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earlgreydream · 4 years ago

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i hate you.

| 1940s!bucky x reader | fluff | smut |

requested. greaser!bucky au. enemies(?) to lovers. @fitzfiles and i are shamelessly indulgent

bucky made up his mind, he was going to win you over.

Bucky Barnes was the asshole across the street with the stupid loud motorcycle and white tees and leather jackets. You hated him.

“Hey, doll.”

You heard it every day when you came walking home from school, books in hand. And every day, it irritated you. You would scowl at Bucky, and he would flash his stupid smirk and wink at you.

You’d see him shirtless at night, smoking out on his porch. Once, he caught you staring out the window, and he’d teased you about it the next day on your way off to school.

“Checking me out last night, doll?”

“Don’t call me that. It’s Y/N. And no I wasn’t checking you out. I was watching you die slowly of lung cancer,” you snarked, making him throw his head back with laughter.

“If smoking doesn’t kill you, I will,” you muttered before going inside of your house.

“JAMES BUCHANAN BARNES!” You screamed, throwing your front door open. You were wrapped in a blanket over your thin pajamas, and you were infuriated.

“What?” He called with a stupid amused look on his face.

“It’s five in the fucking morning! Stop revving the engine on your motorcycle! You’re waking up the whole neighbourhood!”

“You’re the one screaming.”

“I hate you,” you seethed.

Without breaking eye contact, he revved the engine again. You were so irritated you could cry, and you resolved yourself to go back inside, refusing to let Bucky get the satisfaction of seeing your reaction to his antagonizing.

This had gone on for months. You were able to ignore him most of the time, but he was persistent. Your friends joked that he was in love with you, but you couldn’t imagine it. Bucky was delighted to get you worked up, and he was proud of himself for it.

“You’ve all lost your bloody minds,” you assured your friends, dragging them inside as Bucky whistled at you from across the street.

“He’s just my annoying neighbor.”

Bucky seemed to be always washing his yellow car in his driveway. You’d come home and see him shirtless, in low-rise jeans that showed off v-lines, bent over the hood of his soapy car. If it wasn’t the car, it was his motorcycle. He always winked at you or blew you a kiss, making you shake your head or roll your eyes.

You hated to see him washing his car, because it made it that much more difficult to deny how incredibly gorgeous he was.

Bucky delighted in getting you worked up. He loved to see your cheeks flush pink and the way your nose scrunched up at his banter. He had a crush on you, ever since he moved in, and he always loved your attention, even if he got it by antagonizing you.

Bucky did intend to get in your good favor, but you had made up your mind that you didn’t like him. Bucky was determined, and loved a challenge.

Bucky decided his opportunity to win you over was when it was pouring down rain. The morning had started out sunny when you’d walked to school, but the weather had turned rapidly mid-morning.

He got in his yellow car, and drove to the college in town, parking outside and going into the lobby with an umbrella. He leaned against a railing, waiting for you to get out of your class, to give you a lift and keep you from getting soaked and ruining your books.

As soon as it started to rain, you’d fretted about getting home. You didn’t have any friends that drove, and you had been debating whether to wait out the rain or just brave it and get wet.

You definitely didn’t expect to see your neighbour leaning against the railing in the front lobby.

“Hey, doll.” He grinned, standing when you approached him. He had ignored the stares of the other girls, everything else disappearing when he saw you.

“Bucky, what are you doing here?” you sighed, blushing at the stares you got, everyone hearing his term of endearment for you.

“I brought my car, I didn’t want you to ruin your books and get wet by walking home in the rain,” he answered honestly, surprising you.

“You drove here to pick me up?”

Bucky nodded, and you fought off a small smile. You didn’t like him, and you were annoyed, but the gesture was thoughtful, and much appreciated. You rationalized the soft feelings by claiming it was basic decency, and it was necessary that you had to take him up on his offer.

“Okay.”

You took his arm and he opened his umbrella, keeping you dry as he helped you into the passenger seat of his yellow car. You set your books on the dash, leaning back against the leather seat. As he drove, the radio played smooth jazz, surprising you a bit, as Bucky didn’t seem like the jazz type.

“Bucky, you’ve missed the turn.” You said, and he only smiled, biting the inside of his cheek. Your heart rate increased as he drove into the city and you whipped your head to look at him.

“Where are you taking me? I thought you were taking me home!”

“I am taking you home, eventually,” Bucky grinned, and you could’ve screamed.

“You can’t just abduct me! Where are we going?! I will throw myself from your moving car!” You snapped, panicking.

“I’m not abducting you! I’m taking you to have some fun, because all you do is study and it’s made you wound tight!”

“You’re kidding me. I’ve got to write a paper!” You cried, and Bucky just laughed, shaking his head.

“Just relax, Y/N.”

You gave him a scathing look, crossing your arms over your chest.

“You’re insufferable.”

“Most say charming.”

You followed Bucky into a roller rink, rolling your eyes but secretly excited about rollerskating. You slipped your feet into white skates, thankful today you had chosen to wear pants.

You stepped onto the rink with Bucky right behind you. It had been a while since you skated, and you were a bit unsteady on your feet. You pushed forward, putting your arms out for balance as you tried to get used to the feeling of the wheels under your feet.

“Careful!” Bucky exclaimed when you nearly fell, catching your waist to steady you. You gasped, your hands going to his arms for balance. A blush spread across your cheeks, butterflies erupting in your stomach at the gentle, caring way he touched you.

“Thanks,” you smiled, pushing off his arms and skating smoothly around. He fell in rhythm beside you, skating to the music.

He tried to show off by skating backwards, but lost his balance and fell, making you shriek. You moved toward him quickly, and held out your hands to help him up.

“Are you alright?” You asked, and he nodded, biting back a smile.

“I’m fine, I’m okay.”

You decided you’d had enough then, and the two of you resorted to eating pizza at a parlor down the street, Bucky insisting on you needing dinner before you went home. You shivered as you stepped into the air-conditioned restaurant, coming out of the warm summer evening. Bucky slipped his black leather jacket from his arms and put it on you when he noticed. You whispered a soft thank-you, pulling it tightly around your smaller body. It smelled faintly of smoke and castile soap, like him.

Bucky couldn’t take his eyes off of the sight of you wearing his clothes, his heart stirring as you hugged it around you.

“Feel better?” Bucky asked as you bit into a slice of pizza.

“I’m not going to let you take credit for loosening me up.”

“Oh, I haven’t even tried to loosen you up yet.” He joked, making you choke on your water. You glared at him for the suggestive comment, and he smirked.

You blushed at the insinuation, images of intimacy with Bucky flashing through your mind. He didn’t take his eyes off of you, and you shifted under his gaze.

“Smartass. You still abducted me.”

“And you’re enjoying it.”

You took another bite of your pizza, finally breaking the intense eye contact.

Even though you had enjoyed the night with Bucky in the city, and you’d gone home full of butterflies, he had quickly managed to get back on your nerves.

Bucky’s friends came over to party, and they were loud, obnoxious, and kept you (and half the neighbourhood) up with their partying the night before you had a presentation at college. You were infuriated when you complained to Bucky, and he told you that you should’ve just come to party with them, since you were up anyways.

Then there was the fact that Bucky kept revving the engine of his damned motorcycle. You hated it, especially early in the morning when you were trying to peacefully trying to pour a cup of coffee.

You couldn’t stand him, and he just made you mad.

You hated his motorcycle, and you hated his arrogance. You hated how everyone dropped to their knees at his every whim. You hated when you’d see him painting his fence or working on his car outside, and he’d pull his shirt off when he saw you looking. You hated that Bucky smoked.

Mostly, you hated how everything Bucky did gave you butterflies.

Bucky adored the way your brow knit together when you glared at him. He adored the blush of your cheeks and the way you huffed in annoyance. He loved to see your eyes glitter with emotion whenever he got under your skin. He adored the way your eyes lingered on him whenever he was shirtless in the yard.

Bucky adored you.

The night was particularly warm. The summer heat had everyone on edge, and you and Bucky were no exception. The moon was the only light in the starless sky, a dark stillness settling over your neighbourhood. It was incredibly late, but you couldn’t sleep like everyone else. You had been enjoying the quiet loneliness of the night when Bucky had gone outside to the sidewalk. He was shirtless as he lit a cigarette, grinning at you.

“Hey, doll.”

“Don’t call me that,” you huffed, feeling like a broken record.

“C’mon, don’t be like that,” he blew smoke into the air, and you stood up off your porch swing. You walked across your small lawn quickly, until you were standing in the street.

“You shouldn’t smoke, it will kill you,” you quipped, making him roll his eyes.

“Don’t stand in the street, a car can come and kill you.” Bucky said back, though there was a tone of seriousness to his voice.

“It’s the middle of the night, no one is going to-”

Bucky suddenly grabbed you and yanked you toward him, making you shriek. Less than half a second later, a car without its headlights on came flying down the street.

Your eyes were wide with fright, unable to process that Bucky had just pulled you from in front of a car. His eyes blazed with emotion, and you tried to shove off of him.

“You almost fucking died! I told you not to stand in the damned street!” Bucky snapped at you, raising his voice.

“Don’t yell at me! I wouldn’t have been in the street if you weren’t such an asshole!” you shouted back, your eyes and throat burning, making your entire body tremble.

“Why are you so fucking difficult?!” Bucky’s fear at seeing you almost get hit by a car in front of him fueled his emotion, and he didn’t mean to yell at you, but the feelings were boiling over.

“Because you make me so mad, and because I love you, you idiot!” You screamed before you could stop yourself. When you said the words out loud, you realized you meant them, more than you meant any of the anger.

There was a deafening silence, and it was too late to take it back.

“Bucky, I-” you stammered, but he cut you off by crashing his lips against yours, pulling you into him.

Passion lit like a fire between you, and you reached up and held his face, kissing him back with force. You parted your lips and he slipped his tongue into your mouth, moving in sync with you, swallowing your small noises. He cradled your jaw as his mouth moved with yours, drawing you even closer.

The heat practically suffocated you, and you were completely lost in Bucky. He tasted like smoke and coffee, and his body was pressed against your own, overwhelming you with need. His hands slid down to squeeze your ass, and you rolled your hips against his as you moaned.

“I love you, Y/N,” he whispered when the two of you finally broke for air. He wasted no time before mouthing along your jaw, pressing kisses down the column of your throat.

Your hands ran down his toned chest, before hooking your fingers in his belt loops and tugging his hips closer against yours, wanting to feel him hardening against you. The heat between your legs was spreading, and you were aching for him.

Bucky groaned against your neck as you ground against him, and he backed you up against his car, needing to ground the two of you. He could hear your small, breathy pants by his ear and you were practically shaking with need.

“Bucky, please touch me,” you begged, months of sexual frustration pouring out all at once. Who was he to deny you? He kissed you deeply, and you wrapped your arms around his neck, pressing him against your front.

Your breath hitched when he slipped his hand into your waistband, cupping your sex. You spread your legs a bit, and he slipped his fingers through your folds, tracing the shape of you.

He hardened at the sound of your soft moans and the feeling of you twitching against his fingertips. Neither of you cared that you were outside, on display for anyone who woke up in the night.

He found your clit, stroking it softly while you made out, swallowing all of your sexy noises. You were overwhelmed by what he could do with just his fingers, and you somehow needed him closer, even though your bodies were pressed against each other. Your body was buzzing with pleasure from his small touches alone, and you were having the same effect on him.

“Fuck, Bucky,” you breathed, lightly biting down on his shoulder to silence yourself as he eased a finger inside of you. He pumped slowly, and you took him in easily with how turned on you were.

“I know, doll, but I gotta warm you up first so I don’t hurt you.” He kissed your jaw, and a short laugh escaped you.

“Cheeky,” you hummed, palming over his crotch, making him push two fingers into you all at once. The air caught in your throat, but you kept feeling him up as he curled his fingers forward into your g-spot.

The way you were moaning his name was driving him wild, and he couldn’t draw out the foreplay anymore. You pulled your shirt over your head, thankful you had forgone a bra. Your shirt was discarded in the driveway, and Bucky tugged your bottoms down easily before lifting your nude body up onto the hood of his car. You leaned forward, undoing the button on his jeans and helping him out of them, your eyes widening when you saw how big he was.

Bucky grinned at you, able to read your mind, your thoughts evident in your startled expression. His ego definitely didn’t need the boost, and you blushed when you realized he was grinning at your observation.

Your tongue nervously darted out over your lips, and he couldn’t take it anymore. He lowered you to lay down on the cool metal, making you shudder when it came into contact with your hot skin.

You exhaled softly as his hands skimmed down your body in an attempt to ease your nerves. He leaned down and kissed you gently, bending your legs up to your chest.

“I’m going to make you feel so good, doll,” Bucky promised, and he meant it. You nodded, your head falling back as he slowly rocked into you.

Your vision focused in on the moon hanging above you in the sky, and you didn’t care about being outside, even as the warm breeze ruffled your hair.

“Bucky... fuck,” you whined, arching your back, pushing yourself further onto him. Your knees went over his shoulders, his hands coming to rest on either side of your head as he rocked his hips against yours.

The slow, deep rhythm had you struggling to breathe, pleasure rolling through your body in thick waves. Bucky was overwhelmed by the feeling of your velvety walls squeezing around him, tight as he fucked into you all the way.

“That’s my girl,” Bucky praised you as you pushed down to meet his powerful thrusts.

Your eyes rolled back at the praise, and you felt pressure building low in your belly as he repeatedly hit the spots inside of you that had you seeing stars. You were moaning his name and writhing below him, the sight making him nearly explode.

“Y/N,” Bucky gasped out, fucking into you roughly, one of his hands rubbing your clit to help you along before he couldn’t fight off his own orgasm any longer.

With the added stimulation, the pressure snapped inside of you, making you squeeze around him and come with a scream, not caring if you stirred the neighbours.

Let them see Bucky taking you on the hood of his car.

Your name fell from Bucky’s lips like worship, the feeling of your orgasm washing over you and forcing you to contract around him pushed him over the edge. He came inside of you, painting you with his release and prolonging your own pleasure.

You looked down at him once the buzzing pleasure started to subside, a sleepy smile on your face. He grinned at you, pulling you up into a sweet kiss.

“Still hate me, doll?”

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fruitcoops · 3 years ago

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So this is sort of similar to the people writing fanfic about the lions but can you imagine the YouTube edits? Like the videos that are just "Cap having heart eyes for Loops for 10 minutes straight" or "Loops lovingly dragging Caps name through the mud for 3 minutes" like those kinds of things and I can just imagine them doing reaction videos and it just being funny and the world just loving coops

Okay so this wasn't a specific fic request but I got carried away with imagining videos and....here you go. SW credit goes to @lumosinlove, but Grace and Anna are mine! Bonus points to anyone who remembers the easter egg in this one!

Message From: Gracie

ANNA HOLY SHIT

Anna frowned at her phone screen, squinting to read around the spiderweb crack decorating the upper corner. She had tried to convince herself that it was cool, goth, edgy, but in the end she had to admit that it was just irritating. In a tragic turn of events, packing tape couldn’t fix everything.

Message To: Gracie

Wtf did I do

Two weeks of radio silence, then unexplained accusations. Anna shook her head as the grey bubble disappeared for a third time and turned back to her computer. Grace may have been her favorite cousin—and favorite person, if she was being honest—but very few things came between Anna and video editing. Especially editing for a Lions meme video. She had a whole 2,341 followers to attend to, after all.

Message From: Gracie

DID YOU SEE THE FUCKING INTERVIEW???

Message To: Gracie

Wow thank you so helpful

Message From: Gracie

Skip to 2:45 bestie

A link popped up just as Anna cut a segment from the sleep study video, where Loops’ heart eyes were in full effect. It was a rare, precious find for fan editors like herself.

“Come on,” she groaned. Maybe introducing Grace to the deepest parts of her hockey obsession was a mistake. But, really, what else was she supposed to do when she learned her cousin, who didn’t even live in Gryffindor, got to meet her favorite players just by chilling in a café? What kind of cosmic joke was that?

She narrowed her eyes at the embed of the link, then stifled a shriek. Impossible. How had she missed an upload?

As if on cue, her computer pinged with a new notification from the Lion Pride channel. “Oh, fuck me,” she muttered, scrambling to save her half-done video and pressing play.

The interviewer asked basic questions, ones she had heard the answers to a million times while curating her content. It always felt funny to hear people refer to Cap as ‘Sirius’—it was too official, too formal. She had spent countless hours on the compilations of his softer moments, and they were her most popular videos. Cap Having Heart Eyes for Loops for 10 Minutes Gay. Cap Being an Actual Puppy for Six and a Half Minutes. Everyone Wanting Cap Cuddles for Fifteen Minutes. Every Time Cap Smiles When Someone Mentions His Godson. The list was endless. She loved it.

She did a silent fist pump when she saw the interviewer had snagged both Cap and Loops; that would give her a whole new stream of workable content. If she was lucky, she could expand on her series of Loops Lovingly Roasting His Friends, part…fuck it, who was even counting anymore?

Anna was so caught up in her excitement that she nearly forgot about Grace’s suggestion. I’ve never skipped through a video on the first watch before, she thought hesitantly. But maybe just this once…

Her cursor hovered over the 2:45mark. She closed her eyes, and clicked it.

“—have you been adjusting to life as a celebrity?” the interviewer asked. Anna nearly rolled her eyes when Loops laughed. That question had been used far too often to be interesting anymore.

“It’s had its ups and downs,” Loops said with a smile. “Mostly, though, the fans have been incredible and just knocked my socks off with their support.”

“Really? What’s your favorite part of the Lions fanbase?”

He didn’t miss a beat. “Their creativity, for sure. There was a video a while back where we reacted to some of the comments people left, and this person on Twitter made an absolutely beautiful collage of photos.”

“I have it saved to my phone,” Sirius added.

One more clip for the simp video. Anna made a note on the small corner space of her European History notes. The degree can wait for ten more minutes.

“Do you have a favorite creator?”

The interviewer was clearly teasing, but Loops’ smile was genuine. “I don’t know about a favorite, but there’s this person on YouTube who makes a shit ton of videos and they’re hysterical. I saw one the other day about—god, what was it again?”

“Every time I smile when people mention Harry,” Sirius answered around a laugh. “Can you blame me?”

Anna didn’t hear the next question. A ringing noise filled her ears as she sat, frozen, on her shitty dorm mattress and listened to her literal heroes talk about her dorky little channel. “Holy fuck,” she blurted after a moment of silence. “Holy fuck.”

“—subscribed?” The man’s voice snapped her back to reality.

“Of course I am!” Loops said. “You think I’m passing up a chance to watch a compilation of my friends making stupid decisions for the entire internet to see?”

A noise that would have been a shriek if Anna had any breath left in her body escaped her lungs; she clamped a hand over her mouth and shakily exited from the video before going to her YouTube account. 800 new notifications. 700 new followers in the last quarter hour. She was pretty sure she blacked out for a second from sheer shock and joy.

Message To: Gracie

What

Message From: Gracie

You’re famous!

Message To: Gracie

What

Message From: Gracie

I bet he knows your stuff better than he remembers me tbh

“They know me,” she whispered, staring at her computer. The unfinished video showed a perfect frame of Loops’ soft smile as he watched Cap get his toothbrush stuck in his pajama shirt. Somehow, the thought was both exhilarating and horrifying. What if they thought she was a creep? She wasn’t, not really, just a bored college student with not enough free time for a job but too much to keep herself busy with schoolwork. Her 2,341—no, 3,052—followers were just other hockey nerds looking for time to kill.

And the subject of those videos was one of her subscribers.

Anna slipped her headphones back on and began to edit like it was her last day on earth. Her fingers flew across the keyboard on muscle memory while her brain fizzed. Perfect, she thought. It has to be perfect.

In four hours, it was done. She sat back, panting, then hunched over again and began tapping out a title card.

Hello. Idk if anyone saw the new Lion Pride video today (linked below if anyone wants to see why I’m dying right now) but apparently Remus Lupin is subscribed to this channel and has been for a while.

Hi Loops. I’m Anna. You met my cousin once and she said she liked your sweater.

Now that that’s out of the way, please enjoy the next five minutes of our new rookie being the sappiest mf in existence (except for his fiancé). Mr. Lupin, please tell Hattie I say hello.

She pressed upload, peeled her headphones off, and collapsed backward on her bed.

Message To: Gracie

If I die here, tell the world I did it doing what I loved

Message From: Gracie

Will do

OH FUCK YOU FOR BRINGING UP THE SWEATER I SOUND LIKE A CREEP

Anna covered her itchy eyes with her forearm and settled in for a long, long nap. Her brain still needed to repair a few circuits.

#remus lupin #sirius black #coops #anna #grace #sweater weather #lumosinlove #my fic #fanfic #ocs #hattie #lion pride

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whump-town · 3 years ago

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Counting Down The Days

The real kicker here is that I don't even like Christmas and I don't know at all why I thought of this...

Fluff, not really sad

No Pairings

Spencer has never liked Christmas.

As a child, December rolled in and cast over the city an impossible task. His thin wrist grabbed as he tucked pudding into his sweater and his ears tugged at when he bolted for the door, knowing getting caught one more time would mean child protective services would come back. And each time he picked his mother up off the floor, every time he tucked himself in the coat closet to try and hide from her wailing and shouting, he knew they would see through the veil. His mother wouldn’t survive having him taken away. No one else can get her to take her medication. No one else could read her books in their original forms. German and Arabic and Spanish. And what was the point in reading Don Quixote except to do so in the original Spanish?

But not getting caught shoplifting in December, when all of the staff of every store was watching for just that, is impossible. December met icy cold fingers dragging through his stomach and lying to his mother that he had eaten something while he made her ramen. He can go one more day but she can’t take her meds on an empty stomach.

As an adult, these things have changed drastically. Christmas is great. He really can’t complain. He loves dressing up for Dave’s fancy dinner and turning into a bragging point. The feeling of Dave’s heavy arm around his shoulders, showing him off to his friends. Finally being able to understand what it must feel like to have a parent bragging about you to other adults, even if at a certain point they’re just trying to show up to their friends. That doesn’t change the flush in his cheeks or how nice he feels smiling and stuttering around an explanation of his PhDs. Stomach twisted up and cheeks hurting when Dave finally leans in and relieves the guests with a “see? Kids so damn smart I don’t even understand what he got a degree in!”

He misses Morgan and Hotch.

They’ll come around for Christmas, he knows.

Hank is getting so big and he’s carrying on the tradition of all of Spencer’s other nephews and calling him “weed” but there’s nothing like that big baby smile when he comes in through the door. Tottling steps and an armful of baby. It just makes him want his own kids but for now, he’s content with his nephews. Jack calls him a lot. He got the ability to do math from somewhere but certainly not from his parents -- Haley was an English major and Hotch uses a calculator for basic math. So Reid is generally the only person that he knows who can talk math. Christmas will bring Henry and Jack home from college. There’s speak of a boyfriend but Emily knows only minimally about this from what she’s heard from Hotch and what Jack has told Hotch is also minimal at best. Henry is… JJ gets a lot of radio silence from him but Hotch is quick to assure her that is just typical. Jack did the same thing but now he’s a senior in college and Hotch is lucky if he goes three consecutive hours without some sort of text or call.

“Who is my doctor at home?”

“Do you think Uncle Derek can change my oil? Wait, can I go that long without checking it?”

“What year was Aunt Jessica born? Don’t tell her I asked you that.”

“How old are you again? 53? 60?”

Spencer is just excited to have everyone under one roof.

Hotch and Emily grew up under the kind of parties that Dave throws for Christmas. Tokens to be shown off by their parents and ignored under every other circumstance. Both having been shipped off at least once during their childhoods when they no longer fit a certain look. Emily was no longer young enough to attract her mother’s friends, breast a little too formed, and acne that could not be tamed. Hotch with shadows of bruises that would not heal. Dead eyes that no longer raised from the floor.

Dave’s parties bring out the worst in them. Emily is a very bad influence on Hotch and together they have considerable tolerance for alcohol, they can do some damage. But they’re not loud. Spencer loves to watch the two of them, the way they ease into the night. Hotch warm now, his edges softened to pleased little smiles and thoughtful hums. Emily is chatty, leans into touch, and stretches out like a cat bathing in the sun. The night ends with their soft arguing. Spencer could butt in at any time to the subjects that they talk about but he finds himself far more content to sit and watch. Emily’s toes tucked under Hotch’s thigh and his head turned on the sofa, lazily listening to her speak.

They always approach every subject as if it’s the simplest thing. Let it be Marx, spending the hours in front of Dave’s parlor fire speaking in hushed tones about surplus-value and what makes a commodity. About the ins and outs of Cormac Mccarthy, Hotch loves The Sunset Limited and Emily does not. Whitney Houston and how poor Hotch’s Spanish is and if that’s his fault or hers.

Garcia loves the parties even if it does create a little cognitive dissonance for her. Her parents would hate this but she feels pretty in her gown and no one lets her forget it. She keeps track of the kisses placed on her cheeks. Derek smelling of something woodsy as he leans in with a wink, “you’re very beautiful this even, mama.” And Savannah smells warm and inviting and she gives the very best hugs. “Green,” she whispers, “is very much your color.” How Hotch hums along to songs and always gives in to her request for one dance, his smile growing wild as she steps on his toes.

And Spencer loves that she always asks him to match her. So he’ll proudly come in with his matching bowtie or pocket square. Lending her his elbow as they step in, stepping just out of the way that the right people come to greet him and no one else. Morgan is warm and tight, always squeezing just a little too hard. JJ fussing with his hair.

But it’s only September.

He’ll have to pass through Halloween. Jack and Henry are too old these days to run through the bullpen dressed as whatever fictive hero they have grown obsessed with this fall. Coming up to his desk knowing he’s hidden the largest bowl of candy, that he’ll sneak into their pockets whole-sized candy bars to eat as they trick or treat. At best he might get some pre-game pictures from them both, neither having grown out of their love for Halloween. Jack is still very into dressing up but Henry will still throw something together.

There will be Thanksgiving, a holiday choppily shared between them all. Just showing up at Dave’s randomly or Morgan’s depending on who wins that argument this year. He’ll be lucky to see them all under the same roof. If it’s at Dave’s then he’s guaranteed warm and cozy Hotch and Emily. Both bothering Dave in the kitchen, their lost childhoods always burning the brightest around one another, and exasperating Dave. Maybe Garcia will win her favorite game and Dave will teach her to cook whatever he’s decided they’ll have this year. If it’s at Derek’s then at least he’ll get to see Hank. JJ and Savannah will be there, they’re pretty good friends. Garcia will certainly be cooking something and Derek will be manning the grill.

But it’s months out until December.

And all Spencer wants is unabashed affection.

Dave’s arm around his shoulder and his high sung praises.

Emily snagging him up to dance to “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas” and kissing his cheek for the trouble.

To see Matt and Luke interact with the team. Dave’s attention turning to point out his other boys, “knuckleheads but they mean well”. How Tara will take up the empty space left on the couch and butt into Hotch and Emily’s argument, turning warm and comforting like the other two. And Spencer can’t wait to see how similar the three of them are-- you just have to see through the layers.

Until it’s nearly two in the morning.

Jack and Henry are missing, Luke thinks he might have seen them on the back porch.

Emily is sleeping, head in Tara’s lap and feet in Hotch’s. The other two blinking slowly into the fire, glasses of wine warm in their hands and dangerously close to falling.

Matt is sitting on the floor, children spread out around him.

There’s the buzz of conversation still coming from the kitchen. Garcia, JJ, Savannah, and Kristy giggling over wine and gossip they’re certainly not supposed to know.

Spencer looks up at the calendar sitting above his desk and crosses off the day.

He always hated December. He never got to appreciate Christmas. They represented everything he didn’t have, all the things he thought he could never have. But as mid-September leaves a crisp edge to the air, he finds himself counting down the days tell what used to be a measure of his insignificance.

Now it’s the only day that seems to matter. The only day he feels like he matters. Surrounded by the warmth of familiarity. By love.

He misses his family.

#criminal minds #criminal minds fanfiction #spencer reid #emily prentiss #penelope garcia #savannah morgan #derek morgan #aaron hotchner #jack hotchner #david rossi

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mayonnaisetoffees · 3 years ago

Text

Mayo's Fic Recs

List of my favourite fics below the cut; this list is a WIP and completely personal taste; a mix of fandom classics and lesser knowns

Please remember to leave comments and kudos for the authors and podficcers!

*shows particular favourites

Fandoms currently included: Spn, Merlin, Les Mis, BatFam

Fics That Changed Me Fundamentally

Loaded March*** by Footloose. Merlin | E | 1.26M(Series)/ 35k (First part) | 188k hits (First part)

The reason SAS Captain Arthur Pendragon can’t keep a communications specialist in Team Excalibur because none of them are good enough. And then Lieutenant Merlin Emrys gets assigned to his squad, and Arthur does everything he can to prove that Merlin isn’t good enough, either. Except he is.

You can read all about my thoughts on Loaded March here, here, and here. Basically this fic series is beautifully written, has absolutely delicious UST, has found family, magic, and high stakes. It’s been part of my life for almost a decade now, I made friends through LM that I still have to this day, and it genuinely changed me as a person. Plus there are 78k of Extras to itch that I Finished Now What scratch. Parts 1-5 have been podficced and you can find them in works inspired by this one in each part.

Down to Agincourt*** by Seperis. Supernatural | E | 1.12M(Series)/ 154k (First part) | 73k hits (First part)

The world’s already over and they’re already dead. All they’re doing now is marking time until the end.

S7!Dean is transported back to the aftermath of where 5x04 The End left off. Much like LM, DtA was one that I avoided for a while. I didn’t think it would be my thing. I’m not usually into End!verse, it sounded so bleak from the summary, and it sounded so long for something I wasn’t sure about. If you’re reading this and nodding along? You are as much a fool as I was. Yes, it’s the end of the world. But it’s not over yet. This is a beautiful journey in what it means to be yourself, how to survive the end of the world, a How-To for Coups, and a study in food as a love language. I only read this fic this year, but like LM, it has genuinely changed me. Map of the World has been podficced.

Supernatural

Let’s start with the current hyperfixation. All of these are at least passively Dean/Cas unless otherwise stated. I've split into ones from my first time around in the SPN fandom and more recent ones because the vibes are actually really different and it took me some time to adjust (Not in a bad way! In a time has passed they have grown as characters way)

Old-School SPN (AKA the Classics my first time around)

Canon-Compliant or Divergent

Home in Motion* by nomdeplume13 M | 232k | 48k hits

Castiel swore he was done with spur of the moment decisions that permanently changed Dean Winchester's life. A year after the angel's most disastrous, his newest may present the largest challenge of dean's life: Fatherhood.

Did someone say kid!fic in canonverse? This is perfect. Canon divergence from the end of S6. Cas saves a baby from a neglectful mother and gives him to Dean to raise. They all move in with Bobby. Great OCs. Bobby considers Cas his son. Listen everything I say here will not be able to begin to encompass how much I love this fic. Just trust me on this one.

Named* by RC_McLachlan M | 95k | 95k hits

Jesus Christ is dead. Somehow, that isn't the worst part of Dean's week.

With a summary like that, need I say more? No but I'm gonna. This is one of the funniest fics I've ever read, but it doesn't take any emotion from the serious moments, if anything it heightens them. There are so many quotes from this I think about all the time. It was written in 2010 and so there's a bit of misogyny/character assassination of Anna in places.

Second Childhood by CloudyJenn (read by exmanhater) G | 16k (1h30) | 10k hits

"Dude, I can't do this whole thing by myself," Dean said with far more desperation leaking into his tone than he liked. It would just be too much to make it through hell and death and Lucifer only to have Castiel bail on him because of a frigging baby.

They beat the Apocalypse (OG-S5) and then Sam gets de-aged by a spell. I've listened to this so many times I know it by heart, it's an ultimate comfort fic to me.

Defy Any and All Expectation* by Tenoko1 (read by Tenoko1) M | 138k (14hrs) | 37k hits

Chuck's newly released books tell of another war between Heaven and Hell. Team Free Will sets out to try to defy prophecy, only to realize there is a lot more at stake and amiss than the not-quite-accurate words of one Prophet of the Lord. Along the way, Dean and Cas' relationship continues to evolve into something neither expected or were prepared for, all of their lives transforming in ways no one could have expected. But with no shortage of cases, monsters, and mayhem, it's going to require the help of new friends and old enemies if they're to have a hope of saving the world one more time. Alternate Season Six.

So this is a re-written version of Tenoko1's The Path We Choose which I don't think is around anymore. By the time I was reading the re-write as each chapter came out, I knew every single line of TPWC and it wasn't all that much shorter. It's such a perfect canon divergence because they are all 100% in-character. If you're into podfic, you already know what an absolute gift 14 hours is, but if you have never tried podfic before, Tenoko1 is a fantastic place to start. Her voice is soothing and energetic and her Cas sometimes comes to mind when I'm reading fic in Misha's place (sorry Misha)

His Fucking Kids 'Verse by 8sword M | 96k(Series)/ 3k (first part) | 26k hits (first part)

Jesus, the school should just have a parking spot labeled, “Reserved for the Novak-Winchesters,” because Dean’s getting sick of having to cruise around the parking lot looking for a spot every time he gets a call from the principal about Emma.

Emma survives and Dean and Cas are raising her and Claire. This fic series will make you laugh, make you cry, and (nowadays) make you wish Emma had survived to be a part of Wayward Sisters.

One Species Too Many by wallmakerrelict E | 22k | 37k hits

While Dean is laid up for a month after breaking his leg on a hunt, Cas decides that it's a perfect time to adopt a litter of kittens. But even though he's gotten better since Purgatory, Cas still isn't quite the same as he was before fixing Sam's head, and being trapped in a cabin with him for weeks on end is making that all the more obvious to Dean. When Sam takes off on a hunt, Dean has to figure out on his own how to navigate his new relationship with Cas while also helping to raise a bunch of fuzzballs that aren't even cute. Not even a little bit. (Well, maybe a little bit.)

Dean breaks his legs, and honey!Cas brings home some kittens to foster. It's achingly sweet and also painful because you know Dean wants to fix Cas but there's nothing to fix. It is tagged for ableism for this.

Tripping* by Hatteress E | 49k | 78k hits

That time the universe decided Dean belonged with Cas and wasn't afraid to pull out the big guns to make it so. Big guns in this case being obsessive fangirls, archangels turned tricksters and overly enthusiastic cupids. Welcome to Dean's life.

Alt!S5 and it is beautiful. Also any fic with Missouri is an automatic win.

Broadway Musical by Grifitings M | 12k | 79k hits

This is the day that marked the Holy and Blessed Union of Dean Winchester and Jo Harvelle. The merging of prominent bloodlines is always a grand occurrence, but breeding pedigree hunter families like Winchester and Harvelle is something to be rejoiced. It is also something to be meticulously planned, which thankfully the Host is very good at. Or, the romantic comedy where Dean Winchester and Jo Harvelle are destined to get married, Castiel is given the task of playing matchmaker and fails terribly, the entire Heavenly Host becomes a sitcom audience, God warns against male pregnancy, and Jimmy Novak is incredibly unimpressed with angels in general.

Jimmy deserves a sainthood and frankly I don't even want to hear about crack if it's not on the level of the Host yelling at Cas not to touch the butt.

Classic AUs (AKA AUs from my first time around)

Try Something Tuesday by almaasi E | 48k | 144k hits

Dean Winchester teaches a third-grade class. He's new to this whole ‘bisexual’ thing - but by pure happenstance, he meets Castiel: a particularly dapper male librarian who moonlights as a substitute teacher. Dean's curious and Castiel is willing, so why the hell not? Except, fate never intended it to be one-time-only...

This was one of the first spn fics to really really stay with me and it never really left.

Rock 'n' Roll Queer Bar by ChasingRabbits E | 127k(Series)/ 8k (Part1) | 29k hits (Part1)

Ellen and Jo Harvelle run Harvelle's Roadhouse, a bar that unintentionally becomes a beacon for wayward queer souls. Her employees: Dean, the smartass runaway with a big heart and bigger mouth; Castiel, the college drop-out turned hippie; his (surprisingly heterosexual) trouble-making brother Gabriel; and Charlie, who has been told several times that the back room is not to be used for after-hours Dungeons & Dragons games. But there's a lot of love in this place, and a new family for anyone who may otherwise be without.

This series. If you've ever felt unsure or out of place or anxious or just really felt like no-one understood you, this fic is for you. I first found this series when I was coming to terms with my queerness and I genuinely think it was invaluable. Also I am a sucker for the go for a dinner at Cas's family and end up storming out trope.

Play It All Night Long by janie_tangerine (read by Tenoko1) NC17 | 43k (4hrs)

The rom-com-ish one where Dean hosts a late night radio show, Castiel is a regular listener of his who starts calling one day and ends up calling more often than not and Dean finds himself liking it. This, until one day Castiel calls for not exactly petty reasons (just before Dean's brother Sam is visiting with his girlfriend for spring break) and things get very, very crowdy at his place. He also doesn't know it's just the beginning of it. Also features Gabriel, Chuck, Andy, the Roadhouse crew and a huge amount of music quoted. Especially Bob Dylan.

Again, this podfic has got me through many a night of insomnia. Cas calls in after a particularly shitty day and it all goes from there.

New-School SPN (AKA post-2014)

Canon-Compliant or Divergent

Tall Grass by aeli_kindara E | 57k | 28k hits

“I think we should have a garden,” Cas says. Dean looks up from his beer. He hasn’t had that much to drink, but Cas still has a vague look of unreality about him, a splash of living color that doesn’t fit in the bunker’s echoing stillness. Dean didn’t hear him coming. A lot of the time, Cas is so unobtrusive it feels like Dean has the bunker to himself, with Sam away. Dean shakes his head to clear it. “A — garden?” he repeats.

There is a reason you will see this recced time and time again. It healed parts of me I didn't know needed healing.

So Says the Sword* by komodobits E | 85k | 73k hits

The briefing was simple: ‘Stand guard over the Michael Sword until the battle is ready to commence. Await further instructions.’ Castiel doesn’t mind working security duty; he was briefed shortly after the initial salvation of the Sword from the pit, and again before taking up his position. He knows what to do. However, it’s easy to forget that the green room isn’t real. Time moves differently there, the space ever-changing to make a prison of mountains, cathedrals, salt flats, orchards, and whatever Castiel was led to believe about Heaven’s greatest weapon—Dean Winchester is something entirely unexpected

I saw ssts mentioned in like every single If you're getting back into the fandom READ THIS rec list. For good reason. It's described as "canon-adjacent in that seasons one to three happened exactly the same, but when Dean goes to Hell, he is not raised by Castiel". It's one of the most interesting concepts I've read and it's one of those fics where the writing style will stick with you. Castiel POV in a way you've never read before.

Aching in the Absence of You* by sobsicles E | 95k | 9k hits (in 5 days)

Brittle and battle-worn, Cas looks at him over coffee one morning and says, "I need to go," and Dean instantly knows that he's not coming back. He's not really sure how he knows it, but he does. It settles into the pit of his stomach, curling hot and tight like something he instinctively wants to tear out with his bare hands. He takes a breath, and it gets stuck in his throat, hitching there. It hurts, hurts, hurts when he finally exhales. "Yeah," Dean says, "of course you do," and he nods jerkily as he looks down at his phone. He doesn't say goodbye. He doesn't look up from the screen when Cas gets up and leaves the room. He doesn't finish his coffee, or move for a long time. By nightfall, Cas is gone.

If you don't already know sobsicles, I am delighted to introduce you to the person who will smash you to pieces with a hammer to put you back together Kintsugi-style. This one is post-finale but without 15x18 (it'll make sense as it goes). Cas says he's going to leave again and again Dean doesn't ask him to stay. Full of lines so beautiful they'd make Shakespeare weep, Sobsicles has this way of writing that is so evocative and paints such a clear picture. Fair warning, if you're Dean-coded, this might be A Lot.

dumbassery, denial, doing (the three d's to the destination)** by sobsicles E | 108k | 25k hits

Freedom is just one adjustment after the next. ~~~ Cas hums again. "I think you already have. It's been months since everything settled. All that's left to do is...get used to it, and perhaps—" His voice stalls out, uncharacteristically, and his gaze roams Dean's face with intensity. When he speaks next, his tone is a little raw. "Perhaps what one does with peace is...whatever they want." "What if I don't even know what that is?" Dean grumbles, arching an eyebrow in challenge. "'Cause I know damn well you don't just mean good food and a good bed and time in Baby, not simple wants like that. You mean—ya know, the big things, the wants we didn't get to have before." "Yes," Cas agrees. "If you're not sure, figure it out." "Easier said than done."

Yes, two sobsicles recs back to back. This one I read first and it still holds such a special place in my heart. A sign of a good fic is being able to picture it perfectly. The sign of an amazing fic is that when reading this I was so in Dean's shoes I could feel a pool cue between my hands and Baby behind my back. And I sobbed like a baby in this. It has probably my favourite ending ever. It's genuinely beautiful. If you don't read another on this list, read this one.

Teaching Poetry to Fish by aeli_kindara M | 52k | 14k hits

In which Castiel teaches poetry to fish. Also, himself. Also, eventually, Dean. (A series-long story, diverging slightly from canon after S14.)

The ultimate Cas character study and interwoven with poetry.

So There It Is, I've Said It All by PorcupineGirl (read by Ceewelsh) G | 4k | 13k hits

"Why, do you have something you need to say to me that you don't think I'll like?" I think I'm in love with you. "Yeah. I guess so."

Dean figures out he's in love with Cas then can't stop thinking it. This is genuinely beautiful and if you've ever had trouble actually saying the thing you're thinking, you'll relate to Dean here. I recently did the podfic for this.

you won't find this place alone by amidsizedfrog G | 9.5k |

When Claire said she was dropping out of college to pursue hunting full time, Dean said, “right,” and left the room. Or, the cross-generation conversation about formal education, choosing your own path and figuring out what it looks like to find a family. Or, in other words: "But what I do have is a GED and a give-'em-hell-attitude, and I'll figure it out." - Dean Winchester

This is a beautiful look at education in the hunter world, and I love anything that looks at Dean and Bobby's relationship and this does it perfectly. Also best cameo ever.

Seek to Know You Better by ahurston E | 33k | 23k hits

Dean and Cas, a long stretch of highway, and 36 questions empirically designed to make two people fall in love. As if they weren't already.

This is perfect. It has a lovely slow pace like it has the vibes of an indie film if that makes sense? Like it's two guys going from place to place talking. It was an instant favourite.

Newer AUs (AKA more recent AUs)

And This, Your Living Kiss* by opal_bullets M | 57k | 69k hits

Only a very few people in the world know that the celebrated and reclusive poet Jack Allen is just Kansas mechanic Dean Winchester, a high school dropout with a few bucks to his name. Not that it matters anymore; life has left him so wrung out he never wants to pick up another pen. Until, that is, a string of coincidences leads Dean to auditing a poetry course with one Dr. Castiel Novak. The professor is wildly intelligent, devastatingly handsome...and just so happens to be academia's foremost expert on the poetry of Jack Allen.

When I asked which fics were absolute must-reads for someone who'd been out of the fandom a few years, this was said repeatedly. But what really got me to read it was everyone actually told me more about what it meant to them than just the summary. It's a study in poetry, a study in learning who you are and who you used to be, and a reminder that it's never too late.

The Graveyard Shift* by riseofthefallenone, PurgatoryJar E | 620k | 175k hits

Dean’s favourite coffee shop, The Graveyard Shift, is only open after the sun goes down. Which is perfect for him, because that’s exactly when he craves coffee the most while doing the overnight at the fire hall. The coffee shop’s owner is pretty perfect too, but it’s kind of a bummer that Dean never gets to see Cas during the day. In a world where the supernatural live more or less in peace with the rest of humanity, it’s a little impolite to ask Cas just what he really is - or what his dark past entails.

A fantastic magical realism fic - magical creatures live and work with humans. Gabe and Cas run a coffee shop, Dean is a fireman, and the burn is slow and delicious and the intrigue kept me reading for like a week every single spare minute.

Painted Angels by WinJennster E | 106k | 162k hits

Author Castiel Novak has finally hit the big time, with a book based on his failed college relationship with a brilliant painter. He's put all his pain behind him, but at a book signing, he comes face to face with Dean Winchester for the first time in twelve years, and the reunion doesn't go like Cas hoped. Dean's a broken man, with a lot of scars and secrets, shoulders weighed down by his demons and self loathing. Cas sees a second chance with the man he's never stopped loving, but Dean's moved on, and is about to get married. Sam launches a "brilliant" plan to reunite his brother and his best friend, but Cas is worried it will all blow up in their faces, and he'll go through the agony of losing Dean a second time.

The first part of this I actually saved back when I was first in the fandom but I never got around to reading it (I had a To Read folder of 100+ fics that I absolutely dove into when I got back into spn) and the rest of the series finished in 2016 so I'm counting it in this section not the other. On the one hand, I wish I'd read this when it first came out. It's beautiful and heartbreaking, and so visual. On the other hand, I think I appreciated it a lot more now than I would have seven years ago. The parallel of me coming back to the old fandom that I loved dearly with Cas coming back to see someone and places he loved so much really hit. (Although coming back to the spn fandom was much easier and much less heartbreak!)

Finale Fix-Its (yeah fuck you Dabb that this has to be a whole category)

The Goldenrod Revisions by aethylas M | 66k | 15k hits

A rewrite of Supernatural’s final two episodes, expanded into a five episode arc - in which Chuck needs to be defeated, Castiel deserves to be saved, and the characters in this story get a very different ending.

Script format re-write of 15x19 and 15x20 into a 5-episode finale fix-it. As far as I'm concerned, this and chocolatecakecas's American Pie fanvid are the Supernatural finale.

break the skin (to break the barriers)* by sobsicles M | 30k | 9k hits

The first time she meets him, he's nothing more than an almost-missed appointment. ~~~ Dean is silent for a long, tense moment, then he gruffly says, "It's not for banishing the angels. It's to summon them. So, it doesn't—it's not to get rid of 'em, but to draw 'em in." Mitzi can't help but glance up at him at that. His voice is so heavy with so much unexplained pain, and she doesn't understand why, or what angels have to do with it. She knows religion can impact people. She's very aware that it can get complicated, and that it can be a huge source of pain for someone, but Dean sounds grievously wronged, somehow, as if it's a truly personal thing. She pushes through, focusing back on her job, clearing her throat before murmuring, "Well, I guess we all want angels to visit us sometimes." "Just the one," Dean mumbles. "Your guardian angel?" Mitzi asks. Dean breathes out, "Something like that. As close to one as an angel will ever get."

Therapy through getting tattoos and telling your life story to someone who obviously doesn't think it's real. Outsider!POV not just done well, but done literally the best.

Kingdom Come by ahurston E | 17k | 10k hits

Cas wakes up on the coast of Maine. He makes his way home.

I don't know if this counts as finale fix-it as it's more fuck the finale we're ignoring that. There's just so much love and care in this fic.

The Family Business by chai_lattes M | 16k | 5.5k hits

It's all over. It's been weeks since Chuck's defeat and Cas' return from the Empty. There are no threats on the horizon, no apocalypses to stop, but there's something that keeps the Winchesters from being happy. Something that's maybe always been there. On their way back from a hunt, they find John Winchester, back from the dead.

If you're anything like me, you start rubbing your grubby little hands together at the tag John Winchester's A+ Parenting like yes let's address this! This is one of the best examples of John coming back and how it jars with the life that they have built. Also Claire and Jack getting to share screentime!

Merlin

If I have a forever fandom, it's Merlin. I've always kept one foot in this fandom, and it introduced me to fandom, and most importantly to podfic which kinda had an impact. All Merthur unless stated.

Canon-Verse

Seven Magpies by syllic (read by lunchee) E | 33k (3hr15) | 58k hits

Arthur opened his eyes a minute later to the sight of seven magpies streaking across the top of the clearing, their shapes dark against the white clouds and the muted grey of the sky. He tried to remember what it was that seven magpies meant—he'd had a nurse who had sung the rhyme to him as a child—but couldn't. Arthur wakes up somewhere he doesn't recognise, but where he clearly belongs.

Okay so this is an AU but it's Canon-AU so it's going here. Fantastic role reversal fic that you will be thinking about for weeks.

and from your grace, i fell by TheDragon (read by Ceewelsh) T | 4.6k (41mins) | 13k hits

“Where’s Merlin?” he asks the maid. “Where’s that idiot of a Court Sorcerer?!” “Begging your pardon, Your Majesty. I thought you knew,” the maid replies, not daring to look him in the eyes. “He’s taken ill.” “And he couldn’t be bothered to tell me himself that he would be unable to attend today’s council meeting?” Arthur questions, voice full of acid. “He hasn’t woken since he collapsed two days ago, Sire,” the maidservant says, blissfully unaware that what she’s saying the power to stop Arthur’s heart in its tracks.

When I first read this, it had me completely transfixed. I could not stop reading. It was so raw and so full of emotion. I was then lucky enough to get TheDragon in our exchange, so I did a podfic for it and it's probably the most proud I've been of one.

Modern AU

The Student Prince* by FayJay (read by FayJay) M | 145k (15hrs) | 696k hits

A Modern day Merlin AU set at the University of St Andrews, featuring teetotal kickboxers, secret wizards, magnificent bodyguards of various genders, irate fairies, imprisoned dragons, crumbling gothic architecture, arrogant princes, adorable engineering students, stolen gold, magical doorways, attempted assassination, drunken students, shaving foam fights, embarrassing mornings after, The Hammer Dance, duty, responsibility, friendship and true love...

A classic is a classic for a reason. I'm also pretty sure this introduced me to podfics so like special place in my heart x2. Did you know if you filter AO3 by hits on Merlin, this has 426k more hits than the second result? Now that is a Fandom Classic.

Drastically Redefining Protocol* by rageprufrock (read by lunchee) E | 46k (5hr30) | 269k hits

In which Prince Arthur meets Merlin and all hell promptly breaks loose.

As I always say, if this can happen to me and I still love the fic, nothing is going to change that. Arthur hides from his duties in a cupboard and gets stuck in there with a chainsmoking med student.

Fundamental Imperfections by Starlingthefool (read by bravenclawsome) M | 12k (1hr35) | 123k hits

In which an argument about Dickens leads to a Twitter scandal, broken bones, midnight conversations, and transatlantic longing. (Or, an AU with Arthur and Merlin as moderately famous authors.)

This fic has everything: Charles Dickens, long distance texting, Morgana choking a Sherlock cosplayer with his own scarf. This is the ultimate comfort fic and I compare all fics to this even when they're incomparable. I never read the sequel because it was WIP and I was waiting for it to complete, it hasn't been updated since 2015 and apparently ends on an unhappy note, so if you're going to read the sequel you have been warned.

Les Mis

Modern!AU

Overzealous Oddities by YassHomo e/R, Courf/Cosette/Marius, Comb/Ép | G | 6.4k | 4k hits

Courfeyrac: Remember when I smashed our tv and we laughed about it? Enjolras: No. Courfeyrac: Let me rephrase Courfeyrac: I've smashed our tv, lets laugh about it.

I love me a text fic and this is in my opinion the best one around. Just look at that summary. I have quoted that so many times.

But Paris was a very old city and we were young* by GingerNinjaAbi E/R, Courf/Jehan | M | 99k | 42k hits

Perhaps somewhere in between all the cups of coffee, shots of tequila, sunny March days, terrible lumpy jumpers, love, cigarettes, drunken nights and the desire to change the world they'll all leave Paris with a degree in something. Or not. Grantaire's money is on no. But he's a pessimist who's hopelessly in love, so perhaps his opinion shouldn't count.

The ULTIMATE modern!AU tbh.

Tagged by Salomonderiel E/R, Courf/Jehan | E | 155k | 28k hits

So there's this artist. He could probably be compared to Banksy, but he's a lot more... cynical. He shares rooms with a poet who braids his hair with flowers, in a flat near Covent Garden they rent from a short-tempered shop keeper with a penchant for fans and who'd do anything if you mentioned Poland. Sometimes, the three of them will go and deface public buildings in London whilst completely smashed off their heads. And then there's this, shall we say, 'revolutionary'. He has a band of other revolutionaries, who all meet at this cafe by Borough Market. He shares rooms with his best mate, a philosophy student, spends too much time with a flirty guy who has a thing for poets, goes boxing with a guy in a red vest, wants to punch the wet sop who drools on the blonde waitress and is getting tired of this guy who keep breaking his laptops through sheer dumb luck. Thank god the hypochondriac's there to keep an (slightly too) attentive eye on their stress levels. The revolutionary thinks the graffiti artist's work is a waste of space. The artist thinks the revolutionary's campaigns are a waste of time. And all the while, the poet and the flirt drool over each other in the background...

This is perfect and it's funny and it's beautiful and it rips my heart out multiple times.

Canon

To Be Free by kjack89 (read by Ceewelsh) Gen, Cosette/Marius | T | 3.8k (32mins) | 375 hits

Three blows from a bayonet had transfixed Combeferre’s breast, followed by a fall from the barricade as he rapidly lost first blood and then consciousness. But neither of these, it seemed, was enough to kill him, as much as later he might perhaps wish that they were.

I read this because it was on a list kjack89 did of their favourite fics which don't necessarily have the same hits traffic. It's nothing I would have usually read (canon era, not e/R, MCD) but I am so glad I gave it a go. It's a study on what if Combeferre had survived the barricades too and the guilt. This stayed with me for days afterwards until I eventually messaged kjack89 to get permission to podfic it.

BatFam

Canonish (I don't know differences between canons but these are all they're superheros fics)

Robins United by laceymcbain (read by reena_jenkins) Gen | T | 49k (6h15)/ 19k (2h25) (First part) | 103k hits

Bullets, knives, a three story fall, even a fucking crowbar hadn't managed to keep Jason down permanently, but Dick Grayson (and the rest of his "family") was going to kill him with kindness.

The ultimate batbros series. Also if you haven't heard reena_jenkins' podfics before, you are welcome. Pre-pandemic I took a lot of public transport and reena_jenkins kept me sane.

batcoons by drakefeathers (read by reena_jenkins) Gen | G | 6k (49mins) | 14k hits

Jason and raccoons have a lot in common. (Additionally: his so-called family are much bigger pests than the stray animals hanging around his safehouse.)

This is funny, it's heartwarming, and it's a really good character study.

Here Comes the Sun by batsy_rocks Clark/Bruce | T | 19k | 20k hits

Clark Kent is a kind-hearted reporter working in the big city. Bruce Wayne is a stressed dad of four with no idea of what he's doing. Then they meet.

Bruce Wayne is a Tired Single Dad™. It's genuinely such a sweet fic.

#fic rec #spn fic rec #merlin fic rec #les mis fic rec

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bixisarusher · 4 years ago

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Bix Reviews: Call Me Kat (Season 1, FOX 2021)

I thought a lot about how I feel about this show, and there are lots of words, so it’s gonna go under the cut.

In summary: I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as I hoped to, and i discuss why I think that was. BUT there are great things in this remake, and I want to name them as well!

There are two ways to look at Call Me Kat: As it’s own thing, and as a Miranda remake. As a Miranda Hart stan, I’ll have a lot more to say about the latter, so let’s start with the show itself.

On It’s Own

That felt appropriate, nvm me

It’s a cute show. It’s not a groundbreaking concept, and it’s not re-inventing the genre, but it has some really good things going for it:

Kat is happy and confident in her quirks, but doesn’t have it all together - so she has room to grow and is very sympathetic, all the while encouraging the viewer to celebrate their own quirks. Lovely! Also Mayim is a treasure and it’s great to watch her perform.

The show openly discusses “taboo” topics, like using anti-depressants and their side-effects, freezing your eggs, comparing yourself to a hallucinated version of your crush’s ex... The show isn’t a trailblazer, (partly because there have been many great shows in the last couple years) but I thinks it’s awesome to see them further treading out the ground and normalizing these topics.

It has a nice set of characters that go through their indepent stories, I found myself excited for any new episode and enjoying the varying storylines. (Most of them Randi.)

And, although the last episode dragged it right back into the romantic territory, Kat has a genuine friendship with Max and I value that a lot. Neither of them harbours secret feelings, instead they are open and honest about it. The only thing they overdid here was to have an exchange of “Do you remember, when we were in college together and [blank] happened?” in at least every other episode.

Another thing on the down side: Neither the writers nor Mayim seem to fully know what to do with the fourth wall breaks. I don’t mind the thing, it just doesn’t feel fully rounded out - like how much they want to use it, what purpose it really has, ...

I think it’s due to the circumstances of the filming (pandemic restrictions and all), but more on that later. So much for the show itself.

As a remake

First of all: Do I love Jim Parsons for looking at this absurd british gem of a TV show and deciding “the world needs more stuff like this”? Absolutely! Because I agree! There were two or three moments that leaned on Miranda a little too much for their own good, but overall: it is content inspired by Miranda, but neither correcting, it nor copying it. More power to this concept.

More power to celebrating the silly joys in this live, to celebrate not being normal, more power to amazing friendships and women who find their own path. Call Me Kat does all of these things.

However, it doesn’t quite live up to it’s Mothership. Let me elaborate.

There is a myriad of reasons why Miranda works and I will not attempt to list them. However there’s one thing that does stand out to me in the original, and that I really miss in the adaptation: Miranda didn’t just write “a plot” and salt it with “a few jokes”. She carefully built tensions and different storylines to culminate together. Sometimes it’s a funny word that the character hears in the first act, and later nervously blurts out in the wrong moment. Sometimes it’s a parade of characters she met through the episode that all meet in one spot at the end. Or there is a throw away comment in the beginning of an episode that sets up a revelation toward the end.

I could swarm you with examples, a good one is in 1x03 Job: trying to impress Tilly, trying to deny waitressing, and then: the multiple “You weed in a ball pool?” and Gary in uniform walking in right on time to sell the lie about being an undercover commander. Another one of my personal favorites is in 2x04 A New Low, when Miranda in the end tells Gary that he lost her trust, and he’ll “never get to see her naked sweep” - and then he find’s the portrait Tamara did of Miranda’s “naked sweep”. Just hit’s right.

That is a testament to how well crafted the episodes are. In Call Me Kat? All Nighter and Gym had moments like that, and Double Date very early on set up Kat’s dream to use the sound system, but it just never reached that same level of mastermind.

But, in defense of CMK: Miranda was crafted over ten years with a full of 20 episodes airing (21 if you count the radio series) and the cast worked together a good year before they filmed the first series of 6 episodes. Compared to that, work on Call me Kat started around 2018, the cast was assembled in the first half of 2020 and started shooting in late October. They then shot 13 episodes in their first season. (which is more than half of the total episodes of Miranda, just saying) Sources: english wikipedia articles for Miranda and Call Me Kat, as well as Mayim’s Youtube. (Jep I did research for this.)

Also the CMK episodes were written and directed by a variety of people, while the Miranda episodes have all been at least co-written by Miranda Hart and all except for the last two were directed by Juliet May.

These are - as much as I as a humble consumer with a bit of wikipedia knowledge know - basic differences about how shows are made in the UK vs. in the US, and neither formula is any way of guarantee for the quality of the final product. However I think somewhere in those facts is the reason why the Miranda ship feels a lot more in shape and ... coherent. The pilot that we know and love is the fourth time they recorded the script, and I don’t even want to know how many times the script had been edited in between. The cast knew each other well, the material had been tested in front of multiple audiences. Call Me Kat had neither of these luxuries. On the contrary, CMK has been put together under restrictions due to the pandemic.

So on the one hand, I am majorly grateful that this show even got to see the light of day! That means that a full cast and crew had jobs in these trying times, and it means that we were provided with good entertainement.

On the other hand, the circumstances are showing in the final product. The cast had an awkward chemistry with each other, and the comedic timing, though not horrible, could have been a lot better.

This may be an unpopular opinion, but I think studio audiences can be a blessing. There is something about the actors having a genuine connection to real time observers that helps me as a screen audience connect to it. And for this staged multicam show that includes glances at the camera? I think a real audience would have grounded the concept. And it would have given the team a direct feedback as to which moments were working comedically and which weren’t.

What I’m trying to say is: they had big shoes to fill, and the odds were not really in their favor, and so it doesn’t really hold up in comparison.

That’s sad. But that doesn’t mean that it’s a horrible show. As I said in the beginning, I love that this show is done in the spirit of Miranda, even if it’s not just as good.

I have no idea how the show’s chances are to get a second season. If they do get renewed - I’ll keep watching.

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Now, let me finish with a few gifs that I feel like they can be applied to the whole “they remade Miranda and it went both ok and less then ok but at least the word is being spread, right?”-situation.

because Kat/Max is good but could anything ever be Miranda/Gary?

Not really...

ok that one’s a bit rude. but you thought it, too.

Jim turning in bed at night overthinking if Mayim was the right choice. But she was. Much like Stevie was for Miranda.

Honestly a very good part of the remake is Mayim and Cheyenne performing together! I personally think this moment above is responsible.

Trying to match the CMK characters to the Miranda characters like: I thought Phil is supposed to be the Customer but turns out Phil originally was supposed to a Phillys? So Phil is Stevie, but then who is Randi? Tilly? So many questions.

And with that, dear Caller, back to you.

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ikingsley · 4 years ago

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Ina x MC: Late Nights

Summary: Ina misses a date she planned.

Warnings: Angst! Also warning for brief mentions of alcohol.

Tag: @samanthadalton @domakir @kulaykape @hellyeah90sbaby @dopeyouth @kwaj05 @thedaft1 @swimmingshoebakerydreamer

Author’s Notes: I wanted to provide a little more background on Luna, who’s a neuroscience major. I also was craving angst, so this is the product of that.

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Friday @12:47 pm

Ina: I’ll see you at home tonight; remember, I’m cooking.

Luna: Oh lord 🙏

Ina: Hey! I promise it’ll be fine. All you need to do is show up. See you then, mi amor ❤️.

But now, it was almost 3 in the morning. The apartment was dark and quiet, except for the TV that was on at low volume. Luna was sprawled on the couch; she had knocked out a long time ago. What was supposed to be a fun date night with Ina had turned into a night of anguish for Luna.

Ina was supposed to come home early to cook — albeit a very basic meal, but nevertheless, a meal — for Luna. The two were supposed to play some Trivial Pursuit and then cuddle to a movie together. Little did they know that that was quite the opposite of what would really happen that night.

When Luna had arrived at Ina’s apartment to find Ina not there, she hadn’t been worried. She’d been held up in the office quite often before. A student asking for an extension, an administrator here and there...but as the minutes slid into hours, Luna began losing hope. And with that dissipating, Luna became more and more angry. She texted Ina multiple times, just to receive radio silence. She had to rearrange her volunteer schedule at the hospital for this, and Ina hadn’t even bothered to show up at her own place. For such a driven and brilliant woman, Ina could be so irritating.

Ina got out of the cab, lurching forward towards her apartment. She mumbled incoherently to herself as she fumbled with her keys. When she finally was able to let herself into her home, she stumbled over her own heels and fell down, subsequently causing a loud crash sound. Oh crap, she muttered.

Luna jumped up, already on high alert. She looked around, only to find Ina on the floor. Luna gave Ina a sad, disappointed look, but turned away as a tear fell from her eye. This seemed to slightly sober Ina up.

“Wait- Luna!” Ina said desperately, clawing at the floor, trying to get up. The cry in her voice caused Luna to turn around for a split second. “Can we please talk?”

“Ina, you’re too out of it to have a mature conversation. Christ, you reek,” Luna sighed, shaking her head and retreating to the bedroom.

It hadn’t been the first time Ina had come home intoxicated, but those times, Ina was funny, and Luna had taken care of her accordingly. More importantly, on those occasions, Ina hadn’t planned out a date night.

Ina poured herself a shot of coffee and downed it in an attempt to sober up. When she felt like she had gained some sort of consciousness, she walked towards the bedroom. Right before she had reached the doorway, she held herself back, drawing in a deep breath. The conversation that she wanted to take place was going to be heavy, and she knew it.

Luna was curled up on her own side of the bed, scrolling absentmindedly on her phone. Tears rolled down her face, onto the pillow, but she had no control over her them.

“Luna,” Ina breathed out. It was low, but very well enunciated.

“You’re welcome to sleep on the couch in the living room,” Luna said sarcastically.

“I know you’re mad. Today was supposed to be about us, and I blew it.”

Though Ina couldn’t see Luna, she felt her eye roll. “You really did.”

Ina walked over to Luna’s side of the bed and crouched down to meet Luna’s eyes. She was met with Luna shifting on the bed, rolling over so that Ina couldn’t see her crying.

“Oh, real mature,” Ina scoffed.

“Bye bye!” Luna said in a sing-songy voice.

“Who the hell are you talking to?” Ina snapped.

“MATURITY. She left when you came home, wasted and reeking on our date night. God, just go to sleep, Ina. It’s three in the morning. The couch is practically screeching your name,” Luna said as her voice finally broke. The sarcastic facade could only last a few moments. She pointed to the door, trying to get Ina to leave her alone.

Ina stood in the middle of the bedroom, just watching Luna cry. It hurt. She hurt Luna. What have I done, Ina reckoned, wiping at her own tears.

Finally, Ina trudged out of the room. She plopped herself on the couch; the only times she’d actually slept there were when Luna fell asleep in her arms, and she didn’t want to wake her.

When Ina left the room, Luna let out a sob, followed by a stream of tears. For the past few days, Ina had acted distant. Luna thought it would be a quick phase; Ina had publishing deadlines throughout the year. When a big deadline approached, Ina would immerse herself in her work, and Luna understood. Sure, she was clingy, but she knew how much work meant to Ina. And when Ina met the deadline, Luna was the first to congratulate her, and they’d celebrate together. But never had anything like this happen before. Never had Ina come home smelling this foul. Never had Ina missed a date she planned and seemed excited about. Most of all, never had she let Luna down like this before.

The two hugged themselves on their respective sleeping arrangements. Tears flowed freely and the women tossed and turned. By now, hours had gone by, and neither had slept a wink.

The sun had come up and light broke into the window. Luna huddled under the covers, acting as if the sun’s light was the reason she couldn’t sleep. At this point, she had stopped crying - she felt that her tear ducts couldn’t physically produce anything anymore.

“Luna, I love you,” Ina’s voice rang out.

Had that been real? The sleep-deprived young woman didn’t know if Ina had actually spoken to her or if that was a figment of her imagination, recalling happier times of Ina’s many love confessions.

“Luna,” The voice said again. “God! Just look at me! Please.”

Now, Luna knew she wasn’t hallucinating anymore. She pulled off the covers, facing Ina for the first time in hours. And with a quick glance, Luna discovered that Ina didn’t look much better than herself. It was evident that she also hadn’t slept, and dried tears stained her face.

Luna’s lower lip quivered, and she knew, somehow, she was about to cry again. And once again, she pulled the covers over her face.

“What can I do, Luna? You used to tell me I was the most beautiful person you’d ever seen, and now you can’t even look at me.”

“Leave me alone,” Luna grumbled.

For a moment, there was silence, but then, Ina attacked. She yanked off the covers and pinned Luna down with her body.

“I love-” Ina cried out, but she was interrupted by the pain flashing through Luna’s eyes. It had only been a mere second, because Luna shut her eyes so promptly to ease her pain, but it had taken its toll.

God, what am I doing, Ina thought to herself, rolling onto the other side of the bed. For a while, the two just sat staring numbly at the ceiling. It was as if they were reflecting - physically together, but mentally, miles away.

It was Luna who clasped the other woman’s hand. Ina wasn’t expecting it, but she returned the grip.

“I’m really sorry, Luna,” Ina admitted. “I’m such an ass.”

“I know you’re stressed, it’s fine-”

“It really isn’t, Luna. I made a commitment, and I failed to follow through.”

“I’m more disappointed than mad or anything else, really.”

And if this was supposed to be any sort of consolation to Ina, it really wasn’t. Somehow, her heart dropped even further into her chest. Having disappointed Luna was worse than upsetting her.

The two sat in silence for a long time, contemplating. They could hear each other’s sniffles every so often, followed by them clearing their throats. Their hearts still beat together as one, even after feeling so apart.

“Ina?” Luna questioned, releasing her hand from Ina’s hand. She moved to face her as Ina did the same.

Before, Ina had only seen glimpses of her lover, but now, it was all real. Luna’s face was now wet with tears, but she still had a small, sad smile on her face. That smile. It was the one that broke her heart into a million pieces, something that only Luna knew how to put back together.

Ina shut her eyes, trying to not let herself cry for the umpteenth time in a span of 12 hours.

“Hey. What’s wrong?” Luna asked sympathetically. Ina just shook her head, looking back at the ceiling through her tear-glazed eyes. She reached out to Ina to cup her face. “Ina, look at me. What’s wrong?”

“Look at you. I was the one who screwed up, and now you’re comforting me,” Ina said, letting out a quick breath. This girl was truly something else.

“Missing a date night...that’s not like you. At all. So something’s up, and you’re not telling me,” Luna said intuitively.

“I-” Ina began, but her voice wavered, and a sob followed.

“Come here,” Luna said, opening up her arms.

Ina inched towards Luna, and Luna wrapped her arms around Ina. They stayed like this for a while, until Luna brought her hand around to wipe away Ina’s tears.

“Ever since you started volunteering at the hospital, I feel like we’ve...grown apart,” Ina said.

“I- I’m not sure what to say to that, Ina. I have to focus on my own future, just like you had to in college,” Luna said back softly.

“I know, I know. I’m not asking you to drop it or anything like that. I know you’ll need some kind of experience for med school. I’m just...worried about us,” Ina admitted.

“Is that why you were drinking tonight?” Luna asked.

“Well, my paper was one reason, but then I began thinking about us. How much you’ve grown since we met. And now, you’re about to take the MCAT. You’re already so busy now; imagine when you get into med school and become a famous neuroscientist.”

“We’ve both always been busy, but we’ve managed it. You’re so important to me, Ina. And don’t you forget it. Because I won’t. My future is important, but mainly because you’re gonna be a huge part of it.”

Ina smiled slowly, meeting Luna’s eyes. “How do you always know what to say?”

“Because we’ve been through hell and back, Ina.” That glimmer in Luna’s eyes was back, giving Ina the confidence she needed.

“You know, you’re right. As a great poet once said, ‘Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey,’” Ina chuckled.

“Oh god, you’re quoting Lord Byron now?” Luna broke out into a laughing fit.

“He defined poetry from the Romantic period! Maybe he didn’t find his own...person, but he was a great poet.”

“Well, you’re my person, and I’m yours. You’re not losing me, and you never will. We’re practically stuck together for eternity,” Luna jested.

“There’s no one I’d rather be stuck with,” Ina grinned.

#ina kingsley #ina x mc #queen b #choices stories you play #luna garcia

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prepperjournal · 4 years ago

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Building Your Survival Food Pantry

When I was a child, we had a bomb shelter. My parents didn’t build it – it was there when they bought the house. But they did stock it with what they believed to be the most important survival items, should we ever get “hit.” I remember several battery-operated items – radio, flashlights, and such – and of course, clothing and bedding in a trunk. But then there were the food and drink items - our survival food pantry. There were all sorts of canned goods, of course, and large bottles of water (only glass in those days). Foods that normally came in boxes (e.g., cereal and powdered milk) were put into glass jars. Times have changed. Now that we have plastic and bagged items with long shelf lives, bomb shelter food would look very different today (except for the powdered milk, I suppose, which I always hated). And there are plenty of ways to keep food items water-proof. A nuclear event is not the only disaster for which we need to be prepared these days. Earthquakes, fires, floods, hurricanes, and tornadoes are all on the rise, as well as real threats from people both within and outside our country. Then there are blizzards, pandemics, and long-term power outages as we recently saw in Texas. And the Boy Scout motto of “Be Prepared” should still guide our preparedness. So, let’s take a look at what a survival food pantry should look like today. Whether we face a short-term or long-term disaster, it is best to plan for a long-term food and water shortage at the onset. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J31WXxAEwY Survival Food Pantry Basics – The List - Water: It’s the “rules of threes” here. You can survive three minutes without oxygen, 3 days without water, and three months without food. If you are breathing, then water is the next priority. If you are planning a pantry for “bug-in” survival, you will want between ½ - 1 gallon of water per day, per person. This also presupposes that, if you have a means of cooking, you may use some water. And there is personal hygiene to think of too. In short, water must be your top priority. If the public water supply is disrupted, then any tap water will have to be purified once that supply is restored. A few drops of household bleach per gallon will do the trick and save you from the necessity of boiling if your power is out. If you are thinking in terms of a “bug-out” survival, water will be too heavy to carry. What you want instead is a water collection device and filters. And, if you have access to wood and bring matches, boiling water is always an option here. FIFO Can Tracker | Stores 54 cans | Rotates First in First Out | Canned Goods Organizer for Cupboard, Pantry and Cabinet | Food Storage | Organize Your Kitchen | Made in USA - Organize Your Food Pantry - Our patent designed FIFO Can Tracker keeps your kitchen organized by storing and rotating your canned goods on a First In First Out model saving you from expired food cost and waste! Designed to store cans from 4 to 15 ounces. Perfect for diced chili cans, soup cans or standard vegetable cans. Holds up to 54 cans. Perfect to organize your food storage. - Sturdy Design - Made in the USA, this product is built to last and will be a permanent solution to your kitchen organization problem. Easily connect multiple units together to expand your storage. - Easy Installation - Put together in just minutes following a simple 4 step process. - Fits on Existing Shelves - Product dimensions are 12" H x 16" W x 16" D allowing you to organize your pantry, cabinet and cupboard. - 100% Customer Satisfaction Guarantee - If you are not satisfied with your purchase and feel this product has not solved your pantry organization problem simply return for a full refund. $38.99 Buy on Amazon - Canned Goods: These are absolute staples if you are sheltered in place in your home. And they will provide a variety of foods so that you don’t face “food boredom.” Think in terms of canned meats, beans (a great source of protein), fish, fruits, and veggies. Variety is the key here so that you and your family members have choices. And these can be eaten without cooking. After all, your instant pot may not be an option right now. Canned soups are a great option if you buy those that are not concentrated. They can be eaten right out of the can without the need for water or cooking. Ensure you have a good rotation plan also. - Food in Jars: Here’s where the advent of plastic comes in. There’s a huge list of food and drink that now comes in plastic jars that prevent breakage and are less in weight. Think peanut butter and jelly; think bottled juices; think fruits. They, too, have long shelf lives and can provide a good variety. - Snacks: Snacks can provide a bit of a respite from the boredom that comes from lack of electricity and Wi-Fi. Crackers and chips come boxed and bagged. If humidity is an issue, then it can be stored in plastic bags. They have a long shelf-life and will not have to be “changed out” too often. Dips are obviously out to “dress up” these items, but there are freeze-dried meats that will do, as well as peanut butter. If you can’t cook popcorn is out, but nuts are not. Stock up on a good variety. - Dried Foods: These were not around when I was a kid, but just go through any grocery store and look at all the possibilities. There are dried fruits and meats galore – everything from jerkies to fruit leather, to banana chips. Stock up on plenty of these – lightweight and nutritious. - Granola Bars: I put these in a separate category because they are a source of almost every nutrient we need – protein, carbs, a bit of fat, and even that need for something sweet. If you should have to “bug out,” they are lightweight, have a long shelf life, and can provide the energy you will need. Look for those that are high in protein – this provides long-term energy, while carbs and sugars are only for the short-term. - About that Powdered Milk: Fortunately, powdered milk now comes in cans, as opposed to those traditional boxes. You do not have to take measures to protect it from water damage. When reconstituted with water, it can be used on cereal and for cooking (e.g., mashed potatoes) if you have an alternative cooking method during power outages. If you have children who cannot tolerate the taste, then have a supply of canned chocolate or strawberry syrup to “sweeten the deal.” - Pasta, Rice, Noodles: These can be temporarily filling because of their carb content. But here’s the thing: they must be cooked, and that will require using your supply of water. If you are sheltered in place with your public water supply still available, then all is good. You can cook these up as much as you wish. But if your water supply is cut off, or you have to use alternative methods for cooking, these are probably not good options. Still, put them in your pantry on the chance that they can be prepared. - The Debate About Couscous: Yes, this is a type of pasta, made from small grains of a specific type of wheat flour. The beauty of it is that it is steamed rather than boiled and takes far less water to cook. Unlike traditional pasta, couscous cooks in about two minutes. On the other hand, it is extremely high in gluten. So, if you have family members with gluten sensitivity, it is not an option. Planning for Long-Term Survival in Place As mentioned above, your food pantry should be planned for long-term survival, even if an immediate event is only short-term. Our goal for long-term survival in place is to have those food items that: - Provide solid nutrition - Can be prepared using as little fuel and water as possible - Will be “damage-proof” - Are as compact as possible - Have a variety of flavors and consistencies, so that “food boredom” doesn’t set in Here are some things to think about as you stock that survival food pantry: - Avoid dried beans. While they are a great source of protein, they take lots of water and fuel to cook. Items like navy beans and great northern beans now come in cans. Opt for that alternative. - Water is still the highest priority. Have ½ - 1 gallon per person per day for about a month. Beyond that, you will need a water-collection device/process and water filters to purify that water. - Rely on canned goods as much as possible, but remember they have lots of sodium and sugar, so are not as healthy as other options. - Freeze-dried fruits and veggies are a must. They don’t take up much space, and they are sources of essential nutrients and antioxidants. They are also important to keep your intestinal functions operating properly. You will get the right amounts of vitamins and minerals through these freeze-dried items. - Honey has no shelf-life. It can last forever. Have lots of it to use as a sweetener, and it does come in plastic containers. - Instant oatmeal packets. Place these in plastic bags to preen water damage. They are reconstituted with a small amount of water and heat. Use honey for sweeteners. While sugar lasts forever too, it does not have the health benefits of honey and is susceptible to humidity. - A variety of oils can add “spice” and flavor to foods. And most come in plastic containers now. If you can cook, use them liberally. They are caloric heavy and can provide energy as well as better taste. - Ramen: This is a common survival food for college students on tight budgets, but there are survival benefits too. They are good sources of carbs and take only a small amount of water to cook. - Freeze-dried and dried meats: these can last over a year. - Canned tuna in oil: perfect source of protein and Omega-3. - Granola and protein bars: Perfect for snacks and well-rounded nutrition. One Keynote here: make certain that all foods that are packaged in boxes or paper-type containers are stored in water-proof packaging, such as mylar bags that are vacuum-sealed. If You have to bug out When you have to evacuate, you face unique challenges. Of course, you cannot drag jugs of water and canned goods in backpacks. A wheeled cart is certainly a short-term solution, but it will not house everything you may need for a long-term bug-out situation. Your options are limited, so focus on these items: - A water collection device and filters - Survival Matches - Flashlights with new batteries or headlamps - Fully lightweight nutrition bars and other freeze-dried items You Can do This... Planning ahead is the best scenario for survival. Water and food are key factors in that planning. Make a list of items for both short and long-term survival, get to your grocery store and other retailers with the right supplies and equipment. You can be prepared for any disaster, and that brings a lot of peace of mind. Author’s bio. Jessica Fender is a professional writer and educational blogger. Jessica enjoys sharing her ideas to make writing and learning fun. You can check her last review here. Read the full article

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shiberpostshere · 5 years ago

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The Kiss Thief - Park Seonghwa Social Media AU

7. Chapter Three: Dark History Reunion✨ (Text below images)

Previous Part✨ Next Part✨

Masterlist of the AU✨

The Next Day (05.09.19)✨

The moment Jongho entered Cafe Utopia, he could feel the intimidating energy coming from the table where the much praised music technology senior, Kim Hongjoong and his friend are seated. The person who he texted yesterday, Seonghwa, is missing.

Thanks to San and Wooyoung, he now has an opportunity to befriend them.

He approaches them with heavy steps without realising how aggressive-nervous he's appearing on the outside, the expression that Yeri always mimics to mock him.

They greet him with inviting smiles. The other guy, in burgundy red sweater and black beanie, Yeosang, scriptwriter, offers him the script to read. However, the only thing he can focus on is Kim Hongjoong's mullet.

How can he even pull off a mullet like that? Is it real?

"Your voice sounds bold and clean." Hongjoong leans towards his clasped fingers, a gentle smile on his lips, "You seem a little nervous at the moment but we have enough time to practice."

Yeosang nods, "He has a great control over his voice. I feel like we've finally found someone who'll do my script justice."

Jongho's shoulders rise up with confidence.

"Wait, thank you but does it mean I get to be the announcer?" He looks expectantly at the duo.

Hongjoong settles back, adjusting his glasses. "Of course! I'm honestly surprised at how quickly I could decide."

Yeosang pushes the script further towards Jongho. "Take it with you and practice as much as you can, we'll have discussions and rehearsals before our first show."

"Thank you so much for this opportunity!" He bows gratefully, eyes glinting with happiness.

Hongjoong and Yeosang exchange glances and giggle making Jongho squeeze his brows in confusion.

"You look adorable for someone so well built but you're so tense, relax." Hongjoong winks.

"He IS cute." Yeosang adds.

Jongho is taken aback by their sudden compliments. "I just feel excited to work with you all, I've heard so many good things about you." He confesses.

Hongjoong waves his hand in the air. "The professor only tells you the good things, he doesn't reveal that I don't get enough sleep, it's a trap." He points at his now visible eyebags.

"Don't scare him away before Seonghwa comes." Yeosang says with a side eye directed at his mullet friend.

Jongho is reminded of the missing person, Seonghwa, who he messaged yesterday.

"You were going to bring along someone who's interested in audio engineering? Did they decide otherwise last minute?" Hongjoong asks with a subtly evident worry.

"Oh! Yes, (Y/N) had a class till 5 pm, she'll be here anytime now." As Jongho finishes, the cafe door opens, the bell chiming and indicating your arrival.

The class ended a little later than expected and like a mess, you had collected your things and rushed towards the cafe.

After hitting it off with San and Wooyoung so quickly you feel like you can seize anything at this point except the will to attend classes after only two weeks of college.

Dazzling Night appears like a safe getaway from the continuous routine of being stuck with studies.

"Jongho!" You call out rather loudly, grabbing everyone's attention including the two boys sitting with Jongho, wait does that guy have a mullet?

Your friend gestures you to come, you smile sheepishly. "I'm sorry, I had a class." A little panting can be heard as you speak.

"It's alright, Jongho informed us. I'm Kim Hongjoong, music technology, final year." He offers you his hand and you stare at it for a minute before realising what you're supposed to do.

"Oh right!" You shake his hand. "I am (Y/N), I'm studying law."

The other boy offers you a small smile. "I'm Yeosang, English major, second year."

You return him the same expression as his. "Nice to meet you."

Wow, this is awkward.

"You're interested in assisting our audio engineer, are you aware of any basics?" Hongjoong crosses his arms and you can detect the anime gleam on his glasses while he looks at you, awaiting an answer.

You glance at Jongho then at the two boys. Their gaze is fixated on you intently, emitting strong energy.

You gulp.

Okay, they're strangers anyway (Y/N), keep calm.

"No, I don't know much but I'm interested in learning." You answer honestly, fingers fideling on your lap.

"Can you manage your studies and radio commitments? We don't want anyone leaving halfway through." Yeosang continues his friend's query and suspicions.

Ha-ha, perhaps this was a bad decision.

Jongho squeezes your hand beneath the table.

"Yes, I think I can manage well once I begin, you don't need to worry about me dropping out halfway through." No matter how certain you wish to sound, the way they have their eyes fixed on you causes you to speak in an uncertain tone.

"Okay Hongjoong, we can tone it down now, she looks like she's gonna run away." Yeosang states before sipping his drink. "We just want fixed commitment, Hongjoong is critical when it comes to decisions regarding the show, so is Seonghwa."

Seonghwa? That's a name you know.

Hongjoong clears his throat. "Wait, I haven't used my intimidating voice for a while now, I am sorry if I sound like I'll kill you but I'm just sleep deprived." He vigorously rubs his eyes.

"They called me adorable after intimidating me." Jongho rolls his eyes.

"Now now, young man, watch your attitude." Yeosang comments playfully.

"Could've told me sooner!" You gently shove Jongho, "Also, yes, please tone it down, my left leg is ready to sprint out any moment now." You eye the door and then the mullet guy.

All the boys laugh at your remark.

"Don't worry, if something important comes up, you can leave, studies shouldn't be compromised with but otherwise we want your full attention when working with us." Yeosang smiles warmly at you.

You return to a comfortable state before studying their now relaxed postures. "So? Can I join?"

Hongjoong pushes back his hair. "Of course, if you're up for it but you need to meet the rest of the team. I'm the composer, Yeosang is the scriptwriter. Our team leader and audio engineer are still missing." He checks his ridiculously beautiful vintage watch.

"Okay" You breath out with a chuckle, eyes trailing back to his mullet. Unable to hold back your curiousity about the unusual hairstyle, you ask. "Are you wearing clip ons or is that really a naturally grown mullet?"

The owner of the mullet is taken aback by your question for a moment before breaking into laughter.

"God! I've been dying to ask that." Jongho mutters beside you, doubling Hongjoong's laughter.

You and Jongho blink expectantly.

Yeosang shakes his head, "These kids."

Hongjoong tugs his hair at the nape of his neck, huffing a sigh. "It's a real mullet. You two have been eyeing my hair since ever you came here, I was just waiting for you to ask."

Jongho scratches the back of his neck. "To be fair no one has a mullet these days but you pull it off well."

You nod at your friend's statement.

"What are we laughing about?" A heavy voice grabs the table's attention and you turn around along with Jongho.

An extremely familiar tall boy appears in your vision with another one following behind and your eyes go wide.

No way, no way, no way!

"Hey! You made it! Meet Jongho and (Y/N), our newest members that is, of course if Seonghwa approves." Hongjoong greets them both and the moment he says the name, it clicks in your head.

Park Seonghwa, Horizon High School.

"Hey, we were-" Seonghwa abruptly halts in his tracks.

(Your Full Name), Horizon High School.

You unknowingly shoot up from your seat.

"Um, (Y/N) is everything okay?" Jongho glaces from behind at the newest arrivals.

"Wait!" Mingi takes a good look at you and turns to Seonghwa before he starts giggling to himself, confusing the other three boys seated at the table.

Song Mingi, Horizon High School.

Warmth is taking over your face like a pressure cooker ready to burst merely at the sight of the boy standing in front of you, he too blinks at you as if confirming that you're actually standing in front of him.

"What's the matter? Why do you two look like you've seen ghosts." Yeosang asks whilst Mingi continues his snickering.

The giggling boy takes a seat between his friends, looking at your frozen figures amusingly.

"This is a dark history reunion." He nudges Hongjoong and Yeosang.

"Mingi!" Seonghwa glares and steals another glance at you before taking the remaining seat, the one beside you.

Jongho looks around, lost. "Dark history reunion?"

You turn around and almost slam yourself down on the seat.

Hongjoong and Yeosang are wearing mirrored puzzled expressions.

You clap your hands with over enthusiasm, "I just remembered that I have a meeting with a project partner at the library, I gotta go."

No, you don't.

"No wait, What's going on here?" Hongjoong's gaze continues shifting between you and Seonghwa while you two are busy avoiding eye contact with each other.

"Dark history reunion." The amusement still hasn't faded off Mingi's face and now he earns a death glare from you.

Seonghwa taps the table, grabbing attention. "It's nothing, she's free to leave if she's done."

You get up the moment he speaks.

Oh, this has just become way worse, way worse.

Mingi raises his brow, "What if she's here for the announcer's position?"

"No, Jongho's here for that, Hongjoong already talked with (Y/N), she's free to leave." Yeosang intervenes noticing your sudden urgent movements.

You internally thank him for that.

"I uh, well I think, I think I'll talk to you guys later." You grab your belongings in a big swoop.

"Aw no, you're leaving so soon? We just came here!" Mingi wears a wicked wide smile as he speaks.

"We can talk later, Mingi. It's not like I'm dropping out of college tomorrow! (I just might!)" You answer with a loud, fake laugh, trying hard not to grit your teeth.

Mingi hasn't changed at all. He is as you remember.

"Wait, you two know each other?" Jongho looks at you, his expression demanding an explanation.

"She knows Seonghwa too, very well!" The mischievous one strikes again.

"Oh, Seonghwa and (Y/N) are acquainted?" Hongjoong chimes in.

"Yes we are, we went to the same school." Seonghwa leaves his seat to give you way. "See you later (Y/N)."

You feel strangely assured looking at his stark red ears.

"Oh yes, yes, Seonghwa--" You take him in briefly before looking at the rest, "--and others I'll see you guys later, gotta run!"

Keeping your eyes straight ahead, you walk out of the cafe like you never even went there, half walking and half running towards your dorm room.

Song Mingi, I'm going to get you.

Pairing: College Student! Seonghwa x College Student! Female Reader

Genre: Fluff, A teeny tiny bit of smut with a pinch of angst

Synopsis: High school crushes are often silly and forgotten. However, you cannot forget the one senior, you "borrowed" once a kiss from. Years have passed and it's a memory you laugh at but what will happen if you're to encounter the same senior in a much different setting and situation? Especially during your first year of college.

A/N: THEY'VE FINALLY MET! What are your thoughts on this chapter? It's been a while since I've written so please excuse any mistakes, I will edit it for sure. Btw I am Mingi, Mingi is me.

Let me know if you want to be added to the taglist! 💫

🌸Tags:

@mingiibabieee @enigmaticsal @missiopk @stardusthyuck

🌸

Please do not repost, modify or claim these images.

#ateez #ateez sm au #ateezsmau #ateez social media au #ateez fake texts #ateez fanfic #ateez scenarios #ateez fluff #ateez imagines #ateez seonghwa #ateez hongjoong #ateez yeosang #ateez Yunho #ateez san #ateez wooyoung #ateez mingi #ateez jongho #thekissthief

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devourer--of--books · 4 years ago

Text

Some time ago (and by “some time” I mean a long ass time, oops) Kate (@pumpkinpaperweight) posted an analysis of gold rush by Taylor Swift tracing parallels to Agatha, which this post is clearly inspired by.

(Go check that one out after you finish reading this post, it’s really good.)

Ever since, I’ve had an entire tagatha x taylor playlist/unfinished post that I don’t think will ever see the light because I’m too lazy to actually finish it. But now I have some spare time and I noticed that,,,, invisible string wasn’t on it.

And that's cause, well, despite the obvious gold fingerglow motif which is very tagatha … you already read the title of the post. It’s more like my own version of of what I would have had happen post-otk (will my epilogue version ever see the light, I wonder) than anything else, but this is my account, in which I am correct all the time and accept no criticism so,,,,

Green was the color of the grass where I used to read at Centennial Park

I used to think I would meet somebody there

Basically, these first two lines are about how Sophie’s egocentrism isolated her and kept her from making genuine connections with people from very early on, until she becomes friends with Agatha and even after that.

Okay, so have you guys ever seen those tiktoks that are like ‘13-year-old me, in black jeans and sneakers, at the beach, reading a book mYstERioUsLy so that when Harry Styles showed up he’d know I’m dIfFeRenT'?

This is the energy I get here.

Like, Sophie in the start of book one doing all those ‘good deeds’ so set herself apart in the eyes of the school master hoping that he’d bring her to the school where she would meet *drumroll* The One.

Most of us have, at some point (I hope, otherwise it was just me and that would be so embarassing), tried and failed to channel that main-character-energy to manifest ourselves into a story much more interesting than whatever is going on in your life at the moment. I feel like at the very core, that’s sort of what Sophie was trying to do? It’s a very juvenile feeling and shows just how little Sophie knew about love overall. Love as it is in fairytale books, as opposed to as it actually is.

She thought herself as above everyone else and thought she was entitled to true, unconditional love, which ended up holding her back and isolating her from everyone in the town, save for Agatha, give or take.

This mindset is what really keeps her from seeing Tedros (and Agatha, and everyone else) as people, rather than characters in her story, and actually connecting with them on a non-superficial level.

Teal was the color of your shirt when you were 16 at the yogurt shop

You used to work at to make a little money

I don’t think this part needs much explaining?

On surface level, Nicola canonically started working at her father’s pub at a very young age to help with family expenses.

If you think about it a little more and contrast it with the previous line, though, it highlights the differences between Sophie and Nicola:

Nic works to help her family, learning responsibility and duty, while Sophie barely ever did anything for her father, both out of vanity (and a superiority complex) and out of spite (which is honestly undeserved all the way up to book 3, when Stefan let Callis die and fucking tried to blame Agatha for returning without Sophie and then guilt-tripped her into going to save her, after which he was dead to me lol). Sophie grew with a princess-like mindset, despite being just slightly better off than Nic, given all the villagers save from Callis and Agatha (due to them being outcasts) seem to have a similar income (with the exception of the beggar which I don’t understand and am probably overthinking about, but honestly, it’s a impossible to leave town and people die on the mill all the time, there's no college or whatever, did none of these assholes offer the beggar a job- I’m getting carried away), while Nicola has to shoulder most of the responsibilities due to her dad being sick.

Also, given the *misogyny* I’d be surprised if Nic didn’t have to do all the housework, as the only girl in her house.

I doubt that the uniform of the pub was teal and given the book timeline she wouldn’t have been 16 in any instances in which Sophie and her met in Gavaldon, but I digress.

Time

Curious time

Gave me no compasses

Gave me no signs

Were there clues I didn't see?

Also kinda self-explanatory in a way?

On one interpretation, it takes Sophie an awful long time to mature and grow into an okay person. She lashed out after Tedros’ rejection because her desire was, when you get down to it, to be loved, even though she didn't understand what love was or how to go about it. She was already loved both by Agatha and by her father but she couldn't see it because the idea of love (romantic, loud, grand-gesture) was so embedded into her, but the clues to it were there all along.

On another, you could argue that Nicola also did not see this coming at all, specially if you consider canon!Nicola rather than fanon!Nicola (why would you, but okay, ignore my Hunter post, go on, stomp on my feelings). Nicola, whose purpose in TCY was to be the new hort-love-interest no one asked for, ending up with her *gag* love-rival? Unexpected, iconic, never done before (never actually done in canon), amazing, mind-blowin-

Bad was the blood of the song in the cab on your first trip to LA

You ate at my favorite spot for dinner

Bad Blood was a smash hit on Taylor’s career, playing on the radio non-stop during the 1989 era, arguably her peak in terms of mainstream pop and radio plays.

The Tale of Sophie and Agatha was the equivalent in this context, as it was all the rage in Gavaldon after book 3; Sophie’s persona as the Dean Of Evil is solidified and everyone in The Woods knows who she is and read her tale, including Nicola (who already knew who she was, but now had a another version of her to compare to the version she already knew, which hm, did not favour Sophie either way).

I think it’s kind of fascinating how parasocial relationships work in the context of SGE because like, the storian is there as an omniscient narrator, but it doesn’t write everything. Like, does it just expose what the people in the tale feel and think only if it suits the plot or do the tales look just like the SGE books, in some sort of fourth wall break or is it like an actual children’s fairytale, where you just get told actions and have to sort of assume motivations? How does that affect public opinion? I don’t think most people would be too keen on stanning Sophie after reading The Tale Of Sophie and Agatha (cause damn, Sophie does a lot of questionable shit there) but canonically, they do, despite her being the villain, which is something I have opinions on (do I ever not have opinions on things?).

Like, sure there would be Nevers stanning her, but honestly, if they read the tale, wouldn't they be more likely to stan Hester or even Agatha? Cause Sophie almost got both Evers and Nevers killed, doomed everyone in The Woods for a guy, and was overall a horrible person with no regard for actual Good or Evil as balanced things? Isn’t this why The Coven sided with Agatha, like, I don’t get it- Is it stanning out of fear? Cause that’s the only sort of explanation I have, specially for people in Gavaldon, but that’s something I’ll go deeper into in another time.

Anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if Nic’s first class at SGE was about The Tale Of Sophie and Agatha, given she was originally placed in Evil, due to Dovey and Sophie’s bet, and Evil’s school curriculum was under Sophie’s control, so if you think those classes were anything other than the Sophie-Show, you are wrong.

Now, on to headcanon territory, wouldn’t it be poetic if during her first lunch Nic sat at that tree in the middle of the clearing where Agatha and Sophie used to sit? Not only for ship reasons, but the tree is right in the center, which could relate to how Nic was supposed to be half/half?

Bold was the waitress on our three-year trip getting lunch down by the Lakes

She said I looked like an American singer

It’s a real shame that I don’t remember most of TCY. (But is it really?)

This is kinda of my own personal interpretation of what the OTK epilogue should have been like (and so, it's kind of a spoiler for my ever unfinished rewrite sksnsksn).

Imagine if, instead of that horrid school wedding (kill me now, please), they actually held the respective funerals for all the people lost in the Camelot power-struggle (I’ll take a school funeral, but don’t come at me with school weddings or I’ll lose my shit).

Tedros and Agatha, poor traumatized children, are on their way back to Camelot to try and get stuff back under control and do royal things. Sophie is pretty much on her own, with the remaining faculty of the school, as well as the new kids (yeah, Hort’s staying dead, boo hoo, I’m not sorry sbfhbsdb). Nicola will be returning home to Gavaldon soon, since the school schedule is already messed up beyond repair and everyone is taking some time off anyway. She was only staying there until christmas originally, so might as well.

Public opinion on the main trio is kinda weird at the moment:

Tagatha suffered a coup, then a while laterTedros killed the brother of his usurper, whom had been more popular than him, and well, they do tell people that Japeth killed Rhian, but it’s not like they have receipts? Like, there’s no way to fact check that. They could very well have killed Rhian, we, as bystanders, wouldn’t know? You can bet rumors like these don’t just go away.

And Sophie?

Well, I think public opinion on Sophie was already fear-based rather than coming from a place of admiration for her acts. People aren’t sure of her alliances anymore, and don’t really know how to behave around her so they mainly avoid her. Now that Dovey and Hort are dead and everyone else is resuming their quests, she’ll be pretty much on her own to deal with the aftermatch, which is not only sad, but also probably not healthy. She considers staying with Agatha, but she doesn’t want to add more scandal to the Camelot situation.

So she decides to go back to Gavaldon. Not permanently tho. Just to visit her father and take some time off to decide who could balance her well enough to be appointed as Dean Of Good.

She'd choose Agatha, but you know, Agatha is kinda busy. Plus, it'd be good to see her father. Watching most of your parental figures drop like flies really puts things into perspective and maybe (just maybe) there's still something to salvage there.

Not many people know she's at Gavaldon, and that's on purpose. For once, Sophie just wants to be left the fuck alone, so she just tries to lay low and not bring unnecessary attention to heself. It's so unlike her to do so that when she walks in to have lunch at Nicola's pub, no one but Nicola even recognizes her.

And if Nicola keeps her company and accompany her on walks, well, it’s no one’s business. Bonding time? Bonding time.

Time

Mystical time

Cutting me open, then healing me fine

Were there clues I didn't see?

You know what these kids need after this Camelot shitstorm? Therapy, that’s what.

There’s no therapy in The Woods, so friendship will simply have to do. Please sir, let these kids heal.

Nicola was dragged to SGE while her father was sick and knew no one there personally, then got dragged again, now into a power struggle where she almost died multiple times, dated a guy, broke up with a guy and I can’t even remember what else but that sounds like a stressful time considering how close together the events from TCY are compared to TSY. What does she want to do now? Will she become a knight? Will she remain in Gavaldon? Does she have to finish school? How have Hunter and her dad been? Whatever went down with her brothers? Why was she important in the first place? Lots to reflect and self-search.

And Sophie. Oh Sophie.

Sophie fell once again for a ‘get-love-’quick’ scheme, not once, but twice! That is not something easy to look in the face and forgive yourself for.

With Rhian, it backfired by hurting everyone she loved, and after the shit Rafal pulled on her, she should have known better. But can you blame her? It’s not like the Rafal thing left her unscratched: you try being in an abusive relationship with a predator, see if you don’t get some trauma. And instead of doing the hard thing and keeping up the work she had been doing on herself she threw her progress out the window the moment Rhian said what she wanted to hear!

After that went belly-up, she at least managed to help her friends, but then later that backfired and she got brain-washed (are we gonna talk about this? disturbing much?). Then, she got fragile enough for her to attempt to find purpose in her life within Hort’s feelings for her, even if she didn’t actually reciprocate those feelings, simply because she was sure of them and they were familiar.

And later, even Hort was taken away from her.

(Probably for the best, given their attachment had been… precarious, to say the least.)

Therapy, I’m telling you.

A string that pulled me

Out of all the wrong arms right into that dive bar

Something wrapped all of my past mistakes in barbed wire

Chains around my demons

Wool to brave the seasons

One single thread of gold tied me to you

These two would be so good for one another.

I think that being alone when you’re going through something is literally the worst you can do, but when you have someone who just…. gets it, you know? They were there too. They understand. It forms a connection.

After OTK, both of them (Sophie mostly) have enough on their plates for them to go down a dark path to a horrible place. But they don’t. Cause they are here for each other and have their support system to help them.

Does that translate into late nights drinking together after the pub shuts down? Maybe. Keeping tabs on each other to make sure they’re sleeping and eating right? Yes. Keeping secrets and confessions? You got it.

And then my friends, begins the pining.

Cause, you know, they’re just gals being pals, gals being gay- wait what.

Nicola probably comes to terms with it first, but thinks Sophie is not interested in her like that (she also suspects that Sophie only sees her as Agatha’s stand-in and will drop her eventually once Agatha is no longer in such high demand.) Sophie is, in classic Sophie-fashion, neck-deep in denial, she’s not a lesbian right? she’s boy crazy, she’s not a lesbian-

Except she never felt like this with any of those boys. The only comparison she has is what she feels for Agatha, this feeling of being heard and seen and understood, but-

But Sophie doesn’t want to kiss Agatha.

And in retrospect, she never wanted to kiss anyone like this either. Tedros who, Rafal who, Rhian who, Hort who, these bitches could never.

Eventually they attend the official tagatha wedding, HELD AT THE CASTLE, as each other’s plus-ones, and well, maybe consider checking my eventual OTK-epilogue for more on this, once it eventually comes out.

Cold was the steel of my axe to grind for the boys who broke my heart

Now I send their babies presents

Very self-explanatory, Tedros may be Sophie’s favorite ex, but he’s still an ex and they will be killing each other if left unchecked for two long unsupervised.

Nicphie as the tagatha baby godparents. Please, YES.

I’m not gonna go into detail because children make me uncomfortable, I wish this was a joke, haha, but yes, Sophie and Nic pic the presents together and they attend the baby shower together. Are they dating, are they just married but don’t know it yet? I wonder. They're just together and no one really knows what's going on.

Gold was the color of the leaves when I showed you around Centennial Park

Hell was the journey but it brought me heaven

You know what’s funny? I didn’t tell you anything between the wedding and the baby shower. Remember how there was an opening for Dean of Good?

Yeah, too late to send in your resumes, position is already filled.

Sophie shows Nic the ropes of being Dean, or at least that’s how she’ll present it, but they’re still sort of figuring it out together. And that's okay.

They spend summers traveling around, christmas in Gavaldon, new years in Camelot and all is well. Their fingerglow colors now match. But it’s, unfortunately not gold.

Time

Wondrous time

Gave me the blues and then purple pink skies

And it's cool

Baby, with me

Yeah, it’s fucking purple.

I can’t remember if Nic has a canon fingerglow color, but I don’t really care much for canon, do I? I just really like the imagery of it, so it’s blue and pink mixed together. Because, you know I’m a symbolic bitch.

And isn't it just so pretty to think

All along there was some

Invisible string

Tying you to me?

Anyway, I am correct, this is the post.

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space-fey · 4 years ago

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I am so livid at my teacher right now

Lots and lots of complaining about a privacy-violating and inaccessible exam below the cut.

So, due to current events, some of my classes are online and some are hybrid (one is fully in-person). I’m in my last semester so almost all my classes are upper division and rather specific. Probably in consideration of current events, most teachers are being relatively lax right now: almost all my tests this term are take-home open-book essay exams. I have one lab class that will probably be an online multiple-choice test.

And then there’s the one stupid 100-level lab I never got to before and have to take now even though nearly all the material has been covered in several other classes I’ve had. There’s a lot of busy work, with multiple quizzes and discussions per week, but there’s also a lot of extra credit. And then I just got to the midterm, and it upset and frustrated me so much that after I had to take a moment to just cover my ears and rock. I’ve heard of these awful online proctoring things, but mostly my teachers are too cool (and lazy) to bother.

Instructions include:

not open book (really I think as a rule open book should be allowed, but fair enough)

no notes (see above)

no scratch paper (why? it’s not a math test but still might help some people think, especially with Punnet Squares and inheritance charts)

no restroom breaks (I might be sneaking away during my timed test to...goof off? look something up in the textbook?)

no calculators (again, not a math class but there is some minor math and it might help some people)

no headphones (why?? music might help some people concentrate, or silence. Am I...listening to the answers??)

no hats (.....?)

cannot be in a “public area” (which seems to include any room with another person in it. @great-lakes-selkie has their office set up in the same room where I study so I had to go use a lap desk in the non-air conditioned back room)

no background noise (what even counts for this? tv and radio? air conditioner? what if someone had kids at home they had to watch?)

no talking to another person (it’s clearly recording you--which is creepy by the way--so it would know if they were giving you answers or asking what you want for dinner. again, why?)

So you have to add the extension and then start the test, right? Except there are like five more steps.

You have to let it take a picture of you. I looked so angry and grumpy and felt so awkward.

Then you have to let it take a picture of your ID. I had to go get my driver’s license to take a stupid exam for anthropology 121. Because I guess, I might ask someone to take this basic test for me? For some reason?

Then you have to let it take a panorama of your work area (to check for people) and your desk (to check for scrap paper and notes). Featuring me looking very unimpressed. It was probably really jerky, I scowled and may have accidentally stuck my tongue out at the camera, and just turned it upside down to show my lap desk. Not only was it a bit embarrassing--that room has a lot of laundry in it--it feels like something they have no business knowing.

It insists on closing all your browsers, even though it won’t let you switch windows or tabs anyway. I have several open for a research paper and actually switched computers to avoid this.

And, finally, it records your screen. Again, you can’t change windows. You can’t open a calculator or new browser. But it has to watch in case you, a first year college student, have chosen to somehow hack it and cheat on this 100-level exam.

You’re supposed to keep your eyes on the screen and it probably likes you to sit still (because suspicious body language). I did not do these things. I was so uncomfortable at being watched that I kept losing focus and had to read questions again, I did some rocking and played with my necklace, and I kept shifting around.

To make matters WORSE. I’ve had this teacher before, for a higher-level class last spring. Other than insisting on reading her slides verbatim, I thought she was pretty cool. She’s also the teacher working with me to put together a presentation to improve accessibility in a building up for remodeling. Yet this test is not accessible, is a violation of privacy, is paranoid, and is unnecessary. Honestly, who cares if students need to look up a few details? A timed test alone ensures they can’t look up every question, and example problem questions ensure they have to know some concepts. I really don’t ever want to work with her again, but I think I’m going to anyway because this accessibility project is important and if I finish it, it will look good on my CV.

I really want to tell her how upsetting and wrong this is, and I’m not sure if I should wait until the class evaluations or not.

#my life #school #disability #accessibility #ableism #education #October 2 2020

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valkyriesryde · 5 years ago

Text

Two Nerds in a Blanket

Pairing: Bucky x Rogers!Reader, Sam x Steve

Summary: In desperate need for a date to your work’s Christmas party you, reluctantly, seek the help of one Bucket Brains.

Word Count: 6,400ish lol

A/N: IT’S HERE!!! Feels like most of my fics are dedicated to @flowerymoonlight but tbh this wouldn’t be here without her so thank her for it. Big thanks to anyone else I rambled to about this baby you da bomb diggity.

~~~

A slip of the tongue. A simple bit of miscommunication was all that had gotten you into this mess. You weren’t even the one to say it. You hadn’t even confirmed anything. Now? Now you were stuck in a predicament.

Cheryl had been talking about how she was so excited to meet everyone’s significant others and to introduce her wife to everyone. Then suddenly the four of you at your cubicle were talking about how awesome it was going to be with the eight of you.

Not once were you even given a chance to speak, not once were you able to tell them that in fact, no, you did not have a significant other that you could bring to the Christmas party. When you left work that day with only a week until the party a plan started brewing in your head, it was too late for you to correct them, you needed a date.

Tony said no. He was too much of a public figure and a happily married man.

Clint told you to ask Natasha. She said no.

Now you sat next to Sam, your last option.

“Please Sam, you are my only option now!”

“Yea I’m not your only option though, am I?” Sam smirked as he continued to avoid answering your pleas. You let out a sigh and threw your head back. “I’m pretty sure Steve wouldn’t be too happy with me doing that, why don’t you ask Bucky?”

“Ask Bucky what?” Bucky and Steve walked into the open lounge and kitchen area with the shopping as Bucky started unloading the food and Steve came to lean over the couch behind Sam.

“Y/N needs a date to her work’s Christmas party” Sam was nonchalant about the whole thing while Steve raised an eyebrow and looked at you with narrowed eyes.

“And you asked Sam?” you nod slightly, mumble ‘just for the night?’ but Steve’s mouth falls open and his grip on Sam’s shoulders tightened. “I’d rather not share my boyfriend with my sister.”

Sam’s face falls and then scrunches up, “yea I’d rather not date both the Rogers.”

In the kitchen, Bucky stifles a laugh as he continues putting away the frozen foods.

“You could take Bucky?” Steve suggests, leaving the two of you to help Bucky.

“I’d rather not.”

“Does Bucky get a say in this?” Bucky threw up his hands as you stood from your seat. You do this all the time with Sam, talk about him right in front of him like he isn’t even there, drives him crazy.

“It’s okay Bucket. I’d rather not go than go with you anyway,” you shrug it off but your shoulders sag, you were really looking forward to that party, maybe you can make some excuse as to why your partner couldn’t be there.

Bucky sighs as Steve nudges his arm and gives him a pleading look, mouthing ‘please’ Bucky rolls his eyes. “Fine, Y/N. I’ll be your stupid date but you owe me!”

“You don’t have to-“

“No, no I’ll do it. You just owe me a favour alright?” Your face lights up and you try to ignore the fact that you’ll be with Bucky, or the nagging voice in the back of your head that sounds a lot like Rebecca reminding you of that high school crush you used to have.

~~~

Steve sat on the window sill that looked out across the street of his apartment. He had a notebook in hand and was drawing the potted plant that sat on the balcony across the way. It was a peaceful and serene moment.

“Greetings brother!” Moment over. “Is Bucket Brains here?”

“He’s in his room,” Steve nodded towards Bucky’s room and he watched you walk straight in, scream, and walk straight out. “He just got out of the shower.” Steve bit back a laugh. You shot a glare at him and Bucky came out of his room pulling a shirt over his head.

“Do you know how to knock?!”

“I need to wash my fucking eyes out!”

“Who gave you a key?” Bucky pulled a box of cereal out of the cupboard with a huff and slammed a bowl on the bench. “You’re here so much we should start charging you rent.”

“Oh please,” you plopped into one of the stools, Steve closed his eyes and leaned his head back ready for another battle between you two, same thing different day. “I have every right to be here, I’m family. What’s your excuse?”

“I live here!”

“But at what cost?”

“Fucking hell you two bicker like an old married couple!” Sam walks over to Steve and pushes his notebook out of his lap, replacing it with himself.

“Us?” Bucky exclaims as Steve pushes Sam to the ground and sits at the bench next to you. “You two bicker like a freaking married couple.”

“That doesn’t count,” Steve says and Sam stands and tries to push himself back onto Steve’s lap, much to his annoyance. “We basically are an old married couple.”

“Pfft. Like I’d marry you.” Steve gasps and pulls Sam closer, Bucky just ignores them. It was a common occurrence to witness Steve and Sam being sickeningly sweet.

“You take that back!”

~~~

“Right, now that that’s out of the way I have to buy a dress.” You and Bucky, while Steve and Sam watched with amusement, had spent the past hour getting your story straight for the party that night. You had everything down to the last detail, where you met (through Steve), when you got together (two months ago), your first date (a simple dinner and a movie). In six hours, you and Bucky would be walking through the door to your to the Christmas party, for now, you needed an outfit.

“You don’t have a dress?”

“I don’t exactly go to many events Jameson.” Bucky bit back a growl. Those stupid fucking nicknames.

“I wonder why. It’s the day of the event, you couldn’t buy one earlier?”

“I’m not great at time management... and shop dressing sucks.”

“You need a babysitter.” You flipped Bucky off as you started to walk towards the door, you didn’t notice him pull his shoes on.

“Isn’t that your job now?” Bucky smacked Sam over the head as he jogged to catch up with you at the door.

“I have to go to the mall anyway,” he shrugged.

Bucky was different when he was by himself. You noticed that as soon as the two of you got into the car. He didn’t bite back as much, his fingers tapped on the steering wheel to the beat of the radio, he was carefree.

You dragged him into shop after shop trying to find the perfect dress for the night. Bucky didn’t seem too fazed. He followed suit, even picked out some things for you to try every now and then. There wasn’t much chat, you warned him about your coworkers.

“Stacy is a bit intense, she’ll probably question you but she means well.”

He nodded along outside the changing room not really paying attention to what you were saying but just to the sound of your voice, it was rare he got to hear it not making snide comments towards him, he enjoyed the peace.

“Okay this is it,” you stepped out of the changing room with dress in hand and smiled at him.

“Are you saying that because it’s good or because you’re sick of shopping?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know Bucket,” you winked.

“Please stop calling me that.”

“You called me Inferior Rogers for a year so uh no.”

Steve liked to describe you and Bucky’s relationship as love-hate, he wanted to tell people that you got along, that you were one big happy family but alas, that wasn’t the case. Bucky liked to say “she’s about one comment away from being as annoying as my sister”. Bucky meant by this of course, “she’s my best friend’s sister, as much as I want to kiss her stupid face I have to pretend I see her as a sister too”.

You liked to say “Bucky is the bane of my existence”. Rebecca would follow up with “she’s in denial they’re gonna get married and she’s gonna be my actual sister one day”. You, of course, meant, “Rebecca was my only friend in high school because people used to only be friends with us to get to Bucky even though he’s a giant nerd who stole my brother...and I’m angry that I want to kiss his stupid face”. Rebecca, well, she meant what she said.

The youngest of the Barnes clan had been rooting for the two of you since senior year when you went to a college party with the boys and got put into seven minutes in heaven with Bucky. Nothing happened, of course, at least that’s what you agreed and what you told a grinning Rebecca and tight-mouthed Steve when you walked out. The heated making out that was brought on by pent up feelings and snide comments was one of those ‘this never happened’ things. That was a long time ago.

“I’ll pick you up at 7 then?” You sat in your car now, dropping Bucky off back at his apartment. Your shopping was in the back, Bucky’s one bag, he bought socks, was in his hand as he sat with his leg out the door.

“It’s at a gallery, like ten minutes away from here so we could walk? I can meet you here?”

“It’s at Steve’s place?”

“Oh no, I tried but they went for the modern art one.” You shrug your shoulders, Steve was booked out for the holiday season so your work couldn’t get in to have theirs there, would have made things easier, you could have just hung out with him all night.

“Damn she’s a bitch.”

“Yea, ahh well. Don’t forget your notes! I’ll see you at 7?”

“See you at 7.”

~~~

“Fuck you!”

“I’m trying to help!”

You walked into the boy’s apartment and stood in the doorway watching Bucky and Sam yell at each other from across the room. Bucky yelled over the back of the couch, his hand in his hair and dressed ready for the night except for the tie left undone around his neck. Sam stood in the doorway of his bedroom, he turned to you as soon as he noticed your presence.

“Get your boyfriend the fuck out of my apartment!”

“Just before you were complaining that I was leaving!” Sam fumbled trying to come up with a comeback as Bucky slouched back into the couch and tried - and failed - to tie his tie.

“What the fuck guys?” you threw your hands up and slapped Bucky’s hands away, fixing the tie yourself. “One of these days someone is going to call the police claiming you guys are having a domestic dispute!” Bucky watched the concentration on your face, once again not paying attention to what you were saying, he had to sit on his hands and hold himself back from leaning in because all he wanted to do was kiss the crease on your forehead and suck your tongue as it sticks out the corner of your mouth slightly.

“It’s not my fault Bucky can’t tie a tie!”

“Neither can you!” he snaps out of your trance as you stand up straight and offer him your hand which he gladly takes.

~~~

“It’s going to be fine.” The party was in full swing when you and Bucky arrived, you weren’t sure if you were talking to yourself or Bucky at this point. His hand rested on your lower back as he guided you through the gallery.

“Take a deep breath Poppet.” You bit your lip at the use of the nickname. You and Bucky weren’t strangers to nicknames, Bucket...and all of the bucket related names like Bucket Brains, Bucky-Bucket and Bucket Barnes, Buckerooster and Buckaroo, Inferior Rogers, Roger Rabbit, Stupid head, Stink for brains, Jerky McJerkface was a fan favourite and there was that one time he yelled “Abomination!” at you before storming out because you ate the last of his Nutella sandwich...you claim you thought it was Becca’s but who’s to say.

Poppet was different. Poppet was a name of endearment. Poppet wasn’t something you’d ever heard Bucky call anyone before. Bucky had never called you anything endearing before. It’s just the deal, he’s just pretending, you told yourself cursing Becca for putting ideas in your head about the prospect of you and Bucky constantly.

There’s no time to even think about it as your friends are coming up to you and introductions are being given out, Bucky is shaking hands, everyone is smiling and laughing and a glass of champagne is being pushed into your hand.

It’s no time at all when Stacey is questioning Bucky about his work and his family and then the dreaded question comes up, “How did you two meet then?”

Bucky lets out a chuckle and before you can answer he’s going on about how when you were seven and him ten he came round to hang out with your brother, you wouldn’t leave them alone and Bucky ended up elbowing you “accidentally I swear” in the face. The group erupts in laughter as Bucky describes you crying and running to your mother with a chipped tooth, “wasn’t the best first impression, but her brother and I have been best friends ever since really.”

There’s a couple aww’s, you raise your eyebrows and give him a what the hell look because that wasn’t what we discussed. Bucky shrugs, it just came out.

“You two must be high school sweethearts then! That’s so sweet!”

“Oh no no not at all,” you try to stop her, try to tell Stacey that, no, you were not high school sweethearts at all but bucky beat you to it with a laugh.

"No, couldn't stand her in high school. But after college she seemed to be less of a brat,” he looks at you and digs his hand in his pocket with a wink, “anyway, I moved in with her brother and we started hanging out and I started seeing her in a different light I guess."

You stand there with your mouth slightly ajar, Bucky shifts slightly from side to side and takes a mouthful of his champagne.

"Well, how'd you get together then?"

He laughs nervously, not looking at you but you’re still looking at him, this wasn’t the plan! You don’t know what to say, your story doesn’t make sense now but Bucky speaks up, “actually have Steve to thank for that. He asked to go to the museum with the both of us, separately of course, then canceled after we were already there waiting for him.” He gives you a nervous glance, “she's a giant nerd but so am I so we decided to just go in and look around. Ended up there for what? Two hours? Something like that. I think that's when I fell for her as silly as that sounds. Something adorably intriguing about a girl you have to drag away from a sculpture because she's been admiring it for fifteen minutes. Yea, that was that." Bucky laughs again and the group aww’s and is gushing about how adorable that is and how sweet of a story it is.

You’re shocked to say the least. Shocked because that did happen, all of that. About five months ago when Steve invited you to a day out at the museum and you ran into Bucky outside. You were both shocked but thought, ya know what, fuck it. You didn’t HAVE to go around the new exhibits together but that’s what ended up happening. You moved at your own pace, sometimes reading through the information together. That was until you got to the marble statues and, well, you ended up looking at one for a good fifteen minutes before, like Bucky said, he dragged you away by the arm. Saying things like "what's so interesting about a sculpture anyway, it's the space exhibition you should really be paying attention to."

You laugh with your friends and the conversation quickly moves on to everyone else’s stories of how they met their partners. Bucky won’t look at you, he’s biting his lower lip and paying an awful lot of attention to his empty champagne glass until there’s a lull in the conversation and he pipes up and offers to get everyone another round.

By 1am you’re both drunk and stumbling down the street with a bottle of something something each and the air is filled with laughter. The moment earlier is forgotten about, the night filled with laughter, stories from work and dancing with friends instead of awkward glances and nervous small talk.

You almost fall into Bucky’s apartment but he’s clutching your waist and your arm is slung lazily around his shoulder as you keep each other up.

“We gotta - shh - baby we gotta be quiet” he nods towards the hallway where Sam and Steve are most likely sleeping as you sit on the couch and bring the bottle to your lips.

“You can stop calling me baby, no one’s around,” you look around and Bucky sits on the floor next to you, his bottle sitting on the table.

“Maybe I like it baby,” he emphasizes the word and there’s a smirk on his face as he looks at you. It’s just the alcohol you think when you see a twinkle in his eye.

“Fuck, marry, kill Bucket!” You say sliding off the sofa onto the floor next to him. Bucky groans and throws his head back.

“Alright, you first.”

“Okay. Wanda, Nat or me?”

“That’s just all the girls but Pepper?” He taps his chin and he’s thinking as if he hasn’t already made up his mind. But he can’t tell you that.

“Well she’s married so you can’t have her.”

“Kill-”

“You have to say why!”

Bucky laughs and takes the bottle from you, taking a drink before continuing. “Kill Nat, she can’t cook. Fuck you because it’ll shut you up for a second. Marry Wanda, then she can make me plum pies for the rest of her life.” He licks his lips, glazed over eyes looking towards the tv as he thinks about Wanda’s famous pies and the fact that it’s all a lie.

“Like you’d be good enough in bed to shut me up”

“I can show you if you want,” Bucky winks and you shove him with your elbow and snatch the bottle back, raising an eyebrow expectantly. “Alright, Sam, Clint or me?” He lists off the names on his fingers and you roll your eyes at him including himself, Pietro is an option too he didn’t HAVE to say himself.

“Oh, that’s easy. I’m killing Sam, I’d rather not have my brother’s dirty seconds.”

“He’s got some weird kinks as well.”

“How do you..never mind. Fuck Clint because Nat says he’s good in bed and marry you.” Bucky perks up at your answer, you’re picking at the label on the bottle hoping he doesn’t ask why.

“You have to say why.” Fuck.

“Having to deal with Clint’s unpredictability all day? No thanks, he and Nat have it down packed.”

“Oh, so I’m predictable?” Bucky feigns hurt and clutches his chest like you’ve shot him, you shove him again and he almost goes tumbling to the side with laughter.

“No stupid. I bet you’d treat your sig-nif-i-cant other like royalty.” You’re smiling at him and your worlds are spoken slowly to get them out right but you’re so sure of yourself. You’ve seen Bucky in a relationship, though they only happen rarely and he’s absolutely loyal and caring.

“Only if it was the right person.” You’re looking at each other and Bucky starts to lean in closer. You follow, your eyes darting to his lips as his tongue pokes out quickly and he licks his bottom lip.

“And what’s the right person,” you whisper and you think, in the corner of your eye, you see his hand starts to raise towards you. All of a sudden Bucky is on his feet and you hear the bathroom door shut and what sounds like Bucky vomiting.

“Neat.” You take another swig of the bottle and crawl back onto the couch, sleep sounds good, bad decisions are made with alcohol.

~~~

“Hey,” something or someONE is poking your foot and it’s awfully annoying but not as annoying as the sound of the beEPING MICROWAVE. “Hey wake up.”

“Go away,” you swat at the noise, Steve, but he just laughs and pushes your legs off the sofa, sitting in their place.

“Looks like you and Bucky got along.” You can hear his smirk, how is it possible to hear someone’s smirk. God your head hurts, your stomach hurts too much champagne. You groan and he laughs again.

Without warning the sound of two pans smacking together rings out through the place followed by Sam’s laughter in the hallway and Bucky’s yelling.

“I’m gonna go throw up.”

Steve sits on the side of the tub with a bottle of water while you empty the little contents that remain in your stomach. As annoying as brothers can be at least you know he’s always here for you, even when you’ve just vomited in his toilet.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Advil is in the left cupboard.”

“No, but thanks. Do you remember when you canceled on going to the museum with Bucky and me?” You’re searching through his cabinet and he chucks you the water bottle when you find the Advil.

“Yea why?” Steve shrugs and nods his head.

“Why’d you do that?” As soon as you ask he’s got that guilty look on his face. The same one he gave you when he fed your stuffed teddy to the dog next door when you were seven and the same one he gave you when he and Sam and moved in together three months after the fact (that one still stings).

“I just want you two to get along! You both love the museum so I thought if you had a common interest…” Steve shrugs again and you have to applaud his dedication to getting you and Bucky to get along, if only.

“Our common interest is you, you idiot.” You think about all the times you and Bucky have fought, all the times you felt annoyed by him “you’re why we don’t get along.”

“I think if anything, that should be a reason to get along.” You’re too hungover to explain this shit to Steve and his thick, loving brain now.

“We’re at each other’s throats for your attention Stevie, now leave me to be hungover on your bathroom floor.” The cold tile is refreshing against your cheek, Steve stands up and kicks your leg, offering you a ride home and a promise to drop the subject but not without a “I love you both.”

Bucky regrets getting out of bed. Not even the pile of apology bacon from Sam for waking him up with PANS could fix his comment.

“The most important thing I want to know about your night is did y’all FUCK?!”

“Dude, that’s my sister?” Steve walks into the kitchen and Bucky sighs in relief that you’re not with him, he doesn’t think he can face you after last night.

“Don’t call me dude, my name is baby to you.” Sam points his tongs at Steve who just bats them away with a finger and wraps him in a hug.

Bucky hates feelings, romance sucks. His head is in his hands and he is still very much hungover “no we didn’t fuck, it was fine. Went smoothly, nothing scandalous.”

Sam pulls back from Steve and gives Bucky a pointed look, he’s gearing for an earful. “Is it a genetics thing?” Sam turns to Steve and smacks his chest, “Are all Rogers just really fucking dense?”

“What did I do?”

“It took four months for you to realize I was asking you out and taking you on dates you buffoon!” Bucky swears this conversation was about him and you for a second but fuck apparently not. Maybe he could slip out? Go back to sleep? Avoid you for a few weeks and not think about the fact he almost kissed you or let spill about the museum…

“And I apologized but what does that have to do with anything?” Bucky catches Sam’s eye and his heart drops, his eyes are begging him not to say anything.

“Sam -”

“Nah you had your shot and you missed. In fact the net was here,” he points in front of him, “and you threw the ball allllllll the way over there,” and his hand is stretched out towards the window. Steve sits down on the seat next to Bucky, his attention caught in the conversation he doesn’t quite understand. “Steve, baby, love of my life, please don’t kill the messenger here.”

“Sam.” Bucky is about to leap over the counter and throttle Sam...if only his head didn’t hurt so much.

“Bucky wants to bone your sister and I honestly CANNOT believe she hasn’t realized that. Why else would he have said yes to last night?!”

Steve lets out a nervous laugh, he shakes his head and looks between Bucky and Sam, “what? Noo.” But when he looks at Bucky and sees his face dropped and the defeated look in his eyes Steve knows the truth and his mouth hangs open.

“It’s not like that Steve-”

“Oh no sorry, Bucky has a giant nerd crush on your sister.” Right, that’s it. Bucky leaps out of his chair and tackles Sam, his headache long forgotten about.

“I TOLD YOU IN CONFIDENCE!” They’re scuffling on the ground muttering things like “you had your chance!” and “you fucker!” before Steve is pulling them apart and onto separate couches.

“I was really rooting for you man.” Bucky narrows his eyes at Sam and rubs his hands down his face. This could not be a worse day.

“Is this true?” Oh okay no Steve wants to talk about it this it could be a worse day.

“It’s not like anything is or ever was going to happen. She’s your sister, I wouldn’t do that to you.”

“And she hates him.”

“And she hates me yes thank you Sam.”

“She doesn’t hate you.” Steve stands up and walks into the hallway. That’s when it dawned on him. You were right. It’s him.

Steve thinks back to all the times you and Bucky fought as kids and realizes that he was the common factor. You were fighting over him. Then as the years went by and you grew you just began fighting about everything, but it all started with having to share Steve. When you made Bucky eat sand at the playground when you were eight Steve thought it was because Bucky had stolen your toy but it was because Steve had chosen to play with Bucky. When you were twelve and you yelled at Bucky for being an asshat it was because Steve chose to ride bikes with him instead of you. Steve wondered how long Bucky had felt this way about you and how he’d missed it. His gut fell at the idea that he was the reason Bucky hadn’t done anything about his feelings.

He turned and walked back into the lounge, determined to set right what he had caused to sit adrift for however long. “Right okay this is the weirdest fucking to happen to me and I’m friends with Clint and Tony. Is it just a crush or is it proper feelings?”

After getting over the initial shock of Steve seeming okay with Bucky’s feelings he has to take a second to register what he’s being asked before he can answer with confidence. “Feelings?” ...or little confidence.

“You need to be sure because if you hurt her I will not hesitate to kill you.” Sam is taken aback by Steve’s outburst almost as much as Bucky but he’s also a little turned on right now…

“Okay, yea I’m sure. I want to date her I’m sorry okay. It won’t happen.”

“That’s a lie.” Steve knows Bucky would never do anything to jeopardize their friendship, and he knows that if his feelings for you are real that he wouldn’t do anything that would risk hurting you. “Knowing Sam, he’ll make something happen.” But he also knows Sam’s meddling ass...who happened to suggest you ask Bucky in the first place… “Anyway, if you get married you’d be my actual brother and that’s pretty cool.”

Bucky’s face lights up at the idea of marrying you. He only really thought it was a crush, maybe mixed in with some sexual tension, until last night. Having you on his arm, pretending you were his. The comments people made about you looking so good together. Bucky wanted that for the rest of his life. He didn’t love you, or at least he wasn’t sure of that yet, but fuck he could see it happening, he wanted it to happen. And you almost kissed him last night, you said you’d marry him so maybe, just maybe, there was something there.

After he’s showered, shaved and dressed Bucky is out the door and to your apartment as Sam slings his arm over Steve’s shoulder.

“I’m really proud of you, didn’t think you had that in you. Didn’t even punch him.”

“I think I’m already too emotionally invested in their relationship.” Steve sighs and leans back into Sam.

“Shit man me too she better say yes.”

~~~

Bucky’s palms are clammy and his heart is racing when he reaches the door to your apartment. He has to count to three and take a deep breath before he knocks on the door but he’s thoroughly disappointed, and also a little relieved when Wanda opens it.

“You look almost as bad as her.” She looks Bucky up and down and gestures for him to come in, Bucky looks around the open lounge and kitchen area but there’s no sign of you.

“I feel like death is she here?” He’s frantic, he must sound like an idiot.

“She’s in her room.”

There’s a soft knock on your door but no answer. Bucky looks over his shoulder but there’s no sight of Wanda anymore either as he slips into your room and sees you curled up and fast asleep on one side of your bed with still slightly wet hair and pajamas.

He can’t leave, he considers it but he’s come so far. He could wake you up. But he doesn’t want you to be mad at him if you aren’t already. So Bucky sits on the side of the bed. Then after a few minutes of twiddling his thumbs, he’s scooting up to the top of your bed and laying his head on the pillow, careful not to make any sudden movements. The next thing he knows he’s fast asleep next to you.

You wake up and there’s a heavy warmth over your waist and your phone is flashing with missed messages. You peer over your shoulder and see Bucky sound asleep, turning onto your back you continue looking at him confused and pick up your phone...that has nine missed messages...one from Wanda and EIGHT from Rebecca, they state:

Wanda aka MOM: You guys are the cutest fake couple ever lmao

Betta Barnes: EXCUSE ME MA’AM!

FUCKING ANSWER YOUR PHONE!

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS!

CHECK FB!!!!

I’M LOSING MY SHIT!

ARE YOU AND MY DEAR BROTHER DATING!

HE WON’T PICK UP!!!

YOU PROMISED YOU WOULD TELL ME IF YOU AND BUCKY STARTED DATING I FEEL VERY BETRAYED BUT ALSO VERY HAPPY! I’M HAVING A LOT OF CONFLICTED FEELINGS RN

Attached to Wanda’s message is a picture from the party of you and Bucky. His arm around your neck and yours around his torso, his lips pressed to your temple and you’re both laughing. You have a vague memory of the cameraman telling Bucky to show you some love and his striking the pose and then licking your cheek. That was five flutes in…oh no. Oh no Becca has seen these, this isn’t good.

Bucky groans and grips your hip, pulling you closer until he opens his eyes and remembers where he is. His hand leaves your hip and curls under his cheek as he gives you a sheepish smile and mumbles hello.

“What are you doing here?” Your phone and the problem of Rebecca thinking you and Bucky are actually dating is put to the side the moment he smiles at you. Has it always been that nice to see him smile?

“Wanted to talk but you were asleep...guess I fell asleep too.” Bucky rubs his eyes but he doesn’t move from his spot on his side next to you as you match his position.

“Talk about what?”

"I went off script last night." You suck in a breath as you remember what Bucky had said, the museum, the idea of him falling for you that day.

"You did. Why?"

"Thought it was more believable," he’s playing with a loose string in the pillow, too scared to look at your reaction as he thinks maybe this was a mistake.

"Because you meant what you said?" You’re biting your lip hoping to god he says yes but why would he?.

"Every word." Bucky reaches out and pushes a loose strand of hair back from your face, his fingers trail down your cheek slowly.

"But you hate me? I'm Steve's annoying little sister," the whole reason you fought was because you were Steve’s sister?! Bucky hates you, Bucky thinks you’re annoying. Bucky meant every word.

"I'm not going to disagree with that second part. But I don't hate you. Disliked you a lot when were younger but never hate.” He chuckles as his fingers retreat from your cheek back under his pillow, they leave goosebumps on your skin. “Kinda like ya actually." He’s not looking you in the eye again and you’ve never seen Bucky so shy in all the years you’ve known him.

"Does Steve know?”

"Wouldn’t be here if he didn't. I know you don't like me much but I had to tell you. I thought it was just a stupid crush but after last night, I had so much fun and you were just you and I loved seeing you like that. You're not like that around me normally." It’s your turn to brush the hair back from his face as he tries to hide behind it and your fingers scratch through his beard until they settle on his jaw. Bucky closes his eyes momentarily feeling you against him in a way he never thought he would.

"That's because we don't get along," you have to be sure. You need to be sure this isn’t all just a game to him. You know better, you know Bucky would never do anything to intentionally hurt you but you need to be sure for your own heart’s sake.

"Oh come on that's just banter neither of us means anything by it." He’s smiling at you and his eyes bounce between your eyes and your lips, god just kiss her he thinks, just fucking do it.

"Maybe not. Want to know something I do mean though?" He’s nodding his head quickly and you’re leaning in and pressing your lips to his. Your hand grips his jaw and pulls him closer as his travel up your side and push you onto your back, his body shortly following as he settles with one leg between yours and his hips pressed to your side.

Bucky is in bliss. He’s pretty sure he’s had dreams where he got to kiss you before but nothing could ever live up to the real thing. The feeling of your hands under his shirt on his shoulders, your fingers moving through his hair, your tongue. God your tongue welcoming him and drawing him in like he’s a sailor and you’re a siren in the middle of the ocean. He’d gladly follow you to the deepest depths.

You pull away but Bucky doesn’t stray far and he’s got a giant shit-eating grin on his face which you’re sure you mirror as you lie there out of breath with him.

“Can I take you on a real date?” You nod and pull him down for another peck. Bucky rolls off of you settles down next to you with a kiss pressed to your shoulder.

“But tomorrow.” “Hmm?”

“Today I want to order McDonald’s and continue sleeping off this hangover.” You reach up and tangle your fingers back into his hair, soft and falling around your hand as Bucky laughs against your shoulder. “Are you going to join me?”

“Of course,” he sits up and kisses you again but only quickly before he pulls out his phone. “You order I need to do something.

From Bucky to Sam:

~~~

There is an empty McDonalds bag on the floor, half empty cups on the nightstands and you’re lying in bed with your head on Bucky’s shoulder watching the IT Crowd when Bucky breaks the silence.

"Why is Rebecca sending me angry yet very supportive messages about us? These are from this morning before I came round...wait no this one was from an hour ago." He was finally looking through the dozen missed messages from his sister, having forgotten about them after texting Sam earlier when he noticed the pattern, some favorites included

I’LL FUCKING KILL YOU IF YOU HURT HER

I’M SO HAPPY LET ME TELL MUM

BUCKY YOU LUCKY SON OF A BITCH

MY OTP I’M CRYING

And those were just the most recent ones...

"When I was 15 and drunk off cruisers I told her I was going to marry you and she has never let me forget it," better to pull off the bandaid on that little tidbit you think. You should have known she would spam him as well, you just hoped she didn’t say anything embarrassing.

"I knew you had a crush on me.” Bucky squeezes your thigh that his hand rests on teasingly and you nudge him back telling him no you did not. “How does she already know?"

"She made me triple pinky swear to tell her if anything even remotely romantic were to happen between..."

"So you told her I was your fake boyfriend for a night and then that I asked you on a real date?"

"....no. but she saw the pictures from last night," you look up with a sly smile to see Bucky’s eyes go wide and his mouth drop open.

"There’s pictures?!?!"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed!

Permanent Taglist (open): @witch-of-letters @harryngtonewithyourshit @morsmordrethings @buckysdumbmetalarm @marvelsangels @momobaby227 @weirdlyokaywithit @disgustangg @bucky-blogs

Bucky Taglist (open): @bxrnsfeyson @brilliantbellesoares @supraveng @chubby-dumplin @stuckonjbbarnes @meganlikesfandoms @mood-pancakes

#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes x rogers!reader #bucky barnes au #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes imagine

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mychemicalxmen · 4 years ago

Text

The Umbrella Academy College Theatre Kid AU Plot

Alright bitches, ask and ye shall receive.

Here’s the 6k summary of this ten-chapter monstrosity I almost wrote a year ago and just now attempted to flesh out.

Canon divergence from the point of their birth onward. The Commission doesn’t exist here, it would just make everything a little too complicated. No Luther/Allison either, personal preference. If anyone would want to try writing or drawing a scene from this universe, I would be over the heckin moon, please feel free to do w/e if any part of this inspires anyone. And if anyone just wants to shoot hc, pop off!

But yeah. This is a crack concept treated dead seriously. Buckle up.

Chapter One - “Overture”

-I wrote this chapter, but it’s Really Not Good. I had just watched the show and hadn’t written fic in a Hot Minute.

-Welcome to Umbrella University, a top-tier school with a sacrilegiously large budget for the fine arts!

-They’re all freshman atm.

-Basically, all of our kiddos (except Five, we’ll get there) are cleaning the theater between shows in the fall season. Allison is acting House Crew Chief and is overseeing the whole thing. The others are on House Crew for various reasons - tech class credit, volunteer hours, etc. No one is actually studying theatre for their major except Allison, who’s double-majoring in acting and something else

-They’re essentially strangers (except Ben and Klaus, who are assigned roommates). They’re all aware of their own powers, but not any of the others’.

-As they clean, the host on the radio is going on about the one-year anniversary of his favorite “Hargreeves Five” (the current Academy, made up of different kids from the 43, and definitely not based on the ASBO Five) battle, apprehending a robber named Erick Webber in New York City. He was a starving actor who stole from large donation funds that were supposed to be distributed to other starving artists. The battle got violent, and fire got involved. What a spectacle!

-Vanya, who has accidentally skipped her meds that day, sees a rat and screams, prompting Luther to drop the lighting equipment he’s working on. Loud sound. Telekinetic energy starts going.

-There is a comically convenient chain reaction in which all of the siblings’ powers are triggered at once - Diego throws something, Klaus levitates, the Horror has to hold up the light rig, Allison has to rumor to memory-wipe the witnesses, etc.

-Once they have the situation under control, they realize it’s… weird. The odds are absolutely astronomical. How the hell did they all end up in the same place??

-There’s no reason to believe anyone brought them together on purpose, except maybe fate, or whatever Mysterious Space Magic caused their birth in the first place. They have a private House Crew meeting with a lot of freaking out and questions and bonding.

Chapter Two - “God I Hope I Get It”

-Fast forward to junior year. Since that fateful day, the theater has become the siblings’ home base. Luther is the shop foreman this year, Allison is seated at the right hand of the theatre department director (a sharp middle-aged woman who directs half of the shows), Diego knows his way around lights, and Klaus frequently builds and paints in the scene shop. Allison’s the only one of them who actually performs.

-The fall season includes Hair and Othello, and the joint audition for both is quickly approaching.

-Vanya, however, has been drifting away from it all for some reason. Allison finds her in the quad one day and encourages her to audition for Othello. Apparently, the theatre director has observed Vanya’s love of reading plays from afar and asked for her specifically. Vanya doesn’t want to go anywhere near the theater, but she’s touched by Allison’s belief in her and reluctantly says she’ll think about it.

-Diego is going through his classes and can’t help but feel like there’s this one freshman that’s just… following him. Looking at him funny. Keeps showing up in all his usual spots. Must be one of those obnoxious wiz kids - there’s no way in hell that he’s eighteen years old.

-Vanya has a monologue in her back pocket, her favorite from Winter’s Tale, ready to go. But when the day of the audition comes, she walks into the theater for the first time in months, and she breaks down and runs to the bathroom. Allison is too busy helping the director to console her, so she sends Klaus to check on her.

-Klaus talks to her through the door and tries to hype her up for the audition. Ghost!Ben tells him to reel it in.

-Vanya eventually admits that she drifted away from the theater because it was always a special place for the six of them, but after Ben died in a car crash in sophomore year, thinking about it just broke her heart all over again.

-Klaus doesn’t quite have the tact of language to bring her comfort, but Ben does. Without revealing he can see Ben, Klaus just echoes his words. Saying that Ben would still want her to be happy here. Saying that it’s okay to take time to work through all those feelings. He stays there until Vanya’s calm enough to come out of the bathroom, hug him for a really long time, and then go into her audition.

-The cast lists go out, and all the siblings run to see the one for Othello. Allison is the stage manager, to the surprise of no one, and has already seen that she’ll be playing Dionne in Hair. The headmaster’s kid (who I never gave a name, so let’s just call him Ollie) is playing Othello, some guy named Leonard is playing Roderigo, and Vanya is playing Desdemona. While they’re leaving to celebrate, Diego sees The Weird Freshman sign his initial on the cast list, confirming his role. He takes a peek at it later and wonders how this five-foot-six gremlin was cast as Iago, and what kind of a name is Five, anyway?

Chapter Three - “Good Morning Starshine”

-Production on Hair has begun.

-Diego is still a vigilante, but like, specifically for the college’s organization for fighting sexual harassment. Make no mistake, he is not endorsed by the club in any way, shape, or form. But when fellow criminal justice major Eudora Patch gets catcalled on a late night walk home from the library, a fraternity douchebag gets his hoodie pinned to the wall with a knife and receives an extremely harsh talking-to.

-Eudora just sighs into the darkness like “Diego was that really necessary” and keeps walking and Diego runs up to meet her like “yes??”

-Insert exposition here about how they’re exes but there’s still that Tension and fond bickering from the show. Eudora thinks he should get involved in other things on campus, but he immediately rejects it. No. Nope. Nothing else going on. Just lights. And Batman.

-Luther and Allison often hang out in one of the hallways of the theater for lunch. Allison complains that she’s in charge of a lot of little projects in the program, and it’s hard to get people to listen to her. Luther complains that Diego hasn’t been showing up to help in the shop lately. Even though Diego’s not officially on set crew, it’s a little suspicious that he hasn’t been around.

-The mainstage theater has been going through a very fancy refurbishment, and a new chandelier just came in. How the department has the money for a chandelier, no one has any idea. There’s an inside joke that the theatre director must be having a scandalous lesbian affair with the headmaster.

-After a while, Luther enlists Klaus to help him to figure out what Diego’s hiding. With their single shared braincell, it takes them a little too long to realize that Diego’s name is on the Hair cast list. But that can’t possibly be right.

-Luther and Klaus sneak into the blackbox (a smaller, more intimate theater) in the middle of a Hair rehearsal and, sure enough, holy shit, Diego is actually onstage as one of the tribe people, lowkey having the time of his life.

-Enter UT Dallas transfer David Katz in the role of Claude. And it’s just. On sight. Klaus is down for the goddamn count.

-“Who is that??” “I know, right? Like, that’s our brother.” “No, no, not him. The really pretty one.”

-At the end of whatever song they’re doing, Diego locks eyes with Luther and almost dies of embarrassment right then and there.

-Cue big long childish argument of “why didn’t you tell us you had any interest in being in the musical?” and “I didn’t know I had any interest either oKAY you weren’t supposed to find out” “how wouldn’t we have found out you IDIOT we LIVE HERE.”

-At the end of rehearsal, Diego is feeling entirely beaten down. As is Allison, up to her eyeballs in responsibility. They sit on the loading dock and Diego admits he didn't want to make a big deal out of the fact that he was in Hair. But he’s actually really digging the songs and the messages and the comradery. Even though musical theatre is dumb. Allison assures him it’s nothing to be embarrassed about.

Chapter Four - “What’s the Buzz?”

-Production on Othello has begun.

-Fluffy opening that’s just a montage of Disaster Klaus repeatedly trying to justify sitting in on Hair rehearsal. “Sure, Allison, let me cut out those gels.” “Sure, Dance Captain, I can record the choreography.” “Shut up, Ben, I’m just really into American military history.”

-Meanwhile he’s just…… watching the show, listening to Dave sing, waiting for the right moment to strike up a Totally Casual Conversation with him.

-And it happens! Eventually.

-Diego meets Eudora on the loading dock and comes clean to her about the fact that he’s in the musical. Eudora is shocked and amused and teases him a little for it, but she’s ultimately supportive. And endeared. Cute bickering.

-When she leaves for her next class, Five is six feet away sipping coffee like “Oh, you’re both the same major? Aww that’s adorable.”

-Diego finally confronts him and asks him what his deal is and Five says something cryptic about “Reggie’s bastards”. Diego grabs him by the arm and drags him to the empty dressing room and interrogates him on everything he knows.

-Five is somewhere in his thirties, he can teleport, his body’s been screwed up by time travel complications, he knows about all the others, and he’s “played a game of hopscotch with an unsympathetic god”. When asked why he came back to this time in particular, he dodges the question with some snarky reply of how he’s not sure he made the right call.

-They decide not to tell everyone else all at once, until they hear faint movement. They find Klaus buried under a throw blanket on The Couch that every theater has, a little stoned, stirring from a midday dressing room nap.

-”I’m a BOY in LOVE, leave me aLONE.”

Chapter Five - “No One is Alone”

-Once again, Allison is overwhelmed. She had rumored her way into the double major when she didn’t actually have the high school credits necessary to graduate on time, but since meeting the other siblings, she’d sworn off using her power. If she was caught, it could start a breadcrumb trail to the others and expose all of them. And like, they just want to get out of here with their degrees, man.

-The theatre department director has had to assign her the most incompetent freshmen in the world to manage with assorted housekeeping tasks. They have an attitude, they don’t know how anything works, and Allison simply doesn’t have the time to lead them. She comes to the theatre director to explain this.

-And for the first time in a long while, the director expresses sternness to her. And it hurts.

-”Come on, Allison, we both know you’re good with people. You can be very persuasive when you want to be. You will work this out.”

-It’s very pointed. She will work this out. There is no other option.

-And. Not to be self-centered, but the spring musical is going to be Cabaret, and Allison has been convinced she had Sally Bowles in the bag. But if she gets on the director’s bad side halfway through junior year…

-It’s a particularly tense day, ten minutes before she has to sign in for Hair rehearsal. Some poor freshman is organizing the costume closet and just doesn’t get it and doesn’t want to be here and the director demands that this is done by the end of the day.

-So. It’s just one. It’s no big deal. She just heard the oddest little rumor that the student could make the closet perfectly tidy within the hour.

-Five and Vanya are at rehearsal for Othello. Now that he’s actually talked to Diego and Klaus, he feels a little more at ease being in this place and time. The two have plenty of time to chat while on breaks. And because Vanya is such a chill, calming force compared to the stubborn and impulsive Diego, it goes a lot smoother.

-Neither of them can stand Ollie, the headmasters’ pretentious son who’s playing Othello, going on and on about his actor step-brother in New York. Whatever. He likes to creep around the scene shop, too. Like he’s judging the tech. I’d like to see YOU pick up a drill, sir.

-He’s also really close to the theatre director. No one’s ever heard them interact, but they’ve sure seen them together. And he’s not even putting in all the hours for her that Allison is.

-Vanya and Five probably get coffee before rehearsal. Run lines. Five rambles about the flaws in Shakespeare’s philosophies over an americano. And they eventually tell each other their stories.

-Pogo had gone with Sir Reginald to examine the children and their potential prior to adoption. Reginald’s technology sensed great power in Vanya, even as an infant. After Vanya’s mother refused to sell, Pogo went behind Reginald’s back and made contact with the mother, advising her on how to suppress Vanya’s powers (but not emotions) with medication whenever they couldn’t be internally controlled. Vanya was good at self-control for much of her childhood, but the adjustment to college and grief of losing Ben put her back in a risky zone, so she’s been leaning a little more heavily on her medicine these days. She knows the adrenaline she gets onstage is good and natural, but it makes her nervous about forgetting a dose again.

-Five’s mother was quite a character. The name came from the fact that, during birth, Five first hit the air at exactly 12:00:05.

-Five had practiced his time jumps all through his childhood. (With none of the spite and rush he had in canon, he had no need to leap years right away, so he took it slow.) Sometimes he would get stuck in a place for a while, but his mom was cool and understood this. He would adapt to the new environment, anywhere between hours and weeks, and jump right back when he got enough rest to use his power again. There were some bugs, some problems with exact accuracy of destination, but he was always working on it. He was very lonely, though, never getting to meet with any of the other 43 and being discouraged from doing so by his mother.

-There was a portion of the future he got stuck in as a teenager in which the nation was governed by a tyrannical organization called “The Macbeth Enterprise”.

-Vanya immediately tries to shush him at this point in the story because he said the Bad Theatre Word. The director is very superstitious. She takes it deadly seriously and has threatened to actually penalty anyone who says it in the theater. Five just chuckles.

-And luckily, they’re rehearsing in the blackbox today, so even if the director could hear, it’s not “in the theater”.

-The future he saw was a century ahead of them, far beyond their lifetime. He was able to glean a little information about the origins of the Enterprise, but he shares none of this with Vanya. Firstly, those in power had high-tech augmentation that gave them a perfect replica of the kind of superpowers the 43 had - mind manipulation, immortality, etc. And secondly, they were credited with destroying the Hargreeves Five. As if the Hargreeves Five were a danger to society.

-What he does tell Vanya is that he’d never made any attempt to change the timeline before, but that’s just what he decided to do. With what little information he had, the only thing he could think of was to ruin the Enterprise’s namesake.

-Five spent literal years of his life, traveling from city to city across centuries, dooming various productions of Macbeth with Commission-level pragmatism until the name of the play itself became the taboo we know irl today.

-Vanya’s laughing. Five is too, honestly. It’s crazy.

-But he didn’t do what he did out of a ridiculous dare to himself. He did it out of desperation to not only to save the country, but to save his family as well. The family he’d never known. The kids all across the globe who went through the same strange hell of differentness that he had since birth. The Hargreeves Five, of course, needed to survive, as they’re responsible for maintaining peace on earth anyway. But if the Hargreeves Five were hunted down, why would the Enterprise stop there? Wouldn’t all 43 of them be in danger? Would all their gifts be harvested from them, and would they then be thrown away?

-But who knows if Five actually made a difference? He prays that it did. But the years of isolation in his personal mission convinced him of one thing - he should know his family. He had no idea when the country would start falling to shit - if it still would - but he could keep an eye on it alongside people who understood him. And with his foresight, maybe they could rise against the evil together.

-And maybe he was just so tired of being alone.

-So, digging was done through the Internet and several libraries in several eras. He found his insertion point at the University. He knew he’d have to look a little younger to fit in.

-But naturally, he got some equations wrong.

-Eventually, Five is formally introduced to Luther and Allison, who welcome him with slight skepticism, followed by a strong bear hug. Five’s not sure how to take the physical affection. He nods, which is a completely normal response to a hug, wraps his arms back around them, and tries to keep his eyes from leaking.

Chapter Six - “Whispering”

-It’s tech week of Hair, and because he’s been blowing his voice out in rehearsal from underdeveloped technique, Diego is on vocal rest.

-Most of this chapter is Diego Is On Vocal Rest and Everyone Gives Him Shit About It in a Loving Way.

-“Everyone” includes Eudora. She just bought her tickets for opening night.

-One early afternoon, Luther and Klaus are back in the scene shop together - Luther’s moving some lumber around and Klaus is carefully painting a setting onto a flat - and Luther vents that he’s not looking forward to running spotlight on Othello. He knows he can do it, but he wishes the theatre director would trust him with more authority and let him be Technical Director.

-Ben is eternally rolling his eyes and bitching about how entitled Luther sounds. He’s already the goddamn shop foreman. Klaus tries not to laugh at how annoyed Ben is about this.

-“But Diego could totally go back to lights for Othello! Hair will be over by then! He’s the pro! If I were TD I’d put him back on in an instant!”

-Dave wanders into the shop and says “hey” and Klaus nearly drops his wet paint brush onto the floor.

-After the brief succession of clumsy attempts Klaus had made to connect with Dave, Dave is actually bothering to return the effort.

-Luther is oblivious as hell while he’s toting the lumber around just like “Oh hi! Welcome! You’re new right? I’m Luther. I’m the shop foreman. You ever been on a tech crew before?” and this whole cringey spiel of small talk he usually gives to new students.

-About a minute into the small talk Luther finally sees how awkward Dave feels and how tense Klaus looks and he’s just like ohhhhh.

-He moves his task about eight feet further away to give them some space to talk. Even though that’s definitely not where the lumber is supposed to go. He just doesn’t want to make it weirder.

-Anyway. Insert fluff that isn’t obscenely flirtatious but is like… flirting with flirtatious.

-Later on that day, Leonard is tapped by the headmaster to join Student Government. Must’ve been one hell of a GPA. The new commitment forces him to give up the part of Roderigo in Othello.

-Leonard tells Allison this. Shit. Just what she needed today. She turns to her assistant stage manager and murmurs, shrugging off the guilt as she says it: “I heard a rumor you broke the news to our director as gently as possible.”

-After an eternity of assembling, dusting, and re-dusting, the Umbrella University theater chandelier is finally risen, ready for the first show of the season.

Chapter Seven - “The Life of the Party”

-After a hurried round of reviewing the audition tapes from the beginning of the year, Dave has been cast to fill the part of Roderigo.

-The technical director of Othello quit. No one’s really sure why. He was solid. But Luther’s been asked to step up, and he’s been trusted to pick anyone he wants to fill his previous spot on lights.

-Cue super petty conversation about how they both know Diego’s bomb at lights but they still annoy each other just by existing. Nonetheless, Diego agrees to hop onto Othello crew.

-Guess what, y’all, it’s opening night of Hair.

-Hard cut to Eudora, Luther, and Klaus, standing awkwardly together in the theater lobby, holding bouquets of various sizes and colors, convincing themselves that it’s a totally platonic gift to give to an actor.

-The show goes great. At the end of opening weekend, the cast and crew and friends go out to celebrate at the local bar and grill.

-At some point, the drinks are on Ollie, and everyone knows he and his mom are loaded. So. More drinks are had than ought to be had.

-ESPECIALLY by Five. He starts rambling about this girl named Delores in his quantum physics class and how he’s not sure if he’s allowed to find her attractive because of how complicated his age is.

-Vanya needed to get drunk. She deserved it. Now she’s yelling about this girl named Sissy in her chamber orchestra. What is happening.

-I’m not saying that Klaus and Dave had their first kiss while buzzed and behind the TUA equivalent of an Applebee’s, but I’m not not saying it.

-Luther has like two beers and starts getting emotional about how pretty the moon is.

-In classes the next morning, everyone’s hungover as shit.

-Except Allison, who was the extra careful Mom Friend and made sure her siblings made it home safe.

-Except Klaus. Who. Y’know. Didn’t really make it home. Ben goes to his 8 AM and takes Ghost Notes for him.

-Sometime that week, Luther comes into the director’s office with a question and sees her finishing a phone call, looking distraught.

-He asks if she’s okay. She doesn’t want to explain, but it eventually comes out that her son was in an accident of sorts three years ago. It’s almost the anniversary. He just got another treatment for the burn scars across half of his face. The director is still grieving the fact that it’s highly unlikely he’ll find success in his dream to be a Broadway actor.

-Luther warns Allison that the director might be in a worse mood this week. So that’s great.

-At an Othello rehearsal, Allison is calling cues from her promptbook. She pretty much has them memorized. But apparently, as the theatre director tells her, she keeps getting them wrong today?

-Allison could swear that last time she was at rehearsal, her book was different. What she’s reading is unfamiliar - lefts instead of rights, blue-outs instead of black-outs, etc. So she’s stumbling.

-On break, the theatre director expresses her frustration to Allison. We’re almost in tech week, for God’s sake. Allison apologizes and promises it won’t happen in the run.

-Allison blames her screw-ups on the stress of her overcommitments. Vanya sees she’s a little upset after the exchange and invites her to hang with her and Five after rehearsal.

-Vanya and Five have actually opened a pretty decent dialogue on mental health as it relates to their abilities, with Five’s powers damaging his psychological state and Vanya’s mood being an element of her telekinesis. Vanya reminds Allison that she’s got a lot on her plate, so she should try to take it easy where she can.

-Vanya still has anxiety, and it tends to flare at the part in the play where Othello smothers Desdemona with a pillow. They had worked out a safe plan in rehearsal. The pillow is thin and held at an angle so Vanya can still breathe, and it is only going to be held for a count of twelve. No longer, no shorter.

-Vanya and her siblings also take some more time to bitch about Ollie, too. Did you hear him accidentally call the director “mom” the other day? How embarrassing. What a dork.

-Hair closes and Othello tech week begins.

-A new batch of freshman House Crew members are cleaning up the theater one day with the radio on.

-It’s now the three year anniversary of the host’s favorite Hargreeves Five battle, a showdown against aspiring actor and convicted robber Erick Webber that went up in flames.

Chapter Eight - “Brush Up Your Shakespeare”

-The twelve-hour cue-to-cue tech rehearsal for Othello is a nightmare. But aren’t all cue-to-cues nightmares?

-They are.

-There might be some fluffy sibling stuff here, but nothing important. Luther, Diego, and Allison are speaking on headset with each other (“on com”). The channel also includes the assistant stage manager and assistant tech director.

-About five hours in, Luther and Diego get real sick of each other. Luther is redundant with his directions. Diego knows what to do. Diego keeps jumping the gun on cues. Passive aggression ensues.

-Allison has had it up to HERE and says “Look, if you’re gonna be children, can you please do it on a different channel?”

-And they do. They dedicate a whole other radio channel to Luther and Diego arguing where the rest of the crew can’t hear it.

-It’s during the cue-to-cue that Allison screws up the calls one too many times - is someone editing her promptbook when she’s not around? - and gets one more comment from the director. It’s worded like encouragement but spoken like a threat.

-“Allison, you were doing so well with the freshman. Just tell yourself you can do this. You’ll be perfect.”

-At lunch break, she wants to collapse. She goes to the bathroom, locks the door, and looks into the mirror.

-“I heard a rumor that you followed that promptbook perfectly.”

-The day after cue-to-cue, Vanya realizes she’s lost her meds. They have to be in the theater somewhere, but she can’t find them. Her siblings assure her that being in the show has improved her overall confidence, and they’ll all come running if she starts to have a meltdown for any reason. She’ll be able to control her emotions until she can get a refill. This warms her lil heart.

-The final dress rehearsals come to pass. Vanya continues to flourish. Five continues to impress and confound. Allison is flawless. Luther and Diego get over themselves. Klaus and Eudora get front row seats for opening night. It’s going to be a packed house. The local news are coming and filming segments to promote the program. As if the program needs any more support. The chandelier still boggles the mind.

-Opening night. The show is going spectacularly until Act V, when Ollie starts pressing the pillow over Vanya’s face.

-This is always the hard part. But it’s just a count of twelve, underscored by two bars of music.

-Until it isn’t.

-Ollie keeps pressing. This wasn’t what we rehearsed.

-Allison sees this from the booth and almost feels like they should call a hold, but her rumor kicks in and she can’t help but keep calling the show as normal.

-Vanya starts to hear the music amplified in her ears and starts to lose control of her power.

-Luther and Diego are both in Allison’s headset as the building starts to shake. “Allison, you need to call hold. Right now. Call hold!”

-Panicking, Vanya sends a pulse of energy out, knocking Ollie halfway across the stage, sending the flats crashing down, and shattering a row of stage lights. When she stands up, Ollie is smiling.

-The news crew caught it on tape. The audience is freaking out. Most of them try to flee but are trapped inside at the back of the house.

-Allison’s next call is the newest and strangest unauthorized edit she’s seen in her promptbook. It’s for the wrong play.

-“Spot B to Macbeth.”

-At the first time that its trigger phrase has ever been uttered in the building, the chandelier starts to glow and expand. Then, it drops, lower and lower, until it is right in front of the stage.

-It was never just a chandelier. It’s a piece of extra-terrestrial technology. Standing on the shelf on top of it are the director and the headmaster.

Chapter Nine - “The Point of No Return”

-I don’t know exactly how I’d reveal all of this, but here’s the gist.

-By the way, this is them coming out as extra-as-hell supervillains. So the way this is revealed is probably extra as hell.

-The director’s son is Erick Webber, a starving artist who resorted to a life of crime to pay his bills and got himself tangled with the Hargreeves Five, who are responsible for half of his face burning in the heat of battle.

-The director and the headmaster actually have been romantically involved for a few years, all but legally married.

-When the directors’ son was forever barred from the career of his dreams, the director and very wealthy headmaster first got together. The headmaster got her a job at the school.

-They wanted revenge for their son. But they also deduced that the Hargreeves Five were too immature for their powers and potential to ruin lives. They were just dumb kids. Their powers must be taken from them and placed into more capable hands.

-The couple had done extensive research, learned about the power potential in the 43, tracked down as many of them as they could find - preferably those already living in America - and hired all sorts of people and services to promote Umbrella University to them. They offered each one of them a sizable scholarship.

-They got seven of them.

-And they arranged meetings with characters that Hargreeves had done some shady deals with so they could acquire the otherworldly technology needed to set their plan into motion.

-And Macbeth was the trigger word for the invention - the story of an old celebrated king slain to make room for the rightful leader, as plotted by an empowered and bloodthirsty woman - so they had to put it in a theater. They had to ensure the trigger wasn’t spoken in the room until the correct time.

-Five realizes at this point that the efforts he made to change the past didn’t stop the Macbeth Enterprise, it just gave them a way more convenient origin. God dammit.

-The siblings realize Ollie was in on the whole thing. He had to make sure all seven of the kids were in the theater at the right time, so he snooped around and reported back to the Evil Moms. They let Luther be TD so Diego could cover lights. They cast Five, made Allison recruit Vanya, and made Allison SM. They took out Leonard and cast Dave to ensure Klaus and Ben would be there for opening. Ollie hid Vanya’s pills during the cue-to-cue.

-Allison realizes the director knew about her power all along and really was suggesting that she use it. Allison had done exactly what they wanted her to. They must’ve had someone re-do the promptbook each day and everything.

-The point is, there’s now news footage of a girl with unpredictably dangerous powers ruining a perfectly good school play and two women making a solid case that these children can’t be trusted with their gifts. The chandelier machinery revs up to perform its task - stripping all of their powers away.

-Five knows it won’t end there - the powers will be turned against the Hargreeves Five. Their abilities will be harvested too. And the hands that they’ll all end up in will be military-minded and will seize control of the nation, ruling by fear.

-There’s an extensive fight scene here. One that, again, I have no idea how I would write. It’s something that involves a level of family teamwork that they would not have if the theatre program didn’t bring them so close together in the first place. So it’s pretty ironic and kinda sweet.

-We find out that Dave and Eudora are absolutely ride-or-die for their idiot boyfriends that they just found out have terrifying superpowers, and they each have a moment where they contribute to the takedown.

-Ben is summoned because he legally has to be. The Horror can do some serious damage to the machine, and he finds he’s unaffected by its drainage because he’s dead as hell.

-Vanya grabs a violin from the pit where the underscoring was being played and shreds away at it to channel her power.

-The fight has heavy parallels to the prologue scene, where everyone’s powers went berserk because Vanya saw a rat and freaked out. Except there’s obviously a lot more at stake and a lot more direction in it.

-All of that gets resolved, somehow. Any of their power that gets drained gets returned to them once they get the machine shut down. Luther effortlessly snaps the tape of evidence in half.

-Allison uses her last rumor of junior year to memory-wipe and send away the cameramen and the witnesses.

-Except Eudora and Dave, who are surprisingly chill about this and promise to keep it all secret.

-The gang has no idea how to explain all the damage to the authorities, but the Criminal Justice Duo knows how to detain the bad guys in the costume closet and highlight some evidence to draw the focus to the less-than-legal dealings they made to set up their plot in the first place.

-Corruption? In college administration?? Pssshhh noooooooo never.

-The story embedded in the rumor is that the chandelier overheated and combusted, so everyone ran out. The police will discover the alien tech and go from there.

-Still, the superpower squad realizes they should lay low. Play dumb if interviewed. Skip class for a couple days and stay far away from the theatre department.

-Diego is up on the catwalk - the walkway above the audience where they maneuver the spotlights - collecting his stuff. He hears some footsteps on the ladder and sees Eudora climbing up to meet him.

-Diego starts to say something snarky and casual and Eudora’s like “No. Shut up. Just. Please. Shut up.” and kisses him.

-After weeks of pretending not to care as much as they really did and a solid half hour of having no idea if the other would live or die, here they are, standing over the decimated theater, finally at ease in each other’s arms

Chapter Ten - “Curtain Call”

-And that’s… it. When the siblings start coming back to classes, no one comes after them for whatever happened.

-Needless to say, the rest of the run of Othello has been cancelled. All theatre classes will be moved online or converted to classroom formats until repairs can be made to the building. There’s a new interim headmaster and theatre department director.

-It’s going to take forever for them to fix the damage done to the theater, and even when they do, it doesn’t feel right to keep that as their home base. So, where to now? How are they gonna fill the rest of their electives?

-All of the fine arts buildings are stacked close together. Music major Vanya has an idea.

-Second semester, Diego takes beginning percussion. Luther joins the marching band (and far exceeds the athletic demands for it). Klaus picks guitar back up. Allison ventures into vocal jazz. Five is a natural at composition.

-Sharing practice rooms. Cramming for theory exams. The entire works. They’re music kids now!

-They’re thrilled when they find out that all of their respective ensembles will be featured in the spring concert.

-But does the conductor of Vanya’s chamber orchestra seem a little… eccentric to you?

...

im a broken woman from this. god dammit.

#tua #the umbrella academy #what the hell else to tag this as #diedora #klave #Reginald They're Thespians #the chapter titles are semi-relevant names of show songs ha get it??

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stillness-in-green · 4 years ago

Text

MLAWeek Coda: The Lore Post

Sorry this is a few days late! To the surprise of absolutely no one who has read some of my longer meta posts, I just don’t know how to shut the F up. (Spoilers: this post is only a few hundred words away from being as long as everything else I wrote for the week put together.)

Anyway, hit the jump for, in order:

A quick breakdown of the Liberation Army’s general structure.

A list of members, broken down by broad generation, including the ones we have gotten explicitly IDed in canon, the ones I based on figures we see in canon, and the ones I completely made up.

The basic tenets of the MLA and some discussion about their views on quirk supremacy. (feat. fandom salt)

An overview of the way the Advent shook up the political landscape in Japan and the Hearts & Minds Party’s place in that landscape. Pretty much the same material Trumpet’s victory speech from Day 4 covers, but modestly more in-depth, removed from the need to play well to a crowd, and with some added explanation about the structure of the Diet for readers who are less familiar with it than Trumpet’s audience would be.

A timeline (with only moderately arbitrary dates!) covering the birth of the glowing baby up to the first year of the manga. Mostly concerned with detailing the events the MLA would care about, but with a few other points of reference to contextualize things for the rest of us.

Bonus Fun Facts: discussion of the considerations that went into the timeline, a look at All For One’s actions re: the MLA, and some miscellaneous blurbs on terminology, worldbuilding and characterization.

A smattering of asides in the form of footnotes.

Note that while this material is based in and accurate to canon as much as I could remember at the time that I was doing my notes on my fills for the week, there’s a lot in here that is based entirely on supposition, interpretation and, at times, just plain-old guessing.

Thanks to @codenamesazanka and @robotlesbianjavert for their assistance in naming, brainstorming, and just generally putting up with me while the Liberation Army was completely devouring my attention.

@red-the-omnic Somewhat belatedly, here’s that list of MLA members you asked for back during the middle of the week. Sorry to make you wait so long!

Enjoy!

———– ———– ———– ———–

ORGANIZATION

Grand Commander: Destro and Destro’s line of descendants.

The First Families: Those who fought at Destro’s side and escaped to continue the fight, and their descendants. Veritably all high-ranked within the MLA, their tie to the original incarnation of the Army marks them as elites, whether or not their quirks would do so otherwise. The elders of the First Families do a certain amount of collective decision-making when and if the Grand Commander is unable to do so and has left orders otherwise.

Sanctum: “Sanctum” is a special position in the Army. The name denotes the person who’s tasked with remembering the MLA’s history, practices and lore—the position is considered contiguous, so even when someone is new to the name, they’re still considered “the longest-serving member of the Liberation Army.”. ��When they’re getting on in years, they select an appropriate protégé, to whom the name will pass upon their death/capture. The name must always go to a member of the First Families (though in truth, they’re only on their third one, so it’s more of a pattern so far than a hard rule).

Commanders & Lieutenants: People in charge of major operations, liberated districts, etc. Frequently, though not always, members of the First Families. Have discretion over their own assignments, but may not have much influence in the Army’s operations on the whole, depending on who they’re connected to otherwise.

Advisors: This title denotes those who are specifically tapped to give advice and aid to the MLA leadership. Levels of authority vary depending on who they’re advising. Advisors of lieutenants, if any, are a step above the rank and file, advisors of commanders are about on par with lieutenants, and advisors to the Grand Commander are considered commanders in their own right, regardless of any other rank they may hold.

Rank and File: Pretty much everyone else.

———–

KNOWN MEMBERS [1]

The original MLA—

Destro: Yotsubashi Chikara. Established the Meta Liberation Army in his mid-30s in response to the development of what he felt were overly restrictive laws on the usage of meta-abilities. Having observed evidence that meta-abilities grew stronger generationally, he was particularly concerned that no oppressive laws could be enforced by the generation that established them because the next generation would always be more powerful. Thus, he believed that establishing the use of meta-abilities as a fundamental right was the only way for society to avoid indefinite intergenerational strife. He was particularly incensed by the government co-opting the message that got his mother murdered to put a pretty, self-congratulatory sheen on laws that did the exact opposite of what she wished for. Allegedly committed suicide after some months in prison. The MLA is highly suspicious of this claim—they’re correct to be, but not for the reasons they think. His quirk, which his entire line would inherit, turns a key emotion into enhanced strength and resilience in the form of a characteristic ink-blot marking. While it would develop over time, the basic nature of the quirk remained the same. Chikara’s driving emotion was resolve.

Fathom: Destro’s lover, she dedicated a decade of her life after his capture to building up the survivors he’d left behind. It’s said her son got his drive from Destro, but his anger from Fathom. Had a large hand in raising her son to be the sort of man he was, particularly in her decision to commit what many considered to be suicide-by-hero when he was in his teens. A large part of that choice was wrapped up in her never-fully-assuaged grief over Destro’s loss (and, she believed to the end, his murder), but there was also a cold calculation to it—her making a big show of it would lead the police to believe that her attack was the last gasp of the Liberation Army, ending their investigations into MLA activities. It would also stoke the fires of her son’s rage, honing him into a stronger weapon against their enemies. Her judgement in both cases proved broadly on-point, though her death did serve to make her son more cautious than she might have hoped. Meta-Ability: Antennae. A pair of insectile feelers emerging from her forehead that give her a passel of sensory boosts, particularly in the taste and smell categories, and which also make her able to detect shifts in the air from quite some distance.)

Cascade: A man whose meta-ability lets him turn body parts into loosely controllable masses of water. Can’t transform fully. A quick-thinking type able to make hard calls.

Sweeper: A woman with a radio-scanning quirk. Caught by police in the same fight as Destro.

Sanctum I: The first bearer of the codename. Had a protective ability of some sort.

Sanctum II’s father: The same quirk as his daughter; see below. Known for getting some eight people safely out of a police raid by carrying them all out at once despite not actually having superhuman strength of any kind. (Probably tore several muscles in the process, but adrenaline is a hell of a thing.)

The Second Generation—

Destro’s son: Raised to deeply resent heroes and the government that put them in place, but he was also very cautious of them. He was profoundly aware that his death would mean the end of the dream that his father had begun and his mother had cultivated, so he was very meticulous in spreading the MLA’s influence underground, rebuilding their numbers before he even began to consider starting to make attacks again. Destro’s army had been a guerilla force; his son’s would be something much more dangerous. His driving emotion was anger, and he had two children before being killed by a cerebral aneurysm at 43. Was able to use his power to make his body larger.

Sanctum II: A woman with an unusual fondness for the traditional Japanese arts, particularly tea ceremony. Meta-ability: Stride. Teleport to any location she can directly see by taking a single step forward. Can take whoever she can carry under her own power. (First Families lineage)

Anchor: An advisor to Destro’s son. Prominent bull horns. Meta-ability: Immobilize. Similar to Lock Rock’s Lockdown quirk, except it only works on his own body. Very good at wrestling holds (and holding his breath), he tends to fight with backup that can deliver finishing blows to opponents once he has them pinned down. (First Families lineage)

The Third Generation—

Yotsubashi Kyouyuki: The elder child of Destro’s son. Deemed an unsuitable Grand Commander for his driving emotion of joy. Always presented a façade of being cheerful and upbeat, but the ever-present rhetoric that the MLA pushes about the ongoing suppression of quirks and the misery and injustice it leads to left Kyou always struggling with guilt. In college, it finally got so bad that he resolved to run away, enlisting the help of a friend with a swap-based teleport quirk to get him out of a party undetected. His fate thereafter is a secret that’s been taken to the grave by the MLA members involved in it, but given the typical reactions of illegal underground cults to members wanting to leave, it’s unlikely that he’s living somewhere in happy anonymity. (Name means Unyielding Happiness, following in his grandfather and nephew's patterns of having characters in their names meaning power/strength.)

Yotsubashi Yukie: The younger child of Destro’s son, and Rikiya’s mother. With a driving emotion of sorrow, and having been steadily losing family her entire life, Yukie wrestled with depression for most of her life. The presumptive heir to the title of Re-Destro, she spent considerably more time in training than her older brother, but she never much had the temperament for it. When her father died only a few scant years after Kyouyuki’s disappearance, she expressed her fears that she was incapable of being the leader the Army needed. This led to her becoming a mother at a relatively young age, continuing the bloodline rather than picking up the banner. For all her struggles with her grief, Yukie was very determined to at least be there for the son on whom the weight of leadership would fall. The world of My Hero Academia is a dangerous one, however, particularly before All Might established himself as Japan’s pillar, and Yukie was a casualty of the chaos of a villain attack when Rikiya was ten. (Name means Glittering Conqueror, ditto the note above about the family pattern for name kanji.)

Rampart: Guardian and general caretaker for Rikiya in his younger years. Hand-picked for the role by Yukie, who had considered him a close friend since their school days. Meta-Ability: An earth manipulation power akin to Pixie-Bob’s, though less powerful. (First Families lineage)

Shinseigi: Trumpet’s uncle, unspecified code name. Also in politics, though of a more local variety. Meta-ability: His speaking voice makes listeners suggestible. (The phonetic pronunciation of his name sounds like “New Justice,” but the kanji are “Sleeping Voice Technique.”)

The Fourth Generation—

Yotsubashi Rikiya: The current Re-Destro (42); CEO and President of Detnerat. He took up the former title when he was only 6 years old. With the succession of losses that were his uncle, grandfather and mother, the MLA has been fairly careful with him, grooming him with care and rarely leaving him without some form of supervision, be it Rampart when he was young or Trumpet in college. An extremely dutiful child grown into an urbane man whose good humor disguises a morose—and occasionally volatile—inner character. Always under a lot of stress (his MRIs are clear so far, though, haha!), but there’s only so much effort dedicated to mitigating that, since stress is his key emotion. The first in the family line to be able to separate his power from his own body, in the form of his Stress Bomb attack.

Trumpet: Hanabata Koku (44). One of Rikiya’s advisors and party leader of the Hearts & Minds Party (see below); has known Rikiya since their preteen years. The Hanabatas were a political family of old, but largely saw those fortunes crash and burn when they started manifesting quirks a few generations into the Advent. They’ve been clawing their way back into politics ever since and were an early target for the MLA’s project to infiltrate and/or start their own political party. It was decided very early on that Koku’s quirk and his family connections made him a good choice to groom for leadership of the HMP, so he and Rikiya bonded over their similar positions. They would go on to attend the same university, during which time they became romantically involved. In truth, Koku’s university was functionally chosen for him on the basis of which one Rikiya would be attending; the First Families were not about to lose another Yotsubashi to college life. Koku is more aware of this particular fact than Rikiya. Still a little wistful about their college days, his opinions regarding Re-Destro’s big starstruck crush on Shigaraki are borderline unprintable.

Sanctum III: Twice’s No. 1 advisor, the dude with the big imperial handlebar moustache and what looks an awful lot like a dress uniform for the Japanese navy. A few years older than Trumpet. (First Families lineage)

Curious: Kizuki Chitose (36). RD advisor and Shoowaysha Publishing Executive Vice President.[2] From a relatively small liberated district up near Sendai; the MLA connections plus her own profound ambition got her moving very quickly up the MLA chain of command. Daughter of a wlw couple; got her blue skin from her bio mom. One younger sibling, a sister. Masterminded the dinners we see the group having in Chapter 218, originally to make sure Rikiya was getting at least one well-apportioned meal a week and a chance to socialize with the closest thing he has to peers, but also because it proved to be an invaluable opportunity to swap information and rumors.

Skeptic: Chikazoku Tomoyasu (31). RD advisor and Feel Good Inc. board member. On the bottom end of the generation age-wise, a prodigy in every sense save his broadly terrible people skills. Recognizes Rikiya’s stress tells because he shares several of them himself, and is also the only person of Rikiya’s generation with the confidence to verbally push him around a bit. It’s regarded as borderline scandalous by their elders, but Rikiya himself finds it bracing, and anyway, Skeptic’s ability to organize a schedule for maximum efficiency is nothing less than miraculous. Got Rikiya onto fidget toys.

Toryu: Toryu is the family name of Galvanize (aka Taser Face aka Kaminari’s Dad). Mr. Compress’s No. 1, the dude who strolls out onto the lawn after Cementoss rips the hotel a new one and immediately gets his smarm repackaged and returned to sender by Kaminari and Edgeshot. Great for morale before that, though! In Rikiya’s age group, his mother’s side of the family (from which he gets the electricity powers) has been in the Army for at least as far back as her school days. (The name comes from the characters for leaping/rising and current/flow.)

Slidin’ Go: Tokoname Tatsuyuki (37). He’s Slidin’ Go! Skeptic’s No. 2, possibly because Slidin’ Go strongly resembles the puppets Skeptic is so used to barking orders at and there’s comfort in familiarity.

Aozono: Family name for another of Rikiya’s childhood peers, nothing is known but that green skin runs in the family as far back as her father. May or may not be related to Curious’s family.

The Fifth Generation—

Geten: Real name unknown. Family status unknown. Age unknown, but I’d peg him in the 18-23 area. Seems to be allowed to attend the weekly dinners without contributing anything but his incredibly terrible table manners. Can talk an impassioned game about the Liberation Army’s goals (though he pushes the quirk supremacy line a good deal harder than anyone else in the Army is shown to; it’s not even close), but it’s fairly clear that he’s more personally dedicated to Re-Destro than he is the MLA’s cause in and of itself. I’ll be honest; I have no idea what Geten’s deal is. My tentative headcanon is that he’s an orphan—the English meaning of his name, Apocrypha, refers to sacred writings of uncertain authorship/authenticity—who’s in some kind of Batman-and-Robin guardian-and-ward situation with Re-Destro, but I didn’t wind up writing enough about him to come up with much beyond that.

Nimble: Spinner’s No. 1, the woman with the weird paper-strip-esque hair who doesn’t seem to be in possession of a nose or mouth. (She absorbs air through her skin like a frog, which is why no one has ever seen her with that sweater covering both of her shoulders.) Nimble is a friendly sort, though she regards her outgoing good cheer as being a simple matter of social networking. Ambitious, but sensible about it. Meta-ability: Sky Write. Allows her to project letters and pictures into the air around her, giving her a way to communicate she would have otherwise lacked. She can create words in air she can’t see, but it takes some concentration, and the closer the better.

Scarecrow: Spinner’s No. 2, 21 years old. Born with amelia (see link in Day Two’s author’s notes) that disfigured his face and severed his arms in the womb. His quirk-based forelegs—a pair of spider legs emerging from his shoulders—can do a certain amount of basic object manipulation, but it tends to wig people out, so they push him to use his prosthetics like he’s “supposed” to (see Stray Notes section for more on this). He was viciously angry about it even as a kid, and his parents were frustrated, making them easy pickings for cult indoctrination. A family friend recommended that they look into Detnerat, where it wasn’t long before Re-Destro himself took an interest in their situation (or at least in making a good impression on them). Scarecrow joined the Army as quickly as he was allowed to—16. Meta-ability: Webbing. The bug legs can project silk like a webspinner (the insect on which he’s based), allowing him to do anything you might broadly understand Spider-Man to be able to do with his webbing, though he certainly lacks Spider-Man’s strength.

Red: Named in passing in the manga, he’s the laid-back dude with the fluffy hair who serves as Skeptic’s No. 1 post-merger. Probably invaluable in helping Skeptic maintain what bare vestiges of chill he can muster. (First Families lineage)

The Sixth Generation—

Every child currently under the age of 10 being raised in MLA households with a picture of Destro over the mantle. It’s not a small number, representing a group that neither the fandom nor the Hero Commission seem to have even realized exist.

———–

CORE TENETS & THE MATTER OF QUIRK SUPREMACY

Re-Destro is not (contrary to popular fandom belief) in favor of full-throated, might-makes-right, survival of the fittest Quirk Darwinism.[3] Destro’s will was for people to be able to use their meta-abilities as they saw fit to the extent that that freedom did not interfere with the freedoms of others. He was against the regulation of meta-abilities, but he was not—to the best of our knowledge—against the regulation of crime. His belief was that one murderer with a fire ability killing people did not justify barring everyone else with fire abilities from using those powers to fire clay, start campfires, engage in fire-themed performance art, use fire to char wood in artistic patterns for money, help park rangers set and direct controlled burns, coordinate explosions for the movie industry, light cigarettes in public, or any other of dozens of possible uses for a fire ability that don’t involve burning people alive.

The MLA do believe that meta-abilities have an impact on one’s personality, but they also believe that that’s okay; that it should be understood and accepted, not feared and repressed—Curious would not have wanted to turn Toga into a tragedy about the consequences of repression if she didn’t think that a spree of bloodletting murders was a tragedy. Their belief as an organization is that people should be free to use their powers as they see fit in the same way that they would any other natural talent or cultivated skill. They believe that people will, if free to do so, naturally gravitate to ways of improving their own lot in life via use of their meta-abilities.

Freedom from regulation and freedom from discrimination—these are the core tenets that the vast majority of the rank and file hold to. A great many of them are laborers, blue collar types who just want to be able to better support themselves and their families. Many others are those who suffered discrimination because of their quirks and want better for both themselves and their children. Of course, the further back their connections go, the more likely they are to both be higher-ranked in the cult (with attendant greater resources) and to have grown up soaking in generations’ worth of resentment, groupthink, and radicalism.

Geten, a particularly virulent and single-minded MLA attack dog, has parsed the tenets to mean that people with strong, well-trained meta-abilities will naturally be able to use their powers to do more and raise their status in the MLA’s ideal society, and thus that those who can’t or don’t choose to will not be able to live lives that Geten personally thinks are worth living. Likewise, Trumpet doesn’t fault Spinner only for his weak ability, but also for his anti-social tendencies. Of course a politician who’s deeply invested in a narrative of people uniting to throw off their chains and better themselves would be disdainful of someone who locked himself in his bedroom for years and emerged only to violently lash out at society. (Spinner’s right to call Trumpet a huge hypocrite on this, mind; terrorist cult members have no business lecturing other terrorists about the correct way to violently reform society.)

The MLA does have a problem with quirk supremacy, but it’s not quite the problem fandom thinks they do, and it’s certainly more nuanced than fandom thinks.[4] Frankly, I could write a whole post dissecting this, but rather than analyzing the canon at length in a post intending to be about my fanon for a series of slice-of-life MLA fics, let me just lay out some issues I think the MLA have. Note that these opinions may vary member to member, particularly as you work your way up the chain of command.

Many in the MLA believe that people with poor quirks are less capable of asserting their will and becoming whatever they want to be. They are not, notably, alone in that that sentiment—we hear versions of it not only from villains like Trumpet and All for One, but from the paralleled parents of Midoriya Inko and Shimura Kotarou, the would-be hero Bakugou, and even the iconic hero paragon All Might. While it’s not universal, My Hero Academia’s Japan is full of people who believe to some extent or another that people with weak or no quirks are inherently less capable of making their mark on the world. The MLA is just more blatant about it than most.

The MLA are, as a group, not concerned about the fate of the quirkless. My suspicion is that this is because they think quirklessness as a trait is on its way out—that the touted 20% of the world population that’s quirkless is hugely weighted towards the elderly, those who are from generations when quirklessness was more common. Think about it: 20% is two out of every ten people. Statistically speaking, that’s a huge portion! You only have to look at Deku’s middle school classroom in Chapter 1—thirty kids, exactly one of whom is quirkless—to begin to suspect that there’s something a bit off with the 20% figure.

Further, the MLA follows Destro’s beliefs, and we know from Destro’s manifesto that he believed meta-abilities were growing stronger over time. So to their mind, not only is quirklessness becoming a thing of the past, but so are weak quirks in general. While their clear disdain for both is damning—and certainly discredits them as a group suited to decide how society should be structured!—please understand that, “We’re not very concerned with the rights of the quirkless because we think that there won’t be any such thing as quirkless people within a few more generations,” is not the same statement as, “We are A-OK with 20% of the world’s population being second-class citizens for the entire rest of human history,” and it is really not the same statement as, “People with no quirks, or bodies that can’t handle their quirks, need to be proactively removed from the gene pool and we are actively advocating for a systemic, organized culling.”

That said, their disdain, if blown out to society at large, would absolutely lead to discrimination and, undoubtedly, incidents of the same sort of violence that the MLA themselves were forged from. That they haven’t thought or don’t care about this is one of many things that make them villains.

Further, there is an ugly strain within the MLA that still recognizes quirk marriages. Because the MLA values freedom, they’re not as ubiquitous as you might think (at least if you think the MLA is a bunch of quirk supremacists with no other goals or values)—“freedom” does nominally include the freedom to marry who you want rather than let your own meta-ability trap you in a life you hate. However, it’s equally true that in a group that believes very strongly in the value of quirks, the power of quirks in the future, and the necessity of fighting a war to bring about that future, there will obviously be members who support the practice. There are absolutely men and women who have been bullied and guilted by their families into loveless marriages for the sole purpose of producing children with powerful, desirable quirks. How likely this is in any given location mostly depends on the commander’s opinion on it, though it’s a very rare one indeed who would go so far as discouraging it entirely.

———–

THE HEARTS & MINDS PARTY

(Considerations on Japan’s political landscape.)

The current monolith of the Diet, the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, managed to hold onto power for a full century after the Advent, but their grasp grew shakier and shakier over time. Initial measures to bar meta-humans from voting proved increasingly unpopular as the percentage of the population with meta-abilities grew both larger and older. People with easily-concealed powers gained office, sometimes being outed, sometimes not, but on the whole, decades of oppression and violence led to an ever-more-popular opinion that the LDP had mishandled the whole mess. They lost their supermajority in the Diet when their longstanding alliance with the Komeito party splintered, regained it again for a few electoral cycles, lost it again when Komeito itself fractured, and so on, their once implacable numbers shrinking year by year. Still, they managed to hold onto a coalition majority right up until Saneki Yuuichi was elected to the House of Representatives.

Saneki headed up a small party based almost entirely on the issue of meta-human basic rights. Like many meta-humans of the period, he believed that the best way for meta-humans to attain those rights was to live like so-called “normal humans,” to show that meta-humans were just like everyone else. His party advanced the ideology that meta-humans should only use their powers to help others or better society, not to advance their own self-interest. They pushed stringently for metas to be allowed equal recognition under the law as any Japanese citizen, but also supported measures such as requiring licenses for the use of meta-abilities and limiting those licenses to those actively engaged in assisting police. Deeply tied to respectability politics, Saneki’s party contained virtually all emitters, a scant number of transformers, and no heteromorphs, who the party felt were an impediment to reaching their legislative goals, but whose particular needs could be brought back up at a later, more receptive time.

Saneki’s politics gained him many supporters, but also drove many into the arms of the Meta Liberation Army, who vocally loathed him and everything he stood for. The confluence of public dissatisfaction with the spike in violence represented by the MLA, Saneki’s coalition gathering popular support among both metas and non-metas, and the rise of named, organized hate groups trying to roll back what few advances had been gained in meta-human rights finally spelled the end of the LDP’s majority.

The LDP falling apart prompted a scramble for power that would stretch on for nearly half a century. Old alliances whose only common ground had been opposing the LDP found themselves free to seek groups with more compatible goals. Young single- or dual-issue parties leapt at the chance to address their issues with more fervor. New parties sprung up across the country. Not only meta-humans, but minority groups of all kinds saw new avenues to press for substantive positive changes that had been dead in the water under the LDP. Voting numbers surged as they had not for decades.

The old, conservative elements of the Diet were not gone, of course—they remained a substantial powerhouse!—but no longer could they muster the undefeatable veto-proof numbers that they had once enjoyed.

Like everyone else, the remnants of the MLA saw opportunity in the new, ever-shifting status quo. With the place of metas secured for the time being, there was no longer a need for metas to form coalitions in the Diet merely to get their basic needs addressed. A single-issue party from its inception thirty years prior, Saneki Yuuichi’s party was fragmenting, unable to decide on a single direction now that their uniting issue had been resolved to their satisfaction. In recognition of meta-humans reaching population parity, the MLA launched a project to begin seeding the ideals of Liberation at the highest levels yet—the Hearts & Minds Party.

Beginning as a local party in a prefecture in which the MLA had gained significant underground support, the HMP campaigned on a platform championing individual freedoms and a wide range of improvements to Japan’s battered and overworked social safety nets. They made an effort to showcase diverse representation in their leadership and gave impassioned speeches promising to reach across party aisles in searching for nuanced solutions to the various difficulties facing the country.

It’s impossible to say exactly how large the Hearts & Minds Party is compared to the Meta Liberation Army, which is claimed by Re-Destro to have 116,000 action-ready warriors (the “warriors lying in wait, ready to rise to action” description presumably indicating that his count does not include uninducted children).

On the one hand, one can presume that everyone who’s a member of the MLA is voting for the HMP on every ticket they can, but not every member of the MLA—who induct combat-ready warriors as young as 16—is old enough to vote, and many probably live in districts or prefectures where the HMP has yet to establish a campaign-ready foothold. On the other hand, while the HMP certainly serves to funnel people towards the MLA, it doesn’t require membership—indeed, it’s far better for their goals for them not to do so. Therefore, it’s also probable that the Hearts & Minds Party has many supporters who are not (yet) counted among the Liberation Army’s number. Thus, for the purposes of ballparking estimates, I opted to simply suppose that the two areas lacking overlap (MLA members who can’t vote for the HMP and HMP supporters who aren’t members of the MLA) are relatively equal.

That established, we’re working with a party that has 116K voters/supporters/members. The closest thing to that number that I could find numbers for is the Japanese Communist Party (JCP), which counted 300K members as of 2017. Using their total membership compared to their representation in the Diet (as well as a willingness to viciously bastardize anything resembling reliable political math), I plugged in my estimate for the HMP’s membership and wound up with the Hearts & Minds Party holding four seats in the House of Representatives, five seats in the House of Councillors, and sixty-odd assembly members in various prefectural positions.

For some context to those numbers, the House of Representatives (more powerful, but more vulnerable to sudden electoral shifts) has 465 members, 233 of which are required for a majority, and 310 of which are required to override vetoes imposed by the House of Counsillors. The House of Counsillors (less powerful, but serving longer terms and unable to be dissolved for general elections like the House of Representatives can be) has 245 members, with 123 required for a majority.

As you can see, the HMP holding a handful of seats isn’t going to tilt the My Hero Academia world on its axis. Still, it’s more seats than any number of real-life Japanese political parties hold, and right up until the one-two punch of Shigaraki taking over the MLA and Hawks outing Trumpet’s allegiances to the Hero Commission, the Hearts & Minds Party was well on-track to continue growing its power and influence.

———–

TIMELINE

(For ease of calculation, most dates are rounded to the nearest five years.)

1980: A glowing baby is born in Qing Qing City, China, heralding the Advent of the Age of the Extraordinary. For almost two decades, meta-abilities remain rare and poorly understood—incidents are widespread and show huge variance, so most people write them off as anomalies or hoaxes. As the years go on, however, meta-abilities become more widespread, moving out of the realm of the odd headline that many people think is an elaborate hoax into an alarmed spotlight as it gradually becomes apparent that this is a thing that all humanity is undergoing. Most major technological development pivots to trying to understand, undo, document or control this new phenomenon.

2030: The child who will become All for One is born. By this time, society is breaking down into chaos. Across the globe, measures from outlawing all meta-ability use to internment are seen. Eugenics laws are discussed or put in place. Communities attempt to run out metas and, in response, groups of metas attempt to form their own communities. Infanticide rates are rising alarmingly.

2060: Yotsubashi Chikara and Ujiko (original name unknown) are born. Japan is in complete disarray, awash in mob violence, with organized groups of both metas and non-metas attacking victims indiscriminately. Developing an ability can get you disowned. Divisions among the meta minority are developing a noticeable strain of respectability politics rhetoric.

2065: AFO forces an ability on his younger brother, unintentionally creating One for All. Chikara’s mother is murdered by an anti-meta mob for attempting to speak out in defense of the normalcy of her child’s ability.

2085-2090: Saneki Yuuichi becomes the first meta-human to attain a seat in the Diet. Despite nearly a century of violence, meta-humans are becoming a larger and larger percentage of the population, and the people of Japan are tired. The prevailing sense is that it’s time to make peace; however, the peace that is being forged involves laws sharply restricting the use of meta-abilities for those who haven’t been formally licensed. These restrictions see markedly mixed reactions from metas. Chikara rallies the most vehement dissenters to create the Meta Liberation Army, calling himself Destro. Disagreement over how to handle the MLA finally finishing the job of rattling the Diet free of the death-grip of the LDP. Many years of fractious elections will follow as new coalitions form to try and seize majority power.

2095: Japan signs an international accord acknowledging the fundamental rights of meta-humans. This gesture begins to splinter both internal support and public sympathy for the MLA.

2097: Destro is captured by police and their newly designated Quirk Unit. Other surviving members of the MLA are hunted down or go into hiding.

2100: The term “Hero” is formally adopted, having been casually in use for some time. A Hero is one who is licensed to use their power to fight quirk-based crime in accordance with local and federal laws, assisting the police when requested. The Hero Commission is established as an agency with oversight in the licensing and regulation of Heros. Destro dies in prison. Though the matter is questioned, no proof of foul play is ever brought forward, and the death is ruled a suicide.

2110: Ujiko presents his paper on the Paranormal [5] Singularity Theory. The paper suggests that the power of quirks is continuing to grow with each generation and will, in time, become more powerful than the human body can control. His evidence is inconclusive, however, and his citation of some of Destro’s observations on the phenomenon becomes a particular sticking point. In a country that is finally beginning to get its feet back under it, no one wants to see another widespread panic. Ujiko is stripped of his position; having been living on campus at the time, he’s left functionally homeless and is approached by All for One not long after.

2120: The population of those with quirks and those without reaches parity in Japan. Seeing an opportunity, the MLA launches the Hearts & Minds Party as a local political party, intending to grow it over time.

(2125: Yagi Toshinori is born.)

2138: Yotsubashi Rikiya is born.

(2148: Debut of All Might.)

(2165: Shimura family tragedy.)

(2174: All Might “defeats” AFO.)

2175: Hanabata Koku is elected to the House of Representatives. He’s not the youngest party leader in the Diet, but he’s close.

2180: The events of Deku’s freshman year at UA lead the MLA to turn their attention to the League of Villains.

———–

STRAY FACTS

Why 1980/2180?—

It’s an even number for ease of calculation, triangulated between a few considerations.

Firstly, tasers are mentioned in the One for All dream, so the events of the dream (which themselves are happening far enough into the Advent that society’s had time to slide into all-out chaos) must post-date the invention of the taser, which was in 1993.

Secondly, Spider-Man’s silhouette is seen amongst the group of characters who represent the “fantasy” that became reality. If we assume that those media properties existed in-universe (since the narration is delivered by Midoriya) and were assumed to be fantastical at the time, they must predate the Advent—Spider-Man is the newest of them and his first appearance was in 1962, his material being translated into Japanese by the 1970s.

Lastly, technological and societal development crashed to a halt with the Advent. The world of My Hero Academia generally reflects a modern-ish Japan, so I wanted modern technology—and modern social reforms—to still feel modern to the characters. Thus, the point at which society stopped developing needed to predate the Digital Revolution, which really began to hit its stride in the mid-80s. Hence, 1980.

The opening period is, admittedly, fairly generous on my part, and does assume a certain amount of modern advances were probably underway, but then were lost, sidelined or rolled back as the chaos spread. You could probably trim off twenty years by stepping up how quickly quirks begin to appear and spread, but the very beginning is the best window to do so. I’d still peg the Advent at 1980 based on the calculations above (again, it has to fall somewhere between the mid-70s and 1993) but, for example, maybe All for One is from that first generation, and society only takes 30 years to reach the lowest point of its collapse instead of 80.

As to the 2180, the older characters introduce several requirements for the post-Advent timeline. Ujiko was 50 at the time that society was beginning to stabilize, while AFO dates to its days of utmost chaos. AFO also needs to be running on at least one anti-aging quirk prior to meeting Ujiko; if the only one he were running on was Ujiko’s own, then based on his appearance and the mechanics of Ujiko’s quirk, I’d peg AFO at merely 85, and he needs to be not only over 100, but far enough over 100 that he’s described that way rather than as “a century-old evil” or something to that effect.

Meanwhile, All Might can’t really be any younger than 50, and seven generations of OFA bearer predated him, even if they did all die relatively young. Destro’s mother was killed in those early chaotic days, while Re-Destro (himself no spring chicken) is told as a child that the MLA has been in hiding for generations. “Generations” implies at least two; I further suppose that Rikiya needs to be at least the original Chikara’s great-grandson for him to describe himself simply as Destro’s descendant, rather than use a more specific relationship term. All of this points to a fairly lengthy stretch of time, much more than is glossed over by Midoriya’s series-opening narration.

AFO and the MLA—

I mention in the very first story of this series that the MLA’s contacts all go “mysteriously missing” after the capture of Destro. While the police certainly did their own measure of work in tracking down the Liberation Army’s members and allies, there was another figure with a significant hand in the MLA’s downfall.

All for One, then in his early sixties, had watched the rise of the MLA in some interest. On a personal level, he admired Yotsubashi’s charisma and resolve, and, of course, he wholly supported the free use of quirks (well, his own free use of quirks, anyway)! On the other hand, All for One also sought to restore order to society, albeit order as he himself envisioned it. While he was confident that there was no one who could stand up to him no matter whose ideals won out, Saneki Yuuichi’s way promised a more stable society, and bribable and/or blackmailable bureaucrats seemed easier to manipulate than ideal-driven zealots ready to give their lives for the cause. Thus, AFO decided to help the police a bit behind the scenes, offering a few tip-offs and hints to guide their efforts to end the threat of the Liberation Army.

Of course, as long as Destro was alive, the cause of Liberation still had its focal point. And AFO was still a bit curious to meet this man, who’d inspired so very many loyal followers. It was an easy thing to arrange. An interesting man, and an interesting quirk.

Destro did commit suicide in prison. A man who had always embraced his meta-ability for motivation, and whose ability transformed that motivation into power in turn, AFO stripped him of in the same moment. Isolation from other contact, separation from his lover, his friends and allies, and his cause, a gap in his psyche like no pain he’d ever experienced--all of these piled up on one another into a fatal despair. After AFO’s visit, there was no need for anyone to arrange a convenient death for Destro.

(And if in later years, the monstrous Noumu, who are driven entirely by pre-programmed, single-minded resolve, are flint-skinned from head-to-toe, well—who would ever even think to connect those dots?)

The Mother of Quirks—

An interesting thing I observed from Re-Destro’s confrontation with Clone!Shigaraki is that, based on their exchange, it doesn’t seem to be common knowledge that the Mother of Quirks is the mother of the Meta Liberation Army’s leader? Re-Destro’s apology for assuming Shigaraki wouldn’t recognize the story suggests that it’s a matter of fairly basic historical education, but he then goes on to explain her connection to Destro at some length—if that connection were taught at the same time her story was, surely he’d see no need to do this? Clone-a-raki’s response backs this up—unlike the general existence of the Mother of Quirks, which was such basic knowledge that he was insulted that Re-Destro thought he wouldn’t know about it, her connection to Destro was unknown to him.

Re-Destro describes the connection as “an inconvenient truth.” This, in turn, suggests that the connection has been actively obscured. The MLA’s place in history is taught; the originator of the term “quirk” is taught, but the two are not connected to each other. Kids in school aren’t taught that the very child whose mother was murdered for her words hated what his country was using those words, that message, to do. It’s naked appropriation that continues to this day, and it’s no wonder that the MLA is furious about it.

The Quirk Unit—

An early term for the group that would, in relatively short order after their formation, officially be dubbed Heroes. Composed of both meta-humans already on the police force and vigilantes willing to remit themselves to legal oversight, they fought quirk-based crime in many forms, from the common mugger to the terrorists of the MLA, and even former allies in vigilantism. Well-regarded by history thanks to their efforts in reining in crime and disorder, but quite a controversial group in their early years.

MLA Age of Induction—

Being raised in the MLA means being raised with the goal of eventually being assigned a codename and tasked with supporting the Great Cause in whatever fashion your superiors think you best suited. The minimum age for this is 16, though 18, being the age at which students graduate from high school, is more common. At no point is there really a safe way to leave once you’re involved; they are, after all, a secret army. There’s no aging out of the MLA—it’s a lifetime tour—but disability, injury or general decrepitude can get you assigned to work that generally won’t expect you to see open combat. The Army is composed of a great many lifetime-of-service families, after all, which means they need teachers and caretakers; another option is dedicated work for the Hearts & Minds Party, who always have room for community organizers.

Liberated Districts—

Settlements that are at least 85% MLA-inducted. At their largest, they’re small towns; rural villages are far more common. Without exception, they’re isolated or out of the way. Tend to have unusually good access to city services compared to similarly-sized settlements. Deika was one of the largest districts the Army had, chosen for the Revival Celebration due to its combination of a sizable population and a particularly closed-off location. The MLA knew they’d need many warriors to fight the League of Villains, but they also needed a site that was not merely remote, but that had controllable points of access.

It can take well over a decade to hit the 85% saturation mark in even small villages; Deika and the MLA’s handful of other full-fledged towns are the work of generations. They begin by moving people into an area and setting up gatherings on some useful pretext or another, enthusiastically welcoming newcomers and very, very gradually indoctrinating people further into the ideology. Financial support, an accepting environment for difficult quirks or those with patchy legal histories, the odd homeless shelter or food kitchen, a robust presence in the foster care network—the MLA is very, very good at making themselves a warm, sincere, reliable presence in peoples’ lives, a group that encourages everyone under their banner to be their best selves. They think everyone deserves that kind of support!

They are also willing to shed quite a lot of blood to make sure that everyone can get it.

On the Intersection of Disability and Quirk Suppression—

There are a few factors contributing to why Scarecrow can’t use his quirk to do things others would. First, his quirk is the kind of off-putting that gets Gang Orca ranked third-most villainous-looking hero and leads Shoji to wear a mask because his face disturbs people. So Scarecrow’s quirk is already the kind of visible that makes people look at him askance. Compounding this, his prosthetics are obvious, visible to any old person, and people have a very ugly tendency towards bootstrap, “you can do it if you try” mentalities around people with disabilities. These two factors mean that people who are disturbed by his creepy articulate bug legs would much prefer that he use his significantly less-creepy prosthetics, to the degree that they’re willing to suggest that he’s being lazy if he doesn’t. They cite the quirk-use laws as a deflection tactic, but Scarecrow—whose pattern recognition functions just fine, thanks—is keenly aware of the underlying mindset.

Nimble is in much the same boat—she literally can’t talk without falling back on a visual representation of some kind (sign-language, a text-to-speech reader, etc), and why on earth shouldn’t she be able to use the fastest and most convenient one without people getting up her ass about it?

None of this is the kind of thing that would likely get either of them arrested (though Scarecrow’s creepy enough that the odds are higher for him, “villain quirk” bias being what it is), but the laws-as-written, nonetheless, are discriminatory, and that makes people justly angry. Angry people are easier to radicalize, and the Liberation Army has been working that angle since their very inception.

Re-Destro and Trumpet’s College Days—

RD’s an Engineering major with a focus in Manufacturing; Trumpet’s in PoliSci. They’re two grades apart, with Koku being the older. Those two years of greater experience shift the power balance between them significantly when Rikiya arrives for his freshman year, facing a new place, a new workload, an entirely new rhythm to his life. For the first time, Koku is not merely a friend in similar circumstances who is still—as they’re both reminded near-constantly—subordinate to Rikiya’s every word. Rather, he’s a senpai, someone with specific experience in every aspect of this new stage of life—and someone who’s had two years to become more eloquent, more well-studied, more confident, more mature.

Removed from the immediate supervision of the First Families for the first time in his life, Rikiya allows himself to lean on Koku in ways he never would have back home. Koku, for his part, has had his responsibilities here impressed on him by the First Families at some length, and has spent his entire life being groomed to devote himself to his Grand Commander. Having said Grand Commander looking to him with such glowing esteem in his eyes—well, there’s no denying that it’s pretty enticing. The two of them enter a romantic relationship that will endure for several years until Rikiya gets his head back around the idea that Koku’s ability to say no to him is fundamentally compromised.

The Bindi Connection—

I had no reason to develop them any, and thus I don’t have names to assign, but it seems that Twice’s No. 3, the smiling old woman with the gingham dress and the rough-and-ready attitude to combat, and Geten’s No. 2, the short-haired woman whose face is being devoured by her out-of-control sweater neck, are related. Note the bindi on both of them, as well as the similar hair color, particularly in the page introducing all the advisors. Mutual connection to Dabi’s No. 3, the guy who got into a fight with a hole punch and lost, is uncertain but possible based on the confronting-the-heroes page spread in which Hole Punch dude’s hand lays familiarly on Grandma Bindi’s back while Big Sis Bindi turns partly towards him as if to whisper some sarcastic observation about how lame Cementoss’s ponytail is.

———–

FOOTNOTES

1: Regarding codenames, the first generation of the MLA tended to have names that reflected their meta-ability in some way. From the second generation on, at the behest of Destro’s son, the codenames have become less literal, and thus less revealing.

2: Viz renders the job tile “Executive Director,” but having checked the raw, the Japanese term, senmu, is associated with a fairly specific level of executive authority, and it’s lower than I would peg “Executive Director,” which to my ear sounds synonymous or slightly below Chief Executive Officer. Executive Vice President is wikipedia’s translation; Google returns Senior Managing Director. In any case, she’s near the top, but not at the top.

3: At least, he wasn’t prior to meeting Shigaraki. Now he’s pretty much in favor of a very organized and coherent belief structure that can be summarized as, “Watch Shigaraki tear down the world ‘cause he’s beautiful and I love him,” and honestly, mood.

4: I’ll just come out and say it: fandom blew Geten’s words way out of proportion because a bunch of people got mad that he was being mean to Everyone’s Favorite Serial Killer Dabi.

5: An archaic term by this period. Even “meta-human” saw more use in academic parlance, while the term “quirk” had become much more widespread among the general population since its official adoption during the period of legislation twenty years prior.

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