bucky laughs, adding just in case, “if you want to.”

But it wasn’t necessary, because Peter brightens immediately.

“Really?”

“Yeah, really.”

Peter smiles wide, and Bucky can’t help but return it with one of his own.

#peterparkerbingo2021 #winterspider #peter parker #bucky barnes #peter parker x bucky barnes #peter x bucky #nff #im pretty sure no warnings anyway #if u think i should add one jus tell me #for some reason i feel the need to defend myself for making bucky not. like. good with technology #bc thats not canon #but i dont have a reason i just think its funny #also for some reason im really embarrassed to post this #uhhhh #my writing

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morgana-ren · 3 years

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if you'd be so inclined my dear, what are your thoughts on how Tomura's character has developed over the series' timeline? -☼

So, I think Horikoshi did an excellent job at character development- especially considering that he's a villain (not the focal point of the series) and he really didn't have to do that. He easily could have kept Tomura an impudent little man-child, but he didn't, and I truly appreciate that.

So, in season one, we get his debut as USJ, and it became quickly apparent that he was... disorganized. Intelligent and dangerous, clearly, but not quite there yet. He essentially threw money at a pack of sell-sword villains, had a basic plan for how he wanted things to go, and relied on his Nomu to do the majority of his work for him. He didn't even consider variables and other things he couldn't have foreseen- he took Master at his word and just went for it.

He makes a multitude of mistakes during this attack, and it's part of why he fails so hard. Underestimates the kids simply because they're young, not factoring in that these are to be the nations top heroes. Even young, each one is sporting a power that puts them at the top of the class and above the rest of the nation. He basically goes "Fuck it, just scatter them and have these no-name villains kill them. No way that could go wrong." not considering that these children have been learning from the best of the best and are clearly already intelligent of their own accord.

He doesn't take into account that these heroes actually care for these kids and that feeling responsible for them works in their favor as opposed to being a detriment. They fight harder and take more abuse to keep them protected (Aizawa getting absolutely demolished but still persisting to defend the children even as he bleeds to death with a broken body.)

The intel wasn't wrong, per se, but he took it at face value, not even bothering to consider that All Might would push far past his limit to keep these kids safe. For someone as obsessed with felling All Might, he certainly didn't really know a thing about him. His genuine goodness and character would not allow him to fail when their lives were on the line. And then there's the matter of Midoriya, and while Tomura had no way of knowing that he's inherited All Might's power, he should have been able to account for wild cards like that from valiant children dedicated to heroism.

More under the cut because I’m just rambling.

I think this defeat humbles him. For most of his life, things have gone his way because of who is backing him and because he is extremely dangerous with a powerful quirk- this teaches him that raw strength and basic strategy won't be enough.

He watches Stain take the country by storm, and he can't understand it. Doesn't get what the big deal is- he believes he and Stain are mostly cut from the same cloth because of their penchant for violence and murdering heroes, totally blind to the convictions behind Stain's actions. He's incapable of thinking outside of his own view points, and it cripples him. These are his first few steps outside of his own comfort zone and where he begins to grow.

He's forced to consider not what he wants, but why. He resists this every step of the way, but ultimately realizes that paying off little bastard villains to work in his name isn't enough. He needs players under his command that will fight for more than money- and sell swords are loyal to nothing but that. He needs to find a conviction (even as he ends up stealing the mask of one and using it as a facade at first) that others can relate to and be passionate about.

So he does.

He steals Stain's ideology for his own and uses it to recruit some of his top members- even if he is a right little bastard about it at first. While he throws a tizzy fit because they aren't "perfect" (his standards are very high despite the fact that he's arguably not a very effective leader) but eventually ends up utilizing them regardless.

It's around here that he starts sharpening his instincts and learns what it is to be a true leader. He learns he cannot casually throw around his pawns because ultimately, he cannot win this war by himself. 'The enemy of my enemy is my friend' and while he isn't as enchanted with Stain's entire gimmick as his comrades are, he still wields it effectively.

He's still learning, however, as we learn when he takes Bakugo. Had he gone to the effort to get to know a single thing about him, he would have learned very quickly that trying to recruit him would come up completely pointless. He just saw untamed anger and unrestrained violence bordering on unhinged and thought "Ah yes, he's powerful and very much like me- he'll do nicely" and put together a whole plan to kidnap him. I think the vanguard's success in capturing him shows Tomura just how useful it is to have clever little birds under your command, and that sticks with him.

Losing his Master, like AFO says, forces him to become his own man. He loses the cushy abode he'd had for most of his life, loses many of the benefits afforded to him by being AFO's protege. He and his ragtag team of villains live in squalor, almost entirely destitute, and are forced to survive- but they stay loyal, and that means something to him. I think it’s around here where he actually begins to care about them.

We see how he reacts to Magne’s death. I don’t think for one second he aided in destroying Overhaul simply because he was a threat. If that was the case, he would have stopped once he was arrested. He risks everything to get vengeance. Cuts his limbs off and renders him completely helpless as payment for what he did to Compress and to avenge Magne’s wrongful death.

Over the course of everything, he’s become more patient, more cunning, more dangerous. He’s learning quickly from his mistakes, how to command his ranks in a respectful, effective way, and how to keep them safe. He learns their strengths and weaknesses, and while he’s still a bit thorny, it’s very apparent he does care for them. He’s on his own now, and knows he needs greater power, greater numbers to achieve his goals. He is ruthlessly ambitious, willing to endure ungodly amounts of pain to meet his ends.

So now we have this season (which I haven’t actually watched, as I’m just waiting for disappointment because I fucking know Bones won’t do him justice) and he’s seeking out both Gigantomachia, a former ally, and the PLF. Both things that could be of great value to him. His leadership skills and ability to command will be put to the test, but so will his endurance, his willpower, and everything else. This is the beginning of him as a truly devastating threat.

He’s growing into the villain I think he deserves to be. He’s facing down the very bones that comprise him and learning why he is the way he is. What his convictions really are and how far he’s willing to go to achieve his goals. HIs past, his life as he knows it, what needs to be done to put a pretty little ribbon on everything. He is, in a way, shedding like a snake- ridding himself of weaknesses, growing into his strengths, and evolving into a more capable predator.

If you ask me, realistically, I think Shigaraki would actually win. When it’s all said and done, I think his arc is far more compelling than any of the heroes or their children. I think he has more drive, more wit, more raw power and more reasons to keep fighting. A lot of the kids, while cute and the main characters, are quite hollow. But over the course of all these seasons, we get to watch Tomura’s metamorphosis and his evolution into a purer, undiluted evil. He transforms into something truly sinister- a literal manifestation of all of the flaws and pitfalls of society and hero culture as it exists. He is undeniable proof of the toxicity and that the way things are cannot be allowed to stand, and the fact that so many people resonate with him and follow him loyally should be the ultimate clue-in.

I think if the heroes weren’t blinded, they would look at Shigaraki and his league and consider it. Wonder if, just for a moment, there was something there that they should pay attention to. A cry that they should hear rather than be willing deaf to. But they don’t.

Gran Torino is a prime example of this. So are all the other so called ‘heroes’. Calling him evil. Underestimating him. Considering him someone who just woke up one day and decided ‘I don’t like this so I’m going to kill a lot of people’. You’d think that they’d recognize that a drive like his does not come from nothing. If they sat down, shut the fuck up and listened for ten seconds, maybe they wouldn’t be dying by the dozens.

I’m not saying that they should allow him to continue to trample the world and kill at will. But what I am saying is that part of how they’re fighting him and how they’re viewing this in terms of black and white and good versus evil is exactly the fucking problem, and it’s that kind of bullshit that birthed the villain we know as Tomura Shigaraki to begin with.

#Shigaraki #Tomura Shigaraki #just my thoughts on it #Thank you for the question anon!#Morgana and friends

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yuyupowers · 3 years

Text

aristocrat!yunho

aristocrat!yunho x fem!reader

genre: fluff, angst

trigger warning(s): description of an anxiety attack, brief description of death, memory loss. let me know if there’s anything else!

author’s note: i swear this wasn’t supposed to be this long sdkjflds

none of the pictures are mine!

for reference, i’m using british peerage (hierarchy). there are five ranks: baron, viscount, earl (count), marquess, and duke - the highest being duke, and the lowest, baron.

eldest son of a duke

okay, so

among nobility, the jeon family are well respect but considered to be a bit,,,eccentric

they adhere to all the social expectations expected amongst nobles, but their attitude towards non-nobility is what sets them apart

though most noble families are polite when interacting with non-nobility, they generally try to keep their distance; avoid their company, if possible

not the jeong’s

it wasn’t unusual to see duchess jeong knitting in her tea room with maids, merchant’s wives, or whoever else wanted to come

to see gunho running around with his friends, a pack of street urchins, low, and middle class children

to see yunho in the market helping one of the many older couples haul their cart into place

his family had managed to find the delicate balance of being “normal” enough not to suffer social ostracization, yet “odd” enough for people to dismiss their “peculiar actions” as “typical jeong behaviour”

now, onto the loml yunho

perfect gentleman pt. 2

extremely charming and a great conversationalist

no matter how awkward or shy the other party may be, yunho has this way to draw them out of their shell

(just ask mingi)

excels physical and hands-on activities (i.e. hunting, horseback riding, swordsmanship, etc,,,)

average in terms of book smarts

so while wasn’t about to lead the next technological revolution, he wasn’t “stupid” either

rather, i’d argue that yunho’s brilliant in non-traditional ways

his quick wit and ability to think on his feet is part of his charm

but his greatest strengths are his observational skills and emotional intelligence

able to discern people’s emotional state easily and quickly

he’s someone who’s kind, bright, and genuinely cares about other people’s problems (sometimes a little too much)

a natural leader - people tend to flock towards him

between him and mingi (who despite not acting like it, is extremely book smart), they’ve got all bases covered

(+ yunho’s willingness in using unconventional methods to gather information)

that’s actually how he met you

or rather, “found” seems more appropriate

see, he has an excellent rapport with the street children

being six foot one and offering shoulder rides does wonders

and because he wants to stay updated on what problems the people around him are dealing with, he gets the children to “report” to him if they find or hear anything unusual

(the children are more than eager to play spy, especially when there’s candy involved)

one day while taking a stroll, one of his kids ran up to him totally out of breath

he wheezed something about a “mysterious lady” before grabbing yunho’s hand and dragging leading him to an alley quite far away

to say he was surprised was an understatement

most of the time, his kids brought amusing but mostly useless information to him

(even if he is more than content listening about the cute squirrel they fed earlier that day)

usually they didn’t lead him to an unconscious woman lying in the middle of an empty alley

(yes, that’s you)

hurrying to your side, he drops down and checks to see if you’re alive

other than being unconscious and getting some dirt in your hair and on your clothes, you seemed to be okay

gingerly scooping you into his arms, he tells the little boy to fetch the doctor and bring him to the jeong manor

fast forward a couple hours and you’re roused from your unconscious state by the sharp smell of ammonia mixed with lavender

blearily, you rub your eyes and blink once, twice, before your vision finally clears

then panic

you don’t recognize where you are or the two faces that hover by your bedside

sensing your anxiety, yunho smiles warmly speaks in a soothing tone

“hey, hey, it’s okay, you’re in a safe place. my name’s yunho and this is dr. adley. i found you unconscious in an alley.”

and though you’re very confused and still mildly unnerved, you can tell this yunho guy is genuine

“,,,okay.”

so you settle into the (extremely comfortable) four poster bed and let the doctor examine you

except now it’s time for panic pt.2, but ten times worse because why the hell can’t you remember anything?!

you can’t even remember your own g*d damned name !!

to make things worse, there doesn’t seem to be a reason why you can’t remember anything

no bumps or injuries anywhere on your body

and chances of a robbery gone wrong, a kidnapping, or a failed assassination attempt were very unlikely since you were dressed in commoner’s clothes

disquieted by your alarm and the doctor’s confusion, yunho slips out of the room and returns after several minutes

the doctor, offering apologies to both you and yunho, says he has no idea what’s wrong or what could’ve happened to you

all he can suggest is to rest and hope that your memories eventually come back to you

your burry your face into your hands, a whirlwind of frustration, confusion, and fear brewing in you

apparently nobody, including yourself:

knows who you are,

where you came from,

why you were unconscious,

and why you lost your memories

to top it off, you have no money

…

just when you were about to idk,,,scream and/or punch something-

you feel two large hands engulfing yours, lowering them from your face

taking a seat on the edge of bed, yunho offers a faint smile as he idly traces lines from your wrists to your fingertips

a surprisingly soothing gesture

“,,,i know you’re overwhelmed right now, but please don’t feel as if you have to do this on your own. i talked to my mum and dad; you can stay here until either someone finds you or your memories return. in the meantime, we’ll help you out as much as we can, yeah?”

and though you’re in no position to argue, your first instinct is to decline because though you’re amnesiatic, you still have common sense

what kind of family, wealthy or not (actually, especially wealthy), lets a complete stranger stay in their house?

do these people have no sense of danger?

but yunho is as stubborn as he is kind, and this was how you ended up staying with the jeong’s

(you insist on working to earn your stay, much to yunho’s dismay. in his head, unless it helped in recovering their memories or, unfortunately, was necessary for survival, who would make an amnesiac work?)

the first couple of days were awkward

duke and duchess jeong had briefed everyone in the manor about your situation, but when making casual conversation, lapses in memory and uncomfortable silences were inevitable

“oh, i adore this purple! hey, what’s your favourite colour?”

“,,,i uh,,, don’t know.”

“,,,i’m so sorry-”

but awkward has never a problem for yunho, and you quickly grew fond of the gentle giant

“since we don’t know your name, can i call you little sun? since i found you on a sunny day and you’re little-”

“yunho, not everyone can be six feet tall”

“six one, actually”

“,,,”

true to his word, he does his best to help you recover your memories

roped mingi into helping

when you finished your tasks for the day, he’d bring you to all sorts of places, trying all sorts of things

on a hunting trip with yungi, you discovered that: a) you’re proficient in horseback riding, b) you have astounding aim, and c) you’re surprisingly agile

yunho, who’s always been penchant towards athleticism, was delighted to have someone to compete with

mingi just grumbled. sure he was clumsy, but how did someone with no memory beat him?

while helping the gardener, you found out that you have a rather extensive knowledge of flora

yunho jokingly (kinda) suggested that maybe you were a huntress

mingi bombarded you with questions and quizzes about plants

find out what kind of plant you are by decorating your dream room

hoping that you’d run into someone or somewhere familiar, yunho would take on walks all over the city

during your walks, you learned that you preferred nighttime (while he preferred the day), that you found solace in being alone (while he preferred company), that you liked sweet things (while he preferred chips)

a month,

two,

six months passed liked this

you made progress, but you couldn’t stop the bitterness from bubbling in your chest; negativity spreading through your veins like toxin

sure, you consider your favourite colour to be a precious memory in its own right

but who cares about what your favourite colour is when you can’t remember your own name?

you were vexed by the fact that, at this point, you know more about yunho than yourself

even if learning about him made your heart flutter

just a little

and the nightmares

the nightmares

they drove you crazy

you never remembered what you’d dream of, but every night, without fail, you’d wake with tear stained cheeks and sweat soaked clothes

tonight was particularly bad

normally, when you woke, you’d force yourself to take several deep, calming breaths until your breathing evened, grab a glass of water, then crawl back to bed

today, you couldn’t breathe

no matter what or how hard you tried, your heart wouldn’t stop pummeling against your ribcage;

your blood wouldn’t stop rushing between your ears, creating a cacophony no one else could hear;

wave after wave of nausea would slam into your gut

your vision’s blurring

oh god

you’re gonna pass out

you’re gonna pass out and forget the memories you worked so hard to remember and all the memories you made and you’re gonna forget yunho and mingi and-

suddenly, much like the first day, two large hands engulf your own, idly tracing lines from your wrist to your fingertips

“little sun, it’s me, yunho. your yunho. focus on my hands and voice, yeah? i’m right here.”

he continues to murmur sweet nothings until finally, finally, your heart settles back in your chest, your breathing levels, and your vision clears enough to see yunho

your yunho

and in this state, one look at his kind eyes is enough for the tears you’ve been holding in all this time to spill over

because though you cry in your sleep, you never let yourself cry when you’re awake

too focused on chores, too focused on remembering, too focused on trying to get some semblance of control over this uncontrollable situation

without a word, he pulls you into his chest and runs his fingers through your sweaty hair, offering the sound of his heartbeat to anchor you back to this four poster bed when you were ready

but g*d, does it break his heart to see you cry

he expected to hear you wail, to take the brunt of your fists as you pound his chest

but he hears nothing

instead, he feels your tears soak his shirt, feels how you tremble in his arms

and that is so much worse.

it takes long minute for you to stop crying, and another for you to feel composed enough to detach yourself from yunho’s (now soggy) chest

you’re sure you look awful

puffy eyes, blotchy cheeks, and a runny nose

(and you feel embarrassed that yunho witnessed your breakdown)

but he thumbs away the remaining tears from your cheeks and murmurs that he’ll be right back, returning with tissues and a glass of water

and a new shirt

he hands you the glass of water, tosses your used tissues in the garbage, and climbs underneath your (technically his) covers, patting the space beside him

when you too find refuge in the warm blankets, he pulls you back into his chest

his arm acts as your pillow as he kisses the crown of your head, murmuring into your hair

“wanna talk about it?”

it takes you several moments, but you eventually tell him about the negativity seeping into every inch of skin

the nightmares you never recall keeping you up at night

the irrational feeling of stupidity because you can’t remember who you are

yunho silently, attentively listens to you as you spill your heart

and if he hadn’t pulled you so close, you might’ve seen the weariness in his usually carefree features

the conflict and hollowness brewing in his normally inviting eyes

but by the time you finished talking and pulled back, the expression was gone and the familiar smile you adored so much was back in place

“tomorrow, let’s go to the place where i found you.”

a faint smile bloomed on your lips because though this wasn’t the first time you visited, it was a reminder that you weren’t alone

that no matter how the chances dwindled, yunho would remind you that it was never zero

it was hope that got you through the night

the two of you have never done anything that could be considered anything but platonic

much to mingi’s irritation

but just for tonight, yunho decides to be a little greedy

he kisses your forehead, your cheeks, your nose, your eyelids, you wrists, your palms, your knuckles, your fingers

anywhere he can reach,

except for your lips

you’re emotionally exhausted and vulnerable; he’d feel like a dick if he forced a decision - especially an emotionally fraught one - onto you right now

he threads your fingers together, murmuring soft promises: you’ll remember who you were, you’ll be okay, you’ll find your way again

and you finally let the exhaustion, the steady rhythm of his heart, the rise and fall of his chest, and the warmth and comfort that is yunho lull you to sleep

the next morning is a cold one

gusts of wind bite into your skin as you curl in on yourself, trying to preserve any remaining shred of body heat

noticing this, yunho tucks you under his arm with a sheepish smile and flushed cheeks that were definitely red because of the cold and not because he was flustered

cute

a peaceful silence falls between you two as he leads you to the alley

and since it was early, the only sounds that accompanied you was the quiet patter of your footsteps and the chirps of birds reluctant to travel south

feeling like it simultaneously took too long and not long enough, the two of you arrive

an odd smile settles on yunho’s lips

,,,was that bitterness?

“,,,here we are.”

interrupting your train of thought, he takes your hand and leads you to where he found you

g*d

you could feel it

somewhere in the back of your mind, something almost tangible was shoving its way forward

you’re so close, just a little more and-

suddenly, a chill that had nothing to do with the weather ran down your spine

before you could understand what you were feeling, yunho shoved you behind him and parried the dagger aimed for his chest

a gruff looking man only a little shorter than he stood before him

his clothes tattered and dirty, skin littered with scars, hair and beard scraggly and matted, he looked like one of the many men that inhabited the slums

but those men were sagging skin and bones, never knowing where or if they would get a next meal

this man was muscular

and judging by the familiarity of his actions, this clearly wasn’t his first assassination

the two men, unable to disengage, snarl as they continue to press into each other

much to your surprise, when you were about to jump into the fray, the assassin screams at you

“YOU ‘UCKING WHORE, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! KILL HIM!”

big mistake

because not only is yunho clever and athletic, he’s one lucky bastard

in the brief second the assassin’s attention was diverted, yunho ducks

his weight and moment carries him forward, and he stumbles,,,right onto yunho’s blade.

yanking both his blood soaked short sword and body away from the assassin, the man crumples to the ground

but until life is drained from his eyes, he bores holes into your head, message clear: kill him

a deafening silence weighs down upon you when the man stops breathing

even the wind stills

yunho stands there, a far away look in his eyes as he grips the short sword

blood is splattered all over his hands, across his cheek

it trickles from the hilt, down the blade, and eventually drips onto the ground beneath him

snow begins to drift from the gray skies, landing on his hair, his cheeks, his eyelashes, his coat

as if trying to comfort him

as if trying to wash the blood away

and you?

you couldn’t move.

not when the floodgates had opened and a torrent of memories threatened to pull you under

you knew who you were

you were yn, born to a peasant mother who died at birth and a father that abandoned you soon after

a ghost of a person, and unknown assassin raised by an unnamed noble who resented the jeong’s for their wealth, their nobility, and their favour with the royal family despite their peculiar attitude

nothing but a tool

a tool told that if successful, he’d grant you wealth and freedom

but that if you failed, he’d kill you himself

…

the assassin wasn’t after yunho, he was after you

a warning to finish the job, or else

…

you couldn’t stop your hands from shaking

and yunho,

your gentle giant, yunho

envelops your hands in his, idly tracing lines from your wrist to your fingertips

there’s no comfort this time.

not when he drew lines of blood across the back of your hand, not when you searched and couldn’t read anything expect for this sad smile on his ordinarily open features

“,,,do you remember?”

“,,,”

“,,,you knew.”

he did.

his suspicions appeared early on, spurred by your unusually good marksmanship, agility, and uncanny knowledge of plants

specifically poisonous ones

he turned to this “unconventional” ways of gathering information

starting off with his kids,

then some trusted tclose contacts

but when nothing - and he meant a questionable amount of nothing - turned up, he left the legal sphere and delved in the underground; the black markets

yunho has people who owe him favours - people who’s debts he’s paid off, who’s fights he’s fought on their behalf

it took a few months, but eventually he got the information he wanted

marquess yoo who openly showed his distaste for the jeong family “released his pet into the wild”

but the jeong’s were not stupid, and they were loved

when yunho’s father confided to some close acquaintances about the predicament they were facing, they took matters into their own hands

they never meant to hurt you

only to capture you and talk you out of killing, bribing you with money, protection - threats, if necessary - if you testified against marquess yoo

but somewhere along the way, things got messy

it ended with an unconscious girl lying in the middle of an abandoned alley; three grown men running away because oh dear lord, she’s dead; and a child leading yunho straight to you

letting go of your hands, yunho goes to kneel beside the man he just killed

closing his eyes, he mutters a prayer for the (not so) poor soul who unknowingly got himself tangled in this mess, and grabs the dagger

it feels like someone doused you in ice as yunho walks back to you

horror morphs on your face as he gently - why was he always so gentle? - wraps your fingers around the hilt and places the blade against his neck

the smile that you love so much but currently hate rests on his lips as he cups the side of your face with his free hand

his thumb idly brushes against your cheek, eyes twinkling with adoration as he drinks in every last detail of your face as if,,,

as if,,,

he’s ready to die

“no one knows we left this morning and no one knows we’re here; not even mingi. if you kill me, you’ll have enough time to collect some of your reward and run away.”

by now your hands were shaking so much that if yunho didn’t have his hand wrapped around yours, you would’ve dropped the blade

but as the snow floats down and lands in your hair, in his eye lashes, in the fog of your shared breaths, in the space between you,

here to witness a great tragedy

you both knew,

that one of you has to die.

#ateez yunho #yunho #jeong yunho #ateez #ateez hongjoong #ateez seonghwa #ateez yeosang #ateez san #ateez mingi #ateez wooyoung #ateez jongho #ateez fanfic #ateez fanfiction #ateez fluff #ateez angst #ateez smut #ateez headcanons #aristocrat!ateez

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aggravatetheaxe · 3 years

Note

Can I have some Nick x bo thoughts? 🥺🥺 I’m intrigued

Okay I decided to just throw spaghetti for this one, so it's in the form of a chaotic bullet point list

STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS THOUGHTS ABOUT NICK/BO:

i feel like there'd be little to no chance of him living without carly also being alive; if anyone was going to appeal to bo's little shreds of humanity - his sense of family - it would be a girl begging for her twin brother's life

also i just like carly so what would be the point if she wasn't there?

it would have to be rather earlier in the movie. like, there is no going back from the point they're at in the final battle, you know? no amount of begging would assuage bo and vincent from murdering them at that point

on the other hand, seeing how resilient carly and nick are is a big turning point in the movie. it's super important for not just the viewers but all the characters to see how well they work in tandem. i wouldn't want to take that away from them

so maybe the best of both worlds would be if carly and nick decided to turn the tables on the boys after they shoot bo and he passes out in the theater?

like what if when he passed out, they tied him up and used him to lure vincent, and there was some kind of tense bargaining situation?

or, ooh ooh ooh, what if: so bo has carly down in his dungeon and nick can't get her out, so instead he captures one of the sinclair brothers and that's the trade off? carly's life for bo's or whatever?

then carly and nick aren't in a position where they can leave ambrose, but the brothers aren't necessarily in a position to kill them either

idk neither of those are perfect scenarios, but suspend disbelief with me

this would be Slow Burn. HELLA Slow Burn enemies to lovers. which i love, so

bo would hate nick on principle because he's the one bastard they couldn't take down, and he's just some fucking guy from florida. plus he's a cocky asshole who has a problem with authority, and though bo kens that, it also drives him FUCKING INSANE when he is the authority figure

nick would hate bo because, well, it's obvious: bo killed some of his closest friends, including dalton, who nick may or may not have had romantic tension with; and wade, his sister's boyfriend. to say nothing of the fact that bo hunted, kidnapped, and tied up his sister with the intention of torturing her later

who would break first? i think bo would. bo's hatred of nick is the principle of the thing, an almost puerile anger that he was outsmarted; nick's hatred of bo is deeply personal

but! that would give bo some time to come to terms with being bisexual. nick doesn't need as much time to come to terms with that, so by the time they hooked up, they'd be on more or less the same page with everything

would it start out as hate sex? almost certainly. they're both so fucking frustrated they feel this way. it might even happen on accident tbh

bo would be completely oblivious to the fact that nick was kind of with dalton/had romantic tension with him. nick would have to be like "??? dude. that was basically my boyfriend what the fuck"

does bo feel remorse for killing people? no, not usually. does he eventually come to feel remorse for killing these particular people? well... yes and no. if he hadn't, he'd never have met nick. but it's a real pain in the ass for your boyfriend and his sister to hate you for killing all their friends, when someone else's friends woulda done just as well

god they butt heads so much. they're both have an extreme aversion to authority, though i would argue nick's is a little more combative. nick doesn't care what punishment he gets - he sees himself as above punishment, uncontrollable - while bo has been taught to fear punishment and has a strong sense of "respect." it is possible to make bo bend under your authority; i don't think it's possible to do it to nick, at least not in the same way

Florida Man. that's all i have to say on that

despite butting heads though, they also have a hell of a lot in common. they were both considered the "evil twin" at ages when they literally couldn't help themselves and needed help, love, and compassion. now they've grown to be men who genuinely do bad things because of the preconceived notions and perceptions of others

the difference between them, though, is that bo comes off as a nice guy but he's actually a MONSTER. nick comes off as a huge creep and a punk, he does shitty things to make himself seem hard and cool, but inside he's a good person. they're foils of each other and that's always sexy

their foil is all about redemption and presentation vs action but maybe i'm projecting

they are foils though so they have some core things in common: strong love for their family, specifically their respective twins; dedication and steadfastness; perseverance in the face of death; quick wit and cleverness, fast thinking; finally, a tendency to say mean things that they either regret later or don't actually mean, in an attempt to protect themselves from being vulnerable

i don't know if these two would ever be truly happy with one another - it would be a tumultuous relationship for sure - but they would understand each other in a lot of ways

and most importantly? bo might realize that, after everything he went through in his life, he made the choice to be a serial killer and torturer. things could have been different

whether or not anything would actually change, i'm not sure, but he MIGHT realize how deep a hole he truly dug himself

but he's too far in now, nothing to do about it, ya know?

if more people came through ambrose, nick and carly would be right there trying to help them escape. come hell or high water, no matter the consequences, they would try to help, even if they could never truly escape themselves

nick would bargain, beg, and steal to earn carly the right to go see their parents (or any other privilege). she should be allowed to be free even if he's not. he's very self sacrificing

okay so that was very chaotic but i hope you enjoyed some of my Thoughts!

#nick jones #bo sinclair #headcanon #nick jones x bo sinclair #bo sinclair x nick jones #house of wax 2005 #house of wax

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the-paris-of-people · 3 years

Note

Hi. This is really not a question but more of a rant. A really really long one. I apologize in advance. I honestly care waaaaayyyy too much about this show than I should. Clearly too bored🙈.

After reading people's comments on this show and the ships, there are so many things that irk me and I thought I'd share even if I might get crap for it. So here goes:

1. "Ben only wants Devi when she is with Paxton." I.e. it's about Paxton. Lol people are funny. As though Ben thinks he can compete with Paxton on a social level. He's not stupid, he knows full well he can't. It's about Devi and in part her obsession with Paxton. People don't like thinking about things from Ben's perspective because they just don't like him. He's the one that finds out Devi is cheating, she runs after Paxton at the party ( now granted before she runs out, she's intensely staring at Ben and then realises Paxton is leaving but Ben's not gonna remember that) and she was busy chumming it up with Paxton in episode 3 in front of Ben with absolute disregard for him. So his natural defence is to guard himself and have his walls go up. It is a valid response. He burries his pain (exactly what Samberg said). And does not let his guard down around her romantically until episode 10 when Paxton literally rejects her at school. At the school dance, sparks are flying between those 2. Is Paxton around at the time...Uhm no (I'll get into the whole Aneesa thing). In his mind Paxton is out of the picture and it's like he can almost trust her again. And then when Paxton shows up with Devi, he basically feels like a fool for ever thinking that he was ever something more than 2nd best or sometimes anything at all ( especially considering Devi still wants Paxton after Devi and Paxton's last public interaction that Ben witnessed- I mean he does not get to see the shit behind closed doors). But then when Eleanor spills the tea, that look on his face is disbelief, yes a little bit of jealousy but overwhelmingly heartbreak. He is essentially watching the chance he never knew he had go away. Now you could argue that he should have known that she wanted him back but she broke his trust and does not explicitly say, " I want you back". Ben's not trying to get burnt again based on some assumption/hunch. He has been wrong before.

2. "How dare Ben be upset that Devi is with Paxton when he is with Aneesa". Fair point. Just like how dare Devi be upset and lose her shit over Ben and Aneesa. But yet it still happend. Devi gets 5 episodes allowing her to be upset and Ben can't even have one moment when a firkken bomb gets dropped on him.

Aneesa and Ben should have never date. Everyone knows that. He was never over Devi. He just pushed those feelings down to make him believe he was over her. I obviously don't agree with this. Aneesa doesn't deserve that. Ben needs to go to therapy. He needs an outlet. He is similar to Devi in that he doesn't want to process what happened and would rather move on and react. However, his reactions are far less impulsive/severe as Devi's. Him dating Aneesa is unfortunately a reaction. He didn't give himself time to really process how he feels. People say he dated Aneesa solely to spite Devi which is not true. Is there an element of " you never wanted me but someone else does"... absolutely but Aneesa is also very kind to Ben, they get along really well and she puts him first. Technically what's not to like. I mean if it was just to spite Devi, could he have not tried to hustle his way back in with Shira?? Problem is that dumb dumb didn't work through his Devi feelings and let's just be honest, the same spark and chemistry he has with Devi, is missing with Aneesa. It often feels forced, especially in regards to the pace of the relationship. I so wished Aneesa remained friends with Ben. That's what he needed...not another relationship.

3. "Aneesa is so amazing, she doesn't deserve to get hurt." I agree. She absolutely doesn't deserve to get hurt just like Ben and Paxton didn't deserve that crap Devi pulled. I think Aneesa is a great addition and I like that Devi has someone within her community to connect to. I'm South Asian myself and I genuinely value this aspect of my own life. I mean she is pretty great, kind and the anorexia rumour Devi unintentionally started was pretty heartbreaking. That scene where she talks to Devi at the relay about it, is so sad (especially coz we as viewers know Devi messed up). Now that being said is Aneesa also low key shady? YES. And it's not because she dated her friend's ex. It's because she started dating him knowing that Devi started the rumour about her because she was jealous about Ben and her. How does she think Devi would go from being so jealous that she starts a rumour, to the next week becoming their biggest "Stan". Come on girl. But there was no way Devi could say no after the crap she pulled with Aneesa. Ben did ask her out so if there is blame, he absolutely gets it too but he didn't know why Devi started that rumour (based on his surprised AF face when Eleanor spills the tea). Which leads me to my next question. Why didn't Aneesa tell him? Aneesa said Ben was supporting her through the rumour. She probably told him Devi started the rumour but didn't tell him why? That is odd? Clearly if Ben had known, he may changed his perspective on Devi actually wanting him instead of ignoring his feelings.

Lastly Aneesa knows there are unresolved feelings between Devi and Ben. This is evident from that dance scene. She literally runs to cut in their pretty intense conversation. Like why you running girl? I didn't think much of it at first but coupled with another moment, it makes a lot of sense. When Ben agrees to dance with Aneesa, he looks back at Devi and lingers and Aneesa picks up on this and pulls him away. It's a blink and you will miss it moment but it is there.

Now all of this doesn't mean she needs to get hurt but they probably need to break up. Ben needs to be single for a while and work through how he feels about Devi, Aneesa and most importantly himself. Whilst I don't particularly enjoy their relationship, you never get to see it from either of their perspectives. Maybe that could change things but honestly I just prefer Ben and Devi.

Also can everyone stop acting like Ben is dating Devi's best friend. Being brown doesn't make you automatically best friends and Ben and Devi met Aneesa the same week. People are acting like he is dating Eleanor.

4. "Devi chose Paxton". Please! The only thought through decision that girl made in regards to these 2 boys is when she chose herself and decided not to be Paxton's little secret. I mean in episode 1 and 2 she can't decide so she dates both. In episode 3, she interacts with Paxton because of the whole tutoring thing. He says they don't makes sense. While she seems a bit sad she doesn't seem too upset like she is season 1 and she isn't looking for any opportunity to spend time with him (unlike season 1). Episode 4,5,6,7 and 8 she is losing her mind over Ben. Half way through 8 she knows she has no choice but to let him go. But even after that she doesn't pursue Paxton. He does that at the end of episode 9 when in all honesty she hasn't really thought about him in a while. Then of course Paxton does what he does and she finally choose herself, issuing an ultimatum essentially. Paxton does eventually show up...but it's a choice by default. She just yo-yo's between them. She also needs to be single, deal with her loss, love herself and think about what she wants.

5. "Devi loves Paxton". Sure bud. Does have Devi have feeling for Paxton? Duh! But is it love. Nope. People like to confuse infatuation for love. She has been infatuated with this boy this the 3rd (she knew squat about him). When her dad died, she turns that infatuation into an obsession. It like becomes a full time hobby in season 1. She ruins relationships over it. In season 2 you can argue there is more depth to it and Paxton does grow in Season 2. But somehow she is still fixated on the fact that it's Paxton Hall-Yoshida. I mean she smells him (totally normal), Mc Enroe's comment at the relay was, "did this hunk of beef just say he likes spending time with her", when she breaks up him she says , "you are very good at kissing" not possibly any of his other good qualities. And at the end she says , "I guess I'm Paxton Hall Yoshida's girlfriend now". This boy is so far up a pedestal that if he fell of it, he'd break something. Now granted if he fell of it in Season 1, he'd be dead. So progress I guess...

Maybe the relationship will change in Season 3 and she genuinely falls in love with him. I mean Id be sad but obviously a real possibility. But also that relationship needs to move on from being just the "Paxton project" which it was basically all of season 2. Maybe actually talk about her every once in a while.

Also people who find the ending so amazing because he shows up...bare minimum bro. I understand his perspective, how does it look to go back with someone who cheated on you. Fair point 💯. However she didn't start this shit up again. He did. He liked her so much that he had to make out with her In the middle of the night out of the blue but not enough to respect her publically. That's some BS right there. If he started it, he should have thought it through instead of guilt tripping her. But he is a teenager and ALL of them make incredibly stupid decisions (we all have). Devi messed up big time too and she apologized. The same compassion must extend to him but in no way is it a grand gesture, it's the bare minimum...like her apologies

6. "Paxton forgave Devi forgave Devi so quickly whilst Ben didn't and was so mean". He did forgive her pretty quickly. Good for him. However let's not act like circumstance didn't carve the way for that. They were pushed together because of the whole tutoring thing and he knows that they have to see each other all the time. So logically just makes sense to keep the peace. But still mature oh his part. Also he wasn't as emotionally invested as Ben. Did he have feelings? Yes. However, based on his inner monologue (Gigi Hadid) his ego took more of a hit because how could Devi, the "weirdest girl" he ever liked two time him with Ben Gross. Did his feelings deepen by the end? Yes. But at the start...it isn't that deep.

Also it's great and all that he "forgave" her so quickly but he sure did like bringing it up a lot. Like at the relay guilting her, upset at the end of 6 because he failed...I mean wtf girl you owe me- I don't really care what else is going on in your life, again in episode 8 in the car and finally we all know the mess that is episode 10.

In regards to Ben. His anger is justified for reasons stated in point 1. In fact his reaction seems more real because he is deeply hurt by Devi. Do I like some of his reaction (i.e. nose piercing-will discuss this further) ...nope but she only sincerely apologises to him in episode 8 vs 3 for Paxton. He accepts it. People acting like they would be so calm and chill about being cheated on. And yes he did cheat on Shira. He tries to kiss Devi at party twice but apologises that day and the following week. He doesn't try anything with Devi the whole of episode 10 until she kisses him. He acknowledges that it was wrong and immediately breaks up with Shira. Although cheating is not something we should condone can we actually acknowledge that Shira was the worst and doesn't even remember Ben's name. Compare that to Devi's premeditated cheating. Her Eleanor are literally laughing at how amazing they are for pulling it off and Devi didn't care about either of their feelings cause she was going to be India. Sorry but that is far worse. She also thinks she can bullshit her apology with Ben. He isn't here for that...which is fine! He kept trying his level best to avoid her but even that she wouldn't let him do.

7. "Ben is Horrible". Has Ben done some shitty things. Absolutely. People complain that he has never apologised for anything. Fair enough. He needs to apologize for the UN comment and the psychosomatic comment. It was incredibly hurtful. However, no one does call him out of it. Now you could argue he should just do it. Please... have you watched these particular set of teenagers? None of them apologise without being called out on it first(except maybe Fabiola). And you only get called out my your support system ... which Ben does not have. He practically looks like he raised himself. He doesn't have parents to put him back in line or a sister to call him out on his shit. Devi has her mom, cousin, grandmum , Elanor, Fabiola and her therapist. Does she ever listen to them the first time? Nope. And her first time apologies are such messes. She only gets it right the 2nd or 3rd time. All of them have some form of support but not really him. And it is heartbreaking. It's why I genuinely believe he needs to go to therapy. He needs an outlet to express everything he feels. He also needs to be held accountable for those comments and understand the root of it (ok let's be honest Devi even in their rivalry was probably the most constant person in his life, and fighting with her meant she stayed close by- it's a subconscious thing). He should apologize to her and also find better ways to communicate what he is feeling. The nose ring thing was manipulative. I agree. He should apologize. But I'm not gonna lie, it doesn't piss me off as much because I think it's pretty messed that it took that for her to realise how much she hurt him. Also tbh if you were willing to alter your body on a 2 minute thought out dare, you wanted to do it anyway. But again not a healthy way to emote on Ben's part. The David thing doesn't upset me because he knows how to pronounce her actual name. It's not like he doesn't know how and doesn't bother to try. It was part of their rivalry to irritate her. I honestly find it quite endearing as part of their friendship and think Devi does. I may be wrong and she may not like it and in that case he needs to stop and apologize.

I am not upset by him coming over to her house and calling her out about Aneesa. She deserved it. Also if she was that uncomfortable she could have taken him outside to talk like she did with Paxton. She is clearly comfortable enough to have him in the house. And her therapist agrees with Ben. If he hadn't, she wouldnt have known that Aneesa was leaving. Her mom took away her phone. And even then her first attempt at an apology was soooooo bad. And I don't think Ben did it solely to get Aneesa to stay so he could date her. This is Ben, he was willing to do long distance with Devi from India, I think he could have done the same with Aneesa from like the same town 🙄

I genuinely like Ben because he is a good kid. He makes mistakes like they all do. His personality is hilarious to watch but also his and Devi's relationship is so special. Me liking Ben and Devi has nothing to do with what Paxton has or has not done. I just like the dynamic between the two. They obviously care deeply for each other. Their conversations are hilarious. I love their banter. I love how comfortable they are with each and am sometimes surprised by the depth of their conversations. But also they have amazing chemistry. All the jealous looks and angst are between these two idiots pining for each other. I think she does have chemistry with Paxton but it's more because he is PHY, school Adonis. I mean let's be honest, he'd probably have chemistry with Fabiola solely cause he is PHY. The two nerds just match each other and it's so funny how often they are in sync. It's honestly adorable. They just get each other. That bathroom scene was the sweetest thing and also proves he's not this terrible person. She only comes out of the stall because of his support. He is genuinely hurt for her when technically it should have been a great moment for him.

I do believe the two have to be single for a bit before admitting their feelings for one another and moving forward. That's why my main thing for season 3 is that he absolutely cannot interfere in her relationship with Paxton. He needs to give her the space to figure that. Do I think there will be moments between them... absolutely but no cheating please. Everyone needs to move on from that. If they do it...I honestly think il be done with the show.

Anyways sorry for the really long ramble. If you made it to the end thanks for your patience 😌

Thank you for this beautiful masterpiece, I pretty much agree with everything and need to put it out there for the world to see

#im obsessed with benvi and yall KNOW it #ben x devi #thanks for the response i was soooo entertained while reading it #never have i ever

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hyperbali · 4 years

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Agatha Harkness Was Right, And Here’s Why

Alright. Finally had to sit down and write my way out of this quiet, internal temper tantrum, and a few people were interested in seeing what I had to say, so I present to you:

Agatha Harkness Was Right, And Here’s Why

Disclaimer: MASSIVE spoilers for the entirety of WandaVision, and I am not nice about it.

I’ll start off by saying that, for all its foibles, WandaVision was genuinely a good example of a property within the MCU/Disney umbrella that stepped out of the usual ‘good guys fight bad guys action extravaganza’ in a way that pushed the envelope. The pseudo-horror aspect of the first few episodes is something I would really love to see engaged with on a more thoughtful basis in future projects.

I would say that it proved to be more than a vehicle to promote toys, but… well…

Yeah. Anyway.

I’ll assume that you watched WandaVision if you’re reading this, but quick recap: In the aftermath of ‘the Blip,’ Wanda is left broken and alone with no one in her corner. Her biggest mentor willingly abandoned his team to get his own ‘happy’ ending (do not get me started on Steve, that’s a document in and of itself), her other biggest mentor is probably off enjoying his family while ignoring the incredibly racist killing spree he’s been on for the past five years, and her lover is dead. When she goes to claim the body, she’s told nuh-uh, that’s government property, please leave.

So she goes to a plot of land in the middle of some nowhere town in New Jersey, which Vision apparently bought despite the fact they were living a pretty decently comfortable life in Scotland, where she looks at the deed that Vision drew a heart on and wrote ‘To Grow Old In’. Very sweet. Kind of weird, considering nothing of this caliber had ever been suggested for either of their characters and they’d been actively running from specifically the U.S. authorities? But sweet.

She has a breakdown and, in her grief, contains the entire town of Westview and all 3,892 of the people in it in her own personal paradise, where nothing bad ever happens beyond sitcom hijinks, no one dies, and every problem is tied up and neatly dealt with by the end of an ‘episode’. Except we learn that this is only paradise to Wanda, who apparently shares the aspect of having to relate everything to her favourite pop culture with Tony, because everyone else in Westview is more or less being psychologically tortured by the incredible amount of pain she’s in, forced to be puppeted actors to make her happy.

Bear in mind, Westview might have been bigger at some point - we have no idea how many people survived the Blip, or how many have been brought back to life within the past few weeks of the current setting. Either way, this is a town that has already dealt with a lot of trauma being dragged into yet another awful, much more specific kind of emotional damage, thanks to ‘the heroes’. Nice.

Agatha Harkness, a witch who’s been up to who-knows-what in the 340 years since she drained the coven that tried to kill her for getting a little too ambitious into jerky, feels the massive expenditure of magical power and decides to investigate. All the while, she carefully uses her own magic to try and peek into Wanda’s psyche, her motivations, all while keeping up appearances and not letting slip that anything is amiss.

I’ll point out that she’s no saint here, either - she specifically keeps one Westview resident at her mercy, and knows what’s happening to the rest of them, but doesn’t attempt to stop it. I’ll chalk that up to her pragmatism; their ‘sacrifice’ was fine to her as long as she could figure out how Wanda could have done something so unheard of in terms of power.

What we come to learn over the course of the show is that, given everything that happened, Wanda didn’t mean to take over an entire town and tool it into her own personal slice of heaven. She very quickly became aware of it; we know that she knows it’s her own personal bubble as soon as episode three, when she’s confronting Monica about how the latter could possibly know about Ultron. Wanda is made further aware of how much damage this is inflicting on others in episode five, when Vision himself tells her that these people are scared. But still, she has everything handled! It’s okay! The outside world is worse, trust her!

Her handling of the question, ‘where are all the children of Westview,’ is one that bears some thinking - and, y’know, kind of more than a little concern. They’re allowed to walk around as part of the ‘Halloween special,’ but as Vision walks further and further out towards the edges of town where Wanda doesn’t have as much full control, people are just frozen in place, or conducting the same few seconds of action over and over. And fully aware of being trapped.

How are they being sustained? Eating, sleeping? If someone isn’t part of her storyline, is she just locking them down into a coma? What made Wanda decide that keeping the children ‘out of the way’ was somehow kinder than involving them, especially given her later argument that she’s been trying to keep the entire town safe and happy?

The fact of the matter is, she only actually starts to feel remorse for any of this after she’s confronted with the fact that, after weeks of being at her mercy, the townspeople of Westview would rather be dead than endure another moment of having to play nice for her enjoyment. She finally opens the ‘bubble’ to let them out - which leads to the ‘epic’ finale of three different entities trying to take down Wanda and her happy family: the S.W.O.R.D. military led by Hayward, the White Vision, and Agatha.

Winding back to how we got here: after Agatha uses her own trapped resident, Ralph Bohner (who, given his casting and the props in place during the last episode, I’m willing to bet is actually the missing witness protection person Jimmy was looking for) in an attempt to lure out Wanda’s reasoning - and fails - she’s pretty much done pretending. She tricks Wanda into her basement, nullifies her powers, and makes her face her own past to get to the truth of the matter.

Not going to lie, favourite moment of the show. Kathryn Hahn killed Agatha’s slightly-amused-slightly-irritated observations about Wanda’s coping mechanisms, and the whole arrangement was extremely meta. I would have paid real money dollars to see her do the same thing to the likes of Tony, Strange, and Loki. Hell, even just having her meet the rest of the Avengers? Augh. If wishes were fishes.

When Agatha comes to the conclusion that Wanda is the vaunted, nigh-indestructible force of nature that she’s literally spent her entire life reading about is the ultimate source of chaos magic and will likely bring about the end of the world, she’s pretty understandably taken aback. To that matter, the fact that Wanda… has very little control over any of it, and is using what she does understand to play housemaker? After how long Agatha has spent learning control, hiding in plain sight, just to be child’s play compared to what Wanda has at her fingertips? I’d be pretty pissed off, too!

The way that WandaVision handled both of the major ‘fights’ - Vision versus White Vision ending in philosophy, and Wanda ending up beating Agatha at her own game of deception - is excellent. A little grating that they had to go with the beat down angle before they got there, but this is MCU; punches and thrown cars had to get shoved in somewhere. And, given that this series very much played with the idea of grey morality, I was sort of hopeful that Agatha would end up in a not-quite stalemate arrangement with Wanda. She’s not as powerful as the Scarlet Witch, but she has the know-how that Wanda sorely lacks; in recompense for her own deeds, she would be able to teach what she knows while also kind of scheming on her own time.

Y’know, like what they did with rehabilitating Loki?

Except that Wanda, who has just gone through the entire rigamarole of coming to terms with the fact that she trapped thousands of people into a nightmare scenario against their will, rendering them helpless to her mercy… traps Agatha into a nightmare scenario against her will, rendering her helpless to Wanda’s mercy.

That moment actually shook me. Oh, my god. We’re supposed to still look at Wanda as a good guy after this?

This isn’t even covering the incredibly awful confrontation with her and Vision where she tries to gaslight him into believing that everything is A-OK, or the fact that the person she gets most violent with (apart from Agatha) is Monica Rambeau, a black woman who spends most of the show bending over backwards trying to say that what Wanda is doing is understandable, justified, and just needs a gentle touch to be dealt with.

That could be its own document, too - how Monica, much as she’s incredible and definitely looks to be a really exciting addition to the MCU roster, more or less gets used as the Good One to absolve and enable Wanda’s actions. One of her last lines to Wanda, after seeing how the people of Westview (rightfully) look at Wanda like she’s monstrous, is “they’ll never know what you sacrificed.”

Sacrificed what? The fake husband and fake kids she made out of her own compulsion to pretend that everything is okay? None of that would have existed if she’d been given the proper resources to actually cope with how much loss she’s had to deal with. None of that would have existed if she hadn’t caused this problem in the first place.

In the end, Wanda flies off in her fancy new gear before the FBI shows up, avoiding any real consequences to her actions - which has pretty much been the running theme of her character ever since she was introduced to the MCU in Age of Ultron. The worst kind of direct consequence she’s ever gotten was being grounded to her room for a while, then kept in the Raft for, like, maybe a day - and both times, she was broken out post-haste.

Meanwhile, she worsened the issues in Sokovia (which, I will say upfront, was Tony’s fault to begin with), unleashed the Hulk on Johannesburg, got a pretty significant amount of civilians killed as bystanders in Lagos (hey, how come Wanda keeps turning a lot of black people into casualties?), and stood back in Wakanda to let their people try to fight off Thanos from getting to Vision until it was clear that there was no other option than for her to get involved.

Great Power Comes With No Responsibility At All, Actually.

Wanda, in the several years she has maintained her identity as an Avenger, has proven time and time again that she takes on innumerable risks without any full understanding of what they mean, allows others to take on the brunt of the fallout for her, and looks sad until she’s forgiven and moves on to the next problem. She has no business casually throwing around the kind of power that being the Scarlet Witch entails, not until she’s actually made any kind of headway into making reparations for what she’s done and tried, really tried, to get a handle on what she’s capable of.

Which she’s apparently doing in the last post-credits scene, astral reading the literal Book of the Damned on her lonesome in the mountains, but… without anyone to guide her, or give her any kind of boundary?

[I ran out of images I could post, but you know exactly what image I am referring to here]

Agatha Harkness was right. And that should terrify everybody that has to deal with Wanda in the future.

(P.S. Do we know if she actually even killed that dog? We never see her holding anything but a blanket, and characters go in and out of that show all the time. Granted, she wasn’t great with the cicada-turned-bird... hmm.)

Additional Notes:

“Well, you’re a Tony Stan, of course you think Wanda’s a villain”

I like Tony because he’s such an awful mess, and the narrative isn’t exactly kind about telling him what a piece of shit he can be! He reaped a lot of problems, created practically half the villains in the MCU, and ended up dying a martyred hero. Thanks to being the tent pole by which this franchise hoisted itself into a cultural powerhouse, he will always be their golden savior. If you want to read about how he’s the true villain of this entire affair, feel free to look up any number of takedown pieces about him that are out there. He’s a dick. I will never “uwu sad baby who did nothing wrong ever 🥺” him the way people do about Wanda.

“Why are you so pressed about this”

Because something as good in concept as WandaVision could and should have been about anyone other than the whitewashed, antisemitic take on Wanda Maximoff that MCU brought upon us. They put crucifixes on her wall in Civil War, for fuck’s sake!

“Weren’t you mad about them not including Aaron Taylor-Johnson”

At this point, I am almost kind of relieved the real Pietro wasn’t resurrected for this, because god knows they probably would have killed him all over again just to inflict that much more pain on his sister.

“Anything else you’d like to tell us, turbo nerd”

This was literally itching at me all weekend to write, so it’s more or less just to get it off my chest. If you powered your way through it, uh… thanks? Sorry if I yucked your yums, but I tried to be as clear with the disclaimer as I could. 🤷‍♂️

#blah blah #long post #marvel #mcu #wandavision #wandavision spoilers #wandavision critical #anti wanda maximoff

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ruewrites · 3 years

Text

Thrones are Built on Lies Chapter 8: Change of Heart

AO3

Ship: Solomon/Asmo, Diavolo/Lucifer

Word Count: 4550

Warnings: None

A/N: As always comments and feedback are appreciated! I hope you all are still enjoying the fic so far!

Diavolo’s face was a welcoming sight to Solomon that morning as he left his room. He beamed the moment their eyes met and crossed the room in order to meet him. “Good morning! I trust you slept well last night?” his booming voice was almost too loud for Solomon, but it still brought a smile to his face.

“As well as a scholar can, yes.”

Well, books hadn’t been the only thing keeping him up last night. His dreams hadn't been too terribly helpful. If only he could have a little peace of mind while he slept. Maybe he’d crash tonight after his little outing. Asmo was rather high energy and Solomon had no doubt that he’d most likely be worn upon their return. Maybe he’d even sleep for a day. That would be rather nice the more he thought about it.

Diavolo nodded, “I will admit, it took me a while to get used to things here as well. It’s easy to become homesick, but Lucifer and I take visits back home every now and again. I promise it will get easier.”

“Were they all as welcoming to you as they are to me.”

“You’re lucky you weren’t here with the late king,” Diavolo shook his head, “Or maybe he would have liked you a little better than me. You aren’t the one who wanted to marry Lucifer.” That’s right, neither Azazel nor his brother had wanted Diavolo to marry the crown prince. From what he could gather, it sounded like Azazel still wasn’t fond of the union. “The point is, it takes them a while to warm up to people, but they will soon enough.”

Hopefully. Solomon seemed to be making way with the family, so he could only assume they’d start to like him soon even if just a little bit.

“In any case, how have things been with Asmodeus?”

Ah.

Oh.

“I know he was excited by the fact that you took the whole ‘Lilith’ thing well, a little melodramatic, but still happy,” Diavolo continued, “He’s been talking about how his eventual wedding would be the ball of the century ever since Lucifer and I got married.”

Solomon hadn’t even talked to him about the wedding. He’d been so caught up in learning about Arcadia that the wedding seemed more like a concept to him than an actual event that would occur soon. When was the coronation? How much time did he have left? Why had it not been more focused on his radar? Now that he thought about it more, he didn’t have a single clue about what any of his wedding plans were going to be. What food were they preparing? What times was everything occurring at? What was he supposed to wear? Were people going to witness their union? They were only a few of a long list of questions that Solomon should have known the answers to, and yet he didn’t.

It seemed like whenever Solomon solved one problem, another one arose. For whatever reason, it never occurred to him that their union would be a big event. Lucifer's would have been since he was the crown prince, but his? A small ceremony to seal them together would have sufficed. Did it really need to be big?

"He certainly has been dreaming for a while now hasn't he?"

"He certainly has," Diavolo nodded, “He has rather vivid dreams, they’re not always big in the grand scheme of things, but they’re very specific.”

So that probably meant that Asmo was hellbent on what he’d said to him last night. No matter how he tried to change the direction of his thoughts they always came back to the outing he was supposed to have today. Solomon knew love couldn’t be forced and that love was a rare thing to occur within an arranged marriage, but would Asmodeus accept that? Surely he had to know this small fact. Perhaps he was just in denial.

But why?

Why not just accept what life had given to them and be excited for the opportunities that it could provide?

“Has he talked to you about it?” Diavolo’s voice brought him out of his thoughts.

“About what?”

“His ideas. Surely you’ve heard some of them.

Solomon's blank expression must have said all that Diavolo needed to know. His face fell slightly. Solomon couldn't read the expression well. At first he thought that perhaps it was confusion. Disappointment? He couldn't place his finger on it. What he did know was that it made him feel uncomfortably guilty.

"Oh. I see," the pause between them was only a second too long, "You should spend more time with him. He's a kind person. Just a little-”

“High energy?” Solomon finished. Kind? Well if him ensuring Solomon that he’d fall head over heels for him was considered kind, Solomon would agree. This was the first positive thing he’d heard about his fiance the moment he’d stepped onto the grounds. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that he really hadn’t heard too many good things about Asmo, only the things that he couldn’t do quite right. What could be the truth?

“Well yes, but I may have a soft spot for him,” Diavolo continued, “He was one of the few who made me feel welcomed here. ‘Anything for my big brother’s husband’ he’d say. We spent a lot of time chatting and sometimes he’d offer to take me to various places in Arcadia. All when Lucifer was busy of course.”

Maybe he had been a bit more well behaved because Diavolo was more than willing to spend time with him. Solomon was a busy man, he had research to do among other things. He couldn’t just drop his research at any time. Nonetheless, he could still contribute to the conversation. “Forgive me for saying so, but I find that a little hard to believe. Only because you seem to have a soft spot for most people you come into contact with.”

There was that booming laugh.

“Am I truly that easy to read?”

“Only a little.”

Diavolo was a genuine man. Solomon had to wonder if he had some sort of magic of his own to cause people to loosen up around him, or was he just that charismatic? Either way it made his marriage to Lucifer feel even stranger to him. How could there possibly be anything there deeper than the arrangement? Then again, according to Azazel, Diavolo seemed to have more of an influence of the crown prince.

What allowed someone to become that close?

Well, Simeon had some influence over his own decisions, but their relationship was different. Solomon would have had to been naive to think the two were equivalent. Diavolo and Lucifer had something beyond a close friendship and Solomon could see it even if he was rather confused by it.

“I think Lucifer might be your favorite person though,” he wanted to see what he said. He wanted to see how Diavolo talked about Lucifer. In a way, it was a roundabout way of him wanting to know more about the elusive eldest.

Diavolo seemed to melt right before him, his eyes turned gooey and warm and his body relaxed. “Perhaps, he’s a wonderful man and stunningly beautiful. The most ethereal being I’ve ever seen, sometimes I doubt that he’s human,” he sighed, “He’s intelligent too and an absolutely capable ruler.”

“You admire him.”

“I love him,” Diavolo corrected, “I’d do anything for him, I’d give my own life for him.”

Solomon didn’t know why those words threw him off. Giving up your life. Would Solomon do that for anyone? He wasn’t sure. He had people that he wanted to protect, yes. But giving up his own life? Thinking about that wasn’t something he wanted to do at the moment or later. It was a morbid concept.

“Asmo is quite smitten with you,” Solomon was vaguely aware that Diavolo was still talking, “He was completely fine when he left, but when he came back he was spellbound. I think it was good for him to have a little joy.”

It was easy to forget that the family was dealing with two deaths: the King and their sister. There had also been supposed assasination attempts. How much tragedy followed the family around?

It didn’t mean that he was going to give in to Asmodeus’ every demand, but he would try to keep those things in mind.

“It feels good to see him lively again, he was so anxious when it came to pretending, I know I was relieved that you took it all well.”

“I’m happy he’s not anxious anymore as well, I was worried I was doing something wrong. I’m glad to know that that wasn’t the case.”

Diavolo’s hand grabbed the handle to the door to the caverns as he turned back to Solomon, “We should talk more, I heard you’re going to have an outing today and I’d love to hear more.”

***

“Will you ever be on time for any meal?” Asmo huffed, crossing his arms.

“Maybe one day,” Solomon hummed, taking a seat, “But I did show up.”

“If you showed up early we could spend a little time together before everyone else got here.”

Solomon noticed that Asmodeus wasn’t looking at him. Following his gaze, Solomon saw that he was staring at Lucifer and Diavolo. Diavolo had his hand on the crown prince’s shoulder. He leaned down close to his ear and said something that made Lucifer smile ever so slightly and chuckle. He mouthed the word sit, and Diavolo took his place next to him. It was incredibly tender. No one else seemed to pay it any mind, but Asmo’s fingers gripped at the table.

“I might be able to come sooner if someone wouldn’t mind teaching me how to navigate the castle.”

He noticed Asmodeus nod slowly, but he didn’t look towards him. What had gotten into him? What about Lucifer and Diavolo had him so fixated? Unfortunately his little novice charm didn’t give him all of those answers. Did he dare reach up to see what he was feeling? It could give him an idea of how to steer the conversations.

His hand wandered towards his chest. But before his fingertips could brush against the pendant, Diavolo’s butler entered the room. “Breakfast will be out shortly, but I do have tea ready.”

Barbatos started at the head of the table, pouring tea for each member and setting out small biscuits. When had been the last time he came to breakfast? He came to other meals sure, but most of the time Simeon brought it back to him as he often slept through it.

“Welcome your majesty,” Barbatos said, pouring the steaming liquid into his cup, “It’s lovely to have you join us this morning.”

“Oh thank you.”

“Your scribe seemed to be getting tired of you missing meals.” Wasn’t he the bold one? “Anything in your tea?”

“No thank you.”

Barbatos nodded and moved on to Asmodeus.

“No cream or anything? Really?” Asmodeus leaned over to look at his cup.

“Really. I stay up rather late, and sugar makes you crash.”

“Then what about sugar rushes?”

“It’s a temporary rush. It won’t last in the long run.”

Lucifer had taken his tea black as well, so why was it so intriguing to Asmo that he might drink his own in a similar fashion? It was almost like it was some sort of secret or big surprise to his fiance.

“You really are a serious guy aren’t you.”

Now what was that supposed to mean?

“Does that mean you no longer want to go out?”

“No!” Asmo jumped in quickly, eyes going wide, “No we’re still going out. You can’t get away from me that easily.”

“I didn’t suspect that I would, You seemed rather determined.”

“Well good! You shouldn’t think that you could get away.”

Solomon snorted. He looked around the table to each of the members. Levi wasn’t fighting with Mammon like they’d been on the first day he got here. While the two of them weren’t talking, they seemed to be getting along better. Satan was focused on a book from his library, one that he’d have to remember to ask him about later. The twins sat silently. Well, Beel sat silently, Belphegor was asleep. Solomon also noticed that unlike the rest of his siblings, he was dressed in black. Had he been dressed in mourning attire when he arrived?

“Husband!” Asmo sang waving his hand in front of his face, “You should be paying attention to meee.”

“He ain’t your husband yet Asmo,” Mammon chuckled, before Solomon could even get a word in, “And he won’t be if you scare him away.”

“I won’t scare him away!”

A few of the other brothers snickered from around the table as Belphie opened one of his eyes. “Are you sure about that?” he asked, “When you met him you weren’t you.”

Solomon heard a bit of an edge to his voice. It wasn’t playful like Mammon’s had been.

“Enough,” Lucifer held up his hand, “It’s too early for this. We’re going to have a nice breakfast as a family or else I’ll banish you from Arcadia.”

“Aw come on Luci, you wouldn’t banish your baby brother would ya?” Mammon asked, leaning a little closer and batting his lashes.

Lucifer only narrowed his eyes, “Don’t test me.”

***

“Mammon runs the treasury, Levi is the head of the navy, Satan holds the records, and the twins split agriculture. Belphie takes care of the animals when it comes to stuff like milk and eggs and Beel takes care of crops and beef,” Asmo had been talking the entire ride down to his sector. He counted off each one of his siblings on his fingers as he named them off. He’d chosen to sit shoulder to shoulder with Solomon instead of across from him. Not that he was surprised. Asmodeus was rather clingy. “Lucifer as the head stays in the center and oversees all of Arcadia. He wasn’t always the welcome committee, but he had to take over. Luckily he has Diavolo for that now.”

Solomon shifted trying to give himself more room only for Asmo to follow him, “And what do you do?”

Asmo grinned, “Oh showing interest? Well, if you must know, my district takes care of little self care items. Lotions, perfumes, flowers, pretty things. Honestly mine is the best. Sure the other things are important I suppose, but what is life without beauty? My district is the most beautiful and therefore it's the best.”

Well, that seemed a bit shallow. Was looks the only thing he really cared about? All of the other things he had listed were equally important. How could he undermine them for the sake of his own? Every element came together to make a community. No one aspect held everything together alone.

“You’re going to love it. I can’t believe I haven’t taken you here sooner! Well I kind of can, after all I wouldn’t have been able to if- Well, you know.”

The carriage stopped and Asmodeus immediately seemed to perk up. The carriage bounced with him as he waited for the chauffeur. As soon as the door opened, he took Solomon’s hand and walked the two of them out. The first thing he noticed was a few timid townsfolk peeking out from behind their doors or windows or even stared from their stands.They seemed fixed on Asmo. Of course Solomon remembered that many of them most likely stayed hidden or on a low profile because of the death of the king along with the threats. It was nice to see some other life around. A royal being around probably put them at a higher risk.

“Hello my adoring darlings!” Asmo sang, “I’ve decided to treat you all with a visit today, and I’ve brought my soon to be husband to see all of you! Make sure you show him just how wonderful you all are!”

Solomon caught the sweet scent he usually associated with Asmo wafting from one of the shops. So, they did come from here. How frequently did Asmo visit? Slowly people emerged from their houses and stands and continued to go about their days. Asmo grinned at him and took his hand.

“Come on, I want to show you around.”

Asmo spent most of the time talking about himself. Asking if Solomon thought he looked pretty, if his town was the best one he'd ever seen. That was the last thing he really remembered as he started to tune Asmo out at that point. There was so much he could take of this man just talking about himself. He figured that he might learn something about his fiance, but it turns out he was wrong. Did Asmo seriously think that this would get Solomon to like him? He knew what Diavolo had said, but still.

Was he really that nice?

Or was he more like what he'd heard Azazel describe?

Whatever the case, he was trying too hard to impress him.

Asmo led him towards the center of the square and turned to face Solomon, “If I can get some musicians together, would you like to dance with me?”

“Oh, well, I’m not the best dancer,” he could at social events if he had to, but it wasn’t something that he would do in his free time. The idea of there being a possible audience also made him nervous. He stepped back and looked around, "Perhaps another time."

Asmo's face fell slightly, but he let Solomon step back. It almost seemed as if he was trying to think about what to say to convince Solomon to change his mind.

"I think I'd like to meet some of your people and to look at the products they create," Solomon continued, taking note of the plant life around him. Each of them seemed to have some sort of pink tint to them. At least the color themes seemed consistent.

"Of course."

The people were seemed rather intimidated by him. Not that he blamed him. He was an outsider king and a rather prominent figure at that. He was going to marry their prince. He took notes as they wandered. After all, he was going to have a say when it came to this place, he should know more about it.

Asmo’s chattering eventually dulled with each increasingly listless response Solomon gave and he scribbled away in his notes. Perhaps he finally understood that Solomon needed to focus, that he needed quiet if he was going to make any progress in his studies. He paused in his strides when he came to a patch of flowers surrounded by tiny metal arches.

They smelled impossibly sweet, almost as sweet as Asmo's perfumes. What were they? They weren't anything that Solomon was familiar with. He was certain they didn’t have them back at home. This was something he could ask his fiance about. It was only when he turned to ask him did he realize that Asmo wasn’t there. He wasn’t anywhere to be seen actually.

His eyes glanced around the area. Surely he couldn’t have gone that far? Was he really that upset by the fact that Solomon wouldn’t dance with him?

He plucked one of the flowers and started to try to retrace his steps to find his fiance. This was supposed to be a date between the two of them. Of course he would lose his fiance here. Of course his fiance would run out without telling him. Of course. Of course it had to be this way. Of course his fiance couldn’t have been reasonable. Of course-

There were children laughing.

Children?

“You’re doing so well!” his fiance was standing among them, engaging in their little games. This was a different side of him. They were all in a little circle with their hands linked. Sometimes the children would break the chain and run around before finding new spots.

He wasn't striving to impress them, perhaps because they were children (and easy to impress).

He's a kind person.

Diavolo had said he was kind. Solomon had been skeptical. The more he watched, the more he realized that perhaps he’d been wrong. He’d judged him too harshly. Perhaps he hadn’t been as level headed as he thought.

Watching him laugh and play with the little ones was certainly an experience all on it’s own. He seemed like he didn’t have a care in the world.

Solomon also had another realization.

Asmo had a different type of worry plaguing his mind. He’d been nervous that Solomon would reject him because he wasn’t Lilith sure, but after he’d been worried that Solomon wouldn’t be impressed with him. His worries transformed and were presenting themselves through a different outlet. Solomon hadn’t been paying attention because Asmo was smitten with him, which was the minimum that he needed.

He could be good to him.

He could be kind to him.

It seemed like Solomon hadn’t been doing the best job at doing those things the more he dwelled on it. To put it frankly, he’d been ignorant. Solomon couldn’t even say that he wasn’t completely unaware of how he’d been acting. He hadn’t been terrible to Asmodeus, but he certainly hadn’t been good or kind either. He could have been better.

One of the kids must have tripped or something, because the next thing Solomon knew he heard sobbing.

“Oh darling, it’s alright, hush now. It’s only a scrape,” Asmo’s voice carried to Solomon’s ears. It was soothing, it felt safe. It lit something inside of him, a feeling that he couldn’t quite place his finger on. Whatever it was, Solomon knew he enjoyed it. His voice alone could convince the tension to leave his body and place his mind at ease. It felt like if Asmo said it was alright then everything had to be alright. Slowly the sobs settled and the child buried their head into Asmo’s shoulder. Slender fingers ran through their hair in an attempt to sooth them.

Solomon realized that this was a third face he had never seen from his fiance before. How many more could he possibly have? What more did Solomon have left to discover?

“I thought you didn’t like kids,” the words came out of his mouth before he could stop them. No thought ran through him, only an action that he chastised himself for.

Asmo jumped ever so slightly and turned to face him. He seemed surprised to see Solomon there, more surprised than Solomon thought he should be. “What brought you to that conclusion?” he asked.

“Your reaction to the rabbits.”

“Ah well,” Asmo laughed slightly, “You still thought I was someone else then, and I’m not exactly capable of giving you children in that sense. I do love the little ones though, they’re the cutest little things.” Asmo poked the child’s nose earning a soft little giggle, “Aren’t you all?”

He stopped for a moment, scrunching up his brow before turning to Solomon, “What brought you here? You seemed… busy in your own little world.”

Oh, so he’d been ignoring him, and unfortunately Solomon knew it wasn’t the first time he’d been aware of this. He was just more aware of it than he’d like to be at the moment.

He cleared his throat before holding up the flower, “I had been curious about some of your plants and wanted to ask you a few questions, but I see that you’re busy right now.”

Solomon glanced at the rest of the children standing behind him and thought. He was curious about the game, and he hadn’t been giving his fiance much mind as of late. “Would you mind if I watched your game?”he asked.

It was fun to watch them play. The way the children interacted with the fifth prince was adorable to say the least. At some point, they’d managed to talk Solomon into playing. There was no better way to learn than to participate. He wasn’t great at it, but the children seemed to enjoy him fumbling about squealing with absolute delight. Asmo had even joined in, and oh Solomon had almost forgotten how much he enjoyed his laugh.

When it came time for the children to return to their families for lunch, Asmo led him into town to meet more of the locals. They showed him their wears and how they went about making their soothing lotions and sweet perfumes. To his surprise a few of them had also been magic users. They didn’t have strong magic, but it did help with relaxation, recreation, and with what plants the little town did have. In other words, it seemed like it could also be utilized for healing in the form of muscle relaxants or even helping in the production of certain medicines.

They all also seemed to enjoy Asmo.

This hadn’t been what he thought it would be at all. In fact, Solomon was enjoying their little date. Watching Asmo interact with the people of his sector was certainly more enjoyable than him trying too hard to impress him. Solomon liked this side of Asmo. He was relaxed and his eyes were soft and tender. There was a beauty about him that was being reflected outward.

For the first time, Solomon truly felt like he was getting a glance at his soul.

“Your majesty?” a young woman approached Asmo, violin in her hand, “Would you like music?”

Solomon wasn’t sure what possessed him to look up in that moment, but he realized how many eyes were on them. No. How many eyes were on him. Then he remembered. Asmo would be giving up his position in marrying him. That meant that Solomon would now have say over anything that happened. For the first time what that really meant hit Solomon. Asmo would no longer have control over his sector, and his people were worried. They didn’t know anything about Solomon, and neither did Asmo.

He wanted him to love him.

He wanted him to respect him.

Asmo was just as scared, and Solomon had been stupid enough to miss it all.

“On any other day that would be lovely my dear, but I’m afraid my-”

“You mentioned wanting to dance earlier,” Solomon cut in, bowing ever so slightly, “Consider this my apology for being so rude and ignoring you.”

Joy radiated from the prince. Solomon could feel his warmth buzzing all around them as they headed back to the center of town.

This didn’t mean Solomon was in love.

But this did mean that he was going to try harder.

He was going to give the prince what he deserved and show him that he didn’t need to worry.

Solomon would take care of things.

The music started up, the woman with the violin leading in a few other instruments as they joined hands. Solomon wasn’t a fantastic dancer, but it didn’t seem to matter to Asmodeus. It was such a simple want.

Ah. Yet how quickly a fairytale-esque picture can shatter.

Solomon didn’t even register hearing the whistle of the arrow as he pulled Asmodeus in close and it scraped his sleeve, barely missing his fiance.

#ruewrites #TaBoL #solodeus #asmodeus x solomon #asmosolo #soloasmo #dialuci #diavolo x lucifer #obey me solomon #obey me asmodeus #obey me diavolo #obey me barbatos #obey me lucifer #royalty!au #arranged marriage!au #slow burn #eventual romance

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erekiosuncreativeideas · 3 years

Text

The Part-Time Puppeteer - Chapter 05

<= Chapter 4

Summary : Lukas gets a once in a lifetime chance. Also available on AO3 : https://archiveofourown.org/works/23828971/chapters/77002538

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I'M SO SORRY FOR THE HUGE HIATUS PEOPLE, AAAAAH ANYWAY, NEW CHAPTER, I HOPE YOU'LL LIKE IT (and yeah, I'm getting back to work on this fanfic full time now, expect updates from time to time).

You'll notice my writing style has improved since then, so don't be too surprised.

Happy reading ! Thank you for waiting all this time, it really means a lot!

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Chapter 5 - Wait. What?

It would be an understatement to say that the young man was confused to no end. He wasn’t just unsettled by the whole thing– he was absolutely bewildered. Him, taking the role of an actor? And, more than that, taking MJ’s role out of everyone’s ? Man, this couldn’t be real, this just couldn’t be. Yet… Here he was, in front of everyone, holding a script with shaking hands, and his heart pounding like crazy in his chest. Fuck, fuck, fuck, there was no way he was going to do that, no fucking way–

-“I, uh… I don’t think it’s a very good idea…” he mumbled, his eyes looking away while a deep blush crept its way onto his cheeks. He wasn’t an actor, he had no experience in this, oh, why, why did he laugh so loud?

His weak statement and his trembling stance made the Conductor scoff, and a mocking smile appeared on his lips for the first time since the latter had entered the room. The man lied back against his chair and gave his colleague a playful yet strong nudge:

-“Would you look at that,” cackled the old man with his Scottish accent: “Someone’s having stage fright!”

The other man rubbed at the place the Conductor had touched him, not really liking sudden touches coming from the other apparently:

-“Yes, darling, I’ve noticed,” he replied with an unimpressed expression. Grooves’s eyes then fell on the young stagehand again and he tried to reassure him with a warm smile. Unsurprisingly, this didn’t help in the slightest.

-“Is this your first acting experience?” the man asked the student, putting his chin into the palm of his hand.

-“… Yeah,” Lukas answered trustfully. As much as he hated MJ’s guts, it was still undeniable that the latter knew how to play a role perfectly. Whether it was from the gestures, the stance, the tone of his voice, or his confidence in front of a camera… It was all so different with Lukas. He gulped down and tried to voice his concerns once more: “I really think that you shouldn’t-”

However, he was soon cut short by the Conductor’s voice. The movie maker had picked up his cone and had shouted a loud “action!” inside, showing his impatience and making Lukas pale instantly at the same time. Oh shit, shit, wait, no– He didn’t want to do this, this was way out of his comfort zone…! And he could hear people giggling at him in the distance, among the stagehands watching him fiddling with the script! Oh this was so humiliating, so humiliating, he couldn’t do this…!

-“Just read the bad guy’s line,” Grooves’s suave voice interrupted his thoughts, most likely in an attempt to calm him down, though it wasn’t helping: “We know you haven’t learnt them like the young lady here, so don’t worry about stammering,” Next to him, the little girl was staring at him with a mix of compassion and second-hand embarrassment. This experience kinda reminded him of the school projects he had had to do in the past, and still did as of today… But like, a hardcore version of them, for a topic he had no prior knowledge in. Oh, sure, if this had been a law-related project, he wouldn’t be so terrified right now. But it wasn’t. In any case, his eyes fell on the papers he was holding and he tried taking a deep breath, gulping down his saliva again with a lot of troubles.

He wasn’t going to get out of this until he actually tried it, was he? God, what did he get himself into…

-“Y-you… You reached my h-home, little one,” he read, his voice shaking. Right before he could start the next line, a loud “cut!” interrupted him: the Conductor. Lukas’s face paled up once again. Oh fuck, he had just said a single sentence and it was already that bad, he knew he wasn’t an actor, he knew he was terrible at playing a role, he had never done that before!

With trembling lips, he glanced to the directors with fear. Would they fire him? No, how could they? This wasn’t even the main purpose of his job! His job was to lift things and repair broken stuff! Not this!

A moment of silent passed in which the student couldn’t move, completely paralyzed. What were they going to tell him? Would they make fun of him? Was everyone going to? While the stagehands looked amused, it wasn’t really the case for the directors, which did nothing to help Lukas to feel better at all. And when he thought they were about to tell him to drop the script and go back to what he could do, he was taken aback when he heard a “EVERYONE, OUT” from the Conductor. The student couldn’t help but be startled by the other’s volume. Wait, what-

He looked around, confused. As he saw the stagehands leaving the room, he started to walk away- but Grooves stopped him in his momentum:

-“Not you, darling, you stay here,” instructed the eccentric man, a smirk visible on his lips. Oh fuck, what, what was going on…?

Soon enough, everyone left the room… Except for the directors, the kid, her dad, and him. Oh shit, it was one thing to read a script in public, but now, it felt even more… Official!

-“B-but, I’m not…” he tried to interject, but wasn’t allowed to continue:

-“If being watched is making you scared, then there you go,” shrugged the Conductor, as if he hadn’t yelled a minute ago: “Problem solved,” he then pointed to the papers in Lukas’ hands and gave him an look that clearly meant ‘hurry up’: “Now, eyes on the script and read.”

The young man still tried to protest, but the old producer shouted yet another “action!”, making him jump out of surprise and nervousness. He really… Didn’t have any choice, apparently. Closing his eyes for a moment, he took a deep breath. After all, he couldn’t get fired for this, right? And there were considerably less people watching him… Surely this wouldn’t be worse than before! And, hell, even if he did fail, then who cared? No one (or almost no one) was watching him now, and there weren’t going to be consequences for it anyway.

So why the hell not, after all? He still found it stupid how his laughter had caught the men’s attention, but yeah: he didn’t have anything to lose. So, after another deep breath… The stagehand straightened up and tried to appear more confident.

Ha. What a joke.

-“You reached my home, little one,” he repeated his first line, trying to sound as creepy as that fucking puppet MJ had been holding earlier: “F-fear not, my dear, for I will not hurt you. I don’t- I do not harm my friends,” he stammered, wondering how he had managed to go that far. Well, at least, he wasn’t being interrupted this time… So this was good, he supposed?

-“Who are you?” the little girl replied, going back in character so fast that Lukas wouldn’t even believe she was acting. Damn, she was good. Way better than him, without a doubt. She had tilted her head to the side, a fake confused expression painted on her face as she approached him curiously. Yeah, she looked way more experienced than he was. But the directors still remained silent, watching them with great interest.

Yeah, no, this was definitely not intimidating Lukas. Ha.

-“I am the M-Moonjumper,” he replied, forcing an awkward smile on his lips, still attempting to appear scary. Well, he probably looked more ridiculous than anything, really, but he was trying: “I am the guardian of the Hori- Horizon, but also its prisoner for eternity. I… I have seen the birth of the universe and its end I will witness.”

-“The Horizon?” repeated the little girl, faking looking around: “Is that where we are?” she then frowned, as if she had just realized something terrible: “Wait… Does that mean I’m trapped here too?”

Oh cool, the character he was playing at was a kidnapper, fucking great. He tried not to let this thought appear on his features and continued his part of the text. Okay, so his character was a bad guy, right? Maybe… Maybe he had to sound more like one rather than just reading the lines out loud like he had done so far. He threw an anxious glance to the directors, wondering if this was a good idea- but, hell, why the fuck not? If he was forced to do this thing, then he might as well give his all! Even if just to piss MJ off, even if the latter couldn’t see him– although, this wasn’t such a bad thing, considering their skill gap. He didn’t want to be laughed at.

But this wasn’t the time for this kind of thoughts. Now was time for either impressing people… Or just utterly ridiculing himself.

Lukas approached the child with a threatening pose, looming over her and using his free hand as a claw floating above her. He did his best to keep a somewhat “sadistic” expression and continued his line, this time with more motivation and more confidence.

-“Oh, do not worry, little one… I know what it’s like to be all alone, left to rot in this place for centuries, with no one to talk to. Rest assured, you won’t suffer the same fate as I did,” he paused, leaning forward, his smile widening dangerously, and a dark chuckle leaving his mouth: “I will be there with you forever, my child. You will never, ever, be alone again…”

The girl gave him an incredulous look, and he couldn’t tell if it was faked or genuine. However, this was soon replaced by the expected fearful expression. Yeah, he would be scared if he were in that kid’s shoes…

-“You can’t trap me here!” she retorted, stepping back. The child seemed to grab an invisible object and using it to keep him at a safe distance- a weapon probably. Kinda looked like a sword, from the way she was holding it. The student followed the script and approached her again. Had he not been so insecure about his laughter, he would have probably improvised one, but, yeah, no. This was not happening.

In any case, Lukas’ “sadistic” expression disappeared as the little girl charged at him, and it was his turn to step back. Sure, it was in the script, but it was one thing to read it. It was another to actually experience it, even if it was all fake.

Breaking character seemed to be enough for the directors to put an end to the audition. The new “cut!” that echoed in the room reminded him of the current situation and an uncontrollable blush rose to his cheeks- oh fuck, he had been really carried away, what the hell… He and the little girl turned to the producers, both looking rather nervous, though for completely different reasons. Well, while he hoped this child would get the role, he wasn’t so uncertain about his own fate in that regard. Even if MJ’s personality was absolutely terrible, it was clear that the other was more experienced and more famous than he was. It would be a real mistake to keep him, a stagehand, over a skilled actor– and, anyway, why was he even thinking about that possibility? There was no way this was going to happen!

He waited with the little girl, and the two directors started to whisper with one another, giving them sideways glances that made him even more insecure. Wait, why would there be anything to discuss? He would go back to being a stagehand and the kid was going to get the role! And, if she wasn’t, then… Then he wouldn’t understand. She had everything a young actor could offer: talent, spontaneity, expressiveness…

Eventually, after what seemed to be an eternity, the two directors turned back to them. Grooves was smiling warmly to the kid and proudly announced, all while clasping his hands:

-“Good job, darling,” he praised her, a sincere impressed look in his eyes: “You got the role.”

As soon as she heard these words, the child’s lips turned into a bright smile. Pure joy could be seen on her face as she started to jump around and giggle, celebrating the announcement with great excitement. She dashed to her father and hugged him tightly, squealing with delight against him. At the sight, Lukas couldn’t help but smile, touched by the little girl’s happiness. Oh, he was glad for her, and even more so to know he had been able to help her get the job. Even if he was going to get laughed at for his poor performance, it still had some use in the end.

-“Hey, you,” his attention was caught back by the Conductor and his eyes went back to them. Oh. Right.

-“Uh, do I… Do you want me to go tell the others they can come back?” he suggested, his previous confidence flying through the window, miles and miles away. He couldn’t help but look away, not managing to keep eye contact. God, this was so stressful… His mess of a mind was silenced as he saw Grooves nudging his counterpart, a smug smile on his lips.

-“I’ll let you do the honors,” he chuckled with his deep voice, and Lukas tilted his head to the side, getting more and more confused by the whole situation. Wait, what…? No, no, no, wait…

The Conductor moved away from the other, as if disgusted by the sudden and unwanted contact- they really were alike on a lot of points, it was kind of funny to watch, though Lukas’ mind was not focused on this at the moment.

-“Fine, DJ Peckneck,” groaned the other, rubbing the place where Grooves had touched him like he was trying to get some dirt off him. His head turned back to the student and he stood up, visibly wanting to get this over with:

-“You get the role,” he merely told him, barely paying attention to him anymore: “Learn your text by tomorrow,” and just like that, the man walked with a fast pace to the door, opening it and calling everyone back inside with his loud and authoritative voice.

In the meantime, Lukas was just… Frozen, unable to process what he had just been told.

Wait.

What?

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Ahahaha, Lukas gets so fucking confused in this fanfic, this is so funny to write.

=> Chapter 06

#a hat in time #hat kid #hailey #snatcher #lukas #the conductor #conductor #dj grooves #grooves #puppet au #the part-time puppeteer #fanfiction #erekio #erekiosuncreativeideas

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jaskiersvalley · 4 years

Note

Oh my god im the anon with the cuckoowitcher ask. I've been running around all day trying to have a few quiet Moments to read! I really loved it thank you so much. I've been reading all your lovely Storys but I have to say I have a Soft Spot for cuckoo Jas. Thank you for responding and writing something so sweet. Still love your writing and it still helps a hell a lot! Lots of love! Hope to see much more

Some people get stuck in my head and you, cuckoo Jaskier Nonnie, are one of those people because you’re always so polite and sweet. So while I may not have more cuckoo Jaskier stories at the moment, I wonder whether you’d like something else. There’s a lot of warlord Geralt going around, with Jaskier offered up as a tribute. But has anybody ever considered warlord Jaskier before?

It had started off as a side gig, Jaskier would always be adamant about that. He had wanted to be a bard. Sing songs, witness adventures and maybe be adored by the masses, that was his grand plan for life. Unfortunately, being a travelling bard didn’t pay well and people weren’t as quick to laud him as Jaskier had hoped. However, according to Redanian Secret Services, he was in the unique position to help them gather intelligence. So, on the side as Jaskier collected materials for his greatest works yet, he also picked up intel on armies, prisoners, relationships between factions, species and kingdoms. It was quite eye opening.

The only problem with it all was that Jaskier wasn’t stupid. He could see where wars were brewing, what allegiances were being forged. And, really, Jaskier thought he could do so much better. The information he was returning back to Redania wasn’t being used in the best way possible. So Jaskier started tailoring the information to ‘help’ them along. He had also managed to make friends with a few of the other intelligence officers, namely Valdo and Priscilla. Between the three of them, they had quite a spread of information and spent many a drunken night gossiping over maps, discussing how they would solve the problems of the continent.

One thing led to another and suddenly Jaskier had more than two fellow spies at his beck and call. Somehow he’d ended up with the loyalty of the dwarves, Zoltan and his crew being quite helpful. Then Filavandrel and his elves entered a truce with Jaskier, followed by Triss Merigold and a handful of sorceresses. It was haphazard at best but word travelled. And suddenly Jaskier was being approached by the Redanian Secret Service not as a spy but as an equal. They wanted to trade information and Jaskier almost laughed. Except, after Redania came Nilfgaard, offering riches in exchange for information and good relations. Not like Jaskier had an army or lands or anything like that. Did he? The dwarves and elves had their own regions, Redania was trying to save face that their own officers had done a better job of keeping the peace. Well, there was no harm in keeping on good terms with Nilfgaard, they had been the thorn in the continent’s side for a while. Maybe by being friendly, Jaskier and co could actually help settle issues.

When Temeria took umbrage at Jaskier’s meddling, it was one hell of an awkward moment because Redania, Nilfgaard, elves, dwarves and even Aedirn joined forces to quiet the unrest. Which was a turning point of sorts. Suddenly, every kingdom great or small came knocking on Jaskier’s door. He’d returned to Lettenhove because home was home. The steady stream of well wishers and ambassadors was, frankly, embarrassing. Jaskier had a hard time keeping up with everything.

Then there was the matter of Kaedwen. They were trying to be fiercely independent and up in arms. It just wasn’t going to do and, for the first time in his life, Jaskier asked his newfound allies if anyone was willing to raise arms against the threat. Unsurprisingly, Nilfgaard was down for a battle or two but they were joined by the elves. Redania offered medical assistance while the dwarves and trolls helped with supplies. It was all rather anticlimactic, an army marching to Kaedwen, only to be greeted by a white flag.

Not all battles were so easy though, sometimes factions arose, Cintra was being a royal twit and the war fought with them and Skellige was brutal. In the end though, they were defeated, Queen Calanthe had to admit defeat. Despite this, they weren’t prepared to roll over and play nice. In an attempt to display might and dignity, they sent the most extravagant offerings to Lettenhove. It wasn’t riches, no silks, no finery or gold. Instead, they had captured the most difficult of offerings. A witcher.

He was trussed up in his own silver chains. Silver for monsters as witchers had been known to say. It was a warning from Cintra, they had caught the most feared of beasts, the monster designed to kill all monsters. They wouldn’t bow down to a warlord, no matter what the kingdoms thought and did. The witcher was tied to a horse and made to walk behind it though a shuffle was a more apt description.

Jaskier stood in the hall of Lettenhove and watched as the half starved wretch was shoved to his knees in front of him. A hungry witcher was a weak one, much easier to subdue and manage.

“A gift, from Cintra,” the messenger had declared and stepped away with a bow.

Approaching the witcher, Jaskier ignored how every eye seemed trained on him, hands on swords and prepared to leap to his protection. Rather than pay them any attention, Jaskier sank to his knees in front of the witcher.

“Hello,” he offered. There was no response, the witcher’s head was bowed, whole body tense, trying to exude disdain and an air of threat. Up close, Jaskier could see the fine tremors through muscles though. He stood up. “Please pass my thanks to Cintra, I accept your fealty and this offering. Though I would request no more live tributes. Or dead ones! Gold, silks, food and shared knowledge is more than enough. Court dismissed.”

Nobody moved for a moment. “Everyone out!”

Jaskier stood next to the witcher who hadn’t moved throughout the exchange. As soon as they were alone, he was crouching down, tugging at the silver chains.

“You poor thing, how could they treat you like that.” Gradually, the witcher was freed from his bonds and as soon as he could, he had Jaskier’s own dagger at Jaskier’s throat. “Harsh,” Jaskier observed, “but fair. Can we save the killing for after dinner though? I have always found having a full stomach helped with most decisions.”

He didn’t expect the witcher to waver, the dagger fall from his hands and for him to collapse on the ground in a dead faint. It seemed that springing on Jaskier had really been the last of his energy. What a waste.

Needless to say, there was no killing after dinner. Jaskier learned that the witcher was called Geralt, he’d been to Cintra to collect his child surprise but Queen Calanthe had different ideas. Trapped, Geralt had been helpless to do anything which was how he’d ended up becoming an offering to a warlord.

That had Jaskier laughing. He wasn’t a warlord. If anything, Jaskier was a failed bard and a very bad intelligence officer because he thought he could do better than those he worked for. It wasn’t his fault people were pledging their allegiances to him or that he had to ask if anyone was willing to help deal with a threat to the peace that he was bringing to the continent. No, Jaskier wasn’t a warlord because he helped bring new rules to kingdoms and enforced them. Oh shit. He was a warlord. His parents were going to be so pissed off when they found out.

“I think they already know,” Geralt had interrupted Jaskier’s internal panic. “You might have been the last person on the continent to find out.”

“But I didn’t mean to become one.”

“I didn’t mean to become a witcher. Destiny is a bitch.” Geralt had shrugged. “At least you get to choose who you will speak to from different kingdoms. Is Emhyr over the fact you won’t talk to him yet? That you picked some general of his army as a representative”

Jaskier rubbed the back of his neck with an awkward grin. “I mean, I just figured the Emperor of Nilfgaard himself wouldn’t want to deal with me. So I picked someone who would and who I liked. Then I heard of what Emhyr’s like and just decided I liked my pick better.”

Over the course of a week, Geralt ate and rested, gaining back his strength and resilience. Jaskier admired from afar, astounded by how quickly his witcher seemed to bounce back. Not his witcher. Geralt didn’t belong to anyone. Even if Jaskier quite fancied the idea.

“You’re free to come and go. I’ve set out a new law that’s making its way round the lands. Witchers are to be lauded and appreciated for their hard work,” Jaskier said as he stood, facing Geralt by the stables. His witcher was ready to head out on the Path again, hopefully it was going to be a little easier for him from now on.

“Thank you.” The thing was, Geralt sounded so earnestly genuine. “I was wondering, could you keep something safe for me until I return?”

An unusual request but Jaskier would help if he could.

“You’ve been a wonderful guest, even if your arrival wasn’t the most wholesome one. I’ll keep anything safe for you.”

He didn’t anticipate Geralt leaning in to kiss him chastely. “Keep my heart safe. I’m leaving it in your good care.”

The bastard then had the gall to hop onto his horse and ride off without a backwards glance. Jaskier was going to tell him exactly what he thought of that tactic when he came back. Until then, he would treasure Geralt’s heart, even if he didn’t have time to officially give his own in return.

#geraskier #geralt of rivia #jaskier #warlord au #the witcher #warlord jaskier #tldr: jaskier becomes a warlord and geralt is tribute

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