#it looks wonky to me but it's probably because i drew this in the wrong file size 🙃

[losernumerouno]

aki, my beloved :')

[crepes-suzette-373]

Ichiji's right eyebrow being wonky is something that I'm not too sure about, because as an artist I understand that mistakes happen when you're really tired. I very often screw up my drawings when I'm tired too. Missing details, accidentally drawing something backwards or mirrored, drawing wrong accessories on the wrong person, etc.

But there are two examples where I felt like it looks too glaringly-visible to screw up:

As an example, there has been multiple times when I draw Sanji or his bros with their eyebrow backwards, so errors do happen sometimes. But the curl actually just flat out missing like this is a bit weird.

There's other panels where you can argue that it was meant to be covered by hair, but sensei just accidentally drew the hair parting too far to the left. The two above are just too dead-on to be missed.

And my whole point of bringing this up is the above examples also happen to be incidents where Ichiji is clearly displaying intense emotions.

The child panel, for example. Ichiji has been shown to be irritated at Sanji in other scenes, but this is the only time that he got so angry he started beating up Sanji. In all other times, he just watched, and Niji and Yonji are the ones doing the beating.

See below, how the brow under the bangs seems like it's drawn in the same manner as how Sanji's one is drawn, and see how different it looks when the curly brow is properly drawn:

Ichiji just looks so intensely enraged at that moment, it feels like there has to be something else that is wrong here.

I left that first one as the raw, because what he says (生意気) in this context seems to be better translated as "How impudent/how insolent". Why is he this angry about being hit? Why is he so angry that Sanji is "different"? Why say "don't touch me"? That punch was obviously weak and did nothing.

Judge was just unimpressed when Sanji tried to fight him, so what is Ichiji so angry about?

(incidentally, this is probably why a few people got concerned when Sanji called Vegapunk "insolent man")

As of now, we don't know what's happening yet, but you don't see this level of reaction from Niji and Yonji.

I have previously wondered if Ichiji's modifications are actually also "messed up", and that the eyebrow being weird might be indicative of that.

There were also panels where it seems like he's having emotional moments, like the adult Ichiji panel I highlighted on top (details and explanation in this post). If the weird eyebrow is explicitly happening during the emotional outbursts... that sort of makes him Sanji's reverse, which possibly implies that when Sanji's brows flip, it also looks like this:

There's also other lore analysis/theory I have that really points to Ichiji and Sanji being mirrors/opposite counterparts, which I probably might write up later, and if all of that is true, I don't know yet what sensei's intention for it is.

There's one additional scene where you might be able to argue the curl is also missing, but this one is not as glaringly strange as the first two:

If that was actually not a mistake, it's another point to the "display of emotion" argument.

It's less obvious in English, but in Japanese, he was using a rather unusually rough speech in this very specific panel. There's not enough dialogue to be truly certain that this is out of the ordinary, but again, if this is actually something that's not normal and the eyebrow is actually also weird... well, we have questions to be asked.

[tapesfrom1980]

can u do dating sean headcanons? and if u could keep it gender neutral-ish i would appreciate thank u <33

dating sean diaz would include..

IVE NEVER GOTTEN AN ASK/REQUEST THIS IS SO EXCITING YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW HAPPY THIS MADE ME THANK YOU ENJOY <33333

-either frenemies to lovers or he just thought you were hot and you rejected him multiple times till you gave in a longgg time later and he never gave up <3

-definitely a bestfriends type of relationship, he’s very comfortable with you and he knows he can make jokes with you without worrying about hurting you

-he’s lowkey awkward at first just because he hasn’t really had real?? experience with relationships before but he’s so excited to finally have you he goes all out if he can

-he’ll get you concert tickets for one of your favorite artists and be like “just because I love you 😘”

-sometimes it’ll be estebans money too and if he gets caught he’ll yell at sean but make sure to say “it’s not your fault though y/n you did nothing wrong” and go back to scolding

-he didn’t know when to drop the L bomb since he’s never felt that way with someone and didn’t know when it was the right time to say it

-he eventually said it mid-argument and there was a lot of making out after that

-getting sketches of yourself that he drew basically everyday

-he draws you at the most random times, bummy looking or not

-his favorite is the one he did while you danced around his room to your favorite song

-he always draws you as an absolute angel and has some hung up

-even just in his school notebooks his doodling always goes to your face so a lot of his homework or quizzes have your face in some corner with little hearts around it

-daniel tries drawing you too, and you take some home with you even if it’s just you with a deformed blue face and wonky yellow eyes

-being ABSOLUTE besties with daniel

-sean tries to act like he hates sharing your attention but you know he likes that you love daniel as much as he does

-sometimes you’ll come early to the diaz house just to hang out with daniel

-“y/n? how long have you been here why didn’t you wake me up?”

-“daniel called me to help him with his new batman lego set”

-“…”

-he sometimes joins in your guys’s dates and sean tries kicking him out everytime

-being super close with esteban too

-he’s happy sean found someone who’s good for him and pushes him to be a better person

-gossiping with him while he’s working on a car

-usually it’s when sean is busy or you’re just annoyed at him

-“oh y/n, whatd he do now?”

-sometimes even while sean is in the room

-“i’m still here guys”

-weekly movie dates!!! drive ins or sneaking into the theater (sean says 15 bucks just to watch a movie is outrageous)

-getting him to listen to your favorite artists/bands

-sometimes he’ll pretend to hate it if it’s a genre he’d never listen to but you can see him trying not to drum his fingers or bop his head

-dragging him to every school event

-matching halloween costumes always

-if he wants to do a character you don’t know you’ll still match him for his sake vice versa

-if you have a pet he’ll probably try his hardest to befriend it even if he’s lowkey scared at first

-he’ll get jokingly jealous about you and your pet saying how you don’t give HIM that much love

-speaking of jealousy, he’s def the jealous type

-he’ll try to hide it but then say something petty to you or the person making him jealous

-“that wasn’t even that funny 😐”

-“you guys should go to that restaurant you’ve been talking so much about together”

-“sean 😒”

-lyla!!!!

-as both of sean’s bestfriends you guys are really close too

-“he will never get between us y/n.✊”

-lyla joking about how she has to third wheel even tho she’s absolutely happy you guys are together

-sean and lyla fighting over you

-“i don’t care if you and y/n are dating. i’m still the favorite. right y/n??? right??”

-making sure to include her at some point on valentine’s day too even if she pretends to hate it

-arcade dates & picnics <3

-sleepovers!!!!!!! always so much fun

-sometimes you’ll just lay in bed listening to music and it’s one of the most special moments together

WITH STORY PLOT

-you were with them minutes before that had happened, but you went to go pick up your guys’s food from the deli near the house

-you came back to esteban on the floor, the crashed cop car, and no sean and daniel

-you were so in shock nothing came out your mouth for a while

-once your brain processed what was happening you yelled around the house for sean and daniel

-you screamed and screamed till the other cops got to the scene

-even then you kept calling for the boys

-you didn’t know what to do with yourself you’d just seen your boyfriends dad dead on the floor and your boyfriend and his little brother missing

-when the cops explained what happened you were so disgusted about how the situation was handled and how sean had been blamed

-you knew sean and daniel, you knew sean and you knew the story was mixed up and the diaz boys were blamed obviously due to racism

-you never gave up looking for them, you went into the woods and everything

-you were looked down upon, even by your own parents, because it looked like you were supporting a “criminal”

-when sean finally called, you were so happy you bawled the entire time

-you were so so relieved he and daniel were alright

-you understood why he couldn’t tell you where they were or why he wouldn’t be able to call again

-he also didn’t tell you their location because he knew you’d try coming to them, he really did know your love for them both

-with one last goodbye and i love you, that was the last time you talked to sean

if you ran with them

-sean 100% didn’t want you to come with them

-you were in the house when it happened but you rushed outside, but the cop didn’t see you

-he knew that if you went with them you couldn’t come back without being taken in to custody as you were now an accomplice to them, things would never be the same and he couldn’t ask you to do that for him and daniel

-“y/n please, stay here” he was already in tears and his voice was cracking but you refused

-instead, you took your bag with more supplies and stuff that was already in visible view that you knew would be helpful for whatever situation you guys were going to be in

-“i don’t know why you’d think i’d leave you sean”

-you also knew even with the rush of adrenaline you were having what you were giving up

-you were giving up your family, your friends, and a normal life

-but you had been with sean for a long time and you knew you were never gonna leave him to fend for him and daniel in who knows where

-you never complained, even with the bad circumstances

-you helped the boys ration supplies and find shelter in the woods

-sean felt so much better with you there, so did daniel

-they both felt guilty for being glad you came with them

-they knew you left a whole life behind and felt like they took that from you, even if it wasn’t their fault

-but it was your choice and you didn’t regret it even in the worst moments, and you always reminded them both of that, no matter what the ending was

[ask-unpleasant]

hey chat sorry for the month of inactivity. i was unmotivated to do anything with this blog

but then i looked at some of the art on here and realized that i just lost my love for the character designs. so you know how we're gonna fix that? we're redesigning some characters bayybeeee 😈

starting with the man the myth the legend, here is UNPLEZZIE 2.0

he's probably the only one i had genuine problems with other than not being very aesthetically pleasing. he seemed too boring, his proportions were always a bit wonky, and the way he became more and more simple the more i drew him dumbed him down to just...awkward.

for this redesign, i kept all the features that made him my unpleasant. the only really signature thing i changed was his hair, sorry not sorry he had to fire his barber. i changed his scars to be far less opaque as to not clutter him up (which was the main reason i left them out most of the time), the only drawback is that i'm no longer just scribbling them in with a brush, they're actual geometry, so i cut back on the arms just for my own sake. also his tail now looks (and acts) like an actual docked tail.

next is the QSWX GVCTXMG AMXLSYX VIEPPC FIMRK GVCTXMG GLEVEGXIV SJ XLI CIEV, here is CREEPY 2.0

creepy was probably my least favorite character to draw. its head shape with the hair that always ends off screen, the 4 arms, the lack of any real way to move visible, it has always been a mess of a character. don't get me wrong, creepy is my second favorite character to write for (beaten only by neuro), i love its personality and its inflection, i just never got the chance to show that because i hated drawing it so much.

so for the redesign, i've basically reimagined it. its face hair now has an actual definitive ending, it has a more unique shape, and is just much more expunged-friendly in my opinion. it looks even more like its mom now...

next is this one, i thought she was american. here's PARANORMAL 2.0

i'm gonna be totally honest i have no idea what i was doing when designing para for the first time. that outfit was 100% subconsciously stolen from some other character i can't think of right now. it also really just didn't fit her character at all. also i dont know why i gave her boobs???? what????

anyways for the redesign she's basically a whole new design now. i wanted to play with some shape language. also, para always had a sort of inhuman quality to me, despite her personality, so i've given her inverted eyes and some animalistic features. i guess it adds irony or something, i dunno.

and finally, the moment GERIATRIC CAT you've all been waiting for, UNNERVING 2.0

in truth nervy's design is my favorite. the only gripe i had is the lack of legs, like with creepy. also i had to give her one of the same pride flag ass gradient as the rest so she'd fit in with the rest. other than all that i love her she is perfect just the way she is with minor adjustments

that's all the redesigns done!! i only did these 4 because stabby is not mine to redesign and NEURO is perfect just the way it is. feel free to give me any constructive criticism for these redesigns, i can always tweak em a bit. also the more stripy gradients wont a pattern that follows the contours of the body but rather just unmoving plaid always. i hope this lengthy yap sesh contributed something to something, maybe gave some insight into my characters.

and if you got this far i put a public discord server link in the intro post. you dont gotta ask anymore. dont tell anyone....shhh....*lovingly puts my finger on your lips* *smirks* *bolts away* *gets hit by truck* *instantly fatal*

[ambyandony]

shortcuts I took to make drawing the squatizi comic easier

Used a photo reference for the backgrounds (note: this actually made it harder, I couldn’t figure out which beach was in the picture I was looking at so I only had one angle)

(note 2: I didn’t trace the photo or anything but I did colour pick from it)

made Squalo’s towel fall off his shoulder because it looked awkward and it remains on the ground for the rest of the comic . That stupid fucking blue towel.

for fun I made it visibly do this like you can just see it slowly slide off

didn’t overline the background characters and made them all a solid colour cause fuckem

didnt even draw the background characters in one of the panels even though the lesbians probably still should’ve been visible . I just have to assume Squalo is in the exact position on the frame where they just aren’t visible behind him

there’s a rock in the background but I didn’t draw it at all when the camera angle was facing only tiziano because I fucking hate that rock

If I don’t like how something looks and it’s inconsequential to the overall panel and in a corner I just deform the panel so it’s covered. Cause fuckit

covered one of Squalo’s hands with Tiziano’s hair while they were hugging because it looked wonky and I redrew it too many times

accidentally drew Tiziano’s hair wrong in one panel. That wasn’t a shortcut I just fucked it up and by the time I realised I’d already coloured and shaded it and it sucks and I want to fix it

used speech bubbles to hide shit I didn’t like

used a grid to write most of the dialogue

chibified the boyfriends for 2 panels but that was more because the panels were very tiny.

I would say having Squalo’s arms covering his chest for the first half but that was intended and not a shortcut

One side of Tiziano’s hair was originally over his shoulder but it was very annoying so I scrapped it . Except for exactly one panel where I could not draw his neck/collarbone right in that exact area.

the other side IS partially on his shoulder but not fully. I just think it looks more elegant that way but it has the added benefit that I don’t have to think too hard about shading his neck . Thank fuck for men with long hair 🙌

Tiziano’s hair length is inconsistent because I was having trouble making it not look awkward in certain poses

not drawing the lips

Tiziano takes his stupid sunglasses off for exactly one panel because I could not make them look good and then he puts them back up on his forehead because he needed a free hand and had nowhere else to put them. He is not shown doing this

I save Squalo’s freckles till the last step. Squalo’s freckles go on when I’m done with everything else so I have GOT TO REMEMBER TO PUT THE FUCKING FRECKLES ON ITS GONNA BE SOOOO ANNOYING IF I POST HIM WITH NO FRECKLES

The background characters with speaking roles have the exact same hair and skin colour and I drew their faces simplified even when they’re visible up close for one panel because speaking roles or not they are still background characters. Even though I named them.

as an artistic choice I didn’t refine the lineart in the central panel of page 1 (inadvertently made it easier it was actually a choice for the aesthetic of the panel)

Didn’t try very hard to draw the back of Squalo’s hair.

things that did not make the comic easier

Adding extra panels . and reworking all the dialogue from the previous version because it was awkward

themed dialogue fonts

I HANDWRITE ALL THE DIALOGUE MYSELF ALL OF IT. AND I DECIDED TO FUCKING MAKE THE TITTLES ON THE IS AND JS CUSTOM FOR SQUALO AND TIZIANO. AMONG OTHER THINGS. HELP ME

drawing Squalo’s stupid nose broken

the last minute inclusion of the Portuguese Man O’ War

not knowing how to draw nipples

changing background character with speaking role #2’s swimsuit top and not knowing how to draw boobs

THOSE STUPID FUCKING SUNGLASSES

I draw Tiziano’s eyes so fucking detailed. Because he is beautiful

Emphasising Squalo’s musculature

not saving the base skin colour I used for Tiziano OR Squalo before I started shading

drawing them hugging. 3 1/2 times.

making this post instead of finishing it

[chudleycanonficfest]

The Soul Truth

Day 2, Story #1 is by @honouraryweasley12

Title: The Soul Truth

Author: honouraryweasley12

Pairing: Ron x Hermione

Prompt: Soulmates

Rating: K+

TW: none

The ornate doors slid open and Hermione stepped out of the lift, her shoes clacking on the stone floor as she walked forward, head held high but movements stiff. She quickly found that it was best to give off a strong, confident air as she met with various ministries in her new capacity. 

She hadn't been in this part of the Ministry often and it was quite unfamiliar to her. All the more reason to keep her guard up.

"Greetings, Minister Granger-Weasley. Congratulations on your victory."

A wizened old man in heavy, dark robes welcomed her, limping forward and holding out a shaky gnarled hand. She took it and met his eyes, which were still sharp—despite his advanced age. A playful twinkle shone out from them, reminding her immediately of Dumbledore.

"Thank you."

He gave her a smile. "Welcome to Archive floor of the Department of Mysteries."

She looked around the cavernous space, taking everything in. She could practically feel the hum of ancient magic reverberating around the walls.

"And you are?"

"I am the Archivist."

"Oh, I meant your name."

He chuckled. "We don't use our given names in this department, just our titles. There is great power in names, as you no doubt know, and we don't want that to interfere with the work we are doing here."

"What should I call you?"

He thought for a moment, before looking up at her. "For today, you can call me… Dave."

She immediately relaxed and shook her head, her face incredulous. "Why Dave?"

"Ah, you see, the power of names. By picking something so simple and informal, your posture and tone changed completely. Had I picked something more formal, you would have responded in kind."

She smiled, immediately taking a liking to the mysterious old man. "Lead the way, Dave. I was told I would be receiving the grand tour."

The two walked slowly through the vast archives, the various rooms and chambers full of different experiments, mystical objects, and parchments.

"Where is everyone?" Hermione stopped to ask, noticing that they hadn't seen a single person, Unspeakable or otherwise, as she was shown around.

"Some of our greatest breakthroughs happen in the early morning or late evening. We encourage our members to work when it best suits them." He squinted at a battered gold watch that seemed to weigh heavily on his wrist. "Yes, 3:00 PM is usually the quietest time of the day down here."

"I see. I do some of my best work at odd times as well."

He nodded sagely. "The quiet mind is often the clearest."

They continued touring through, until they came to a small door tucked behind several suits of armour. It was so old and dark that Hermione wouldn't have even noticed it, had Dave not mentioned it.

"Most Ministers of Magic I've worked with seem to be worried about other objects down here that might help them, but I have something interesting which I think you'll appreciate."

He fished out a small key from within the folds in his robes and turned it in the lock. The heavy door creaked open to reveal a closet-sized space with a single pedestal. On top of it sat a thin, aged book.

"It's my understanding that you are an avid reader, Minister."

"Yes, how did you know?"

"It's my job to know," he added gravely, watching her eyes narrow. He waved his hand dismissively, grinning again. "No, no, I'm only joking. I happened to share a lift with Auror Weasley one Monday morning, and while I didn't mean to eavesdrop, he was complaining quite loudly to Auror Potter that he missed you, because you had your nose stuck in a book all weekend. I mean no offense, of course."

She blushed and rolled her eyes affectionately. "That sounds like Ron alright."

"That's why I thought this might be of interest to you," he continued, gesturing to the pedestal.

She couldn't help but be intrigued as she stared down at the frail old book, her voice dipping down to a whisper of reverence. "What is it?"

"It's called The Book of Souls—though it's just a single parchment. Yet, it's the most dangerous object down here."

Hermione stared at it, her face a mask of awe. "How so?"

"Legend has it that the parchment was created by a powerful young witch, who was being courted by a prince. She wasn't sure if he was her soulmate, for she sensed a darkness in him, so she invoked some very ancient magic to help reveal the truth."

"It worked?"

"Indeed, it did. The parchment was charmed to reveal a small note, riddle, and sometimes even a name to the reader, one that would help them understand who their soulmate was. Unfortunately for that witch, her soulmate was most decidedly not the prince. She rejected his proposal, and as was the case back then, disappeared under mysterious circumstances soon after."

"That's terrible. Then what happened?"

"As the story goes, rumour spread about the witch's parchment, and as with most powerful objects, the lure of it drew out many seekers. Though the object was made with good intentions, it soon led to a trail of darkness and bloodshed. Broken families, obsessions, blackmail, jealousy, and even death. Knowing that kind of unshakeable truth proved to be a valuable commodity, or a lifetime of heartbreak for those unable to meet their soulmate."

Hermione nodded. It sounded very much like the Elder Wand, but more subtle and insidious. One thing was puzzling her though. "I've never heard of this before, and I've studied many books about souls, both ancient and dark."

"Once the Ministry recovered it, they deemed it was too dangerous for this information to be out there, so they've removed all known references to it. Those who had known of it died off, and it was forgotten from memory."

"When was this?"

"Centuries ago. However, as Minister, you are privileged to learn certain pieces of information that the general population is not privy to."

"Fascinating," Hermione replied. She watched as he slowly reached a hand toward the weathered book. "Wait! What are you doing?"

"Every so often I check to make sure it's still under the cover, and since we're already in here, I hope you don't mind."

"Not at all. Does… does that mean you've looked at it?"

"Oh no, never. I always look away, as should you."

He lifted the corner for a second, and try as she might, Hermione couldn't help but open her eyes to see a word of blazing red ink, before he shut the cover again. Hermione felt the blood drain from her face, unable to comprehend the word she saw so very briefly.

"No, it couldn't be."

"What was that Minister? Did you say something?"

Hermione shook her head.

"Everything seems to be in order here. Shall we continue?"

Hermione nodded mutely, the word still burned in her thoughts.

~*~

She cancelled the rest of her meetings and went straight home after finishing with Dave, or whatever his real name was, needing time to collect her thoughts. How could she tell Ron, the love of her life, what she had seen?

She sat at their dining table, absentmindedly stirring a soothing cup of tea when he walked in.

"Hermione, I'm home."

He came bounding into the kitchen, a piece of parchment in each hand and a wide smile on his face. "Look, the kids wrote. Hugo promises he's already started studying for O.W.L.s, and Rosie is nervous, but excited, to captain her first match against Ravenclaw next week."

"That's great," she replied, her voice a dull monotone.

"They even said their classmates think it's cool that you were elected as the youngest Minister of Magic in history."

"Hmm."

Ron looked at her and frowned. "What's wrong? Tough day?"

Hermione pulled out the chair next to her and patted it. "Come sit down."

Ron scrutinized her again. "The last time you did that, it was to tell me you were pregnant with Hugo. Are you pregnant?"

She sighed. "No, please just come here, I need to tell you something, and I don't think you're going to like it."

He sat down, unsure of what was coming. She quickly told him about the Archivist, the tour, and the Book of Souls, before swearing him to secrecy.

"You saw something when he lifted the cover, didn't you?"

She nodded sadly. "I saw a word."

"What did it say?"

"I-I don't want to tell you."

"Why not?"

"Because it's not true. Whatever it says, it's not true."

"C'mon Hermione, please tell me."

"It said… Krum."

Ron let out a laugh. "Oh, is that all?"

"What do you mean? Viktor Krum is my soulmate, and that's all you have to say!?"

"What do you want me to say?"

"That you're upset, that you care that I was destined to be with Viktor."

"Destined? We have two beautiful kids, an amazing family, and great careers. I don't care what some ruddy old book says, the charms are probably wonky anyway." He pointed to his chest. "I know that I love you with all of my heart, and you feel the same."

She slid into his lap and threw her arms around his neck. "I do, you know I do… but…but…"

"What?"

She suddenly burst into tears, burying her head in his neck as she sobbed. "I-I always had this idea in my head that we were real soulmates, if such a thing existed. We met when we were so young, and I've only truly ever loved you. I know it's silly, but I hate that it's not true. I didn't even like Viktor that much."

Ron ran his fingers through her hair and rubbed her back comfortingly. "Maybe it was a mistake or something. You said yourself you only saw one word."

Her breathing started calming down. "I-I suppose that's true."

"We know what happens when a charm or prophecy is misinterpreted."

She sniffled. "It would be nice to know."

Ron gave her a squeeze. "Maybe we should sneak in there tomorrow and take a look."

"We can't just sneak in there! I'm the Minister of Magic! Besides, there was a key to get into the room. I don't know how we're going to get it from the Archivist."

"You're the Minister of Magic. I'm sure you could come up with some reason to be there."

She gave him a dirty look. "I'm not abusing my position like that."

"I don't mind abusing my position, as you put it. Maybe I can say I'm researching something for a case."

"No, Ron. What if you get in trouble?"

"Who am I going to get in trouble with? Harry? You?"

"That's not the point. We swore we'd never take advantage of our roles for our own gain."

He sighed. "Fine, you're right. Sneaking in it is, then. It'll be like the good old days! A secret mission, breaking into places we have no business being in. An ill-formed plan. It'll be fun."

She smacked him on the arm. "Those days were terrible."

"Aren't you curious though, to find out the truth?"

"Of course I want to know the truth! I don't want to go through the rest of my life thinking Viktor was my soulmate, when it's clearly you."

"As sweet as that is, we clearly only have one choice."

Hermione shook her head. "Fine."

"Good, things like this are much easier when you're agreeable to them," he smirked, nudging her playfully. "You said 3:00 PM was when it was empty, right? Meet me in my office tomorrow at 2:55 PM, and we'll head down there. I'll just tell Harry we're going to a broom closet or something."

"Ron!" Hermione screeched. "You'll do no such thing."

"It's perfectly plausible. It's not like we haven't done that before."

She blushed, unable to count the number of times they'd had fun at the Ministry. "Alright, fine. 2:55PM at your office."

"Good. Now, I'm starving. I'll whip up one of your favourites. I bet I'm a better cook than ol' Vicky. What do Bulgarians even eat?"

"Not funny, Ron."

~*~

The next afternoon, Hermione was found pacing in front of Ron and Harry's office, much to the fear of the recruits who were stationed outside the door. It wasn't often the Minister of Magic would show up unannounced, muttering under their breath.

The door swung open and Ron sauntered out, his lips upturned in a smug smile. Harry's face had gone a shade of green from what he'd just heard from his best mate.

"Hi, er, Hermione," Harry greeted her awkwardly. "You two… um… have fun."

Mortified, Hermione could only return a quick wave before grabbing Ron's arm, hauling him toward the lifts before she was forced into any further interactions with Harry.

"I honestly can't believe you told him we were going to go shag."

"I literally told you I was going to say that."

"I didn't think you actually meant it." She let out an exasperated snort and pinched the bridge of her nose as they entered the lift. "What's the plan?"

"Plan?"

"You are the Head Strategist of the Auror department. Surely you must have thought of something!"

Ron shrugged his shoulders and grinned. "We'll make it up as we go. Seems to work best for us."

"I don't like this one bit."

The ding of the bell signalled they had arrived.

Ron clasped her hand, their fingers entwining. "Let's do this."

The doors opened and they were greeted with utter silence. It was as if the entire floor was abandoned, which it likely was.

They crept forward, trying to make as little noise as possible before finally reaching the same spot she had been the previous day.

Hermione turned the handle of the door, and to her surprise, it was unlocked.

"Hey, look at that!" Ron exclaimed loudly.

"Ron," she hissed. "Keep on the lookout."

He nodded and stood in front of the armour blocking the door, ensuring that Hermione couldn't be seen, in case they were interrupted.

Hermione took a deep breath, her heart pounding. Whatever it said under the cover wouldn't change anything between herself and Ron, but she needed to know for sure.

Her fingers paused for a second, lightly gripping the frail corner, her body tense. She delicately opened the book, the bright red ink bursting into view, almost glowing in the small, dark chamber.

Her greedy eyes flew over the words that were revealed.

"I knew it," she whispered.

Ron suddenly poked his head in. "Everything alright?"

"Perfect. Everything's perfect and wonderful!" Her giddiness couldn't be contained as she closed the ancient text.

"I guess this means you aren't going to chuck me?"

"Never."

"What's it say?"

Her pink cheeks were starting to hurt from her wide grin. "Your soulmate will first love, then hate, a Mr. Viktor Krum."

"That confirms it. See, nothing to worry about."

"Oh Ron, I'm so relieved. I knew it couldn't be true. This whole thing is ridiculous, but I'm still glad to know it's always been you."

Ron nodded. "Me too."

"We should leave before we get caught."

"Not so fast, it's my turn now."

"What?" Hermione asked sharply. "What do you mean?"

He shrugged. "Might as well take a look while I'm here."

Hermione stepped back, biting at her bottom lip—a sure sign of anxiety. "But… but… what if—"

Ron cupped her cheeks in his large hands and gently kissed her. "It doesn't matter what it says, I love you and only you. Trust me."

She nodded, before resuming his place as the lookout.

After a moment, she heard him chuckle and close the door behind him.

Hermione whispered urgently. "What did it say?"

"It said my soulmate will be a nightmare."

Hermione let out the breath she didn't realize she'd been holding. "Thank goodness. I don't think I would've been able to handle it if it wasn't me."

"It's always been you. I thought you'd have learned by now."

"I know, I never should have doubted it."

"Can you imagine if we'd learned this information when we were younger? We might have been able to get together much sooner," Ron remarked.

"Or we'd have made an even bigger mess of things."

"True. It doesn't matter in the end though, does it? We figured it out and we've done pretty damn well for ourselves."

"We have, Ron. I love you."

"Love you, too. We'd better get out of here before someone sees us."

The two quickly retreated to the lift, having successfully completed their mission. A minute after the doors had shut on the snogging couple, an old man slowly made his way toward the chamber and pulled a small key out of his robes, locking the heavy door.

As it's appointed guardian, he had vowed to never look in the book, and he had kept that oath. That didn't mean he couldn't use it's power in other ways. Past Ministers, those inquisitive few who had the intelligence to understand the book's worth, often revealed something in that moment when he checked the parchment, for good or ill. Usually it mattered little to him, but not in this case.

He paused for a moment, before extracting a small glass sphere from the same pocket as the key. A sphere he'd kept with him for many years, since he was a young man working with prophecies in the Department of Mysteries. Knowing Minister Granger-Weasley was coming to take a tour was the perfect opportunity to solve a mystery he'd been researching for the better part of seven decades.

He held it up to the light, the familiar swirls of mist dancing in the globe. He had long since memorized the prophecy, which had been made by a seer almost a hundred years earlier. His colleagues at the time had dismissed it, because like many visions, it was almost impossible to determine what the seer was referring to.

He had kept this one, for it always gave him hope. He never thought he'd actually solve it. Yet here he was, still alive and able to record this last surviving prophecy in the annals of history.

He turned it over in his hands, the glass still unblemished.

"Magic," he whispered, "such a wonderful tool."

He stared at it again, reciting for the last time the fates encompassed within.

"Two soulmates, brown and orange, will form a triangle with black to defeat evil. Through many trials the two will forge a love so strong it will be unbreakable, and their strength will reshape the world."

He let out a final chuckle, his long-held desire now confirmed by the soulmates themselves. He lifted the glass to his lips, his breath fogging up the shiny surface.

"Prophecy fulfilled."

The sphere melted away into nothing, the outcome recorded somewhere else in the archives. He shuffled away back to his office, his eyes sparkling, and his heart lifted with hope.

[sheerfreesia007]

Finding Love In Legacy Oaks pt. 11.5

Title: Finding Love In Legacy Oaks pt. 11.5

Fandom: Kingsman

Pairing: Agent Whiskey x OFC

Author: @sheerfreesia007​

Words: 2,806

Warnings: Mention of injury

Permanent Tag List: @paintballkid711, @fioccodineveautunnale, @phoenixhalliwell, @linkpk88, @weirdowithnobeardo, @athalien

Author Notes: So this chapter was a little hard for me, I had difficulty with the whole Esme blaming herself scene. I know little kids can focus on being at fault for something that wasn’t their fault. I had difficulty trying to get Es to understand it. So any feedback would be nice.

Gif Credit: Google

The hospital was buzzing with an energy that felt as if it was waiting for the next big catastrophe to roll through the emergency room doors before chaos imploded. Nurses walked through the emergency room area back and forth from the central desk to the patients’ beds. Bunny was laying in her hospital bed with her now deeply bruised right ankle propped up by some cushions as Esme sat next to her reclined back on the bed, they were waiting for the doctor to come back with the results of Bunny’s ankle x-ray. Her left hand and wrist were wrapped since the doctor advised that it was thankfully only sprained. The doctor did say she had a mild concussion and shouldn’t have any lingering effects but if she started to get dizzy or sleepy that she should come back to the hospital.

Bunny sighed softly as leaned back in the bed feeling Esme relax against her left side where she was curled up next to Bunny. She knew something was still bothering Esme, ever since they had arrived the little girl had been very quiet and keeping to herself. The nurses and doctors had come bustling in and out quickly when they had first gotten here, and while no one else seemed to notice Esme drawing inward on herself as she sat in the corner chair in the small space with the hospital curtains drawn around them to create some privacy. Bunny noticed though and was just waiting for the perfect time to talk to the little girl.

“So this was not how I planned our Friday evening.” Bunny said with a soft chuckle and felt Esme turn more into her side. “Talk to me kiddo, don’t keep it bottled up” Bunny insisted gently as she nudged Esme with her shoulder. Esme looked over at her before she began to pick at the light blanket that was resting over the two of them.

“I feel bad.” Esme said quietly and Bunny frowned gently at her words.

“What do you mean?” Bunny asked curiously as she leaned back in the bed.

“I feel like it’s my fault that you’re in the hospital.” Esme said softly and Bunny laid there just watching the little girl silently, she wanted Esme to talk through her emotions and feelings without her prompting her. “If I hadn’t chosen to roll down the hill Butter wouldn’t have gotten too excited and knocked you down the hill. And now the doctor said you have a concussion, your wrist is sprained and your ankle might be broken.” She said with full emotion and began breathing a little heavier as she got caught up in her emotions. “And if I hadn’t wanted to roll down the hill you wouldn’t be hurt or in the hospital!” Esme cried softly before taking in a deep breath.

“Okay, but this isn’t your fault Es.” Bunny reassured her and saw the look of disbelief on her face. Bunny thought for a moment before coming to a decision. “Can you predict the future?” Bunny asked suddenly and Esme looked at her with an incredulous look on her face.

“No.” Esme drew out the word in confusion as Bunny nodded her head.

“So you couldn’t have known that I was gonna get knocked down after we chose to roll down the hill right?” Bunny asked and looked quietly at Esme.

“No, but-“ Esme began to explain but Bunny held up her hand and interrupted her.

“Just answer the question Es. I promise I have a reason for asking these questions.” Bunny said softly.

“No I couldn’t have known that.” Esme said a little petulantly and Bunny nodded her head.

“Did you cause me to get knocked down? Did you push me down the hill?” Bunny asked softly and Esme jerked her head back and looked at Bunny in bewilderment.

“No I didn’t push you. But me choosing to roll down the hill caused you to get knocked down.” Esme insisted.

“How? Explain to me how you choosing to roll down the hill caused me to get knocked down it.” Bunny gently led Esme along in her though process.

“If I hadn’t wanted to go down the hill then we wouldn’t have been up there and you wouldn’t have gotten knocked down.” Esme said with sadness in her voice.

“You’re right we wouldn’t have been up there if we didn’t want to roll down the hill. But Es you wanting to roll down the hill did not cause this. If you want to place blame, blame me or Butter.” Bunny insisted. “Butter was the one who knocked me over so really it’s his fault since he knocked me down. But Es it was an accident he didn’t mean to knock me over he just got too excited and he’s a dog he doesn’t know any better.”

“But-“ Esme tried to explain again and Bunny shook her head.

“I’m going to have to find a different way to explain it to you because you’re not understanding. I know you feel bad and that’s okay. You can feel bad for me. But please don’t blame yourself. It sucks it happened and all we can do is just deal with the best we can.” Bunny said resolutely and Esme sighed softly.

“Bunny?” Esme asked softly and Bunny turned to her silently to gaze down at her. “I’m still going to feel bad but I understand that I didn’t cause you to get knocked down. I just feel like I could’ve stopped it from happening.” Esme said solemnly.

“It’s possible but then you wouldn’t have had fun. Look you’re going to make choices as you grow up and sometimes they work out great and everything goes the way you want it to. But sometimes things get messed up and they don’t go the way you want them to. Unfortunately there’s nothing we can do to predict how things will happen, we’re just along for the ride. You just gotta make the best of it kiddo.” Bunny said sagely and Esme gazed towards the end of the bed thinking quietly.

“Oooooh now I get it.” Esme said softly and Bunny burst out laughing at how shocked Esme sounded. “I still feel bad though.” Esme said resolutely and Bunny nodded her head as she wiped tears from her eyes from her laughter.

“That’s fine kiddo.” Bunny said easily and suddenly her phone her began to ring with video call ringtone. Bunny felt her stomach drop. “Oh shit.” She hissed as she reached for her phone hearing Esme gasp next to her. “Don’t repeat that! It’s a bad word. I forgot to call your Dad when we were in the ambulance.” Bunny said quickly as she pointed at Esme and cringed. Picking up her phone she held in front of her and Esme and grimaced when she saw that her screen was cracked in several places making it difficult to answer the call. “Heeeey Jack!” Bunny said guiltily as she held the phone out so that both she and Esme were on the screen.

“Hey ladies, I haven’t heard from you in a while and I’ve been texting. Started to get a little worried.” Jack said as he frowned at the phone. “Hang on is there something wrong with the connection you guys look all wonky. And where are you two?” he asked confused as he stared at the phone.

“So about why you haven’t heard from us in a while.” Bunny said guiltily and Jack frown deepened.

“Are you in the hospital?!” he asked loudly suddenly as his eyes darted around the screen and his face grew larger on the screen as he leaned into his phone.

“Yeah we are.” Bunny said with a soft sigh. “But Es is fine. I was the one who got hurt not her.” Bunny quickly reassured him and Esme smiled as she took the phone from Bunny.

“Daddy I’m going to turn the camera around maybe it’ll look better that way. Hold on.” Esme said as she pressed repeatedly on the screen holding the phone up. “Can you see Bunny better now?” Esme asked from behind the phone and Bunny grimaced slightly.

“Yeah thanks Es. So what happened?” Jack’s voice came over the phone and Bunny relaxed back in the bed while Esme sat with her legs crossed at her side.

“So Butter knocked me down a hill that we were going to roll down. Instead of rolling down the hill I kinda bounced down it. Sprained my left wrist.” Bunny explained holding up her wrist to show him. “Possibly broke my right ankle, we’re still waiting for the doc to come back with the x-ray results.”

“Dang Bunny.” Jack said in an awed voice and Bunny nodded along to his words.

“Yeah I know.” Bunny said knowingly and chuckled softly. “Go big or go home right?” she asked sarcastically and Jack laughed still shocked.

“Are you in a lot of pain right now?” he asked curiously and Bunny shook her head.

“Not as much anymore they gave me some pain meds when we arrived. Said they’d probably subscribe some too just to help with my ankle. It’s swollen up like a balloon and looks like real ugly.” Bunny explained and Esme pointed the phone down to her ankle to show her Dad. They both heard his loud hiss as he saw what her ankle looked like propped up on the cushions.

“Bunny.” Jack said in an almost chastising tone and she nodded her head just as spotted a pair of black business shoes underneath the curtain.

“Knock, knock!” called the doctor. Bunny smiled softly as she shook her head, Doctor Hart smiled brightly as she eased herself in between the curtains and stood at the end of Bunny’s bed. “Pay no attention to the woman behind the curtain.” she said in greeting and Bunny chuckled softly at the reference as Esme tilted her head to the side in confusion.

“I don’t get it.” Esme said softly to Bunny making both Bunny and Jack burst out into laughter.

“Oh I’m sorry to interrupt your phone call.” said Doctor Hart, surprised as she looked at Esme who was holding up the phone to still see Jack.

“I’ll explain later what she said.” Bunny said the Esme before shaking her head at the Doctor. “No worries, it's just her Dad checking in on us. Forgot to call him while we were in the ambulance.” Bunny explained away and Doctor Hart nodded her head before tilting it sideways like Esme had done.

“Is he not your husband then?” she asked and Bunny felt her face flush brightly as she shook her head.

“No, not married. Just friends and I look after Es here when he’s on work trips.” Bunny replied easily and Esme smiled at her as she cuddled close still holding the phone up to see Jack. Bunny watched out of the corner of her eye as Jack’s eyebrows furrowed slightly.

“Oh okay, that’s very nice of you to do. Well, results for your x-ray are in and it’s broken unfortunately. In three different places so you really did a number on it. Thankfully you won’t need surgery but we’re going to put you in a cast for a month and then we’ll reevaluate. Hopefully you’ll just need a boot after that for 2 more months.” explained Doctor Hart and Bunny nodded her head along with her words.

“So we’re looking at three months?” Bunny asked softly and watched as Dr. Hart nodded her head. Bunny’s mind began to race with everything that she had going on for the next three months and how she would be able to do them with a cast and boot on.

“Yeah it’s going to take at least three months, hopefully no longer.” Dr. Hart explained. Bunny nodded at Dr. Hart’s word and settled back further in the bed. “I’m going to have one of the orthopedic technicians come in and they’ll be putting the cast on your ankle. You’ll get a prescription for pain meds to ease any discomfort you might be feeling in the next few days. And I’ll schedule you for another appointment in a month to remove the cast. We won’t need to see you unless something happens to the cast or if you injure yourself further.”

Bunny nodded her head in understanding as Dr. Hart advised her on what she was to expect for the next couple of months. When Dr. Hart was done going over the medications that she would be prescribed, she told Bunny that she would go let the orthopedic technician know that they were ready for the cast now before walking out of the room.

Shifting in the bed to get a little more comfortable, Bunny gritted her teeth as a painful twinge raced up her ankle. Esme moved closer and held the phone up towards her face and Bunny could see Jack was still on the phone.

“Three months is an awfully long time for a broken ankle.” Jack said solemnly and Bunny shook her head in disagreement.

“I broke my wrist once and it took I think two months to heal so three months isn’t that far off I don’t think.” Bunny said as she moved her head around thinking about her prior broken bones.

“You broke your wrist once?” Jack asked, surprised as his face showed how surprised he was about that fact.

“Yeah, it was a few years ago. Broke my right wrist.” Bunny said shortly not wanting to explain any further about her prior injury, at least not yet.

“Huh, okay. Well don’t worry about anything Bunny we’ll help you with anything that you need. I’ll make sure that work understands I can’t be going out in the field for a while.” Jack said easily and Bunny began to shake her head at his words.

“Oh no, Jack. You don’t have to do that. I’ll be fine. Just move a little slower, that's all.” Bunny said regrettably.

“Don’t worry about it Bunny. They’ll understand. And now it’s my turn to help you. And I won’t hear anything about it because it’s happening.” Jack stated firmly and Bunny nodded her head slightly dejectedly knowing that she wouldn’t be able to dissuade Jack from helping her.

“Alright, alright.” Bunny relented and Jack nodded his head while smiling.

“So I should be home late tomorrow night. We’ve got one more conference meeting to go to tomorrow for a few hours but once we’re done I’ll be on my way home.” Jack said easily. “Do you guys have a ride home from the hospital or do you need me to call you a ride home?” Jack asked.

“No, Jeremy is going to be picking us up. I called him to come pick up Butter from us when the ambulance was on the way to us.” Bunny replied and watched as Jack nodded his head. Esme sat there quietly and Bunny could see her eyebrows furrow slightly.

“Oh okay good.” Jack said as he continued to nod his head. Just then there was shuffling heard behind the curtain of the room. “Alright ladies I’m gonna head out for a little bit but I’ll give you a call later on tonight.”

“Okay sounds good.” Bunny said as the orthopedic technician stepped through the gap in the curtains with a smile on his face.

“I love you Es, I’ll talk to you later sweetheart.” Jack said softly as he focused back on Esme.

“Love you lots like jelly tots.” Esme said softly and Bunny smiled at the little girls’ words. Esme hung up the phone by pressing repeatedly on the broken screen and Bunny grimaced slightly.

“I’ll have to get a new phone this weekend.” Bunny said softly and Esme looked up at her as Bunny shrugged her shoulders.

“Hey there guys! So my name is Brian and I’ll be putting on your cast. Would you like to pick a color for your cast?” Asked the orthopedic technician as he wheeled in a bedside table with supplies to create a cast. Bunny looked over at Esme who looked back at her.

“You’ll have to ask my cast artist.” Bunny said fondly as she nudged Esme with her shoulder. Esme grinned softly at Bunny before turning to the technician.

“White, so I can draw and color on it.” Esme said confidently and Bunny smiled at how she was already making plans for what she would be drawing on her cast. Soon the technician was nodding along as Esme began explaining everything that she wanted to draw on Bunny’s cast all while watching how the technician began wrapping Bunny’s ankle. Leaning back in the bed Bunny gently shut her eyes and continued to listen to Esme talk with a soft smile on her face.

[k-llama-llama]

FanCam-ed

Seventeen AU: 14th member

Rei x Seventeen

Rei during the Aju Nice promotions - the first time she had to deal with criticism. 

Rei is not a permanent addition so if you have requests let me know…but she’s just an idea I had. She is NOT cannon with the rest of my AUs.

A/N: bonus post for you all today….ALSO CHECK OUT MY PATREON FOR ACCESS TO EXCLUSIVE CONTENT AND EARLY ACCESS (patreon.com/kllamallama)

Requests are OPEN!!!

Masterlist and other Follow Me links in bio!

“Where are they going to put your mic pack?” Vernon asked.

“I think the stylist said they would put a belt around my waist.” Rei answered. “There isn’t really anywhere on my skirt.”

“Yeah, I can tell.” Vernon looked over her outfit once.

They were promoting Aju Nice, and Rei was being reminded of how horrible it was to promote in skirts. It was just a standard little white skirt, and she did have safety shorts underneath, but it was a big change from how she normally dressed.

Though she’d recorded the music video in a skirt, she hadn’t actually considered what it would be like performing in a skirt. The dance moves were a little more...mature than she was used to, and there were lots of spinning and jumps.

But she had safety shorts on, so it would be fine.

----time jump----

“My face mask is sliding off!” Rei cried, tilting her head back to try and fight gravity.

“I’ve got it.” Jeonghan pulled it back on, inadvertently dragging the slime through her mouth. “You need to stop moving around.”

“I need to play Robot Unicorn.” Rei countered. “I worked hard today and I want to be able to relax without eating my own facemask.”

“Well that’s your own problem. The mask can’t work if you keep wiggling.”

“Urgh, fine.” Rei scooted away from him, moving to the other side of the bed. She still lifted her phone to her face, but opted for checking twitter instead of the aggressive gaming. 

A lot of Carats were talking about their performance today, complimenting the choreography and the entire album.

Rei smiled, as much as she could with the mask on her face. She was so happy that fans were liking it. She’d worked so hard on learning the choreography and the vocal parts, and she’d been nervous that fans wouldn’t like it. 

Out of curiosity, she typed in Seventeen Rei, just to see if people were liking her role.

The first few comments made her smile.

Baby Rei is so cute! Our pretty girl is all grown up!

But as she kept scrolling, other comments started to come to her attention.

Is anyone else uncomfortable with her outfit? Why do they have a minor dressed like that, dancing like that? Were they really okay with Rei pretending to a love interest? She’s a kid.

And then one in particular drew her eye.

This fancam is going viral! Check it out! Against her better judgement, she clicked the link. It took her right to a fancam on naver, and her heart sank as she watched it.

At first it just looked like a fancam of her coming out of a spin move, but then it played in slow motion, and then it zoomed in. Showing a clear, slow-motion view up her skirt. Sure, she was wearing safety shorts, but they were small, and they didn’t hide much. 

Rei felt sick to her stomach, starting to read through the comments.

“What are you looking at?” Jeonghan sat up, pulling his mask off. “Is that from our....wait, what are you reading?”

He took the phone from her hand, scrolling quickly. When he reached the top, he saw the fancam and froze.

“Don’t look at it.” Rei pushed the phone down. “It’s just...”

“Cheol!” Jeonghan hopped up from the bed, taking the phone with her.

“Oppa! It’s nothing!” Rei hopped up, pulling the face mask off of her face. “You don’t need to.”

“Look at this.” Jeonghan shoved the phone in Seungcheol’s face.

“What is that-” Seungcheol looked away quickly, before realizing what it was. “Wait, is that....is that from today?”

“Yes! And it’s-”

“Hey guys, have you seen that-” Chan walked into the room, examining their faces. “I guess you have.”

“How did you know?” Rei cried.

Chan swallowed. “A guy from school sent it to me.”

“We need to call the company.” Seungcheol said, before looking at Rei. “Don’t worry, Rei, we’ll take care of this.”

“We don’t need to make a big deal.” Rei insisted. “I really don’t mind.”

Jeonghan patted her shoulder. “I know you’re lying. But we need to take care of it. And some of those comments are disgusting.”

“Some of them seem like legitimate threats.” Seungcheol said.

“We’ll see about changing your wardrobe for tomorrow too.” Jeonghan told her.

Rei clenched her jaw, and then snatched her phone from Seungcheol’s hand and stormed out of the room.

They heard the front door slam behind her.

Seungcheol moved to follow her.

“She’s probably just going to the fire escape.” Chan said quietly. “Maybe give her a minute.”

Rei sat outside on the fire escape, dangling her feet over the sides. She wasn’t sure why it was bothering her so much, but she really didn’t want the boys to make a big deal of it. And watching Jeonghan and Cheol freak out about it just made everything worse.

“Rei?” Jihoon’s voice interrupted her moping.

Rei turned to look at him as he stepped out onto the fire escape. “Go away.”

“No.” He sat down beside her, and she looked down at the ground, refusing to meet his gaze. “You want to talk about it?”

Picking at her fingernails, she sighed. “Did they call the company?”

“Yeah.”

“And what are they going to do about it?”

“I’m not sure.” Jihoon scooted closer. “But why are you sitting out here?”

Rei crossed her arms, resting them on the railing. “I just wish they wouldn’t make a big fuss out of it.”

“It’s worth making a big fuss over, Rei. It’s wrong.”

“Isn’t that why female idols wear short skirts?” She asked. 

“So they look cute, maybe. But not so creepy guys can take videos of them, spread them on line and say disgusting things.” Jihoon leaned his head on the railing so he could get a peek of her face. “You read some of the comments?”

“Yeah.” She frowned.

“What they said wasn’t okay, Rei. It’s important that when people say gross things like that, when they talk about doing things to you or coming to our house, we take things seriously.”

“I just don’t want it to be a big deal.”

“It’s a big deal to us. You’re a minor. And besides,” He poked her stomach. “We love you. Of course we’re going to stand up for you.”

“But if the company says something, people are going to talk about that instead of the comeback.” She looked up at him.

“What do you mean?”

“You worked so hard on this album. Everyone did. And now I’m ruining it.” She looked away, tears pooling in her eyes.

“Aw, Rei. No.” He wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulling her into a side hug. “You aren’t ruining anything.”

“I am. All people are going to talk about is me and my stupid skirt and that stupid fancam. I ruin everything.”

“No, you don’t.” Jihoon said with certainty, stroking her hair. “Sometimes people just....focus on the wrong things. We really don’t mind. We’d rather this get dealt with properly than people keep saying stuff like that about you. Because we love you.”

“Even if I ruin the comeback?”

“Even if you ruin the comeback.” He confirmed, rubbing her arm. “So you’re okay? You’ll come back inside and we can all figure this out together?”

“I guess so.” She hugged his waist, before letting out a little giggle.

“What?” He looked down at her, happy that she was smiling.

“Nothing, it’s just,” She laughed again, looking up at him. “You used to put up a fight about hugging me.”

He snorted. “Yeah, well I got used to it. Come on, let’s go deal with our problems.”

He stood, reaching down and pulling her to her feet easily.

Looking down, he clicked his tongue. “No shoes?”

Rei shrugged. “I was being dramatic.”

“You’re good at that.” He nodded. “Let’s go. You need socks before your toes freeze off.”

“You know, I really don’t think I need all of my toes. My pinky toe is kind of wonky already so I could-”

“Rei!”

“Right, I’m going.”

[mxrekai]

I LOVE the RoyJay Flower x Tattoo shop AU. I can't wait for more :3

Awe thank you 🥺

Here’s part 3 🥰

CW: Piercings, slightly provocative content! 

Oh boy, the work and research I had to do to pump this chapter out. I got queasy many times because I can’t really handle needles well, but ayeeee I survived for the readers!

This is not proofread, feel free to point out mistakes are wonky sentences! I’ll gladly rewrite them!

Jason lifted his shirt over his head, removing the piece of clothing that was covering his body. 

Roy’s done piercings before, and he’s seen tons of clients shirtless in his years of working as a tattoo artist. But nothing could have prepared him for the greek god standing before him. 

He watched with a close gaze as Jason spun around the room and landed in the swivel chair, causing it to slightly turn and direct Jason’s body into the light of the evening. 

Roy couldn’t stop his jaw from dropping to the floor. 

Jason’s abs glimmered in the sunlight as he put his arms behind his head, presenting his full torso as the muscles contracted and stretched under pale skin that was suddenly a little less pale under the glowing light. 

Roy was suddenly hyper aware of what he was doing. Shit, what if he messed up or Jason didn’t like the piercings and did the wrong thing when taking them out? He didn’t want the guy to be in pain, he didn’t want anyone to be in pain (except those who deserve it). 

“So uh,” Roy wet his lips. “you know what to expect right? The pain?”

Jason nodded. “Yeah,”

“Okay,” Roy returned the nod while walking over towards his station to start collecting the items he’d need to pierce Jason with. 

“Stand up for me?” Roy asked.

Jason did as he was told and rose from the chair, studying Roy’s movements as he came closer to him until he was standing in front of him. 

“Do I have permission to touch you?”

Jason couldn’t stop the way his eyes pale ears turned a light shade of pink. 

“Yeah, totally. Do what you need to do.”

They both nodded at each other as Jason spread his arms and Roy bent his knees, kneeling down. Roy looked to Jason for permission one last time before tearing the packaging with his teeth and extracting a sanitary napkin with the tips of his fingers. 

Jason was not going to think about how hot that was.

Roy came closer with the wipe until it’s moist surface was upon Jason’s nipple, spreading its juice over smooth skin, killing any germs and bacteria that may have laid upon the area. Roy did the same thing to the other nipple, cleaning it as thoroughly as he cleaned the first one. By the time Roy was done both buds were glistening with moisture in the sunlight. 

Roy wordlessly picked a marker from the pile and drew two mini circles on both side of Jason’s nipples, checking his work and smiling at it proudly. 

“Okay, done!” Roy chimed. “Can you lay down on the waiting couch for me?”

Jason nodded and stretched one last time before stalking over to the couch and laying down. 

Roy grabbed a forcep and a quirk, approaching Jason with steady caution as to not spook the man in case he was already scared. Who was he kidding? The man had a face of glee the whole time he was here, it’d be unlikely for him to back out now. 

A shiver ran down Jason’s spine as Roy clutched his nipple with the cold metal of the forceps, he could feel a bud pressing up against his nipple from the side, probably the quirk. 

“Deep breath in for me.” Roy’s voice took on a serious tone. “This is going to hurt!”

Jason did as the man said and breathed in, holding the air in his lungs, his eyes shut tight as he waited for the incoming pain of a needle being run through his nipple. 

He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a little scared. Yes, him and pain were on good terms with each other but that still doesn’t mean he wasn’t worried about the consequences of his actions. 

Jason couldn’t stop the whine that escaped his lips as the needle went through his sensitive bud. He watched with lidded eyes as a shiver went down Roy’s spine. He felt cold liquid being sprayed on his now piercing nipple and a towel go over it. 

He sighed in relief as he lifted his head to watch Roy put the barrels on, the shiny beads glistened in the light. 

Roy repeated the same process and the same structure of words, telling Jason to take a deep breath and piercing the other nipple. He gently placed the barrels on the needle as he did the first one.

“You’re done!” Roy chimed.

Part 4 coming soon!

[capevans3000]

Time of the Month

Summary: Chris takes care of you during your period.

Warning: Mentions of menstruation and blood.

Check out my Masterlist. I take requests!

(Photo not mine!)

It’s that time of the month again when you just want nothing but to stay in bed all day. This month might have been the worst you’d felt in a long time.  Two days before your period was here, you were already feeling cramps and headaches and nothing you did made it go away. On the first day of your period, you were literally reeling on the floor in pain. Your mood was greatly affected, and the fact that Chris wasn’t around to comfort you was like an extra kick in the butt. By the second day, when you woke up and noticed a huge stain on your pants and sheets, you just burst into tears. You knew this was probably no big deal – all you needed to do was change your pants and sheets, but you couldn’t help it. Your hormones were all wonky and you couldn’t control your tears. You missed Chris and you needed a comforting hug from him. You thought you were dreaming, but as soon as you thought of Chris, you heard the front door click, and Chris’ voice calling out your name.

“Y/N, surprise! I’m home early!” At the sound of his voice, you broke into more tears. Chris heard your cries and rushed into the master bedroom thinking you were hurt, only to find you crying on the bed.

“Baby! What happened? Are you hurt?” Chris rushed towards you to check your body for injuries.

You threw your hands around Chris to hug him, wetting his shirt with your tears and snot. You shook your head and raised your bottom to show Chris the stain on your pants and the bedsheets.

“Oh baby, come here. It’s okay.” Chris soothed. “Let’s get you cleaned up shall we?” Chris helped you out of the bed and brought you to the toilet. He placed a towel over the toilet seat cover for you to sit on, while he drew a warm bath for you. You placed your head between your knees and continued sobbing. Chris carefully undressed you while he sang to comfort you. After your bath, you came out of the room and saw Chris waiting for you. He had put on a fresh sheet on the bed.

“Come here, baby.” Chris held your hands. “Are you feeling better?”

While your cramps seemed to have subsided for a while, your mood was still foul. Your lips turned downwards and you began to cry once again. “What’s wrong, baby?” Chris asked.

You went back into bed and covered yourself with the blanket. Chris followed after you and sat at the side of the bed. He had one of his hands gently caressing your face.

“I don’t know why I am crying! I am just upset and I can’t control it.” Your sobs got harder. Chris immediately threw his arms around you again to calm you down. He continued to hum and sing to you until you calmed down. With Chris hugging you, it didn’t take long for you to stop crying.

“Aww, Y/N. Your eyes are all red now.” Chris pouted. “My poor baby… I will take care of you, don’t you worry.” Chris kissed you on your forehead. “Give me a minute, I will be right back.”

Chris came back a while later with both of his hands behind his back. He came and sat down next to you. “I’ve got you…” He revealed his right hand from behind, “Chocolates! It’ll make you feel better. Here.” Chris popped a small piece of chocolate into your mouth, which you took gratefully. “Next…” Chris revealed his left hand, “This heating pad for your stomach.” Chris gently placed the heating pad over your stomach. “I got them specially for you because I counted the dates and knew your period was coming. That’s why I got home early to take care of you. Sorry I wasn’t around for you yesterday. I hope all these, and me, can make you feel better.” Chris smiled.

“Thanks, Chris. As long as you’re here, I’ll be okay. Thank you for coming back home early for me.” You reached forward to give Chris a hug.

“You know, I did some research…” Chris chuckled, “Orgasm can actually help your cramps feel better.” He smirked.

“Oh, is that right?” Feeling better now, you flipped the blanket open to show Chris your bare legs. You sat up and stared into Chris’ eyes seductively, “I wonder who can give me an orgasm right now?”

Hearing that, Chris growled and devoured your lips like a hungry wolf. With one hand, he swiftly pushed you back down the bed so that he was on top of you. You could see lust in the shadows of his eyes as he looked right into your eyes. You bit your lips in response.

“I’ll do you one better. One that will take away all your menstrual woes for the next nine months.” Chris’ lips crashed into yours before you could respond. “Let’s get you pregnant

[stranger-who-writes-fiction]

Still a few weeks out from issue 4 of Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow and DC’s solicit schedule is exceedingly wonky so WHO KNOWS when those will drop...THUS. A tiny bit of art appreciation, to tide us (read: me) over. XD

Potentially (?) spoiler-y art tease below!

FIRST UP, issue 4 variant by Rose Besch! The September solicits had a bunch of variant covers listed without previews, so I think this only started showing up in the last few weeks? Regardless, check it ouuuuuttttt:

First of all: So sparkly. :D

Second, MMMMM, look at that CMY(sans K) color palette! I also think the artist’s style of coloring is just very neat--like, refracted light through a prism, if that makes sense? Very geometric. And of course, always dig a cool, shojo manga-esque look for Supergirl. I think, of the variants released thus far, this one and the Amy Reeder cover are my favorite. 

The other little bit of art comes courtesy of Evely, who is back to posting in-progress snippets. As always, I recommend following her and colorist Mat Lopes on their various social media sites because 1.) they are both INCREDIBLY TALENTED and post that Good Good art and 2.) you get to see stuff LIKE THIS:

HNNNNNNGGGGG.

I will go through my usual happy art shouting: HAIR! FACE! BODY LANGUAGE!!!!!!

This is the potentially spoiler-y bit, though without text/additional panels for context, there’s not much it’s actually spoiling? Still. Just want to be extra careful.

I continue to be so completely, utterly thrilled to have eight--EIGHT--issues of Evely’s Supergirl. I mean. Just look at that. Beautiful.

Can’t wait to see the whole page, and Lopes’ colors. Aaaah. S’gonna be GOOD.

Another quick social media account recommendation: Evely’s represented by Felix Comic Art. Even if you aren’t an original art collector, the site usually has decent scans of the original black and white pages. (Watermarked, natch.) But it’s so neat getting to see the original art vs. the colored pages.

And, okay, on that subject of inks vs. colors, I had not originally planned on including this but HERE WE GO, MORE ART, BECAUSE I CAN ALWAYS RAMBLE ABOUT ART.

This time, from Lopes’ twitter; he shared the colors for this page from issue 3, and then later posted Evely’s initial inks: 

It’s maybe a little hard to tell, scrolling, but when you check these out on Lopes’ twitter, and toggle back and forth, you can actually see that the colors ever so slightly soften Kara’s expression. 

Which I find FASCINATING, because it really illustrates the wild game of telephone that is comics creation.

You’ve got the writer and the editor, who work sort of in tandem to figure out how best to tell the story that the writer has in mind. That then goes to the penciller, who puts their own spin on the script, then it goes to the inker who has to interpret the penciller’s lines and choose what lines to keep and how best to highlight them (though, in this case, Evely is inking her own stuff so there’s less chance for any drastic changes between these phases) and then FINALLY (at least on the art side of things) it goes to the colorist who adds a whole NEW layer (literally and figuratively) to the art by selecting palettes and color holds and so on and so forth.

In fact, I was just reading the coda in the most recent Fire Power issue, (a comic by Robert Kirkman--of The Walking Dead fame--Chris Samnee, and Matt Wilson) and Samnee said he’d imagined a particular scene taking place at night, but got the colors back from Wilson, who had set the action early in the morning. Samnee drew the pages for a night palette, but Wilson totally made the morning lighting work, and Samnee felt the storytelling was better that way, as it made the time-skip more apparent. (The previous scene also took place at night, which would’ve been confusing for readers, had they both been set at night.)

ALL OF THIS TO SAY! You have multiple storytellers working on any given book, and here, specifically, I think it’s very cool that Lopes choices enhanced the acting that Evely already put on the page. 

(Though, disclaimer: it occurs to me that this is entirely subjective, and some folks might feel that there WASN’T any discernable change between inks and colors. *Shrug* ARRRTTT!!!!)

Caught a Felix Comic Art stream a few weeks back when he unboxed the art for these issues, and someone in the chat mentioned wanting an Artist Edition for Evely.

And may I just say: Yes.

Like. I don’t think it’ll happen, but I really wish this book would get the usual King trade treatment--a special edition hardcover with a bunch of backmatter, so that we can just DRINK IN THE ARTWORK.

(Would also love to see the script for any of the issues! They did that with Strange Adventures and much like seeing inks vs. colors, it’s always cool to see script to pencils.)

Actually, what I’d really love is an unlettered version of an issue, to highlight Lopes’ colors in particular. 

Don’t get me wrong, I think Clayton Cowles is doing a great job on letters, but this is a very wordy book! And sometimes you just wanna push those caption boxes and word balloons aside and see the entire panel, free of text. XD

Sadly, as I said, this probably won’t get too many bells and whistles in the trade release. Maybe a little bit of Evely’s design work? Hopefully?

She actually posted her initial sketches of Kara, a while back! I think they should be on her IG somewhere? 

Anyways. I would kill for a large format of ANYTHING by Evely. Seriously, just. Do it DC! Take my money! (Or, IDW? Who handles the oversized editions for DC? ...I think it’s IDW. Either way! Do it! Come on! XD)

(Again, someone in that same art unboxing chat mentioned they don’t really do large format editions for contemporary artists, BUT. They totally released a Samnee Daredevil book! That’s pretty contemporary! Or, it was. At the time of release.)

Okay, I will stop now. For real.  

That’s it, I think, in terms of art teases and updates! Until solicits and/or preview art, I guess!

[pastelpaperplanes]

What would be your top 5 transformers characters? Doesn't matter what continuity.

Ooo okay that's a tricky question, there’s so many to choose from :’DD

Honestly my list will probably change as a continue watching the shows and read the comics but here it is so far:

5) TFA Lockdown

Must I even explain this,HAVE YOU SEEN THAT MAN. He’s got one of the most unique designs I’ve seen for mecha in the TFA universe AND he’s got a really interesting open-ended backstory which only makes me love him more. In art/writing, you can do SO MUCH with him because of that, PLUS his voice is 13/10 so

4) TFP Wheeljack

I’ve always loved Wheeljack bc he’s got a wonky design w those finials. From the few clips I’ve seen of G1 I IMMEDIATLEY became attatched to him bc (dont get me wrong  I LOVE this dude) he looked so so stupid. And then I found out he was in TFP and actually kinda rocked the whole old and grizzled crackheaded uncle look and WOWIE. What really drew me into his TFP version is the fact that he is the perfect combination of smartass, dumbass, and badassery. I just loved how chill he was in almost any situation, just throw a few grenades, do some sick samurai moves, take out a few cons with your thighs, NO BIG DEAL he just went for it and honestly what a king.

3) TFA Blitzwing

He’s a big strong schnitzel who is basically three boyfriends in one,what's not to love?????? He was the first character I became attached to when I first started watching TFA, I think it was his design (I adore any character who kinda looks like a pilot, I don’t know why I just DO) and the fact that I haven't seen any other continuities utilize triple changers in the way TFA did. Plus, I thought he was funny and cute,,,,and then I found the fanart. KNOW I WILL ONLY EVER SEE HIM AS SASSY AND REALLY FUKING SEXY ANDGHHHHHHHHHIKVBKVKL

2) TFA Optimus Prime

I’ve said this at least a billion times already but I swear, TFA did a FANTASTIC job on flipping the whole deity-like stance on what it meant to be a ‘prime’. 

Rather than making Optimus the baritone and unbreakable leader as we normally see him in other continuities, TFA made him a learning and growing imperfect leader who allowed the audience to see his journey into becoming one of the strongest characters on the show. Optimus had WONDERFUL range in the show when it came to him fixing his mistakes, owning up to his decisions, taking the lead in spur of the moment circumstances, and showing little moments of weakness.

 I guess what I kind of mean by that is I'm so unbelievably grateful that TFA gave us someone to look up to that we could relate to in a way of someone going through life figuring things out as they go, standing up for what they believe in and doing what they know in their gut is right, AND showing that things still can workout even if you have to diverge from your original path. I love TFA Op because he gave people a chance to see an amazingly written coming-of-age stance of what it means to be a strong and respected leader. PLUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HIS LIPS. SIR HAD NO RIGHT LOOKING THAT GOOD BUT OHHMYGOD 

1 ) IDW Overlord

Overlord as a person (or both I guess in this case)  is literally one of the worst hearted characters in all of Transformers, but it's the way that he’s characterized and designed that makes him my favorite. Very very rarely have I seen in writing/films a character that shows absolutely ZERO redeeming qualities or moments that can’t allow the audience see them as someone who falls on both sides of the scale for reasoning behind their HORRIBLE actions. 

To me, that is a huge deal because I'm possibly one the most emotional person I know, and I am always trying to find some sort of logic and understanding behind the actions of others that can help me figure out how/why someone could act so cruel. 

When I do come across a character who I have not a single ounce of empathy for, I’m completely blown away and can only become THAT MUCH MORE fascinated by the character. In Transformers, that character is Overlord. He’s undeniably transparent in his self interest that I’m completely in love with the way he was written. I guess the simple reason why I love his character so much is because he’s so black and white, that I can’t fight to find any form of positive qualities I can see in his character, which again, IS REALLY HARD FOR ME TO DO.

Now on his design,,,,,holy.fuck. I’m telling you,it’s the lipsIM WEAK. that and he's a big and blue bully who has a nice color scheme and he's big and huge and did I mention he's GIGANTIC??

[dettiot]

beauty and the beast

Surprise, surprise, this got away from me! So enjoy a very long twist on your typical Beauty and the Beast AU. Because the formatting got all wonky and I couldn’t put in a cut, I deleted the original ask from the anon and just posted this separately. 

Humming softly to himself, Anakin looked over the pieces of wire and scraps of metal in the old mechanic shop. He was looking for something very special–something that would make the automaton he was creating just right–

“This is it!” he cried, plucking a quarter-meter circle of shiny gold metal from underneath a pile of rusted bolts.

The mechanic, a kindly old man, smiled a little. “Yes? Just what you need?”

Anakin nodded happily. “It will be perfect for the face of my … clock.” Because in his small village, his interest in mechanical men would not go over well with the people. So he told everyone he was building a new kind of clock.

“If it’s perfect, you should take it,” the mechanic said with a smile. He held up a hand to hold back Anakin’s protests. “I’ll never find a use for that, and you have a need for it. So you should take it.”

“Thank you!” Anakin said eagerly, tucking the metal under his arm and practically stumbling over his feet in his eagerness to get home. “Thank you so much!”

As he hurried home, thinking about his mother’s reaction to his automaton, Anakin did his best to block out the voices of the villagers. How they talked about how beautiful he was, how he was sure to marry the lord’s daughter, how odd he was. It bothered him to hear people talk like that about him, but … people would always talk, his mother told him.

Pushing open the door of the small building that was their home, his mother’s shop and his workshop, Anakin called out, “Mom? I’m home!”

Only silence greeted him, making Anakin frown. He looked around, stepping into Shmi’s shop, only to remember that she had told him about making a trip to the nearby town for some supplies.

With that question settled, Anakin got down to work on his automaton.

XXX

With a start, Anakin realized it was too dark to see. He sat up straight, stretching his back, and reached out to light a candle stub in an iron candlestick on his worktable.

His automaton was practically done. He couldn’t wait to show his–

“Mom?” he said aloud, suddenly realizing how late it was. She should have been home hours ago.

And he had a bad feeling about this.

Pulling on his cloak, Anakin dashed out into the night. A quick stop at the table to get their cantankerous horse, and Anakin set off on the path his mother always took to town.

Between the clouds and the trees, Anakin couldn’t see the moon. A stiff breeze was starting to blow, heavy with the scent of rain. He nudged his horse along. “Come on, Artoo, keep going. We’ve got to find Mom.”

It had started to rain when Anakin spied the rusty gates that marked the abandoned castle. It had once been the home of the village’s original lord, before the family line had died out. For as long as he could remember, the gates had been shut, overgrown with vines.

But now … the gate was ajar.

Perhaps his mother had taken shelter here? Although he couldn’t think why she would do something like that. She had always warned him to stay away from the castle. Like she was scared of it. But if something was wrong, his mother was practical enough to set aside her misgivings.

Besides, what choice did he have?

Anakin dismounted and pushed open the gate. He took the reins in one hand and led Artoo into the overgrown courtyard. The castle in front of him was probably beautiful once upon a time. Now, the stones were mostly gray, with splotches of white and yellow to show its original colors. Stones were missing from the facade and the windows were shuttered, while vines were draped over the whole castle.

Artoo snorted and stomped a foot, and Anakin stroked his mane. “I know, boy. You stay here. I’ll be right back.”  

Stepping up to the large doors, Anakin pushed them open and stepped inside. He coughed, the dust tickling his nose and throat. There was no light inside, so he could barely see the dim shapes around him. But he kept moving, because something inside him told him his mother was here.

“Mom? Are you here? It’s Anakin …” he called out, hearing his voice echo.

“Ani?”

“Mom!” he yelled, moving towards her voice. He ran down a flight of stone steps, into a cellar that was lined with … cells?

At the end of the room, a small light barely managed to push back the darkness enough for him to see his mother.

“Mom!” he said again, dashing to her and kneeling in front of her. “What happened to you? I’ve got to get you out of here!”

His mother’s warm, gentle brown eyes widened in fear. “No, Ani, no! You must go!”

He stared at her. “I’m not leaving you here!”

“GET OUT!”

Jerking to his feet, Anakin put himself between his mother and the voice, which was coming from … a woman?

Her hair was dark, swirling around her white face. Her body was thin and spindly and small, swallowed up by the large cape that seemed to float around her. But most chilling of all was the effect of her large, black eyes in her white face.

“You are intruding! Get out!” she bellowed, her voice loud and echoing.

“Ani, please,” his mother said, sounding like she was on the verge of tears.

“No! What right do you have to lock up a poor woman in your dungeon?” Anakin asked.

The woman’s face twisted into something remote and powerful. “She stole. For that, she deserves imprisonment.”

“I picked a rose for myself,” Shmi said. “I’m sorry! It was just so beautiful!”

Anakin didn’t know how anything could grow on this estate, but he knew his mother. She was the kindest, warmest, best woman on earth. She didn’t deserve this. And he wouldn’t let her suffer.

“Take me instead,” Anakin said, stepping forward and ignoring his mother’s gasp.

The woman looked at him for a long moment, then nodded slowly. “Agreed.” She stepped forward, a cold feeling coming off her as she moved around Anakin to unlock the cell holding his mother.

“Ani, no–no–” his mother begged. He had enough time to reach out and take her hand, squeezing it, telling her silently how much he loved her.

The woman dragged his mother away, Anakin staring at Shmi’s face until it was gone.

“Hello.”

Anakin nearly jumped six feet in the air before turning around towards the sound of the voice.

Which was … a candleabra?

That was smiling at him?

“Please excuse the mistress. We … we don’t receive many guests,” the candleabra said. “But come, come! Allow me to show you to your room!”

A throat cleared, only for a mantle clock to hop into view. “Excuse me, that is my job, if you don’t mind, Lumiere.”

“Ah, yes, mon ami, of course!” the candleabra said cheerfully.

The clock bowed, which made Anakin want to pick it up and examine it. To figure out how it was possible for clocks and candleabras to talk and move!

“Good evening, sir, I am the butler of the household. You may call me Cogsworth. And you are … ?”

“Anakin,” he replied, at a loss for words.

“Excellent! Charming name, sir, if you don’t mind me saying. Come, follow me,” Cogsworth said, hopping along towards the stairs.

Lumiere did the same, the metallic clangs ringing through the chamber every time he made contact with the stone floor. Shrugging his shoulders, Anakin followed them, wondering just what was happening to him.

XXX

After two days in the castle, Anakin thought he might go crazy with boredom. Or curiosity.

He was well-fed at every meal, waited on by Lumiere, Cogsworth, and the teapot named Mrs. Potts who reminded him a bit of his mom. He was provided with old-fashioned but very fine clothes–clothes he constantly worried about messing up. But otherwise, he was left alone. He hadn’t seen the woman who lived here in the castle. All he heard was her roars.

What had happened to her? She might be small, but something about her made her seem so much larger and more commanding than her size. And there was something about her that seemed to be in such pain …

Without anything to do, Anakin found himself wandering through the castle, exploring. Taking in the broken furniture and destroyed paintings. The library with books spread across every surface, piles of wax showing where candles had burned down to the end of their wicks.

The west wing was off-limits, Cogsworth told him. But Anakin wasn’t about to let a whole wing of the castle remain unexplored.

And when he drew near a room and heard voices, he wasn’t above doing some eavesdropping.

“Mistress, please,” Cogsworth said. Anakin could practically picture the clock putting its hands together in a begging position. “You must try.”

“What’s the use?” she asked, her voice managing to echo in yet another piece of magic in this castle.

“Padme, you can’t give up like this,” Lumiere said.

Padme? Was that her name? Anakin had never met anyone with a name like that. It was … interesting. Unusual.

“I will not manipulate him. I will not make promises I cannot keep,” Padme said, sounding aloof and regal but very sad.

“It’s not manipulation,” Lumiere said. “You’re simply getting to know Anakin. He’s a very kind, caring young man. It would do you good to talk with someone, my lady. To not be so concerned with the whole world.”

“Please, Mistress, for us,” Cogsworth said. “There’s so little time left … what is the harm in trying?”

Padme heaved a sigh. “I suppose I have no choice, then?”

“Don’t sound so sad, my lady!” Lumiere said. “He’s also a romantic. He gave himself up to save his mother … he looks quite stunning in his new clothes …”

Anakin felt his cheeks flush. As his mother always said, eavesdroppers deserved what they heard. He drew away, feeling his curiosity stir as he wondered at the conversation.

What had Lumiere meant, there was so little time left?

XXX

To Anakin’s surprise, Padme entered the dining room just as he was sitting down to the table. She wore black, her hair loose around her shoulders and her eyes still dark. But even though she held her chin up, he thought she sounded nervous when she said, “May I join you?”

“Of course …” Anakin said, suddenly realizing he should have stood up when she entered the room. He stumbled over his feet as he got up. To cover his embarrassment, he said, “It’s your castle, after all.”

Without a word, she took a chair at the end of the table. Anakin sat back down, shifting a little.

“I … I hope you have been comfortable,” Padme said after a few minutes of silence.

“Um, yes,” Anakin said, poking at his plate of food. “Thank you.”

He started to eat, glancing at her as she sipped from a glass. Other than a few bites of bread, she didn’t appear to eat anything.

And he wondered what had happened to her.

“I suppose the servants have told you about me,” Padme said.

Shaking his head, he did his best to smile. “No, not really. I’ve asked a lot of questions, but they haven’t answered them.”

A smile appeared on her face as fast as quicksilver before it was gone. “My name is Padme.”

He nodded and smiled. “I’m Anakin. In case you didn’t know.”

That smile appeared again, lasting a little longer, and Anakin felt his heart give a queer thump. “Yes, I know,” Padme said.

For a few moments, they sat in silence as Anakin ate and Padme sipped from her glass.

“My … my mother told me once that the lords of the village used to live here,” Anakin said, his words a bit halting. “In the old days. Before the current lord’s family took over.”

Something shifted in her dark eyes, creating an expression of regret. “Are they … are they kind to the people?”

Anakin shrugged. “They’re all right, I guess. When there was a drought two years ago, they didn’t kick out any villagers. Their daughter gives a lot of charity to anyone who needs it.”

“It’s so little,” Padme said, looking off into the distance.

“What more would they want to do?”

“Help the people lift themselves up, improving their lives at all times, instead of just helping them in hard times,” Padme said, a spark of passion lighting her up.

He opened his mouth to argue, only to stop and consider her words. “Huh.”

“What?” she said, her voice sounding cold.

“No–it’s a good idea. I never thought about it. That lords could be different,” Anakin said.

“They can be,” Padme said, thawing a little. “Those who think long-range, instead of just squeezing the people for all they can get out of them.”

Raising his eyebrows, Anakin looked at her. “Who are you?”

There was something about Padme … he didn’t understand her, how she could roar and bellow, while also speaking so strongly about people. It didn’t fit.

She rose to her feet. “I hope you enjoy the rest of your meal.”

And before Anakin could say anything more, Padme swept out of the room.

For a long moment, he stared after her, wondering what had made her leave. Hoping he hadn’t offended her. It was strange, how much he was starting to care. The last thing he should do is care about his captor. But … he did.

Even though he missed his mother. Even though he didn’t know how long he would be staying here. He wanted to help Padme.

XXX

Almost without him realizing it, the days began adding up into weeks, time moving faster and becoming more pleasant. Because Padme began spending more time with him, filling up his hours with interesting conversations and unusual feelings.

He knew she was smart and liked to read. But as they talked, he realized just how brilliant she was. She had something to say about anything, but especially what it meant to be a good ruler, to lead people, to protect and provide for large groups.

Padme wasn’t afraid to challenge him. To make him think. So many people in his village seemed to think he was dumb, just because he was handsome. But Padme … she wanted him to be informed, to talk about so many things he had never really considered.

So he found himself opening up to her. Talking about his mother. About how he felt out of place in his village and wondered where he might fit in. He even told her about the automaton he was building, and how he loved to tinker and fix things.

And the day after he told her that, Padme was different. She was almost … giddy. Because after lunch, she asked him to follow her. And of course, Anakin did. Right outside the castle, through the overgrown gardens.

A cold wind whipped around him, making Anakin draw his cloak tighter around himself.

“Are you cold?” Padme asked, seeming not to notice how her own cloak was blown open by the wind and her hair swirled around her.

“A little … I’m always cold,” he admitted.

Padme nodded, and he almost sensed her filing away that piece of information. He didn’t really know why, and he didn’t have much time to think about it, because Padme drew up in front of a dilapidated building. It was tall, with large windows flanking its door, and Anakin wondered what the structure was for.

From underneath her cloak, Padme drew a rusty key and put it in the door’s lock. She turned it, but didn’t open the door. Instead, she turned to face him. “I thought you might like to see this building.”

“All right …” Anakin said slowly, not really sure where this was going.

She gestured for him to open the door, and knowing that it would probably be at least a bit warmer inside–it would give them cover from the wind–Anakin turned the knob and stepped inside, feeling his mouth drop in shock.

It … it was like the mechanic’s shop in his village, but much, much larger. As far as the eye could see, there were tools and supplies. Pieces of metal in all sizes, wires and springs and gears, long worktables stretching along the walls and open space for experiments.

“What–what?” Anakin asked, his head swiveling around before he turned to face Padme.

“When you talked about the machine you were building … I remembered this workshop and thought you might like to use it. To let you work on projects while you’re here,” Padme said, her voice soft and almost shy.

“Really?” he asked, beaming at her. “Padme, this is amazing!”

For the first time, he saw color on her face, as two soft pink spots appeared on her cheeks. “You like it?”

“I love it. I can’t wait to get started!” Anakin said, unable to hold back his excitement. He looked at Padme, and then, suddenly, he was hugging her.

He hadn’t realized how much bigger he was than her. Because in his arms, she felt so incredibly small and delicate and fragile. He wondered if he was hurting her, because she was standing so straight and stiff. But then, her body melted against his, in a way that made his blood light on fire.

Her hair was against his cheek, and Anakin turned his head just the slightest bit, to realize it wasn’t black like he thought. No, it was a deep, rich, warm brown. It smelled like something warm and spicy and comforting. Like cinnamon.

What was he doing?

Anakin jerked back, knowing his own face was flushed. He didn’t know what to do with his hands and ended up shoving them into his pockets. “Um, thank you,” he said, hearing his mother’s voice in his head, reminding him of his manners.

“You’re welcome,” Padme said, her voice higher-pitched than normal. Her face was still flushed. She drew her cloak around her. “I … I’ll let you begin to work. I hope you’ll enjoy yourself.”

And with her cloak and hair whirling around her, Padme left.

Even though he was itching to get started, Anakin couldn’t help watching through the window as Padme walked back to the castle. Her spine was straight, her head held high, but … but Anakin thought she seemed sad. Sadder than he had ever seen her before.

XXX

As the days went on, Padme’s sadness seemed to linger. She tried to act like she wasn’t sad, by smiling at him some and asking him questions and listening when he talked. But Anakin could tell that there was something wrong.

No matter what he tried, it didn’t seem to help her. He asked her questions about leadership and ruling, doing his best to draw out all her knowledge. He offered to go walking with her around the castle’s grounds, despite the cold.

And then Anakin had an idea. The perfect way to make Padme smile enough to make her sadness go away.

He got to work in his shop, glorying in all the supplies he could ever need. It meant missing a few meals with Padme and a few sleepless nights, but it was worth it, after four days, to have created the perfect present.

At dinner that night, he hurried into the dining room, checking his pocket for his surprise. Padme looked at him and smiled for a moment, before her face settled back into sadness.  

“Padme?” he asked, unable to wait. Wanting that unhappy expression banished from her face.

“Yes?” she asked quietly, only glancing at him.

“I have something for you,” he said, stepping towards her.

That prompted a reaction. She slowly looked up at him, something in her eyes that almost made him hesitate. But he plowed ahead.

“Here,” he said quickly, drawing his present out of his pocket and setting it down in front of her.

Padme stared at the mechanical rose in front of her. Her hand lifted and reached out, but didn’t touch it.

“It’s a mechancial rose,” Anakin explained, his words coming fast. “It’s in its bud state right now, but if you press this button right here …”

Anakin pressed a small button at the base of the flower, and Padme gasped as the rose’s petals slowly unfurled into a full-blown bloom.

“So you can always have a rose, no matter what time of year it is,” Anakin said, watching Padme. Seeing her soft, pale skin–not white and cold like it had looked the first time he saw her. Her brown, curly hair, not the wild dark mass he remembered.

And her eyes–not dark holes in her face–but brown and full of emotion and warmth and fire.

How had he not realized how beautiful she was?

“Anakin,” Padme said. Her voice shook as one fingertip brushed against a petal.

“Eventually, I want to add fragrance as the flower blooms,” Anakin said, his palms feeling clammy and his throat as dry as a desert. “And a timer, so the rose will bloom slowly, like a real flower. Do–do you like it?”

It felt like it took a decade for her eyes to slowly meet his. She stared at him, and her tongue darted out to lick her lips, making Anakin lean towards her.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

The castle was full of magic. Anakin had accepted that, even though he couldn’t scientifically explain it. And right now, it was like all the magic was increased, making this moment last and matter.

And then, with a sharp, dissonant screech, Padme pushed her chair back and stood up. “I release you.”

Anakin stared as Padme turned and walked towards one of the floor-to-ceiling windows. “What?”

Had he heard her say she released him? What did that mean?

Without facing him, Padme said, “You are free. There is no longer any debt to repay. Your horse is in the stable–you may leave whenever you like.”

His heart plummeted. He didn’t–he couldn’t–why was she–how could he–

“Please go,” Padme whispered, her arms wrapping around her torso.

Mrs. Potts appeared in the room, gently nudging against Anakin’s ankle. “It’s getting late. You need your rest, young man.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but the pleading look Mrs. Potts gave him made his shoulders slump. He nodded and turned, walking out of the dining hall. And as he left, he couldn’t help looking back at Padme, who was now surrounded by her servants. Their faces were worried for their mistress.

They weren’t the only one who was worried.

XXX

The next day passed like a dream. When he woke up, after a night of little sleep, the hatstand helped him dress like normal. But it wasn’t a normal day.

Cogsworth greeted him in the front hall. “Good morning, sir,” he said, his voice mournful. “Your horse is saddled and waiting for you. There is a saddlebag with food and drink packed for your journey.”

“Cogsworth–I don’t need that. I don’t need to go,” he said. “I …”

The words died as he realized he didn’t want to talk to Cogsworth. He wanted to talk to Padme.

Lumiere hopped to stand beside Cogsworth. “Farewell, mon petit,” he said, smiling sadly at Anakin. “Bonne chance.”

“Hurry along now,” Mrs. Potts said. “Your mother must be waiting for you.”

There was nothing he could say. They wouldn’t let him see Padme. And they were all just household items, but he wouldn’t want to cross them. So Anakin slowly turned and walked out of the castle.

The skies were filled with gray clouds and he shivered in the cold air. Artoo tossed his head and whinnied as Anakin approached.

“Hi, boy,” he said softly, stroking Artoo’s nose before mounting him. Anakin looked up at the castle, searching each and every window for any sign of Padme. But the windows were empty, just like his heart, and he took the reins and gently urged Artoo into a walk.

He did not look back. He kept his gaze locked on the space between Artoo’s ears, not paying any attention to his surroundings. Fortunately, Artoo knew the way.

When he drew up in front of the small house, he gave his head a shake and tried to look on the bright side. He was home. He could see his mother again. He could …

“Ani!”

His mother’s voice had never sounded sweeter. Anakin smiled through some tears as he watched her run out of the house and into his arms.

“Oh, Ani!” she said. Anakin hugged her back tightly.

She pulled away and cupped his face, her fingers stroking against his skin. “How did you get away? Are you all right?”

“I … she let me go,” Anakin said softly, leaning into her touch.

“She let you go?” Shmi said, sounding shocked. “What?”

He shook his head and stepped back. “I don’t know why. But she did and now I’m home.” He did his best to smile, and his mother smiled back, but she still looked confused.

“Let me put Artoo in the stable and you can catch me up on everything that’s happened,” Anakin said, patting his mother’s shoulder.

“All right, Ani,” she said, her face lighting up. “I’ll start cooking some lunch for us.”

And just like that, he was back home. The village hadn’t changed, according to his mother. On his first visit, he saw that she was right. Nothing had changed.

But he had. He saw everything with new eyes. He could see how unfair life was, how much it was affected by chance and luck. And the lord of the village, who was supposed to protect the people, didn’t seem to do anything to make everyone be equal.

It made him realize how much Padme had changed him. How much he had learned.

And it made him miss her even more.

One night, he was poking at his food when his mother sat down beside him. “Ani. Why don’t you go back?”

“What? Go back where?” he asked, feeling his heart skip a beat.

Shmi gave him a long, fond look. “Go back to her. Because you love her.”

Anakin swallowed. “She–she took you prisoner.”

“Because I stole,” his mother said. “I knew that. Perhaps it was too harsh, the punishment she exacted, but it was fair. And in the moment, I was scared of her. But now that I think about it … I think she’s lonely. She needs someone.”

Shmi looked at him again. “I think she needs you.”

“Mom,” he said, reaching out to take her hand, squeezing it tightly. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” she said, squeezing his hand back and then reaching out with her free hand to ruffle his hair. “But you miss her. I can tell. So you should go back to her and see if she loves you as much as you love her.”

He rose to his feet and pulled his mother in for a hug. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “I will see you again.”

His mother gently patted his back, then pulled away from him. “Go ahead and pack. Don’t forget to take your automaton–you’ll want to finish it. I noticed you hadn’t worked on it since you returned.”

Smiling sheepishly, Anakin nodded and started moving, gathering his things and carefully packing his automaton. With everything loaded in a small cart and Artoo hitched up, there was no need to wait.

And he didn’t want to wait. He would miss his mother, but … but she was right. He loved Padme. And she needed him.

This time, he wouldn’t let anyone stand between himself and Padme.

XXX

The gates were closed when he approached the castle, but he didn’t care. He tried to open them, but they wouldn’t budge. So leaving Artoo and the cart at the gate, Anakin climbed the gates. He tore his shirt and nearly fell a meter when his cloak caught on some pickets.

But he didn’t care. He was nearly there.

Anakin pushed open the doors and stepped into the castle. It felt cold–colder than it had ever felt before. He walked through the main hall, not seeing any of the servants.

It felt wrong.

He had only gone into the west wing once, when he had eavesdropped on Padme with Lumiere and Cogsworth. But now he climbed the stairs and stepped towards the room that he thought was Padme’s.

When he stepped into the room, he shivered. It was so cold …

At the far end, beside a large window, there was a low, wide bed. There was a small lump in the middle, barely visible in the flickering candelight. As he approached the bed, he realized it was Lumiere.

But then he saw Padme, and any thought of anything else fled his mind.

Her cheeks were flushed and sweat poured down the sides of her face. Her hair curled damply against her forehead, and her eyes were moving fast under her closed eyelids.

“Padme?” he breathed out, leaning over the bed.

“Mon petit?” Lumiere said, his flames going higher to see better.

“Lumiere, what happened to her?” Anakin asked, kneeling on the bed to be closer to her. He brushed her hair back, practically seeing steam as his cold fingers touched her hot skin.

The candleabra sniffed. “Oh, mon petit … my lady is cursed. An evil wizard condemned her to always be seen as a monster, even though she is beautiful and kind and caring, full of ideas to save the world. The curse could only be broken when someone could see past her appearance … and when she could learn to love one person over everyone else in the world.”

It didn’t make sense to him, but Anakin knew that Padme was sick. “Why is she so hot?”

“The last petal is ready to fall,” Lumiere said, gesturing to the table on the other side of the bed, the table he hadn’t noticed.

Under a glass dome, a faded rose floated in the air. A single petal hung onto the stem, looking ready to fall as Lumiere said.

But what caught Anakin’s attention was the mechanical rose next to the enchanted rose. The rose that was open, in full bloom.

“She kept it,” Anakin whispered.

“She did,” Lumiere said sadly.

Anakin turned back to look at Padme. Her eyes were open in narrow slits, but he could see the warm brown there. He slid his hand under her head, lifting her closer to him.

“Padme,” he said softly. “Padme, I’m here.”

“Anakin …” she breathed out. Her lips quirked, and her tongue flicked out to smooth over the dry, flaky skin. “I get to see you … one more time …”

“No,” he said, stroking her hair with his free hand. “I can’t lose you, Padme.”

Her head tilted a little, her eyes connecting with his. And in that moment, Anakin let himself fall for her.

“I love you,” he said softly.

“What?” she whispered, her eyes widening.

“I love you,” he said again, smiling at her. “I love you so much, Padme.”

He leaned in and pressed his lips softly against hers. Her lips pressed back for a moment, before she jerked away.

“Padme!” he yelled, not knowing what to do as her body convulsed. He reached for her shoulders, holding on, watching as light seemed to burst from her body.

The light lifted her up, making Anakin’s eyes squint. He heard noises, heard voices. It sounded like an old man wailing in despair and disappointment.

And then Padme landed back on the bed, breathing slowly, her eyes closed.

No longer was she unnaturally pale or fever-flushed. Her cheeks were a soft pink, the rest of her skin smooth and soft peach in color. Her hair hung in perfect curls around her face, the brown a pleasing compement to her skin.

Her eyes opened slowly, and they were brown, too. Brown like he remembered them being their last night together, but–but different. Prettier, softer, kinder.

“Padme?” he whispered, stroking back one of her curls.

She slowly blinked as she stared up at him. And then, moving faster than he thought she could move, Padme was sitting up and throwing her arms around him.

“I love you, Anakin! I love you, too–so much, Anakin, so much,” she said, pressing her face against his shoulder.

Then she pulled back and gazed at him, her fingers hesitantly reaching out to touch his cheek. “I love you,” she repeated.

Anakin smiled slowly, then turned his head to lightly press a kiss to her fingertips. Padme drew in a breath, and Anakin slid his arm around her waist to bring her closer.

“Oh, Mistress!”

“My lady!”

“We’re real again!”

The voices of Cogsworth, Mrs. Potts and Lumiere broke into their own little world, and Anakin and Padme both looked at the now-human servants. Anakin smiled and nodded to them, but then looked down at Padme.

Her eyes were filled with tears as she gazed at her servants–her friends. Anakin drew her close and rubbed her back.

“Thank you for believing in me,” Padme told them, her eyes holding each of theirs for a long moment. “Now, if you don’t mind … I’d like to be alone with Anakin.”

Cogsworth blushed, Mrs. Potts smiled, and Lumiere smirked. But they all did as asked, and Padme turned to Anakin and smiled.

“So you’re a lady, huh?” he asked, stroking her hair.

“I suppose,” she said, wrinkling her nose up in a way that was utterly delightful. “But I don’t think that matters. I … I’m just Padme.”

“You’re not ‘just’ anything,” he said, resting his forehead lightly against hers.

Her nose gently brushed against his as she moved closer to him. “And you’re everything to me.”

Anakin looked at her for a moment, and then leaned in to kiss her. To kiss her with everything he felt.

So although Anakin and Padme’s story has come down through history of the love of a beauty for a beast, with some unfortunate changes from the real story, it was truly a love story about looking past first impressions. And really, isn’t that a better story?

End.

[popculturebuffet]

X-Men Evolution Reviewcaps: Rogue Recruit

My series long look at X-Men Evolution rolls on as eveyrone’s favorite goth reworking of everyone’s faviorite southerner debuts. The X-Men and Mystique race to bring Rogue to her side after her powers accidently coma a boy. The X-Men try the usual compasion.. while Mystique just tries attempted murder and gaslighting while wearing a wolverine costume. Mother of the year! Meanwhile Kurt tries to get Kitty to likes him, Kitty does something profoundly stupid to prove Wolverine wrong that ends up proving him right, and Wolverine grumbles and is kind of an asshole. Well at least one of those is just an average tuesday for him. We’re going Rogue, Rogue, Rouuuuggeeee under the cut. 

Onto episode 3 though this time I did actually get around to watching a few in a row, so while i’m not MILES ahead of this episode, I do have a better sense of where things are going and where this falls in line with everything else. And this is a big one as it’s the debut of Rogue, easily one of the shows more popular characters from what I can tell and it’s no real suprise. In most incarnations Rogue is a huge fan faviorite, with a tragic but very useful and intresting power that makes for good stories.. and okay in the comics and carton she’s also fanservice incarnate, but that’s not exactly a factor here so moving on.  And here is no exception as naturally, with her goth apperance, and general moody outsider atittude, she was a huge hit with goths and emos one and all! And eveyrone really, it’s a good take despite being almost the oppsite of the angsty but still fesity and funloving 90′s version.. and the ironic part is BOTH are entirely accurate to the comics. And yes like the last time about to dive a bit into the comics.. but unlike the shiar thing this is throughly relevant to how the character is portrayed here and a neat history less for those not in the know, so buckle up. 

What’s intresting is both adapt the character.. just at vastly diffrent points. See most probably think of Rogue as she is now: Bubbly, Scrappy and able to throw a man into a mountain, if still understandably mopey about not being able to touch anyone, thoguh that issues come and gone a dozen times by now because comic books can’t resisit undoing things to meet fan expectations despite most dedicated fans wanting some fucking change once in a while. 

But that’s due to years and years of character development: When Chris Claremont first intorduced her, in an avengers annual no less.. she was a villain, a member of her adopted mother Mystique’s brotherhood of evil mutants, and unlike here, we’ll get into that, she was a fully willing member at first, gleefuly following her mama’s orders to drain the powers of one of Mystique’s most hated enemy: Carol Danvers, aka Ms Marvel and the future Captain Marvel. Yeah this one takes some explination for you non-comic fans, and even some of you comic fans who might not get how one of the more iconic x-men villians has personal beef with Carol.... granted i’m pretty sure half the marvel unvierse has personal beef with Carol in present day after Civil War II, especially tony for murdering him, but story for another time.  It’s actually pretty simple: Chris Claremont was writer of x-men for a decade and easily the most important x-men writer period who created a ton of iconic and well loved characters and shaped Cyclops, Charles Xavier and Magneto into the characters fans know and love among others. And around the same time as his x-men run’s early years in the late 70′s, he was writer of Ms Marvel, and took Carol from a half hearted girl counterpart to the first Captain Marvel with a wonky two identties gimmick, into the asskicker and feminist icon we know today. As such Mystique debuted there and when that book ended, Claremont slided her over to the x-men and the rest is history. And this wasn’t an isolated incident: Sabertooth, aka wolverine’s arch enemy and one of hte more famous mutant baddies, debuted in, of all comic books, iron fist, with Claremont bringing him back years and years later as part of the mutant massacreing Marauders, while Misty Knight and Coleen Wing were breifly supporting characters in x-men inbetween Iron Fist’s cancelation and Iron Fist becoming bros for life with Luke Cage and forming the heroes for hire, bringing the two along as supporting characters in the process. It’s a process writers have contiuned to this day; Bringing a character from other unrelated comics in to keep them out of comic book limbo and one i’m in favor of: as long as their writing the character well and they fit why not.  And like her momma Rogue DIDN’T debut in the pages of X-Men, but in Avengers Annual #10. And no Chris wasn’t writing avengers, though it wasn’t really unusual for another writer to hop in for one annual to pinch hit for the regular writer for whatever reason, with Chris Claremont being one of the few who wrote every annual himself for his run on X-Men. What was is he did so for one reason and one only: To get justice for Carol Danvers after a recent story had screwed her over BAD. Two things before we start: If you haven’t heard of this debacle, my apologizes and rape and abuse trigger warning. If you want to skip this portion of the review just ctrl f HIGHER FASTER FURTHER MORE and you can move right on past this clusterfuck and the aftermath. Anyways in Avengers 200, Carol gave birth via terribly contrived mystical pregnancy to Marcus, son of avengers foe and sometimes ally immortus and creepy asshole. Marcus is revaled to have brainwashed carol into loving him , and making love to him so yeah he raped her physically and mentally and the story ends iwth the “Happy ending” of him whisking carol away with him to his limbo dimension while everyone else is fine with it despite him admitting to using the “subtle manipulations of his machines” to make her love him. So yeah, he kidnapped carol to his limbo dimension, mind controlled her, had his way with her, had her give birth to him so he could come to earth then took her back with him.. and not ONE avenger raced a hand, shield, repulsor or hammer, and yes the big three avengers were very much present for this debacle and very much cuplable. IT’s a throughly disgusting hideous story i’ve only see played out thanks to Linkara, long time comics reviewer and all around sweet guy, reviewing it, though with the panels show to show yes all of this is there, and have no intrest in EVER reaading this vile piece of garbage. If your still curious or after just hearing about it want to see it torn to shreds, here’s the review for you. 

It’s terrible for a variety of other reasons. Naturally Chris, who’d put a LOT of time into building up carol and like any creator who sees their character throughly dragged through the mud, was PISSSSSED.. and so were fans who rightly rioted at the issue, so editorial was more than happy to let one of thier biggest draws  right the ship and also allowed him to take Carol back home to the x-men with him. As for how that happened, after Rogue stole her powers, Carol fell in a river and was rescued by her best friend and fellow Chris Claremont alumnis Spider-Woman, Jessica Drew, who brought her to the x-men since she was a friend of theirs, where charles fixed her mind, though Carol was left with no emotoins attached to most of her memoreis. When the avengers, after scrapping with the brotherhood in some neat bouts, came to visit their friend.. Carol instead laid into them for letting Marcus take her, poitned out just how fucked up it was as well as how, and this actually happend, the avengers downplayed her concerns and tried to get her to connect with her demon spawn instead of worrying about her while others made jokes. Basically just one long page of chris claremont unloading on the issue and Carol unloading on her former friends before staying with her new ones. And to the issues credit the rest of the team. .takes it, is utterly devistated to realize what they’d done, and reflects on if they can ever make up for it or if they even deserve forgivness. She would eventually, mostly because people wanted to forget this story after that for good reason, but it’s still a damn cathartic moment.  HIGHER FASTER FURTHER MORE.. so yeah Carol was now with the x-men, who did end up meeting Rogue during a mission to wipe themselves from goverment records for good reason. And to his credit Chris not only used Carol’s lack of emotions tied to her memories for good drama but gave carol a huge power upgrade as binary, if your curious as to where her glowy headed distctrugion of an entire starfleet in her solo film came from. So okay after about a paragraph not really involving her we get into why this is so important to rogue’s character; Rogue now had Carol’s personality and memories trapped in her head and her mind was blurring between them, something this episode would use, and was falling apart as a result and with her moms Mystique and Destiny unable to help a despearate scared and repetnant Rogue went to her last hope for help saving her sanity and her soul: The X-Men. The X-Men, having both fought her and bonded heavily with her victim, naturally were less than pleased about this, and Colossus outright attacked Rogue before charles stopped him, not unresonably given the circumstances. However after talking with her and realizing both how badly she needed her help and how genuinely she wanted to change, going from a brat in love with her own power to a scared young woman terrified of what she’d done and what she was becoming, decided to roll her into the x-men. And everyone revolted: Carol was understadanbly piss and famously punched Rogue into orbit, while the rest of the x-men threatned to walk. Charles however refused to back down and gave one of his finest speech and one of the characters best moments:

To me this is Charles Xavier, a man who will accept and try to help anyone, regardless of their past, because it’s the right thing.. because they deserve a chance and he will GIVE IT TO THEM. It’s a powerful and well done moment and the x-men relucntantly take her in as a result, eventually seeing her as family as she proved herself.  So yeah  THAT is why I took so long to get here and went through ALL of this: Because this series adapts this period in it’s own unique way, taking out Rogue’s outright villiany mind, but leaving in her being a moodier, more closed off person who is constantly afraid of once again stealing someone’s very soul. She still has her confidence, as idd the comics version, it’s just tempered by a wall she puts up between her and everyone else that wasn’t as present by the time the 90′s series adapted her. And there are other bits i’ll get to as we go and in future episodes, I just felt this story was important as it colors Rogue’s journey here, hence me taking a good portion of the review to dive into it and even then I have more bits to give as we go. So with all this exposition that’s probably lost ya’s out of the way, this is Rogue Recurit. Pitter Patter.  We open in the mighty Missisipi, neighbor to my home state of missouri and home of the deep fried shoe. No wait that’s connecticut my mistake. We meet our unfriendly neighborhood goth moping outside, not really enjoying the dance and probably only having gone because her mom told her not to.. Destiny not Myistque mind. More on that in a minute. She’s being watched by two guys: Cody, who if you know your x-men lore you know this never ends well for him, and his friend uh.. let me check my noootes (Checks wiki while shuffling papers to simulate notes) Ty. Turns out Cody’s been starring at Rogue all week but dosen’t even know her name which to be fair, minus the muscles and being on the football team, is pretty much me in high school and is just as pathetic in 2000 as it would be from 2007-2010. I mean if I just went for it I PROBABLY would’ve been shot down, and the one time I did I indeed was, but at least I would of went for it and maybe learned more about women and not been such a dipstick for the next decade.... “sigh”

Point is Cody awkwardly asks Rogue to dance but like most cool kids, including the kind I hung out with in high school and tended to crush on, she’s there to look COOOOL and mope a bit.. and again tell her mom she can’t tell her what to dooooo. But Cody’s awkwardness and sincerty gets her to say why not, he means well.. a little pity dance can’t hurt. So they dance and then Ty causes this entire episode, yes really, by shoving Cody into her because they happen to be dancing seperatley because Cody’s a goddman gentleman ya maroon, and is respecting her personal space, and IS actually hitting it off as she seems to be enjoying herself. Had he not done that, he at least MIGHT have gottne a kiss before what happens next.. during the fall he accidently touches her skin, which had been mostly covered up and goes into a Coma while Rogue is now stuck in a stupor wondering who she is. Yeah as I omniously hinted at Cody is the guy in every version of Rogue’s origin story,  including I assume the 2000′s one where until doing some research i.e. going to wikipedia then letterboxd to find out if his name was given, who she has her first kiss with.. and thus the poor sap who first gets hit with her absorbtion power and traumtizes her. And here it’s no exception. Cue the opening credits. Which despite this setting up the slow arc of Rogue joining htem.. has Rogue in an x-men uniform with the team. Not that the arc is particuarlly subtle about hiding it, we’ll get there but still.  After the credits Ty is wondering what she did to him.. even though she barely moved when he fell on her, and Ty shoved Cody into him, and for all we know Cody just went into shock. He also easily could’ve fell on an epi pen or something.. I mean she could’ve stabbed him wiht one but that’s more of a candian thing than a southern thing. 

So Ty, who while understandably given Mutants aren’t public and Rogue herself had no idea still casued this by shoving Cody into her without thinking about if either had any medical conditions or if Rogue you know WANTED to phsyically touch him that soon, and yes diffrent standards and all but even 2000 this was stupid, decides to mess up things further when Rogue tries to run and tries to block the way. Now granted I get it on some level: For all he knows Rogue drugged his best friend and she needs to be there anyway to answer the police.. but counter arguments 1) She may have a record (She dosen’t) and while not having DONE anything may get brought up on charges anyway.  2) If she DID drug cody with a needle of something WHO SAYS SHE DOSEN’T HAVE MORE AND CAN’T JUST STAB YOUR DUMB ASS 3) she’s got a VERY distinctinve haircut with a white streak, wears a very specific outfit she probably son’t have time to change out of , and everyone there saw her. YOu can tell the police what she looks like. They will find her.  No instead she tries blocking her and she football tackles him.. because Cody is a footballer because this show, much like Tommy Wiseau, weirdly loves football. though unlike the room most instances it comes up, the first episode, cody being one here, and a future episode where the objective is to get the ball from your opposing x-man, all make some sense versus “Let’s go put on tuxes and play football because that’s what friends do huhhhhh?”. But yeah THIS is why I brought up Rogue’s past: becuase this episode heavily uses the part where she had Carol’s memories.. and would occasionally get messed up between who she was, with one issue having her lapse into being carol to rescue her ex from capture, which he dosen’t take well for obvious reasons. This episode uses something similar with Rogue’s brain a bit fried from taking in cody and thus not being sure where she ends and he begins, which is a very intresting idea and was a cool wya to go about having her powers activate. I mean sure it’s the second time in two episodes a mutant’s powers have traumatically awkaned. but both were distinct and interesting and it’s a staple of x-men stories to have this sort of thing happen. 

Meanwhile Rogue’s caretaker Destiny, who we flashed to a bit during the awakening of her powers, calls Mystque. I mentioned her ealrlier in jokes but for those unaware both here and in the comics Destiny is a pre cog, although sh’es an elderly woman in the comics, or rather was having died decades ago in real life, meaning she can see the fuuuuttureeeeee. And thus she saw what was about to happen but couldn’t prevent it. Mysitque is apparently railing her out on the other end over it.. and not in the fun way they usuallly do. And that’’s not crude ininsiuation.. in the comics.. Chris Claremont wrote them as a gay couple and only didn’t explicltly say anything because Jim Shooter was a homophobic moron, even if he had the common sense to stop the kitty and colossus thing because dear god why was that a thing, chaste or not dear god why. The point is Chris fully meant both as lesbians though Mysitque became bisexual under other writers, and the two finally kissed on panel, in flashback last year and Msique wanting her revivied, the x-men can come back from the dead now in comics and Xavier and Magneto refusing for complicated reasons I won’t go into here, and Desitny herself knowing they might not and telling her to burn Krakoa to the ground if she dosen’t get to come back is a major bubbling plot point that got set up earlier this year. So yeah I fully see them as a couple here. ANd yes mistue was with her even as an old lady, it’s really sweet and misty is also immortal so they’ve been together a long time. Also fun fact you probably dind’t need to know: Chris Claremont FULLY inteded to have it turn out the two were Nightcrawler’s biological parents. Mistque is a shapeshifter and can become a man after all.. I like to think that’s what happened here since thankfully the show decided NOT to go with the “kurt’s dad is a demon” explination from around the same time.. and yes that’s a thing and yes it’s fucking stupid and only ever worked under jason aaron who made Kurt’s dad into a pirate who raided heaven and lead to the x-men pirating up alongside a about to come back from the dead nightcrawler to kick his ass. And yes much like the misqute shapeshifting a dick to make a child being shopped around, this actually happened. Comics are awesome sometimes and I genuinely wish Destiny was kurt’s mom. Also yeah spoilers Mystique is nightcrawler’s mom here as usual, including possibly in the movies but it’s kept vauge in both timelines. 

Destiny explains that while she kept Rogue’s powers under wraps, giving her a phony skin condition and having her wear skin covering clothes, she couldn’t keep her away from teenage things forever and figured she’d be fine.. she was wrong but hey her precontion isn’t something she can control and she can still see the fucking future, so it’s not like it’s a bad trade off. Myistque is of course coming to collect her but Destiny warns her that, naturally, the x-men are going to be there soon. 

Speaking of the X-Men, Wolverine is breaking into the x-men mansion in a ninja costume while storm tries to thrwart hm. Yes there is actual context to this and he is a trained ninja so this fits.. yes really he apparentlyt rained with ninjas as part of his backstory and later had a samurai sword fight iwth his girlfriends dick of a dad twice and has had many since then since even with his claws the image of wolverine wielding a sword is fucking awesome. He crawls through the vents but Storm freezes them and he’s forced to enter the danger room and then tears some machines apart because chuck stops him because APPARENTLY their expesnive.. even though he can afford to buy his teenage son a sports car and himself a fucking rolls, so no Chuck I don’t see why Logan would assume you can’t afford to buy more death machines. 

Scott rightly asks what the hell their supposed to learn from one of their teachers putting on his ninja robes and trying to sneak into his own house while another teacher tries to murder him. And yeah with enoguh episodes I can fully say my assement was accurate, and not only that this scott has a bit of a temper at times, being a bit quicker to fly off the handle while also having a clear sarcastic streak, something his comics counterpart would thankfully soon pick up and that’s come back in full under jonathan hickman:

It’s.. a long story.. a bunch of racist genocidal scientests decided to inject themselves with devolving serum to protect their project from the x-men.. okay maybe not that long a story. BUt I LIKE that this scott is flawed, but not enoguh to make him unlikeable just enough to round him out: He’s charming, empathetic and a tactical genius.. but he can also be hot headed, sarcastic and impulsive. I’ts a nice ballance that dosen’t prevent him from being likeable or useful to the team, but keeps him intresting and gives him room to grow.  What I really am liking about the series so far is the team is fairly fleshed out.. except Jean and Storm unforuntantley as Storm really hasn’t gotten enough screne time to shine like her comics counterpart and Jean is just sort of “popular girl type a who’s sweet to everyone, but also still badass”. She’s still better than the 90′s cartoon, as she can actually do stuff more often and is a vital member of the team, and has mor eof a personality, but I hope we get more to her as we go. But otherwise the characters are layerd, flawed but likeable, and enjoyable to watch, and it helps with these earlier more awkard episodes, papering over the weaker aspects with strong character. 

Anyways Logan explains why they did all this: both to show the kids how to infiltrate big complexes, which given most x-missions are “investgate a base of some sort wher eno good is coming of anything”, case in point the mission in the picture above, it’s a valid and useful skill, and to test the mansion’s security, suggesting since the vents are crawlable to electrify them and add poision gas. Storm objects to the poision gas part as well.. their only enimies besides mystique are two teenagers who while dicks don’t really deserve to choke to death. Wolverine’ relucntantly agreers.. he’ll get em next security update. Next timeee.  Kitty meanwhile wonders if anyone else is freaked out and just gets blank stares.. a great gag and a great bit of character as she just joined and had a fairly normal life before all this. Kurt assures her she’ll get used to it, but his telporting over and offering popcorn fails to impress her and she nopes out of there, though Jean reassures him chicks will dig the fuzzy eventually. This is a nice nod to the comics where , with Kurt being the only non-human passing x-man, Kitty was afraid of him for some time, but slowly came around going from being horrified to him to defending him to evelangenlical lunatic reverend stryker, he was a preacher in the comics but no less vile or murder happy, telling him that kurt was one of the noblest souls she ever met after he angrily lambasted him as not in god’s will because you know, he looks like a demon.. and apparently is half of one but let’s ignore that bollocks shall we? Here i’ts more he’s coming on a bit strong on top of that, but it still works reconfigured like that.  Anyways enough teen romance, to me my x-men as Charles needs the full team for a mission and it’s the first time we’ve HAD a full team mission which makes sense: Episode one only had two active x-men and one who just joined and episode 2 only needed a smaller team for both subplots so we split the team minus storm in half. Here we have our first full mission: To find Rogue as Xavier believes she’s a danger to herself and others.. which isn’t exactly wrong when her power can abosrb at a touch and she has two entirely diffrent minds overlaping in her head. I do questoin however going in full combat gear, as they do. Bringing it, no sweat what if someone shows up to attack them, their apparently aware of the brotherhood as of next episode... which makes little sense but whatever. But when they land they go out in full superhero gear which not only ends up playing into myistques hands , more on that in a bit but makes htem look super supscious. And this could just be wanting more costume action early on which would be fine.. if the previous episode hadn’t had jean in plain clothes to talk to kitty, because yeah most people freaked out about their powers probably wouldn’t assume the best of someone in tactical gear iwth a big x on their costume! Gah. I”m glad I went ahead simply to know the x-men do get smarter.. a little. 

Anyways, that stupidity aside on the jet Kurt is flying for the first time with Scott proud of his skill saying he’ll be an ace.. and taking it back when Kurt starts driving with his feet.. even though to me that’s just as impressive as while he has that classic arms behind the head relaxed pose, he is still paying attention, has his feet on ten and two and, and it’s a fact that I forget sometimes: His feet are just as, or at least, almost as good at gripping as his hands. It’s why he can wall crawl like spiderman. Their llike gorilla feet but better. So yeah that joke dosen’t really land.  Meanwhile it’s time for what an older man thinks two teenage girls talk about.. and I just noticed looking at the credits this episode is written by Simon Furman, one of the more renowed transformers creators and write of the UK comics and later the US comics, as well as the first few mini series and one shots for the first idw continuity.. granted the latter is a bit infamous for what he did to arcee, which I both don’t know enough about and don’t have enough time to get into here, nor have I read enough of his work to gush, but I sitll felt it worth mentioning. ANd it’s not uncommmon for comic book writers to write for animation: Greg Weisman started in comics before moving to animation with Captain Atom’s post-crisis solo series, Dwayne McDuffie had a rather sizeable career in comics as a writer and editor and returned to writing comics in the 2000′s for a stint, and Marv Wolfman helped make the treatment for beast machines, while Peter David’s done scattered episodes of various shows, most memorably for me Ben 10. So not a HUGELY uncommmon thing but still worth noting.  Anyways legend or no, he still makes the rest of this scene awkward as Kitty fawns over scott, Jean ends up agreeing and in annoying fit of jealously kurt ports to the roof to do .. some sort of stunt to impress kitty and end sup having to come back in due to wind resitance, teleproting on her by accident and pissing her off. It’s not a terrible scene, as it shows some vunerablity in kurt and furhters the jean scott love triangle but in revisiting it it just feels a tad awkardly put in there, especially since so far kitty having a crush on scott goes nowhere and love triangle wise it’s more Jean, Scott and Rogue.. more on that next time. Wolverine mutters about kids in annoyance.. so for the first and probably last time in my existance I feel the exact same as wolverine for one shining moment. 

Mysitque arrives and is angry at her wife for letting their daughter get away, Irene reitrates the dance thing.. you get it. Luckily having a precog for a wife is handy for more than timing your orgasms to happen at the same time, and Irene knows she’s going to Cody’s hosue which she thinks is her own and that’s where we see her next. Now while this episodes quality is mixed... I do like this element of Rogue torn between two identites not sure which is her.. it’s thorughly intresting and hasn’t been used enough in adaptations, though the 90′s series did do a good job with it’s own take of having Carol and Rogue fight for Rogue’s body. 

At any rate wolverine attacks.. wow jesus wolvie I know you don’t like kids but this is a bit far.... at least go back home and take it out on duncan if you need to murder a teenager sheesh. Of course it’s actually mysitque whose trying to make her afraid of the x-men, shifting into storm next. It’s not a terrible tactic.. it has specific faults i’m saving for the end, but in the short term using the x-men in costume to scare her, then having Irene show up and tell her their mutant hunters.. it’s not bad. It also nicely back fries when the x-men arrive, charles unable to pointpoint her due to her brain being scramble, and end up going down the alleyway with Wolvie in tow causing her to book it. 

Kurt, whose really on the ball outside of the plane stunt this episode, comes up with a better plan than “Chase the frightened teenager around missiipi and hope it works” and realizes since she’s clearlys cared of logan, even if they don’t know why he can try talking to her while in inducer form. Logan relucntantly agrees but tells kurt to keep an the rookie, i.e. kitty which pisses her off. Remember this for a second from now. 

So Kurt.. actually succeeds in calming her down, pointing out he like her was once freaked out, that being diffrent is okay etc, usual line but it works.. then ... yeah that second from now is now now as Kitty decides “she dosen’t look so tough” AND TACKLES ROGUE. Who they know has the power to absorb things by touch even if she’s mostly covered, and who was about to turn to their side. Just because Logan, it turns out CORRECTLY, insulted her. Just.. jesus this is bad writing.. Kitty isn’t this obnoxious or usless later on and while she could sometimes fuck up in the comics..it was less noticable since she was the ONLY teenager, and still once fried a demon with a jet engine. Here? She hasn’t done any of that so she just comes off as a dumbass brought on a mission too soon who causes her friend to not long after this get his powers absorbed by rogue.. though weirdly she dosen’t get his blue skin, which annoys me a bit but whatever. Animation budgets. Point is kitty lost their target and got kurt comaed.  Kitty paniced realizes she can reach the professor telepathically, and we do get a great gag of her doing so too loud, while Logan grumbles about not going with them.. which is a godo point.. why didn’t he just.. you know take the costume off. even if she panicked if she learned who he was later, they would at least have her on the plane and could easily knock her out gently, especially logan since he recovers fast and would the instant his healing factor came back, and then deal with her panic and her fear of them they didn’t know about back home versus here. He didn't even have to come with her just hang towards the back in plainclothes. Instead his telling Kitty she sucks caused her to prove that assessment accurate. So Charles goes to help while Storm, Cyclops and Jean continue the search They find her and Jean shows her empathy again, and I have to admit the character really isn’t that bad in moments like this.. the only reason I ragged on her coming to kitty last time is she made the rookie mistake of telling Kitty about her telepathy, which, while better sooner than later, was done so clumsily it backfired. Here.. she genuinely and softly talks to Rogue, and offers her a communicator which looks like a neuralizer for some reason.. seriously why not just hide it in a compact or a watch or something Chuck? But that aside i’ts a nice moment.. that storm accidently ruins by showing up and terrifying her away. Yeah that’s PART of my problem with the episode right there is jwhile it changes up setting and what not it’s still just “The x-men find Rogue , get her calm, then she runs when one of the x-men mystique traumatized her with shows up”. It just gets old fast despite some clever switches here and there. 

Thankfully we’re at the climax and since Mystique saw all that she shifts into Cyclops.. and up until now I haven’t mentioned this but it becomes a glaring issue here: Mystique’s dialouge when shapeshifted when coming up is basically variations of I’M GOING TO KILL YOU. Which not only is a bit dull, as she apparnelty knows the x-men and at least could make them sound like evil versions of the people we know but also REALLY dumb... again i’m saving this for the end of the episode because it all comes together with her endgame for Rogue, but even if you haven’t watched the show given what’s happened with Toad and Avalanche you can probably guess. But yeah while watching I WAS going to lambast her for not using Jean.. but she’s actually clever here, using Scott who Rogue hasn’t met to unerve her already, then shifting into Jean to take back the chance she offered. IT scares Rogue out who naturlaly books from Jean. 

Rogue then touches storm.. and Cyclops promintently craps himself as he realizes “Oh shit an already scared and psonically scrambled teenager just got an omega mutant’s levels power but with none of the experince and 80 times the angst”. So yeah Rogue’s powers spin out of control in what’s a great sequence and she hit sa transformer but ends up running. Xavier decideds to call this one a wash, and can’t find her anymore anyway as Cody has faded and decide she has to come willingly. Kurt reawakens to Kitty’s delight. Yay that mildly annoying subplot is done.  We end at the school and this is what i’ve been building towards folks: Myistque enrolls Rogue in the school, comersrates on magneto on a job well done and Rogue looks at her commincator. And now for the reason I was a bit patient on this: Mystique’s plan is really shortsighted and dumb. Now pretending to be the x-men, that works.. but her impersinations are so shallow, ESPECIALLY for an experinced shapeshifter that the minute Rogue gets to know any of the x-men, her entire facade will start to crumble. Or if she touches one of them and gets their memories.. which never happens even when she borrows one of their powers next time but hey. Instead of making the x-men seem like gaslighting manipulators she makes them seem like petty murderous villians.. when 5 minutes with Scott or jean or just watching either will cure that. And sure as we see next time she TRIES keeping her from talking to them for too long.. but as we also see school projects happen and she can’t control EVERYTHING without raising some red flags with her faculity. She’s principal, if a teacher’s supscious she’s abusing a student she brought in, they hopefully won’t hesitate to call someone to look into it and as a shapeshifter running a dodgy mutant milita made up of students you brought in that’s the last thing you fucking want. It’s really not even a remote surpise this only lasts three episodes before she turns, and makes me question why do this arc if it’s going to be so half assed? In the comics Myistque was not only a master planner, even getting her team jobs as goverment enforcers when she realized being anti-human terrorists in a very racist climate was just going to get them all killed, but she also CARED about Rogue and her using empathy and kidness on TOP of the manipulation would make Rogue trusting her so much make more sense than “Well it’s you or the attempted murderers”. It’s just really fucking sloppy and to it’s credit Wolverine and the X-Men ended up doing this sort of plotline 80 times better, with Rogue being a villian for a while AFTER the x-men had broken up, left her with nothing, and things had only gotten worse for mutants.. and I think bein ga double agent, it’s been a while, but her reasons for turning there feel natural in comparison to this. The x-men aren’t much smarter as they only connect the dots that maybe it’s a shapeshifter, a shapeshfiter I belive xavier, storm and wolverine alread know about and coul’dve told the students. Gah. 

Final Thoughts:  This episode isn’t very good and in reviewing it I really realized it when it took me 4 or so diffrent sessions to finish this thing. While it has good parts, like a lot of ROgue’s stuff, the danger room break in, it’s held back by stupid decisions, a stupid villian plot, and a waste of great POTETIAL stories for a half assed one from a writer who clearly can do better and a show that will soon enough. Glad to finally be done with this one.. I might not come back to evolution for a second, but when I do I promise it won’t take this long. 

Next Time on X-Men: Evolution: Blob debuts, crushes on jean to an obssesive and quickly very stalkery degree and also nearly murders duncan with a locker... so he’s clealry a mixed bag. Meanwhile Scott and Rogue get paried up on assigment and Paul wears out his welcome Like this if you enjoyed it, I have other x-men evolution reviews in the x-men tag on my blog, as well as other animation goodness, and if ther’es an episode of another x-men show, including the gifted and legion as i have hulu, or marvel show in general you’d like me to cover just drop me a pm to comission it for a reasonable fee. ANd until next time, courage. 

[agentmarymargaretskitz]

Hey imagine if nora and gary were siblings .

I’m still on the train of Gary’s father being Vandal Savage (because you can squeeze so much emotion out of that puppy) but omg this is funny. Damien going to see Nora and then finding out ‘hey, I have another kid’. And he’s just delighted about the whole thing while everyone is going wtf and Gary is processing and Nora will steal the whole ass bottle of wine thank you very much. And now I’m thinking of them doing magic together and eeeee!

Screw it, @noradarhkpalmer gave me some inspiration when I told her about this and I’m weak. Plus, it’s quarantine all over the US, Legends is on hiatus, and we all need some crack. So here is a fic that I typed out today. Your influence, anon. Enjoy.

~

              Using Palmer Tech’s location sharing on their watches was one way to find someone, but you couldn’t always rely on technology. For Damien Darhk, blood magic was always reliable. Once he’d pinpointed where Nora was by her watch, he cast a spell just to check. Sure enough, her signature matched to the same point in England.

However, there was also a second signature in the same location. Someone who shared blood with him like Nora. But that wouldn’t make sense unless-no. No, she couldn’t have had a child already. But if she had…

He couldn’t get too ahead of himself, but the possibility excited Damien too much.

              When he first arrived, he was proud to see what Nora had done for herself. She was a powerful sorceress with her own manor. In the past two years, she had made quite the name for herself. Although she did seem a little jumpy. Probably just so surprised that he had come back from hell, Damien figured.

He finally decided to bring up the second signature during the tour of the house. “So is there anything you want to share with me?”

“Uhhhhh,” Nora fidgeted with her hands for a moment. “I spent last week taking puppies away from children. Children who made me very, very mad.”

“You took puppies from children?” Damien covered his mouth as pride filled him. “That’s so cold and heartless. I’m proud of you!”

“Thanks, Dad,” Nora smiled as she led them into the parlor.

“And there’s nothing else you want to tell me?” he pressed a little more. “Nothing about a certain someone?”

His daughter went pale. “You know, don’t you?”

“I suspected,” he admitted as he took a seat in the armchair. “And I’m so happy.”

“You are?”

“Of course. I mean, I never thought I would want children until you came along. And now I’m a grandfather! Who’d have thought?”

There was a thump from a wardrobe in the far corner. Damien glanced at it but then saw Nora sagging down against the couch. Her mouth was opening and closing, but no words came out. She appeared to be stunned that he knew.

“Um, you have the wrong idea, Dad,” Nora finally managed to start talking. “I do not have a kid, and I am definitely not pregnant. And I’m not even sure if I want to have kids, okay? Whatever you’re thinking, it’s not kids. I can promise you that.”

A door slammed somewhere in the house and she sighed. “Give me one moment. That’s probably one of my…henchmen.”

“You have henchmen? Nora-doll, that’s fantastic!”

Nora nodded quickly. “It is. Just give me a moment, okay?”

              She darted out of the room quickly. Damien leaned forward on his knees and began to think to himself. Nora didn’t have a child and he wasn’t a grandfather. But why had the blood magic told him there was a second person here who shared his bloodline. That made no sense unless his magic was getting wonky. Yet magic had never failed him so there had to be someone else here with his blood.

“Dad,” Nora returned, smiling brightly with a sword. “Meet my henchwomen. They’ve just returned a relic to me.”

“The captain of the Waverider AND director of the Time Bureau,” Damien gaped. “Normally I would be excited, but something is bothering me.”

“Dad, it it’s about earlier-”

“Yes, but it’s not kids, sweetheart. I did use the Palmer Tech tracking system, but I also did use a little blood magic. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted to be sure!”

“Okay, so why did you think I had a kid?”

“The magic showed two signatures here,” Damien told her. “So you can see why my mind went on that tangent.”

“Okay then,” Nora crossed her arms. “I don’t know what that means. Can you do it again?”

Damien nodded. “I’ll need a knife. Gotta bleed for blood magic.”

Sara Lance stepped forward with a knife. “Allow me.”

              Nora grabbed the knife and passed it to him. Damien sliced the palm of his hand and murmured a few words. The spell had to be tailored since he wasn’t doing it on a map, but it would still work. Two red strands rose from the blood pooling in his palm. The first was pointing to Nora and the second pointed to the wardrobe.

“Curious,” Damien muttered as he broke the spell. Wrapping his hand in a handkerchief, he strode over to open it up. As he flung the doors open, he was met with the cowering time agent he’d tied to a railway in the Old West hours before.

“Please don’t hurt me,” the man whimpered. “I don’t want to die.”

“Oh my god,” Ava Sharpe gasped. “Oh my god. Oh. My. God! Babe!”

Sara Lance was staring open-mouthed. “You have got to be kidding me.”

Nora drew up beside Damien. “Dad, why did the other strand point to Gary?”

A memory was coming back, one he hadn’t thought was very important. A couple dates, one or two nights to blow off some steam a few decades ago. She didn’t mean much of anything to him; he had been focused on terrorism more then. But so many of her features were there in the man in front of him.

“Miriam,” he said aloud, remembering her name.

“Actually, it’s Gary,” the man squeaked. “Miriam was my mother.”

“Gary, who was your dad?” Ava asked, practically bouncing in her shoes. “Who was he?”

“I don’t know, she never told me- why are you asking me this?”

“Because my dad,” Nora pointed to Damien. “Is your dad too. I think.���

“No, I am,” Damien choked, overwhelmed by emotion. “I have a son.”

He yanked Gary out of the wardrobe and into a hug. “Blood magic can’t lie. I have a son! Nora, did you know you had a brother?”

“Not until now,” she told him with a tight smile. “So Gary is my brother?”

“Half-brother, technically, but blood all the same! And you two found each other without knowing. Oh, that’s so sweet!”

He released Gary. “We need to celebrate! I’ve come back from Hell, my daughter is a master sorceress, and I have a son!”

“Ahhh,” Sara Lance began, but Nora raised a finger.

“That…is a great idea, Dad!” she said. “I’ll have them get dinner ready and we can catch up more.”

“With Gary too, right?” Damien looked proudly at him. “We have to include him in the family discussion too. I want to hear what he’s been doing!”

“That’d be great,” Gary grinned nervously. “I’m going to, ah, get a bottle of wine. For all of us.”

“Make it two,” Nora told him. “I think we’re going to need it…if we have any more guests.”

[just-my-sickly-pride]

hey could i request a 80s roger x young reader? where he's insecure about his abilities in bed because he's getting old and you're so young and he's scared that you would eventually leave him? it could be smut or just general fluff. thank you!

i’m v v sleepy atm so sorry if this turned out wonky!it’s about 1.6k and I’d give it a T rating, mostly fluff/angst and then a scootch of spice at the end!

     You’d started to notice it a while ago, maybe three weeks. Your partner Roger had been acting… different. He was still just as loving and romantic and affectionate as he always was, as he had been since you’d started dating him two years ago. But ever since - well. Ever since his birthday about three weeks ago, something had changed.

    It wasn’t as if the two of you had slept together all the time. A couple of times a week, nothing extreme by any means. You’d had a very fun night for Roger’s birthday, and then, now, nothing. You’d made out a couple times, and Roger had gotten you off with his hands, with his mouth, quite a few times since his birthday, to be fair, which was all fantastic, but that had been it. When you’d wanted to return the favour, he’d brushed you off, and you hadn’t actually had sex since his birthday. He was too tired, or too busy, or he didn’t feel like it.

    Which was fine, if it were true. You weren’t about to kick up a fuss if it were true.

    But it didn’t exactly fit his track record. Roger loved sex, and he’d never been afraid to show you just how much he loved it, especially how much he loved it with you.

    So, yes, you were worried, more worried that you wanted to admit. You were twenty-four now, and Roger was fourteen years your senior. The age gap had never really been an issue between the two of you - it was mainly that other people had a problem with it, which hadn’t ever bothered either of you - but maybe things were changing. Maybe Roger, since turning thirty-eight, realised he wanted someone older, more mature, who had their life together. Someone who already had an established career, instead of still finding their feet a couple years out of university.

    Or - and you didn’t even want to consider this - maybe Roger wanted someone… younger.

    It repulsed you to your core to think that. You knew that that would never be the case, and it was just your deepest, darkest insecurities coming to the surface, but it was hard to ignore that evil little voice in the back of your mind.

    So maybe it was time to shut it up.

    “Can we talk?” you said.

    Roger looked up from the book he was reading. He looked so comfy and cozy beside you on the couch, a glass of wine in hand and his book in the other. A small crease grew between his brows when he read, and you liked to smooth it out with your thumb from time to time.

    “Of course, love,” he said. “What’s the matter?”

    He said it casually, but the way he immediately closed the book and set it aside, and then took a healthy swig of wine, led you to believe he knew exactly what was coming.

    It didn’t make it any easier to articulate, though.

    You fidgeted with your fingers, forcing yourself to look him in the eye and not avoid his gaze. “It’s about… something between us that’s happened. Or not happened.”

    Roger sighed. “Right.”

    “I don’t want you to feel pressured in any way,” you added. “It’s absolutely fine, it is, but I just… I’m struggling to understand. Why we, y’know, haven’t…” You forced yourself to get the words out as straightforward as you could. “We haven’t had sex since your birthday three weeks ago, babe. I just want to know what’s going on with you. I think part of me is - is scared, and expecting the worst, and I just need you to be open with me, please.”

    Roger sighed again, and rubbed his eyes. “Ah,” he said. “Yes.”

    Your stomach lurched. Wait. This was it, wasn’t it? This was the lead-in to the break up. He was about to break up with you. Oh no, no, no, he’d found someone else, hadn’t he? She was probably eighteen and skinny and so blonde and pretty with big Bambi eyes, and he was about to dump you for her.

    “This is sort of… embarrassing,” Roger said, not meeting your gaze.

    Embarrassing? Embarrassing? “What?” you said.

    “So, um.” Roger squared his shoulders and finally met your eyes, and then his face dropped, and he took your hands. “Oh, love, what’s wrong? You’re white as a sheet.”

    “Are you breaking up with me?” you blurted.

    “What?” Roger said. “No, love, not at all.”

    “You’re not cheating on me?”

    “No!” Roger said. He groaned, and dragged a hand down his face. “Wonderful. Wonderful, I’ve made you feel awful.”

    “Rog, just tell me, please,” you said.

    “I’m old,” Roger said, and the sentence fell out of his mouth like gravel. “I’m old, and you’re so young, and I’m just worried that I… can’t - keep up anymore. That I can’t make you feel good like you want me to. Like you think I can, or should be able to. And after that bloody fantastic night, my birthday - celebration, I was sore the next day, and I was wracking my brains trying to figure out what we’d done that was so extreme that I pulled a muscle, and then I realised that I’m just old.”

    You stared at him, letting your brain process what he’d just said. Of all the things you expected him to say, being self-conscious about his age was not one of them.

    Roger took his hand back from yours, and he picked at the fluff on his tracksuit pants. “That’s why we haven’t slept together since then,” he said, his voice tight. “Because I’m concerned that the next time we do, I’m going to pull another muscle or you’re going to want to do something I can’t do, and then you’ll realise you should be dating someone your own age. And if you don’t realise it now, you’ll realise it soon enough. Maybe in a couple years, but eventually.”

    “No,” you said. You didn’t have to think about it - you just said it, and you meant it, with all your heart. You reached forward and took hold of his hands again. “Rog. Babe. Look at me.”

    He did.

    “I don’t care,” you said. “I really, really don’t care. Because I love you. I couldn’t care less that you’re getting older. I love it.”

    “You don’t have to say that,” Roger said.

    “I don’t,” you agreed. “And you know me - I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it. So I mean it. I love you, I love every part of you, I love everything about you. Except when you go through my secret stash of chocolate; that annoys me. And how you complain at the TV when I’m trying to watch.”

    Roger huffed a laugh.

    You shuffled in closer to him, cupping his cheek, pressing a gentle kiss to his lips. “I don’t want you to ever think you have to hold back or hide from me,” you said. “Even when you turn fifty, I still very much intend to be there for hot birthday sex, whatever that entails. Even if tomorrow you turned around and said to me that you only wanted to have sex once a month from now on, or once every three months, whatever, I wouldn’t care.”

    “You say that,” Roger said, “but you don’t know. In five years’ time, I’ll be forty-three, and you’ll only be-”

    “I’ll be almost thirty,” you said with a wry smile. “So you’ll get to hear me complaining about how I’m getting old.”

    He didn’t laugh, like you expected him to - he just managed a smile.

    You combed your hands through his hair. “I still want you,” you said. “In every way you’ll have me.”

    Roger’s eyes searched yours, and you could see him thinking, see him battling with himself.

    You drew him in for a kiss. He went to pull away after a second, expecting it only to be brief, but you didn’t let him go. You rose onto your knees and straddled him, and his hands instinctively slid up your thighs.

    God, that felt good. You moaned into his mouth, deepening the kiss, rolling your hips against his, and you felt his muscles slowly start to relax underneath you.

    You ducked your head to kiss and nip at his throat, and he let out a low moan that you felt through his skin. “Let’s go to bed,” you murmured in between kisses. You kissed under his jaw, and then pulled back, meeting his eyes. “Let me make you feel good,” you said. “Help you forget everything that’s whizzing around in that brain of yours.”

    You rocked against him, and you were glad to discover that he was definitely interested. At least, his body was. You were more concerned about whether his mind would pose as a roadblock.

    Roger hesitated.

    “I love you,” you said.

    “I love you too,” he said.

    You smiled. “I love you, and I want you. It’s been three weeks, and I am so desperate by this point that, honestly, I’d be fine if you just lay there and let me do all the work.”

    Roger snorted. “As if.”

    You chuckled. “Okay, yeah, you caught me out on that one. But I am desperate.” You kissed him again, one hand finding the hem of his shirt and slipping underneath it to run over his stomach, his chest, the side of his ribs.

    He moaned, his hands finding your hips and tugging you closer. When you broke apart, he said breathlessly, “It has been a while.”

    You hummed in agreement, pecking him on the lips.

    He took a breath. “Okay, fine, you’ve convinced me,” he said, and kissed you fiercely.

    You smiled against his lips. Maybe his fears weren’t completely assuaged, but you’d figure out how to fight them together. As much as it would take. Forever.