#ive only felt a handful of times that they might not be getting interactions / ships / etc with people for a reason similar to that | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nevertheless-moving · 4 years ago

Text

Suicidal Misunderstanding AU Part V (SW Time Travel AU #27)

Part I - - - - - Part II - - - - - Part III - - - - - Part IV

After a meandering walk through what felt like every path the hanging gardens and marsh pools had to offer, Obi-Wan stopped to lean against a stone wall.

“Obi-Wan? Are you ready to stop and eat something? As nice as this has been, I’m getting hungry and I’m guessing you are too.”

Anakin was only being a little sarcastic. It had genuinely been nice to peacefully spend the day with Obi-Wan like this- they hadn’t been to the marsh habitats since the war started. He had resigned himself to watching Obi-Wan enthusiastically greet every wandering knight, master, and elder who they passed.

It was actually starting to become impressive- Anakin never realized how many members of the Order his Master was friendly with- no wonder he was given a seat on the high council! But after the last heartfelt clasping of hands with a completely unfamiliar Bothan (thankfully for Anakin’s petty jealousy, Obi-Wan wasn’t hugging everyone), Anakin had asked who the knight was.

Obi Wan frowned. “No idea. But I suppose I must have seen him somewhere.”

Anakin was no longer feeling impressed.

When a group of crechelings wandered by, Obi-Wan appeared briefly overwhelmed with emotion. His shields (apparently even better drunken than sober) didn’t let anything specific slip. But he knew Obi-Wan was feeling something intensely. Bizarrely, instead of saying hello, Obi-Wan hurried out and away with Anakin dragged behind, bringing them back to the stone wall and their skipped breakfast.

“Not yet.” Obi-Wan responded hoarsely. “I want to visit the Room of A Thousand Fountains first, and say a few more goodbyes.”

“Goodbyes?” Anakin asked, a slight chill running down his back. “We’re not shipping back out until the end of the week. Do you always say goodbye to everyone this thoroughly before redeployment?”

“No. Do you think I should have?” Obi-Wan frowned. “I feel like that would have been more upsetting than anything else.”

“Ok then, why are you saying goodbye now? To the whole order?”

Obi-Wan didn’t reply, he just pushed off the wall to continue on his quest to apparently visit every corner of the temple.

“Master, please, you’re worrying me. If you won’t eat, then let me take you to the Healing Halls so they can check you over for drugs. We can visit the fountains after.”

Obi-Wan finally paused, thinking that over. “I would like to see Bant. She should be there, right?”

Bant did end up being there, and was more touched than disturbed by Obi-Wan’s sincere joy to see her. While Obi-Wan wandered the halls greeting injured Knights, she ran several tests.

“As far as I can tell, all you had last night was human-appropriate alcohol. No force-user specific drug interactions, and no traces of Spice. It’s possible there’s something I missed, but your force presence doesn’t feel off balance in the manner I specifically associate with drug-induced altered perception. Your blood sugar is a little low and you’re somewhat dehydrated, especially considering you’re in the temple, not out on a mission.”

“I’ll take care of my physical needs after I visit the Room of a Thousand Fountains. Just because a vision isn’t purely induced by the force doesn’t mean I can’t draw meaning from it. I do appreciate how you always looked out for me though, Bant. I’ve missed your fussing.” Obi-Wan smiled, clasping one of her hands in his.

Bant sighed, “If Master Yoda wasn’t off world I’d urge you to talk to him. I haven’t seen you this shaken by a vision since we were younglings. Even if you do seem to be handling it fairly... calmly.”

Obi-Wan laughed. “I’ll tell him you said that someday. I might be wrong, but I think he’ll be happy to learn about-” Obi-Wan gestured around vaguely, “all this. I’ll talk to him at some point. I’m sure of it.”

She glanced over at Anakin, who had been a quietly looming shadow the whole visit. He seemed both relieved by the diagnosis as well as bewildered. “Can I speak to you privately?”

Obi-Wan nodded and Anakin stalked out of the test room.

She scrutinized him, worry more obvious now, “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you slipping tenses this whole time. You’re still not sure where your vision ends and reality begins, are you? Do you even know when you are?”

Obi-Wan looked down. “I know what’s real and what’s not. I’m just...enjoying not fully living in the moment. I have every intention of waking up.”

“Yeah, that’s a BIG red flag, Obi-Wan. Force.” She tilted her head back and forth, examining him with obvious concern. “I am scheduling an appointment for a soul healer and you are going to go, understand?” She demanded.

Obi-Wan agreed far too easily. She reluctantly let him leave with an earnest promise to eat something real.

Obi-Wan came outside to find Anakin pacing.

“I’m glad you’re still here,” he told his former Padawan, ignoring the ache in his chest.

“Of course Ori’vod,” Anakin said, ducking his head with a shy smile. “What did Bant say?”

“She wants me to eat something real and visit a soul healer.” Obi-Wan sighed. “Well, I can do at least one of those things.”

“A soul healer! She thinks you’re crazy?” Anakin asked offended.

“First of all, you don’t have to be unstable to visit a soul healer. I’ve seen them in the past, when there wasn’t as much wrong with me. I’m sorry if I led you to believe you couldn’t seek out help for your problems.” Obi-Wan said. Another mistake.

“I-I know that. I just thought, you know, Jedi can be judgmental of that sort of thing. A good Jedi is supposed to be able to just, meditate stuff away.” Anakin said bitterly.

Obi-Wan thought furiously. Was this why he had been so blindsided by Anakin’s fall? Had his padawan been so afraid of judgement that he hid all of the warning sides of his struggles with darkness? Maybe he could ask Owen for some sort of petty assistance when he brought over bantha milk next time, to demonstrate to young Luke that it was ok to ask for help. No, he was probably still too young for those sorts of lessons to have much meaning. The insight would require meditation, when he was more sober.

Unsure how ‘Anakin’ would respond, Obi-Wan tentatively said, “You’re right, that some Jedi might judge for seeking such aid. But I think in the last years of the war, that sort of opinion became less and less common. After all, an ideal Jedi shouldn’t be leading an army. I don’t know if anyone can be perfect during war, let alone a peacekeeper.”

When that failed to garner positive or negative reply, Obi-Wan let out a breath. “It hardly matters, since I can’t exactly visit a therapist, let alone a soul healer, given my present living conditions.”

Anakin seemed to process that, giving Obi-Wan a long, searching look. “What’s your next point?”

“Hmm?”

“You said first of all, and I think that was all one thing, so what’s your second point?”

“Not exactly being able to visit a soul healer regularly doesn’t count as a separate retort?”

“I guess? I’m just trying to understand what you’re trying to tell me” A twinge of frustration crept into Anakin’s otherwise level tone.

"I appreciate that, truly, and I regret the number of hurtful miscommunications that sprung up from me failing to do just that. Well, I suppose, by most reasonable standards, I am ‘crazy.’ Getting some help with unraveling my mind would probably be best, if it were an option, but it isn’t so...” Obi-Wan shrugged.

Before any followup questions could be asked, they finally arrived at the main entrance to the Room of a Thousand Fountains. The archway was stunning, water flowing upwards along the stone in intricate, shifting tessellations. When they stepped through, Obi-Wan was delighted to see Mace Windu sitting on a bench by the entrance.

“Mace! I was hoping to see you.”

Mace looked at him. He seemed at first, to be utterly unsurprised by the duo’s arrival. But the longer he stared, the more visible shock overtook his features. “Master Koon recommended I look for you...force what happened.”

Obi-Wan just chuckled. “Oh you know. What didn’t happen.”

“What’s wrong?” Anakin asked urgently. “What do you see, Master Windu?”

Obi-Wan tried to wave them both off, laugh a little more forced. “Please, I came here to relax. I’m sure it would be easier to say what’s not wrong with-”

“Kark it, Obi-Wan this isn’t a joking matter.” Master Windu’s voice was calm, but insistent. He slowly started approaching Obi-Wan as though the fellow council member were a feral loth-cat.

“You look as if...nearly every shatter point around you has broken open. Force, I think you’ve been carrying some of these with you since you were a child. Usually when things that deep break...And some of these- some of these are too big to have just affected you.” Mace hesitantly reached forward, brushing against something invisible.

A chill ran down Anakin’s spine, again. What the kriff did Obi-Wan see in his vision? Last night he mentioned the temple burning, their rooms turned to ash, and Anakin had just...let that go in favor of greedily spending time with this addictively affectionate version of Obi-Wan.

“Mace...” Obi-Wan groaned. “I had been wondering what you might say to me but this is...please, can’t you just give me a hug and let me enjoy the peace for one more hour.”

“Master Kenobi,” Mace said, seeming to revert to an even more serious version of himself. “What I see cracked open around you is bigger than the reemergence of the Sith on Naboo, bigger than the first battle of Genosis. Whatever has happened, you cannot possibly keep it to yourself, practically or morally.”

To the shock of both Windu and Skywalker, Obi-Wan actually rolled his eyes at that. “Mace. You are not telling me anything I do not already know. And I am choosing to spend a little longer enjoying the unique joys of the Temple before dealing with the harshness of reality. Haven’t I earned a small break? I’m not abandoning my duty, but if I don’t take care of myself where I can I’ll go madder than I already have.”

At no point did Obi-Wan’s voice get whiny or upset, he just calmly dropped a series of bombshells like he was repeating an argument.

Mace and Anakin exchanged glances, but if Mace was trying to communicate something, it was utterly lost on Anakin.

“Alright, Master Kenobi. I trust your judgement.”

And, to Anakin’s shock, Mace pulled Obi-Wan for a tight hug. “And I care about you, Obi-Wan.”

For a brief, hysterical moment, Anakin Skywalker wondered if he was about to witness his Master break down crying on the shoulder of Mace Windu the Master of the Jedi Order.

But Obi-Wan just let out a slow breath and returned the embrace before bowing deeply in Respect. Windu returned the bow with a placid expression.

“If you’ll excuse me...I think I’d like to stand by the waterfall alone for a moment.” He paused, turning to address Anakin. “If you’re willing to wait for me, I’ll happily rejoin you by the glowing mushrooms.” Anakin nodded silently and Obi-Wan beamed before leaving the two alone together.

Mace turned to the young knight in a silent demand for answers, and, for once, Anakin was eager to share what he was dealing with. “He came back drunk last night, talking about the temple burning down, and being well-”

“Unusually emotionally expressive?” Mace offered.

Anakin nodded. “Took a blood sample to analyze in the morning. He woke determined to hug every sentient being in the temple. I actually managed to get him to the halls just before we came here; Master Eerin said there was nothing in his system and...I just don’t know. He’s been off today, but not in a bad way, exactly. Could a vision have caused the shattering you saw?

Mace furrowed his brow. “Not any vision like I’ve ever seen but...these are dark times. And Master Kenobi has had historically bad luck. If some new cataclysm is coming for us- I absolutely believe he’d be the first of us to stumble into it. Something terrible and extraordinary must have happened in the 24 hours since I last saw him in person.”

A beat passed.

“I should go to the mushrooms before I lose track of him,” Anakin said quietly.

Mace nodded. “Skywalker, if you need assistance dragging him back to the healers for whatever reason, comm me, understood?”

“Understood. Master Koon said the same.” the Knight replied, heart pounding.

The Windu clasped him on the shoulder firmly, "I’m going to check in with Master Eerin. It’s possible she has some suspicions that my observations will help her confirm. Until then...”

“I’ll look out for him.” Anakin promised.

Part VI

#star wars #suicidal misunderstanding au #star wars au no 27 #my au #sw #time travel #obi wan kenobi needs a hug #oh boy we are BUILDING towards the #angst #it 1am #lol im supposed to work tomorrow but ive said that before #thank you everyone for being supportive im glad youre all hyperventilating with me over this sad boy

244 notes · View notes

ushidoux · 3 years ago

Note

okay Mae im here for your event! 💘

my self ship is with Konoha Akinori, im an enfp, and a song ive really been loving lately has been California Friends by the Regrettes. the best compliment i think ive ever gotten is when i was told that people feel safe with me! its simple but im glad i can be that person.

thank you so much and congrats again on your milestone!

Hi!!! You probably forgot you sent this but hopefully it’s a nice pick me up for this lovely Saturday evening. You are lovely and wonderful and I just want to start off by saying that I 100% agree with that compliment. I think what drew me to your page initially was the fact that you were so purely sweet and I felt like your blog was a safe space and that you were warm and kind, but not in an overly soft way where I’d feel like my less kosher thoughts would scare you away. You are so fun to interact with and also to watch from afar and I’m so glad we stumbled upon each other.

As I listen to your song, I’m amused because I can see why you like this, it fits you so much! It’s a very energetic but casual vibe that makes me think of warm summer evenings and those youthful adventures whose nostalgia carries you through life.

Konoha is in love with the way you warm and champion everyone around you and intimidated by the fear that he might not have as much to offer to brighten your day even further, but still there's a draw that is so pure between you two that makes it very clear that he will always be a positive addition to your life.

Tossing a group of strangers in an escape room might be a heavy-handed way to force people to get to know each other, but man it is effective.

“Akinori?”

The young man standing next to you seemed to startle ever so slightly at the sound of your voice, direct despite it being gentle. You had been quietly staring at a padlocked box for more than a few minutes now, and while the rest of your team had split up to gather other clues, you and he had been paired up to figure out this particular puzzle. He hovered closely behind, possibly too close albeit unintentionally, watching you take the lead.

You played with the box in your hands, inspecting it all over while your new partner peered over your shoulder. Finally giving up you pouted, then turned sharply and handed it to him.

“I’m out of ideas. Your thoughts?” You leaned back so that your back pressed against the nearby wall, crossing your arms noncommittally.

You noticed the warm red tone that was reaching his cheeks now as he took in your expectant look, raising an eyebrow in response. He fiddled with the box in his hands for a short while, muttering something under his breath, then looked back up at you to see that you were clearly still waiting to see what he would come up with.

The blush deepened, and he tried harder, looking around the room for a set of keys and eventually just attempting to pry the whole lock off, in response to which you hid a small sly smile on your face.

With the slip of the hand, you’d kept the key tucked under your sleeve, just so you could tease him and not for a second had he been the wiser. This went on for quite a while,, where he wouldn’t admit that he had no idea what he was doing and you let him squirm as the remainder of your team finished their tasks and made their way over.

Not wanting to completely embarrass him, you slipped the key into his hand right before everyone could gather; you could see the surprise in his face before he quickly used it without a word so that you could put your clues together without making so much of a comment.

You escaped the room with about a minute to spare and celebrated with drinks and pizza. Akinori didn’t bring up your taunt, in fact he rarely spoke to you at all for the remainder of the evening, but right when you were about to leave, he flagged you down.

You weren’t sure what to expect, wondering if you had gone a little too far in messing with this cute stranger, but he met your slightly concerned look with a grin.

“Give me time to pick on you, too. It’s only fair.”

He might not have actually teased you on your first date, too busy trying to impress you, but it was fair game thereafter.

#konoha x reader #konoha akinori x reader #1500+ follower event!#graciefully #mae.replies #mae.writing

19 notes · View notes

owl-with-a-pen · 4 years ago

Note

What if Nia had gotten so angry at lex after what happened with brainy, she went to go try and kill him? 😳 and brainy had to stop her. We’ve seen the dark side of brainy before but never in Nia really, discluding “reality bytes”

- Oooh, I like this idea a lot! I brought a few more characters into play for this as well, hope you don’t mind!

“I’m gonna kill him.”

Nia stormed past Kara for the third consecutive time, swivelling on her foot just shy of hitting the far wall so that she could continue pacing across Lena’s lab. Her hands were clenched so tightly together that her fingers were beginning to burn, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was ending Lex’s sorry existence once and for all.

“Nia,” Kara cut in, taking a placating step forward, “just think for a second-”

“You can’t stop me, Kara,” Nia snarled. She knew she’d gained something of an audience since Lena and Alex had returned from the recovery room, could feel their eyes tracking her every movement, but just thinking about who they’d been tending to, the state he’d been in when they’d found him in Leviathan’s ship, made the anger inside her chest that much more vitriolic. There was a pressure growing inside her skull, throbbing along to the beat of her heart. She stopped short, jerking her arm in the direction Lena and Alex had come from. “Look what he did to Brainy. Months of hurting him, putting him through god knows what!”

“And you have every reason to be angry,” Kara said gently.

Nia snorted, rolling her eyes. “Great, ‘cuz I was totally asking for your permission.”

“Nia-”

“No.” Nia turned to Kara then, jaw clenched tight. “Y’know what? No. You don’t have a right to tell me I’m wrong here. Lex kills people, Kara, did you think of that, huh? Did you think of who Brainy might have helped Lex kill? What Lex might have made him do?” Nia could feel tears burning in her eyes, could taste a thickness in her throat, but she forced every bit of strength into her voice regardless. “None of us stopped that.”

“None of us knew,” Alex muttered.

“And who’s fault is that?” Nia shot back, whirling on Alex accusingly. “Brainy’s? Or maybe, maybe the truth is, it was ours. I ignored my dreams and we all, we all ignored him!” Nia sucked air through her teeth. She knew she was trembling, but seeing those concerned looks on her friends’ faces did nothing to cool the fire welling inside of her. She swallowed hard, ignoring the iron tang in the back of her mouth, and drew out a slow breath. “But, most importantly,” she said carefully, “it’s Lex’s fault. This is all Lex’s fault.”

“I don’t disagree with you,” Lena said. Her expression had been especially still throughout Nia’s tirade, although something about it now looked distinctly uneasy. “But, Brainy was careful. I saw him-” Lena cringed suddenly, looking away.

Nia knew why, just as well as anyone else in the room did. Lena had known Brainy had been working for Lex – for months - and she hadn’t said a word. She’d kept his secret. No, no, she hadn’t kept his secret, she hadn’t cared about it.

“It was only brief,” Lena said quickly, glancing back to her, “but during that time, he promised me that no one would be harmed whilst he aided with Lex’s schemes. He wouldn’t have broken his code, Nia. Not even for Lex; I’m certain.”

“You killed him.”

“What?”

Nia stared at Lena coldly. “You shot him, right? You shot your brother in the heart and you didn’t think about it. Because it was justice.”

“It wasn’t justice-” Kara tried desperately.

“I’m not talking to you!” Nia gritted. She didn’t even spare Kara a passing glance. All of her attention was devoted to Lena. “Let her talk.”

Lena’s eyes were bright, shimmering things. Still, she didn’t look away this time. Instead, her lips twitched into sharp smile. “What do you want me to say?” she asked coldly. “That killing my brother was cathartic, that it closed old wounds that I thought might never heal?” She raised her chin. “No, you want the whole truth. That my actions stopped a threat that would have continued relentlessly unless someone had the nerve to take that shot. To leave his lifeless body to rot with the worms like he deserved.”

Kara made a pained sound in the back of her throat.

Lena glanced at her. “Don’t get me wrong,” she said plainly. “I don’t condone this. But, not because I don’t agree with her.” Lena turned back to Nia, her brow furrowed. “Nia, taking a person’s life is something you can never take back.”

Nia bared her teeth. “And yet, that’s exactly what the Anti Monitor did.” She gestured at Lena frankly, feeling wayward strands of dream energy snap and spark between her fingers. “Absolve you, or whatever.”

“I’d kill my brother again without a moment’s hesitation,” Lena said stiffly, lifting herself to her full height. “But, we can still stop him without resorting to that.” Her expression softened. “Even if we couldn’t, my actions, they aren’t yours. Nia, you don’t have the stomach for this. You shouldn’t.”

Nia clenched her hands again, feeling her energy pool into every digit. Vibrant blue light simmered against her palms. “No offence, Lena, but you don’t know anything about what I’m capable of right now.”

“Nia?”

Nia faltered, the shock of her power dimming as she half turned to meet the new voice behind her back.

Brainy was stood in the lab’s entryway, his shoulder pressed heavily against the wall. If the frailness of his expression was anything to go by, Nia was certain it was the only thing keeping him from keeling over.

His green skin was still far too pale to be healthy, and his blond hair clung to the side of his jaw with cold sweat, but he was awake. He was…

Why was he awake?

Between the two of them, Lena and Alex had been able to help along Brainy’s natural healing process using a cocktail of experimental drugs, the names of which Nia wasn’t even going to try to pronounce. But Brainy’s IV wasn’t present, instead she could see an angry looking bruise already beginning to blossom over the delicate skin on his left hand.

The dream energy dissolved from Nia’s hands in an instant, rocketing back towards her chest so quickly that she nearly choked. She rushed over to him, reaching tentatively for his arm.

This close, she could see the shadows that had sunk into his cheek bones, the red veins that still branched along the whites of his eyes. He held one arm protectively around his chest, clenched between the steady glow of his three life projectors.

“Brainy,” Nia said breathlessly, running her hand carefully along his arm, desperate to offer any kind of support she could. “You shouldn’t be up.”

Brainy clenched his teeth, lowering his head. “I-I overheard…” he managed.

It took her a second, but although his eyes were heavy lidded, Nia realised that Brainy was looking down at her hands, at the vibrant energy she’d summoned only moments ago. Something heavy settled inside her stomach at that look.

“Nia,” Brainy continued softly. “You- you don’t need to do this.”

A pained laugh caught in Nia’s throat. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

Brainy smiled tiredly, lifting his head with clearly more energy than he had to expend. Nia ached to do something for him, to take that hurt away, but the anger inside of her no longer burned like fire. Instead, it twisted deep in her gut, churning together with every bit of fear she’d been trying to hold down since the moment they’d gotten Brainy out of Leviathan’s clutches.

“Killing Lex…” Brainy said, meeting Nia’s eyes. “It will not take back what I did. I worked for him of my own volition, he didn’t force me into anything.”

Nia swallowed hard, closing her eyes.

“You have every right to be angry with me,” Brainy said earnestly. “But, please, don’t channel that anger into something this destructive. Lena is right. Taking a life is never worth it. There is always a better way.”

Nia’s eyes shot open at that. She blinked quickly, shaking her head. “I’m not,” she said. “I’m not mad at you.”

When Brainy only stared at her, Nia felt the twist in her stomach sour even further. She gritted her teeth, blinking back against the sudden burn in her eyes. “I- I don’t want to be,” she said weakly.

“It’s okay.”

Nia startled at the feel of Brainy’s fingers brush against her free hand. She clenched the one around his arm in response. “It’s not okay,” she gritted. “It wasn’t your fault. I-”

“From what I understand,” Brainy said, “emotions do not always make sense. But that does not make them any less real.”

For a long moment, Nia couldn’t say a word against him. Because, as much as she hated to admit it, he was right. She was angry, so angry, but she was also terrified and sick and hollow. There was a bitter hole in her heart, one that had only continued to grow in the months since Brainy had broken up with her. He’d barely spoken to her since, had hardly stood to be in the same room as her at all. The closest they’d gotten was work-related interactions and even then, he’d been so distant, like a part of him hadn’t even been there.

And when she’d seen Brainy in Leviathan’s ship, every single piece of bitterness had surged to life in a united front to keep her grounded, to keep her away from every other emotion threatening to tear her apart. It had warped into a violent rage, an acrid burn inside her lungs, fuelling her on this fruitless pursuit to, what? Kill Lex? As though that’d make her feel better, as though any of this would make her feel better?

Nia couldn’t find it in her to say that all out loud. Instead, she sniffed hard, biting her lip. “You left me alone,” she said lowly. “And that killed me.”

“I know,” Brainy said, his voice pained. “It… it killed me too, and I know this isn’t enough, that it won’t take away the hurt, but I am so, so sorry, Nia Nal.” His eyes fluttered suddenly, and he closed them quickly, lowering his head. “I will always be sorry.”

Nia knew this wasn’t the right time to have this conversation. Brainy’s complexion was already losing the little colour he’d gained; his jaw was tight with discomfort, and as a harsh shudder ran up his spine, she watched as he lost the last of his composure, leaning his head against the wall with a weak grimace.

Nia wasn’t sure what she was feeling in that moment, but when Brainy’s legs nearly gave out, she didn’t hesitate. Her arms were wrapped around his back before she even knew that she was moving forward, burying her face securely into the side of his neck. His skin was sticky with cold sweat, but she didn’t care, she only hugged him fiercer, unable to keep a sob from heaving its way out of her throat.

“It will be enough,” she whispered, feeling as Brainy slowly began to relax into her embrace. “It’ll just take some time.”

There was more she wanted to say now. The words practically thundered inside her ears, clawing to be let out. Words like, how much she loved him, how she’d never stopped loving him, but how even that couldn’t take away the resentment she’d stored against herself, against him, for leaving her without a proper explanation, for making her feel like her feelings were unwarranted, unreciprocated.

But her throat was tight, and the only sounds she was able to make were the harsh gasps as her chest hitched and fell outside of her control. She could hear Brainy’s pulse beating away against her cheek, the moisture of his own tears wetting strands of her hair.

All she wanted to do was hold on and never, ever let go.

Brainy didn’t say a word, either. Although, for him, it was for a far more pressing reason. His breathing was already beginning to strain against her shoulder, and when he suddenly dipped dangerously in her arms, Nia strengthened her hold around him, leaning them both against the wall to support their combined weights.

“So, does this mean no one’s murdering anyone anymore?” Alex asked from across the room.

Nia’s chest clenched. She’d totally forgotten that her reunion with Brainy had been met with an audience. She lifted her head from his shoulder, blinking against the brightness of the room before turning towards her friends.

Alex was already on her way over to them, her eyes reviewing every inch of Brainy in both parts medical and familial concern. Kara and Lena hovered awkwardly together, seemingly aware that crowding Brainy right now might not be the best plan.

Nia met Kara’s gaze warily, offering her an apologetic wince. “I…” she began.

“It’s okay,” Kara said softly, her eyes creasing with a smile.

Nia sighed, shaking her head. “Okay,” she said levelly. “Maybe, maybe we don’t have to kill him. But the next cell we put that asshole in, he’s never getting out of.”

Kara’s smile widened into a grin. “Now, that’s a plan I can get behind.”

“First thing’s first,” Alex cut in, rousing Brainy enough that he was able to glance blearily up from Nia’s shoulder. She pressed the back of her hand against his forehead, narrowing her eyes at the result. “You’re telling me what the hell you did with your IV. Then, you’re going back to bed.”

Brainy nodded weakly, mumbling a quiet apology, although Nia knew Alex wasn’t looking for one. In fact, she was pretty certain she’d heard Alex forgive Brainy at least a dozen times over while he’d still been delirious from the radiation.

Nia chuckled, helping Alex manoeuvre Brainy’s weight back down the hall.

“C’mon Wildcat,” she murmured into his ear. “We’ve got you.”

Maybe they hadn’t had a chance to get everything out in the open just yet, but they would.

Once Brainy was healthy and rested, they’d have all the time in the world.

#supergirl #supergirl fanfiction #brainia #supergirl season 6 #nia nal #brainiac 5 #dreamdox #kara danvers #alex danvers #lena luthor #kara zor el #lol is anyone keeping count of how many different ways i've written brainy getting saved from leviathan yet?#it's .. many #but all the season 6 hype is finally giving me a bit of that hurt/comfort writer's fuel #also. don't ever yank your IV out kids. it's a bad time. dont do it.

39 notes · View notes

willowistic22 · 4 years ago

Note

"He urgently needs soup" for Ikeshot?

I got that school project done yayy which means I am back to writing my heart out in newsies fanfics JAHFJNFJKSNJSDF. i wrote this from start to finish for like 3-4 hours straight lol i wish i was this productive every day. one of my favorite and very underrated ship btw so i was soo excited to write it. and also might be a little too long than my other drabble request but hey ive been saying that for almost all of my drabble requests so im sorry not sorry ✌🤪

requests are still closed for now till i have the motivation to reblog another prompt list but that also just applies to requests in general lol. till then, enjoy this and my next drabble request still in the works.

He lets the cool night breeze be his company, sitting on the outdoor table of the restaurant his date told him to meet him at. Hotshot didn’t want to order till his date arrive, despite the loud grumbling coming from his stomach. Hotshot isn’t sure how long he has before starvation gets the best of him. Because it’s been well over an hour and a half, and his date hasn’t arrived yet.

He bounces his leg frantically, the anxious feeling in the pit of his stomach worsens with every passing moment of not knowing. Hotshot puts all his energy and focus on the small details around him, ruffling his dark brown hair, fidgeting his fingers together. Doing all that just to distract his brain from what’s most likely happening right now.

This can’t actually be happening, can it? Why would Hotshot get stood up on the third date? The one where his date had chosen what to do and promised to pay for it? Besides, it seemed that his date was showing genuine interest in him. Or did Hotshot just got too excited and read it all wrong? Is this suppose to be some sort of sign he needs to decipher?

God, he hated those intrusive thoughts. It gave him a sudden headache, forcing him to pull away his focus from the tiny lights the restaurant had hanged for decorations. Putting his elbow on the table, Hotshot uses his palm to support his heavy head.

“Are you ready to order now?” The same waitress came back to ask the same question for the seventh time, or is this the eight? Hotshot can only shake his head, the same answer he’s been providing every time that question is thrown at him, turning his face away just to avoid seeing the pity the waitress showed.

Hotshot still wants to hope for the best outcome, but him and every other people noticing his loneliness knows what’s happening. Still, he pulls out his phone to see if his date had responded to his text or he had missed a call. Nothing. Hotshot moves to text his friend Spot, asking him for a second opinion on what to do.

It fucking sucks because I really like him. Hotshot had texted. He has to have a proper explanation for being this late, right?

He waits for the texting bubbles from Spot to turn into readable text, which didn’t took too long.

You call two hours late? Look, I’m sorry I have to say this but he stood you up!

Hotshot doesn’t respond for a moment because he doesn’t want to believe what his friend said. More texting bubbles starts to appear. He places his phone on the table to wait what more Spot has to say.

I’m saying this because you’re my friend, Hotshot. Come over and we’ll talk about it

That offer looks tempting in Hotshot’s eyes. Before he could reply, the screen of his phone switches to the call display. The name on it confuses him, seeing that he had been ignoring Hotshot for the whole night.

Hotshot was hesitant to answer it at first, but maybe it’s worth to listen what kind of sorry excuse he had for his lateness. That is, if this still counts as being late.

“Hello?” Hotshot hesitantly spoke as he put his phone up to his ear.

“Hey, uhh... a-are you still waiting at the restaurant?” The voice asked, tone nervously shaking. Hotshot could pick up some background noises from the callers end, it’s quite loud but it sounds like there’s too many things happening there to the point he can’t really tell what is what.

“Yeah, yeah I am. Where are you?”

There was a little pause for a second before he finally responded again, “So... remember I told you that I have a twin brother?”

“Yes?”

“And how I exaggerated about him being a total dumbass and an overall useless human being?” He continued on with a little awkward laughter following after, “Well, you’ll never believe what just happened and where I’m at right now”

Ike’s in the hospital. The emergency room to be exact. Ike’s brother, Mike, had gotten himself into a drunken accident while he was at a bar. Ike didn’t fully explain what happened because he has no idea what happened there himself.

Hotshot thought Ike genuinely felt bad for leaving him hanging like that. He wanted to tell him but he was just too caught up with what’s happening at the moment. Things had just calmed down on his end, which is why it took him two hours to call Hotshot.

He told Hotshot to come see him at the emergency room and get takeout for them to enjoy, plus a little something for Mike. Hotshot briefly explained to Spot what was really happening before he head to the hospital to make sure he doesn’t leave his friend hanging.

The ER is packed with people. Whether they’re there as a patient or as a health worker in the middle of doing their night shift. A strong smell of latex and other medical scents filled his nostrils as soon as he stepped through the automatic doors. The lights are nearly blinding, but it didn’t took long for him to adjust to it.

He scanned the place to look for a small specific boy in the midst of the rush. He finally spotted a familiar face in the far back, hunched over a hospital bed. Hotshot caught his attention with a wave of his hand, which made him stand up from his seat to walk over to him.

Hotshot makes his own way to him and they meet in the middle of their path. He bends down a little to give Ike a hug once they’ve gotten close enough, but Ike parted with an awkward smile, “I’m sorry. I really didn’t planned on having a date at the ER!”

To which they both laughed as they make their way to Mike’s hospital bed.

“What did you get?” Ike asked, finally noticing the takeaway bag Hotshot was carrying.

“Nothing more than what you suggested on getting” Hotshot replied. Ike had suggested on getting the seafood dishes because that’s their specialty. But he specifically directs Hotshot on what to get for Mike.

“That means you ordered something for Mike?” He asked, and got a simple nod as a reply, “Good. ‘Cause from what I can tell with his current condition...”

He moves the hospital curtain to reveal an identical figure lying helplessly on the bed, a cast on the left arm and another cast wrapped around his head. Ike leans his weight against the bed railings with his hands before adding on, “... he urgently needs soup”

“Is this the guy that keeps on kidnapping you from me to go on corny dates?” The boy on the bed managed to speak up. He looks a little disoriented but his consciousness is present.

“Mike, we’ve only been on two dates”

“And he’s gonna keep on doing it, is he?!”

Hotshot laughed at the brotherly interaction before Ike finally pulled a second chair for him. Mike gets his soup, despite still not being able to function properly, while Hotshot and Ike gets to have their third date. The two eat their respective dishes accompanied with a small chat but mostly getting entertained with Mike who’s either still under the influence of anesthesia or the alcohol. Maybe they’re lucky and got both.

“I’m so sorry our dinner date had to turn into... ‘this’...” Ike put down his wooden spoon in the small food container to gesture his hands towards his brother, “And I’m sorry that it looked like I stood you up”

“It’s okay. I mean, at least this isn’t another corny date like what he said”

To which, Ike responded with a small laugh.

“I should step up my game and get my friend to third wheel us on another ER date next time” Hotshot joked, earning a laugh from Ike, “Taking you on corny dates would piss your brother off”

“Mike’s an idiot but he’s harmless” Ike explained after he stopped his laughing, “And... I don’t mind the corny dates. I just enjoy going out with you in general!”

Hotshot smiles at him sweetly and Ike returns the favor, ignoring the reality of where they actually are. It made him feel warm to know Ike felt the same way about hanging out with him. Because Hotshot clearly likes him. A lot.

“Jesus, guys! Get a room!” Mike called out. He might still be a little dysfunctional but he’s sober enough to realize the tension between them, “Don’t gotta make me and my soup feel single while you two make out in public!”

Hotshot looks down to his food to hide his laugh, whilst Ike gives his brother the stink eye but manages out a laugh. He face Hotshot again, “I swear, this isn’t how I wanted you two to meet”

#Newsies #drabble requests #ikeshot #ikeshot newsies #ike newsies #hotshot newsies #tw mentions of alcohol #tw alcohol #tw drunk #tw hospital #tw cursing #tw casts #is that a tw?

24 notes · View notes

spotsupstuff · 4 years ago

Note

🥺 vibe check my baby shithead?

bless... its my sibwing time...

Why I like them:

what the fuck is there not to like about them, lets be honest. their personality is unique when compared to other bvs. i lowkey always hoped id get to see a bv that would be more bold, angry, just more sharp towards the world. most of bvs that ive seen before joining the creating part of the fandom were soft shy kids that didnt want to hurt anybody. its valid to characterize bc like that, but it was everywhere. lost was like the polaris in the entirety of the fandom. learning about them was refreshing, comforting, it felt and still feels safe to consider and think about them. they feel real, i feel like i could meet them on the street in a playground and become friends with them. you made them so real and important to me. ive said this plenty in the server, but theyve helped me through a lot of hard times. i was too sad or anxious or scared to come out of bed? i thought about them interacting with broken and i felt better. i was in a lot of pain? thinking about them helped distracting me and getting me through a lot of it. im so so thankful for their existence and even more so for your willingness to interact, rp and vibe with me. i love lost so much.

Why I don’t:

their clinginess sometimes worries me. they are valid in it, but clingy people generally make me Slightly uncomfy bc i have times where id rather not be touched and i have trouble speaking up because i dont wanna offend or hurt. broken is the same and i fear the day they will have to disappoint lost by turning away a hug or a cuddle session. the mixture of natural understandable clinginess and anger can result in a sort of manipulation. unintentional, but still manipulation

Favorite episode (scene if movie):

,,,ill be mildly self-indulgent and say that the scene where them and broken adopted each other, overlaying with the morning after, is perhaps my favorite thing ever. BUT!! i liked the scene with them shunning ghost out of oros hut. it established their thoughts and determination to Keep things important to them away from people that had hurt them.

Favorite season/movie:

the ENTIRE FUCKIN FIC THATS ABOUT THEM GETTIN FROM THE ANCIENT BASIN TO ORO. bro ive checked ao3 like every morning when the second chapter was still in the wip bin, i just couldnt wait for it kgjslkgjsldkk the amount of details to the struggles and the size of torment expressed through your words was so so real and i couldnt get enough of it. im incredibly thankful for that fic and for all the feelings it stirred up in me wee heart

Favorite line:

”I mean you’re a clown. do I need to say it slooooowwwweeerr?” the beginning of an age...

“don’t ever pull Us together like that, ever again” theres a lot to unpack here and boy, im keepin the entire suitcase right in my lap and i WILL think and dive deep into it with my thoughts

Favorite outfit:

theyve got One but they sure be rockin in and i -cocks designer gun- have Some ideas for that second cloak that net would make them so i Hope that will follow close behind their og look

OTP:

this lil creachure is fifteen, i only ship them with safety and parental/platonic love and care

Brotp:

them and purl!!! but also them and hornet, even though its not as close of a relationship, it makes me very happy that they arent completely shut off from each other. that lil short story they shared about their first encounter with cain instinct committed by hornet has been inserted into my mind forever out of the RAN universe canon... them and broken for obvious reasons, them and net (ive been LOOKIN for an AGE AND A HALF NOW SO HARD at that relationship) and tbh??? them and junior has been on my mind a Lot lately. ever since the first doodles of junior hiding them with wings in the among us au, ive been considerin n thinkin of scenarios

Head Canon:

-thunk emoji- hmm... theyll never be too great of a flyer. they will be able to do more than just flap once or twice to get over some distances, definitely, but i feel like they will forever prefer ground over the skies. some minor hcs: ,,,they might pick up some sort of sewing from net in the bverse, maybe; their hand writing will/does look like yours; one day, they will do something that will make a giant difference in something important, completely by themself

Unpopular opinion:

i dont fahcken kno how to do these with yalls characters what hte fuck

A wish:

i wish radiance didnt fuck them up so much during Those years. they deserve to get tall and strong, capable of their dads nailarts, big enough to wield a bigass nail like him and suplex broken

An oh-god-please-dont-ever-happen:

this is an incredibly unlikely scenario to happen cuz i know you dont like thinkin about the ultimate end of people and characters, but my biggest fear is that one day they will come back from a hunt or a visit to a cold body in their dads bed, with eyes closed to never open again, not giving them the chance to even say goodbye.

5 words to best describe them:

angry, worried, caring, gentle, afraid

My nickname for them:

sibwing... lil star (just like u heehoo), sometimes i think about them as simply “safety” or “comfort”

#Spot says stuff #i have done it... i said things about my favorite bv ever.....#love you skye #love them too #skyedragondraws

8 notes · View notes

mamthew · 4 years ago

Text

A Final Fantasy Ranking

Over the course of the quarantine, and because I had such a good time with the Final Fantasy VII Remake, I've ended up blazing through a ton of Final Fantasy games. Since April, I've played IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X, XII, and XIII. 6, 7, 9, and 10 I'd beaten before. 4, 12, and 13 I'd played to some capacity before. 5 and 8 were completely new experiences. I had no interest in going further back than IV, since it was the first one to really put any effort into character work, and I didn't play either MMO because MMOs don't really appeal to me (I'm planning to try XIV whenever this new update drops that makes the story mode more accessible, but it keeps getting pushed back so oh well). I also didn't replay XV because I've played XV three times and watched other people play it in its entirety twice, so I have a much better handle on it than any other game in the series.

Anyway, I didn't really have any plans for what I'd do with this, besides get a better understanding of the series as a whole, but I was kinda inspired to do my own Final Fantasy ranking. I'll probably be a bit more detailed than I should be because I tend to overanalyze my media and end up having too much to say. I’m actually not placing VII Remake in this ranking half because I regard it as a spinoff and half because it’s not yet a complete story, even though Part 1 is unquestionably a complete game. If I were to put it somewhere, it would probably be close to the top, possibly even in second place. Also worth noting that this is gonna have SPOILERS for every game I discuss here. I really just wanna use this as a place to nail down some of my thoughts on these games, so they’re pretty stream of consciousness and I didn’t bother avoiding any details from the plots.

10: Final Fantasy VIII.

I don’t think there’s another game in the series with a more obvious corporate hand in it than VIII. It’s kinda the Fant4stic of FF games; there are the bones of a substantive game in there somewhere, but every aspect of the game is such a bald attempt at checking off a 1999 list of “things gamers want” that the whole affair feels hollow and sickening. A major trend I’ve noticed throughout this series is the extent to which FFVII’s success pushed the architects of almost every subsequent game to try to recapture whatever it was that worked about VII, and VIII got the worst of it. It’s got the sullen guy with a special sword. It’s got the sci-fi. It’s got the terrorists with hearts of gold fighting against an oppressive state. It’s got the train scenes. It’s got the case(s) of amnesia that hides the true premise of the story. It’s got the ability to give any character any loadout.

Besides that, they kinda crammed in just a bunch of stuff popular with kids at the time. Jurassic Park? It’s in there. Beauty and the Beast? Here’s the ballroom scene. Hunchback of Notre Dame? Here’s that carnival. Alien? Now you’re alone on a spaceship running away from a horror monster. Saving Private Ryan? The party shares brains with war veterans and dreams of their experiences at war I guess. Half of anime? It’s all about a high school for mercenaries and the party is trying to get back in time for the school festival. Fandom culture? Zines are a collectible item, and each one you find adds an update to Selphie's Geocities page. It also has astronauts, and transformers, and a haunted castle, and a prison break, and Rome, and Alpine Wakanda, and war crimes, and lion cubs that have attained enlightenment, and there’s almost no connective tissue from one idea to the next.

Also the junction system is convoluted and terrible, using magic makes your stats worse, all enemies level up every time you do, and I couldn’t tell you which character excelled in what stats. The characters were all very flat, and the first time I felt like I was seeing the characters interact in ways that helped me to understand them was in the cutscene that plays during the end credits.

Also the female lead’s role in the story changes entirely with no warning every five hours or so. She’s a terrorist, oh no she’s aristocracy in the country she’s terroristing against, oh no she’s jealous of the others because they grew up together and she didn’t, oh no she’s Sandra Bullock in Gravity, oh no she’s the villain and it’s too dangerous to let her out, oh no it’s actually fine and they were bad for locking her up.

It’s an absolute disaster of a game. However, the music and background art is absolutely beautiful. Maybe they never gave me a good enough reason to be in an evil time traveling haunted castle, but damn is it a gorgeous rendering of an evil time traveling haunted castle.

9: Final Fantasy XII.

I’ve known for years that FFXII had issues in development. The writers came up with a story for it, and execs got scared because there were no young characters and they’d convinced themselves that young protagonists are what makes games sell. So two more characters - Vaan and Penelo - were added, one was framed as the protagonist of the story, and the entire story was rewritten so it could feasibly be from his perspective.

While the two characters they added are egregiously tangential to the plot, XII honestly has no protagonist. The writers originally wanted Basch to be the protagonist, but his entire arc is really just following Ashe around and being sad about his evil twin. Ashe is probably the most important to the story, but doesn’t have much presence for a good chunk of the story, and makes her most character-defining choice offscreen before having it stolen from her by a side character. Balthier has the largest presence in the story, and is most closely related to most of the events of the story, but has pretty much no role in the ending.

Honestly, if I were writing FFXII and told it needed a young protagonist, I would have aged up and expanded the role of Larsa, the brother of the main villain, who shows up as a temporary party member from time to time. The entire game is about family ties, and a journey spotlighting Larsa could have involved his learning about Ashe, Basch, Balthier and Fran’s family situations and using their experiences to grapple with his own. Damn, now I’m sitting here thinking about how good that could have been.

As it is, the game feels disjointed and aimless, and the ending is so bad it’s farcical. When I reached the ending, I watched Basch and Ashe forgive Basch’s evil twin for his villainy rampage, harking back to the moment earlier in the game when Ashe turned down the chance to gain powers that would have allowed her to avenge her country because she realized that those powers could also drive her to hurt innocents in the crossfire. In this moment, I realized how Vaan fit in as the protagonist of the game. “Oh, he’s going to realize that violence begets violence, and that he must break the cycle by forgiving Vayne for the death of his brother. He’s going to let go of that hatred he’s been trying to push onto someone for so long, and it’ll finally allow him to heal.” I realized that even though the road to this point was rocky, the writers had managed to craft a satisfying ending from the seemingly disparate pieces of this uneven plot.

And then Vaan picked up a sword and screamed AAAAAAAAAAA and charged Vayne down and stabbed him, and Vayne turned into a shrapnel robot dragon and exploded all the star wars ships and I threw my controller aside and laughed uncontrollably while my characters beat him up and completed the game on their own without any further input from me.

Oh yeah, the battle system is also incredibly boring. Instead of battling, the player writes up an AI script for each character, then lets them act based on those scripts. I would straight up put the controller down and watch youtube videos whenever a group of enemies showed up. I was pretty excited about the job system, but then there didn’t really feel like much of a difference between jobs, and my characters all behaved pretty much the same as each other.

The hands-off battle system, unfocused story, lethargic voice acting, and tuneless music all left me pretty uninvested in the whole affair. The art style and locations are beautiful, though, and it did make me want to eventually check out some of the Tactics games, which take place in the same universe but are supposed to have excellent stories and gameplay.

8: Final Fantasy XIII.

I’m not sure I’ve ever had two such opposing opinions of a game’s story vs. its gameplay. This game is the only one that plays with a bunch of story elements from FFIX, which did a lot to endear it to me. It’s sort of a game in which the protagonists are Kuja, the villain of IX. Like Kuja, they are created as tools by an uncaring god for the purpose of fighting against one world on behalf of another world, and are subsequently forced to grapple with the horrors of having an artificially shortened lifespan.

The story actually has a lot of Leftist themes, too. The gods of that universe spread ideology among the populace, and the people unquestioningly believe these false stories, as the gods have provided for them for as long as there has been written history. Much of the character arcs center on the characters being forcibly removed from their places within those ideological frameworks and having to unlearn what they’d always believed to be objectively true about the world.

So the story actually is pretty good, but it’s held back by some really clumsy storytelling; it constantly uses undefined jargon, has almost no side characters with which it might flesh out the world, actively fights against players trying to glean information from environmental details, and maintains (at least for me) a weird disconnect between the characters in the gameplay and the characters in the cutscenes. I think this partly stems from Square’s original failed plan for FFXIII to be the first game in a much larger series of games sharing themes and major story details. Despite these issues, however, the characters are all likeable and (mostly) believable, and their interactions are grounded in real emotional weight even while their universe feels intangible.

This all got dragged down by the gameplay, which is total dogshit. It’s got the worst battle system I think I’ve seen in an RPG. The game only stops being doggedly, unflinchingly linear about thirty hours in, the whole game took me about fifty hours, and I spent the last fifteen hours beating my head against each individual battle, waiting until the system hiccuped long enough to accidentally slide me a win. That meant I had about a five hour window of euphoric play, convinced that I actually loved this game, thrilled with every new experience it gave me, and excited to see what would happen next. I guess those five hours are what pushed this game over XII in my ranking.

7: Final Fantasy V.

Until FFXV, this game was the last of the “Warriors of Light” games, in which the game follows a party of four set characters for its entirety. To this day, it’s the last of the “Warriors of Light” games to let the player customize which character holds which roles through the job system.

FFV’s job system is the reason to play the game. Its story is mediocre, and its characters are all fairly flat, but there’s something viscerally satisfying about building party members up in jobs that might enhance the role they ultimately will fill. For my mage character, I maxed out Black Mage, Blue Mage, Mystic Knight, Summoner, and Geomancer. Then at the end, I switched her to a Freelancer with Black Magic and Summoning, and she kept all the passive skills for those jobs and also the highest stats across those jobs.

It was super fun and kind of a shift of focus for me, since I tend to place story above anything else in games. Despite the story not being special, though, the game’s writing is actually a ton of fun. It’s definitely got the most comic relief in the series, and I came away loving Gilgamesh as much as everyone else does.

And while it’s nothing special graphically, it does have some really cool enemy designs, and the final boss design is one of the most memorable ones they’ve ever done. Which is impressive because I keep having to look up Exdeath’s name because the character himself is super forgettable.

6: Final Fantasy IV.

This wasn’t the first game in the series to feature actual characters with names and depth, but I have no interest in playing FFII, so it might as well be. I actually played the DS Remake for this game, so it definitely had some quality of life improvements, like full 3d characters and maps, voice acting, an updated script, the ability to actually see the ATB gauge, and the ability to switch to other characters whose turns are ready without using a turn.

Apparently one thing the remake didn’t do was rebalance the difficulty for more modern sensibilities. Instead, this remake is...harder? It requires more grinding than the original? Why??

Either way, though, the story is actually solid! The game opens on its protagonist, Cecil, committing a war crime on the orders of his king, who raised him as a child. The first ten hours of so of the game follows Cecil as he tries to understand why he was ordered to kill so many innocents, turns his back on his country, and works to redeem himself.

This arc is reinforced by the game mechanics, too, which is super clever. His redemption is marked by a change in job from a Dark Knight to a Paladin, which also resets his level. For a time, his life is considerably harder because he’s finding his footing as a new person, which is marked by battles which had been easy becoming much harder for the player for a time.

This game places storytelling over gameplay more than I think any other game in the series. Each character is locked into a job, which I much prefer in my RPGs to games where characters function pretty much interchangeably. I dunno if it’s because I cut my RPG teeth on Tales, but it really bugs me when I can give Tifa the exact same loadout as Barret. I want the lives of the characters to bleed into their functions as gameplay devices.

However, the developers clearly had a ton of different jobs they wanted to add to their game, but hadn’t figured out how to allow for the player to switch in and out party members in standby. To fix this, they increased the in-battle party to five characters rather than or four (or the later constantly frustrating three), rotated the roster a ton, and had a ton of characters who straight up leave permanently. One character dies and never comes back. Two characters die and only are revived after it’s too late to rejoin the party. Four characters end up too injured to continue traveling.

This let the developers make a ton of jobs, but it doesn’t let the player exploit these jobs to their fullest. Characters’ stats reflect their role in the story, as well. One character is quickly aging out of adventuring, so his magic stats increase on levels, but his attack and defense stats actually decrease, signifying his failing body. Another character has already achieved some form of enlightenment, so he gains no stats when he levels up at all. The purpose of IV is the story, over any other aspect of the game, which makes it even more mindboggling that the remake would have increased the difficulty.

Besides that, the biggest issue I had with this game was the overbearing constant drama of it. While there were a few more lighthearted parts, they were mostly relegated to NPC dialogue and sidequests. The characters in this game don’t become friends so much as they become companions who bonded over shared tragedies, and this makes for quite a few scenes of every character separately wallowing in their own immeasurable sadness. I played FFV directly after this game and the light story and jokey dialogue was a much-needed palette cleanser.

5: Final Fantasy VI.

Before the unexpected success of FFVII irreparably changed the franchise, Square constantly mixed up the story formula for the series. IV, V and VI all handled their stories really differently from each other, and what I remember of III also felt fairly different from the games that came after.

Every game from VII on had a very clear protagonist (except XII, whose botched protagonist was still clearly marketed as the protagonist). The concept of the Dissidia crossover series is built on the idea that every FF has a protagonist at the center of its story. FFVI’s Dissidia character is Terra, but Terra is not the protagonist of FFVI.

Apparently while developing FFVI, the directors decided they didn’t want the game to have a clear protagonist, so they asked the staff to staff to submit concepts for characters, and they’d use as many as they could. This game has fourteen characters, each with their own fun gameplay gimmick in battles. Three of the characters are secret, and one can permanently die halfway through if the player takes the wrong actions. Of these fourteen characters, the main story heavily revolves around 3-6 of them, while five more have substantial character arcs.

There’s kind of a schism in the fandom over whether this game or VII is the best one in the series, and I can see why; this game is absolutely fascinating. No other game in the series has done what this game did, which means it’s one of the two FF games I really want to see remade after they complete this VII remake.

The first half is very linear. It breaks the beginning party into three pieces, then sends each character to a different continent, where they meet more characters and build their own parties before everyone reunites. Once the story has taken the player everywhere in the world, the apocalypse hits. The villain’s evil plan succeeds and tears the entire world apart.

The second half of the game picks up a year later with one character finally getting a raft and escaping the island on which she’s been marooned. In this half, the player navigates the world, which has all the same locations, but in completely different parts of the map. The driving factor for much of the second half is to learn from incidental dialogue where each party member has gone in this new world, to track them down, and to try to fix some of the bad that’s been done to the world before finally stopping the villain who destroyed it.

It’s unique and clever and occasionally legitimately tugs at the heartstrings some, which is impressive for a poorly translated SNES game. The final dungeon is a masterpiece all on its own. It requires the player to make three parties of up to four characters, then send them in and switch between them as new roads open. This way, the game manages to feel like an ensemble piece up to the very end.

4: Final Fantasy VII.

As I previously mentioned, there’s kind of a schism in the fandom over whether FFVI or FFVII is the best game in the series. Neither is the best game in the series. FFVII is better than FFVI. Oops.

When I was first drafting up this list, it was before I’d reached my replays of VI or VII, and I tentatively placed them next to each other, with the strong assumption that I’d end up placing VI a bit higher than VII, since it has so many strongly differentiated characters with solid story arcs, beautiful artwork, great music, etc. etc. Then I reached FFVII and not even four hours in, I realized it would have to be higher on my list than VI.

VI has a better battle system, its characters are much more differentiated by their gameplay, its character sprites have aged much better than VII’s character models, and it has four party members in battles instead of three. But I couldn’t overlook VII’s gorgeous artwork, sharp character work, and character-driven story. In the end, I had to give it the edge.

VII is a strange beast. It simultaneously really holds up and has aged horribly. The story is excellent and I love the characters, but the actual line-to-line writing is pretty bad, making the whole experience of the game a bit like swimming upstream; you’re getting somewhere good, but the age of the game is still pushing you back the best it can. Similarly, the background artwork is fantastic and gives the game locations a sense of place incomparable to anything that had come before it, but the character models are so low-poly that the two are constantly at odds with each other.

Still, the game is more a good game than it is an old one. I think it’s managed to duck the absurd level of hype around it by actually being very different from what the most popular images of it make it out to be, if that makes sense. The super futuristic techno-dystopia city only makes up a very small portion of the larger game, and most newcomers to the game won’t have seen Junon, or Corel, or Cosmo Canyon. Heck, I didn’t know Cait Sith or Red XIII were characters before I played the game for the first time. One of the many reasons I’m excited for the rest of this remake is to see newcomers to the story learning just how much variety there is to the world, events, and characters of this game.

FFVII also began (and pulled off really well) a number of storytelling trends that continued in subsequent games in the series. Obviously, almost every game since this one has a clear protagonist with a cool sword for cosplayers to recreate, and an androgynous villain whose story is closely linked to the protagonist (or one villain who is linked to the protagonist and a second one whose purpose is to look like Sephiroth), but it’s started broader, more quality shifts, too.

FFVII is the first game in the series to try to give all its characters arcs based on a similar theme, for example, a trend that has helped give it and future games a sense of thematic unity, especially in IX, X, and XV. Heck, that trend was why I almost came around on XII before they nuked it. It was also the first game in the series to have a real ending, rather than closing out with essentially a curtain call featuring all the party members, like they did in IV through VI (and I assume earlier).

Another common feature of FF games that it didn’t start with VII but certainly was canonized with it was the mid-game plot twist tying the protagonist to both the villain and the larger story. FFIV had this as well, of course, but I feel like the orphanage twist in VIII, the Zanarkand dream twist in X, and the time skip twist in XV were all meant to recall VII’s twist of Cloud’s…very complex existence (IX’s two worlds twist actually is a clear homage to IV, but it’d be hard to argue that Zidane’s connection to Kuja - and the character of Kuja generally - weren’t more influenced by VII).

2: Final Fantasy X and Final Fantasy XV.

Sorry, this one is a two-fer. I’m not gonna spend too much time on why I placed these two together in the #2 spot (I wrote a long thing on it here, if you’re interested). In summary, the games kinda mirror each other, in story and design. Each game can be seen in the negative space of what the other game leaves out, and at the end, the characters react to similar situations in completely opposite ways. For this reason, and that they’re of comparable quality, I think they’re best viewed as companion pieces.

FFX was the first mainline Final Fantasy game I ever completed, six years late. It was the first FF game with voice acting and many fully modeled locations. It also kinda marks the beginning of the series’ constant changes to the battle system.

That’s not to say the previous games’ battle systems didn’t also differ from each other, but they all had the same setup, with levels and an ATB gauge. This was the first game since III not to have any real-time element to its battle system, nor numbered levels gained through experience points. Since X, no two FF battle systems have been remotely comparable, which is cool and innovative and keeps things fresh, but also means I’ve been starved for just a regular ATB FF game for too long.

In many ways, FFX feels like a bridge between the PS1 games and the later games. It feels much more streamlined than VII, VIII, or IX, in terms of both storytelling and design. The game is very linear, pushing the player from one area to the next and not allowing much backtracking until the very end. It also loses the aging look of the PS1 games’ menus and UI, finally updating the classic font and the blue menus with white borders to fully modernized and sleek graphics.

However, movement still feels very similar to movement in VIII and IX, the music definitely evokes the PS1 games more than the later games, and most locations are portrayed with beautifully painted backgrounds, rather than modeled in (which I actually prefer, and I was glad to see that VII Remake has gone back to that in some places).

Voice acting in this game is phenomenal for 2001, and honestly on par with many contemporary games. I can’t think of a voice actor for the main cast who didn’t do a great job. Tidus’s narration, especially, is emotional and evocative in all the right ways. Grounding the plot in a very personal story about Tidus’s difficulty coming to terms with and proving himself to his abusive father keeps the story relatable and real.

Something interesting about my experience with X is that because it was my first Final Fantasy game, I thought for a very long time that the series was about organized religion, and the ways it is used to justify evil acts. This might be the only game of the ones I’ve played that is about organized religion, or even prominently features a religious doctrine, which really sets it apart from the rest of the series.

The game’s thematic unity is on point, even if there is a scene where they state the central themes a bit too plainly. Every character, and even the entire universe of the story, is held back by the past, and every subplot and the main plot revolves around finding ways to move forward and leave the past behind.

I love FFXV. It feels like a return to form after XII and XIII. It’s also probably the furthest any game in the series has strayed from the original formula. Battles are entirely real-time, and the game is a straightforward action game. There is very little time spent with menus, and even the leveling system has been stripped down to a few skill trees. It’s immediately obvious that the game was originally created to be a spinoff, not a main title.

FFXV is also probably too much a product of the current era of microtransactions and payment plans. The full story is spread out across *deep breath* a feature film, an anime series, an anime OVA, a standalone demo, two console games, four DLC story chapters, a multiplayer side game, a VR fishing game, four phone games (though really three phone games because A New Empire straight up isn't in that universe and also is terrible), an expansion including several entirely new dungeons, and finally a novel set to release sometime this year. That’s a whole lot of story. I’ve not played the phone games or the VR fishing game, or read the novel yet, but I’ve experienced all the rest.

But I also played FFXV when it first released, before any patches, before I knew there was a film, just the game all on its own. So you can believe me when I say that without any supplementary material, the game is still great.

It goes back to the FFI, II, III, V “Warriors of Light” system, where the party has four characters who do not change at all throughout the game. While this bugged me at first, I soon came to appreciate having a story where almost all character interactions involved these four characters. It meant I came to understand them well enough to feel like they were my friends, too. Most characterization in this game is understated, presented through small shared moments, dialogue, and body language as they travel the world together. Much like X, the overarching story might be expansive and far-reaching, but the real show is in the personal journeys the friends have.

Much of the first half of the game is spent exploring an open world, driving along the road and getting out of the car for pit stops or to explore the forests nearby. This is one of the very few games where I don’t mind just exploring an area without the promise of an upgrade or a new scene, just to see what’s around the corner, or to hear whatever banter the characters might engage in next.

The entire world of this game is gorgeous, and the orchestrated music is some of the best they’ve ever done. The main plot is beautiful, too. It’s bittersweet and emotional, with a charismatic villain and a twist that blew me away the first time I reached it.

The supplementary material is also mostly really quality. I’d recommend the Royal Edition over the original edition for sure, and to watch Kingsglaive as well. The anime series is quick and fairly fun, and Comrades expands on the universe in some great ways, but neither has as much bearing on the overall plot as the DLC chapters and Kingsglaive. I’m so in love with the DLC chapters, actually, that two years ago I wrote a piece just on how much Episode Ignis affected me (here if you care).

This is definitely getting long, so I guess I’ll move on after saying I’m upset that they patched Chapter 13 to make it easier, and I’m angry at everyone who complained that Chapter 13 was too hard. It was a brilliant piece of storytelling through game mechanics, and it’s mostly been stripped of all that, now.

1: Final Fantasy IX.

It’s IX. It was always IX. I actually did come into this with an open mind, wondering if one of the new games I’d experience (IV, V, VIII, XII, XIII) might end up hitting me harder than Final Fantasy IX, but as I replayed my favorite game in the series I quickly realized that wouldn’t be happening.

There are only a handful of games that make me cry. IX is one of two without voice acting. There are several songs from IX that make me tear up just when I hear them.

The story of the black mages gaining sentience, learning that they can die, and trying to force themselves back into being puppets just to lose that knowledge really moves me. The same goes for the story of Dagger no longer recognizing her mother, setting out to find a place to belong, learning that her birth family is long dead, then watching her mother return to her old self a moment before losing her forever. And Zidane’s story, where he has nowhere to call home, finally discovers the circumstances of his birth, and realizes that had he stayed in his birthplace, he would have become a much worse person than he ultimately did.

More than any other, though, Vivi’s story will always stick with me. He was found as a soulless husk by Quan, a creature with the intention of fattening him up and eating him, but each of them awoke something in the other, and Quan ended up raising Vivi as his grandson. When Quan passed, a rudderless Vivi went to the city to find a new home, and eventually learned he was created as a weapon. Other weapons had also gained sentience, but none had the worldliness that Vivi had gained from his loving relationship with Quan. When Vivi discovers that most weapons like him die after only a few months, he grapples with the possibility that he may die at any time, and eventually decides that he can only take control of what life he has by living each moment to the fullest. He ends up becoming an example for the other weapons to follow.

FFIX is a game about belonging: both yearning to have somewhere to belong and learning that the place where you think you belong is actually toxic and harmful to you. Even the menu theme is a tune called “A Place to Call Home.”

IX ran counter to the trends of the series in a number of ways. It was a return to high fantasy after the more sci-fi VII and VIII, and was also much more lighthearted than those games, while still being heartfelt and occasionally bittersweet. Gameplay-wise, it locked each of its characters into a single job, gave them designs based on their jobs, brought back four-character parties, and introduced a skill system in which characters learn skills from equipment. It also had a much softer, less realistic art style, and mostly avoided the attempts to recapture VII that have plagued most other subsequent titles (besides Kuja’s design, I guess).

The story is also structured so well. It regularly shifts perspective for the first thirty hours, allowing the player to spend ample time with each of the party members, and shaking up character combinations for fun new interactions. It introduced a system similar to the skits from Tales games, showing the player often humorous vignettes of what’s happening to other characters at the time. Once the characters have all come together in one party, the game has earned the sense that all of them (except for the criminally underexplored Amarant) have become a family.

The supporting cast are a blast as well. Zidane’s thief troupe (who double as a theater troupe) are likeable and fun. Kuja’s villain arc allows him to be sympathetic without losing his edge. The black mages are tragic without being overdone.

The development team for this game put so much more work into this game than they had to. The background artwork was all made in such high-definition resolutions that the act of downscaling them to fit in the game removed details. Uematsu traveled to Europe to make sure he’d get the feel of the soundtrack right, and has said it’s his favorite score he’s ever done. Sakaguchi, the creator of Final Fantasy, says IX is his favorite game in the series.

FFIX is one of the two games I would like them to remake after they finish the VII Remake, but I’m terrified they’ll mess it up in some way. Honestly, the game’s only flaws (which I do desperately want them to fix) are a lack of voice acting, the underdeveloped party member Amarant (and to a lesser extent Freya), the dissonance of Beatrix never getting punished in any way for her hand in a genocide, and the fact that very few of the sidequests are story-related because so many of the smaller story details that would normally be relegated to sidequests are covered in the main plot.

Despite the danger, though, I think revisiting IX is absolutely essential moving forward. It represents so much of what made older games like IV and VI great, and its story is much more grounded in real emotion than many current Square stories tend to be. Remaking VII will be good for getting VII out of Square’s system. Remaking IX would be good for putting IX back into Square’s system.

Here’s a IX song as a reward for getting this far. I’m gonna go listen to it and tear up again.

#final fantasy #final fantasy iv #final fantasy v #final fantasy vi #final fantasy vii #final fantasy vii remake #final fantasy viii #final fantasy ix #final fantasy x #final fantasy xii #final fantasy xiii #final fantasy xv

12 notes · View notes

portgas-d-ace-of-hearts · 4 years ago

Text

Take Me Down (To Paradise) Chapter Three

Chapter Summary: In which there is a small bit of hurt/comfort because Ace hates himself, a lot of kisses, and Whitebeard not being at all surprised by his sons.

As much as her two soulmates were strangers, as bizarre as their situation was and as much as she really did wish to know them more, she also felt a longing to join them where they cuddled on the floor, bury her hands in their soft hair and press her face into each of their necks. She fidgeted, trying to get comfortable and eventually falling into an uneasy sleep.

Surely things would work out with their captain.

Surely .

…

Nym woke with a start, staring around blearily and unsure of what woke her until the knock came at the door again. Her eyes popped open then, and she found herself having flipped over onto her stomach during the night, head turned out toward the room and arm dangling over the edge of the bed, inches away from Ace’s chest. Somehow in the night he and Marco had shifted to be right next to the bed, and Nym had shifted to hanging half-on and half-off of it. Only a few inches separated them from each other.

Ace and Marco had woken up as well, neither looking too worse for wear despite the no-doubt uncomfortable accommodations. The two men sat up at once, yawning and stretching. Marco put a finger to his lips to signal quiet as he got up and shuffled to the door.

“What is it?” he called through the wood.

A muffled reply came immediately. “Have you seen that extra barrel of rum?”

“No, ask Thatch.”

“‘Ight then!”

Footsteps shuffled away from them. Nym waited several minutes to speak. “Is it close to morning?” The lack of light underneath the door was not promising.

Ace ran a hand through his wavy black hair, several shades lighter than Nym’s pure ebony locs. “No idea. Too fucking early to be woken up, that’s for damn sure”

Marco made a grumbling noise as he returned to Ace’s side. “Seconding that notion.”

Nym had had enough. “I know you two want to be gentlemen or what have you,” she started. “But watching you sleep on the floor is making me ache. I could swear I have three new bruises just from looking at you. Come to bed? There’s enough room for all of us in this thing.”

It was true. Their bed was rather large and spacious, and for good reason. While most of their cremates shared a room with four others out of necessity for space, Marco and Ace shared a room of their own because they were bonded. They’d outfitted their room with a larger bed, since they didn’t have to worry about taking up too much space for their roommates.

Reluctant though they were to intrude on her personal space, they finally gave in to her request. Nym crawled toward the far side of the bed near the wall and settled in there, finding it far easier to relax into the tentative embrace of Ace, who shuffled closer hesitantly and wrapped his arms around her, than she would if they hadn’t found out they were soulmates and activated their marks. Marco wrapped his arm around Ace’s waist, his hand ultimately resting on Nym’s side as well. After that, sleep came without any difficulty, and Nym woke up for the second time much later, this time a natural occurrence. A pale dove gray light seeped under the door, signaling dawn.

As soon as Nym stirred, Ace and Marco began to wake, the former stretching with his eyes closed. “Is it dawn already?”

Marco, meanwhile, lay staring up at the ceiling. “Seems like it.”

“Guess I better go talk to Pops, then. You coming?”

“Yes. For all I know you’ll just try to kill him again and get tossed into the sea and drown.”

For all that he said the words teasingly, Nym still gave them a strange look, leaning back against the wall and wondering just what sort of odd relationship they had with Whitebeard. “What the hell does that mean?”

Seeing her trying to make sense of it, Marco chuckled and waved his hand dismissively. “Oh, just that Ace here tried to kill our captain about a hundred times his first week here.”

Ace scowled, the weight of the expression undermined by his bedhead. “Don’t start, Marco.”

Nym giggled. “Don’t take this personally, but you look like a grumpy puppy right now.”

Marco laughed with her. “She’s right you know.”

“Both of my soulmates are assholes,” Ace muttered as he clambered from between them to get ready for the day. He cleaned his face and hands at the vanity and donned his usual accessories of hat, necklace, and dagger.

Marco got up to ready himself as well. “I don’t know if she is, but you’re certainly an asshole—our asshole.”

Ace flipped him off without looking as he danced around to get into his shoes, a sort of flats this time.

“Classy,” Marco teased.

Nym watched their easy interaction with longing, wanting to fit into the scene. “How long have you two had together, then?”

“About three months.” Ace raked his fingers through his hair in an attempt to look less like he’d just rolled out of bed. “You ready, Marco?”

“Keep your shirt on, I’m coming.” Marco grabbed his sandals.

“We’ll be back soon,” Ace told her at the door. “You might want to latch this.”

Without another word, he slipped out into the weak pre-dawn light. Marco followed him with a wave toward where she sat on the bed. “Be back soon.”

The door closed behind them. Nym stared at it for several long moments before actually getting up to secure the latch. She turned a curious eye toward the shelves. At least she’d have a way to occupy herself for the time being.

.

Marco stuck his head into the room. “Pops? You awake?”

Whitebeard leaned against the headboard of his bed, hooked up to various monitors, IVs and supportive devices. The team of nurses fluttered about him constantly, checking his vitals and making him comfortable. He had an enormous gourd of sake in one hand, and was in the middle of drinking. He lowered it and sighed contentedly. “Nothing like sake to hit the spot, eh, son?”

When he saw Marco’s face pinched with worry, and Ace’s anxious one over his shoulder, he sat forward, immediately alert. “What’s troubling you two?” The carefree tone had been replaced by a no-nonsense one full of concern.

Marco and Ace stepped fully into the room and came to stand by the end of the bed.

“Out with it,” the old pirate urged them when neither immediately spoke.

Marco cleared his throat, holding out both arms to the man he’d come to see as his father. “Pops… we found our soulmate.”

“You found your—” he peered at Marco’s wrists, eyeing the new soulmark critically.

“Ace,” Marco urged.

Ace extended his arms next to Marco’s. It was clear from their marks that not only did they match each other, they matched someone else who in all likelihood matched both of them.

Ace looked him unflinchingly in the eye. “We want her to stay, Old Man.”

Whitebeard sat back and took a generous pull of sake. “Oh, is that all?”

Ace stared at him in disbelief. “What do you mean ‘is that all’? We know how you feel about admitting women into the crew.” Marco laid a hand, both of comfort and warning, on his arm.

Whitebeard motioned casually. “You came in here as if someone had died. Now I know I don’t have to worry. It’s just about a soulmate. Of course she can stay, though not as a combatant, of course. What kind of heartless bastard do you think I am? I’d never separate a bonded set, and I don’t want to cause harm to my sons.”

Ace and Marco exchanged a glance. Marco returned his attention to Whitebeard. “So we have your blessing to bring her onboard the ship?”

Whitebeard flashed his teeth at them, clearly amused about something. “Are you telling me you don’t have her here already?”

When they shifted awkwardly, he threw his head back and guffawed. “I know my sons,” he told them eventually, when he could calm himself. “She’s probably waiting for you in your room right now. You probably brought her back as soon as you met.”

Ace blushed a shade he didn’t know he was capable of becoming, while Marco wore his relief on his face.

“Thanks, Pops. Come on, Ace, Nym’s waiting on us.”

Whitebeard hummed curiously. “Nym is it?”

Ace ducked his head as he turned to follow Marco. “Yeah. It’s short for Nymphadora, but don’t tell her I told you. She hates her full name.”

“Well, give her my welcome.” A nurse moved in with water for him to drink, then, and as Ace and Marco left they could hear him arguing with her over the health benefits of a gallon of sake.

Marco reached for Ace’s hand. “That went well.”

Ace’s shoulders were still slightly tensed. “Part of me was so worried he’d say no.”

“I know, and he could have, but, she’s here as our soulmate, not to audition to be a proper member of the crew.”

Ace glanced at Marco cautiously. “Is it usual for him to agree to something so easily?” Marco had travelled with Whitebeard for years and knew his nature far better than Ace.

His soulmate mulled that over as they passed by a few early morning risers—and a few stragglers just getting back in at the crack of dawn—on their return trip. “Not necessarily. If his mind is set on something from the beginning, or once he’s made up his mind about something, he’s not one to delay.”

They made a pit stop at the kitchens for a few snacks and a small cask of ale to share, then carried the lot back to their room. “Nym? Nym, open up, it's me and Marco.”

There was a bit of shuffling inside, then the latch slid free and a single violet eye was visible peering at them through the gap between door and frame. “What did he say?” Nym pressed as she opened the door wide and stepped to the side.

Ace set his cargo down on his desk. “He said you can stay.”

“Really?” Nym fairly bounced on the balls of her feet.

“Really,” Marco echoed, depositing his half of the haul next to Ace’s.

She threw her arms around both of them, pulling them in for a hug. “That’s great news.”

Ace found himself blushing again and growing uncomfortably warm. “Yeah, it is,” he muttered lamely. He’d never felt shy before in his life—well, excluding his initial dancing around Marco when he had no idea how to react to a soulmate. “Listen, I don’t know how to say this, but if you’d like we can find somewhere else for you to sleep until you’re comfortable with—”

Nym grabbed each of their hands. “I do want to get to know you, but if someone doesn’t kiss me soon I think I might bloody well die.”

Oh. Right.He’d already had Marco in his life for a few months and they rarely left each other’s sides, so the desire to touch him was less an incessant, raging inferno and more of a gentle hearth fire. Nym had been largely touch-starved of both of them since they met. A smirk bloomed on his face as he stood next to his two soulmates, inordinately pleased with himself. He knew logically that it was nothing he’d done, but still felt a sense of satisfaction. Soulmate bond aside, it felt rather nice to have someone wanting to kiss him that badly, and how could he deny her?

“I’d be happy to oblige.” He reached out to trace lightly over her lips with his thumb, then leaned in for the kiss. One of her hands delved into his hair, and before he knew it they were melting together. Kissing his soulmate—either of them—was bubbles and pop rocks in his veins, something bright that sparked without sparking. It was an exquisite burn of champagne and fireworks that ended far too quickly for his liking. Her mouth still tasted of sake, and all Ace wanted to do as they separated was to hold her close and listen to her heartbeat.

From her dazed expression, she’d felt a similar sensation. Her hand rose shakily to her lips, which parted slightly in surprise. “So that’s what—that’s what it’s like. Kissing your soulmate, I mean. I’d heard about it, but I never thought it would be quite like that!”

Ace’s smirk deepened. “There’s more where that came from, babe.”

“My turn,” Marco cut in then, swooping in for his own kiss.

It was interesting to watch from the outside, to observe two soulmates meld and mesh, somehow fitting together oh-so-perfectly. As soon as their kiss ended Ace tugged Marco into his arms to steal his own kiss from him. Nym joined them, peppering kisses along Ace’s chest that would surely destroy him. He felt his skin heating up as his fire danced underneath it. Gasping, he had to break away from them. “Stop, stop.” He gently put a bit of distance between himself and Nym.

Her fingers lightly touched his cheek. “What, what’s wrong?”

Ace was nearly trembling. “If we want to pace ourselves then we need to stop now while we’re ahead.”

Understanding lit her gaze. “How long did you two wait?” She bit her lip as she looked between them. Marco needed a moment to compose himself, his eyes smoldering.

“A week.”

“An entire week?”

“Not for lack of wanting to.” Marco jabbed a thumb in Ace’s direction. “ This one was too busy trying to kill Pops for most of that time. It was hard to get a word in edgewise.”

Nym burst out laughing, much to Ace’s chagrin. “You’d try to kill someone too if they flattened and disbanded your entire crew!”

“I’m sure.” She grinned at him, eyeing him from head to toe.

As much as he already liked her, he found it unsettling how much she could make him blush. He thought that was something he’d outgrown after his and Marco’s first month and a half together.

Nym crossed her legs, drawing both of their eyes to her thighs. “Why do you want to wait so long anyway?”

If he were honest with her, part of it was his own means of waiting for the other shoe to drop, for her to realize that she didn’t need someone like him as a soulmate and to leave. She wasn’t a pirate like he and Marco were, hadn’t dreamt of it like he and Luffy had. It wasn’t her life. That, and she probably hadn’t signed up for Gol D Roger’s hellspawn. He still didn’t feel as if he deserved the goodness Marco brought into his life, let alone what a second soulmate would do, and she seemed so much more delicate, somehow, more innocent. He didn’t want to be the point of her corruption, and he couldn’t ask her to become an outcast for him, for either of them, without some serious consideration first. They could always swing back into port and drop her off in a few days. No harm done.

Ace felt Marco’s eyes on him and knew that his first soulmate had an inkling of the thoughts running through his mind and disapproved. He’d been trying so hard to burn through Ace’s self-loathing, but it was a gargantuan task for anyone, even a soulmate. “To make sure that this is what you want,” he eventually managed, his tone neutral.

Nym rolled her eyes, wrapping her arms around him and laying her head on his chest. “We’re soulmates, and I want you. Come what may, you’re stuck with me. It’s not as if I wasn’t already drifting from place to place before.”

Ace didn’t mean to speak so sharply. “But you weren’t considered a criminal, were you? An outcast? If you stay by our side—”

“Ace.” Marco’s gentle but firm voice brooked no argument. Ace reluctantly took his eyes off of Nym’s face to look into his. “I know what you’re trying to do. You did almost the same thing with me. Don’t push her away because you’re afraid to be happy.”

Ace scowled, caught out, and looked away from both of them. His jaw clenched. “I just wanted to make sure you both had an out. Just because we’re soulmates doesn’t mean we have to be together. You could always find something—someone—better.”

Marco yanked him into his arms, tilted his head up and rained kisses onto his face. “You’re our soulmate. You’re what’s better.”

He squirmed when he felt Nym’s arms wrap around them and her face press into the crook of his neck, his body at just the right level with Marco tilting him in his arms for kisses. “I don’t know what your deal is yet, Ace, but just shut the hell up and accept that you’re not meant to be alone.”

Ace wanted to argue his point more, but half of his heart and mind weren’t in it with both soulmates touching him. They were piercing through his resolve with every kiss.

Marco smiled as he delivered a final kiss to Ace’s chin. “I like her already.”

Ace couldn’t form another frown after the barrage of affection. He grumbled half-heartedly but relaxed. Nym’s breath tickled his ear as she spoke. “I like both of you already, too.” She littered a trail of kisses from behind his ear to his collarbone. If not for her and Marco holding him up, he felt as if he might have melted down like a wax candle.

“Well.” Ace found it in himself to smile. “That might just be the biggest mistake of your life.”

...

End Notes:

I'll make any smut a separate chapter on its own so those who came here just for the fluffy idiocy don't have to deal with it. I'll leave the warning in the summary or beginning notes.

#marco phoenix #portgas d. ace #portgas d ace #one piece fic #ace one piece #one piece anime #one piece manga #soulmate au #soulmate identifying marks #soulmate tattoo au

1 note · View note

theymakehistoryarchived · 4 years ago

Text

Illya Verses

I. The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015) Movie Canon

II. Fifteen Years Later, based off of the 1983 movie stemming from the original TV show. Illya had been dishonorably discharged from service as an agent in the mid 60s, and has been working as a fashion designer since then. Fifteen years later, he is recruited back into service.

III. Post-Movie, Illya is loyal to his UNCLE team, and begins questioning his loyalty to the USSR as he sees their actions. He does not defect, but he begins to stray from his original extreme nationalism.

IV. Young Man: Ranging from age 14 until the movie, this verse covers Illya’s time training in the KGB and various missions of his. (FC Austin Butler)

V. Grand Duchesses’ Right Hand: In a world where the Revolution of 1917 did not occur and Russia remained under the control of the Tsar. Illya’s father was a noble and a primary advisor to Tsar Nicholas. Illya grew up in the palace, born in 1896, grew up beside the royal children and was being groomed to be a bodyguard to the Grand Duchesses. He was the closest to the second Grand Duchess, as she was a year his junior. The young future tsar, Alexei, felt envious of Illya, and after trying to get Illya in trouble, realized it would be better to take note of Illya’s strengths and eventually viewed Illya as a sort of older brother figure despite a lasting feeling of resentment over Illya’s strength and lack of being confined due to illness. Illya was suspicious of Rasputin, but kept quiet about it as it wasn’t his place to vocalize his opinion. He did, however, listen to the complaints of any of the Tsar’s children. After Rasputin’s death, Illya’s father gained even more in station which resulted in Illya being put in line to be the advisor to Alexei, if the young Russian survived to become Tsar after his father. (FC: Austin Butler or Armie Hammer, depends on his age)

VI. Modern: UNCLE, formed in 1964, is now the international version of the FBI. Illya was trained by the Russian division, still the “best within three years”. Illya was born in 1988, during the end of the USSR. His father was killed during the fall of the USSR, as certain KGB agents were being silenced. As a single mother, Illya’s mother brought Illya to an old government contact of hers when he was eleven. His new guardian saw potential in Illya, resembling his father. After training in the Russian military from ages 18 to 21, Illya studied at Lomonosov Moscow State University. He majored in World Politics and minored in French. After graduating, he was recruited by UNCLE.

VII. The Curse of Immortality/Super Soviet/Marvel Friendly: With the USSR wanting their own version of Captain America - in both the propaganda and the access to a super soldier, Illya was chosen due to his exceptional performance during KGB training. He had been injected with chemicals that didn’t delay his aging but stopped it and accelerated the regeneration of his cells as to allow for rapid healing and increased strength. This was how he was able to do the “barely human” acts in the movie, such as ripping the trunk off of the back of a car. With his delayed aging, Illya had to leave UNCLE after a few decades, becoming a vigilante in Eastern Europe from the 1980s until today. Eventually, while an UNCLE agent, he tracked down the group who tortured him and - in his eyes - cursed him. They were a cult experimenting in black magic, and used Illya as their guinea pig when trying to cause immortality. Before killing the last one of them, Illya obtained the means to cause immortality - enough for two people, as he would offer them to Gaby and Solo if either was near death and the idea of either of them dying is one of Illya’s greatest fears. There is supposedly no way to reverse the immortality, which Illya seeks to remedy by modern times as seeing the world age around him causes a great deal of cognitive dissonance for him. He has a better grasp on his anger now, but certain things/topics still set him off - such as reminders of Solo and Gaby (if they are deceased).

VIII. Private verse with wehavefoundthestars, Second Chances: As a tie into Illya’s immortal verse, soon after the events of the 2015 movie (set in 1963), Illya fell into a coma as his body’s way of balancing out the trauma he sustained and his rapid healing and cell regeneration. It took about twenty years for him to come out of it, waking up with the same age maturity as he had when he fell into the coma. The new head of UNCLE set up a second chance for him, where he would be an American graduate student by the name of Oliver. An entire new identity was created for him, and it was insisted that he take advantage of this second chance. Regardless of this, Illya/Oliver feared forming attachments again due to the fact he’d outlive anyone he got close to.

IX. A Happy Ending: After about five years serving as an UNCLE agent, Illya has gradually worked on addressing his trauma with the assistance of Gaby and Solo. He has “gone soft”, as Solo once teased him about. Reflecting on what he missed growing up, and what his parents had fall apart, he realized he wanted to retire and settle down. Tying into the “fifteen years later” verse, Illya has become involved in fashion design - specifically for women in Berlin, both East and West. Eventually, he realizes he does want a family, that he craves the support and love that is supposed to come with one. While he remains wary of love and trusting someone so much, he accepts that deep down he wants that life. Returning to where he first felt love, Illya now lives in Rome. *Note: this verse can happen with a Gaby, even with her not retiring. I do ship them, and can see them eventually having a real relationship - not just a fake one. She is the first person he ever felt safe with, and also set the standard for anyone he envisions having a relationship with.

X. Hogwarts: In 1943, at age 12, Illya was transferred to Hogwarts from Koldovstoretz rather than any of the wizarding schools in the USSR. Despite both the UK and USSR being involved in WWII, they believed Illya would be safer at Hogwarts and have an advantage due to some of the professors at Hogwarts and the safety measures in place. When placed under the sorting hat, Illya was not given a decisive placement and it was based on his preference. (In a quiz, he got “So you’re 28% Gryffindor, 26% Ravenclaw, 25% Slytherin, and 21% Hufflepuff! You seem to be an almost perfect combination of all four houses, which is incredibly rare - you’re equal in your intelligence, bravery, loyalty and ambition. As we know, though, the Sorting Hat takes your preference into account…so it looks like you get to choose your own house). Based on his knowledge of the four houses, Illya chose Ravenclaw as he wished to focus on improving himself as a wizard rather than focus on social interactions. If he had been in a better mind set with less pressure on himself to become a contributing member to the USSR, he would likely have been sorted into Hufflepuff. He was particularly talented in Regarding his lineage, Illya is believed to be a Pureblood, but it is possibly untrue due to the bias in favor of Purebloods within the USSR and propaganda to only have pure blooded children as to lessen the risk of non-wizards being born. While having missed the Grindlewald disasters, he did encounter Tom Riddle (Riddle having gone to Hogwarts beginning in 1938, being in his fifth year when Illya was sent to Hogwarts). He was not certain what to think of the Slytherin, and simply avoided him - that was how he behaved toward most, so it didn’t seem out of the norm. Upon returning to the USSR, Illya got involved with UNCLE’s wizarding branch and acted as a spy amongst the growing number of wizards practicing illegal dark magic. He worked with drop out Slytherin, Napoleon Solo who had served in WWII’s later years and now for the CIA’s wizarding branch, along with an East Berliner named Gaby Teller who had attended Beauxbatons as an international student (please note that if you are a Solo or Gaby who has different headcanons about their wizarding schooling, I’d be happy to go with yours! I just went with what I thought might have been the situation). As of the war in 1998, Illya’s status is unknown except to Napoleon Solo and Gaby Teller. (FC: Austin Butler or Armie Hammer, age dependent) Wand: Red Oak with Unicorn hair as the core

XI: Medieval : Illya, starting at age eighteen, became the guardian of the crown prince of a small but flourishing country. Illya’s origins are still in Russia, but he spends his life in various ranks given by the crown prince and eventual king.

XII: World War II: Born in 1923 (rather than 1931), Illya’s story is essentially the same as his canon and/or Super Soviet verses.

XIII: The Old Guard: Illya is a relatively young immortal, not even being 100 years old yet (having been born in 1931). True to his canon movie verse until 1965, the year in which Illya discovered he was immortal. Similar to his Super Soviet verse, Illya uses his immortality to function as a superhero.

#verse info #muse: illya #long post for ts

1 note · View note

zettaiunmeis · 5 years ago

Text

as much as i love this relationship between z 2.0 and ava, i kind of wish legends had developed the friendships between zari 1.0 and some of the time bureau ladies a bit more last season. bc like, maybe its just me, but i always kind of wanted zari to be that one person that sara and ava find themselves lowkey relying on, talking to when they can’t talk to each other. like, yes, i loved the friendships that zari 1.0 developed w sara and amaya and charlie but??? think of the potential she had with nora or ava or mona.

more below the cut because this got heated and long

(i know they sort of did that last one in 4x11, but it didnt feel like a very consistent thing, like. the charlie/mona relationship from that episode was far better fleshed out than zari 1.0 and mona’s and as much as i like that relationship, i feel that in a ep that focused specifically on z1.0 and mona, those two should be the ones who develop a strong foundation for a relationship, and that should have been really, pulled out through the season.)

and i guess that was my biggest problem w the nate/z1 storyline last season? while, yes, i liked their development, i felt like it took a lot of time away from z1’s relationships with other members of the team.

i’d have really liked to see ava and z1 interacting and her sort of being both ava and sara’s go-to person when they needed something/someone to take charge or smth bc i can definitely see ava really respecting zari’s no-nonsense approach to the task at hand, and her ability to sympathise with others well.

and nora and zari was an interaction ive been hoping for since the very beginning of s4 bc that was how they seemed to set up the storyline: for zari to be ray’s voice of caution when it came to nora. like, i do love darhkatom, and i loved ray’s sort of “ill believe in your ability to be a good person even if you’re not sure you can be” attitude, i still feel like it should have been tempered by at least some other character’s caution about nora. and zari was the person that they clearly set up for that role. without that, frankly, the darhkatom plot seemed lowkey flat to me, because there was no one to be like, “i know i was always unsure about her, but i also thought she was trying to be better” after nora was accused of killing hank, and that made it kind of. idk like the darhkatom plot (and really all of ray’s storylines in s4) really kind of disconnected with the rest of the season.

and on a lighter note, nora and zari were the only two zoomers of the ensemble, and i really wanted to interact for the pure reason of future shenanigans. like, nora or zari saying shit like, “damn life was fucking schway when they still had sugar in candy” and the other just nodding like that makes perfect sense while the rest of the crew is like, “what is a schway??? what happened to sugar in candy??” and like. their shared future-present sort of gives them the ability to say like, “hey remember that one thing that happened?” and sort of process trauma that they might have both gone through because of the anti-meta laws and stuff.

and i guess mona and zari’s thing is what really kind of pissed me off bc. zari never really had a surrogate younger sibling friend on the waverider. (you can make the argument for wally or jax but jax already had his own established place in the ship and it really felt more like he was the older brother indulging his younger sister by letting her distract him with video games, and wally and zari were only developed for one ep before it was go time to throw the legends into season finale development.)

with mona, their relationship was established, early on, as mona being the hopeful/cheerful one, and with zari being the cynic, much in the same vein as zari and ray. however, the key difference between zari and ray and mona and zari is the difference in character development between mona and ray, as of when they are developing their respective relationships with zari. ray is an already established character in phone home, and so, zari’s character arc uses him as a sort of,,, like those cages that they make for vines to grow onto. mona, on the other hand, uses the more turbulent character of zari to try and have them both grow together, in seance and sensibility. this more parallels the arc of sara and zari’s relationship, where zari acts as a sort of a younger sibling to sara. the whole development of mona and zari lends itself to a mona being the slightly annoying sunshine younger sibling and zari being the cynical if-you-hurt-her-you-die older sibling, and then,,, it just doesn’t deliver. instead, you get occasional annoying shipper mona, and irritated zari, and tbh thats just highkey disappointing.

and you can say that it isnt all about zari or that im being dramatic or that they just had a lot of storylines and not a lot of time but,,, frankly, id say youre wrong and making excuses. because the way the season ended, with zari being the one to give herself up, makes it fucking imperative that they try to get that goddamn emotion across to the viewers. and while they got plenty of emotion, it was solely because of the fact that people related to zari. instead, if they had spent zari 1.0��s last season developing all those relationships, instead of just nate and a little bit of charlie and john, they would have brought such a heavy emotional impact because holy shit she impacted every single one of these people, and not one of them even remember her.

im not saying that they shouldn’t have written steelhacker, or anything like that. hell, im glad they developed zari and nates relationship past the point they got it to in 3x11. but at the same time, if they truly wanted the most emotional impact out of the s4 finale, they should have had her be the fucking center of the team, not just nate’s girlfriend and charlie, john, ray, and sara’s friend.

#legends of tomorrow #legends rambles #zari tomaz #zari tarazi #zari 2.0 #legends meta #lot rant #im just. ive been seeing a lot abt z2.0 and ava and i love that but i just also wanted that for ava and zari 1.0 too #and on the subject of z2.0 #i wish this trend of if you preferred og zari you just hate the ide of her being happy wasn't so prevalent in this fandom #like i /love/ zari 2.0 #but at the same time #its like zari 1.0 was the character i related to most for a /reason/#and i wish shed at least gotten a better send off than they gave her

5 notes · View notes

alabasterswriting · 5 years ago

Note

Hey, were so you stand on the whole fandom discourse thing? Like do you ship mileven or byeler or lumax or elmax? Was mike being an asshole or was Will being a bad friend? Was Mike right or was Max right? Do you like Lucas and Mike bromance or Mike and Will bromance/romance? Is Will gay or ace or just not in puberty yet? Srry for the questions but you’re like the most level headed person ive seen and i wanna know what u think?

Oh, oh this is going to be long. Warning! Long Post!

Okay, well, first let me just say that I hate discourse. I think it’s silly and stupid for fandoms to rip characters apart and fight over something like this when we should be bolstering each other up with our mutual love over a piece of media. However, the discourse after this season of Stranger Things is particularly upsetting because I think it all comes down to the fact that the character writing this season wasn’t very strong. They were paper-thin and the characters themselves didn’t get as much meaningful interaction as I think the story needed. It was so much action that a lot of the necessary quiet moments got lost.

But onto your questions.

So, the ships. I’ll be honest, I’m not a hardcore shipper of any of them. Except maybe Jopper, but that’s only because I really wanted El to have that mother figure in Joyce that she can’t get from Terry, and for Will and Jonathan to have that father figure in Hopper that they can’t get in Lonnie. Also, I really want Will and El to be siblings. But back to your question. I am an aromantic asexual. I also vacillate between liking romance to being completely put off by it, the latter of which tending to happen when it is thrown in my face. If you’re asking me if I like the ships this season, I would have to say no simply because I felt like they came at the expense of the friendships and bonds between the core characters. If you’re asking me if I like them in general, then yes. I think mileven is cute, and I think byler can be cute, and I think lumax is hilarious, and elmax would be wonderful.

Do I honestly think that Mike and Will will get together? No. It’s not going to happen. I can see Will maybe having a crush on Mike, and that being something he will struggle with, but Mike is 100% in love with El and that’s fine. That’s life. Will is a kid living in 1980s rural Indiana. The show has already shown that homophobia is a thing. He and Mike are friends, and I don’t think with all the work on Mike and El that it would make sense to suddenly flip it now. And Mike and El are cute, and I liked how this season they showed that puppy love stage is not all it’s cracked up to be. I liked how they showed growing pains in their relationship. I liked how Mike and El had to learn to balance their romantic relationship with their friends. I wish it had been handled better, but I liked how they were able to show that even though Mike and El aren’t a perfect relationship, they do have a special bond and I enjoyed that.

Does this mean I don’t enjoy byler fics and headcanons and edits and parallels? Hell no! I love that shit. I love it the same way I do mileven. And honestly, I could get behind milevill. I think El and Will would be more platonic, with Mike in the middle, but poly shipping is generally how I get around shipping wars. And I hate how characters get demonized when shipping goggles get put on, and these three are demonized to high heaven for it, to the point that shippers degrade their actual characters down to one aspect.

In regards to the characterization of Mike and Will this season, I see both sides. It’s been implied that Mike has been ditching his friends all summer to spend time with El in the cabin. He’s apparently been there everyday since she got back. And on the one hand, this makes sense. El isn’t allowed out and if Mike isn’t there then she’s alone. That sucks, especially because El has already been through far too much isolation in her life. It’s also sort of implied that they like spending time with just the two of them and that the rest of the party either doesn’t visit often or the only time the whole party is together is the rare occasion when El is allowed out. We can sort of see this by the fact that Max and El aren’t really friends, but El still feels comfortable enough to go to her for advice on Mike, and the way that Will calls her Eleven instead of El until about the middle of the season. Ergo, Mike has been ditching them to spend time with her every day, away from the party. And that’s got to be frustrating. Will doesn’t seem nearly as frustrated with Max and Lucas, which could be because they’re not as puppylove-ish, and because he has the opportunity to get to know Max. He knows her more as Lucas’ girlfriend, but he seems more comfortable in her presence. So we can guess that Lucas and Max spend more time with the group than Mike and El. And frankly, if I was Will and my best friend had been doing this every day for a month while I third-wheeled, I would have snapped too. And probably a lot earlier. Especially if the only thing I had asked of him was one day of his time to do something not related to romance. It wasn’t right what Mike was doing, even if it was understandable. But that was part of Mike’s arc - learning to balance his romantic relationship with his friendships.

As for Will, like I said above, it’s implied that Will has been third-wheeling for an entire summer. Mike has been ditching them for all this time and that’s a big change he has to deal with. All Will wants is to go back to how things were before he was completely traumatized. D&D is the only thing he has from before the Upside Down, so of course he would want to have a guys day and play it. Will is allowed to want something other than just being a support for his friends. Unfortunately, he does fail to read the room. Now, I can imagine that maybe he thought playing D&D would cheer Mike and Lucas up, but he could have been more understanding of the situation. Mike and El were going through a rough spot and Will could have done a better job of being there for him. Now, it’s possible that because of Lucas and Max’s constant breakups that he doesn’t think it’s that big of a deal, but considering Mike has been spending all his time with El, Will probably should have been able to realize now was not the time to insist on playing a game. I also don’t think that Will calling El a “stupid girl” was Will being mean or angry at El however. He was mad at Mike. He was placing the blame on Mike. His target was Mike and that Mike was breaking up the party. Not El. Max and El are his friends, though they’re not close, and Will was calling out the fact that that Mike was ditching them, rather than thinking El was actually a stupid girl. And he has a point. He even asks where Dustin is and questions the fact that Mike isn’t wondering. Dustin got back the day before after being gone a month. So, while Will definitely could have been more sensitive to Mike’s problems, he also had legitimate reasons to be angry. Just like Mike had legitimate reasons to be upset.

And I will say here that both Mike and Max are correct when it comes to El. Mike is monopolizing a lot of El’s time. It’s not a bad thing in itself, but El needs friends outside of him. It’s unhealthy not to. And Mike was also right to worry about her burning herself out with her powers. His concern was completely valid. But Max was also right. It wasn’t right of Mike to lie to El like that and then not apologize, especially after she caught him and called him out on it. The fact that Max was there to teach El how to be herself and make decisions for herself outside of Mike and Hopper was something she needed to grow as a person. And Max was also right when she told Mike that El knew how to work her powers better than he does. That it’s her decision on how far to go. Now, this does have its drawbacks because El might not actually know when to draw the line. She goes too far, and that’s where Mike’s concern is completely valid. Both of them have good points and are coming from a place of caring, but they’re also teenagers and don’t know how to handle all of these issues correctly.

As for Mike and Lucas vs Mike and Will, I think this is such a stupid thing to fight over. They’re all best friends. Mike and Lucas were stated to be best friends in season 1 because they live next door to each other, but Mike “calls bull” on that logic because he’s also best friends with Dustin and with Will. He and Will have been friends since kindergarten and we saw a lot of that in season 2, which was wonderful. This season both Mike and Lucas are in relationships and can relate to each other better than Mike and Will who are having a discourse in their relationship because they’re maturing at different rates. Mike and Lucas want to move forward because they have relationships blossoming that makes the future happier, where Will is stuck in the past because the past is where all his happiness is. Do I wish we had gotten a moment between Will and Mike where they actually talk about their fight and how everything has changed, or that we got a better goodbye from them at the end? Absolutely. Their friendship deserved that. But I also loved how Lucas was Mike’s wingman, and all around relationship guru. I also really liked how Lucas and Will worked together this season. Lucas reached out to Will, and even though it didn’t go far, I really liked all the little moments they had together. They are all best friends but even in friend groups there are people you go to for different things.

And is Will gay? Oh boy. Okay, so, personally, I think Will is gay. There’s been a lot of subtext and the show bible does seem to imply he’s on the spectrum somewhere. BUT. This is not canon. Things change all the time when writing and until it is explicitly stated by either the show runners or the show itself, then this is still just speculation. I can also totally see Will as ace. I knew I was ace before I even had a word for it and I was like 11 years old. Will could be ace. I don’t think he is simply because we never get representation, but it’s totally possible. It’s also possible that he’s both. You can be homoromantic asexual. You can also be aromantic homosexual. The two aren’t mutually exclusive and I kind of like the idea of him being homoromantic asexual. Or he might be completely gay and yet be so traumatized that sexual attraction is horrific. He’s been violated so violently in ways so similar to rape that I can easily imagine anything sexual as triggering. And yes, at 14 you are old enough to start thinking about sex. It’s normal. Even I thought about it at that age, even though I thought it weird that anyone would ever find it enjoyable. It is also completely possible that, due to that trauma, Will just isn’t there yet. Trauma does cause brain damage. He could very easily have regressed mentally to the point that he just hasn’t begun to mature yet.

Sorry for the long post, but there you go. Frankly, I think the characters this season were just very poorly written, and I think fandoms tend to not know what to do when characters behave differently than expected. But the thing is, these characters are growing up and changing. Smart people can be dumb. Kind people can get angry and lash out. Protective people can be selfish. A good person making the wrong choice doesn’t automatically make them bad. People are not so one-dimensional that “shy, quiet, artistic” doesn’t mean they can’t ever be “annoyed, moody, and angry”. “Loyal, charismatic, and smart” characters can also be “oblivious, tunnel-visioned, and dumb.” The problem with this season is that they didn’t allow the characters to really interact outside of their pairings. Dustin wasn’t with the party at all. Will and Mike never get meaningful resolution. Max and El never really talk about the problems in their relationships. Like Max and Lucas have broken up 5 times? Why? What is the story there? Will and El barely talk at all even though they have the most in common and end up living together by the end. And Lucas and Max don’t have much interaction at all. The romance sort of overshadowed the fact that these kids are all friends. And it should have been clearer that even though they’re all growing up and apart, they’re also all traumatized and understand each other on levels no one else can. It’s varying levels of trauma, but we don’t see them really band together to build each other up. And I think we needed that level of platonic love to really show that, yeah, we may not be focusing on these relationships as much this season, but they’re still there, rather than “Mike only cares about Eleven” and “Will and Mike apparently aren’t friends anymore.” The action overshadowed the heart this season, and I think that’s where some of the subtler character arcs got lost.

I hope that answered your question and thank you!

54 notes · View notes

jflashandclash · 5 years ago

Text

Tales from Mount Othrys

Magical Daycare IV

Axel let out a string of cusswords.

“Lou! Get her to the corner with her clothes!” From the shrill in Alabaster’s voice, Pax could deduce three things about Alabaster: he hadn’t realized Pax was a boy, he had never seen a naked girl outside of a magazine, and he was covering his eyes. Either that, or Alabaster had a thing or two to learn about girl anatomy, possibly true if Alabaster had never seen a naked girl.

Lou Ellen took Pax’s elbow. She pulled him towards the shelves. “Come on, before you give my brother a—”

When she quarter turned Pax, she went bright red and burst into giggles. “Oh!” she said.

There weren’t a lot of options on how to react. He could apologize for his nudity and for tricking all of them earlier. He could sprint to the corner and pretend to be embarrassed. (Nudity had never bothered him.) That felt disingenuous. What would Uncle Frasco have done? How could he keep Axel focused on reprimanding him instead of attacking the witches for exposing his face?

Pax winked his hazel eye at Lou Ellen. “My uncle said the best mornings are filled with surprises.” He tried to give her a charming smile.

Pain erupted in Pax’s ear. Axel might have been about to rip it off as he dragged Pax away from Lou Ellen, towards the corner with his clothing. “Don’t be a creep!” Axel snarled.

“Aye!” Pax complained. He switched to Spanish to whine, “I’m young enough; she might have thought it endearing and adorable instead.”

Uncle Frasco said Pax would only have a few more years that he could use age and ignorance as an excuse. Might as well use it.

“Get dressed,” Axel said. The tone cut off any more resistance.

Axel had handled killing the praetor. He’d handled chasing Pax down after Pax had run away—Pax knew Axel would. (Pax had just hoped the rest of their siblings would have been here with them.) Now, one of Axel’s last defenses had been robbed from him. Without the illusion, Pax could clearly see Axel’s massive canines, the gold glint to his eyes, and the way his tufted ears folded back into his hairline, several inches higher than a human’s would have been. Pax wondered if Axel could recreate the illusion when Alabaster was holding the old one or if Lou Ellen’s “Mist” weakening ward would make it difficult.

Without complaint, Pax slipped the huge band shirt over his head and tied the flannel shirt back around his waist. Although now wasn’t the time to investigate, Pax could feel something in the flannel’s front pocket. There hadn’t been anything before. Had Mercedes put something in there when she moved his clothing?

“They just seemed curious,” Pax said. “I don’t think they meant harm.” He was scared of upsetting Axel more. His older brother only ever showed his real features around the circus, where people thought it was costume make up or were performers that didn’t care. When their papa made a big deal about it, saying it showed favor from the gods, it made Axel even more self-conscious.

“Is she dressed?” Alabaster called.

Lou Ellen’s voice trembled with repressed giggles, “Almost.”

If she let him, Pax would hug her later for continuing the farce on the older boy. He liked making Alabaster flustered.

Now that Axel had accepted his features would be visible, he jammed his hands into his pockets. When the two of them approached the witches’ work table again, Axel scowled, making his elongated canines look more vicious.

Once, when their youngest sibling, Hiro, had cried at seeing Axel’s barred fangs, Pax had grabbed Axel’s jaws and opened and shut them saying, “Nom. Nom. Nom!” It sent Hiro into a fit of giggles. Pax hardly resisted doing so now, though doubted it would ease Axel’s tension.

Lou Ellen gave Pax a wink when they returned. “She’s dressed.” From the expression, Pax could tell it wasn’t a flirtatious wink but a mischievous one. Pax got the feeling she liked to mess with her sibling’s heads as much as he did.

Alabaster had uncovered his eyes to pick Axel’s fake face off the ground. He must have dropped it when Pax transformed. After clearing his throat and pretending his face wasn’t bright red, Alabaster held the illusion up. “This is excellent craftsmanship, though completely unnecessary. Lots of monsters on the ship have a combo of humanoid and animal features.”

“I’m not a monster,” Axel snarled, not helping the claim. Best way to convince people you’re not terrifying: bare your fangs at them.

Lou Ellen’s Mediterranean tan shifted to a deeper red. She seemed more enchanted with him now that she could see the shorter, spotted fur below Axel’s ears, where he pretended to shave his hair. “People have animal features too. You should see our sister, Lamia. What are you?”

The question wasn’t said with a scared or harsh tone, just curiosity. The Pax boys were used to hearing it in so many capacities. Pax and Lapis got it about their gender. Hiro, with his monolids, and Axel with his ambiguous bronze skin, got it about their race.

“Maybe some sort of massive cat?” Lou Ellen continued, not seeming to realize how rude her question was. “You don’t have slit eyes—”

“Large cats don’t have slit irises, Lelly,” Alabaster chided.

Axel cut off their conversation by motioning towards his face. “This was not for the public to see.”

Alabaster’s gaze went from distantly considering Axel’s face to narrowing at Axel’s eyes. He cleared his throat and held the illusion out for Axel.

Axel snatched it from Alabaster and began smoothing the mask of brown eyes, human ears, and shorter canines back to his features. He muttered in Mayan while he worked.

“I—I’m sorry,” Alabaster said, “I let my curiosity get the best of me. I’ve never seen someone tweak just a tiny bit of their face before. Lou Ellen is right though. You don’t need to hide your features here.”

“You’re even hotter with your real ones,” Lou Ellen said.

Pax glanced at Axel to see if the older one blushed.

Axel cleared his throat. His mouth moved like he had a response.

He didn’t.

Pax gave Lou Ellen an appreciative grin. That was the best way to disrupt tension: shocking it out of people.

“You guys are cool,” Pax said.

This time, Alabaster blinked in surprise. “That’s not the typical response we receive when turning people into small mammals.”

Most people, Pax decided, didn’t naturally have the disposition for cute, furry things the way that Pax did.

Pax scurried up to Alabaster’s side. The boy didn’t flinch back when Pax tugged his lab coat sleeve. Pax tilted his chin down and batted his eyelashes at Alabaster, the way he’d learned from Kouta’s girlfriends and some of the prostitutes their dad occasionally hired for parties and business meetings. “Can you really do magic?”

Alabaster stared at Pax for a moment, his brow furrowing in confusion. “As can the two of you, apparently?” his question was directed more at Axel. “Are the two of you children of Hecate?”

“Half our siblings are monsters,” Lou Ellen said, seeming to forget that Axel really didn’t like the M word.

“No,” Axel said.

Neither Axel nor Pax knew what to say about their parentage. Pax didn’t like saying who his mother was. Not with the mini-cult his father had formed around her and the way that cult treated Pax.[1]

Could they talk about Axel’s heritage with anyone on this ship?

Lou Ellen tilted her head to one side. The black locks of her ponytail tumbled against one shoulder. “Are you even Greek?” she asked. “You two have some other magic that interfered with my vial.”

Alabaster appeared to forget Pax for a moment. “I haven’t read of cat people in Greek mythology. Maybe—Egyptian? Though I suppose that would be your full head. Mesoamerican?”

If Alabaster were throwing at a map of the world, he would have been hitting way too close to home. Axel flinched, like each of those metaphorical darts could blow up the country of Belize. To be fair, Pax thought, Belize was a tiny country.

Something high-pitched chimed.

All four of them jumped.

After a moment, Pax realized the sound had come from a ship’s intercom in the corner of the room.

Alabaster sighed. He went to write something on his flip notebook. “I want to test your magic and how it interacts when combined with Greek magic,” he said. “They’ll want you on the top deck to test you for sword prowess, combat training, and knowledge of mythology. I’ll be up shortly to help with the assessment. They’re split into specific skills afterwards. I expect you to report back here during that time.”

When Alabaster tore the piece of paper out of his flipbook, it glowed green. Axel hesitated to take it. At his pause, Pax snatched the sheet.

He couldn’t read anything on the page. As they always did, the letters looked like abstract art to him. The sheet itself felt warm. “We get to come back!?” Pax asked. He failed at keeping the excitement from his voice.

Alabaster gently removed Pax’s other hand from his lab coat. The motion wasn’t angry, just awkward, like Alabaster wasn’t used to people touching him. Him and Mercedes. Pax vowed to give them both more hugs. “Willing test subjects, especially in their rarity, are always welcome back to the lab.”

Pax wanted to say that Alabaster could test on him all day. He rather liked turning into a weasel and was excited at whatever else the witch boy might have up his white lab sleeves.

Instead, he grinned at Alabaster’s emerald gaze.

Axel took Pax’s arm and pulled him from Alabaster’s side.

Alabaster shook his head, his expression unreadable. “Surely, if you were capable of killing the praetor, Luke will be most enthusiastic to assign you into the Assault and Battery unit. However, it would be a waste to exclusively delve into the sword with talent like that.” He motioned towards Axel’s face. The bitterness to his words reminded Pax of the conversation they overheard between him and Luke. The sentiment was so strong, he almost overlooked the compliment.

Axel grunted. “Don’t touch my illusion next time.”

Pax gave them a shy wave goodbye. Lou Ellen giddily waved back as Axel backed them towards the exit. Pax wanted to point out that the two witches could have turned them into weasels easily, and that Lou Ellen was much more likely to do so to have Axel transform back naked than for any other malicious reason. But, since Uncle Frasco and Aunt Nilley’ murders, Pax knew there wasn’t any reasoning with Axel’s paranoia.

Once outside with the lab doors shut, Axel relaxed.

“They were awesome!” Pax said, “And they want us to come back! They—”

Axel snagged Pax’s ear. “Do NOT drink something without asking what is in it. What would you have done if nuts were in there? Did you even think to bring an EpiPen from home?! And what if they’d wanted to drug you?!”

“Your imagination is boring!” Pax whined. He didn’t want to consider the idea that his new friends could be bad people.

“Yea, and if they were going to drug you, they would, like, totally slip it into the cafeteria’s fountain machine,” someone said directly beside them.

Axel jumped and dragged Pax behind him.

The blond, sunburned Nordic boy stood outside the doors, exactly where they had been eavesdropping before. His grin was so wide, Pax thought you could sell advertising space on it.

“Matthias Severe Hanson,” he said and extended a hand.

Both Axel and Pax stared skeptically at the hand. It clearly had an electric buzzer strapped to the palm.

When neither bit, Matthias lifted his hand, shook the buzzer back and forth in their faces, and tapped his fingers together. Pax wondered how often Matthias shocked himself with the device if he tapped his fingers together so often.

“You two are good. Pax, right?” He pointed a finger gun at Pax. “Did you get it?! That Mercedes Benz chick said that you got it.”

For a moment, Pax didn’t know how to respond. This was the first person to properly introduce themselves, but he’d glazed over the introduction so rapidly, Pax was still back by “Matthias Severe Hanson.” But hadn’t this boy already said that he knew his name?

“Got what?” Axel asked.

The answer hit Pax with a bead of sweat. He puffed up his cheeks and popped them, reaching into pocket of the flannel shirt tied around his waist. As he feared, he withdrew a vial.

Axel was going to kill him.

Matthias bent his middle and ring finger down in some weird hand motion. “Awesome!” he cried.

Pax darted to the side when Axel went to slap him across the head. “Ajax!” he snarled. “When did you even have time to grab that?! You were a weasel!”

Pax dashed behind Matthias as the blond pointed out, “Actually, that’s kind of weasels’ thing.”

“I didn’t!” Pax squeaked, “Mercedes!”

“Yea right,” Axel growled.

She must have slipped it into his pocket when she moved his clothing. He’d unwittingly been part of a smuggling operation. And he’d just stolen from two witches. He knew what happened to people who stole from witches. “These aren’t…. drugs, are they? Am I going to be cursed?!”

Matthias laughed again, snatching the vial from Pax’s fingers. He didn’t seem to mind his meat shield status between the two brothers. “Na, man. This is the perfect thing for a prank! Ohhhhhhh!!!!! Chris is going to owe you some drachma!”

“No, he won’t. You are going to owe Alabaster and Lou Ellen an apolo—”

Axel never got to finish his sentence.

Someone threw an arm around Axel’s shoulder.

Like any normal teenager would, Axel judo-flipped Jack over his shoulder and onto the floor.

Jack’s butt and legs smacked loudly against the carpet. He clutched at the arm Axel had mangled. “Ow—holy titans, kid! That was—”

Axel paled.

He and Pax scrambled to help Jack up.

“Don’t sneak up on me!” Axel said. He puffed up his cheeks and popped them. Clearly, losing his face once today had left him on edge.

Jack gave him a pained grin as the brothers each took an arm. “We finished up our vocal practices and wanted to check on how you boys were doing with your caretaker. You got your dad good.”

“You’re not my—” Axel bit back his own comment. Pax could tell Axel didn’t want to both physically and emotionally assault the redhead within minutes of each other, especially with Jack’s eyes watering the way they were.

A few feet behind them, Flynn stood. She was in the middle of slipping her hair blades back into her bun. Pax realized, in alarm, she must have withdrawn them to use on Axel if things got out of hand. Their new mother was terrifying. Awesome, but terrifying. “You’re late to sword practice,” she said, crossing her arms.

Pax tried not to feel disappointed. He would rather help with the witches all day. Unlike Lapis and Axel, he never did as well during fighting practice, though he did excel at evasion and running away. Running away was his favorite, next to eating Reese’s Sticks.

During their altercation, Matthias must have slipped the vial into his pocket. He’d taken a few steps back, to stay clear of their new parents.

“Are you coming to sword practice?” Pax asked.

Matthias grinned. “If by sword practice, you mean lay down and prostate myself…? I find it discourages people greatly from stabbing me.”

Flynn scowled at Matthias. Unlike most other people Pax had seen, Matthias didn’t cower away from her.

“He doesn’t have to come to this training. He makes the traps for it,” Flynn explained.

Matthias pinched his thumbs and forefingers at his collarbone, like he was wearing suspenders. He rocked forward. “I’m a mechanic.”

Pax’s mind buzzed with ideas. He could be part of this violent cult and not fight? That sounded awesome. Mercedes mentioned the Spy Unit that she wanted to create, but how long would that take to make? “How do I become a mechanic? Or a witch?!”

Jack choked on a laugh. He ruffled Pax’s hair. While talking, he shooed Axel and Pax towards the stairs. “Be a child of Hephaestus or Athena, usually. Or Hecate for the other. There are some people that are naturally skilled at it—”

Matthias scurried alongside them. He, like Pax, struggled to keep up with Jack’s long strides. “Ximena is a daughter of Ares and she’s really naturally adept with engines, so she helps us a lot.” Matthias bobbed his head to unheard music and tapped his fingers in the air.

Pax’s shoulders sagged. His mom definitely wasn’t one of those gods. He liked to sew and draw; he’d never been good at fixing the beat-up cars that their Chiich’s boyfriend brought back to their house.

“Does Luke run all the fighting drills?” Axel asked.

From what Pax had seen of Axel’s fighting, his older brother would be genuinely curious. Axel always wanted to learn more so he could better protect Pax. After seeing how powerful the witches were, he probably wanted a confidence booster.

Jack beamed at them and looked at Flynn, his bright eyes wide. The way he whipped his head made his red locks flop into his eyes.

“I run them,” she said, staring ahead as they twisted up several flights of stairs. Pax wished he would have counted how many they descended so he could make a countdown going up. “And, since I can’t show favoritism towards our… children,” she said the word with distaste, “I will need to be harsher on the two of you.”

Axel beamed at the thought. Leave it to his brother to be excited about a good ass kicking.

Jack grinned back. He poked Axel in the chest and nodded to Pax. “Before Flynn beats you up, you two are in for a surprise today.”

They finally crested the last flight of stairs, to a pair of glass sliding door. As their sensors went off and they automatically slid open, allowing a burst of warm air to blast Pax in the face, he almost squeaked.

Waiting outside the doors was a smirking Luke.

He tossed a sword to Axel, then Pax.

Matthias, seeming to sense the gravity of the situation, bolted.

“You’re getting private lessons with me today,” he said.

Remembering what Alabaster said about Luke’s mood and the way he’d struck the witch, Pax swallowed. They were dead.

***

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed :D Next week, I’m taking a short break, but I’ll come back the week after with Luke’s two-parter Big Boy Conversations.

***

Footnote:

[1] Mel betanote: “cults everywhere!” Jack, “Now you get a cult! And you get a cult!” the Greeks will be so pleased XD

#Tales from Mount Othrys #Percy Jackson and the Olympians #Heroes of Olympus #PJO #hOO #TFMO #fanfiction #Axel #Alabaster #Pax #Lou Ellen #Matthias #Jack #Flynn #Luke #Axel needs a leash for Pax #And a restraining order for Lou Ellen #He doesn't yet realize she can sneak into his room at any time with Pax's willing help

4 notes · View notes

easilydistractedbyfanfic · 5 years ago

Note

Surprised by your answer to the fave murven moment! Thought itd be something like that scene in s4 when they're under fire from drones and Murphy goes back for Raven on the beach. What are some of your headcanons for raven/Murphy? (As a couple or as individuals).

LOL! Well, I said it could change in ten minutes for a reason! Listen it is soooooo tough to pick a favorite, because I think so many of them are meaningful in different ways! S4 had some truly fantastic scenes - I could watch their argument in Becca’s lab and the fallout of that over and over again. Heck, I *have* watched that scene over and over again! And I love how in that drone scene Raven is so, so confused by Murphy’s help. She’s surprised and almost disturbed that her opinion of him has been upended but then she makes a serious point to thank him for it afterwardsI love that about her.

Sooo...how long do you have for these headcanons? A few hours? Because I could probably go on that long! LOL! I’ll put a few here but I really do have quite a lot of thoughts about them, and I both love and hate that we get to fill in so much ourselves - only hate it because I desperately want to see more of them & their stories onscreen!

~ I think Raven & Murphy hung out on the Ring more than anyone knows about. Six years is a long time, neither one of them like having nothing to do, they have similar senses of humor, and they came out of those 6 years much closer than when they went in, and that’s not just because they lived in the same place. I have fic ideas about this (what a surprise). I think Murphy is more interested in some of Raven’s work than he lets on - he sure tends to have a lot of opinions on what she’s doing and he thinks his sarcastic comments & suggestions keep her on her toes. Begrudgingly, Raven secretly agrees.

~ Maybe an unpopular opinion, but... I don’t think Raven ever truly hated Murphy, even soon after he shot her. Partly because I don’t think Raven tends to focus on hate or revenge, but also because she didn’t tell the adults that it was Murphy who shot her, and because I think canon shows us that she feels guilty when she tries to hand over Murphy instead of Finn to the Grounders. Her interactions with him after her injury tend to be more full of annoyance rather than hate. I do think she understands where he’s coming from even when she’s angry about what’s happened to her, and she feels empathy towards him even if she doesn’t want to. And even though she yells that she hates him during her breakdown in Becca’s lab, a lot of that is influenced by her strokes and her not being completely herself. To me in that moment where Luna gets Raven to calm down and she looks up at Murphy with a ton of regret, I think Raven fully understands that she lost control in the same way Murphy did in the past. That’s the moment, right there, where Raven lets go of her past resentment towards him, IMHO. Not that she doesn’t have reason to hate him after it all, of course, but I just don’t think she did, and I don’t think her canon behavior showed that she did either.

~ I think Murphy’s character is not well understood at times by fandom - not that I am suggesting that I am the best judge of him, fyi. I think he’s very smart, though in a different way than some of the other characters, and I don’t think he’s as selfish as people tend to believe. He’s no saint but I have read some takes that paint him as mean, selfish or ruthless and I don’t agree at all. With him going into the Sky Box so young, I like other opinions I’ve read about him being in solitary a lot. Also I think he read a lot during this time, and he does seem well-versed in past pop culture, so I’m going to assume movies were available in the Sky Box too, so I think he ate those up. I like to consider that Murphy isn’t a bad speller but wrote that message on the Dropship and spelled die wrong on purpose. To me this fits with his ability to influence & manipulate people, but he’s gotten much better at this since S1.

~ Of course we didn’t get it in S6, but there were a LOT of potential missing scenes between many of the characters, especially since they were just “off screen” at times. So I headcanon that Raven definitely had a chat with Murphy about how often he’s been getting himself drunk on Sanctum. It’s impossible for me to believe that she’d stand back and watch him do that to himself with both of their shared pasts with drunken parents. Their mothers both drank themselves to death - there’s no way Raven would let Murphy go down that same path without speaking up. But I think it would be the version of Raven that’s gentler with Murphy than she is with others, because even if she doesn’t approve, she gets why he’s doing it and she doesn’t blame him for wanting an escape - she just thinks he’s being too reckless with it.

~ This is a bit random and out of nowhere, but I think that on the Ring, while Echo and Emori were trying to teach everyone Trigedasleng, I think Raven & Murphy were the worst students. Not because they didn’t think it was valuable, but because Murphy rarely felt like taking things seriously up there, and because Raven was often mentally focused on repairs and ideas for getting them home, so she’d zone out during whatever lessons they had, her head caught up in something else. Eventually they both realized their inattention was hurting Emori’s feelings and they tried harder after that.

~ Alright, last bit! I tend to think of Raven as “the intellect”, and Murphy as “the instinct”. It’s the essence of their characters but also why they work so well together, because each of them brings something the other needs to the table. So to me in S5 when Murphy says he’s staying on the E-IV with Raven because she might need backup and it’s the ‘survivor’s move’, I don’t think he’s reacting just out of anger. Murphy can be impulsive but he’s also calculating - he doesn’t just make this choice on a whim, IMHO. As he says later, at first he thought he made the choice for one reason, but then he realized that wasn’t it. I think in the moment when he walks out of the shuttle and back onto the E-IV to stay with Raven, I think there’s a lot going on in his head that urge him towards this choice, including his memories of leaving Raven behind to die at Becca’s Lab. Maybe for the countdown to S7, I will finally write up the meta that bounces around in my head about Raven, Murphy and how their survival is often tied together, but to me it all IS tied together and I have a lot of examples to point to, LOL.

Okay, per my usual, I am a wordy bitch! I hope you aren’t sorry you asked! Thank you for the question! Ask me a ship question!

#my inbox #asked and answered #murven #murphy x raven #just kiss already #thank you for asking!

2 notes · View notes

expressandadmirable · 5 years ago

Text

Tomorrow Untrodden (Morgan)

“Hey.”

Morgan offered a wan half-smile. “Hey.”

Pulling the Lefein into a soft hug, Aviva was struck by the memory of hugging Morgan the Gnome. Back then she had been half the Tiefling’s size rather than half a head taller. “Is he gone?”

“Yeah.” The pair released one another and settled onto a bench in the hallway, the soft, misty light from the windows at either end making the world seem preternaturally quiet. “He was happy to see us. He told us a couple times.”

Aviva considered making a joke about how impossible it had always been to unravel Lukahn’s ramblings, even for someone as adept at prophecy as Elerian or Cid, but she thought better of it. Morgan had always had a gift for deciphering her spiritual kin. “You came to see him often, huh?”

Morgan nodded. “Uncle Cid and I made regular trips. We built a lot of card houses, and we told him how the world was changing. I came up with a lot of ways to play games differently, like extra rules and variations and stuff, and he really liked that.” She smiled. “Maergrahn trained me well, I guess.”

“Was he able to leave you with any parting thoughts?”

“A few. Mostly he told us he was happy. And he asked me to build an extra large card house in his honour.”

“Sounds like an appropriate cairn.”

Morgan snorted, then let it fade into a sigh. “Uncle and I are the last of the Lefein now.”

Aviva nodded slightly. “How are you feeling?” The eternal question.

“I don’t know.”

“That’s okay.” For a brief time, Aviva had known what it felt like to be the last of her kind. But they had been able to restore the Tieflings. The Lefein did not share that destiny. She took Morgan’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. “You want to come back to Aelfheim for a bit? Spare room’s yours whenever you want it.”

“Uncle and I need to take care of a few things first. We’re going to scatter Lukahn’s remains in places of significance to the Lefein. It shouldn’t take too long, with the Highwind. But then yes. I’d like that.” Morgan smiled a little more broadly. “I think Starman is pining for Demon.”

Aviva chuckled. “I know Demon’s pining for Starman, she regularly tears up the toy you gave her that looks like him and then cries at me until I mend it. Please let our cats reunite before she drives us mad.”

Morgan giggled. “Okay. I’ll come by once I’ve dropped Uncle back at his lab. Maybe a week or so.” For a few moments, she lapsed into silence, then laced her fingers with Aviva’s. “Thanks for coming.”

“Of course.” Aviva kissed the Lefein’s cheek. “You’re family.”

II.

Leaving Halei in their sitting room, Aviva grinned in anticipation, the air turning translucent gold as she cast her spell. A moment later, the bridge of the Highwind shimmered into view. “Cidney!” she called. “I’m here early, and I brought treats from Aelf--”

“‘Viva, get down!!”

Instinctively, Aviva ducked, just in time to see a bolt of energy streak through where her head had been. Turning in a crouch, she realised the ship was listing precipitously to one side, the internal gravity only thing keeping her from tumbling into the window. “Cid?!”

Another bolt of energy struck the floor near her knee. A mote of flame instinctively forming in her palm, she spun to face her attacker and nearly collided with Morgan coming for her at a sprint. “Cid, what in all the hells?!”

“Behind my chair!”

The pair dove beyond the captain’s chair just as the hulking metal humanoid at the other end of the bridge fired again. Calculating the distance of its prey, the living tech lumbered towards them. “Making friends?!”

Morgan flashed her a lighting quick withering look, then raised both guns and fired, hitting the tech square in the chest. “Lefeinish creation. Prototype servitor. In near perfect working condition, and I’d like to try and keep it that way--” She ducked to avoid a retaliatory blast. “So don’t hit it in the head!”

With a curt nod, Aviva let loose handful after handful of searing flame, dutifully aiming for the torso. Morgan reloaded her guns with practiced efficiency and separated the tech’s joints from its body, causing it to topple forward onto the deck. In perfect unison, each woman took one final shot, and with a frustrated whir, the tech stilled.

Silence crept across the bridge. Morgan stood cautiously, stepping out from behind her chair and nudging the tech with her boot. It did not move. Confidence instantly restored, she crouched by its head. “Well, that didn’t go how I expected.”

“And how, exactly, did you expect that to go?” Aviva straightened, then leaned against the chair.

“How was I supposed to know it had defence protocols?” Morgan replied testily, rapping on the tech’s head. “Just means I have to run more diagnostics before I turn him on again.” Sensing Aviva opening her mouth to retort, Morgan waved a hand. “It’ll be fine.” Every inch the mad scientist. She pushed to her feet, straightened her hair, then turned to Aviva with a wide, delighted smile.

“You said you had treats?”

III.

“It’s time.”

Halei set up from her place on the sofa, instantly alert. “Are you sure?”

Aviva glared at her wife, then doubled over as a contraction shot through her, leaning against the dining table for support. “Yes,” she forced through gritted teeth, “it is most definitely time.”

“Right.” Appearing at Aviva’s side, Halei helped her into the bedroom and over to the bed. “Mei and your mother are in the garden; I’ll fetch them first, then Elerian. You breathe. What else do you need?”

“Infinite willpower. And water.” Aviva winced in pain as Halei turned on her heel, then an irritated chirp drew her attention to the corner of the room. From a nest of old fabric, the amber eyes of Demon of the Abyssal Reach stared back at her. “You too?”

“Hmm?” Halei returned from the kitchen, pressing a mug of water into Aviva’s hands. “Me?”

“No, Demon.” Aviva nodded to the ball of black fur. “I think she and I are on the same timeline.”

Halei’s eyes widened. “Seriously? That’s far too many babies for one set of quarters.”

“I’ll say.” Aviva sipped her water. “Well, I promised I’d tell Cidney when either Demon’s clock went off, or mine, so…” Flicking her fingers in the familiar gestures of Sending, she announced into the air in front of her: “I’m going into labour -- and so, I think, is my cat??” She took another drink of water as she listened to the response, then promptly spat it out in a burst of manic laughter.

“What?” Halei pressed. “What did she say?”

Aviva looked up at her, her breathing laboured and her eyes watering, though whether due to joy or contractions was unclear. “‘What did Elerian do to your cat?’”

IV.

“This might be the best augment you’ve made.”

Morgan grinned, sliding into the steaming bathwater and letting out a happy sigh. “There we go. Worth it. I wasn’t using this space as a cabin anyway.”

“No?” Aviva laughed. “I guess your garden variety servitors don’t use beds.”

“These aren’t garden variety servitors,” Morgan replied haughtily. “They’re salvaged Lefeinish tech, updated with my own personal designs. They don’t make them like this in Scanderimus, no matter how good they are down there.”

Aviva humphed in acknowledgement. Morgan had spent years collecting and restoring these specimens and they ran the Highwind like clockwork -- in some cases literally, given her clock-making background. It did, however, mean that the majority of Morgan’s interactions with living people came in the form of shopping for supplies or visiting Aviva and her family. “Have you made one from scratch yet?”

“Not yet.” Morgan slouched further into the water, creating tiny ripples that lapped against Aviva’s chest. “I think I’m gonna try soon, though. I have enough small pieces to build most of the chassis, and I think I could synthesise the rest. I can do all the internal programming. After that it’s just a matter of designing the right exterior. If I’m gonna make it entirely by myself, I want it to be really special.”

“Like you?”

That caught Morgan off-guard. “I… I don’t know. I don’t think I would make it look like me, but less metallic would be interesting.” She paused. “It won’t be like me. I mean, it won’t have a spark. I was an anomaly.”

Aviva watched her, head tilted in thought. “Anomalies can happen more than once.”

Morgan slid up to her nose in the water, her white hair piled atop her head like a captive cloud, and she thought for a few long moments before coming up for air. “They can. I guess it could happen.”

“Would you like that? Is that something you would want?”

“Hadn’t thought about it.” Spying Aviva’s raised eyebrow, Morgan glowered. “Okay, I’ve thought about it. I’ve wondered if there were ways for me to do it on purpose, but I don’t think there are. It’s just random. So I haven’t gotten my hopes up.” She met the Tiefling’s gaze. “But I think I would like that, if it happened.”

Aviva smiled. “I could see that being… really nice.” She grinned. “Parenting without the childbirth.”

“What, no!” Morgan squealed, water splashing as she sat up. “I wouldn’t be its parent! Maybe its teacher, or its caretaker. But I wouldn’t be giving it life, I’d just be building a vessel.”

“Mmm. Maybe.” Aviva leaned back, resting her head on the lip of the bath. “I may be relatively new at it, but that sounds an awful lot like parenting to me.”

“Maybe.” Morgan watched the ripples on the surface of the bath. “Maybe.”

“Cid,” Aviva slurred, rolling her head to look lopsidedly at the Lefein at her side. “Ciiiiiiidney.”

“Mmmwhat,” Morgan responded, blinking the Tiefling into focus.

Aviva grinned brightly, if sloppily. “I’m real glad you’re here.”

Morgan reached for her bottle of wine, nearly knocking it over in the process. “I’m glad I’m here too. You know I’ll always come visit.”

“I know, but I mean, like… here.” Aviva gestured broadly with her own wine bottle. “In the world. In my life. I’m real glad you’re here.”

Spreading her arms wide, Morgan pulled Aviva into a hug, nearly tipping them both over in the process. “Me too.”

(Art by @stufflaalikes)

#Dungeons and Dragons #Original Characters #Canon #Aviva Lux #Epilogue #Title: The Flashbulb #Aasimar

3 notes · View notes