#its so painful to realize how naive i always have been and how my perspective will never quite be the same

[pessimisticprincess]

i dont know if i’ll ever stop mourning how i thought things would turn out and the person i used to be

[ckret2]

Sama anon that sent you the ask beginning with “I always figured that Bill held disdain for Soos because…” so sorry about that last paragraph in the ask, I realize you’re not the type of author to seriously change your story or writing style because you got a long question and saw it as a Hint, I was just feeling guilty about another author whose story I think I inadvertently messed with absolutely no idea or intention. Sorry. Ignore that last bit, it was kind of uncalled-for unfaithful..

I'm gonna use this ask as an excuse to copy/paste your original ask and put it under a read more since it's Long.

Yeah, as you figured out in this ask, I'm not changing anything. I know exactly why Bill hates Soos, and I know exactly when, how, and why the audience will find out. I only change my plans based on asks if they make me think of a way to do what I wanted to do that's even better than the way I was originally gonna do it.

But yes: the reason Bill hates Soos is personal.

Anyway, your theory has been officially noted!

Anonymous asked:

I always figured that Bill held disdain for Soos because he viewed Soos’s positive attitude/outlook and friendliness as being naive and mindlessly conformist and unaware of all the ways he was harmful and delusional in a blind-to-anything-that-society-doesn’t-say-is-bad, without ever having the curiosity/worth to think outside the box.

Like, think of how… a disabled person might see licensed professionals casually abusing their disabled patients with cruel, damaging practices that do nothing to help and actually obviously harmful if you think/ pay any attention at all, but they tell themselves they’re good people and cheerfully don’t look any further into it. And that’s how he sees Soos, and his morality, as someone who thinks he’s nice and good and doesn’t get everything he’s doing wrong/thinking wrong. Ish. Only Bill sees all order as pointless and repressive and evil.

(Maybe there’s a degree of separation, somewhere, because as we see in The Book of Bill, he verrrrry subconsciously sees himself as a monster, in a way that’s actually bad-bad. But overall the lines are blurred for him, between what values of society are pointless and cruel, and all order being bad, burn it down, kill the people. When it comes to Bill’s kind of morality, where chaos is freedom, and order— all order— is repressive and cruel and unnatural. Is doctors force feeding you meds to fix you when you’re not broken but they’re breaking you.)

And that it wasn’t particular to Soos, that any average, cheerful, “common ol’ Joe” human like Soos would in general receive that kind of disdain from Bill. That sort of, “what an idiot” feeling, that’s got some real pain, and hatred for everything he thinks that person’s cheerfulness and kindness/morality represents, buried deep beneath. Not anything too personal against Soos himself. Just everyone like him, and what they look like to Bill. A typical, benign, blithely cheerful example of the dumb masses, another moron human organic who doesn’t get it. And isn’t even weird/creative enough to be interesting, blegh.

And it makes sense, anyway, since Bill is basically being abused here, that he’d have disdain for any of the people complicit in it who put up a cheerful friendly attitude, which they themselves bought. Talking from Bill’s perspective here.

But anyway, with Bill’s disdain for Soos, I was just like, yeah, makes sense. Soos seems to be the type of human to come off to Bill as a typical annoying dense meatsack. I didn’t think about it too much though I guess it took a lot of words to describe.

But with that ask about Bill’s disdain for Soos… okay, so was it more personal/more, in general, than just the stuff I just said? If it wasn’t, that’s fine. It makes sense if Bill’s disdain isn’t any more personal or extra complicated than what I tried to describe. It’s interesting enough on its own, it doesn’t need more factors. I just wanted to ask.

I just realized the length of this ask probably sounds pushy, somehow, but I only wrote so much because I got sidetracked trying to put my thoughts into words, it was only going to be a few sentences. It really was just a casual question. I’m not even that committed to this over other things. Don’t change the preplanned story because of me, please. Or add a specific scene about Bill’s dislike of Soos when you wouldn’t normally because of me. And you don’t have to spell it out for us in the next chapter, or whenever you write about it, because of me. Your writing is already great, you don’t need to change it to be more obvious for any reason. Just write it like you would. I really was just asking casually, this ask was really going to be a few sentences long, but I couldn’t figure out how to put my thoughts into words and now it’s paragraphs, sorry. But yeah.

[natureismynature]

What is idwtkoh?? Tell me your propaganda

Oh my fucking god anon hello and THANK YOU for giving me the opportunity to talk about THE most amazing webtoon I have ever laid my eyes upon. Get ready cuz I'm gonna be insufferable-

OKAY. So, 'I don't want this kind of hero' is a Korean webtoon (manhwa) made by Samchon. It became popular in 2010 and the english translation ended in 2020. It has 290 chapters when I say every single chapter is top tier, I MEAN IT.

First of all, the artsyle is SO GOOD. It's so fucking charming and so BADASS when it wants to be, a perfect balance. Idfk why some people get turned off by the artstyle?? Like???

This is the first ever panel and it already looks SO GOOD WDYM. And the character designs??? THE CHARACTER DESIGNS OH MY GOD. You can take one look at any character in this series and you'll have the basics of their personality just like THAT. It's so obvious but subtle at the same time??? I can't explain. Just- the character designs are AMAZING. I want to post every single character in the series just to prove my point but that'll be overkill, take this group photo instead-

SPEAKING ABOUT THE CHARACTERS.

The characters in this are all SO GOOD. And I'm not even being biased about it I swear- I mean, I don't like main characters often, in fact, I can count in two hands the number of main characters I actually like from ALL the stuff I've watched over the years, and Naga is in that list. Naga is the main character of the series and that boy owns my HEART. He's the most powerful person in the world, he goes through a lot of shit, he canonically has depression, he had so many opportunities to take a life and get away with it because it would have been JUSTIFIED, but he still finds it in him to be the kindest person out there. He can be selfish, he can be childish, and he is unapologetically FLAWED in more ways than one, he messes up and sees the world for what it is, but he learns and he grows but he will never be perfect and that's what makes me love him.

And it's not just Naga who's amazingly written. ALL the characters are unique and complex in their own ways. I can go through every single one of them, from the heroes to the villains to the people caught in the crossfire- I can make ESSAYS for everyone. Why they act the way they do, why they did the things they did, how the circumstances that they went through made them who they are. The dynamics between the characters themselves are so amazingly done as well, it's so origanic, in a way.

Oh my god if you love women, you'll LOVE this series because lemme tell you, the women in this are amazing. 100/10 would recommend. They're not sexualized in any way, they get as much character development AND exploration just as much as the men do and no one is there to purpose as the mc's love interest. The ladies as fuckin BADASS and cool and beautiful and the villains!!! HOLY SHIT THE VILLAINS LADIES. They are so evil and flawed and I adore them so much- the hero ladies too AUGH- (makes sense cuz the author is a woman)

But yeah, I talk about heroes and villains a lot bc this is a story about heroes and villains and a world with powers and animal hybrids and mythical creatures-

AND THE STORY. THE FUCKING STORY. IT'S SO GOOD.

I won't go into details because that'd be spoilers in case you wanna read it (PLEASE READ IT ITS SO GOOD) but I can tell you this much- it's a perfect balance between humor and action and tragedy. It starts of light and funny, but the story gets a darker edge as time goes on, I know that's a deal breaker for a lot of people, but it's actually done in a way that makes so much sense that you realize in your second read that it's ALWAYS been a much darker story. The cruelty of the world has always been there, the racism, the unforgiving circumstances, the perversion of the world, the pain and the grief and the misery- it's always been there.

Only, we were seeing the world through Naga's young and naive perspective. He was new to the world of heroism, he's just a kid that didn't know any better. He was never arrogant about his powers, he never bragged about it, didn't even want the attention it brought him, but he unknowingly got too confident in his abilities to keep him sheltered. As time went on and as more fucked up shit he goes through, he sees more, understands more, and suddenly everything's too dark because that's ALL he sees now.

The story shows us how the world is not black and white but instead a multitude of the shades of gray. And it doesn't shy away from exploring those shades. It DIGS into those shades of gray, makes you question the justice of a character's actions, makes you wonder if things would have gone differently if this or that happened instead. Even goes deep into the psychology of the characters, both heroes and villains alike.

And the main villain? OH THE MAIN VILLAIN. Baekmorae is SUCH a top tier villain. I HATE HIM. I hate how much I love him. He's so- he's insane. He's crazy. He's unhinged. I want to put him in a blender, turn his bones into powder and feed him to the fishes. He's so well written it HURTS.

Oh and this series gets dark. Like DARK dark. It's like if you mix One Piece, BNHA, Mob Psycho, and Saiki K together, you get this. And if you know me, you know I ADORE all four of those, so this series owns my entire being-

Augh, as much as I want to keep going, this is getting longer than I expected it to be. Well, that's a lie, I wanted it to be longer but I also want you to read the entirety of my propaganda and having this stretch out longer might turn you off so I'll stop here kfvekdvs if you want to know more PLEASE don't hesitate to slide into my inbox I'll be so freaking happy to talk about this more <3

TLDR: idwtkoh is freaking amazing from start to finish you should go read it it's amazing, BYE!

[localbff]

Hello

been a while since i wrote here. so much has happened in between the months that came and i probably have a lot to tell by now. i'll try to dilute it all down one by one. each comprising of different events but similar to each other. doing these write ups can be very exhausting and still be rewarding in some ways. but writing about yourself feels like an ego stroke at times, also feel selfish and ridding yourself of any harm nor guilt you committed to things, especially people. it is cathartic to do this, but it takes a toll on you… personally -- it does.

i've uhmm and ahh'd so much into this and have since gone too much revisions and sentence structures, i cant be fucked and bothered to do more edits. i'll just let the my writer in me to do their thing and see where it all lands.

i wanna acknowledge how much of myself i lost in the fire. how much of myself i showed to people that i didn't keep in check. how so much of myself went unnoticed and ended up hurting those i love. i'm hurting as of this moment, and i think those that i hurt too, much worse than i'm feeling. at this point, my writing feels like a self-ridicule and untangling myself from past guilt -- i promise, it isn't. acknowledging what you are and what you were should feel at least comforting as you move forward, gradually, into a better state.

when you like someone, you do it in small gestures or you end up saying so much that all the words that come out of your mouth form only as a big blurb of bullshit. i gravitated towards the two, never conforming to a singular emotion. i kept my composure but all the love was begging to rush out of me in one single moment, wanting to express it all. i didn't notice the signs that i were being vague and that was one thing they disliked about me. i thought i had all the boxes checked, i guess i was naive of the fact that things were slowly starting to not look okay... it haunted me, and to this day it still does. then the realization settles in. there is no running from it now.

do not ATTEMPT to be me. or at least try to avoid becoming me. or maybe we're all the same… i try to look at myself back when i was 15 or 16 to compare and contrast them from who i've become now. so much has changed but remnants of my old self when i was sixteen still come out of me. i try to suppress it. our parents have fucked us up for so much that we couldn't identify them now because the horrors were subtle and discreet for us to notice. the horrors still persists and continues to do so until now. this is in no way vilifying our mothers and fathers and those that came before them, but you have to admit that the things did did to and for us is a spectrum of many things.

i'm not trying to rid myself of the guilt, i write this down as a message of acknowledgement and a slow realization of what i am, and to slowly turn away from it.

at this point, i start to think to myself in a readers perception of all this as i read it in a third person perspective, without any prior knowledge of what i'm talking about. maybe it was all about nothing and just bullshit? maybe i can relate to it? maybe its just fiction? or it really was about tidying yourself and coming out a new person with those mistakes behind them and just an ego stroke body of text?

maybe it's for something? or someone? it is for someone. i am a mess and i was a fuck up for hurting them.

you cannot miss a moment when it's detrimental to a person or a thing. so much of it i overlooked, the small dots started to become giant blackholes. now i feel like sinking into concrete and laying to rest.

i have to change, because i want to and i will always change -- for better or for worse. but i wanna be better. progress is nonlinear but we'll get to it. i'm so used to pain and loss i have nowhere else to go but a better state. and i hope you do too. i wish you well on your journey.

[ryuichirou]

Can you make your top 10 aot characters that have a good development? Like Eren and Reiner are considered to be the best characters as 'characters' themselves

Anon… dear Anon, you’ve been waiting for like a month I think, I’m so sorry. I took this ask waaay too seriously lol, but yeah, I can’t postpone it for any longer…

I know you asked for top 10, and this is a numbered list, but I wouldn’t call it a proper ranking, so the place doesn’t really matter all that much. Otherwise this list would’ve taken even longer, I’m very serious about lists, it seems lol

Before I start I want to mention (just in case): I feel like “character development” isn’t always about becoming better at something. Sometimes you can become “worse”; sometimes you can get “better” and then fall back to your old ways. It’s just how the character changes, and the trajectory of that change can be very different for different characters.

1. Eren. I can talk about Eren for hours and hours, and I have talked about him a lot, so I’ll try to be quick this time.

Eren’s journey is very interesting and enjoyable to read. He’s such an unusual main character. So aggressive at first, unlikable to some (not to us lol we adored him since day one), loud and stubborn. But it’s super cool to watch this hurricane of a person, especially as he gets calmer, starts controlling his emotions little by little, learns more stuff and understands the situation around him better.

I think I’ll talk about how perspective and knowing a bigger picture change the way character acts a lot in this post, but Eren is an ultimate example of this. He got every single thing: past, present, future, drilled in his head at one fucking moment. He didn’t get a bigger picture, he got the biggest 5d picture with special effects. And he had no one to share that with: he had to deal with it himself, knowing that he himself is the reason for everything that’s happening. It makes my head hurt to even think about that lol It’s cool and unnerving to watch Eren, who’s used to be such a fireball of a character, to just get… quiet and apathetic. We don’t know what he’s thinking about, we don’t know what’s going on anymore, even though his emotions were always the most obvious thing about him. It’s almost scary.

And the interesting thing about it is that nothing really changed about his feelings, at least I think so. Ultimately, the only thing he wanted is for his friends to be happy and live long lives, and who knows, maybe he saw that the “freedom” he was initially seeking for himself doesn’t really exist. This is up to debate and definitely not for this post though lol

2. Reiner. Ohh Reiner. He was one of the characters who wasn’t all that interesting to me personally at first, but as he got more and more complex and emotional, I fell in love with him more and more. This isn’t a numbered list, but he is definitely one of the best written characters. And what’s cool about him is that we see the reason for him being the way he is throughout the story: why he wanted to become a hero, why his mental state got so bad, why he was conflicted, why he got so depressed and why he was able to take responsibility for his actions. I love it when the story breaks its characters, and Reiner is certainly one of the most broken ones. His lower point (when he almost killed himself + cried and asked Eren to kill him) was very beautiful and painful to read, because we know why he feels that way and we know how smug and brave he was at the very beginning of the show/manga. And we know that it was all a lie, which makes everything even tastier.

And as much as I love broken characters, I’m kind of glad Reiner found strength to continue fighting and to take responsibility for his actions (to some degree, at least). Not only he saw a bigger picture, he actually learned how to live with it. I’m so happy they discussed the Marco incident with Jean, and that after Annie told that it was her who took his gear, Reiner stood up and said that Annie was following his orders. He also apologized to Annie for everything he did to her and Bert.

Basically, Reiner went from wanting to be a hero to acting like a hero, then to being an actual hero to Marley and feeling like shit anyways, then to just being a human being, something like that. And that scene with his mom hugging him and being happy for him being alive is actually a very sweet and satisfying moment. Especially considering how much Reiner wanted to die lol

3. Zeke. I’ve talked about it in one of the replies about ch137, but I love how Zeke went from “I shouldn’t have been born” to ���maybe small moments of happiness make everything worth it” at the very end of his life (what a cruel irony to realise that just before you die). Not only the character develops and changes, our view of him changes as well: I think Zeke was universally hated when he first appeared, but then he became more fun (dude’s too charismatic), and then he became sympathetic and vulnerable. All of this was always inside Zeke, but it was hidden since Zeke is a lying snake. See, Zeke is smart, but he’s super sure that his views are the only valid ones and that his idea of freeing Eldians is the only solution. His views are surprisingly black and white: I suffered, Eren suffered and our dad is bad. And no one challenged his beliefs until they walk through Grisha’s memories with Eren in ch120-121, and then he realized that Eren didn’t suffer at all and their dad is actually just a person who really regretted being a horrible father to his first son. I love that he got some closure with Grisha because he held that grudge for his entire life.

4. Grisha. He has a rollercoaster ride of a development lol: at first he was an innocent boy, then he became an angry boy, and then he kind of calmed his anger down for some time? But after learning what actually happened to Faye, his emotional wounds got open and all that rage blinded him again. And then, after being outed by Zeke, he lost everything, but had a harsh realization that by being driven by his anger only, he completely forgot not to be a shitty dad. He basically had a second chance in life, with a much better perspective about what’s going on, but now he has his younger son’s ghost haunting him and telling him to do thing he never thought he’d do. At different points of the story Grisha feels both like a mastermind behind things and like a pawn who doesn’t have a choice even if he just wants to live a peaceful and happy life with his wife and kids. The irony of him killing a bunch innocent kids when this whole story started because he got his little sister killed? Delicious. Oh, and I really love the fact that he realised that he screwed up as dad and apologized to Zeke. He loved his kids a lot: Zeke, Eren and Mikasa too (he called her his daughter after all).

5. Erwin. Way more interesting than people give him credit for. He’s mostly adored for being a badass, but he also has his own flaws that he had to deal with. He’s like a moth that’s drawn to the light, but right after burning himself and dying he kind of did “the right thing” that he had to do as a commander. Now, for me it isn’t really about Erwin ending up doing “the right thing” to be honest: we would probably adored him is he ditched everyone and ran to the basement because his selfish desires ended up being more important to him. But that scene where he confessed to Levi that he really wanted to find that basement and just told him everything about his capricious and selfish childish desires, talked about how he lied to everyone including Levi basically just to prove his dad’s point… it was beautiful, because it was basically “I have to do it, haven’t I? But I really don’t want to”. His character development is interesting in a sense that at first he was getting gradually more and more psychotic about his dream, doing crazy things even when he knows it might not be the best choice possible (like him risking his life instead of staying behind), but at the very end he stopped to think and… well we know the rest lol

6.  Armin. I remember people saying that Armin is just a narrator-like character who is here to explain thing (I probably thought so too at first), but this is so unfair. It’s easy to make someone like Armin into this trope, and to leave him being a very one-dimensional dreamer who’s smart but naive. And Armin is so much more than that. Throughout the story he has a lot of “I should have been the one who died” moments, and I love that this is such a prominent issue for him, but he still got over it somehow. Armin was kind of lost at the beginning, but found his role. And wow, he had to go through it again after he was chosen instead of Erwin, because the burden on his shoulders just got 100 kg heavier lol He also got less naïve and more cunning with time and got much better at emotional manipulation, I think. While preferring a dialogue over violence, Armin still isn’t pure, and he acknowledges that constantly, especially after his first kill, and things got even worse since that point, which definitely changed him. But his violence-loathing (kind of…) core is still there.

Armin ended up playing a much bigger role in the story than I thought he would be, I really love it. He has his moments of weakness, but he still pushes forward and takes responsibility and does his best. Oh and let’s pretend that the Annie thing never happened, it doesn’t contribute anything to his character anyway.

7.  Jean. I think Jean is the first character who starts showing character growth, and I believe his development is the reason he was Isayama’s favourite for some time. Tbh, I don’t find Jean annoying even at the very beginning: yeah he’s selfish, but he’s self-aware about it, he’s a realist. And he’s still a realist, but his conscience wouldn’t let him just have an easy life while everyone else’s suffering. I always feel like Jean is a spoiled mamaboy, so it’s great to see him showing that he can put others before himself. He also had an inner conflict similar to Armin’s: is it right to kill innocent people if you have to? Is it ok to kill not-so-innocent people because they’re against you? I really like this theme in SnK just in general.

8.  Gabi. It’s no secret that I adore Gabi lol, and I think her character development is great. She was in her element when we first met her: she was confident, she was doing her best and succeeding, she knew the world around her so well, and then Eren took everything from her. People like to hate Gabi for killing Sasha and for being aggressive on Paradis, but I think it’s great that she didn’t have an overnight change of heart. It’s great that Isayama showed us her shock and her raw emotions, it’s more than natural for a child with her upbringing, even if it’s messed up. But I love it when stories take characters that are great at what they do, and they take them out of their element, to show them at their worst: lost, angry, broken and confused. I love that she understood everything herself and not because Falco told her “hey they’re people too” that one time. She had to go through this hell to figure everything out, and I think it’s great.

9.  Historia. Historia was one of the least interesting characters for me (and for a lot of people, Yams included) at the beginning, and tbh I think it’s brilliant: we never saw anything in her; she was just a waifu material who’s nice to others. It felt fake and boring, well, because it was indeed fake and boring, and to this day I cannot believe that that was the entire point. I love how Ymir made Historia realise that she needs to think for herself, but what’s interesting about all that is that after Ymir left, she almost came back to her old habits. Which is also a development, and a very interesting one. The end of S2 was a high point for her (when she told Ymir that she isn’t scared of anything when they’re together), and then there was a very low point (when Ymir left), and then a high point again (when she remembered Ymir and Frieda and decided to act upon her own desires). She’s one of my faves now because of all that… It’s sad she didn’t have a bigger role post-timeskip, but I still appreciate her story for what it is.

10.  Oh god this is so hard to pick one and this post is already so long… can I just give you a bunch of quick honorable mentions?

Annie (who was a loner that couldn’t really trust anyone but ended up showing her vulnerable and emotional side), Hange (started out enthusiastic and eager to learn more only to meet more pain and disappointment, crumbling under the pressure, but ultimately remembering her amusement with titans), Levi (granted it’s very subtle, but him going through Kenny’s death, Erwin’s death and his promise to him, realization that he’s been killing people all this time and other stuff fascinating and huge leaving a mark on him), Ymir (who got hurt and decided not to trust anyone anymore and to act selfishly, but ended up sacrificing herself anyway lol)…. God, these short description sucks, they can’t describe them properly. Also there are so much of them that I think have good development, and I’m 100% missing someone… but I think I’m done for now. Katsu I’m sorry for making you read all this.

That you for this ask, Anon <3 and sorry again for being so late

[yconic]

"Divorce is a special kind of pain. It's like death without a body, " is what they say when two halves of a whole heart separate.

Tony never understood when he was younger, never extended the notion of two people who gifted each other to eternity in union splitting up beyond 'Just not talking for a bit.'

He looked at it from a small perspective belonging to a small person, as if the people in question were just two good friends who couldn't decide on what game to play, hurt each other, and needed space.

His parents had done it more times than he cared to count. The frigid silences and artificial prompt politeness between the socialite power couple Howard and Maria Stark could last for two days, or two months, depending on how deep the issue picked out that time ran.

Tony sat straight as he watched the clock tick away, dutifully counting the hours that would bring Maria closer to home from whichever elicit travel affair she filled her time with while Howard closes himself into his workshop, stewing in anger and bitterness that leak out from the door he's not permitted to trespass.

He learns to measure the gravity of their squabbles, - If it's a small argument, Maria picks Germany, France, or Spain. She sends a letter stating the duration of her stay. She sends Tony well wishes, with a touch of formality for a mother, and her name is elegantly plastered on the bottom in cursive.

When Howard fucks up, she picked China, Britain, or Italy, and she disappeared from the earth until she emerged at her like. Howard is Howard, - the relationship between him and his son was too cold for Tony to tell how his father was like without the disdain gleaming in his eyes, but the liquor cabinet always needed at least a daily refill after a spectacular drama.

He looks back at those moments and realizes, with a shade of pity coated in something more sour, mellow but active, that divorce was never an option for them, the cycle of co-dependency and maintaining legacy had to be kept no matter how demanding that task was.

He can't bring himself to be angry when he feels so bad for them. All that money, and they couldn't buy a second of peace.

It doesn't take long for him to realize his parents don't love each other.

Tony was young, but he was never a child. He was naive, gullible, innocent, - but he was awake. While he didn't clearly understand what love was, he looked at the unhappy frowns on the miserable faces of the pair and thought: 'If that's how love looks like I want no part in it.'

He doesn't love people for more than one night, - A full week if their company was good enough to distract him from the rich golden color of his whiskey that gradually tastes bitter, and more bitter every time. It's not love, he knows, - He keeps that special for his family. But the kind of feeling he has with strangers, with nobody's with a name, resembles what he knows of love too much for him to change meaning.

He won't know how "love" feels like. He refuses to be the caged bird his mother was, to take form in the monster Howard let himself become.

Then, life gives him Steve.

He nests into Tony's life like a storm with skin, hair kissed by sunshine and eyes filled with an ocean that the brunette longs to sink into. He has a boyish charm to him, an old soul that swoops Tony off his feet. It makes him want to slow down, even if he belongs to the future, to activity, to progress. He wants to sit and listen to the stories Steve has, told in a Brooklyn swird that gives character to every word.

Steve looks at him like Rhodey told him all people should look at him. 'Like they can't see the status, or the money, or the power. Like they just see Tony, and nothing more. Because Tony will always be enough. ' Steve looks at him like he hangs the moon for him.

Tony never stood a chance. He looked at Steve, and thinks: "Oh, shit. He's It for me."

He just knows that this one, this Captain, decorated to the teeth, hiding in awkwardness at this petty mingling, social climbing Gala, lowering himself at the bar because he didn't know anybody, was made for him. And if Steve clings to Tony the whole night, he agrees with the parallel drawing out on his part.

He doesn't leave Tony's side, arm snug and comfortable around his middle like they've known each other for longer than time itself, and Tony loves it more than he has the courage to say.

Steve looks at him when the epilogue of the night strikes, too soon for either of their likings. He's tall, broad-shouldered, strong but has the softest eyes in the world. It hurts Tony to arch his neck to stare, but he doesn't want to miss a thing. "I've... I didn't laugh like that since I was in tour. You made my night, Tony."

"It's nothing, -" Because it really is. Considering the sins to his name, the least he can do to atone some mistakes is make as much people as happy as he can. And Happy is a great look on Steve.

He does learn one thing: When Steve says something, it stays how Steve says it. "No, its everything, Tony. I didn't smile once since coming home, " he croaks, like the confession pains him, and Tony aches alongside him. "Everyone is worried about me, saying that, that I seem upset, or sad, or just, never happy anymore, but how else am I supposed to feel?"

"You can't let others tell you how you feel, " Tony soothes, without thinking, a hand softly brushing against Steve's cheek. A frisson zaps through him at the feeling of the soldier's stubble spiking his skin. Steve leans into his touch like it's the most normal thing in the world. Tony's heart grows. "It's not even in your control, so why should it be in theirs? " He understands how Steve feels. More than the world would care to listen.

"Exactly. So, if it's not too much trouble, " his shyness compliments Tony's smitten. "Would you mind making me smile again?"

Tony is, utterly, indubitably, irrevocably, without a shade of doubt, fucked.

He smiles anyway. "You know, soldier, I think I could pull some strings."

---

Their love is like rain in June. It's mellow and distractingly peaceful, makes their worry and everything that ever went wrong scarce away. They can breathe around each other even when they feel like drowning. For once, Tony feels like it'll be okay.

But Life decides to do what it always does when Tony finds something good. It takes, and it takes, until there's nothing.

Steve tells him about Bucky. About the fallen brother that vanished in the mission that stole everything for Steve. "Only one soldier fell off that train, but two died that day, " God, Tony is so worried when Steve talks like that. "It should've been me. I wanted it to be me."

Tony listens and he pictures Rhodey falling. Steve loved Bucky in ways he couldn't even hope to understand.

It turns out, Death is not something so permanent after all.

It's a lovely night for them when Steve gets that call. He's wrapped around Tony and holds him in his arms as if he'd rather go to war again than let him go and Tony's heart never beat so loud for anyone. He would have never let Steve answer if he knew that phone call was the beginning of their end.

Bucky's alive again, is reborn from snow and war and ashes. Broken, but alive. Held captive by terrorists and is unmade, undid, but still alive. Everything around Steve is lost after that.

Tong gives him space and resources, help, support, he gives everything to Steve like on their wedding day. He gives him his care and gentle hands and soft words and love with a heartbeat. And Steve is just... Too preoccupied looking at Bucky to notice. Tony feels like a selfish bastard for wanting his soldier to look at HIM instead of coddling his friend at every moment notice.

He wants Steve to stop suffocating Bucky when he already looks like he's just inhaling instead of breathing.

He wants his husband back.

That's why he deserves what's coming to him. That's his punishment.

They drift apart slowly, as most terrible pains start.

Steve starts spending more and more time around the mental help facility Bucky asked to be enlisted into after his hasty return that had everyone clutching at their pearls. He wants to do it alone, Tony figures easily, starves for a journey he wants to walk himself, for the kind of autonomy only a man who lost it for too long craves.

His bitterness aside, Tony marvels at how similar they are. Maybe In another life, he and Barnes would've made a handsome pair of kindred souls.

Steve doesn't agree. He looks sickened, struck even, at Tony for having the Gall to suggest maybe Barnes would be more responsive if he talked with someone who had mirroring experiences. "God, Tony, you don't... You're not a soldier. You're just a man. You've been through pain, sure, but not like Bucky. No one went through what he did. I'm honestly speechless you ever thought you could compare."

Steve says that, it's why it hurts so bad. The man who swore he'd walk back into the hellfire of war just to find the people who hurt Tony and tear them apart.

The man who couldn't be moved by anything. No nightmare, no night terror, no panic attack, no argument. Nothing convinced Steve to leave. He stayed through it all.

The man who cried relentlessly when Rhodey walked Tony down the alter because 'He couldn't believe how lucky he was to marry someone so beautiful.'

The man who hasn't written Tony a love letter every morning like he used to do in over a year.

The man who spent more time sleeping in hospital rooms than in their bed.

The man who used to not go even one day without saying "I love you". Tony can't even remember the last time this sentence was spoken between them unless he said it first.

The man who agreed to couple therapy, then acted like it rained the next day.

Tony would will himself to shove this under the rug. To put a blind eye to it, to make it work, to ignore Rhodey's disapproval and Pepper's warm worry, to push away the pain blossoming in his chest, threatening to overspill.

But this man adopted a child with him.

---

"That one" Steve points to a small boy, thin but sturdy-looking even in the hand me downs from the orphanage, short limbs supporting a mess of brown hair that looks impossibly soft. His eyes are big and kind. Tony wants to take him home and feed him. "That one's ours."

His name is Peter, and he got into a fight with older kids when they wanted to stomp on ladybugs. He pushes back, but not unkindly. He's no bully. Instead, he takes the time to teach them why disrespecting and hurting nature is wrong, then takes their hands into his own, playing with the tiny creatures for hours.

Tony falls in love immediately. "Let's bring him home, Cap."

---

He can't do it. Tony can't look into Peter's adoring eyes, wide and brown that feel more like a mirror than anything, and see the fear he had for Howard, or the sadness for Maria. Tony can't handle looking at the love of his life and see another him.

Steve is Peter's role model. His knight in shining armor, his protector, everywhere he goes he sings praise to anyone who cares to listen. About his fearless father, his heroic antics that seem so tall for him. "My daddy's a superhero!" Tony doesn't have the heart to take that away.

And Tony loves Steve too much to see him become Howard.

So when Steve misses their son's 5th birthday party because he had more pressing business in D.C, Tony realizes bitterly, there's no saving this. People labeled him as a mechanic, a futurist, but he feels unworthy of both when he couldn't fix or foresee this.

There's no coming back from this.

Natasha doesn't voice it, but she doesn't need to. She tucks her phone away after a third failed attempt to coax, threaten, and guilt Steve into joining them, with muted movements, and Tony can tell she agrees.

Tony's grin is too wide when he looks down at Peter when he drags him off to paint his face, unaware of his father's turmoil. He laughs. He smiles. He celebrates. He has a nice day with his family.

He pulls Pepper aside and asks her to prepare his lawyers in the same breath.

This is why Tony knew love wasn't made for him.

---

Tony's always been good at hurting himself. The more pain he inflicts on himself, the less it'll hurt when someone else does it. So he unpacks the stash of letters he kept locked away in a seif, because they're prized to him, more than any sleek car or company, and reads them before he burns the bridge.

They feel like warm kisses and goodbyes.

'Left for a grocery jog, ran out of coffee. It's supposed to be cold, so don't you even think about leaving the house without a jacket! I'll know. Take care of yourself, even when I'm not there. '

' I love waking up next to you every morning. I love how you hide from the sun in my chest. I love how grumpy you are when Pepper calls for updates and all you do is cuddle me and whine. I love your messy bed hair and how you fall asleep in the shower.

'I never cared for jewelry before but seeing my ring around your finger never gets old. I still can't believe you said yes, but I'm glad you did. You deserve more, but you settled for someone like me. I can't believe it when you say no one would want you forever, I hate that someone made you think like that, that they let you go, but their biggest mistake is my biggest win. Jokes on them.'

'I can't imagine my life without you. Its all radio silence and broken static. Like an artist with a blank canvas and grey paint. You're the best damn thing that ever happened to me, and the fact that I have you means there really is someone up there looking our for me. I'm never letting you go. I love you, I love you, I love you, '

Tony stains the paper with tears as he listens to the song of heartbreak in his chest.

---

"Nat, " Tony pleads, choosing not to look at the tremor in his hands as he neats the papers he wants to see burn. "There's no need for that, come on. You know I love you, but I'm a big boy. I don't need you to hold my hand for this."

Natasha shrugs. "Indulge me."

"He wouldn't do anything to me."

"I thought there were lots of things he wouldn't do. Like stop loving you, for one, " she doesn't mean to be a jab, but Tony strokes his right arm and lets the hurt wash off. He sometimes forgets how blunt and terrifying Pepper's wife is capable of being. "Being paranoid is worth being safe."

They find Steve in the kitchen, sitting stiff and unfamiliar as if he didn't design the place himself. Tony swallows down the pressure in his throat and forces his eyes to stay dry. He wants to rest his hands on Steve's shoulders and pepper the lines of laughter on his flushed face with kisses.

But they're behind that now.

Steve raises his eyes to look at him. He's tired, run-down, missing the spark Tony marked as one of his favorite traits of the blonde. The life wasted from them, telling Tony that he's surviving, but not living.

Tony looks at him back and his eyes say, 'Me too.'

Steve's mouth twists into an imitation of a smile, tries his luck at mimicking something of the reassurance and ease variety, to hide his emotions with a mask of cracked peace Tony undressed a million times, just as Steve undressed his. He's always been good at reading the man. Or, was.

Steve's eyes fall on the documents Tony's holding with his naked hands, no ring in sight, and Tony watches something die in him.

The room drowns in silence for a while.

Natasha stands as a loyal shadow at his side, silent but sharp, hands folded in front of her crotch like a guard dog waiting to pounce. There's a forced calm into her breathing that puts him even more on edge.

Papers brush smoothly above the marble surface, ear piercing to him. Red hot blazing into white noise. It's the most terrible sound he's ever heard. He prefers his breathless, agonized screams in Afghanistan to this.

Steve recoils away, standing up suddenly and shakily, as if the documents are bombs about to kill him anytime now.

He turns his head, refusing to look at them. Refuses to accept they're real.

"Throw those away, Tony, " he says, voice edged with the kind of suffering that would bring Tony to his knees on other circumstances."Get them the hell away from me and never bring them up again, you hear me? I'm serious.''

Carefully, Natasha chimes in, tone mild and neutral. " Steve. Tony would like to speak with you about something, alright? Let's sit down, and talk like grown-ups, -"

"Where's your ring!?" Steve shouts, tiptoeing at the border of desperate and hysteric. Tony wants back into the cave, wants the water to take him away from all of this. It's hard to kill something that's already dead. "What did you do with it!? Why aren't you wearing it!? You PROMISED me, you promised you'd never take it off you JERK, you lying -"

"And you promised to love me until the day we die, but by the looks of it we both could use a lesson in honesty, " Tony cuts icily, colder than colder. His words are resigned, hollow, at the brim of mechanical. He thinks all the people who say Starks are more machine than men had a point. "I'm the fuck up in this relationship. What's your excuse?"

He thought he'd feel vindication watching Steve taste a fraction of his sorrow, that his destroyed look would make something in Tony retaliate. It does nothing. Tony loves him stronger, fiercer, and there's no win here for anyone.

His mouth tastes like ashes.

He just wants to stop, to sink in his bed and swim in ratty hoodies drenched in cheap but sweet cologne, smudged with paint of all shades, and feel Steve's arms shield him from the world.

He wonders if it'll keep Steve up at night, how it never occurred to him that the danger he wanted to defend Tony from might have his face.

"I'll do better. Tony please," Steve begs him, and Tony wonders if the situation is so low a man with his nature would resort to that. He's shaken by big hands engulfing his own for exactly a moment before Natasha intervenes, pushing the blonde away with a hint of regret. Steve recovers, looks right through her at Tony who wants to wipe his tears away. "I'll do better, I'll- I'll spend less time with Bucky if you want, -"

"Bucky isn't the problem. It's not about HIM, it was never about him, this is US, Steve. We, our marriage, our family, its been here longer than Bucky. I never wanted you to - to erase him from your life, I just wanted my husband. Peter wanted his daddy. Bucky could've been apart of that, but you just, you just pushed us aside,-"

"I won't do that anymore. I, - Do you want me to be at home more often? I can, sweetheart, I can do that no problem. I can be at home, I can make time for dates and-and for activities, I can take Peter to the park and play ball, - Do you remember that? How we used to play until he fell asleep? I don't mind, its no problem, -"

Something in Tony snaps.

"WE'RE NOT YOUR FUCKING CHORES," His voice is more roar than man, ragged, tight, pushed to the last limit. The garden of silent pain, fury, rage, and fear he's been harboring finally blossomed into something that seemed to shake the world. His body shudders. "We're not some,- some pestering tasks that you have to save your precious time to complete! Some fucking pets other people have to force you to care of, or some dirty laundry you decide to wear whenever you feel like washing! We're your damn FAMILY,- " A sob hitches his anger, and by the broken look on Steve's face, it's worse than any rage.

He narrows his eyes in disbelief, as if Steve was some stranger and not someone he gave years of his life to. A laugh is pushed out of his chest, choked, long, and terrible. "I would've ended this sooner if, - God, if I knew how much of a burden we became for you."

"Tony, Tony don't say that, " Steve's face is blotched red, painted in punishing torment. "I love you and Peter more than anything in this life. You're mine, both of you, how can you think I don't love you? I, -"

"Just love Bucky more, " Tony finishes, note flat, accepting, rehearsed. His voice feels as hollow as his chest when Steve flinches. "I'm just... I'm so tired. Steve,I'm tired, and- I can't do it anymore. My son, my baby is not going to be a burden on anybody. I can put up with a lot of shit, but Peter is my limit. I can't and I won't put anyone above him. Not even you."

Horror shines bright and clear on the blue eyes Tony loves so much. He spots Steve's finger tremble at his sides, notices the hesitant movement of his Addams apple.

Natasha was wrong. It's a rare occurrence, but it happened.

Steve never stopped loving him.

It makes signing the papers so much harder.

---

Steve lost Bucky to ice, snow, and time. Tony loses Steve to fire, anger, and distance.

---

Pepper is surprised when she hears Steve ended up signing willingly.

She doesn't want to ruin the calm air that finally settled over the emotion packed atmosphere surrounding the living room, currently stashed with carton boxes filled with Steve's stuff, ready to be delivered tomorrow as Tony wanted, but it's a needed talk.

"What did you say to convince him?" She asks, not demanding an answer but clearly expecting one. "I'd just assume Nat had him in an arm lock until he agreed, but, in all honesty, Steve would probably lose an arm than do what people tell him to. Seriously, I've seen anarchists with more respect for authority than this guy."

Tony laughs, too loving and too fond for this predicament. "I said you'd drag his ass through every courtroom in America and drain him of everything he's worth?"

"Mmm. Try again. I mean, that's a Sunday for me, but he's already heard that talk before." Giggles are shared between the pair on the couch, snuggled under fuzzy blankets with wine glasses that clink slightly. Pepper's face relaxes into something sympathetic, earnest. "Was it something Peter related?"

"No, " he shakes his head. It never crossed his mind once, no matter how hurt he was. It felt too much like what his father would do. " Peter is his son, too. No matter what happens between us. There's no changing that. "

"No one would blame you if it came down to that, you know that, right?"

He hums. Pepper waits.

"I asked him to let me say goodbye to my husband instead of forcing me to stay with Howard."

A sharp intake of breath settles something cold beneath Tony's skin. He closes his eyes, and accepts the wine Pepper pours in his cup, neither commenting on how it spills over the rim.

---

Talking to Peter is the hardest part.

He doesn't understand why suddenly there's only two people there instead of three, why he isn't woken up by two pairs of arms tickling him and kissing his sleepy eyelids every morning, why Tony's laughter isn't echoing through the house as Steve spins and twists him around in the living room dance session they had at least once a week.

Why, apparently, Steve now has a permanent residence in DC and can only see him twice a week as their legal agreement states.

Why he has to live in two different places and split his playtime.

Why Tony bought a new apartment and they had to move away, stretching the distance between them and Steve.

"Is Papa comin' home today?" A hand squeezes Tony's heart painfully tight at the small question. He looks down at his son, smaller than usual and playing with his fingers at his feet. His frail shoulder raise, housing an anxious breath as he awaits an answer.

Tony takes his tiny hand in his own, leaning down to press kisses on the back of his son's palm, apology on his lips. "Yeah, baby. He has to come and pick up his stuff. Maybe you can play a little when he arrives! I'm sure he'll be happy to see you. "

Steve sends Sam to pick up his things and Tony feels guilt bite at him for hissing 'coward' in his mind.

Peter is excited to see his uncle Sam but the disappointment when he hears a truck coming instead of the deep rumble of a motorcycle engine doesn't wash off. He soldiers on, smiles for Sam because as little as he is, he's careful with people and their emotions. His goodness is organic. He takes after Steve like that.

Sam's always been frustratingly talented at deciphering his thoughts, even when his face is emotionless. It's one of the many reasons why Tony thinks him and Rhodey match so well. "He said he's really sorry he couldn't come, but... Okay, his excuse is just sad, because I doubt you'd believe he'd rather attend a Zoomba class than see you and Peter. Truth is, he's scared."

"Of facing me?"

"Of hurting you."

"Yeah, well, he's already got that job done on the to do list, " Tony huffs, petty and aware. He tosses Peter his baseball that lands in the backyard, gently nudging him away from the conversation. They watch the ball of energy squeal in delight as he runs to fetch it, tension momentarily on hold. "Sorry. You don't need my shit. Let's just load this and be done with it."

Sam huffs. "Man, I've been involved with your shit for a while. Appreciate the feeling but it's a bit late for that. Trust me, me and Rhodey have in length discussions about it. I'm neck-deep in white boy drama, but well, sacrifices of the job. Not much you can do."

He's playful, Tony knows this, in the corner of his brain that isn't raided by anxiety, yet fear claws at him, sharp and cruel and unexpected. Coldness spreads inside him like wildfire, almost matching the thoughts racing in his mind. Sam and Rhodey were talking? Were they arguing? Had Tony harmed Rhodey's relationship as if he didn't wreck his own enough?

"Talk?" Tony rasps, pushes the words out of his constricted throat that seems to close more and more, synchronizing with his lungs. Sam's wide, concerned eyes tells him the surface looked as bad as the inside."You... You and Rhodey, you guys- Bad talk? You, you fought about it?"

His mind torments him by showcasing Rhodey yelling in Sam's face and Sam yelling back, both standing their ground like two soldiers on a mission and defending their friends like avenging angels. Rhodey is more brother than friend, he'd take his side, like the devoted friend he always proved himself to be, but he watches with a cut breath as Rhodey locks himself in his room and weeps.

Rhodey sharing his fate is Tony's own horror movie.

"...ony! Tony, deep breaths, come on, " gentle hands guide him away from the void his own psyche trapped him into, speaking in a low voice that plucks him back up little by little. "Come on, in and out. Focus on my voice, that's good. Listen to me, Rhodey and I did not and will not fight about this. We're fine, Tony, promise! We agreed, no side pickers. This isn't war, and we won't get into some life or death fight for your and/or Steve's honor, " he tries for a little grin. ''I mean, I'm not supposed to tell you, but we don't like you guys that much."

Tony laughs, at once, a pathetically small sound, but he's grounded enough to laugh. He basks in the lack of sound around them, like the silence of an after battle, suffocating, but free.

The quiet hangs in the air as they load the truck, too, not oppressing, but welcomed, with a touch of comfort that burns just right. When the last box is secured and road-ready, him and Sam stay just a bit on the porch to stare at the house. Because that's what it is, isn't?

'Is papa comin' home?'

There is no home. Not if Steve's missing.

"Steve said you can keep those, if you want," that sentence made Tony hunch his shoulders, releasing that bitter aftertaste in his mouth again, blending with something sweet, and igniting the warmth that pierced as deep as his very marrow. "Nothing he loves or wants back is in those boxes."

Yes, Tony wants to scream. I want to keep the sketchbooks he has for me. I want to keep the photo albums. I want to keep the paint, the charcoal, the brushes. I want to keep the stuffed animals he won me at the fairs. I want to keep his clothes. I want to keep the dances in the living room. I want to keep his love, attention, care, worry, sadness, anger, grief. I want to keep my husband.

Instead, Tony reaches for his back pocket, and squeezes his ring. It burns in his palm, almost begging him to put it back in it's place, or on his finger, where it fitted like it always belonged. His being feels it, as if connected, and he decides to even the odds in the cowardice department.

Sam holds his breath as Tony hands him the ring, with hesitance, with no indication he wants to. "You sure about this?" It's a careful question, painfully gentle, far softer than Tony deserves.

No. Not by a long shot. "Yeah, " he mutters, almost lost in the air. "It's not mine anymore."

Sam curls his hand around the ring, pockets it, and Tony wrestles with the urge to ask for it back. His eyes are trained to the floor, on his shoes, the fine leather ones Steve bought for him on their anniversary, he realizes.

He watches droplets of water splash and dissolve into the concrete. It's raining, he figures, he should take Peter inside or he'll catch a cold. He looks up to watch the dark clouds, and the senine blue above mocks him.

"It's okay, " Rhodey picked a good one, Tony thinks, as Sam covers his crying form away from Peter's eyes. "It's okay, Tony. Just... Let it out. You earned this."

"I tried, " he sobs in Sam's neck, sobs his demise his failure, his bottled cocktail of emotions that waited to implode. "I tried, Sam, I tried so hard, I swear I did."

"We know you did, Tony. We all know."

---

Peter wants to meet Bucky one day.

"Papa used to talk about him all the time, " He says, oblivious to how vexed Tony is hearing that. He apprehends himself, reproaching that he should be over it already. "He sounds pretty cool! I want to see his Terminator arm!"

"It's a Tin Man or Robocop arm, at best, " He smirks at the pout Peter throws his way, smoothing it out with his thumb. "And he's in a hospital. You and I hate hospitals, remember?"

Peter whines and makes his eyes larger, pitifully glassy and sad, just the way to wrap Tony around his little finger. "Daddyyyy, pleeeease!" He hooks his fingers around his arm, hugging it close to his chest and his lower lip trembles.

He imagines Steve behind him, smothering a laugh in his shoulder, egging Peter on like two conspirational buddies. He melts, pushing the rush of yearning back, and knows it's a battle lost. Peter is too lovable, too determined, too bright eyed.

He's morbidly curious, in a way, to see what was so special about Bucky that it made Steve want to trade that.

---

Bucky and Peter hit it off in a heartbeat.

The facility hosting Bucky is uncomfortably pristine, from door corner to ceiling. Everything is tailored and arranged with ridiculous precision, clinical, professional, boring, and detached, as most medical spaces are. His workshop dances circles around it in the personality field, and he tells Bucky as such.

He laughs at him. "That's an interesting way to say you're a chronic untidy mess."

'Chronic untidy hot mess, " Tony corrects, hating how easily he falls into conversation with him. He tells himself it's merely a distraction from the stomach twisting smell of medicine, stingy and sharp smothering the air. "How offensive. I demand a trial by combat. Peter, make him pay in blood!"

Peter turns to Bucky, unblinking. "Your hair's greasy."

A theatrical gasps spreads in the room from the blue eyed brunette. Tony beams, kissing Peter's cheek. "That's my boy. I'm sure Bucky's bleeding a lot on the inside."

"Yeah. You know, where blood usually is, " Bucky snarks, heatless, propping Peter off from the spot on his leg and putting him on the ground . "Why don't you go ask nurse Joy to give you some magnets for the arm? Your father and I gotta talk adult business."

"Uncle Clint says adult business is just gossip for grown ups. " Peter retorts, smirk on his lips, half raising on the edges of his mouth. He got the smugness from him, that much Tony will admit. Bucky huffs a laugh that mirror Tony's own and waits for Peter to be out of the hearing range to say his next words.

"I owe you an apology."

Tony blinks, hastily, and speaks before he can even register what he's saying. "No, you don't. Drop it." It comes off razor sharp, yet Bucky must be used to worse, because he doesn't falter.

"I ruined your marriage. There's no forgiving that, but I DO regret it and you'll damn well listen to what I have to say."

"Look, I appreciate it. I do. I'm not... Mad at you. You're just in the crossfire of this clusterfuck. There's no forgiving because there's nothing to forgive, " he murmurs under his breath, words quiet, but sincere, he realizes. "My failure is my own to carry. "

"Stark, relationships need more than one person. Stevie ain't exactly blameless in this whole thing, - Far from it, trust me, I let him know. He got the scolding of the damn lifetime, because he threw away a damn good thing. He made a home for himself and then demolished it. You didn't hand him the sledgehammer, he picked it up on his own dumb self."

"You know, your philosophy lesson would impact me better with wizard lingo. Throw in a riddle or a prophecy and I might bite. " Receiving a blank stare to his quip, Tony sighed, eyes downcast.

"Look. I called it off, alright? I lit up the matches, I burned down the bridge, and I watched it turn to ash. But it was meant to happen, one way or another. We were just too different. Guys like me break the world apart. Men like Steve put it back together. He'll move forward. Like he always does."

Bucky's reply is instant. "No, no he won't, " it's said with such conviction, with such a finality, that it has Tony freezing. "He'll never move on. Not from this. I've never seen him like that for anybody, hell, never seen ANYONE like that. You and him? That's a forever kind of deal. You don't need a ring and name change for that to last. You don't have a choice."

Tony swallows, slowly, unsure. "So what? We just keep path crossing like fate has us tied together, in each other 's range but standing on parallel lines, never meant to cross? This isn't a fairytale, Barnes. It's real life. And even if it wasn't, that's still far from fair."

"It is real life. Which means it ain't fair, Stark. "

Tony takes Peter home, cuddles him closely as if he might disappear, and eyes the empty area around the right side of the bed with a lonely glint that burns in the darkness.

---

The first time Tony meets Steve after the divorce, it's for Natasha's birthday party.

Time jumps from slow to fast, alters between stagnation and overwhelming in the first 6 months that pass after the finalization of their parting. Some days are agonizingly slow. As if the world wants him to stomach every second, consume every minute, where Steve is not with him, isn't his anymore, and choke on the pain that tastes just as sharply as the first time.

And in some, time goes by in blink record, not keen on giving Tony the courtesy of healing, of moving on, of according him the patience or kindness in adapting his feelings to his pace, to accommodate to the arrangement it dragged him in.

Concern crawls inside him regardless of how many times he buries it, makes a tangly nest right in his chest, and makes no effort to move. He doesn't blame Steve for not wanting to meet him, to look at him, to give him the chance of staring into the bright, baby blue eyes that hold everything beautiful in the world.

Tony's seen the wonders of the world, all 8 them, and they all pale put next to Steve.

He feels seething, scalding guilt showering him for thinking that. Because Steve is not his to worry over, not his to call wonderful, not his to care for. Not anymore. He repeats that like a mantra against his eardrum when Natasha asks him if it's fine if she invites him to her party, too.

It's the perfect excuse to see how he's doing, but Tony elects to ignore that and remind Natasha grown-ass people don't ask other grown-ass people for permission on what to do. "Do I look like Pepper to you? No? Then why would I order you around?"

A discreet smile reaches Natasha's features, exhibiting confidence but betraying relief. She loves them both, Tony knows, and wants her friends first, not the fallen lovers. "Just wanted to know if I should hide the sharp knives or prepare some spare sheets."

His face heats ferociously, climbing all the way to the tips of his ears, and all the embarrassment in the world is worth listening to Natasha laugh. Something sharp-edged inside of him brittles at the prospect of seeing Steve, thought, and he holds his tongue from saying something of that nature won't happen.

In the company of his solitude and shame, Tony wonders later, is he afraid of seeing Steve again because he fears the blonde is not doing okay, or because he is?

Later on, he sees Steve stand in flash before him, chatting with some faceless figures, hair longer than last time and flattened slightly at the nape, sporting a beard that framed his gorgeous face perfectly. The impeccable balance between scruffy and well-groomed. Tony itched to run his fingers against it.

"It's the divorce beard, " Clint muses, elbow jolting Tony in the side to show the humor. "Give him a few more weeks, and you'll see him shopping from the Hobo shop. All wrinkled shirts and ketchup stained clothes or something. Men are useless without their wives.'' He winks in Tony's way, but Tony is too entranced by Steve to acknowledge it.

His fists are bruised, Tony notes with a wince as he gets drunk on Steve's form with a studious gaze, creamy skin battered and laced in a cluster of dark purple, crimson, and small patches of yellow shaping his knucklebones.

A trail of question rests blistering on his tongue. 'What happened? Who did that? Who were you fighting? Why? Are you okay? Did you win?' But he closes his eyes and bites his tongue, knowing these questions don't belong to him anymore.

He gave up his rights to that.

But then, Tony spots them.

His breath is knocked out of his lungs in a silent punch, eardrums pushing out all the sound attempting to penetrate his ears. His fingers loosen so much they almost drop his water, feeling tingly numb. Tony's eyes, large and surprised, trace the circle of gold curled around Steve's fourth finger, gleaming softly against the artificial light around the dining room.

Steve is still wearing his ring.

But then, his chest burns and booms, heart roars fiercely behind his ribcage as he notices the thin string of black leather circling around Steve's neck, loose as a necklace, hanging low enough for Tony to eye the shape of metal halo looped right in the middle of the material.

Steve was wearing Tony's ring, too.

The realization left him petrified in place, more statue than man, in stunned shock as he bore into his former lover who only then noticed the brown eyes looking at him, transparent astonishment clear as crystal in his features.

It's like a spell breaks.

Tony's limbs move mechanically, on autopilot, running to the nearest room, getting himself away from what his body detects as danger. Urgency is packed on his step, taking him to the bathroom in record time, but Steve's always been the runner, more athletic between them, and his sprinting lands him a spot in the sleat Tony wass about to slam.

He's pinned to a wall effective immediately, feels cold tiles plant clammy kisses on the back of his head and neck. Tony almost hisses at the force of the slam, but before he can make a peep, his lips are stolen in a savage, fierce kiss.

It's pure desperation conveyed in the most unconventional way. Steve pounces on him, lips wild against Tony's own, pouring every emotion he went through in the past few months,- Longing, yearning, craving, hunger, desire, - his being, his love, his soul into that kiss, barely giving Tony the chance to breathe.

"St-Steve, " He gasps, head tilting slightly to the side to escape the ministrations, to gulp air, moving to avoid the chase at reconnection Steve is playing at by trying to capture his lips again. "Wait, wait a minute, -"

"Missed you, " Steve's voice is thick with want, hitching in the small puffs of air that came off raggedy and breathless, words melting over Tony's mouth. Steve's face glows with a blush he wants to kiss with inhuman greed. "I missed you, I missed you,Tony I missed you" Tony's fucked.

[thecaffeinebookwarrior]

A Writer’s Guide to Viewpoints

Most of us know that there are three major viewpoints from which stories are told:

First Person -- “I tell my own story with the pronoun ‘I’ because I’m just so damn awesome.”

Second Person -- “You are a character in this story, and you can’t do anything about it.  If it makes you uncomfortable, tough shit.”

Third Person -- “He muttered himself and pulled the blankets over his head, wishing this asshole would stop narrating his life.”

Those are the three viewpoints, and that’s all there is to it.  Just pick your favorite, and you’re ready to go.  Right?

Well.  Not exactly.  

You see, my fellow scribblers, there are actually multiple sub categories of each viewpoint -- beyond even the “Third Person Omniscient” or “Third Person Subjective.”

To be specific:

First Person:

First Person Informant

First Person Reminiscent

Unreliable

Second Person:

Reader as Character

I Substitute

Third Person:

Objective 

Limited 

Multiple Selective Omniscience 

Omniscient

This might seem overwhelming, but fear not!  Each perspective is fairly easy to break down, and ultimately, apply to your own work and understanding of literature.  This post will elucidate each.

So let’s take charge of our narratives and delve in, like the active protagonists we are.

What is the First Person?  

I’m sure we all know this, but a First Person narrator tells their story from the pronoun I (or sometimes we, though this is quite rare.)

The different factions of First Person narration are somewhat under-discussed -- certainly not as widely known as the Third Person Omniscient versus Objective viewpoints -- but, as these examples prove, they do exist.

As you read, you’ll likely think back to your favorite narrators, and realize that not all First Person viewpoints were created equal.

The First Person Informant:

“I’m telling it like it is.  As it’s happening.  I’m living in the moment, and watching it unfold with you.  Look at us, charging blindly into the future together.  Isn’t it exciting?”

This dude conveys the events as they transpire, or appear to transpire, in the present.  There’s no “once upon a time” for him.  Merely the unfurling now.

Examples:

“Vampires in the Lemon Grove,” by Karen Russel

“In every season you can find me sitting at my bench, watching them fall.  Only one or two lemons tumble from the branches each hour, but I’ve been sitting here so long their falls seem continuous, close as raindrops.  My wife has no patience for this sort of meditation.  “Jesus Christ, Clyde,” she says, “You need a hobby.” 

Russel’s narrator – a world-weary vamp navigating the tribulations of eternal love and insatiable bloodlust in an Italian lemon grove – is an excellent example of a first-person informant.  He isn’t telling us about the lemon grove as it was, but as it is.  The lemons fall before his eyes as they fall before ours.  We are in this lemon grove together.

“Natural Selection,” by Jacob M. Appel

“The stolen baboon.  On the evening news, she’s an irrelevancy -- a simian mug shot tucked between National Hairball Awareness Day and an interview with the Boston Strangler’s Children.  Six hours later, she’s lounger on the sofa in our living room, smacking together her protruded lips, scratching her back on the damask.  Suburban Tampa is apparently far more fun than a lab cage in Atlanta.”

Here, we are transported directly into a father’s dilemma after his well-meaning yet painfully naive and somewhat spoiled daughter “liberates” a mistreated lab baboon -- a decision that could effectively ruin both of their lives.  The informant perspective amplifies the reader’s suspense, as we are in the moment with him and can only discover the outcome by watching events unfold (or skipping pages.)

“What I Do All Day,” by Hellen Ellis

“Inspired by Beyonce, I stallion-walk to the toaster.  I show my husband where a burnt spot looks like the island where we honeymooned, kiss him good-bye, and tell him what time to be home for our party.”

This one is just great.  We are transported into the perspective of a seemingly chipper, affluent housewife as she quietly goes insane from suffocating domesticity and the horror of a meaningless life.  And, emphasized by the informant perspective, we feel all of this with her!  It is characteristically brilliant and hilarious satire from Ellis’s brilliant and hilarious collection, American Housewife.

The First Person Reminiscent:

“It was on a dark and rainy night when I decided to tell this story.  I tell it as I remember it, after these events have transpired.  Let’s look back on them together.”

In this perspective, the narrator is looking back on events after they have happened.  He isn’t describing these events as they unfold;  he is telling a story.

Examples:

Life of Pi, by Yann Martel

There are actually two reminiscent narrators here.  The titular Pi, and the author who has elected to tell his story.  

“This book was born as I was hungry.  Let me explain.  In the spring of 1996, my second book, a novel, came out in Canada.  It didn’t fair well.  Reviewers were puzzled, or damned it with faint praise.  Then readers ignored it.  Despite my best efforts at plating the clown or the trapeze artist, the media circus made no difference.  The book did not move.  Books lined the shelves of bookstores like kids standing in a row to play baseball or soccer, and mine was the gangly, unathletic kid that no one wanted on their team.  It vanished quickly or quietly.”

So opens this immensely clever novel, which, in all regards, blurs the lines between allegory and reality.  However, most of it is narrated by the eponymous Pi, who becomes this author’s muse.

“I've never forgotten him. Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart. I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once. The pain is like an axe that chops my heart.”

Here we have Pi, reflecting on his spiritual and allegorical companion, Richard Parker (an oddly named tiger whom we come to love as much as Pi does.)  Pi’s retrospective narration allows for the clear-sighted view of his complex feelings that can only come with time and distance.  Thus, this reminiscent narration enhances the power of the narrative.

The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger

“If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you’ll probably want to know is where I was born, and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don’t feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth.”

My feelings towards J.D. Salinger are somewhat negative (I recommend you watch the documentary Salinger to figure out why) but this book is timeless for a reason.  This opening line offers up countless questions that leave you thinking long after you turn the final page.  Moreover, it impeccably establishes the voice that will carry us throughout its meandering narrative.  Catcher in the Rye would not be the same without its reminiscent narration, and this line establishes that.

Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov

“Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.”

This opening line makes me somewhat sick to read, because, of course, it is the floral soliloquy a frothing, rabid pedophile, about a “four feet ten” twelve-year-old girl.  But, as a piece of art, it is still remarkably done -- the perspective of a monster, putting himself on trial before an imaginary jury, and telling a story that is invariably partial towards his warped perspective.  Once again, the retrospective is integral to this grotesquely fascinating narrative.

The Unreliable Narrator:

“I am the King of the Lizard People, and no one will acknowledge it but me.  Don’t believe me?  Too bad.  I’m the one telling this story, and you have no choice but to believe my dubious rendition of these events.”

It’s widely debated as to whether this should be its own category.  Why?  Because all first person narrators are inherently unreliable.  We just have little choice but to take their information as it’s denoted to us.  Oftentimes, they win our trust;  but other times, it is their unabashed unreliability that makes the narrative memorable.

Don’t believe me?  All of the past three examples were unreliable narrators.  And I examine several more in my post on types of unreliable narrators here.

In the meantime, let’s move on to the oft-underrated Second Person.  

What is the Second Person?

This highly controversial viewpoint uses the pronoun “you.”  Most people associate this perspective with amateur fanfiction or pretentious purple prose, but let me tell you:  when this perspective works, it is stellar.  And I’ll explain why.

The Reader as a Character

“You’re walking down the street, and you realize the narrator is talking about you.  Maybe you like this.  Maybe you don’t.  The narrator doesn’t care.  The narrator is a cruel and indifferent god.  You put in your headphones to tune the narrator out.  The narrator finds this incredibly rude.  You can’t escape me, motherfucker.” 

This is what most people think about when they picture a Second Person Narrative.  Okay, not this specifically -- being frank, most people probably think about reader-insert fanfiction (which can be amazing as well.)  This viewpoint asks the reader to imagine themselves as a character -- usually the main character -- in the narrative.

Examples:

“This is a Story About You,” from Welcome to Night Vale, by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Craner

“‘This is a story about you,’ said the man on the radio. And you were pleased, because you always wanted to hear about yourself on the radio.”

Even if you’re unfamiliar to this podcast, I highly recommend you listen to this episode (or read the transcript) immediately.  It shows you virtually everything reader-insert can be, and what a remarkable effect it can have.  It virtually envelops you in this perspective, this town, and this surrealistic reality. 

“The Young Immortal,” by Brooksie C. Fontaine (me!)

“When it started, it was the February fourteenth of 1945.  An American plane was hit in the engine by Japanese fire, fell from the slate gray sky like a shooting star.  Its blazing red reflection ignited the swell of colorless water.  And then it was gone, taking with it all the color in the world.

In that plane was my fellow air force pilot.  The love of my life.

You.

I know what you’re thinking:  you weren’t alive in ‘45, and you weren’t a man.  Well, I’m gonna tell you you’re wrong on both counts.  You’ve been a man before.  You’ll be one again.  It doesn’t matter to me, so long as it’s you.”

This one is unique, because it includes both the First Person Reminiscent (the eponymous immortal narrator) and the Second Person Reader as Character.  The reader is in the perspective of the narrator’s oft-reincarnated love interest, and so I decided to include it as an example. 

The “I” Substitute

“You were fifteen when you realized you could only get hard if you were thinking about carnivorous dinosaurs.  Not me.  You.  This has absolutely nothing to do with me, and I resent the insinuation that it does.  This is your problem, dino-fucker.  This is your story.  This is about you.” 

This one’s interesting.  The narrator is in denial, and using the second-person to distance themselves from the events of the story.  It is a substitute for the First Person, and a thinly-veiled one at that.

Examples:  

“Freaks,” by Alden Jones

“From the cluster of mourners, Kristen’s mother had emerged; she strode towards you.  Her straight brown hair was limp and flyaway.  She wore the expression of an animal who wanted to devour you.  Her eyes were cushioned by the bluish puffed skin beneath them, but they flashed hot with fury.

‘You,’ she said.  She pointed her finger.  She began to gallop.  ‘You think you see something no one else sees?’  she called.  Mourners turned to watch her progress towards you.  Heather took a step away.

You dangled the camera by your side.  You froze.  You did nothing but watch the thing happen.

‘YOU,’ the mother said, charging.  ‘YOU.  YOU.’”

These are actually the concluding lines of this haunting story from Jones’s collection, Unaccompanied Minors.  I had the pleasure of hearing her read this story for my graduate program;  in the Q&A afterwards, she explained how the narrative, and the characters’ mentality throughout the story, depended on the Second Person.  “It was a different story without it,” she said.  

“The Other Person,” by Nathan Leslie

“You write the story in the second person.  It’s your go-to point of view now.  You like it’s edge, its resonance of irony, even if your story lacks said irony (it adds irony).  You makes anything possible.  You is the new me.” 

This one is simultaneously hilarious, sad, and strangely invigorating.  It encapsulates the deep trenches of insecurity that come with being an author, and whittles them into sharp, sly satire.  The “I” Substitute doesn’t just emphasize the story;  it is the story.  This story would not exist without it.

Now that I’ve successfully changed your mind about the Second Person (and if you still don’t agree with me, you’re wrong), let’s move on to the ever-popular yet difficult-to-master Third Person. 

What is the Third Person? 

You know what the third person is, but I’ll suspend my disbelief and pretend you don’t.  It uses the pronouns he, she, or they, but the perspective can be virtually anywhere.  Which makes the Third Person such an interesting thing to explore.

Third Person Objective

“She slaps him.  He touches the red mark her ring left behind, and stares at her with wide eyes.”

This one is also known as The Dramatic, The Camera Lens, or The Fly on the Wall perspective.  It describes the events as we would view them, with no inside information into the thoughts or motivations of the characters.  What we see is what we get, and we have to discern the characters’ feelings based on what they say and do.

Example: 

“Meanwhile.  A Conversation,” from American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

“‘Miz Crow?’ 

‘Yes.’

‘You are Samantha Black Crow?’  

‘Yes.’

‘Do you mind if we ask you a few questions, ma’am?’

‘Are you cops?  What are you?’

‘My name is Town.  My colleague here is Mister Road.  We’re investigating the disappearance of two of our associates.’

‘What were their names?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Tell me their names.  I want to know what they were called.  Your associates.  Tell me their names and maybe I’ll help you.’ 

‘...Okay.  Their names were Mister Stone, and Mister Wood.  Now, can we ask you some questions?’ 

‘Do you guys just see things and pick names?  “Oh, you be Mister Sidewalk, he’s Mister Carpet, say hello to Mister Airplane?”’”

In this unique and hilarious chapter, we witness an exchange between (bisexual icon) Samantha Black Crow and a minor villain who has been assigned to track down the protagonist.  We aren’t privy to either of the characters’ emotions or thoughts, or even their actions, yet we can discern all of it from dialogue alone.

Third Person Limited 

“She’s had enough of his bullshit.  Something in her snaps, and her open palm collides -- hard -- with the side of his stupid, stupid face.  He touches the red mark she left behind, staring at her like he can’t believe she actually did that.  Good.  Maybe that’ll teach him to stop being such an pugnacious fuckwad.” 

This one is tethered to a specific character, whose thoughts and feelings we are aware of.  However, we are not inside the mind of the character in the same manner as a First Person narrator.

Examples: 

American Gods, by Neil Gaiman

“Shadow had done three years in prison.  He was big enough, and looked don’t-fuck-with-me enough that his biggest problem was killing time.  So he kept himself in shape, and taught himself coin tricks, and thought a lot about how much he loved his wife.”

Though American Gods features an impressive diversity of perspectives, we spend most of the book tethered to the lovable ex-con Shadow Moon.  We are never trapped inside his head, as we would be if the story were First Person, but we know what he is thinking and feeling.  He is our viewpoint character.

The Giver, by Lois Lowry 

“It was almost December, and Jonas was beginning to be frightened.  No.  Wrong word, Jonas thought.  Frightened meant that deep, sickening feeling of something terrible about to happen.  Frightened was the way he had felt a year ago when an unidentified aircraft had overflown the community twice.  He had seen it both times.  Squinting toward the sky, he had seen the sleek jet, almost a blur at its high speed, go past, and then a second later heard the blast of sound that followed.  Then one more time, a moment later, from the opposite direction, the same plane.”

Lois Lowry’s timeless, haunting dystopia is introduced through the guileless eyes of twelve-year-old Jonas.  We are aloud to see the world from his perspective, but the distance of Third Person Limited allows us to feel the horror of each situation with more clarity.  Lowry demonstrates how to utilize POV to one’s advantage, similar to how Neil Gaiman uses Third Person Limited to enhance the horror of his masterful modern fairy tale Coraline.

Multiple Selective Omniscience 

“She decides she’s had enough of his bullshit, and slaps him.  Hard.  Hard enough that her ring leaves a red welt on his cheek.

He feels his eyes go wide, and he touches the side of his face.  He keeps waiting for her to apologize, but her eyes are narrowed and her lips are pursed.  She doesn’t look sorry.”

The viewpoint shifts between characters.  It can be extremely effective, as long as we are aware of when the proverbial camera changes angles.

Examples: 

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, by Betty Smith

First of all:  if you haven’t read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, do it.  Do it right now.  It is the piece of classic literature I recommend to everyone who hates classic literature, because it’s devoid of all of the traits that make people hate classic literature to begin with.  It has oodles of complex, idiosyncratic, autonomous, and tough-as-hell female characters, bad language, and frank discussions of sexuality, poverty, and classism.  Read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn.  

Anyway.  Though its protagonist is Francie Nolan, who, like the eponymous tree, perseveres and thrives against insurmountable odds, the viewpoint bounces around an immense deal, between Francie’s family and neighbors to the most minor side-characters.  Because of this, many people believe that the true protagonist is Brooklyn itself, and the people in it. 

The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, by Ayana Mathis 

This is a captivating, gut-wrenching book, similar to A Tree Grows in Brooklyn in its highly effective depiction of poverty.  The book follows the children of Hattie Shepherd, a formerly young and optimistic mother, who lost her firstborn twins to an easily preventable disease in the aftermath of the Great Migration.  The viewpoint changes with each chapter, showing the perspectives of each of her children and how they are haunted by this loss.

The Vacationers, by Emma Straub 

A far cry from its poverty-focused predecessors, this book focuses on the problems of the affluent and privileged.  It is, however, a deeply interesting read, as it swerves between the perspectives of the titular vacationers after a patriarch’s fore into adultery threatens his family and marriage.

Omniscient 

“She decides she’s had enough of his bullshit, and to his surprise, she slaps him.  Hard enough that he feels her ring leave a red welt on his flesh.

He touches his cheek in shock, and stares at her, awaiting an apology.  But she isn’t sorry.  All she feels is satisfaction.” 

Just what it sounds like.  The character is an all-knowing entity.  Or Lemony Snicket.  Perhaps both. 

Examples:  

Everything I Never Told You, by Celeste Ng

“Lydia is dead.  But they don’t know this yet.”

Celeste Ng’s beautiful and haunting novel begins with the wordless affirmation of the narration’s omniscience.  The narrative knows things the characters don’t, though it doesn’t always choose to relay its secrets.  In this case, it doesn’t answer the mystery of Lydia’s death until the very end -- an answer that the characters themselves will never discover.

The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien

“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.  Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat:  it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort.”

Tolkien’s book shows us how useful omniscience is for worldbuilding.  He doesn’t need to cleverly sneak this exposition into Bilbo’s dialogue;  he can tell it to us outright, and immediately draw us into this world while doing so. 

Good Omens, by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

“Current theories on the creation of the Universe state that, if it was created at all and didn’t just start, as it were, unofficially, it came into being between ten and twenty thousand years ago.  By that same token the earth itself is generally supposed to be about four and a half thousand million years old.  

These dates are incorrect.” 

This delightfully Pratchett-esque opening immediately puts us into a -- literally -- godlike perspective, in which we are given insider information about the start of the universe.  It immediately establishes the tone of this amazing novel:  one in which life and creation are too important to be taken seriously.  And for this purpose, this uniquely omniscient perspective is the only way to go. 

That’s all I’ve got for now, my fellow scribblers!  As you contemplate perspective, just think about how different the same events would look from a two disparate viewpoints.  Even if two people are sharing a moment, that moment is different for both of them.

The perspective isn’t something you tack on to your story.  Oftentimes, it defines your story.  So choose carefully, and don’t be afraid to explore!

Happy writing, everybody!  <3

[verryberriess]

In Our Reverie | Feysand Oneshot

 A RIVETING COLLABORATION with my bff @maastrash​!! :3 This was so SPICYYY to write! I hope you enjoy Feyre’s JOURNEY<<333  I love getting deeeeep into the mind of these characters :)

masterlist

Rating: T (adult themes)

Synopsis: Why does love feel the same as fear? When Rhys accidentally slips the ‘L’ word to Feyre during an argument, Feyre needs time to rethink whatever they may potentially have between them. (CANON AU)

When she thought of Rhys, she saw his piercing violet eyes flecked with starlight. She remembered the first time they had met: how she thought that he was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. And when they were flying and were attacked from below, he had wrapped his wings around her to protect her. It reminded her of how she had always felt safe within his arms. But what feeling did that recall? Rhys had opened up to her about his vulnerabilities, but why couldn’t she do the same for him? 

What did she really feel? Her mind told her one thing and her heart, another. She didn’t know what to think anymore-- didn’t know what to feel. Feyre lay awake staring at the painted walls of the ceiling, her mind in mayhem as they whirled over the events every night of what had occurred four days before. She couldn’t stop replaying the events over and over in her head, messing up her emotions and her usual, cool self. 

They had been fighting. 

“Why do you even care? ” Feyre had yelled at him. The frustration she had felt in that moment was undeniable. “Cassian, Azriel, Amren, and even Mor, are on board. What? Do you think I’m incapable? Because I’m not. I am not weak, Rhys. ”

“What do you mean, why do I even care?” Rhys replied, angrily. He had never been this out of control with her. The words were out before he could stop them. “Damn it Feyre! It’s because I love you!” 

His eyes had widened as he realized what he confessed. The instant regret was clear on his face as he cleared his throat, watching Feyre’s reaction hesitantly. 

She immediately stiffened, jaw dropping in shock. The frustration that filled her moments before was gone in an instant. She was suddenly disoriented, unable to speak, to think; all of her movements rendered to a stop.

She must’ve heard him wrong. 

But…

Feyre took a step backwards, clenching and unclenching her fists. Repeating the movements kept her grounded, kept her from panicking. She continued, taking another step. And another. That is, until she ran into the wall behind her. The wall seemed to have broken Feyre out of her initial shock, because she looked up, surveying her surroundings. She could see Rhys, still standing there, trying to say something, but everything seemed to be muted. She turned, horrified to see the wide eyes of Mor, Cassian, Amren, and Azriel. 

She could only imagine what she looked like right now. 

Without another look back, she ran to her bedroom, slamming the door shut.                               

- - - - -

Feyre remained locked up in her room, refusing to face reality. She spent her time curled up in bed, accompanied by a few pillows, a blanket, and a book. She would occasionally get out of bed to paint-- her favorite pastime. Painting allowed her to visually manifest her frenzied thoughts. In her current state, her fingers had physically tingled for an outlet. Only, when she did let her fingers put her into practice, they seemed to take orders from her heart. She immediately regretted the hours that she had painted from her heart. But... that time had also allowed her to put some things into perspective. Her paintings showed her what she had deeply yearned for. What she had been convincing herself otherwise of. 

Once she broke out of her reverie that was her painting, she realized what she had painted on the past three canvases. All of the three paintings had one thing in common: they undoubtedly showcased her true feelings. 

However, Feyre’s third painting stunned her the most. She had painted into life one of her utmost private dreams. It was a close-up painting of her and Rhys entangled with the sheets and with each other. Her arms hung around his neck, as she lazily settled around his torso. Feyre studied the gaze of the girl in the painting, whose blue-grey eyes stared at Rhys with a passionate intensity. An expression full of so much emotion, one would be considered stupid to misidentify it. It was so plain and obvious. It was love. 

And the look on Rhys’ face mirrored the girl’s own. One hand held the side of her face, cupping her jaw, tilting her towards him for a kiss. 

How she wished the painting was actually reality. She was envious of her own painting.

But now one thing was for certain…. And it only took her to paint what she had truly desired, deep down, what she had always known. 

Feyre’s thoughts were shaken by a soft knock at the door. She persisted to lay in bed a minute longer after the knock sounded, weighing her options in whether or not to open it. She already knew who was behind the door, but she didn’t know if she would ever be ready to confront Rhys ever again. 

He loved her, and she had turned away.

She now recognized what she felt for him, but she had run away. Ran away like she had always done in her life. Ran away from the person she’s finally acknowledged her feelings for because she had originally feared to face them. And yet, now she craved his presence. She wanted his warmth, the safety of his wings. She wanted to smile back at his crooked smile and to reciprocate to him all of what he’s done for her. But she was scared. Feyre was so scared she had ruined that chance with him. All because she had run away. 

Ultimately, Feyre made up her mind to answer the door. She tugged herself out of the sheets and hopped off the bed, quickly making her way to the door. She leaned herself against the door, preparing herself to see him. Reaching up to the knob, her fingers closed around it, gently pulling open the door to reveal a tired-looking Rhys.

Sallow-eyed with dark circles rimmed underneath, Rhys stood before her looking much less like her usual, powerful high lord. There was no gleam to his eyes. The stars that usually flecked in them-- dead. His stubble had grown out, and his hair was so messed up, as if he had run his hands through it a thousand times in the last few days. He faced Feyre with his eyes downcast, his mouth pressed into a grim line. 

But slowly, he looked up, “Feyre, I…” Rhysand stopped himself, seeming to choose his words carefully. “You’ve been avoiding me,” Rhysand said softly. It wasn’t a question. 

“I’ve just been thinking.”

Once again, the immeasurable silence swallowed up the words of their unspoken conversation. Words had been stolen from the both of them. They didn’t know what to say to each other.

“Rhys,” Feyre felt her eyes well up, deep inside. She struggled to keep them from flowing, but she felt, too, too much. They spilt over, coursing down her cheeks, like a never ending flow. “I was thinking about when times were simpler, thinking… what if four days ago had never happened?” 

Rhys immediately winced from Feyre’s words. He looked pained.

Feyre wondered how anything could ever go back to normal between them. She wished to go back to those simpler times, where she laughed with everyone, smiled so easily, and the sole thing that united her and Rhys and everyone else was their determination to save Pyrthian. But she knew how naive that was now, especially now. Although those times were only a few days ago, before Rhysand had said anything, before she had really forced herself to put her own feelings into perspective, it seemed like an eternity had passed since then. 

Despite herself, Feyre realized that what she had wished for was selfish of her. There was simply no going back. Because going back to those simpler times would have meant she would be ignoring Rhys’ feelings again. It meant continuing to pretend that what she felt didn’t exist. And it meant that she would continue to hurt Rhys.

“Feyre, look at me.” Rhys called, his voice cracked. 

She refused. She was scared to look up at him, afraid to see the pain in his face. Because it hurt her. His pain was hers. 

Before she could comprehend what had happened, Feyre was pressed against the wall. Rhys’ arms caged her. His arms extended besides her head to lock her in place. His torso leaned onto hers, pressing Feyre into the wall further; her palms laid flat against the surface. Rhys leaned forward, his breath tickled the tips of her ears as he whispered, “I’m not leaving until we talk.”

Feyre could hear her heart raging. It pulsed in a uniform fire of rapid beats, so loudly she felt like its animated fervor would explode out of her chest. She could feel her cheeks redden, her insides getting increasingly hot. She focused on the suddenly interesting-looking ground, trying to steady herself against Rhys’ gaze. This was Rhysand’s effect on her, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about it.

She felt one of Rhys’ hands cup her face gently. He tilted her face upwards, so she faced him directly.

“What do you want me to say Rhys? These past few days, I’ve had a lot of time to think.” Feyre started, “About how my heart beats ten million times faster whenever I’m around you. So fast that I feel like it might just beat right out of my chest.” She closed her eyes and took a breath, “That I can’t feel anything but fear whenever I look at you, whenever I’m with you.”

Rhysand narrowed his eyes at hers. He had the twinkle in them again. His violet eyes laced with stars flickered in amusement. He had the audacity to be amused now?

And now it was just them and the silence again. But… something in the atmosphere had changed. 

Rhys leaned in further against her and folded his arms around her form. Feyre tried to struggle against his grip, but he was too strong. He pulled her into him, against his own chest, so she wasn’t alongside the wall anymore, but with him, within his arms. The tension in the air had been replaced with a different kind.

The navy blue chemise barely shielded her body against the rough, hard surface that was Rhys. Enclosed within his arms, her heart picked up, as if it wasn’t already so fast only seconds ago. He allowed her room to look up at him, so she met his eyes, which burned with some all-consuming fire that it was too hard for her to look away towards anything else. 

He softly inquired, “Feyre darling, why must love feel the same as fear?”

And then it was out there.

Once upon a time, Feyre loved. And the person she thought she loved had loved her back twice as much, so much so that their love had mutated into something else. It had begun to poison her. At the time, she feared for her own person, afraid of what she was going to turn into. But she still slowly lost herself. Sometime in the process during those days, she didn’t recognize the girl who looked back at her in the mirror. Her loss bloomed its own ugly in her: emptiness, indifference, blindness. 

The person she was now, was in thanks to Rhys, who had saved her from that terrible, deep, dark hole. In Rhys, she had another chance-- for peace, and love, that is. So, that is why she would trust him. She would let down all of the walls in her mind for him, let her invade her heart, and would honor him with her own rendition of love for him. 

Feyre reached to trace the contours of Rhys’ face. Her thumb gently caressed his cheekbones, having her knuckles skim across the sharpness of his jaw. She let out a shuddered sigh, expressing, “Then I am scared of you, and in love with you at the same time.”

Rhys buried himself in her long, wavy locks, to breathe in her scent of lilac and pear. 

“We can’t ever go back-- back to four days ago. Because I want to move forward with you, Rhys. ” 

Feyre didn’t know who moved first, but suddenly her body was tugged against Rhys’ once more and her fingers were tangled into his ebony strands. His kiss came upon her like a storm. Their locked lips was one that evoked lust, a certain primal hunger for each other that couldn’t be sated by any ordinary means. No, she couldn’t get enough of him from this kiss alone, even when her tongue danced with his in an outrageous tango that left her unable to breathe. She silently wished she didn’t have to take these needless breaths of air-- wished she was born without the need for this suddenly useless ability that impeded her desire. They moved in a synchronized rhythm, their heads angled in a way to complement the other person, in tune with each other’s movements. 

Feyre hopped up, using the momentum to wrap her legs around his waist. She clung to him as he stumbled forward to set her on the dresser. There was not one moment where they weren’t connected. They continued their reverie of kisses, but Rhys had neglected her mouth only to keep the rest of her body accompanied. He started down her lips, trailing downwards to her chin, the edge of her jaw, down to the crook of her neck to sample the flesh of her shoulders. He was relentless in his attacks; every time she needed to take a breath, she had to skip to her next gasp of air. Nevertheless, she couldn’t deny the fire in her veins. It felt as if someone had extinguished all of the dread and ugly from inside of her and filled her up to the brim with happiness and love and everything sweet. She was so alive. Feyre was home.

“I love you, Rhys,” Feyre gasped, unable to contain herself any longer. She was so happy.

Rhy slowed his movements, leaving ghosts of his kisses haunt her being, “Say that again,” Rhys breathed.

Feyre tugged Rhys’ face towards hers, beaming at him, and repeated her words, “I love you, I love you.”

Rhys lifted Feyre’s chemise from her frame, ripping the offending fabric and casting it from his path, so she was fully naked, besides the lacy underthings that she had donned earlier that day. “Again.” Without delay, Feyre had slipped off Rhys’ loose, black shirt, tugging it off his bulk, over his head. No longer separated by the thin barrier the fabrics of their clothes had unknowingly established, they were free to roam the other’s bodies, touching and feeling as if the other was make-believe.

In a whirlwind frenzy of pleasure and sweat, the sound of wingbeats boomed. Feyre opened her eyes a fraction, realizing that Rhys had let out his wings, his magnificent, glorious wings. They flapped once, twice, leaving rushes of air around them. Undeterred, Rhys advanced to lick and kiss his way all around her, and Feyre obliged him. He continued his journey down towards the apex of her thighs, carefully laying upon kiss upon kiss as if in a silent prayer to her grace. She was his muse, after all. Feyre prompted, “I’ve loved you for so long and I’m sorry it took so long for me to realize it, but I love you Rhys, my mate.”

Rhys stopped all movement. Stunned, eyes wide, he descended upon her, in a ravenous, animalistic rage, and closed his wings around them both.

- - - - - - 

Tags: @maastrash​ @b00kworm​ @aelinfeyreeleven945tbln​

Let me know if you want to be tagged in future works! :)

[thegoddessofliterature]

A pretty long spoiler-filled reveiw of ACOMAF

-posted this reveiw on my goodreads around June and decided to share it now on Tumblr.

Reread this gem and love it even more than the first time. Of course, reading a good book for the first time is always special and you don't know any of the plot twists and turns. Not knowing what is gonna happen in a story is my favorite thing about reading. Sarah blew me away with her captivating writing style and amazing world building that left wanting more .The is the first book that made me cry and I don't easily cry in books which just proves my love for this book. Rhysand stole my heart. I just love him so much. I know most of you probably didn't like him in the first book but once you read this one you will change your mind. You can thank me later.

Moving on, let's dive straight into spoilers, if you adored this book as much as me. Most just me gushing over our precious bat boi.

Sarah did a great job at fooling me. Just like Feyre, I was blind to the red flags that displayed the unhealthy and toxic relationship between Feylin. Upon my second read, I could clearly see all the signs and read between the lines and kept thinking "why didn't I realize this sooner?''

I really liked the lesson that the author taught us about unhealthy and healthy relationships. You usually don't see the latter in most NA or even YA. And I despise Tamlin. He is everything that I hate in a man,controlling,abusive and anti feminist. I was so pissed at him for lying to Feyre that Rhys killed his family. The tool himself, had murdered Rhys family and I will never forgive him for that

Me to Tamlin “ I hope that burn..”

I could write a whole essay on professing my love for Rhysand but even that wouldn't be enough for me.

I LOVE HIM SO MUCH. He is no 1 on my fictional boyfriends list. No other male character can compare to him.

Just like Feyre, I wasn't expecting him to be the good guy. And, just as she was unaware of falling for him,I was too. I didn't even realize how attached I grew to Rhys until I got a spoiler that he was going to die. I legit got an ache in my heart and felt like crying. That's the beauty of books when a character feels real even they sadly aren't. Thankfully, he survived and if he didn't then I wouldn't have been able to forgive Sarah/

Why do I adore the Highlord of the Night Court?

He is so precious and a major feminist. He is humble and strong ( even when he has been through so much). My heart breaks for him. His story is too emotional for me to read without crying (on my second time reading). Not only did he lose his parents but his sister too. We never got to know how old she was but she was young. We never got to see his mother and baby sister. That makes my heart shatter in a million pieces but as if that wasn't enough, He didn't see his friends for 50 years. He was trapped under the mountain for so long and raped by that bitch and he endured it just to protect his city and family (the inner circle). As if he didn't have enough on his plate, he watched Feyre be taken away from him twice. He watched the girl he loved be in love with another man (his enemy who had killed his parents and sister) and yet he let her be happy (even if she was mate). After all of this torture and pain, he is still so kind and sweet and caring. He still think he isn't enough even though he sacrificed so much. He would rather put himself in torture than let something happen to Feyre or the Inner Circle.

And what I love most about him, is the freedom he gave Feyre. He isn't controlling like most men. He trusts Feyre and believes she can fight for herself but he will be there to protect if she needed him. Of course he cares for but isn't overprotective. Their relationship is so pure and healthy and I love it. I love how humble he is. Being the most Powerful HighLord of all the seven courts, you would expect him to be a rich snob but he is far from that.

I loved how much Feyre grew from that naive girl to a strong and badass woman. I could barely recognize her while rereading Acotar. It felt as there were two seperate girls in the two books. This is one of the best character development I have ever seen. My heart broke for what she went through. I could relate to her about some stuff minus the under the mountain scene (ofc). And I was so happy when she survived her depression and ptsd all because of Rhysand.

And I got so attached to whole inner circle, as if they were my family too. And I love Mor more than Amren because I could relate to her too besides the fact how sweet and strong she was

The whole book was a pure joy to read but my favorite parts were Starfall, The Summer Court and Court of Nightmares.

Starfall: It was such a beautiful celebration. Unlike, the ones in the spring court despite its pretty name. I loved the idea of stars falling down from the sky. Everyone was at their happiest. It was also sad to read knowing this was the first Starfall Rhys had after Amrantha. The fact that she knew how much it meant to him and yet she made him service her without his consent and on purpose. My hatred is like a burning sun. Moving on, I squealed at the moment when Mor and Feyre were talking and then Rhys came up behind them. My heart burst of joy when Feyre heard his voice and turned around. He took her to the balcony for her to experience Starfall at its prettiest. They had their cute moments and it was the moment when they were falling in love but didn't admit it yet to each other. Rhys hadn't laughed like that in ages, pure and a real laugh like Feyre hadn't smiled filled with pure joy ever since she was turned into a fae.

Summer Court: I loved Tarquin too. And I enjoyed the feysand moments at the court. Their constant back and forth banter and flirting. That's where the famous quote " To all the stars who listen and the dreams that are answered came from.

Court of Nightmares: This scene was so sexy and made my cheeks turn a deep shade of red. I loved how Rhys gave Feyre a choice whether she wanted to join him and the play the part or stay at home. It was her own choice that made her say " I wanna do it" and yet Rhys still felt guilty. Even when it wasn't like he forced or anything. He would never do that. I enjoyed them teasing each other. I was captivated by Rhys beauty. I love the real Rhys but I lust for the "evil" Rhys, the mask that he wears to protect his loved ones.

And that ending, I wasn't expecting that. I feel bad for those who had to wait a year or more for the next book esp after that gripping yet lovely cliffhanger. I didn't had to since the whole serious was already out. It was emotional even when Feyre was pretending to be in Rhys control. They work well so together. Rhys understood her plan through that bond and he acted so well. ( he actually deserves an oscar for his great acting of a bad guy). Tears rolled down my cheeks when the bond snapped and Feyre fell down to her knees, screaming in pain. Even Rhys. Sara tricked us but I was so grateful for that. That chapter in Rhys pov (the only chapter) was so precious. I was shook when he declared that Feyre is his Highlady and equal and the bond was never broken. It was just the bargain. And I loved how cunning Feyre. She is so smart and badass. Pretending to be in love with Tamlin (her ex), only to take him down along with his court.

This book brings me pure joy and reading it for the second time gave me a different perspective. I noticed things I didn't before. This time, I knew about Rhy's backstory so it was more emotional than the first time. And I didn't think of this sooner but I have a theory that Jurain knew all along that Rhys wasn't Amrantha's whore but was raped by her (sobs and gets angry). Esp, when he mentioned that he was forced to watch everything that bitch did due to the ring she made out of his eye. And he was the only one who was shocked when Feyre was pretending to hate Rhys. He knew since he screamed "What?'' when she told the king to break the bond.

Damn, this is the longest review I have ever written. No regrets though.

If you have read this far, be sure to follow my goodreads for more reviews. Link in my bio.

[creatureofthesunlight]

BAGNET

From the words of President Duterte in 2017 that still bother me,

“Why do we have to debate on that?”

“As far as the Ilocanos (are) concerned, Marcos is a hero.”

First of all, I am an Ilocano and I would like to debate on that.

I remember when I was in 3rd grade, I asked my mom who was her favorite Philippine president and she said it was Ferdinand Marcos. She would tell me how the country was in its best form under his term. Me, a naive little girl, ingrained this perspective up until I was in 9th grade. However, I have never really worshipped his ‘accomplishments’ nor was he my favorite president. I just know that he was the 'best’ president, at least for most of the older generation Ilocanos I know.

I remember when I was in 10th grade, Twitter was starting to become a platform of unmasking truth about underlying deceptions of a lot of things. One of them is the truth about the Marcoses and the Martial Law era. Here, I started to realize why some people see Marcos’ term was the best, they fail to see that every deceitful 'accomplishment’ he attains for the country has a hidden agenda. They fail to see that this era’s 'economic boom’ has aggravated the country’s debt and we are still paying it up until now. They fail to see that behind the aid programs he built for the people is people suffering from the military oppressions during his dictatorship.

I remember when I came home from a semestral break. There were successive family gatherings during this time. There was one time when I and my relatives talked about Marcos or Apo Lakay, what most Ilocanos call him. The overall atmosphere of that conversation for me was an infliction of pain. Believe me when I say I tried to oppose their affirmations on Apo Lakay but they always thwart me from speaking up by saying this statement:

“Gapo a agbabasa ka dita Manila'n kasla met la ammom aminen. In-brainwash da kan sa metten.”

(Just because you are studying in Manila, you act as if you know everything. I think they have already brainwashed you.)

Isn’t it the other way around? The moment I Ieft this Ilocos bubble to study in Metro Manila, my way of thinking changed. I realized how we, Ilocanos, have been deprived of the truth, at least for me. They venerate Apo Lakay and justify his heroism. All those years, his name has been cologned from the people surrounding me just to find out the reeking horror he has done. I recall when my lola said how Martial Law has not affected the Ilocos Region. In Ilocos, there is no commemoration of this dark era because they think that Ilocos was 'exempted’ from his tyrannical leadership. But what about the rest of the Philippines?

Frustration and rage are constantly crawling in my mind about how I cannot even defend myself from my relatives’ assertions. I always think of the things I should have said during that time, to justify my opposition towards him. If I were to go back to that conversation with my relatives, I would have told and explained to them these things:

Just because Ilocos did not experience his tyranny, that does not mean it didn’t happen. While they argue that Martial Law was mainly concentrated in Metro Manila, other regions also had a taste of his abuse. An example is from Region 3, numerous are still crying out for help until now. Human rights victims are seeking justice from their husbands who disappeared during that era but are still being denied.

Indeed, I did not experience firsthand his tyrannical but…the numbers don’t lie. About 70,000 people were imprisoned and 34,000 tortured. Thousands of people were tortured in different ways. Some were electrocuted, strangled, and slowly beating them to death. While it is true that there numerous infrastructures that were built, but it came with an appalling cost. The Philippines are drowned with billions of dollars of debt, from $8.2 billion in 1977 ballooning to $24.4 billion in 1982.

Ilocos was not spared from the tortures of Martial Law. Even in his province that he calls home, human rights violations still persisted. In 1984, many farmers from Ilocos Norte were illegally arrested and experienced torture by the military. Three members of an indigenous community in Pallas Valley, Vintar, and eight farmers in Bangui were salvaged. Also, IPs were forced to evacuate from their ancestral domain. These Ilocano victims are not yet compensated until now.

These are just among the arguments I should have thrown. It is saddening how some people are still blinded by this so-called 'golden age’ made possible by Marcos and how some people are simply, misinformed. Seeing these people I know denying the tyranny made by this man is like denying the suffering of the Martial law victims and their families. Compensations do not fully relieve all the pain but rather we recognize all of their sufferings. Although some Ilocanos still see him as a hero, as an Ilocano pride. For me, as an Ilocano, Marcos is not a hero, this is not what a hero manifests.

References

Bulatlat. 2020. Ilocanos Remember Dark Days Of Martial Law, Vow To Continue Fight - Bulatlat. [online] Available at: https://www.bulatlat.com/2012/10/02/ilocanos-remember-dark-days-of-martial-law-vow-to-continue-fight/ [Accessed 24 October 2020].

Rappler. 2020. Martial Law Victims, Kin: Still No Justice, Full Compensation After Decades. [online] Available at: https://www.rappler.com/nation/martial-law-victims-families-decry-lack-compensation [Accessed 24 October 2020].

Rappler. 2020. Martial Law, The Dark Chapter In Philippine History. [online] Available at: https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/iq/martial-law-explainer-victims-stories [Accessed 24 October 2020].

[moodysnowflake]

First of all, gigantic

SPOILER ALERT

'Cause everybody shoud say it before starting.

Sure, it's not really a spoiler by definition, 'cause it's been 23 years, but still.

It's almost like with Harry Potter. Who read the books knows, and if you just started, it would be a really mean and dickish move to say anything.

Just because you've played FFVII, it doesn't give you the permission to rob the experience from new players, if they try not to get spoiled. Even if the game has been out there for two decades.

It would be like if, knowing the actual plot by Nomura-san himself, I will leak it you, old player.

You wouldn't like that very much now, would you?

Also, please let's keep it human and reasonable, this is just a stream of consciousness and my personal thoughts, I'm not going to insult anyone, nor players, nor Square Enix, so I would appreciate the same respect. Thank you.

I've already written stuff so far in order not to reveal, and if you, knew player, are insisting on continuing...well, what can I say? You've got a big storm coming; you just decided you didin't care, I'm not going to be responsible for ruining your experience. I warned you, you've spoiled yourself, and I'm sorry for that.

That being said.

This is exactly what it looks like, a huge steam blow, to get all my convoluted trains of thoughts out of my head, and see if someone else is perceiving the same things as me or, if not, is able to discuss it in a civil and constructive manner.

What I think about FFVII:R story and ending.

To start, I will be referring to the gameplay's events as timeline 2, and the original as timeline 1. You'll get why.

I think that, despite the dubious ending, we've all been already played, and what we think being the first destiny's divergence, a.k.a. Zack's survival, is actually a flashback of timeline 2. So yes, something that already happened in the actual game and influenced the story so far.

Why is that?

Let's start from the beginning. Or the end, depends on how you look at it.

Aerith.

'Not Sephiroth?' you might ask.

Nope. Not Sephiroth. Aerith indeed.

In timeline 1, she died, and become one with the Life Stream. We know it. That's okay, I'm not trying to argue with that.

I'm considering it for its very meaning. Aerith became one with the planet, so one with destiny itself.

Let's try to look at this perspective: if you were given the power to change destiny, anywhere you want, for everyone you know...Would you really not give it a try? If you were ever given the chance to save the person you love, and everybody who died because of your fuck ups, would you not even consider to change things? Not even once?

Aerith has always been energetic, sometimes naive, so full of life and hope, especially HOPE, despite everything, even being afraid of freedom and the unknown, but giving it a go anyway. So why couldn't she have tried? I can see that happening.

It wasn't Sephiroth who destroyed the Whispers of Midgar in that shiny, golden, big-ass explosiong which knowcked Zack off of his feet. It was her.

Zack was not supposed to reach Midgar, and Aerith interfered, saving him...for what time we're allowed to see until the end of the game.

Being the Whispers a sort of "defence line", I don't think that she got rid of them for good, because they're part of the very backup system of Gaia, so I'm more inclined to think that she just managed to temporarly shut them down.

Hoping to give Zack more time...but, in my opinion, not that much.

Let's be real; Zack's death has been one of the most tragic and emotional ones of the compilation, because Zack Fair is as near as you can go to the definition of Best Boy and everybody should love him. Yes, he was not immune to the SOLDIER's madness, because he was obsessed to become a hero, to be able to save someone.

But we have to thank him if Aerith decided to sell the flowers; if it wasn't for him, Aerith and Cloud would never have met (in every timeline).

He was the reason of the Seventh Heaven's name. He's the reason of that goddamned squatting minigame (yeah...you didn't think about that, did you?).

And naturally, he's the reason why our adorkable Cloud Strife not only is still alive, but also the source of his combat abilities.

Sure, Spike was trained and filled up to the brim with mako, but where do you think he was pulling all of his batshit crazy stunts from, if not Zack's memories?

e.g.: the very first landing in Crisis Core is e x a c t l y the same movement, the only difference being Zack touching the ground putting the weight on his right side while Cloud did it on his left. The only reason I can think about is because Zack wasn't holding the Buster, and that is how you would handle your balance if you were rigth-handed.

First digression done...it's gonna be painful...

Nobody is forcing you: don't like, don't read.

Feel free to stop whenever you like, I'm not gonna get offended.

So, Aerith tried, because she is the ultimate cinnamol roll and she wants to believe. She's fantastic and hopeful, and she firmly believe in trying to change destiny, saving as many people as she can. Why wouldn't she?

So she tried (why not from his mother's death? She could have tried, but Ifalna migth have said she didn't want to be saved. Who knows. I definitely don’t.), but it simply didn't work, because Zack had to die anyway, the Whispers de-bugged themselves and everything spectacularly backfired.

The question is how he's gonna die. If Crisic Core’s death was the worst, how could it go more bananas? I have some alternatives:

- Cloud (by Sephiroth intervention) killing Zack with his own hands without realizing it until the very end, Zack accepting it and trying to comfort him while drifting away [the less likely one for me];

- Zack dies again (maybe in the sewers?) because of Cloud's fault, either giving him the Buster to defend himself (remaining disarmed) or because he physically shields Cloud from a bullet shower or an explosion (something has to get rid of Shinra's troops to let Spike escape);

All of these theories imply that Zack still dies like a hero and knowing it.

- Let's go Cruelty: Full Cowling. Let's shatter even that one joy, the most important thing Zack managed to accomplish in his mad chase, reaching for his dream: die a hero. He could have managed to hide Cloud, giving him the Buster, running in the opposite direction and getting captured instead of insta-killed. Returning in Hojo's nightmare, this time dying a slow, agonizing, dark death. What if the bastard, in Zack’s very lasts moments, will deceive him, telling him they found Cloud, even if they haven't, just to mess up with him? That would be devastating: Zack would die feeling completely useless, absolutely worthless, even if he's not. He's still a hero, but he will never know.

This is where Sephiroth might come along.

Specifically, Advent Children's Sephiroth.

Who, at some point, gave/activated/infused/whateverisgonnabe timeline 1 Cloud's memories into him. Because Cloud has friggin’ Jenova's cells within him, so Sephiroth can do what the heck he wants and toy with the guy as long as he sees fit. As he has done throughout the game.

When could we see it?

- "I've killed you with my own [hands]...": Sephiroth is doing a vibe-check, to see how much Cloud remembers, and simply goes masterfully along with it, starting to fuck with him right then; he needs for Cloud to be as mentally unstable as possible, because of Black Materia reasons. He is one of the best manipulators in the game, after all. If not the best one.

- "But that is then, and this is now." Criptic af, could be interpreted as both Cloud canonically remembering in a modified timeline 1, or timeline 2 innest. Being Sephiroth, the jackass could be referring to both of them, just becasue he can.

- "Promise you'll come and save me" scene. Timeline 1 Cloud shouldn't remember it at that point in the game. Also, this wouldn't lead to the heart to hearth with Tifa right after. If it's not a modified timeline 1, to show that spiky boi is not a total socially awkward blond artichoke.

- Aerith's death and Holy's flashes. What could possibly confuse you more than that, together with a blasting migraine? I think this is Sephiroth not-verbal way to say "You're not gonna be able to save her. Ever. You didn't succeded then, you're not gonna make it now, not even if she knows it. It's gonna happend anyway."

- At the Edge of Creation, when he asks for Cloud's help, Cloud has a blink-moment in which his right hand seems to move towards him, an uncoordinated gesture, but still there (memory of timeline 1...when he sort of did it)

*What about Zack's name being said in Emerald Park and nothign really happening to Cloud? Well, if you have been innested another timeline's memories, things would be pretty screwed up in your head, wouldn't they? That could be why Cloud had just a crippling aneurisma hearing it: his brain was probably trying not to melt in a puddle. Also, Aerith could have been interfering with it (but I'm explaining that later), blocking his possible messed up recollection, because that would have been quite the situatuion both for Spike's sanity and the players'.

Advent Childrend's (AC) Sephiroth? Why not another one? Come on, we've got plenty of evidence of it during the gameplay (I'll be referring to both English and Japanese [coming from the Italian adaptation, which is the closest one {yep, I’m Italian, but I think the English adaptation is still the best in terms of localization and conversations’ management}]):

- The very first thing he says to Cloud, when he blabbers "You're not real...You're...dead.", is the trolling (and perfect) "I am?"...I mean...has he ever really been? Cloud's words implies (because this is Japanese) that you might also read it as "This is just my PTSD fucking with me, you're a memory".

- Aaaand which line hits you like a truck? "I will never be...a memory." (last line of Sephiroth in AC before smiling and disappearing)

- Last Sephiroth's line of the cutscene, which in English is a very uncospicuous (but very menacing, almost Itachi-like) "Hold on to that hatred.", in Japanese is "Never forget me." That's pretty different.

- Aaaand which line hits you like a wrecking ball again? Never forget me..."I will never be...a memory."

- While you, old player, are still wondering what the fuck just happened, 'The Promised Land' (AC soundtrack) starts playing...

If all of this wasn't enough to let your plot bunny run like it was on a carrot high, let's talk about the scene in Hojo lab's corridor, when Cloud, seeing Sephiroth materializing, yells in pain and grips fiercely at his left arm. Which happens to be the very same arm that is gonna get Geostigma (Sephiroth's lovely life-threatening plague-ish gift to humanity in AC). 

And the three glowy whispers in chapter 18? Have you noticed that they move like Kadaj, Loz and Yazoo, and have the same weapons (one-handed sword, a gauntlet and two guns, respectively)? With a lot less whining, fortunately. Colors' scheme seems to make sense as well: Kadaj should be Sephiroth's hatred and rage (red), Loz his strenght and speed (yellow) and Yazoo the coldness and detachment (blue/green).

I’m leaving the last variable at the end, ‘cause this way I don’t seem a complete paranoid, even if it has been there all the way: the black feathers. The flippin’ black feathers. Which Sephiroth has ONLY at the end of FFVII: Advent Children. Then, and just then. Not everywhere else. Nowhere. 

 They’re there from chapter 1, joyfully swaying in the wind, Cloud sees one and it doesn’t seems to have that much of a significance, like for new players (meanwhile old players are screaming for their life, looking for cover), and they keep coming up, up, up, up, all over the place. And at the very end, the player sees that gorgeous black wing and they think “Oh! Holy crap, he has been there the whole time.”...and the old players yells “Fuck! He’s AC Sephiroth? We’re screwed. We’re done. This was his plan from the very beginning. Crap, crap, crap.”

This is the game tellying us “Shall I give you dispair?”

All the other interactions could easly come from timeline 1 events, up to the end of the game, and that's okay, because they make you realise that Sephiroth knows shit he's not supposed to have knowledge of at this point. He’s in total control, he has been through the entirety of the game, the sexy bastard.

So yeah, after making his last elegant and terrifying threat to AC's Cloud, our favourite one-winged angel decide to go back to the first checkpoint and retry in Critical Mode.

Fancy meeting timeline 1 Aerith there, in timeline 2, already fucking shit up in his stead. I can see him in my mind's eye, witnessing her intervention and thinking "This is actually really nice!". Since destiny has to be restored, he would have destiny itself playing by his side; he seriously couldn't ask for more.

Do I think part of Aerith is coming back from future too? Yes, she behaves like she knows too much stuff:

- "It's good for nothing at all" when you met her after projectile-crashing from the upper plate; if Zack dies like I hypothsized, this line would get all the more meaning, having her failed to save him;

- When Cloud is on his merry way of vivisecting Reno precisely in half, in English she yells "Stop!", but in Japanese she actually says "No, it's wrong!". How could she possibly know that Cloud shouldn't kill the Turk?;

[short digression over Cloud murderous behaviour towards people (a.k.a. Johnny and Reno) compared to the original game: why not, since he’s been bombarded by splitting headaches, seeing the man (who was his hero and destroyed his life) he killed with his hands very much real (to him but not to anybody else) and messying around, driving him cracker day by day. Anyone will lose their cookies.]

- On the highway, she and Sephiroth have an educated banter, in which she clearly knows something's up with the Sephiroth who's standing in front of them. He's the wrong one. But, at the same time, he's the true one too; He's not a projection channeled by Cloud Jenova's cells, nor using a copy to be seen by the others. So he's not using someone else from timeline 2,  he's not part of timeline 2, that's why he's wrong. Not just because he wants to, you know, eradicate life from the planet. Despite him being his true self, the last one existing, he's from timeline 1, so he doesn’t really belong in timeline 2. That's the biggest hint we have about Aerith coming from whatever happens after, together with the next point;

- When asked how the heck she knows about destiny’s crossroads, she answer with a nice "I'm not really sure.". She's not really sure...anymore, due to the Whispers trying to reset her consciousness and memories back to square timeline 1. She says she loses something everytime they touch her.

I imagine the scene of Aerith feeling Zack's death, again, while she's at home, at night, among the flowers, feeling useless, realizing she couldn't do anything in the end: that is gonna be nerve-wracking.

Sephiroth would appear, maybe using Marco's body (or maybe even his own body), emerging from the darkness of the alley. They would look at each other while he slowly walks down the wood stairs and glides over the surface of the pond, speaking while never breaking eye contact, both knowing where and when they really are from. He would probably say, in his soft velvet voice, something along the line of "I told you it was not meant to work. You're playing with powers you're not able to control, and you're destined to fail. I'm going to ruin him (Cloud) and everything else you cherish. You will experience what true despair means (because why not, let's throw another AC reference, shall we?)." A very Sephiroth way to say "You did such a good job. Here, let me help you screw this up more, Aerith."

He would lift from the pond, silent and tall and silver and monstrous, smiling with his jade eyes pinning hers down, stretching his black wing out, towering over her, before folding it around himself and disappear (like in AC), leaving only Marco behind to collapse over the bed of flowers.

That would be a heck of a war declaration.

Last, and least, the final confrontation at the Edge of Creation, a.k.a. Sephiroth ultimately fucking with our sanity.

Paraphrasing his first senteces, ”I’m not gonna die and I won’t let you die as well”, should be the very final hint which shows he’s AC Sephiroth, as he used Cloud’s memories of him to create a core indipendent from the Life Stream (this is how he managed to bounce back); he needs Cloud to remain alive in order to exist himself. That’s why he feels (to the very confused new players, and the grumpy old ones who think Remake Sephiroth is not coming from the future) so obsessed with Cloud now; he wasn’t in timeline 1 until the last part. This would make sense for now to be timeline 2, because he understood how important it is to keep Spike alive and as insane as possible.

Cloud tries to open Sephiroth up like a can using Omnislash, the original killing blow, and Sephiroth parry and deflects it. Smirking, probably thinking “Nope, I’ve already seen this happening before, not gonna fool me twice.”

The bloody "7 seconds till the end. Time enough for you...perhaps. But what will you do with it? Let's see"

Which in Japanese is - 7 seconds remaining until the end. But you're still in time. The future is in your hands...Cloud -

The flippin’ end. Which one, Aerith or Meteor? I personally think it’s Meteor.

The future is in his hands because he was the one shutting down the Whispers with the final blow? Are they really gone this time? I don't think so. The future might be in Cloud's hands, but Sephiroth is gonna make sure to have his strings tightly wrapped around them.

The fact that he appears way more in the remake makes sense because of what he’s doing (at least what I and other people think he’s doing), and it doesn’t make him less dreadful. Not one bit. Cloud’s reaction seeing him for the first time should set the mood for the new players (I don’t know who this big-ass silver tree is, his voice is so soft it’s disturbing, his eyes are making me really uncomfortable and apparently he should be dead, but still scare the main badass character shitless, so I should watch out for him as well) as much as the old ones (Holy fuck, what the heck are you doing here, Seph?! How? It’s impossible [you do realize you and Cloud had the same emotional response, yes?{Chadley pun perfectly intended}]).

Anxiety is not resolving during the game; he’s still intimidating and scary as fuck whenever he comes out of fricking nowhere, creeping all over you.

I think the only one who knows what's up is him, and he's not gonna give anything away anytime soon. He's just gonna smile, drop an emotional bomb whenever he can and flutter away, leaving behind utter confusion and sheer panic.

Is Aerith gonna die? I really hope so. Don't get me wrong: I love her to the very bottom of my heart, but FFVII is not only a story about love, courage and fight against destiny, it's also about loss, suffering and death. As much as I would really like for her to survive, she shouldn't.

Like Sephiroth, she's a singuarity too, and at some point, she will have to met her fate, regardless of what’s happening.

Did they really have to show Zack? Everybody was secretly hoping to see him, nobody could make me think otherwise. And again, this is another surprise effect, recreating that same impact that old players got: “who’s this guy that looks like Cloud and has his sword (and he’s probably the guy Aerith is talking about)?”, while we are freaking out looking at him dragging spiky boi, limping towards Midgar, criminally handsome and very much alive.

New players don’t really need to know more, because that’s exactly what we knew back then.

As for Sephiroth’s presence in the game. In the original, he appears way later. Here, it’s conceptually the same; he’s there because of Cloud (mind, body/cells, memories) and the copies. He’s the real, complete one only at the very end, that’s why One Winged Angel is playing only then, and it’s just a faint presence here and there, merged in previous tracks (interestingly, it’s also the very first musical phrase we hear in the gameplay, and I think that’s because Aerith sensed him coming from somewhere. It wasn’t because of the whispers, I think it was because of him).

Same for Sephiroth’s backstory, which is none existent, for new players: that’s okay. you see him, you get that he’s unhinged and awfully strong. He’s a cold, collected bitch and he’s clearly plotting something.

That’s okay, it’s enough for now, they’re gonna get the rest in the next rounds. And boy, do I dread that day, ‘cause that’s gonna hurt.

Am I forgetting about Stamp? Of course I am. Not.

Barret stated in chapter 5 that Shinra changed the breed for the military propaganda, and that’s okay. We saw his graffiti, and he’s a beagle. In Zack’s scene, an empty chips bags flies around, clearly showcasing a different Stamp, a terrier of some sort. With a big-ass “Original“ claim in the top left corner. This might mislead you to believe that you’re looking at a different timeline. 

Well...too bad the very same bag is laying on the table of Jessie’s parents...

The hint has always been there: Original. Barret said they changed the breed form the original one...so, yeah, this might prove Zack’s scene is a flashback.

Is Wedge alive? Probably yes.

Is Jessie alive? Probably yes.

Why Bigg's still alive? I don't know.

But I know that you don't build characters up that way to let them live a long life and die peacefully. Someone in this story is really good at giving hopes and then crushing them in the blink of an eye...

The Remake, as it has been said, is incorporating The Compilation, and it’s evident througout the gameplay, from Before Crisis all the way to Dirge of Cerberus and the novels (Leslie and Kyrie come from those. Still waiting on Evan).

I don’t think it has been made to rewrite nor modify FFVII, but to create a definitive end which organically weaves within it.

The story is still alive, kicking, and is the very foundation of the remake. You still have to play the compilation to have the ultimate understanding, because that is the destiny trying to be defied by Aerith and Sephiroth.  

 You can’t try to change fate, if you don’t have one to mess up with in the first place.

Lastly, if Zack will ever be playable at some point, I hope with all of my heart and soul to find myself beating the ever loving crap out of someone with a white and blue parasol.

*End Of Rant*

I'm forgetting something for sure, but well, this is the majority of the stuff that I needed to get out of my system.

If you managed to reach this point, thank you for dealing with me and my madness.

If you want to share your thougths you're very welcome to do so, as long as you can articulate your opinions in a civil discussion.

Have a good day/night.

Finger crossed for 2023.

[pineaberry]

Fictober 2019: #16

Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Inspired by all the Quinn love on my dash, here it is:

The Transponder Station Pt. 3 aka You Dun Goofed

Pt. 1 Found Here: [X]

Pt. 2 Found Here: [X]

For @doomhamster who was very distressed after part 2.

And also, the Quinn fam:

@sunsetofdoom, @fluffynexu, @riajade01, @aliyamirat, @kunoichi-ume, @cinlat, @semper-draca, @gerdavonrinnlingen @velvetsunset

________________________ 

Malavai awoke with a start. He immediately sat up and looked around in confusion. The last thing he remembered was the Transponder Station…

His hand immediately flew to his throat but he felt nothing, no soreness, no dull ache to remind him of his foolishness. He was in Tremas’ quarters, in her bed. He could hear the water running in the refresher. How many times had he woken up to that sound? Had she brought him back? After everything, had she let him back into her life?

He glanced at the chrono nearby and froze. The date was wrong. It was off by at least a week. He frowned as he reached for his datapad and verified that it too displayed the date of one week ago. Suddenly the datapad sparked in his hands and flickered to reveal the schematics of assassin droids. Instinctively, Malavai dropped the datapad and it smashed onto the floor.

It was wrong. This was was all wrong.

The refresher opened with a hiss and steam spilled into the room. 

The scent of vanilla sugar filled his nostrils.

__________

Dead or alive…

Tremas watched Malavai’s sprawled, unconscious form for a moment before nudging him onto his back with the tip of her boot. He was unresponsive but he was breathing.

Alive then.

She supposed once the rage filtered away, she would be glad of it. Right now all she could do was focus on the pain of her injuries so she could harness the force through them. The inferno of her wrath had burned away and now all she had left were the cold ashes: remnants of what they’d shared.

Baras had sought to crush her with Draag, but it was Quinn –efficient, brilliant, resourceful Quinn- who managed to utterly destroy her. It was a sound decision. Between the two of them, Quinn was the most dangerous, Sith or not. Her cooling anger allowed her to gain some perspective. She analyzed every moment, every phrase uttered between them.

She’d known from the beginning Baras had sent him. Mercy and genuine affection had allowed him to join her group. After all, who knew what Baras would have done to him if she had refused to take him? It would have been a waste to lose someone as dependable and skilled as Quinn. She often mused that she fell in love with him the moment he cut off that smug Jedi’s escape on Balmorra. The way he lorded his superiority over the Republic spy as not only attractive, it was accurate. Quinn was a resource, a weapon of deadly accuracy in the right hands. Then again, Baras excelled at needlessly destroying loyal agents under his command.

No, bringing Quinn along with her had been the right call. Personal feelings aside, it had been beneficial to the empire. She’d believed, perhaps naively, that her actions could sway him to switch sides when the inevitable happened. She cultivated a meticulous image of respect and devotion to her master. Although she often encouraged Vette’s snarky retorts behind his back, she always exuded an aura of submission in his presence. 

It was fortunate that Baras thought her so completely loyal to his cause, as it blinded him to the danger she posed. Her flattery and deference was mistaken for weakness. It was little wonder that he didn’t put much effort into plotting her destruction. Had he viewed her as the threat she truly was, he would have chosen to do away with her in a far more vicious manner. Instead, he sent a weak excuse of an apprentice who ultimately butchered the job so badly he ended on the wrong end of an incinerator. Her deceit had paid off. Her master realized her true power only once she had slipped from his fat, greedy fingers. The fact that Baras didn’t consider Quinn as his first choice simply emphasized just how skewed his judgement had become. Even now she was having to scrounge every bit of force energy to keep from succumbing. If it had been Quinn who had acted against her in Quesh, well… She wouldn’t be around now to mull about it.

Quinn…

Her thoughts turned nebulous as the emotions around him were still raw and bleeding. She’d never put much stock on love. She never saw a need for it. On Korriban, acolytes toyed and vied for each other’s affections but it had been a power play to build up and exploit. She too had played that game. A quick smile here, a gentle word there. She had always excelled at finding what people wanted before giving them a taste of it. The promise of more often was enough to lure them to her side. Alas, Sith were volatile and fickle, but soldiers -she recalled- soldiers were easy. When she was assigned on missions with them, she made sure they all returned and with minimal damages. She provided them with protection and respect. Some she gifted with her approval and recommendations of promotion to their superiors. In return they were loyal and provided her with intel on what the other acolytes may be plotting against her.

Perhaps that had been her mistake, believing Malavai’s loyalty would be so easily given like the soldiers’ on Korriban... believing his loyalty was so easily bought like Pierce’s.  His situation was far more complex. Disgraced once before, he owed Baras his career, perhaps his very life. No doubt Moff Broysc would have executed him given the chance. He had come to her with his loyalty already pre-determined. Honorable to a fault, he had served his master, his true master to the only logical end. How could she kill him for that? How could she destroy such an iron will simply because she could not make it bow to her?

I’d be no better than Baras.

It was genius really, her own game turned against her. At some point she had wanted that loyalty for herself. Not just his loyalty. His skill, his power, his deadliness, his brilliance, his passion, his heart… she’d wanted all of him and no doubt he had sensed it. Never had she met a more intelligent man. Never had there been anyone she wanted to make Hers -with a capital H- with such intensity. Her Clever Captain had known her desires all along, she made no secret of them, and he allowed her a taste. Just a taste so she would be lulled into a sense of complacency. A taste so she could believe she held claim to him like a trophy she had wrested away from Baras’ grubby hands. A taste to make her feel victorious and invincible. She’d forgotten -or forgiven- the fact that he was Baras’ man. She’d forgotten when he whispered those sweet words, and held her close, that there was a threat and a danger just beneath the surface.

She’d been a silly child, seduced and duped by a man nearly a decade her senior. How could she not have seen it before? While Tremas toyed and bantered with Quinn, he humored her all the while biding his time. Her own overpowering obsession with possessing him as her property coupled with basic Sith arrogance had blinded her to the truth: Quinn would say and do anything to ensure that, when the time came, she would believe his word as fact.

She grappled with the emotions attached to those memories before her mind finally accepting the truth. Quinn didn’t love her... and it was devastating.

She analyzed that last emotion finally coming to terms with the feeling seizing her chest. Far beyond the mere denial of a cherished prize, she felt the cataclysm of having her still beating heart torn out of her. There would be more time for deeper introspection later, but at least now she knew that what she was feeling had a cause, and a name. Her weakness made itself manifest. A one-sided love was a poisonous way to live.

Adapt or die.

How many times had Overseer Tremel echoed those words? Usually before throwing her off a cliff. Things rarely went according to plan. The messy emotions and relationships surrounding said plans often shifted them when they did not outright derail them without warning. She was Sith, the Emperor’s Wrath, not some tender hearted Alderaanian maiden who would waste away in despair. Emotions were but an arsenal at her disposal, even pain was useful in its own way. The choice, if it could be called that, was clear.

“A Sith’s strength doesn’t lie in never failing, but by never letting failure defeat them. If you cannot pick yourself up after a fall, then you are no Sith at all.”

Circumstances had changed. A new center would have to be found. A new center other than Malavai. As though on cue, Quinn’s eyes snapped open and he yelped as though in pain. As he became aware of his surroundings and he seemed almost puzzled at first. The droids lay in pieces scattered about the room and the implications of his actions struck him. There, leaning heavily against a broken droid, was Tremas. She seemed almost calm amidst the destruction. The droids awkward limbs curled around her in a cruel mockery of an embrace.

He braved to look into her gaze and noted the gold had left her eyes but in its place bone-white pupils remained. An expressed Sith gene, no doubt brought about by the strain of the battle and a testament to the purity of her lineage. The skin around her left eye was a glistening twisted mess of charred skin. His inner medic wanted to reach out and place soothing kolto bandages over the wound to prevent infection and scarring.

“You disappoint me Quinn, I had such high hopes for you,” she said and damn him if he didn’t believe it, “but you fell into the same trap as everyone else. I could respect the fact that you were bound by honor. I can understand how you felt you owed Baras your loyalty after he had saved you. I could even understand your reasoning that you believed him to be better for the Empire. But that wasn't why you did this was it?"

Her voice darkened towards the end of that sentence.

"It is the same reason why you failed so completely. How little you must think of me. How weak am I in your eyes." Her voice was cold and unyielding, like a metal blade grazing his throat. "After all you've seen, after so much observation, you underestimated me. You judged me lacking just as your Master did, and countless others before him. I really thought you were smarter than this, Quinn. Did you learn nothing? For all your calculations, you truly believed I would be so easily destroyed? Did you think I had destroyed my enemies out of sheer luck? Or did you expect I would simply lay my weapons down and allow you to execute me? Regale me, Captain. Exactly how stupid did you think I was?”

He was taken aback by her berating although not for the first time, he was at a loss. She had, of course, come to her own conclusions. For all the ways this conversation could have gone, he hadn't expected this. He stood staring at the floor unable to voice a response that wouldn't shame him further. He could feel that pallid stare burning a hole through him as the tense silence wore on. Mercifully, she continued.

“Stupid enough not to know Baras had placed you in my crew as a spy? Too stupid to intercept your monthly reports to Kaas City? Or perhaps so stupid as to not to realize there was an entire communications channel encrypted on my ship that only you used?” 

Malavai’s heart sank as he stared at the floor with widened eyes. She’d known from the beginning. But then why…?

She visibly strained to keep her anger in check otherwise he was sure he would have found himself in another choke hold.

“What you have done has broken the trust between us. However, I understand that this… all of this… is a result of the same toxic Sith infighting poisoning the Empire. You do not… you will not die by my hand today. Caught between us both, I fail to see how you could have done anything that didn’t result in either of us destroying you. I suppose you were wise to try your luck with me. I will keep you alive, and we will see if you earn my trust again.”

He stared at her stunned at her decision. She had refused to kill him. At best she would have left him stranded on the station, at worst, sent him to Baras for punishment. To keep him in her care, under her protection, it was more than he could have hoped.

“My Lord, I’m… this is unexpected. Darth Baras would never forgive such a failure,” he uttered unable to formulate a more apt response.

“I am not Darth Baras… nor do I aspire to be, but my forgiveness is not some cheap trinket feely given,” she scowled before jabbing a finger in his direction, “You will pledge your absolute, unwavering loyalty to me and me alone.”

“I pledge myself-”

“Do not speak those words in haste, Captain! Listen. No, really listen. I will not tolerate you taking my decision to spare you lightly. I've had my fill of you and you Master finding reasons to call me inept,” she cut him off and he flinched at the as her words hit home, “if you have no intention of following through with your pledge just say so and we go our separate ways. The choice is yours.”

All the love in the world had not changed the fact that he had betrayed her. His failure had been predetermined but it remained. And still she gave him a choice. He could walk away, tail between his legs and simper back to Baras or worse… defect. The very thought of having to live without her became stifling and he knelt before her out of sheer instinct.

“If you will permit me to stay in your charge, my dedication to you will never come into question again,” he vowed.

"Trust is difficult to rebuild, Quinn. But I'm willing to try," she replied looking tired.

"I understand if things are different for a while," he said casting his eyes down, "this interruption has delayed you enough. I'm eager to return to the ship and put this behind us."

He needed to leave this place and the stain of his betrayal lest it cling to him forever. She turned to leave without a word and he quickly followed her.

“The ship is through there. Prepare for departure, I'll join you shortly,” she ordered as they passed the station’s medical droid.

“Of course, my lord. One thing, my lord -- do you plan on telling the others what happened?” he asked and immediately hated how much he sounded like a nervous child pleading with his teacher not to tell his parents. She stopped in the middle of the corridor and turned to face him. He couldn’t help but flinch at the sight of her face. Her gaze was tinted an eerie silver by the light refracted off the metallic walls and her left eye was encircled in charred skin. Self-loathing rose in his throat as he realized the selfishness of his question. To her credit she took it in stride.

“I fail to see how this involves anyone else. I don’t plan to tattle, Quinn,” she replied with the ghost of a smile on her face. Her expression sent a chill up his spine as it seemed far too cold and broken to be the Tremas he knew.

“I appreciate it, my Lord. I will see you back at the ship,” he nodded thankful at having an order to execute. She watched him depart with her mind still clouded and weary. Slowly she made her way to the nearest console and began running one of Vette’s slicer programs. Soon she had access to the ship’s surveillance. With a deft keystroke, she erased the data, and proof of Quinn’s actions. Baras would be denied even the shadow of his prize, just as he had denied her.

Her armor felt too tight and constricting. With the danger past, she saw no harm in loosening the belt around her waist. Something hot ran down her side and soaked through her greaves. Perhaps a kolto packet had burst, regardless, she paid it no attention. Tremas managed to reach her airlock doors before she noticed the visible trail of blood she was leaving. Vette, of course, was the first one to spot her.

“TREMAS!” her cry brought the rest of the crew to the doorway. "What happened? Your face, you're hurt!"

“Baras fed us false information. It was a trap,” she stated as she wobbled. Quinn came down from the bridge looking pale and distraught as he saw the effects of the battle had finally caught up with her, “…didn't see it coming. Captain, are we on course... for... Corellia...”

Quinn’s throat went dry as he saw the once powerful Sith staggering. Her face was far too white and crimson blood was falling from her side in thick heavy drops to pool on the floor. Pierce was the one who caught her as she collapsed like a house of cards.

“Medical, now!" Quinn barked out the order as he ran to prepare the kolto tank. His mind raced trying to remember all the damage she had sustained. Blaster wounds cauterized on impact… He froze as he recalled the vibroknife he had driven into her side.

It was his fault. This was all his fault.

________________________

Read More About Tremas HERE!

Original Fictober Promp List HERE!

[5thhouse-revelations]

Why I Believe Chiron Can be Healed

Note: I am not a professional astrologer! I am simply passionate about learning astrology and I love to share the insights I have about it. I have found lately that many astrologers have a far too negative perception of the asteroid, Chiron, and so I have gone about the task of attempting to transmute this view. Thank you so much, anyone who reads this! 

I likely have a naive sense of faith in humanity, but it’s because I truly believe in the ability people have to overcome. Transcendence is not a much-considered aspect of old astrology; the astrology that originally surfaced the understanding all of our familiar planets and their meanings. It’s true that the ability to overcome stubborn wounds is not avoided completely through the old structures of astrology, but all that we learn traditionally through it was made sense of by a collective that resided in a very stern and withholding paradigm. I don’t claim this as fact (I’m no authority on history, and these are just my personal speculations), but I perceive that in the collective less work was done internally, than in any other part of history. It seems to me that the collective’s inner work was clouded by the obligations that come with religion and conceptualizing sin, and they did not allow as much for the reflections through other people and ourselves, that we are so willing to grasp today. Instead of making sense of the world through God or dogma, we are beginning to make sense of it through each other and ourselves. Today there is a prevalence of learning through the use of higher perspectives and empathy, and we’ve started taking control of what we believe our soul’s fate to be rather than accepting a handed judgment from any sort of deity.

Ascension and its concept are somewhat new, and so many still don’t believe in it, but for those who do, ascension is all about how we can endlessly overcome. This could almost be a philosophy of its very own, if it weren’t for the fact that it is such an affecting phenomenon.  Ascension and astrology don’t go together in an official sense yet, but I believe we are heading in that direction, because I see how beautifully certain energies play out when they are undertaken with the belief that awareness can shift things, and heal whatever comes up in the scope of life. 

Think of the period in which Astrology was formed: it was formed by people who did not conceive that things were in their control. Everything that happened was a result of the external: Gods, goddesses, magic; other such things, as well as planets, of course. There’s a sense of powerlessness within traditional astrology that is being transformed through the new age. We are in an age now of spiritual accountability, and I truly believe this accountability transfers perfectly onto astrology. Accountability, in my opinion, is what Chiron is all about. Chiron is greatly frowned upon because it’s easy to get so caught up in its pain that we forget our own spiritual responsibilities to reflect, and change and grow.

Chiron symbolizes pain, and long-standing trauma. He indicates pain that is so deeply felt that it creates crises, and around these crises complexes are built. We build structures around our pain that have a way of patching it up so that we can circumvent it, and not have to feel it so strongly. This “patchwork” causes a lack of growth, and it’s my opinion that Chiron shows us where we have to tear this down, heal the complexes, and experience the transformation of how it is that we cope. Chiron is seen negatively because, within his arena, the only way to heal the trauma is to work for it through the transformation of perspective, and an attempted ownership of the wounds. 

Chiron’s neighborhood of affliction too often becomes a zone of comfort. Our trauma can become an accidental refusal in that we hold it so closely to us that we avoid anything that can threaten it. This is what Chiron symbolizes to me: it is that trauma we hold too closely, and identify with too much, and this in itself is martyrdom. Our Chiron is where we say:  “No, this is too much. I refuse to exhume this ever again. This is just who and how I am, and this is how my life ended up” Unfortunately the most common action taken from this mentality is the refusal of change and the rejection of new ways of seeing. We refuse to get creative in the matters that our Chiron represents, because the pain can be blinding.

I think this asteroid is somehow linked to creativity, but in a very unusual sense. It’s just like most crises: we have to utilize dormant parts of ourselves and get creative in order to solve whatever the problems are. I’d like to use an example. My mother has Chiron in the 6th house, and she has always struggled with her health and weight, for the entire length of my life. She is traumatized in that she has an addiction to food that stems from her earlier years, and food brings her a sense of security and safety. For many years she refused to look at this pain, and she went on diet after diet after diet. In her view the dieting was failing, which to her meant she was failing. She felt that this was something that would never end in her lifetime, and the wound symbolized by her Chiron kept getting deeper and deeper, seemingly from an external standpoint. What was truly happening, however, was that the diets were masking the wound she was carrying; it was being circumvented, which did not work in the slightest. 

It wasn’t until two years ago when she actually confronted the wound for what it was, and sought the reflection of herself through others, that the Chironian wound began to truly heal. She is now on a path of good health and longevity, and she is losing the weight with utmost motivation. I could not be more proud of her for everything she has overcome, and I know how seemingly impossible it was for her to heal this wound. She got creative with it in that she sought brand new ways to confront the internal aspects that come with having an eating disorder. This disorder did not come from an external happening - not really. It was outside things that were happening to her, that somehow shaped her perception; she took on that pain and identified with it. We all do this, and I truly believe Chiron is the perfect indicator of how and why we do this. It shows us how we internalize specific outer events in our lives, and lock them into a vault.

Chiron has such a nasty reputation because, for most of us, he shows us where our perception of certain traumas does not change because we flinch away from doing the work to change these perceptions. He shows us the pain we take on as part of our identity when truly, we are none of our pain. He indicates where it is we take certain traumatic events and make them permanent, expecting them to just go on forever and ever, as we secretly wish it would ease up much like Saturn does eventually. The problem is that Chironian wounds appear to go so deep that it makes us feel like it’s impossible to face these issues, and when we can’t face something it leads to spiritual stagnancy, which brings us to perpetuate certain complexes we build around it. 

Even though the asteroid can categorize external events that occur, I believe the purpose is to highlight what it is we internalize that we shouldn’t. It’s indicative of exactly what to avoid internalizing and holding onto. As my father once said: “All that matters in life is that you don’t hold onto what it is that hurts you.” I think this sums up the theme of this asteroid perfectly. It can seem like Chiron is responsible for manifesting the same occurrence over and over again, but it’s my belief that unhealed traumas can easily take on this appearance. I’ll use myself as an example. My Chiron is in the 11th house, in Cancer. I’ve always struggled with the realization of my dreams. I have always carried highly Utopian aspirations within myself, and the seemingly repeated failure to see this manifest has felt like my “wound that cannot heal”. 

It wasn’t until this year that I realized it was me that kept perpetuating this belief that only others can have their dreams, and not me. Every failure to manifest my aspirations was just more evidence of my “unhealable” wound. I internalized every single failure, which I think is perfectly resonating with what Chiron appears to do. If you think about it, everyone has repetitive events happen in their life. Everyone fails and everyone loses, but our Chiron is where we internalize these things, thus perpetuating and not healing them. My Chiron placement shows me where in life I internalize my disappointments. I’ve had many failures in my life that have never upset me: I’ve failed school entirely (Even though school has brought me a lot of pain, I never view it as such a personal failure - in fact I embrace it and I’m proud of myself for all that I’ve been able to teach myself to do), and certain jobs; I’ve failed in love and relationships, but never did I internalize these things like I have my 11th house failings. Now I’m realizing how much I refused to be creative and flexible with my aspirations, my perceptions and my identity. I recognize now, how much I truly suffocated these dreams. Instead of letting the mutable forces of life shape and mature them, I deemed my dreams as dying, and I just assumed: “this is where my life has ended up”. I think that sentence describes Chiron quite accurately.

So no, I don’t believe Chiron is a wound that can’t be healed, because I believe we can transcend anything that happens to us. It’s true that Chiron can be time consuming, but I believe his healing depends on how much we are willing to work on the matters of his house and sign, and how much we are willing to be flexible and change our perspectives of what happens to us in these affairs. Humans more than any other species have the power of mental, spiritual and emotional transformation, and this is truly a gift. We are blessed with self awareness and I do not believe there is anything that can doom the ability of this awareness, when we have it, to heal our wounds.

In the realm of pain and trauma, perspective is everything. When we choose to stop seeing ourselves as a victim of external events, we then choose to stop internalizing them and adopting them as our identity. Once we develop a trans formative and free-flowing sense of identity, anything can be healed, whether or not the wound is Chironian in nature.

[stusbunker]

Known: And the Ass’s Jaw

A Supernatural Dark Fan-fiction

Featuring: Dean Winchester x Demon!Reader, x Female Vessel OC, Sam, Crowley and some other demon minions

Summary: CC can’t come to the phone right now... Crowley gets our reader out in the open. Dean acquires the First Blade. This turns into an episode rewrite, I hope you enjoy how our reader fits into canon! xoxo Stu

Warnings: Self harm, mental health, possession, blood, “drug” use, violence, murder, sexual harassment, body disposal and a gentle reminder that our reader is a demon.

Series Masterlist

*^*

February 25, 2014

Green Valley, Arizona

Chloe sat in the bed of her truck, knife held firmly in her hand as she let it hover over her thigh. Her cut off shorts accenting the opportunity as a constant taunt. There, beneath six inches of magically strengthened iron, was her answer. She just needed to slide the edge of the blade over her skin, if she was possessed, she would injure or jolt the demon from her body. If she wasn’t, all she would do is leave a simple cut behind. If her hand would just move closer to piercing her flesh, this could all be over.

With a simple flip of her wrist you began. The soft silver edge split her thigh open like a burst seam. The blood blossoming up and out in a swell of heat and a dull sting, she watched you, paralyzed as another gash opened from her cherished blade. You smirked as the letters merged into the simple word, the surrounding skin reddening with each fresh stroke. The mesmerizing power of inflicting damage inside out causing your eyes to blacken, your mouth pulled into a snarl as you jammed the tip of the knife straight on and into the meat, ending the statement. The mixing of metals at the tip was a punch to the gut, the iron carving away at the latches of your control; you slipped back satisfied but laughing at yourself.

Her consciousness rushed forward to feel each throb of her pulse as she read your message.

HI.

*^*

March 5, 2014

Another Penthouse Suite

 Crowley didn’t even feel the needle as it left his arm, the rush of human emotions quelled the lust for pain and morphed his perspective. He really didn’t want to break up Dean’s little tryst, it would be so much more satisfying to out the bitch to his face. But these were desperate times and he needed a few more ringers on his side. If he could just figure out what department she had escaped from, perhaps he could exploit her talents as well. If she had any, with demons the odds were less than a crap shoot.

He was going to track her down once he found the First Blade, which he would do after this high ran off. Can’t be doing business with the stink of humanity coursing through your veins. He was a professional, after all. No, he closed his eyes and drifted away in a day dream of smug zingers and disarticulated Abaddon.

March 18, 2014

The Bunker

Blade Runners (s9,e16)

 “What do you know about the Men of Letters Massacre of 1958?” Sam stared back at Crowley, who was chained, once again in their dungeon.

“We know Abaddon missed our grandfather and Larry Ganem, was there anybody else?” Dean continued.

“Let me get this straight,” Crowley balked. “You keep me locked up in this closet, ignore my suffering, and then come barging in here and demand my help?”

“More or less, yeah,” Dean agreed.

Crowley looked at Dean and then gaped at Moose. “Did I or did I not keep up my end of the bargain the other night? Quite brilliantly, I might add. We ARE partners and you OWE me!”

After little concession on either part, the brothers caved to the dramatic demon.

“What do you want?” Dean decided it was easier to play along than to argue with Crowley any longer.

Crowley paused a tick, “I wouldn’t turn down more comfortable seating arrangements, a few nips of Scotch, and—” His eyes glinted as he drew out his final request. Dean and Sam raised their eyebrows, fueling his theatrics. “This is paramount. I want Dean’s, how should I put it? Lady friend? To accompany us.”

“Not happening,” Dean interjected flatly.

“Wait, Dean, CC would be there as backup. If Abaddon’s closing in, we could use all the help we could get, especially from someone we can depend on,” Sam grimaced at Crowley’s smug face, he felt dirty agreeing with the crumbling King of Hell.

“Moose is making sense, Dean,” Crowley purred. “Come now, let me meet your pet.”

“No!” Dean pinched the bridge of his nose, “Look, she booked it last time she knew you were here. She was working with Kevin and the moment you started your belly-aching she was out the door. No, Cease doesn’t deal with this level of crap. Not like us.”

“Shame, really,” Crowley leaned his head back and nestled into the creaky old chair. “I’d thought we had a lot in common, both always getting screwed by the mistakes that are the Winchesters and all.”

Dean stomped forward, just to have Sam pull him back from punching Crowley. When they were out of what they estimated to be earshot, Sam continued, “Look, man, I don’t like it either, but CC’s tough. Just call her, she can always say no.”

Dean returned ten minutes later with a calculated glint in his eye, Sam hadn’t moved from his perch outside of the Devil’s Trap.

“So?”

“She’s about four hours out,” Dean gave Crowley a cold curl of his lip. “If you so as much as look at her wrong, I’m going to let her take it out of your hide herself, you hear me?”

“You give all your mates the possessive alpha male monologue or do I threaten your manhood, Squirrel?” Crowley tutted. “Honestly! I think you underestimate just how charming I can be.”

Sam pursed his lips and spun on his heel while Dean sauntered forward. “Now what was that you were saying about seating arrangements?”

Crowley swallowed at the menace in Dean’s voice, careful to keep his thoughts to himself as the boys set up a suitable Queen Anne’s Wing-back for him in the Library, among the other amenities. After an hour of digging through records, they managed to get real intel out of Crowley. Dean naively hoped that their progress would keep CC out of the hunt for the First Blade, but a demon never forgets.

“Call your little huntress, tell her to meet us there,” Crowley’s dark eyes mocked Dean as he watched Dean as he shoved Crowley’s head into the backseat of the Impala.

*^*

Chloe walked in a hazy forest, the underbrush crunching beneath her boots. She didn’t know if she was tracking or hiding, she just knew she had to keep moving. The sky above was a muted gray with streaks of purple, twilight was approaching, and she needed to find cover. Slowly she realized she had lost her lead with the snapping of twigs somewhere behind her. The farther she journeyed, the more certain she knew what was chasing her and the panic grew. She could keep running, she could stop and fight or she could go quietly. Just when she had made her choice the woods parted before her, revealing her grandfather’s cabin and her old bike topped with a shiny new helmet waiting for her. It didn’t matter, the thing that was chasing her didn’t need transportation, but the sight of home had made her pause long enough to end the game once and for all.

*^*

You flew down the highway with the windows open, letting the winter air bite against your bare arms. Chloe was gone, hiding in some memory and you had been buzzing on the power of absolute control. The phone hummed from underneath her leather jacket beside you and you slid the call open before turning down the radio.

There was no way out of this invitation. In fact, it may have been easier to avoid a summoning spell than Dean telling you that Crowley wanted to meet CC. The King, however incapacitated, requested your presence. It was a death sentence, really, either now or later. The loyalty to the throne may not have been your motivation, but its illusion may be your salvation. That with Dean and Sam on your side, gave you enough confidence to answer it readily. Or maybe you were still a masochist this side of the Pit. Go big or go home. You gathered what little belongings you had back at your motel and climbed back into the truck. You hadn’t quite been able to keep Lebanon far enough away.

*^*

“Well, well, well,” Crowley stood alone beside the Impala. “Didn’t think you’d show.”

You remained in the driver’s seat and peered from the window. “Sir,” you nodded, looking around for either Winchester.

“Your boy toy and his oversized sidekick are fine, Y/N. They’re just chasing down an acquisition for me, sporting lads that they are” Crowley oversold. “Come now, let me look at you, Love.”

You hadn’t heard your name in what seemed like forever, an Earth year at least, it was jarring to be addressed by someone so important so intimately. Your overconfidence in your safety was shaken by the sudden solitude. The glint of spelled handcuffs at his wrists gave the final push which brought you out to stand in a seemingly vacant field, two feet from the King of Hell.

“So, Y/N, Darling, what are you doing topside and riding a hunter of all things?” Crowley tutted, thinking your vessel below demon-kind, sending your defenses back up. You looked down at CC’s legs and arms, flexing the muscles beneath her gentle curves before meeting his eye again.

“It was convenient and proved knowledgeable in the long run,” you shrugged, a thousand words passing between your eyes and Crowley’s.

“What of the state of things these days, hmmm? Abaddon and her scare tactics, a demon really needs to keep their friends close,” Crowley was getting to his point.

You knew there were darker reasons Crowley had coaxed you off the road, but there was no good response to a turf battle you had been avoiding. His dark eyes watched knowingly as you tried to conceal your uneasiness. But before you could satisfactorily reply, Sam stumbled out of the nearby trees.

“Magnus has Dean,” he bellowed before realizing you were there. “CC, hi, uh, Magnus is a collector, I think he wants Dean for his zoo.”

“Well, there are worse mugs to put on display,” Crowley muttered as Sam replied in an exasperated face. Sam stormed over to the trunk of the Impala and began digging while Crowley began working him over. You hadn’t spent much time alone with Sam since the whole Angel fiasco, but you knew when he was annoyed. Crowley was playing dumb, yet was still able to hit all his buttons, it was hard not to laugh at them both.

“You’re gonna need another set of hands when you get in there, unless you think Dean’s gonna want little miss priss over here breaking a nail.”

“Thanks, pass,” Sam snapped.

“Hey, at least he knows where I stand,” you interrupted, the low blow stomping out your amusement in less than two breaths.

“Does he?” Crowley grinned over the trunk lid at you.

“Yeah, I do,” Sam countered. “But he’s got a point. Dean wouldn’t want me dragging you into this, CC, this guy has got a spell for everything.”

“He’s human, right?”

“I think so, a witch-like un-aging human, but yeah I guess,” Sam continued rifling through his files.

“Well, if he’s human, he can die,” you surmised. What you didn’t say was that you wanted to be the one to do it, after snatching Dean for his own sick entertainment.

“I’ll remind you, both, that I am the one who flushed the lout Gadreel out of Sam’s noggin. So! Lately, Big Boy, I’ve seen more playing time than you.”

“Crowley, will you please, shut, the hell, up?”

Crowley shoved his tongue in his cheek and sauntered over to your side of the Impala, he nodded to the woods. You didn’t want to do this, not here or now, especially since you knew it would do little to help Dean. But you followed the King about thirty paces until Sam was out of earshot.

“You care about him, is that it?”

You didn’t respond, crossing your arms over your chest, listening in mild annoyance.

“Fine, be stubborn, but you’re still just a bottom dwelling demon in a mediocre meat suit. I have the juice to stop the sorcerer, now, are you going to help me convince the not-so-Jolly Green over there or are you going to stomp your feet and prove yourself a petulant human?”

You didn’t have to convince Sam in the end. Necessity was the mother of invention and the need of the hour was ingredients.

“I did good, eh, Moose?” Crowley pandered once Sam had prepared the spell, “everything on the list. You’re welcome.”

“Remember, stay close, do what I say, and shut the hell up.”

“I’m growing on you, aren’t I?” Crowley stood between you and Sam as Sam started the chant. Crowley’s voice was pathetic and needy. You knew he was off his game, but the fishing for approval was almost painful to watch, and especially suspicious. As the entryway blazed to life before you, Crowley turned and waved, blasting you backwards ten yards.

“Be a dear and wait in the car?” His voice taunted as they disappeared in the night.

*^*

Dean knew he needed to hold out for Sammy and CC to come through with the prison break. Crowley, well, Crowley was a long shot, but he could be tapped if Sam got desperate. What had they gotten into with this guy, the Men of Letters really gave this nutjob too much knowledge for their own good, didn’t they?

Dishonored and forgotten wasn’t enough of a punishment for Cuthbert “Magnus” Sinclair. This guy needed to be put down, once and for all. So, Dean played along, giving him the illusion of control until Dean had his back up squad on the board.

*^*

You could smell them before you heard them, demons. You spun CC’s knife in your hand and sunk into the cover of some nearby bushes. If you smelled them in a pack, one or more of them would be able to sniff out you and Crowley before long. You circled the invisible fortress, spreading your trail and gaining eyes on them. Over a five-minute wait, three stooges barged into the clearing, glaring at the abandoned vehicles.

“Look-e here, the Douche-chester mobile,” a lanky one drawled.

“Christ, she has us tailing after those two for this blade?”

“We woulda been here first, if you hadn’ta stopped to beat them cops, Morris,” the lanky one was apparently in charge.

They continued on, arguing and muttering about their boss, but they never said her name. It wasn’t like they were being cautious to mask their identities. They must have truly feared her if they didn’t utter her name aloud. Once they started in on the Impala, your eyes blazed black, the rage simmering like water beneath the lid of your skin. Eventually they spread out. Which sped up the chances of them finding and following your trail. Slowly you climbed into a low tree, letting their stomping feet cover the sounds of your efforts.

“So, what’s Crowley doin’ wit the Winchesters?”

“Do I look like his secretary, man, I don’t know. But it can’t be good. They are always getting into Hell’s business. You’d think if they wanted the job Sam would have demon-ed up and not put Lucifer back in the Cage.”

“Righteous little Ken Dolls would be real nice to play with though,” a voice like cracked ice spoke for the first time. The third demon was female, and she was much more torture-oriented than the mission required.

“Tommy, there aint no way of gettin’ in ta this vault,” Morris was now ten feet from the trunk of your tree, all any of them had to do was turn and look up and you were screwed.

Fighting against the compulsive breathing of your vessel, you waited. You slid to the farthest weight-bearing spot of the branch, aiming to get within dropping distance. With a calculated toss, you lobbed your knife holster towards the cars, the sound forced the three demon’s heads to snap to attention. In an instant they took off allowing you to leap from your perch and crash onto Tommy, the leader and the last of the pack. With your knife handle firmly in your mouth, you worked to cover his mouth.

The iron and silver blade sunk into his vessel with a satisfying slice, he spasmed against your hold. Once you knew he was weak enough, you removed your hand, letting him smoke out from the decimated corpse. The woman’s and Morris’s voices called back, both confused and cowardly. You wiped the dead man’s blood on the thigh of your jeans and stalked back to the entrance of Magnus’s hiding place.

Amazingly, your gun was still tight against the small of your back, but its weight left little comfort when you were dealing with your own kind. You threw your voice channeling Tommy’s voice, taunting them as you crouched beside your truck, “Morris, get your ass over here and help me already.”

“What’s he want now,” the tall man muttered, stomping back to where you’d left the body.

“Don’t know, don’t care, but you have fun with that,” she snipped, walking backwards with a mocking wave. Once she was alone in the clearing you made your move.

“Hey,” you greeted her, pulling her away from her mutilation of the Impala’s paint job.

“Who the hell are you?!”

“No one of consequence,” you sighed, whipping your knife into her chest, it was two inches up and to the left from where you hoped, but it still froze her in place before her face was forced into a mask of rage.

“Fucking bitch!” She screamed, cutting your window of opportunity down. You charged her, the vessel was tiny compared to CC, your arms and legs reaching her before she could swing back. You threw her to the ground, her boot catching your stomach as she tried to will you off of her. Then you smiled down and twisted the knife, dragging the iron face across her chest in blistering strokes. The skin split bloodless, falling open like a burst bag of flour, the body that housed her was long dead. Muscles, fat and ribs exposed and ragged as she finally escaped through the yellowing lips.

Morris’s strong hands found you before you could enjoy your handy work, one clamped fiercely on your neck while the other hoisted you up by your thigh. Your knife fell from your hand as he had pinned your arm at an awful angle by way of the throat-crushing.

“One of Crowley’s bitches, eh?” He inhaled the scent of your hair. “Didn’t know the ol’ dog liked the chubby’uns. Can’t blame him, really.”

His hand roamed lower and you pushed back against him, trying to wrestle free. “Yeah, that’s it, Baby. Let me feel that fat ass.” You wanted to vomit, but the fingers bruising your throat would have stopped you, if you got that far. You started to panic, it was the middle of the night and you were completely alone; Chloe wasn’t even helping fight this sick fuck off of her. “Could do wit out that pistol ‘tween us though.”

“Why?” You struggled to speak, “my gun make you, insec-c-c—c.” He tightened his hold, crushing Chloe’s windpipe. As his spindly fingers started to undo your pants, you bent forward, lifting his feet out from behind him and slammed his face against the truck’s side view mirror, breaking his grasp of your throat. You coughed and drew sweet air back into her lungs, she was going to be banged up and your antics weren’t exactly helping that fact. You stomped on his foot and shoved him back against the truck, breaking his last hold on you. You stumbled forward, snatching the knife and quickly spinning to face him. His stance was wide, hoping from foot to foot as you inched closer, he grinned suddenly, the barrel of CC’s gun pointed square at your chest.

“Nice vessel you’ve got, sister, be a shame to muddy it up,” Morris taunted. You didn’t know how it came to mind, but suddenly you smoked out of Chloe’s mouth and straight down his shocked jaw. You hadn’t had a different vessel in months and never an already possessed one. But you found him quickly, blanketing his senses and twisting his essence into thin useless strands, like putty. When you felt him trying to leave you shoved him further back, bringing him inside the dead brain of his vessel and wallowing in the emptiness. Just when you thought he was too tired to keep fighting, you raised his hand and put a bullet in his temple.

“So much for this vessel,” you taunted before leaving him in the un-camouflageable husk.

Sure, he could have tried the same thing with CC, but you had scared him shitless. He shot off after his useless friends, like dogs with their tales between their legs. Unfortunately, those bitches would undoubtedly head home to Abaddon, with your treachery bursting from their lips. There was no hiding from Hell after this.

Once you were back inside Chloe, having righted her weapons and fixed her pants, you started hauling bodies. It was dawn before you had them all salted and stacked on a pyre two hundred yards north from the trail to the old Man of Letter’s safe house. The smell of burning flesh coated your nose and sunk into your clothes. It reminded you of home, a wistful smile came to your lips as you watched the bodies with a filling satisfaction.

*^*

Dean was doing his best to ignore Crowley’s verbal masturbation as they stomped out of the woods from Magnus’s place. He was terrified of the power the First Blade put in his hand and absolutely impressed with the taste the murder left in his veins. There was no high like it and so he tried to bury it. When they reached the clearing in which he had parked Baby, the sight was enough of a distraction as his stomach dropped.

“No, no. Come on!” Dean strode forward. “What the hell?!”

“That’s sulfur, demons,” Sam hurried to the other side of the car, checking their cargo.

“Uh, Abaddons’,” Dean groaned. “Well, she’s just one jump behind us. Guess she couldn’t find Magnus’s joint either. What about the trunk?”

“Safe,” Sam sighed in satisfaction. “The warding kept them out.”

Crowley finally reached the distraught hunters, confusion or concern heavy on his face.

“Demon mitts all over my Baby,” Dean stewed. “Oh, come on! What, now, they’re keying cars?!”

“Gents?” Crowley broke Sam’s focus, but Dean was too far gone, desperately trying to right the wrongs done to the beloved Impala. “Notice anyone missing?”

“Chloe,” Sam’s face fell to the empty spot of the missing truck.

“CC was here?”

“Yeah, Dean, you were inside overnight.”

“Wait, what?! It was like an hour, hour and a half tops,” Dean groaned.

“Must have been a temporal pocket, like Hell, only opposite,” Sam explained, scanning the horizon. He froze when he saw the pillar of gray smoke, “that’s not a good sign.”

“Maybe your bird cleaned up the mess,” Crowley mused.

“God, I hope so,” Dean clenched his eyes shut against the deep gashes in the car doors and slid inside. Whispering to the car the entire way over to the pyre. He parked beside CC’s battered pick up and he crawled out of the driver’s seat. Only to be knocked back against the steel frame as CC ran into his chest, breath ragged, and face covered in tears.

“Dean, thank fuck,” she croaked as he pulled her close. “I don’t know what happened, suddenly I was lighting a pyre with three strangers on it. I, I thought I was dreaming.”

Dean stared over her head to Sam and Crowley, concern of varying degrees on both of their faces. Dean kicked himself for leaving her alone, she reeked of sulfur, gasoline and burning flesh. He held her at arm’s length and examined every inch of exposed skin, they really worked her over, fucking bastards.

“D’you have anything to do with this,” Dean looked Crowley square in the eye.

“I might have left her behind, for her own protection,” Crowley raised his hands in surrender. “I had no idea Abaddon’s goons were right behind us.”

“Who are you?” CC asked.

“Name’s Crowley, Y/N was it?” The Englishman leaned forward with a doughy palm.

“Shut up, Crowley. You know this is Chloe, Chloe Collins. You met her yesterday,” Sam eyed the demon contemptuously.

“Right, Ms. Collins, pleasure,” Crowley smiled smugly.

“He’s sort of the King of Hell,” Dean whispered as she unwrapped herself from his arms to take the demon’s handshake.

“I remember, Kevin told me all about you,” you returned his menacing stare as Crowley broke the handshake.

*^*

@mogaruke @dontshootmespence  @mrswhozeewhatsis @smi727 @sassykayla255 @supernaturalboi @dumbthotticus @eve05glee @veroinnumera @spn-dean-and-sam-winchester @fanfictionrecommendations-com @soullesscollection-world

Next Chapter: Case of the Weak Part A

[thunderheadfred]

Why I Love Spike But Also Hate Him A Lot: an unsolicited essay by me

OR: Why I personally relate to blood-sucking poseurs OR: dude what if I ever got high enough to rewrite season six?

(under a cut because this goes on for a while. also discourse frightens me)

Okay. I’m like twenty years late. But I’ve been rewatching BtVS s5 during my latest depression spiral and wandering against my better judgement into the Spuffy fic verse. Disclaimer that my grasp of the series’ larger canon is meh at best, and frankly I don’t care.

As usual, I have too many thoughts.

Spike is, hands-down, my favorite character on this show. Maybe one of my favorite characters, period. He’s just... good to watch. But listen. Secret poet or no, he was never an inherently good person. Meek and shy does not equal Buffy’s equal. I squirm at this apparently massively popular canon interpretation of his human character as some kind of adorable perfect cherub, as if William the Dipshit Poet is somehow preferable to Spike the Complicated Murderer or like, we should just automatically assume that cute shy white people who lived in 1880 London are default Lawful Good when in fact... ahahaa haaaa YIKES COLONIALISM?

I actually think the reason Spike is “more human” than other vampires (in the weird, contradictory Buffy soul-canon) is exactly because William was not Pure, he was a Pratt. Sweet? I guess. Loves his mum? He’s got that going for him. But that guy?? Is not Buffy’s long-lost true love, not a weepy ghost to be shoved into Spike’s Billy Idol cosplay bod at the last minute. In a show that, at its best, tries to give us a protagonist who fundamentally believes we must always make the choice to keep living mindfully, accountably, and with purpose... we get a love interest who is... Spike. A guy who, until the very end of his arc, acts as though he has zero fucking free will. Even though, through a combo of deliciously fun and inconsistent writing, Spike is apparently the only vampire in the Buffyverse who does.

I’ll get to that but first, let’s accept for a minute that Free Will + Buffy = good, and people who roll over and say “I had no choice” + Buffy = Mr. Pointy. This counts for her friends too, (*coughWILLOWcough*) and it’s one of the reasons I love the show despite its many textual problems. As a character piece, it’s great. People fail to take accountability for their behavior all the time. It’s an extraordinarily human flaw, one that rarely equals automatically evil, and I love that it can bite characters on the side of good, too. But that’s not the point of this, oh shit!

Okay. William, cute glasses aside, has no free will. He didn’t even sign up for the vampire thing, he just wanted to get felt up by a pretty girl who saw him cry and didn’t laugh at him. At every point, he was an immature, weak-willed, naive dreamer type who wanted nothing more than to be validated by his shitty friends. The vampirism made him a killer, yeah. But it also inadvertently gave a cowardly nobody a lot of good qualities. Now he’s a weirdly observant, relentlessly optimistic, fun-loving, sexually secure Cool Guy who gave up poetry for punk... but still tries too hard to impress his shitty friends. Basically, being a vampire made this guy a happier-but-still-undeniably-crappy version of himself, especially... considering all the murder. 

But now, let us transparently and metaphorically link cartoonish Vamp!Murder to addiction. Because wow, death in BtVS is either a manipulative authorial gut-punch or a dumb joke, and either way, it’s almost impossible to take seriously in this show, so let’s not.

How to make a remorseless bloodsucking fiend out of of “boo hoo I’m a bad writer and I wish some jerks thought I was cool?” Ha ha you can’t!  Turns out you basically recreate my early twenties but with more murder. Spike is a socially-dependent ADHD art school reject on a century-long avoidance bender. He’s a codependent, moon-eyed boyfriend who learns how to aggressively project not caring while caring Far Too Much, all while clinging to aesthetic as an identity. ALTHOUGH let us not deny that he 100% enjoyed all the killing - wtf so much killing - because for vampires, killing equals pleasure, and charming, “happy” addicts always justify the comforts of their vices. He talks the talk cuz fitting in is his whole deal, but he’s not actually in it for chaos and destruction or any high-falutin’ evil reason, or even really for eating delicious ladies but because, in the end, it feels good and the only girlfriend he’s ever had thinks eating people is cool. Even his whole (gorgeous, splendid to watch) episode-long speech about killing two slayers was written more for Buffy’s character arc than his; we don’t really know why he killed the slayers other than like, “Because they had a death wish I guess. Side note: it was fun.”

There wasn’t much legitimately vengeful or hateful stuff in sad little William for demon!Spike to work with, and apparently William’s soul-or-whatever moved about twelve inches over his left shoulder and stayed there, occasionally poking him for the next hundred years. So it should shock no one that he immediately switches sides when a) his girlfriend dumps him, b) his addiction suddenly hurts, and c) it’s time to impress a new friend group.

I get that Spike’s whole soul-getting between s6 and s7 has been interpreted in fanon as a grand romantic sacrifice (ehhhhhhhhhhhh) and I get why that’s tempting, but the show itself bungled that up way bad and I just can’t get behind it. R*pe idiocy aside, making it ultimately all about Buffy just kinda cheapens what could have been a really fucking powerful redemption arc, one that would have led to a far more satisfying love story. Especially from Buffy’s perspective. 

Okay listen.

We have a guy who has been playing the “duh, Vampire!” card for a century, pleasure-seeking and self-centered, pandering to various peer groups, murderous or otherwise, a happy addict, impervious to change. So when finally, after a HUNDRED SODDING YEARS of being a soulless, hilarious dick, Spike has consequences shoved into his gray matter by the government, he doesn’t change. At all. He just starts obsessing over another woman, doing what he thinks she wants. A woman he thinks will give him new pleasures, a new, perpetually fine status quo. But this woman is Buffy, whose identity is rock solid even though her life is constantly full of challenge and change and choices. She “rewards” Spike only when he makes willful, selfless decisions. And the rewards aren’t romantic, either. Not early on. Even in canon, she keeps rejecting him over and over again, for crystal clear reasons. Thank god. Because when he accepts that she’ll never have him, but still does the hard stuff anyway, he’s unwittingly starting to change. It’s not just Buffy. Buffy demands real personhood. Independence. Identity. Choice. 

Uh oh. She’s gotten to him, then. Though it starts out selfish, he still makes a CHOICE. Quite literally, he takes on the pain of self-improvement - first by embracing the consequences of his chip, later by going on his fancy sparkly soul quest. Buffy is the catalyst, no doubt, because once a poet always a poet and girls are pretty, but Spike’s path to improvement (if not redemption) was already there, laid out nice and neat. His narrative low point, the lightbulb moment that makes him want a soul again, should never have come out of a season of terrible backsliding, culminating in the shower scene we all regret.

It should have been The Gift. 

Death isn’t Buffy’s gift. It’s love. And not that simpering, easy kind of love that just says, “there there,” but the hard, truthful love that makes you want to keep getting that goddamn rock from the bottom of the hill. Yes, Spike’s arc should still be about Buffy, it’s Buffy’s show, but it should have been more about the hole she left behind. Not just in Spike but in the world. 

What’s left? This latest and greatest group of people who have so far RIGHTLY rejected a demon whose sole motivator seems to be comfort. And maybe when these particular people hit rock bottom, they have enough wisdom to see a monster down in the dark and recognize themselves. Maybe Dawn (whose humanizing effect on Spike has been nearly as important as his obsession with Buffy) shows him that rare, rare thing called Validation. And oh god, he realizes he’s never actually moved beyond trying to sell effulgence to Cecily Whatsherface, that he’s been sitting on his own grave for a hundred years, waiting for someone to coddle and fix him, and now the only woman who might have, the best woman, literally the one girl chosen one above all others... is gone. This would be a good time to die. 

Or...

...maybe there is no magic soul cave, maybe he tries to end it and makes the CHOICE not to. Chooses to stay and help, because what else is there? Then BAM! it just slams back into him in a way that hurts like you can’t even believe, because admitting how bad you’ve fucked up is the most painful moment of a lifetime and I’ve lived it and I wish I’d had a hellmouth to jump into, but the Scoobies pull him back, and he takes care of Dawn until life seems to have some meaning again, then Buffy comes out of the earth traumatized and broken and no one is better equipped to help her than a recovering Spike, not because he’s magically her rock but because he’s also learning how to roll his own rock and keep on climbing, because Camus ruined us all for metaphors...

THE END

Anyway. As a recovering addict and toxic person who has been struggling a lot recently... who wants to improve and be able to give more to the people I love, Spike has an arc that just like... cuts me deep, man. Especially because of what should have been.

[smoakmonster]

Runaways

A/N: *dusts off brain cobwebs* Hey, it’s been awhile since I wrote fanfic, let alone spec fanfic. Feels good. Hope you enjoy this little post-7x13/early 7x14 scene between Mia and William. 

xxx

“Ow!”

“Sorry,” muttered Mia. Again. Exactly how many times was a person expected to apologize for unintentionally causing injury? Ok so, the punch was her fault, but that had been pure survival instinct before she’d realized who Baby Warbucks was. “Though, for you information, the whining? Not so endearing right now.” Still, Mia was careful as she reapplied the towel to his split lip. 

“Oh, well, I’m sorry if my pain is inconvenient for you.” Baby Warbucks shot her a glare before wincing again. 

William. His name was William.

Mia swallowed, ducking her head to shield her face behind a wall of hair. She had a brother. She’d known that, of course. In theory. Growing up, Mom had recounted as much of her family history as she’d had the preference to provide, but Mia’s thirsty inquisitiveness was never fully quenched. Mia read more into her mom’s quiet frowns than in her meticulously vague answers. There was always more to know about the missing gaps in her childhood and in the years before that, of a different time, a time where her mom had been happy and her dad had been...still accessible. 

And now, by some twisted miracle, all the answers she’d spent years searching for were sitting right in front of her. Of all the worst coincidences.

Mia pulled the towel away, relieved to see the bleeding had finally stopped. She suspected her newfound family member would not have taken to stitches very well. And she was terrible with a needle anyway.

As it was, William hissed when she pressed a bandage to his face. 

Mia rolled her eyes at the ceiling and barely resisted the temptation to press harder. Was he so pampered he can’t even go five minutes without complaining? Pain tolerance was clearly a skill he needed to learn, and soon. He wouldn’t last a day in Star City with that pitiful attitude.

For the second time in the last hour, a strange wave of concern washed over her. She wanted to protect him. 

Mia flinched, pulling back like he’d struck her. 

Why did it matter what happened to him? Because he was suddenly family?

No. Mia dismissed that thought with a shake of her head. She only wanted to keep him safe because somehow he was the key to helping her find Felicity...find Mom. 

While she hated to admit it, she was intrigued why Mom had risked contacting someone who clearly didn’t want to be here. But she wouldn’t tell him that. Information was power. And he may have been her long-lost, half-brother, but that didn’t erase years of zero contact on his part. If he’d wanted to help earlier, he would have.   

Yet for some reason, her mom had trusted him enough to lead him to the Archer program, hoping to bring him back to her. Whatever Mom was up to, William was a part of the puzzle. That made his safety a priority.  

Well then, Mia was just going to have play along at a safe distance. She could protect both of them--from each other, if it came down to it. And she knew whose side she’d fall on when things came down to the wire, as things usually did in Star City. Besides, once he got whatever closure he was after, he’d leave. And then she and mom would be all alone again. Best to steer herself against disappointment later. 

As though listening to her train of thoughts, William looked at her and asked, “So, you willing to help us find Felicity?

Mia huffed, crossing her arms. “I’m sorry, us?” She shot a skeptical look around the room at his so-called friends. “Look, just because we’re...family does not mean that we are working together now.”

William looked more annoyed than frightened, so that was an improvement at least. “You can trust me. Felicity is the reason I’m here. She sent for me.”

“Oh, she sent for you, did she? Well, that wouldn’t have been necessary, if you’d been here in the first place.”

With surprising agility, William jumped out of the chair. “Hey, I’m not the one who abandoned her! She abandoned me!” He hesitated, a sudden, pained looked clouding his face, sending a sharp ache through her gut. She knew that look very well. It was the same, secret look her mom wore when she thought Mia wasn’t looking. It was the same look she saw in the mirror when she tried to force newborn memories to the surface of her mind. 

In a softer, more unsure voice, William said, “She and my dad.”

Mia shut her eyes, fighting the onslaught of pain that was always creeping up behind her, ready to swallow her whole. It wasn’t fair that he got to utter that word and know what it meant, have an entire array of memories to go with it, while she...she had nothing but a stolen documentary and the secondhand pieces of a grieving mother. 

Her lips shook, but she managed to keep her voice in check. “Look, I’m sorry that I hit you. But you should leave, go back to where you came from. This isn’t your fight.”

Mia turned away, her feet scraping against the concrete, echoing in tune with the dull pang in her heart. Long moments passed, and then...

“Is that what Dad would have wanted?” William called. “For us to turn our backs on each other?”

Mia spun, fire rushing through her veins. “You know nothing about me or my life!” she spat, retreating to the dark side of the platform and into the darkest parts of herself. She let the anger take over, let it guide her, let it remind her of her mission. Anger was safe, familiar, protective. Anger was the only emotion she could feel that drove her to do something, to be something…something more than the frightened daughter of two vigilantes. If she wasn’t angry, she’d have no reason to go on.

“You’re right.” William lifted his hands, resigned. Desperate. “But I want to. Let me help you.”

Mia raised an eyebrow. “You help me?”

But his eyes were genuine, even if his perspective was naive. If there was one thing she’d honed after all these years, it was the ability to read people.

“We’ve both been hurt by our parents. Let’s not make the same mistakes they did.”

Mia regarded William in a new light. Underneath all that geeky insecurity, there was a heart that wanted to do good, even if it was misguided in its efforts. She could help with that, at least. They had nothing in common, except they were both chasing something their parents had put into motion long ago. She knew what she was after, but what kind of closure was he seeking? What more could he possibly want after having unfettered access to Dad and still leaving like he did? 

Knowing Felicity, she’d probably been sending that distress signal for months. So why was he only now responding to it? What had changed?

The only thing Mia hated more than the vigilantes that had destroyed her life was mysteries. Mysteries needed to be solved. And her new brother, wealthy yet a runaway just like her, was a terrifying enigma.