#so he tried to kill him. indirectly. a couple times

[owari--hajimari]

goddamn. hanekoma. playing dealer with a stacked deck. arming every faction. placing eggs in every basket. bets on every hand.

“an inevitability”; that the proxy handpicked by the composer would be a fan of CAT, the proxy being a fan of CAT ensures a strong imagination, the proxy possessing a strong imagination means the proxy’s worthy, the proxy being worthy ensures the composer would pick him. it didn’t have to be neku, necessarily, but it always would’ve been. neku is at the mural, because he is the worthy proxy, joshua is at the mural, because he’s there to collect his proxy, minamimoto is at the mural, because the fallen angel has informed him of the composer’s identity.

shibuya being destroyed is an unacceptable outcome. the composer must be stopped; the proxy must change his mind, the conductor must win their game, or the fallen angel’s game piece must kill him. there’s a perfect outcome out there, but insurance is necessary. so kitaniji gets his pins, minamimoto gets his taboo noise, joshua gets a busted tracker, and neku gets a mentor.

hanekoma lays the groundwork for neku to become the kind of person that can influence joshua. “trust your partner”, the other various advice, telling neku some things about joshua to get him to sympathize. and it’s because he’s neku’s idol that neku tries to internalize it, because it’s CAT saying these things. and neku died because he loved CAT’s mural. an inevitability.

[mango-bango-bby]

Yandere Miguel O’Hara pls?

He lost Y/n, his wife, she die in his multiverse. When he went into different multiverse to take care of anomaly villain, he met a spider woman. Her mask cut off by villain only to reveal Y/n, his wife. Miguel plan to take Y/n from her home and keep her from losing again.

Take your time.

♡ Together Again ♡

Content Warning ⚠️: Yandere, kidnapping, Miguel has reader tied up, my first time writing Miguel so if he’s ooc just ignore it 😭😭

Summary: Miguel lost you and now that he has you again, he’s never letting you go. Even if you aren’t his Y/n (Yan!Miguel O’Hara x Fem!Reader)

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵

Miguel lost his whole family. You and your daughter and there wasn’t a single day that went by when he didn’t think about it. It was his fault, he killed both of you. Even if indirectly, he killed you. He still wore his wedding ring because he couldn’t bare to let you go.

When he realized that the new spider-woman with them, was you. He had to take you. Yes, it might destroy your world. But he couldn’t lose you again. He gently tilts a photo on the nightstand to look at you. It’s a family photo of all of you from his universe.

“Y/n, you’re not going to get anything out of struggling like that” Miguel says calmly watching you struggle against his webs. You weren’t his Y/n but that didn’t matter to him, you were still you. And being spider-woman was to dangerous for you. He can’t lose you again.

And he knows keeping you here means your universe would fall apart but frankly, he doesn’t care. He is never going to lose you again. You see to try and yell something at him but he can’t make it out, he silenced you with a web over your mouth.

He walked over to the trash can, throwing away parts of your machine that helped you create webs. You only created webs through technology which worked well for him. You had no real powers, you can’t try to escape with them. “You’re going to tire yourself out” He sighs, watching you struggle to get out of his webs.

You yell something but it’s muffled. He looks down at you, grabbing your chin in his hand so you’re forced to look at him. He’s looking at you with stern eyes.

“Y/n, I told you to stop struggling. Be obedient. I’m not letting you out of those until you’re obedient” He says, his voice stern as if he’s talking to a small child or even a pet. You looking at him will such anger in your eyes.

You never looked at him like that before. Or his Y/n never looked at him like that. But he got you to fall in love with him once, he could do it again.

His gaze softens as he’s looking at you. “I’m sorry, love, did I scare you? I didn’t mean to yell at you” He gently pets your hair, he never wants to scare you. Your whimper as he leans down, giving you a kiss on the forehead.

He smiled slightly, walking over to the nightstand. He picks up your wedding ring, he finally has you again. He walks over, picking up your hand. Miguel tries to ignore how you flinch away at his touch. He slides the wedding ring onto your finger. It fits you perfectly.

He softly smiles, placing his forehead against your hand that’s now clad with a diamond ring. He sighed, content.

“My Y/n… I missed you…”

︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵︵‿︵‿୨♡୧‿︵‿︵

Thank you for reading, darling!!

(A/N: Eeeee, my first spiderverse fic!! I’m so excited, I hope you guys like it!! I changed up my formatting a bit so I hope you all like that too!! Also I’ve been getting a couple requests for Miguel where he speaks Spanish so if any darlings know how to speak Spanish and would be willing to help me, i’d greatly appreciate it 🙏🙏)

Masterlist ➸ ♡

[brownnbears]

Yeah as I suspected the end of Arcane was incredibly unsatisfying and just too busy. They tried to cram so many characters and situations in all at the same time and it just made it to where everything they intended to be emotionally impactful didn’t even have any time to sink in before the next thing happened. Mel, Isha, Cait, Jinx, Vi, Jayce, and Ekko all had way too much in their story for just 9 episodes. With the amount of stuff they wanted to put in there it should’ve been like 4 or 5 seasons AT LEAST.

I’m incredibly upset with how they finished with Jinxes character. They strayed so far from the 2 sisters plot and at the end they had no idea how to wrap it up so they pulled a stupid emotionless cliché.

Spoilers past this point

I was sick of the whole Vander Beast thing after like the 2nd episode. He either should’ve stayed dead since the beginning or died when Isha blew them up. Essentially him and Victor surviving meant Isha sacrificed herself for nothing.

There was a whole scene where Jinx was literally trying to end her life and Ekko came to tell her that she could break the cycle by making the world better rather than killing herself. I believed her whole arc was going to finally breaking free from her past and moving on with her life as someone new, her true self unrestrained by Vi or Silco or anyone. So she could make a world that Isha would’ve been happy to live in.

And then all that gets thrown out the fucking window because they wanted to pull a “oh the evil sister sacrificed herself for the good sister so that in her final moments she’s good ohhh aren’t you feeling emotional right now” literally makes me sick. A pointless death and a waste of a character, honestly a waste of a couple of characters because everything Ekko said? Meaningless now. Isha’s sacrifice? Meaningless. Jinxes character arc for the last 2 years? Doesn’t matter just poof. All so Vi can do the same thing she’s been doing since day 1. Genuinely what did Vi learn or gain from Jinx sacrificing herself other than another stone on the pile of “people I killed indirectly by being ignorant.” It’s genuinely fucking stupid lmao

[xjulixred45x]

I know I have to work on the requests, but I have to get this out of my head because now I have a rediscovered love for Invincible, bear with it.

(SOMETHING LIKE A CONTINUATION OF THIS)

SOME SITUATIONS WITH YANDERE AU MARK GRAYSON/INVINCIBLE

okay, I can definitely see that you two were a couple or at least liked each other before everything went to hell.

and although you were fine with Mark at that time, when he was being convinced to join the Viltrum empire, he was somewhat seeking your approval. although using very vague assumptions, such as "would you accept an alien race if it meant world peace?" "or if that would help with the development of medicine?" You know, like what Nolan wanted to do at the beginning with Mark. and obviously since you didn't have the context you said yes without hesitation, further fueling Mark's crazy ideas.

I may not have made it very clear in the first part, but you and Nolan definitely don't get along. I mean, he's nice to you in a way, but he treats you like a little kid who needs discipline, so he tries to push Mark into that. Not only that, but you also indirectly blame him for the sudden change in Mark's personality, you know that if Nolan hadn't gotten him into that shit, he wouldn't have so much blood on his hands. The Mark you knew wasn't like that. HE WASNT.

The main reason this Mark doesn't feel angry because of your traditional escape attempts or why he's so soft is because of something our Invincible doesn't usually have, and that's his ARROGANCE. This Mark does not believe that you are capable of running away from him, you are not capable of defending yourself from him, you are not capable of harming him and above all you are not capable of HATE HIM, because he sees you as a soft creature, who should be treated as such because you are confused.

He is delusional, SpongeBob and Squidward level of Delusional. You could perfectly tell him that you hate him, that he's the worst thing that happened to you in your life... and he thinks it's reverse psychology.

"fuck you"

"Is that an invitation?😚"

"I hate you"

"I love you too babe🥰"

"If we were trapped on a desert island I wouldn't hesitate for a second to make a raft with your limbs"

"Silly you, I would take you out flying😘"

Do you see what I'm saying? For the same reason, if you end up hurting him, he would be proud that now you can definitely defend yourself from the Revolutionaries who "kidnap you every now and then" (it's you on the run). dang it, if you hurt him probably even NOLAN would compliment you for doing it despite being "so weak" and would completely approve of you.

(I can already imagine you with a wedding dress and a bouquet of knives...you want to throw it at Mark...in the face)

I think the most Mark does to scare you into escape scenarios is to threaten to throw you and not catch you next time, that's the best he goes. He can't stand the idea of leaving you paralyzed because it would be very boring and sad to see only a shell of you.

He wouldn't kill Eve, but he would never hurt you...physically. Did you see that in the end in their universe they manage to imprison him and get rid of Omniman? you totally didn't let go of Fem! Cecil(Cecilia?) all the way to her base and thanking her with all your heart and tears. Cecilia comforted you awkwardly, but she understood that you must have definitely had a hard time with Mark.

Meanwhile, with Mark already locked up, even if the world is a bit messed up, you can breathe easy for the first time in years, you can leave the base without fear of what happens to the people around you, you can eat without a problem, you can CHAT with people! it's magic! It's like you don't even remember anything before Mark! out of pure fear!

Meanwhile, Mark in prison always asks about you AT LEAST once a day, even if they give him proof that you are WELL and HEALTHY, he just doesn't believe it and DEMANDS to see you to prove it, which they obviously deny him and only makes him think that even more. The guy thinks you must be dying of hunger and cold or being eaten by collotes while you live your best life🤣

"MY POOR BABE! She must be so confused and scared without me! How do I know they're not torturing her for information!? She must be so worried because we're not getting home!" and it goes on and on... meanwhile Darling: "happy~ happy~happy~" "OHHHOOOhhOO, I'M SO FUCKING HAPPY!"

For now that's all. I hope the Viltrum empire doesn't come to shit on Darling's happiness☠️

[flowerbloom-arts]

“It's for a comic strip I do called 'Grumble and Bumble,' Grumble likes to yell but deep down he loves Bumble like a son.”

Seymour sometimes has a creative side, whether it be accidentally plagiarizing Jurassic Park for a book he's been thinking about writing (s5 ep19) or writing a couple screenplays in the hopes of getting them to Universal Studios and winning an Oscar (s19 ep18), and likely due to a lack of an active imagination or minimal media consumption he tends to draw inspiration from his own life for his art.

The screenplays he wrote in Any Given Sundance had titles that he fairly obviously based on his life or desires - “When Edna Met Seymour” (this is 4 whole seasons after they broke up), “Ghost Willie” (Willie hates Seymour's guts like most of the school staff but how much Seymour hates him back I can't quite say, or this could be more metaphorical and Willie's hatred is manifested into a threatening ghost form), “Killing Seymour's Mother” (he's expressed a desire to kill Agnes multiple times throughout the show due to resentment and despite his seemingly unconditional love for her), and “The Principal Who Sold a Screenplay” (this is simply premature wish-fulfillment)

“Grumble and Bumble” is no different. If the designs of the characters didn't make this obvious enough, Grumble is Chalmers and Bumble is Skinner himself, and thusly he is speaking indirectly about his ideas of what his dynamic with his superintendent is by using Grumble and Bumble as an allegory. But why would Seymour believe that despite the sometimes abusive tendencies Gary treats him with, Gary loves him "like a son" deep down?

I've often thought how similar Chalmers is to Agnes in some respects, especially when it pertains to their treatment of Seymour, but to an audience they have their fairly obvious differences.

While Agnes' abuse stems from a mix of bitterness and a fear of abandonment from the only person who still loves her despite her behavior, Gary's abuse seems to stem from a deep-seated annoyance with Skinner's behavior. Chalmers doesn't like Skinner being his bootlicker, the few times Chalmers treats him with benevolence or fondness is when Skinner acts confident in himself, unburdened by Chalmers' whims over him, meanwhile Agnes actively kicks him down when he tries to stand up.

Of course, it doesn't really make a difference to Skinner, I doubt he himself sees the difference, all he knows is that they dislike him but he can sometimes win over their affection if he does... Something, anything, likely whatever they want him to do which is be obedient and successful at his tasks despite his nightmarish circumstances because that's what they yell at him to do. He can't differentiate between what Chalmers likes and what Agnes likes because he's so used to his mother and Chalmers is so close to that pattern of behavior they might as well be the same.

And just as Seymour loves Agnes, he also loves Chalmers. It doesn't particularly matter if that love is familial or platonic or even romantic on Seymour's end, really, because it all leads to the same result; that love leads to a desire to fulfill whatever harsh demand is given to him. He's a dog in that sense, and he never knows when to quit (as Bart says; "No matter how badly you get treated, you always come back for more! It's like your superpower!" - s32 ep8).

And despite everything Gary's put him through, he hopes desperately that he can achieve and continue to maintain any morsel of affection he may throw for doing a good job, just like Agnes would. He thinks the abuse hides an inherent affection Chalmers harbors for him; why else would Gary keep coming to school to see him? Why else would he seem to care about it so much? It must be similar to how his mother still keeps a roof over his head or cooks him food; she cares despite her hatred, because he is her son and there's an unconditional love there between them. Seymour knows this, and so therefore there has to be one conclusion, no matter what kind of affection Skinner feels for him:

Chalmers likes to yell but deep down he loves Skinner like a son. Just as Agnes loves him as a son.

“No he doesn't.”

— s26 ep11, Bart's New Friend

[jazeswhbhaven]

The Encounter of Two Flames | React | Spoilers

SO LOVELIES I REALLY ENJOYED THESE TWO PARTS LEMME TELL YA

Like...especially when part 6 came about???? Ahhhhh anyways let's goooo

We start with Satan rollin' and tusslin' with Sitri (who isn't being called Sitri just yet, just a devil with no name) and I'm just like damn so it's like that huh?

But I mean...why wouldn't it be? Hell is pretty much a place where anything goes so this isn't really above that with random devils being feral and attackin' folks lol

But...why did they have to say "he pinned his arms on the ground" because my brain did not see that innocently.

ANYWAYS

I know he's pretty much all instinct and no brain cells, but feral Sitri is giving me what I need. A devil at his core without direction. The thrill, the danger, all of datttt.

BUT again, I digress....(over here simpin' for feral sitri like i'm s t a r v i n g)

So it seems Satan has found this rumored devil beast and tries to talk with him, but to his surprise he is unable to speak to him in words just growls.

I like how Satan just casually comments that devils are just fucking made without proper thought. I'm sure early on he meant God and not necessarily Lilith (or honestly he could have meant both of them who knows)

So he tries to test Sitri, and was even like "should I kill you?" and Sitri ofc responds very aggressively, indicating that he can't speak but he can understand Satan. I really want to know his thought process and how he processes Satan's words though.

I know that the devil's have their own language, because it's been brought up a couple times in the side stories with Ppyong and Minhyeok with Ppyong complaining that he can't read Minhyeok's language but he can still understand him. So if Sitri can't read or talk...I wonder how it is he can understand his native tongue? Perhaps body language, that sort of thing.

Satan indirectly telling Sitri he has big D energy lolololololololol

Seriously though, he asks for Sitri to be his subordinate but he just straight up BITES him lmao

flashback to me writing about my fankid Cain biting Satan's arm too...it seems that Satan is used to this kind of reaction after all. This also was by chance I had no idea they were going to have this happen for them lol

So he's just out here chewin' and munching on his arms and then....

Apparently by drinking Satan's blood you can also see his memories. And that's an interesting fact that I shall use in my future writing later....

So it turns out that he saw a lot through Satan's blood, making it to where he even backs away from him and tries to keep his distance, Satan is just over here like "haha told you so, you can't beat me." and well he would be right. At this point he could very much get rid of Sitri in a second.

Buttt not so fast.

So Satan thanks him for killing off angels in Gehenna, and Sitri tries AGAIN to attack him and gets a swift kick in the gut. It seems our feral boi just won't let up just yet. Satan even brings up the fact that Sitri may be pissed that he saw that there are other devils he simply can't defeat.

He even calls him out by saying Sitri does like him he just doesn't know how to process everything at the moment. He offers to show him more.

Oh my.

So Satan does the craziest thing (his poor red lump friends are freaking out this entire time btw) and pulls out his fucking heart! So ya'll who guessed that it was Satan's heart were in fact correct. It appears that devil's hearts are just smaller versions of themselves, which is a cool concept instead of looking like a human heart. Which I mean yes that would make sense a devil's heart would be different.

The reason Satan even did this though, is because Sitri has to see and accept his blood properly, straight from the source of his heart/core. And I'm just like this is so badass when you really think about it because I imagine if the other Kings had found Sitri first it would go very different and Satan is just like "yah drink my blood it's all good, we're bonding"

also this cg is very pretty like sunset/sunrise in the backgroun, satan's pretty pink hair, that little fang...ahhhhhhhhh

He's makin' us fall in love with him all over again ain't he?

Feral Sitri is thinking very deeply about taking the offer of biting into Satan's heart...it's really just wild to me though that this was his life prior to what we're seeing now. Just living off the land, killing, with raw power??? I mean...just from this lore alone we know that Sitri is really fucking strong, and I wonder if he's the strongest noble out of all the countries. That's something to think about. (i mean he did fucking set all of gehenna on fire from being depressed so...)

So Feral Sitri takes a bite, and well...it's a night and day difference when he does!!

The information processes so much I think I would personally go mad from having to do that but Sitri is doing well. He learns about the Kings, Hell, how it all ties together, Satan being the one to run front and center of it all.

He calls him "Master" and even starts crying and stuff.

Ya'll this entire time I could only think about this....

Also the scene where he and Lestat first exchange blood.

Phew....like Sitri being all submissive and level headed just gives me vibes from this movie (and show)

I'm sorry ya'll I'll stop LMAO (the music in the background in the event didn't help)

But yes, Sitri is totally tamed now after seeing Satan's full self, memories, and that he is going to forever be his devil. His right hand, ride or die, basically everything. And thus why we see that he has so much devotion for Satan and values his opinion.

OH SO SATAN NAMED HIM SITRI

And Sitri says it back to which the red lump devils blush when hearing him say it. (I love these little guys they are adorable)

Satan goes to say that he liked him upon first meeting him and that he wants him to stay by his side, learn to read and fight, and he mentions for Levi to raise him???

And me and the devils and Sitri are like???? Satan what? who?

LOL NOT LEVI COMIN' IN WITH THE INSULT

and Satan is like "You can't call me that unless you're Mammon"

w h

a t

Turns out Mammon is there too.

there goes my theory that he was trapped.....

So I was way off, it seems that this happened after Mammon's origin story which would have me believe that it's possible that Mammon is older than Satan, and possibly older than Levi, but not older than Beel and Lucifer. And technically since Belphie is still asleep, who knows how old he is. Me trying to figure out this timeline has me running in circles lol

So Levi and Mammon are there because they were trying to get Sitri first...perhaps Leviathan just wanted Sitri for his own reasons, and Mammon wanted him just because and I assume Bimet wasn't an adult just yet to be his right hand devil at this time.

Satan is feeling dizzy and requested a healing devil, Mammon is just like "ah hell you're cute I'll help you."

screaming because this is pretty much why i love their dynamic and why Astra is in a polyship with them...

Levi was just gonna let his ass pass out. lmao Instead he's bitching about how Satan is requesting him to "raise this filthy beast" and not hand him over (Levi calls Sitri an "it" but that's to be expected with his rude ass lol)

And Satan is like "I'll invade Hades if you don't" and I'm laughing my ass off because that's such a Satan thing to say.

And Levi just kinda scruffs Sitri like a cat and is like "Ugh he stinks" and Mammon is happy that Levi is listening to Satan and wants to pat his head and Levi ofc is pissed and saying for Mammon to back the fuck up.

Even back then Leviathan is just taking names and dishing out the heat. He's only listening because he finds it annoying if he lets Satan just raid out Hades like that.

The red lumps assume that it's because Satan is strong and would win, but-

Levi. Bro. Sir. P L E A S E lmaoooooo

I'm crying.

But Satan tells a struggling Sitri that since he found him first to make sure he comes back and stays strong while under Levi.

Levi is just out here having the time of his life though just scruffin' Sitri, and treating him like some object or weapon which okay I guess Levi go off.

"I may invade Gehenna to get my hands on this thing once I unlock its abilities"

*EYE ROLL*

Don't say that about Sitri. I'll box you.

The babies. Mammon probably was just holding him like :)))) look at this cute devil that I own. So small, so delicate...

I love them your honor.

Then some time later....Foras is doing his whole thing and saying that a devil wants to request an audience with Levi.

Ya'll do you see how annoyed he is already like goddamn what were you doing that was so important?

But he knows it's Sitri that wants to see him....and well it seems that we will learn on part 7 what he wants!!!

So the reason that part 6 was my favorite is obvious, because ya'll saw me going ham on those gifs and enjoying the interaction with the Kings once again meeting up in one area. It really just has me knowing that their "friendships" are that far back...and their dynamics will always stay the same. Levi always giving empty threats, Satan being headstrong, Mammon in the back just being casual and observing while patronizing his peers without knowing that's a bad thing to do lol

But I'm one step closer to figuring out this timeline ya'll...it's still far but I'm getting there slowly...this is one of the times I actually care about lore timelines even though my fic doesn't really follow it anyways. (it's important though for my fankid au)

But yeesss I'll see ya'll on the next react! I'm stacking 'em up again so it will be day 7 and 8 the next go around.

[toaarcan]

Weirdly in some ways I think the Archie reboot kinda saved the book's direction in a sense. Not in the obvious "Well Ken Penders just ate half the cast and the other former writers could do the same" sense, but in the "Saving Flynn from having to actually write post-Mecha Sally stories" sense.

Eggman in Archie always kinda had the benefit of a sizeable double standard from the protagonists. He always received significantly more leniency than the heroes gave other villains. The most obvious case of this is probably Issue 177, where you get to see the juxtaposition between how they treat Eggman and how they treat Mogul, Naugus, and the not-yet Hooligans.

They all get sent to jail with a wave of Nicole's hand. Eggman, though?

Eggman is at their mercy at he gets told to go home.

Now, you might argue "Well the other villains are inside the city and Eggman's outside it," but counterpoint:

A) He's still lying beaten at their feet and all of the FF and Chaotix on the current roster are there. Even if you give Eggman the most generous interpretation of him being a "Power type" character in Riders, he's not going to overpower all of them. They can drag him inside. Bunnie, Knuckles, Vector and Mighty could probably all do it with one hand.

B) Nicole can do this.

At this point in the story, there are no Legionisation victims that Eggman can threaten to blow up to use as a bargaining chip, the Egg Fleet can't break through the shield and Nicole is fast enough to morph the city wall itself to defend anybody outside it. He's never been more beaten than he is right now. And they let him go.

And it should be noted, this is before the contract between Archie and SEGA was renegotiated in 2010, Flynn was writing under the same lax mandates that allowed Penders to write Issue 150 at the time. And while he's obviously not going to be allowed to take Eggman off the board permanently, we're not too far from Sonic X doing its own story where Eggman got sent to jail for a bit and broke out. Heck, a couple of years later, Flynn has Eggman spend an entire year of comics as a gibbering loon stuck in a cell in his own city. So I don't doubt that he could've had Eggman get captured here, and then during Enerjak Reborn, they could be forced to release him so they could try and turn the Egg Fleet on Enerjak, to little success.

Flynn likes to write Eggman earnestly believing that he can kill Sonic and co. whenever he wants, he just chooses not to win because he'd be bored. I think this is a gross misreading of the general character of Eggman (who deliberately tries to kill Sonic in SA2, and while he is calm and respectful on the outside, is an incredibly sore winner if you exit out of the game and then get his recap once you load in again), I can let it slide in Archie because the character is very different.

I bring this up because, consciously or not, Flynn has the FF do it too. In both 177 and 200, the FF have Eggman beaten and are free to capture him, and they just don't. And bad things happen because of it. Everything Eggman does from 177-onwards is on the heads of the heroes for not doing their level best to stop him.

And the best part is that Sonic comments on it later.

Man I miss this Sonic. IDW Sonic would be giving a two-page monologue about freedom here.

Which brings me around to my point. If things had gone back to normal after the Mecha Sally saga, Flynn would've been in a terrible position. Let's assume that this is a perfect world and Penders never showed up to ruin everyone's day, and thus only the intentional crimes are in play, not the millions of people he killed with the Genesis Wave when it flipped the entire multiverse on its head. Flynn would nonetheless have had to try and return to the normal status quo after 250.

Eggman is either directly or indirectly the cause of literally all the trauma the characters go through in that stretch of the comic. Indirectly, it's his legion that Geoffrey and Hershey were fighting when Hershey was either killed, assimilated, or faked her death, thus causing Geoff to lose his shit and revive Naugus. That caused Bunnie to lose her powers and Nicole to get ostracised and then exiled, along with the loss of the throne to Naugus, severely weakening their position as Naugus is more than okay with cutting deals with Eggman, which he does in 234 to try and get Elias assassinated en route out of the city.

Directly, he blows up Antoine, putting him in a coma and breaking Bunnie, causing her to leave, and then there's the obvious point of Mecha Sally itself, and Sally spending however long that was in-universe suffering inside a prison made of her own body.

And this was post-2010. The mandates were there. Even if he was allowed to keep Sonic and co. angry and traumatised for a while, he would've had to snap back to status quo pretty quickly, and it would've destroyed any semblance of internal consistency within the book.

This is my fundamental issue with Flynn's Eggman. He wants Eggman to be the biggest villain Sonic will ever face, a tyrannical conqueror who commits atrocities for fun and pulls the "Geneva convention more like Geneva Suggestion" schtick, but he's writing a licensed comic based on a videogame character for seven year olds, where the protagonist is obligated by the license-holder to treat the villain as a goofy loser and has been known to call him "Baldy McNosehair." Flynn wants Eggman to be a serious villain, and the series itself doesn't.

With Mecha Sally, Flynn came perilously close to breaking the internal logic of the comic for good. And in that regard, a giant retcon wave that made it so that none of that bad stuff had ever happened probably saved his bacon.

[msfcatlover]

@fandomwandererer

im still like mid s3 in tma but im practically spoiled all the way to somewhere else, tell me more about the archivist tim story. is the not them even relevant if tim is already marked by the stranger? if it is who end up a not!them? tim would need a spider mark right? wonder what that is

*vibrating in place* ARCHIVIST!TIM STOKER, MY BELOVED!

You have no idea how much I love this AU. You have no idea how long I could talk about it. No, really. It took so many edits to keep this response reasonable.

(This is from my notes document on this AU, and does not include the lengthy conversation that originally spawned it. My adoration of Archivist!Tim cannot be overstated.)

Okay, okay. A couple things to establish. First: I cannot take full credit for this AU. @daydreamingofdragons & I came up with it together while bouncing ideas off eachother, and it spiraled (ha) out of control. This is just as much their monster as it is mine.

Second: Tim Stoker’s trauma is not defined by being from the Stranger. His tie to the Stranger hugely shapes his character, but not the Stranger itself. Tim’s trauma is defined by the feeling that he had multiple chances to save his brother and didn’t; that Tim watched Danny die, too close not to feel like Tim should’ve done something, and even though Tim consciously tries to argue with himself that there was nothing he could’ve done, Tim can never silence the part of him which says Tim’s actions (or lack thereof) indirectly killed his little brother. You don’t need the Stranger for that.

(a few post-s3 spoilers below cut, as well as other answers.)

Third: The purpose of the Archivist is to collect “marks” (scars/traumas) from each of the Entities. The Archivist is chosen for their potential to collect those marks, and how easy they seem like they’ll make it (translation: how much work Elias has to put in himself.) To make a viable Archivist candidate, you need to ask what mark/s they already have when they first arrive at the Institute, how Elias might manipulate them, and how much manipulation it would take for them to start putting “finding answers” above “personal safety.” (So Jon Sims is an exceptionally good candidate because he’s driven by a desperate need to understand, he has trouble trusting others, his self-worth was already garbage by the time he got to the Magnus Institute, a consequence of both being a tendency to do absolutely everything himself, and he walked in already marked by arguably the hardest Entity to manipulate into doing anything.)

While the Web would be needed eventually, it's not needed as a foundation. Any mark will do, though if anyone at the Institute is still marked by the Web, you need to give your chosen Archivist a mark just as (if not more) rare & dangerous to make them the more tempting prospect.

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So, Tim is not marked by the Stranger; we actually had him marked by the End (full statement outlined,) and to compensate for how not Eye-aligned Tim is (canon!Tim wants answers about what happened to Danny, but beyond that curiosity is very much not one of Tim's defining character traits; he's not driven for want of knowledge the way Jon & Sasha are, he's driven by love for those closest to him & a need to find a guilty party who can be blamed & punished for any suffering they endure) we had each one of his assistants be marked by a different Entity. After all, if Tim doesn't care about answers or mysteries that don't affect people he cares about, the answer is to tie those mysteries to the personal struggles of those people he cares about.

Jon kept his Web mark (still Mr. Spider, and Jon was definitely the backup in case anything happened to Tim, but the End was always going to be the biggest risk to get a mark from, which makes it just too tempting even with Tim's temper & disposition taken into account.)

Sasha was marked by the Dark (the first time Tim uses his powers is to protect her from it, eventually leading Tim to directly help Basira & co with the lowercase-r ritual the People's Church performed in s2.)

Martin was marked by the Stranger (and also is the only assistant Tim didn't choose; Martin was Gertrude's last assistant, while Jon & Sasha were on a list of "pre-approved" potential assistants Elias gave Tim.)

(and yes, we fully figured out how Sasha & Martin were both impacted, and how it would tie into the plot & their respective arcs. Especially Martin & Jon's tragic enemies-to-friends-to-lovers story in this version.)

That gives Tim 4 different rabbits to chase down. By the time he's started to clear up even one of them, chances are other avatars would start to poke their noses into the archives' business. And then Tim's temper, need to protect those he deems to be his own, and need for retribution on any who would harm them would keep Tim locked solidly into the Archivist's role. He's not going to try to leave as long as they're still at risk, and he's always going to jump in front of that bus rather than throw any of his people under it. And once Tim figures out what's happening, he's far more likely to try to get ahead of things by taking the fight to the other avatars rather than try to slide beneath their notice the way Jon mostly did.

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The NotThem isn't actually that relevant, though we did play a bit with the idea of NotBasira. Instead, @daydreamingofdragons came up with a new creature who does the opposite: it steals identities by rendering people unrecognizable. Not like it replaces them or completely changes their appearance, but it's the cross-section of the fear of mistaking a stranger for someone you care about & the fear of being rejected by loved ones. This person claiming to be your brother is obviously not your brother---sure, at a distance you might mistake them for your brother, maybe they could even fool someone who doesn't know your brother that well, but you can very clearly see all the little differences that show this cannot possibly be your brother. Especially if you have a picture to compare. It's not your brother, you know it's not your brother, why is this complete stranger insisting that they're your brother? Why do they know so many things about your brother, why are they wearing his clothes, how did they get the lucky charm he never takes off? What did they DO to him?!?

(It is, in fact, your brother. He knows why you're acting like this, he can't recognize himself in the mirror, but it doesn't make your complete rejection of his identity hurt any less.)

I can't remember if we actually discussed this, but I've been calling it the "Innominate." Which is an adjective meaning "something anonymous or unnamed," but sounds like a word that could easily be a verb meaning "to un-name something, to render anonymous," and also works as a proper noun just fine.

It goes after Jon in mid-to-late s2. This leads to everyone needing to figure out whether or not they still trust Jon ("trust & love as an active choice," you're such a good theme and I love you so, so much,) Georgie joining the Institute to investigate Jon's "disappearance" (they reconnected after Jon did the follow-up on Melanie's statement in s1,) and Tim needing to save Jon from Daisy after they find Gertrude's body (s2 finale, rather than s1; but once the police are there, there is one person in this verse who is obviously skittish, out of place, and doesn't want to show identification to the cops, and it's not the Archivist. Tim's being nothing but coolly polite & helpful, because he's worried about his people and wants to get these cops out of his archives as soon as humanly possible.)

The antagonist for s1 is the Spiral rather than the Corruption, and after Michael (& co) invades the Archives, Tim ends up going to Hill Top Road for a guiding thread so he can rescue his friends. He hates it, but Tim recognizes the pattern, has no pre-existing hangups about the Web, and there's an original statement in there about a woman getting lost in the tunnels and following a thread of spider silk all the way to the trap door in the archives. With the help of the thread anchored in Tim's chest, he's able to trick a different Spiral ally into the heart of the Distortion and safely recover Sasha, Martin, & Jon from the chaotic, twisting halls. With the changed heart (and the loss of Michael's obsession) the Distortion retreats for a while.

[francesminos-tt]

I have no idea how to put this into context, but I hope you can understand it.

Joffrey survives the fall and becomes king of the Seven Kingdoms, but he is emotionally broken beyond repair.

He tries his best to live and look after his brother Aegon who has also been affected by the war. (Joffrey might have severely injured a leg and uses crutches to get around better)

Daeron is also alive, but he is a prisoner.

I can't remember if you wrote something like this, but Joffrey visits Daeron. He hates himself every time. He hates Daeron too. This man who helped to indirectly kill the people Joffrey loved the most. Joffrey also feels the guilt burning inside him and boiling his blood. The shame for giving himself over to someone so filthy, a traitor.

Joffrey lets Daeron fuck him. He doesn't understand why, he could have a thousand lovers, but he can't allow anyone to touch him if no one does. it hurts. Joffrey will soon have to get married and he won't allow this to continue, but for now he enjoys it.

When they come, Joffrey feels sick and so good. He wants to die, but it's also one of the only moments he feels alive.

It takes weeks before the next visit. (I love reading Daeron in love and suffering from almost unrequited love.) Joffrey self-blame. He's cursed himself. He tries to be strong, but he isn't. Not anymore.

The context is actually sad boy Joffrey hating himself for having hot and sentimental sex with his uncle

I am not sure if the sex is hot enough, but. Enjoy.

Sitting on the iron throne was not as pleasant as most nobles thought. The seat was uncomfortable, to say the least, and the blades surrounding it were menacing and unkind, as if waiting to seek revenge from the decedents of the conqueror. The iron was bone-chillingly cold, enough to freeze Joffrey’s blood no matter how many layers he wore. Sitting on the throne was a punishment, rather than an achievement.

“Your grace, ravens from various ports came this morning, all of them reporting strange deaths of sailors its harbor area. It might be the result of an unknown plague.”

“Disputes of inheritance in the Vale is raising more concerns, your grace. Which claimant should the throne support, your grace? Ser Joffrey or Ser Arnold?”

“Will it please your grace to reconstruct the Dragon Pit?”

“We don’t have the coins yet, Lord Treasurer.”

“Well, gold from Lannisport should arrive anytime now. We can also make loans from the iron bank or the bank of Lys. I heard that Old Town has formed its own bank too.”

“My lords, forgive my bluntness, but I think the most important matter right now is to secure a marriage pact for our king. We need heirs. Or the succession conflict will never end.”

All the arguing lords fell silent, and directed their gaze to their king. Joffrey, first of his name, king of the Andals, the Rhoynars and the First Men, lord of the seven kingdoms and protector of the realm, sat on the iron throne with a grim face.

“Enough.” Joffrey said, clenching his jaw, “I have already addressed the matter of marriage, my lords. My young brother Aegon is already betrothed to Jaehaera. I am sure they will become a lovely couple when they come of age. The throne has its successor.”

“But you are the king, your grace.” The Hand, Lord Manderly said on behalf of his fellow council, “We need your heir, not your brother’s. Perhaps your grace will honor your late brother, Prince Jacaerys’s decision.”

The northern lord’s intention couldn't be clearer. Joffrey was betrothed to Lady Manderly as part of the pact Jace had made to earn White Harbor’s support, and now the Hand wanted the king to make true of the pact. Lord Manderly’s words were no surprise to Joffrey; what surprised him was the reaction of the other lords. They seemed to agree with the Hand. The small council seemed to have formed an alliance to push Joffrey into making decisions that the king might not want to make.

“I will,” Joffrey spoke, gripping the throne a little too tightly, “consider it.”

Holding a council in the throne room was a tiresome thing. Joffrey wanted to do it in the council room, as all the former kings did, but all his council suggested that he should be seen sitting on the throne as often as possible. Joffrey had no choice but to agree.

Sometimes, Joffrey felt he was not a king, rather a prisoner, trapped in this gilded castle.

Joffrey spent the rest of the day in his room. He read, wrote some personal letters to Rhaena and Baela, and took a long, hot bath. He skipped the dinner and dismissed all his maids and guards early, for he was too tired and wanted an undisturbed sleep.

“The tunnels are piled with traitors’ corpses.” Joffrey said to his personal guard, “They are enough to scare away any assassin.”

Joffrey slipped out of his bedchamber in a black cloak half an hour after midnight. He headed downstairs, quiet as a cat, grim as a ghost. Despite having no torches to light his way, Joffrey still moved swiftly, as if he was so familiar with this route that he could get to his destination with his eyes closed.

Joffrey went down and down, until he arrived at the heavy door leading to the most gruesome part of the Red Keep. The Black Cell.

There was another reason why Joffrey didn't bring a torch. The Black Cell was so dark that any light source in it would draw unnecessary attention. Joffrey slipped through the door, went down the narrow corridor, and finally arrived at his destination.

“Uncle.” Joffrey murmured, his voice soft, but in the dead silence of the Black Cell, it sounded more like a desperate cry than a soft murmur.

The shadowy figure in the far end of the cell jolted up, stumbling to the sound source.

“Joff?” the figure came to Joffrey, hands on the cell bar, “You came.”

Joffrey hesitated for a moment, before reaching his hand up to touch the dirty and cold fingers on the cell bar. The fingers were rougher than he remembered.

“Yes,” Joffrey said, barely a whisper, “long time no see, Uncle Daeron.”

In the darkness of the Black Cell, the light violet eyes of Daeron Targaryen shone with anticipation and relief, brighter than the purest amethyst.

Joffrey wouldn't call his irregular visit to the Black Cell therapy, though it was, by every means, a therapy session including long and sentimental sex. Daeron was a war criminal, destined to rot in the deepest and darkest part under the Red Keep. Few people knew of his existence, for Daeron was a threat to Joffrey’s claim. If the Green supporters knew Daeron was still alive, the realm would plunge into another civil war. Joffrey could not allow or afford for it to happen.

“I lost count of time since your last visit.” Daeron whispered in Joffrey’s ear, his breath reek of blood and lack of hygiene, “There is no light here. I have no way to track the days.”

“That’s purpose of the Black Cell, uncle.” Joffrey replied, “It is designed to drive you mad.”

“Maybe, but it won't work on me.” Daeron kissed the sensitive skin behind Joffrey’s ear, “I have you. You are the anchor of my sanity. Expecting to see you again is the only thing that keeps me alive.”

Joffrey had no reply for that. Daeron was better dead than alive for the good of the realm, and Joffrey hated himself for his quickening heartbeat after hearing Daeron’s confession. He shouldn’t be excited, or proud. He wasn’t allowed to.

Daeron’s kisses were soft, like a gentle drizzle that enveloped Joffrey in a comforting bubble. Joffrey shivered when Daeron’s hand slip into his cloak, the blonde’s rough fingers dancing on his bare skin. Joffrey didn’t wear anything under the thick cloak; he presented himself like a fair maiden to a noble prince, not a sad king to his prisoner. Perhaps, in another life, they could fuck in the comfort of his bedchamber. They could have wine and a nice dinner. Joffrey would stoke enough firewood in the hearth to last forever. They could chat, laugh and wrestling with each other until they ended up on the carpeted floor. Then they would kiss, undressing each other slowly and sensually, taking their time to explore each other’s body. They would fuck on the floor, on the armchair, in bed, on the window sill, everywhere.

“You are distracted.” Daeron said, returning to kiss the corner of Joffrey’s mouth, “Something is bothering you, my king.”

Joffrey reached a hand up to stroke Daeron’s shaved head. Joffrey had ordered to shave the prisoner’s head as soon as Daeron was thrown into the Black Cell. It prevented the lice, and it would be easier to conceal Daeron’s true identity.

“There is an unknown plague breakout in port cities. The Vale is about to plunge into its own civil war. Reconstruction of the Dragon Pit can’t start without the coin, but the Red Kraken is making it difficult to carry the gold back from Lanniport.” Joffrey repeated all the council topics today; he had to clear them from his head, or he would explode. “And they want me to marry.”

Daeron’s hand reached Joffrey’s lower belly. He grabbed Joffrey’s cock without hesitation, gently pulling the skin on top before giving it a good stroke. Joffrey’s breath caught in his throat, the sensation foreign and familiar at the same time. Foreign because Joffrey had been touched for more than two months now; familiar because Joffrey dreamed of the same thing almost every day since his last visit. Daeron’s palm was so large and so warm, like a shelter reserved only for him. Joffrey hated himself for being weak under Daeron’s skillful hands, but he couldn't help it. He needed to feel safe, if only for a brief time in the place that most would consider dangerous.

“You can marry me,” Daeron said half-jokingly, “I am of noble blood. I can serve you, my king, better than anyone ever could.”

“I am afraid it's not my decision to make.” Joffrey replied, neither agreeing nor denying Daeron’s suggestion.

“You are the king,” Daeron reminded him as the blonde continued to stroke his cock, “your task to choose the best solution, not to come up with one.”

“That’s a…” Joffrey trailed off, moaning slightly as Daeron’s finger ran over the tip of his twitching cock, “nice way to put it.”

“Believe it or not,” Daeron said, his movement becoming quicker and rougher, “I spent more time with a king than you did.”

Joffrey cried out as he came, trembling in Daeron’s arms like a lone tree in the harsh wind of winter. His vision went blank for a second, before the darkness of the Black Cell resumed. Joffrey was still trembling when Daeron flipped him over, pinned him on the dirty ground and pushed a finger in his closed hole. Joffrey hissed in pain, but Daeron paid him no mind. Daeron’s previous tenderness was gone, replaced by a harshness typical of a Targaryen.

Daeron pushed another finger in, then another, and another. In Joffrey’s pathetic cries, his hole was stretched to its limit with only his own seeds as lubrication. Joffrey twisted on the straw pads on the stone floor, his hands trying desperate to hold on to something, anything that could keep him there. What were all the straws for? Joffrey wondered abruptly. Were they to keep the prisoner warm? Or provide better hiding place for rats so they could feast on the prisoner’s flesh?

“I am going to fuck now, nephew.” Daeron said before he thrust into Joffrey in one go.

Joffrey squeezed his eyes shut. He might have cried, or not. He didn’t know. All his senses were reduced to one place, his hole. He could only feel the pulsing cock inside him, filling him to the brim and making him whole. It hurt. Oh, how it hurt, but Joffrey welcomed the pain. It was the only thing to make him feel alive.

Something soft touched his hand, and Joffrey finally opened his eyes. He was lying on his stomach, the cloak under him, protecting his skin from the rough straw. His butt was lifted to meet Daeron’s crotch, the blonde hugging him from behind, his back to Daeron’s chest. Daeron’s hand was on top of his, their fingers intertwined together on the floor, like a sailor’s knot tied so tightly that it was impossible to separate them.

“I love you, Joffrey.” Daeron whispered in Joffrey’s ear as he pounded into the brunette’s body. He kept kissing Joffrey’s nape, nibbling on the fluffy curls cascading down there.

Daeron sounded sincere, but Joffrey couldn't answer. Joffrey dishonored the throne and the legacy of his mother by just coming here and offering himself like a whore to a Green. But Daeron was the only one who truly understood how much he had been through. They had both lost their loved ones in the war, and they both still had people to care for. Joffrey had to protect Aegon, the only surviving brother to his knowledge, and Daeron had to protect Jaehaera, the only remaining one who shared his blood. They were both dragon riders who had lost their dragons. They had both been princes. They were both third sons.

Joffrey could go on, but the thing was, Daeron was the only one who understood. He never asked Joffrey to release him, because he knew his existence would raise havoc. He just stayed here, in a cramped cell stinking of piss, and waited for Joffrey’s visit. Just as he had said earlier, he would have gone mad a long time ago if not for Joffrey’s visits. They needed each other to stay sane.

Joffrey bit his lower lip and let out a muffled moan in his throat. He spread his legs further to give Daeron more access. He could not speak, neither could he give Daeron any hope or promise, but he knew Daeron would understand.

They came at the same time. Joffrey’s cock spilled hot seeds on the cloak, while Daeron emptied his load inside Joffrey. They stayed there for a moment before Daeron pulled out, letting the sticky liquid leak from Joffrey’s breathing entrance.

As the euphoria faded, Joffrey began to feel incredibly cold. The cold spread from inside him, like a needle pricking at his veins. He enjoyed it. He enjoyed being fucked by Daeron, the murderer of three dragons and a Green leech. How dishonorable of him. He was not fit to rule. That was why he had cut himself on the iron throne today.

“I hate you.” Joffrey said, determined not to let the tears fall, “I fucking hate you. You can die in the most painful way, but it will still not be enough to make up for your crime.”

“I know.” Daeron said after a long pause, “See you later, Joffrey.”

When Joffrey went back to his room, he wondered whether Daeron had understood the true meaning of his curse. By hating Daeron, he actually hated himself.

Joffrey was confident that Daeron would.

[lunaremy]

Bomberfam + Pretty's Death

HEADS UP! This is a really long post.

Back when the house they live in now wasn't built, so they resided in the study area of their creators. White used to be REALLY short, by the way. Black got taller than him and wouldn't stop bragging about it, which is yet another thing they bickered over. Pink was the youngest and looked the most different; her original belt compartment was in the shape of a shooting star, and she utilized the default antennae.

Pretty's kind of a recreational hero - even when White was immature and naive, he still found himself dealing with everyone's antics, including the most experienced hero amongst the group (Pretty). Black rarely spoke to her, and she got along with Pink the best. In fact, she used to outright pamper Pink, and looked forward to seeing her grow up into her own person. Pretty took Pink on all sorts of adventures, most notably taking her to Planet Lalaland for her second birthday. Pretty was essentially the influence for a lot of her habits and hobbies as of R1.

It was a little before this time that Pink made Pretty the locket she refuses to let go of.

Also, it was a couple weeks or so after Pink's chronological 2nd birthday (as she was built to be roughly 7 or 8, mixing up the structure of her two older siblings being 14-15 when they were made) when the accident took place.

PICTURED - shortly after Pretty was scrapped

Pretty was scrapped due to a mishap involving a mission with White and Black on duty as well - it was partially White's shortcomings that indirectly resulted in Pretty's death. He remembers panicking for a second, seeing Black get injured by debris, and hearing Pretty shout something in fear before just...disappearing. I think that indirect sort of situation has to do with why Pretty's death hit him so hard, along with the fact that up until then they'd basically been moving as if they were invincible and it's only now that it's setting in that the things he fights can kill him (or someone he cares about). White's creators found it intriguing how he reacted the way a human would if they had seen their sibling die in combat, basically confirming that their desire to create a more "human" bomberman than Prototype had succeeded but also bringing up the suggestion that it's deeply unethical to keep a living thing in such a state of misery and grief for the sake of their experiments. Due to this moral dilemma, White got a lot of support and comfort from his creators, and he'd later come to recognize them as his "Parents". This also formed the building blocks for his idealistic view of the family.

Same with Black, but he wasn't emotionally hurt so much as he was physically hurt. He'd only heard about Pretty being missing after waking up back at base, and even then, he was just kinda....numb to it. To be honest, he might've been a little too good at hiding his feelings back then. That grief ended up mutating into his overly pretentious attitude and strange way of viewing others and himself. His way of life is overly unhealthy and it honestly might be traced back to the accident as well. I don't think he ever actually let himself think about it.

Pink reacted similarly to White, and at a similar time (as she was not on the mission where Pretty was scrapped, she received the news via White and her creators upon their return home). Although, her age influenced how she reacted, along with her admiration of Pretty. She spent a fair amount of time looking for Pretty at home before recalling that she's been scrapped and isn't coming back. She lost interest in a lot of the hobbies she'd had before Pretty's death, and spent a lot of time nearby White (who still tried to support her despite having a lot on his plate to say the least). As they all grew up, White's newfound desire for justice throughout the universe eventually spread to her in it's own way, and by R1, Pink is oft motivated to help the people around her, even if she has her own quirky way of doing so. The love of crafting she had before Pretty's death eventually manifested in Aqua's love of sewing, which is a fact that she's deeply joyful of.

After Pretty returns, she looks significantly different, with her headpiece missing and her belt compartment being significantly damaged. After a while spent recovering from such an abhorrent physical state, she ended up keeping the belt and lack of a headpiece, deciding that it suited Pink better than it suited her. She's hardly changed compared to herself before the accident, but she's really sorry inside for putting her family through such grief. Hearing about just how strongly White had sobbed after coming home, or how badly Pink had been hurt by her disappearance...it gave her nightmares after she reunited with them. This dies down after a couple of months, though. Pretty has a REALLY fun time connecting with her younger siblings! She's gotten along with Aqua really well thanks to Pink, but she has yet to witness one of her earth-shattering rage fits, so she'll be in for a surprise should something push Aqua over the edge in her presence. She's also a fan of telling her younger siblings stories from the missions that happened before they were born. More specifically, she's fond of telling them about times where White or Black messed up in really embarrassing ways, much to their terror.

[eric-cartman-my-beloved]

Why Scott is a Better Rival for Eric than Kyle

Obligatory disclaimer: these are my thoughts, not meant to offend anyone, etcetera, etcetera… and just my opinion. Feel free to have your own, or to disagree.

  Even though I have these numbered, they’re not necessarily in order of importance.

Also, for this post I’m counting “Tenorman’s Revenge” as canon.

1. Scott is a larger threat

In his initial appearance in STMD Scott might not have seemed more than a quick-witted but simple bully who scammed a younger kid for $10, but upon his return in season 14 and in the video game released a couple of years later, he proved to be much more than that.

  Not only did he re-organize the Ginger Separatist Movement and picked it up from where Eric had left it, basically making the other gingers his servants, he also made dozens of fully functional robots (some of them maybe even more than 10 feet in height and some having a completely realistic human appearance). 

  Of course over the course of the series Kyle has proven to be smart a lot of times too, but when it comes to going up against Eric he doesn’t seem to have the motivation or the ability to gather as many resources or as much help to fight against him.

2. Kyle is somewhat overused

(Boy, if I’m getting backlash about something here it’s going to be this…)

25 years is a lot. During these 25 years Eric has had a handful of schemes that directly or indirectly involved Kyle. Whenever an episode is centered around a fight between Eric and Kyle it basically comes down to a format where Eric has a scheme of sorts and Kyle tries to stop him because he believes it’s morally wrong (and or rare occasions Kyle concedes because he teams up with Eric, like in the Crack Baby Athletic Association).

Sure, it can be an entertaining formula, but with South Park having so many seasons it’s bound to get repetitive at some point – if it hasn’t already, for some people.

In the meantime, Scott has not appeared in the show since season 14 (almost for 13 years) while his last words before he disappeared promised a return. Any time for him to be brought back would be convenient, and there are dozens of possibilities a plot with him could turn out. There are still so many things to explore with his character, so many routes that can be taken, so much depth that can be given to him.

On top of that, Scott’s and Kyle’s motives for going up against Eric are vastly different, so I do think such a change would be refreshing. Usually Kyle objects to Eric’s plans because they clash with his morality, while Scott seemed uncaring about morality from the start, and now has a vendetta to settle with Eric.

Which brings me to my next point.

3. Scott’s rivalry with Eric is more personal

Yes, Eric and Kyle have been “friends” for years, they’ve been through a lot together, but a big part of their rivalry is Eric insulting Kyle and Kyle defending himself, or Kyle trying to stop a scheme that has hurt or exploited people. Such actions on Kyle’s part do not have as much of a direct correlation to Eric as Scott’s actions do.

Ever since STMD, it’s clear that Scott has made it his life’s goal to get his revenge for what Eric did to him. Everything he does involves (or aims to involve) Eric some way or another. He doesn’t seem to care what Eric does outside of having killed his parents. He doesn’t care about what Eric’s moral code is outside of him, unlike Kyle, who mostly tries to defend both himself and any other people Eric intends to harm in some way, like Heidi.

On top of that, after 201, we also know that Eric and Scott are brothers, so there’s another layer that makes their dispute even more personal, while Kyle has no relation to Eric.

4. The payoffs with Scott are higher

Be it Eric’s complete victory in STMD or any of Scott’s (thus far) unsuccessful attempts at revenge, the stakes are higher, and the overall experience as a viewer gives you the impression of being more grandiose.

The second (and last) time he appeared in the show he gathered almost half the town to witness Eric’s reaction as he revealed who his real father is – a mystery discussed since season 1, a question that had been nagging Eric nearly his whole life. Even when he did something as childish as to steal Eric’s Xbox hard-drive, in order for Eric to get it back he had to fight Scott’s army of robots, had to chase him quite literally to Hell, Heaven and back.

In one of the episodes that depicts Eric and Kyle’s relationship well, Tonsil Trouble, all Kyle did was threaten to “break everything Eric owns”, when he learned Eric had just infected him with AIDS. The most “extreme” action he has taken against Eric that comes to mind is the plan he constructed in the end of Le Petit Tourette. (But I could be wrong, you can let me know if there’s something more.) In any case, his plans are still not quite on Scott’s level.

5. Scott’s dynamic with Eric is more unique than Kyle’s with Eric

Unpopular opinion, I know.

A lot of people find it difficult to define Eric’s relationship with Kyle. They’ve been hanging out together ever since they’ve been in pre-school, yet Eric hates Kyle, and it’s obvious Kyle more often than not does not enjoy having him around. It’s safe to say Eric is obsessed with Kyle at times, while Kyle for the most part does not interact with him unless he is somehow forced to, directly or indirectly. Despite all that, they have saved each other’s lives in the past.

It certainly is a special dynamic these two have, and one that can be pretty satisfying to watch. But it isn’t unheard of. Half-friends half-enemies (bear with me for simplifying it down to that) are not new as a trope or as a dynamic.

But Scott and Eric?

I don’t know about you, but I struggle think of a hate relationship as intense as theirs, especially one between siblings. Eric’s dislike for Scott was so strong it made him hate all ginger people, while Scott has let his persistence with revenge take over his life. He had to be treated in a mental hospital because of what Eric did to him, and it looks like he has since been unable to think of anything else besides him.

If Scott hadn’t pushed Eric as far as he did and Eric didn’t end up feeding him his parents, Scott probably wouldn’t have discovered their biological relationship in the first place. They’re brothers, yet they’ve never had an ounce of brotherly love for each other and most likely never will. They’ve never shared what could even be remotely considered a civil family moment. They only emotion they feel towards one another is unadulterated hate. Eric (a pretty lonely child, if the conversations he had with his stuffed animals are anything to go by) learns he has a brother, yet he is also the person Eric hates because he has humiliated and tricked him in the past, while said brother wants nothing more to do with him than to kill him.

They’d both do absolutely anything to destroy each other, and taking everything else into consideration, I do believe this is a dynamic that at least is much rarer.

   +Bonus:

I also love Scott very much and I need to see him come back again. (I like him much better than Kyle.)

     And I don’t think his return should equal the obligatory erasure of Kyle’s interactions with Eric. Maybe they could both team up to fight against Scott.

     Or the three of them would make up for a funny rival triangle: with Eric being obsessed with Kyle and Scott being obsessed with Eric, but Eric being mostly indifferent towards him, unless he becomes quite the serious problem, and he has no choice but to confront him.

Plus, I guess I’m just a bit tired of seeing a lot of people saying that Kyle is Eric’s “one true rival”.

[danthepest]

Its always interesting to see the difference between how fans who have seen/read OG Dragon Ball before Z and fans who only watched Z perceive Yamcha as a character. Doubly so if they only watched the English dubs.

Z-only viewers treat Yamcha as this pathetic loser who is a regular cheater/womanizer and that of course Bulma would dump him for the murderous space pirate who barely a couple of years ago was indirectly responsible for his death among others.

Fans who have followed DB from the beginning know Yamcha is none of those things. Aside from his stint as a bandit, he was nothing but a firendly, helpful and respectful dude. Hell, it was Bulma who drove him away twice over petty nonsense and he still hoped that there was a future for them together. Their relationship was pretty toxic at times. Him cheating on her was a dub line and for some reason Toriyama decided that it totally makes sense Yamcha is a sudden cheater when it was Bulma who was drooling after every attractive dude before she settled on Vegeta. Gotta justify her banging the unrepentent space pirate somehow.

He took on the Saibaman for Krillin not out of arrogance, but to avoid the risk of Krillin dying again. At the time a second death would have been permanent. And he beat the little plant gremlin and was only killed due to the surprise attack, not because he was weak. To most OG fans, this wasn’t a meme or a lol-yamcha-so-weak moment. It was a shocking and iconic moment that really raised the stakes for the battle.

The whole womanizer thing is usually brought up or implied in the games and the like, but the main series shows no evidence of it. Trunks says his mom told him that he cheated, but as mentioned above, I take it with a container’s worth of salt.

And Yamcha could’ve easily been a prick about it. He was saddened, but he didn’t resent Bulma or Vegeta or even Trunks. He was humble enough to get out of the way during the Android scuffle since he knew he was dead weight by then and as such opted to take care of one of his oldest friends while the others kept fighting. It was Yamcha who told Trunks about how Vegeta reacted to Cell killing him. He didn’t have to do it, but did it anyway. When Vegeta had his dumbass Majin stint and then died, Yamcha comforted Bulma but never tried to take advantage of her. If that isn’t a good dude right there, I don’t know what is.

And before someone gives the “But Toriyama said” spiel, keep in mind that he manages to contradict himself multiple times with regards to Yamcha’s “womanizing ways”.

“Oh, he cheats now that he’s more confident”

“He has a girlfriend at the end of the Cell arc”

“No wait, he hasn’t really gotten over his fear of women, but worked as host in a host bar and then lost his job and lived with Tenshinhan and Chaozu for a bit”

Toriyama has always been forgetful towards his own series. His infamous conversation with Oda when Oda had to remind him who Tao was. He forgot Super Saiyan 2 was a thing. He forgot to draw Launch in the Boo arc and replaced her with #17. He fucking forgot that the recent Dragon Ball anime/manga was called DB Super, which is why the last movie was called Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. So a lot of what the guy says in interviews is most likely the result of him making shit up on the fly because people just wouldn’t let Dragon Ball end.

Basically, Yamcha was the sacrificial lamp for most of the series. Was given a bad hand multiple times and is still a good dude in spite of it. I could write for days on how many issues I have with the Dragon Team just accepts Vegeta before he actually shows any redeeming qualities.

[liquidstar]

Is there a character in re zero who hasn't killed subaru once?

Okay, here's my complete answer guide to the question “Has this character killed subaru?” lets go (NOTE: ONLY UP TO ARC 6, NOT INCLUDING WHAT:IFS!)

Emilia camp:

Emilia: Has not! Starting off strong!

Puck: Froze him to death a couple times

Rem: Killed him once and then tortured him until her sister mercy killed him

Ram: Mercy killed him that one time, and also attempted to murder him in cold blood multiple times. Once in arc 2 and twice in arc 6 (Though one of those was a misunderstanding) 

Beatrice: Has not killed him, but she got dangerously close to when she zapped his mana

Roswaal: Not directly, but pretty much every death in arcs 1-4 was his doing indirectly so… Yeah.

Otto: He threw him off the carriage to be eaten by the white whale, though it didn’t work he still died

Garfiel: Absolutely. A couple times.

Ryuzu: Kind of sort of. Not on purpose exactly.

Frederica: No, she unknowingly sent him to his death by following Roswaal’s directions though.

Petra: Kind of the same as Frederica but even less at fault because she’s 12

Patrasche: She bit his fucking head off but she’s still a good girl

Subaru: Subaru holds the record for the most Subaru deaths caused by a character directly. He’s unwell.

Anastasia camp:

Anastasia: Not really? Eridna tried to kill him while possessing her body

Julius: Yes, but it was a mercy kill

Joshua: No, I don't think he could if he tried

Ricardo: No he���s too cool

Any of the triplets: No but I think they could if they worked together

Crusche camp:

Crusche: I’m sure it came to mind, but no.

Ferris: Aided with the aforementioned mercy kill but didn't directly kill him

Wilhelm: No way, that’s his grandpa

Priscilla camp:

Priscilla: No but I think she threatened to at least once

Al: No they’re bros

Schult: The sickly Victorian orphan? No.

Heinkel: Nope but he should kill himself instead

Felt camp: 

Felt: Hasn’t killed him, but tried to when she thought he was breaking into her house

Reinhard: Indirectly killed him by killing Sirius

Rom: No. But he did eat his chips.

Ton, Chin, and Kan: Mugged him in multiple loops, though Chin is the only one who actually stabbed him, and the others freaked out implying they had no intention of actually killing him.

Witch cult:

Petelgeuse: Technically he never killed Subaru directly, he sure as hell did torture him though.

Regulus: Tried to, but somehow the immortal man was killed by the guy who dies all the time. Irony.

Sirius: Fucking Christ yes

Capella: Technically not directly

Gluttony siblings: Ley killed him once in arc 6, and Roy might have some kills because his body was kind of being possessed by Reid but that’s about as murky as the Anastasia/Eridna situation

Witches of sin: None of them tried to kill him directly but they did have a huge debate about whether or not he should kill himself. Echidna especially loved the idea of him killing himself as much as possible. 

Others: 

Elsa: Did the vampire serial killer kill him? Did she? Yes. Yes she did.

Meili: A few times. In arcs 2, 4, and 6!

Shaula: Yes, with her light sniper and as a giant scorpion. Girlboss!

Ried: Kind of, but again it was Roy’s body, sort of. It’s complicated.

Naoko and Kenichi: NO!!!!!!!!!!!!! NOT THEIR DARLING BABY SON!!!!!!!!

Kadomon: No he’s just here to sell apples

[aho-dapa]

About the post about shipping whatever couple, I actually had to think a lot about a ship, but Lord Thanatos(or whatever his name was)'s daughter (the one from CoN who Keir said her father needed to handle with his [Keir's] help) and... Jurian (don't judge me, he seems like the impossible choice, I don't think they even have a chance to meet).

hmm a challenge indeed, but no challenge frightens me??

also because you're anon, idk where you stand but it gets very anti rhys, feyre critical, and anti sjm

omg my whole post deleted 😭 whyyy

Okay so here goes again

Lord Thanatos, his daughter, Mor, and Azriel are all planning a rebellion because Mor hates how the Hewn City is treated and Azriel has always been a pawn of the High Lords of the Night Court since serving Rhys's father (uhhhhh cassian is being a himbo and Amren is controlled by no one but her own whims)

Somehow Lucien gets in on it because he doesn't like that Rhys is manipulating Feyre with mind magic (Lucien can tell because he's has Helion's shielding powers and can protect parts of his mind from daemati abilities) and also indirectly the cause of his friend spiraling and the destruction of most of the spring court

Lucien brings Thanatos's daughter to the manor he's staying at and also tries to help Tamlin but that's where she meets Jurian

Jurian rn ain't doing too great after being an eyeball for centuries and all that, so he agrees to help when the time comes since he feels like rebellions are familiar to him and he can be useful

In which after the Night Court's horrible political moves that affected both their own court but summer and spring as well (also Helion sides with Lucien and they go on a mini quest to kill Beron with Eris helping them)

This time period is very much giving Sengoku with how many people's power and rule are being challenged and displaced

Anyway Rhys dies, Feyre is free from mind manipulation but is still also very much in love with Rhys

Due to magic succession, Mor becomes the new High Lady of the Night Court and actually changes everything for the better and also Feyre and Mor go through stuff and fall in love and raise Nyx

Thanatos's daughter becomes Steward of Hewn City and Jurian spends some time there after wandering around (Vassa rn currently is not cursed and Koschei doesn't exist)

And he finds peace in helping Hewn City (and mortal relations) rebuild itself

Maybe despite rebelling, Jurian feels out of place helping in the mortal realm because it's so different while the fae world is bitterly familiar due to how it stagnates

Instead Lucien and Vassa and Nesta (and bunch others) help with rebuilding the mortal lands near Prythian and Jurian helps when needed

But then Jurian falls for her stewardessness and finds a bit of happiness and peace they both need

[sissytobitch10seconds]

Long Lost

Fandom: The Umbrella Academy Summary: They realize after a while that Five took Seven with him when he left. Now both of them are gone, and soon so is Six. But two out of three returning isn't bad, right? Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, pseudo-incest, mentions of pedophilia/child trafficking, and accidental misgendering Word Count: 10,371 Ship(s): Viktor Hargreeves/Five Hargreeves

Archive link!

A/N: So if you're noticing that this fic isn't the kind of thing I write anymore, you would be correct. This was actually written almost an entire year ago and has gone through several different stages. I went between making it a chaptered fic and writing the whole first season with this AU and just making it this oneshot. I totally burned myself out writing my fiktorla fanfiction series and don't want to write canon rewrites anymore, so I'm leaving this as a oneshot. I tried to edit it as much as I could but there might be issues or typos that I missed since I was kind of skimming it. I also think it's funny that this has been on my 'to upload' list longer than I've actively interacted with some of my TUA mutuals. Have fun reading! Stay sissy and bitchy everyone <3

Funerals were something that they attended more often than most people would think. Many of their adoring fans had speculated that the few publicized funerals, which had been for make-a-wish kids, were the only ones that they had to attend. However, the Umbrella Academy superheros were often forced to attend the funerals of those that they had failed to save as a way of punishing them. Reginald would spend the entire car trip informing them of what a piss-poor job they had been doing by not showing up right as the crime had been committed or beforehand to save absolutely everyone. It was only when they got older did they realize he was doing it to keep them in their place and stop them from lashing out. 

The funerals that were hardest to attend were the ones that they had actually failed to save. It didn't happen often, but there had been a couple missions that went wrong. Those missions usually resulted with them being bedridden with injuries and attending the funerals of everyone that they had failed to save. Allison had been instructed to rumor anyone who recognized them at the smaller funerals. They were never allowed to apologize to the family of those that they had lost.

The worst funeral that any of the children had ever had to attend was Ben's. He died when they were seventeen after a mission that had gone worse than any of the others that they did at the beginning of their careers. It was somehow so much more grueling and traumatizing than the actual mission, or having to attend the funeral of the woman he had killed in the accident. It was already harrowing and difficult to have lost their brother, but the new portrait inside the house over the mantel seemed to make it even worse. Five and Seven had already been gone for almost five years by the time that Ben died, and yet Five was the one that hung in eternal remembrance over their fireplace. Ben got a statue in the backyard and ignored after the funeral had been used to control the children even more.

It was most likely the reason that so many of them had run. Klaus was the first to leave, just a couple months after Ben had passed away. They had no idea where he had gone. One day they woke up and found his bedroom window open and half of his possessions gone. They had done some searching around The City, but every time they got word of someone that looked vaguely like their missing brother, they ended up losing the trail.

Diego left on their seventeenth birthday with the promise that he was going to join the police force. He was sent to an apartment that their father had already paid for after packing up all of his things. Both of the others knew that the only reason he wasn't completely out in the world is that he was still doing what Dad wanted him to, even if he was doing it indirectly now.

Allison left next. She waited until she was nineteen when she finally left. It was the dead of night after a rather harsh fight with Luther. They were arguing more and more now that it was just the two of them trying to keep the foolish superhero business alive. Luther was always desperate for their father's attention and Allison wanted them both to grow into their own people. He would refuse to go out with her into town to see a movie or eat at a diner like they used to when they were kids, back when there were seven of them instead of two. They got into it, arguing about everything under the sun and a few stranded in space. She had packed up her things and said goodbye to her mother and Pogo, leaving only a note for the two men in the house. She then charmed her way onto a plane to Los Angeles where she could live out her dreams as an actress.

Luther technically never left. He stayed by their father all throughout his teenage years and then deep into his twenties. The only reason that he ever left residence in the house was to go on the mission to the Moon, and even then he was still only going where his father wanted him to.

It had been four years since any of the children had occupied the house when they all returned to it. 

They had decided to forgo a funeral with the general public because of Klaus' condition and Allison's newfound fame. Instead, they all returned back to their childhood home so that they could hold a familial memorial service and then return to their lives. None of them had stayed in contact with each other since they had left the dreaded house anyway.

Despite their haste at getting away from the abuse of their father to live their own lives, all four siblings ended up returning. Diego was the first to arrive since he had kept tabs on the house while doing vigilante work around The City after failing the police academy. Klaus was next, since he was still bumming around the town he had grown up in while trying to look for the next hit that would keep his demons at bay. Allison had the shortest trip out of the last two siblings so arrived next, and the last to come home was Luther. 

The interactions were inevitable, but they still somehow put it off.

Diego was helping Grace with something in the kitchen, purposefully ignoring all of the signs of wear and tear in her code that caused her to act a little off. He loved his mother unlike he had loved anyone or anything else in his entire life. She was his constant source of endless comfort and encouragement when he had been struggling through his stutter and learning disorders as a child, so he was a little blind to the faults that she might have.

The door clicked behind Allison as she finally got back to her childhood home. "Hello? Is anyone else here?" she called through the still air. It was like walking back in time the second she passed through that door. She was no longer the famous actress, mother, and wife that she had been before she got on the plane. She was nineteen, fresh off a sort-of break up with her sort-of brother. 

Diego took his mother's arm, guiding her away from the rice that she had been rinsing to cook on the stove for that night's dinner. "Allison, welcome home," Grace chirped as soon as she caught sight of her daughter.

"Mom," the woman's gaze softened from that defensive, wary look they all took on when they were back in their childhood home. She rushed over to her mother, wrapping her arms around the robot to bring her into a hug. "It's great to see you again. Sorry I never visited."

"It's alright dear. I was programmed to take care of you as children, and you're no longer a child. I was aware that you were all going to grow up and leave the nest eventually," she chuckled. "Diego told me that you made your dream to be an actress."

"Oh, yeah," she nodded. "I got married and had a kid too."

"Didn't know that," Diego commented, moving his head to the side as he looked over his sister. She wasn't that different than when they were kids, other than the outfits that she was allowed to wear now that she had some bodily autonomy. She had also changed the color and style of her hair.

She turned away from their mother to look over him as well. Diego had barely changed from when they were teenagers, other than the hardened look in his eyes. He had a couple new scars marring the lower parts of his neck, no doubt also streaking across his abdomen and shoulders. "Well, the wedding got a little bit of publicity but Patrick and I made sure that Claire wasn't ever in the spotlight. I never get to go out with her in public, but it's for her safety," Allison explained.

"I didn't know that I would be a grandmother after all this time," Grace said lovingly. While she had originally been programmed to be nothing more than a nanny to them all, when they started to call her mom, her program had seemingly adjusted itself to fit the more human nature they had given her. "Do you have any pictures of her?" the android asked, bringing both of her children back towards the kitchen.

"I do, actually," Allison replied. She dug her wallet out of her backpocket after depositing her bags near the door for retrieval later. She flipped it open and then revealed a picture of a little girl around four years old sitting on Allison's lap while laughing at something her mother had just said. "This is my daughter, Claire."

"She looks just like you, my dear," Grace praised. She sat both of her children down at the non-formal dining room table where they would take their breakfasts. Lunch was something that they got to eat wherever they wanted, and then dinner was taken in the formal dining room with their father. She placed more snacks than either of them could ever eat down on the table in front of them before she went back to her work.

The silence was stifling before Diego managed to find the words to ask more about her life. He already knew most of what she could tell him about the actress part, since it was well publicized, but he enjoyed hearing the stories of her daughter and husband that she was willing to share. He was willing to give her a little bit about his life as well. He told her about his vigilante work, though he dodged the questions about the girl she had heard he was dating back when she left for LA.

The conversation got a lot easier when their brother stumbled into the room. He was babbling at someone behind him, either a figment of his imagination or one of the ghosts he swore roamed the halls when he was a child. He turned on his heel and then stopped dead in his tracks when he noticed that it wasn't just his robotic caretaker, but two of his siblings. "Allison! Diego!" he crowed as he saw them. He removed the cigarette or blunt or whatever he was smoking from between his lips as he moved to hug them, ignoring how they were leaning away from him. "What a surprise!"

"Surprise? It's our father's memorial," Allison objected, giving him a firm pat on the back to make him detach from her.

He did, flopping down at the head of the table that had remained unoccupied since Seven and Five had disappeared almost seventeen years ago. "So how've the two of you been?"

"We've been living lives," Diego replied. He had his arms defensively crossed over his chest and was examining his brother like he was a criminal (which, knowing Klaus, he probably was). "What have you been doing, Klaus?"

"Seeing the universe, running away from demons, mooching off poor old schmucks too scared to come out to their wives. Same old, same old," he shrugged.

"It's good to know that you're not dead," Allison, glancing over to her other brother and their mother. It had been a serious concern for the remaining heroes when Klaus had left and never come back. They had all known about the alcoholism and the drugs, especially when they found ecstasy in his stuffed animals while searching his room for clues. It had only led them further down the path to believing that he had overdosed in an alley somewhere after getting a bad batch of his newest poison and they were never going to see him again.

"Mm, thought about it a couple times but decided that life was so much more fun!" Klaus gave them a near-demented smile. His eyes were rimmed with two different types of black, one eyeliner and the other bruises from lack of sleep, and they were sunk back into his face. Around the facial hair he had somehow managed to keep well-maintained they could see the way that his skin stretched across the bones of his skull. Underneath the huge feathered coat he was wearing, it was also apparent that he had been doing more substances than eating in the last thirteen years. "After all, if I had told the EMTs to go fuck themselves the last time I OD'd then I never would have been able to attend Dad's lovely memorial service."

Allison felt her heart melt a little in her chest despite herself. She might not have been as emotional as a sober Klaus or Ben had been, but she still loved her family. Seeing Klaus alive had been a huge relief for her, as was hearing (in his own odd, roundabout way) that he had wanted to keep living so that he could see them again. 

Diego, on the other hand, was less moved by his ramblings. He leaned towards the other man menacingly, "You came back here to steal shit to pawn, didn't you? You did the same thing when he left to go to Mexico with Luther and Allison. Sold a bunch of shit and then did meth in the attic."

"Meth doesn't settle well with me," Klaus shuddered. He had been awake for a solid seventy hours, which meant that the nightmares when his body actually shut down and got some sleep were so much worse. He had stayed away from anything close to an upper since then, preferring things like ketamine and weed. Things that sedated him into a comforting dozing state where he could avoid the ghosts in both his waking and sleeping mind.

Both of the sober siblings glanced at each other, having a conversation that their brother didn't care to be privy to. This was going to be a tense couple of days while they waited for Luther to return from his moon mission.

---

Their interaction with their remaining brother had gone about as well as they had been expecting it to. After so long being by himself and only sending voice recordings back to their father as his proof that life still existed, he was a little manic about the man. He had spent most of his first day back, after giving them all a curt greeting, rummaging through their father's bedroom and study despite the proof of death and how he had been killed being provided to him in the coroner's report.

The next day they had actually been able to persuade him to attend the memorial they wanted to do now that they were all together.

All four siblings walked solemnly out into the courtyard, the urn containing the ashes of their father's body tucked carefully under Luther's arm. Pogo was the only one that wanted to speak to remember their father. Despite everything that he had done for Reginald and his obvious loyalty, Luther had remained silent when the old ape had asked if anyone wanted to speak. The eulogy had resulted in Diego and Luther getting in a fight, and Allison storming back inside. The last thing that happened in the courtyard, until later that night, was Klaus stubbing his cigarette out on the ashes.

They were all pretending to get along with each other for the sake of their robotic mother. At this point, all of the siblings could tell that something was up with her. She had been acting erratic and had even made an error with dinner the night before. If she was human this wouldn't have been at all alarming considering the fact that their father had just died, but she was a robot programmed to be the perfect housekeeper and mother. She had never once in their entire lives made a mistake when it came to cooking or cleaning.

"What's that?" Klaus asked suddenly. They ignored him until he got up, wandering towards the window. Something was swirling outside like a storm, right in the backyard where they had held the terrible memorial earlier that day. It was shedding black and blue lights onto the tile floor despite the yellow light fixtures hanging every three feet in the room.

Diego shot up out of his seat as soon as he caught sight of whatever was happening outside. Luther and Allison hurried after their brother, Klaus only turning to follow after a good five minutes. The siblings stumbled out into the pouring rain to look up at the vortex that was causing the ashes from earlier, along with a lot of the fall leaves, to swirl through the air in a mad jumble.

"What is that?" Allison called, holding a hand up to her face to try and block out the aggressive wind.

"Get behind me! It could be dangerous," Luther shouted over the blistering noise that was emitting from the swirling energy in front of them. It looked vaguely familiar in a way that Allison couldn't quite put her finger on, and less familiar to the other three ex-superheroes.

"Yeah, get behind us!" Diego shouted as he moved so that he was at the same level of closeness to the vortex as their much bigger brother. No one was trying to move closer to it, but Luther and Diego didn’t actually care about that. They just wanted to act like they could fight whatever it was.

Allison rolled her eyes but didn't try to argue with them, just brought all of her attention back to trying to figure out the fuzzy shapes that were beginning to lean closer to the other side of the vortex. She let out a screech when she was pushed back by Klaus. A stream of fluffy white foam rained down on them before they all realized that he had stolen one of the numerous fire extinguishers stocked around the house. The irony of it was that they had one in almost every room exactly for the purpose of putting out Klaus-related fires. When he had run out of the extinguisher fluid, he just chucked it through the vortex. 

"What was that supposed to do?" Diego snarked, turning to look at their drugged brother. Allison was the only one to notice that it hadn't fallen through the other side like it would have had this been a cloud like she had suspected.

They all backed up in a panic as the vortex began to swirl louder and louder. Two figures were pushing through the center that had turned more beige and green than the swirling white and blue on the outside. Before any of the four ex-heroes could react, two people tumbled down onto the ground in front of them.

"Is it just me or is that little Number Five that I see?" Klaus asked, moving so that his chest was pressed up against Allison's arm. 

The two figures that were lying on the ground were about the size of teenagers, but it was a little hard to tell since they were hunched over like they were in pain. They were both wearing neatly pressed black and white suits, though one of the figures looked as if his clothing had all been enlarged on a scale his body hadn’t followed. The shirt and jacket cuffs pooled around his hands as he tried to push himself off the ground, and the pant legs were like huge bags around his stick legs. They both had ruffled brown hair from pushing themselves through the portal. The man that fit better into his suit seemed to have a smattering of scars over the exposed parts of his skin as well.

When Klaus’ words really sunk in and they had more than a few seconds to look at the new arrivals, the other siblings nodded in agreement, but were too shocked to do much else. So much grief piled back onto them as they looked at the form of the brother that they had lost far too early in life. 

Five had always been closest with Seven, who had been ostracized from the rest of them by their father. The only reason that Five got away with hanging around her as often as he did was because of how willing he was to go along with their father's experiments. They had all bonded with him, however, as well as a bit with Seven. They had all been learning in the same classrooms, and they had to take care of Five when they were on their way back from missions but too far away from home to let Seven take over like she was wont to do. Something that had made the disappearance of their siblings even more heartbreaking was that their last interaction they ended up having with them both. It had been all of them refusing to stick up for either of their now-missing siblings while their father berated them for speaking out of turn, Seven, and having delusions of grandeur, Five. The last time they ever saw either of their siblings they had both been inconsolably upset. Five had stormed out of the room and Seven had sat at the end of the table while sobbing until she was finally told to go to her room. After that, neither of them were ever seen again.

Five at least had a portrait hanging in the living room to remember him by, but it was as if Seven had never existed. They could still sometimes hear the phantom playing of her violin, though. She had picked up the instrument when they were young, around the time they started going on longer missions, and played it near constantly. The violin was resting somewhere in the storage space along with the rest of her things. Her room had been packed up shortly after she and Five had disappeared. The grief increased exponentially as they realized that they had some form of their missing brother back, but no sign of their sister.

“Five?” the man that wasn’t their brother called out. He turned around, his eyes wide as he searched for the aforementioned superhero.

Five lurched forward despite having difficulty moving in his baggy clothes. He reached out so that he grasped the other man’s arm and pulled them slightly closer together. “I’m here, I’m here,” he soothed. His hand came up to the cup the back of the stranger’s head so that their foreheads were pressed together. The stranger reached forward so that he was grasping the front of Five’s baggy suit jacket so tight that his knuckles turned white. They stayed pressed together like that for a couple of breaths before Five detached from him and properly got to his feet. The stranger sunk back down so that he was sitting hunched over with his head in his hands.

Five looked around them, mostly up towards the Academy, before his eyes fell on the gathering of siblings that had been dutifully watching from a few feet away. "It worked!" he crowed, a maniacal grin forming on his face. “My dear, it worked,” he turned back to the man that he had come through the portal with, though his smile faltered just a little bit as he began to realize something.

"Sort of.” The stranger slowly began to raise himself up to his feet. He was still holding his head with one hand, like it ached so bad that it might explode if he let go. He looked down at his body, and then swore loudly, "Shit! Five, I told you that you had done something wrong. Look at me!"

A hungry look took over their brother’s eyes for a moment and he licked his lips. He moved forward, grasping the sides of the strangers lapels, "Look at you?”

“Five,” the man growled out before his eyes went wide. He looked up and down the body of the other man a couple of times, like he couldn’t really believe what he was saying. “You might want to take a look at yourself, my dear.”

The teenager looked a bit taken aback about that. He looked down at his body and then back towards his companion, face filled with fury. “Viktor, Look at me! I'm fucking thirteen again!"

The older man, apparently named Viktor, shot him a look that could kill. His attitude seemed to be the perfect mix of humor and anger. His voice was light and teasing but it was clear he was panicked and uncomfortable by his body posture and expression. "So we have the same levels of testosterone, that's great for the both of us," he snarked. 

"Well when we've finished saving the world from doomsday you can go harass the Commision to take you back for medical care, alright?" he sniped. They were snapping back and forth like they were an old married couple, like they had known each other forever. "Maybe they'll even give you that stupid old man body again. You should be grateful that I gave you another chance to be young."

"Maybe you should be grateful you get another chance to go through puberty. Now you know what it was like for me," Viktor replied. The two looked like they were just going to keep going until it ended in an all out brawl. They already had blue and white energy spirals forming around them, similar to what the vortex had been made out of.

Allison stepped around her brothers. She placed her hand over Diego's clenched fist so that he wouldn't be able to chuck a knife at their long-lost brother and his friend. "Okay! How about we all calm down and explain this situation? Who are you and why are you in our backyard?" she directed the question towards Five.

"We're your brothers," he replied, giving them that same smile he had seventeen years ago. He hadn't changed at all, despite talking a little bit differently and wearing clothes that definitely did not fit him.

Luther seemed to snap out of his shock and into the mode of a leader like he did every time they were on a mission. "Not possible. We had one brother that went missing when we were little. The other one is dead," he began to walk closer to the duo. "So tell us who you really are."

Viktor walked so that he was standing so close to Five that their shoulders were almost glued together. Their hands naturally reached down and threaded together. The man standing next to the photocopy of their brother grimaced and then asked, "Who died?" His eyes were flitting over each of the sibling, as if trying to place who they were despite them never having met before.

"Excuse me?" Allison asked, placing a hand on her hip.

"You said that you lost two brothers, one of them died. Which one was it?"

"Ben," Klaus spoke up for the first time since the new arrivals landed in their backyard. "Ben died."

"Shit," Five swore, dragging a hand over the side of his face.

"Explains it though," Viktor commented, shaking his head as well. He turned back to the group of siblings who were eagerly awaiting answers. He cleared his throat and rolled his shoulders to try and give himself the confidence to speak. Five responded to the action by breaking apart their hands and weaving his arm around Viktor’s waist. They were brought even closer together after that, if it was even possible. "Do you remember back when we were all thirteen, how there was a little girl running around the house, who didn't have any powers?" VIktor asked. His dark brown eyes seemed to become more familiar as memories of their missing sister were returned to the four ex-heroes.

They all glanced at each other. Diego spoke for them, "Number Seven, yeah. What's your point?"

"Turns out Number Seven had powers and wasn't a girl. I'm him. Though I prefer to go by Viktor now," he introduced, holding his spare hand out in front of him towards them after removing it from the pocket of his slacks.

Klaus pushed past his siblings so that he was grasping the other man's hand. "Wonderful to re-meet you, dear brother. Now I finally have someone who understands the constraints of gender norms," he gasped as he slung an arm around Viktor's shoulders.

Five actually growled at the action as Viktor was jostled away from him. He bit the edges of his tongue to stop himself when Viktor gave him a gentle look to tell him that it was okay. "We don't have time for this," Five hissed.

He turned towards the house, but just before he had the chance to summon the energy to jump, Viktor detached Klaus from his shoulders and grabbed a hold of him. "If we don't have time to talk to our siblings then we don't have time for you to go all limp and comatose because you overused your power. We're walking," he almost commanded. It was a bit humorous, watching an adult shorter than the teenager dragging him around by his tie.

They pushed past the siblings into the backroom that they had all piled out of, leaving the others behind in their wake. Something was off about this entire situation, which added to the feeling of static electricity that hung heavily in the courtyard from the vortex. The four ex-superheroes glanced at each other before they followed after the duo. The information that they had been given was not enough to really draw any conclusions, but served to make them nervous. 

"Wait, wait, wait," Diego called after them when they finally reached the downstairs kitchen where the two had disappeared. It was late and Grace was already charging in her chair upstairs, leaving them to have the space all to themselves. The rest of the siblings were sticking close to their knife-wielding brother as they also followed after the duo. 

Viktor and Five had very easily made themselves at home. They moved around each other in perfect synchronicity, which caused the siblings to stutter for a moment. Viktor was rifling through a cupboard while standing on his tiptoes to be able to see the second shelf properly. Five moved behind him, placing one hand on his hip so that he could alert the other to his presence. He reached above Viktor so that his chest was pressed flush to the other man's back as he got the item that the shorter man had been struggling to reach. "Hate you," Viktor mumbled, though there was no heat or venom behind it.

"Love you," Five replied, his voice so soft that Allison was the only one able to pick up on it as she had learned to listen for tiny noises during her time with Claire. He pressed a kiss to the side of Viktor's head, his hand moving up from the other man's waist to hold the side of his head. Viktor's eyes fluttered shut for just a moment as the action was completed.

The siblings thought that they'd stop touching after that had finished, but it just kept happening. Slowly, the four of them filtered into the space so that they were sitting around the table. Allison and Luther were sitting on either side of the table, the last setting, while Klaus took up residence in the middle. Diego stood behind Luther, his arms folded over his chest while he ran a knife over his knuckles over and over again.

Viktor turned around so that his front was pressed to Five's and then took the bag of marshmallows from his hand. "Get the peanut butter for me if you're going to rub your height in my face so much," he ducked underneath Five's arm so that he was standing at the very end of the table.

"You're just upset because I'm still taller than you even though I'm stuck as a thirteen-year-old," he teased with a bright, soft smile. They had never seen him look anything like that when they were all kids, before they had disappeared. He had smiled before, but it had always been cocky and full of venom. This was something that felt a little too intimate to be watching, and yet none of the siblings could bear the thought of looking away from their siblings lest they disappear again.

"Maybe I shouldn't be mad at you for still being taller than me," Viktor hummed thoughtfully. Five rearranged himself so that he had his arms wrapped around the other man's waist and his head tucked on Viktor's shoulder. He turned to press a kiss there as the physically older man continued, "Because your error made us stuck in these bodies, you're not going to be getting any-"

"Okay!" Allison shouted over the top of him before the man had a chance to continue. "So are you going to explain what's going on here or do we just have to follow you two around until the secret reveals itself?"

They both sighed. "I guess we do have to tell them," Five muttered.

"Go get the peanut butter," Viktor said, instead of giving them any information relevant to the situation at hand. He nodded with his head and Five followed every single little motion that he made like he was trying to commit it all to memory.

"No, don't wanna let you go," Five muttered as he buried his nose in Viktor's neck.

Viktor dropped the bread that he had been getting out and let out a little giggle. He reached down so that his hands were on top of Five's, rocking them from left to right. "Do you want to eat so we can save the world or not?" he asked after he had sobered up from the rush of happy chemicals the cuddling caused.

Five let out a huffy noise and then immediately popped to the other side of the kitchen with a flash of blue. "I hate that you're always right," he groused as he reached for the peanut butter.

Luther jumped when his brother was no longer where he had been moments prior. "I haven't missed that," he grumbled under his breath.

"I thought we agreed that you were going to be jumping anymore," Viktor shot towards the other, though he held his hand out to the side for the peanut butter despite Five being on the other side of the kitchen.

"I did nothing of the sort," Five snapped shortly as he placed his hand in Viktor's hand instead of the requested item.

"You're an ass," he snapped, though he made no move to drop the hand that he had been offered. Instead he just used it to tug Five closer to him, the teenager-shaped man wrapping both of his arms around Viktor's hips as they had been before.

"Yes, but I'm yours," Five gave another one of those smiles to the shorter man as he pressed a kiss to the spot where Viktor's half-soft jawline met his neck. The aforementioned man let his eyes flutter shut as he leaned back into the touch for just a second.

The siblings on the table had been watching the entire interaction like it was a train wreck, something that no one ever wanted to see but couldn't look away from. It was as if the duo had no idea that there were people around them and that what they were doing looked far too intimate to share with their siblings. "So… you never answered my question from earlier."

"Right. Sorry, I'm not exactly used to having to explain myself," Viktor cleared his throat as a small flush formed over his cheeks. "What's your question?"

"Why didn't you come back until now?" Allison asked.

"What were you saying about the end of the world?" Luther asked.

"Are the two of you a couple?" Klaus asked.

"What have you been doing since you left?" Diego asked.

Each of the questions had been asked on top of each other so that they came out in a confusing jumble. The siblings turned and looked at Klaus while he just stared at the two beings trying their best to become one. "Why would you ask that?" Allison hissed. She couldn't keep the burning feeling of shame and embarrassment as she remembered the flirting she and Luther had when they were teenagers and yesterday when they had seen each other for the first time.

Klaus huffed at her. "We were all thinking it!" he said as he gestured vaguely at the duo. "I mean, they're practically hanging off of each other. That's not normal sibling behavior."

"What does our family know about normal sibling behavior?" Diego asked, raising a brow at Klaus.

Five cleared his throat to get the attention back to him and Viktor. "For your information, we are together. Viktor is my husband."

"We're not legally married," the other man supplied. He had finished spreading peanut butter over four pieces of whitebread and was now placing marshmallows over two in even spaces.

"We have a marriage license!" Five squawked.

Viktor laughed and leaned back into the touch of his husband once more. He turned his head to the side and gave Five a gentle kiss on the cheek to try and soothe him, like it was something he had learned to do a long time ago. "Yeah, one that doesn't have my legal name on it and is from before we were even born," he cackled, which earned him an eye roll from the taller man. He then turned back to his siblings and the food he was making. "The last time that you saw Five and I was… seventeen years ago?"

"What's the date? The exact date," Five said, interrupting his lover's explanation.

"We're the ones that are supposed to be asking the questions," Luther tried to challenge. He moved forward in his chair like he was going to stand up and try to intimidate them, but he barely even got a blink from either of the others. He was a little bit put out by that, confused about how they had changed so much in their time away from the family. When they were younger, before the two of them had left, Seven would cower away from him whenever he got anywhere close. Now, Viktor seemed completely unimpressed by any intimidation that he was able to scrounge up.

Allison looked towards Luther, extending her hand to rest on top of his own around Klaus. She then turned back to the duo, "It's March 24, 2019."

"Good, we still have time," Five nodded.

"Only seven days," Viktor objected.

"We've gotten a job done in less time than that."

"We had the briefcase back then. We don't have it anymore. And the Commission is going to be trying to come after us."

"They'd be stupid to try that with our powers," Five reached his hand up and got a few strands of Viktor's hair out of his eyes. Now that they were closer, the other siblings were able to see that his hair hung awkwardly in front of his eyes like it had been cut with a knife and without the use of a mirror. 

"That's another thing that we wanted to ask about. Earlier you mentioned that Se-Viktor had powers. Dad told us almost constantly that he didn't, though," Luther spoke up. Diego perked up a bit at that as well. Much like Allison, he had been trying to both listen in on the duo and ignore them as much as possible. Relationships were sensitive for almost all of them, outside of the normal social urge to not want to watch two people make out.

They snapped back to watching their siblings. Viktor placed the sandwiches together so he had made two of the sugary monstrosities that he and Five had been obsessed with when they were little. He handed one to the taller man behind him. Five sat down in the chair closest to that end of the table so that they could still be facing the rest of the family. He reached forward so that his open hand was placed on Viktor's hip and was able to easily pull the shorter man back so that Viktor was situated on his lap. They ate a few bits of the sandwich like it had been years since they had eaten anything at all. Just watching them devour the odd meal gave Allison heartburn.

When he had finally had enough of the sandwich to actually focus, Viktor finally answered the question Luther had asked most recently. "He was lying. Do you remember the medication that I used to take before every meal?" Five let out a near-feral growl from where he was hidden behind Viktor's body. One of his arms was still wrapped tightly around the other man's wait, holding him in place so that they were almost flush to each other. His face was hidden behind Viktor's shoulder as he used his other hand to eat. "Shush, you. Well it turns out that the medication was actually being used to keep me sedated because my powers are half-linked to my emotions. From what we were able to study while we were away, I have the ability to change sound into energy. It means that I can do a lot of things as long as I have sound to manipulate."

"Telekinesis, weather control, energy manipulation, giving life," Five sounded off behind him. "My husband is very talented."

Viktor's cheeks turned a cute shade of pink as he ducked his head. "You're not allowed to call us that when we're in public from here on out. Not until you get a body that fits mine."

"What, you don't want to be married to a thirteen-year-old? What happened to 'til death do us part'?" Five asked, the joking smile dripping from his words.

Viktor just rolled his eyes and finished his sandwich. "To answer your earlier questions," he began.

"Wait, we're just supposed to believe that you suddenly have powers? How are we supposed to trust you over everything that our father told us?" Allison asked nervously. She didn't love their father and she didn't admire him the way that Luther did, but she was still a little bit suspicious of the two newcomers.

The shorter of the two men pulled himself off of his husband. He grabbed a glass from the cupboard and then a fork from the side of the drawer next to the stove. He placed the glass down on the table and knocked into the side of it with the fork. The four siblings watched with rapt attention as Viktor's eyes flickered so that the iris flipped from hazel to pure white. It wasn't the same color white as sclera, this one glowed eerily. There was also a thrumming white-blue glow coming from his chest just below his collar bones. The glass raised and then shattered so that thousands of tiny pieces rained down on the counter.

Klaus let out a shriek and scrambled backwards so fast that he tumbled off the end of the table. Diego snickered but moved to help his brother up anyway. Since Ben had died, the two of them had been interacting every now and again, though it was mostly just Diego taking care of his brother since Klaus was a bit helpless, which resulted in them being closer.

"Wow, okay," Allison leaned back. Her brows furrowed together like she was trying to figure something out. She then gasped and clasped a hand over mouth, "You weren't sick… he made me…"

"What?" Viktor asked as he turned to face her. The glow had completely gone away now that he was no longer trying to use his power. He glanced back towards Five, who he had to move away from when he was planning for the demonstration. There was a wild, panicked expression resting on his features. Five was up in an instant, tangling their hands together.

Allison removed her hands from her face as she explained in a rush, "When we were little, maybe four-ish? Dad told us all that you were sick. He brought you somewhere else, I think it was somewhere down in the basement. He made me go down there and I rumored you. I don't even remember what he made me say but you stopped acting like yourself after that. We all assumed that something you had caught had made you kind of weak and that's why Dad never let us play with you anymore but it must have been something to do with the medication."

"You're the reason that he felt like that all those years?" Five nearly screamed as he whirled around. He was approaching his sister with a predatory stance. For once, he was the one to break contact with Viktor without being told to do so beforehand. "You're the reason that I had to hold him every night while he sobbed his eyes out because he just wanted to be included but couldn't? You're the reason that he went through literal fucking decades of pain because he couldn't control the goddamn star living in his chest?"

"Five, that's enough!" Luther called.

The man rounded on his brother instead. "You're part of the problem too! None of you were ever there for him the way that I was, to see how badly this stupid project of Dad's destroyed him. None of you know how hard it was to try and get him enough confidence in himself to believe that he was worthy of love even though it was only us. Do you know what that kind of abuse does to someone's psyche?" He turned back to Allison.

"It's not that big of a deal, Five," Viktor called out from where he was still standing at the end of the table. He had recovered from his shock of realizing why his entire life felt like a lie, why every single thing that he had done was nothing more than mediocre. It hadn't been because he was actually just lesser than his siblings, but because his brain and every single thing he did had been manipulated by something out of his control.

"No! We promised that if we ever saw the old man that we would kill him because of what he did to us. He turned us into walking experiments, Viktor. Now he's gone before we got the chance to give him what-for and we find out that Allison is the one that made you feel like this," he was seething with rage at this point. He turned back to the woman, taking another predatory step closer to her. "I should kill you and put you out of your misery." 

"FIVE! That is enough," the lights above them flickered, and when the siblings looked back to Viktor they saw that his veins held a bright white glow to them, signifying that his power was activated.

Something about the way that his lover had shouted at him caused Five to snap out of the overprotective stance. He blinked once and then slinked back over to Viktor. As soon as they were close enough to do so, Viktor powered down and grabbed Five's hand. He brought it up to his lips and kissed the middle knuckle. "These are our siblings. They've been through more of Dad's torment than we have, we got out early. They don't deserve to be punished for what he made them do. Do you understand me?"

"Of course, my love. I'm sorry," Five whispered in reply.

Viktor lifted his other hand up and cupped the side of Five's face. He pressed his lips to his lover's for a split second before they separated and pressed their foreheads together. Five tilted his head to the side so that he was leaning further into the touch that Viktor was giving him. "Come on. We have a world that we need to save," he whispered softly, as if it were supposed to be an intimate secret between the two.

Despite the fact that they had answered almost none of the questions asked by their siblings, Five grasped his lover and teleported them both out of the Academy. Klaus, Allison, Diego, and Luther were left blinking at each other and rather shaken. What their siblings had said was frightening, to say the least, and they had no way of trying to figure out what it actually meant.

Viktor groaned when they finally popped back into the correct plane of existence. He hated teleporting with Five, no matter how many times they had done it together. When they were in the apocalypse, they had realized just how well fit their bodies were for the powers that were assigned to them. Anyone else that had to handle their powers faced unexpected consequences, like the nausea that came with teleporting. "I hate that, I hate it," he hissed. 

"I know, my love. It was the fastest way to get us out of there, though. You looked uncomfortable," Five reached a hand up so that he was holding the bottom of Viktor's chin. He tilted the other man's face to the left, right, and then upward to inspect his face in as great detail as he could. Once he was satisfied that all signs of emotional distress had all faded, he leaned forward and kissed the tip of his nose adoringly.

Viktor giggled and then had to break them apart. The parking lot that they were in was most deserted, but he didn't want to risk someone seeing them and getting upset. Especially now that they were stranded at this time with no way of getting to another. They had bigger priorities that Viktor being arrested because of inappropriate conduct with what they saw was a minor.

He looked around to figure out where they had been transported to. When he saw the large neon donut next to the yellow and pink sign his face went soft. "You brought us here?" he asked as he reached out and took Five's hand. They really couldn't resist being apart from each other for too long, even if 'apart' was standing just a few inches from the other.

"Of course I did. It was the first place I thought of. Wasn't too big of a jump either, just down the street. How do you say we get some coffee and talk, husband of mine?" Five asked, smiling towards his lover.

"Sounds wonderful," Viktor replied. He dropped their hands as soon as they were inside the restaurant, which caused Five to pout cutely. His sadness dissipated when he felt what could be seen as a fatherly hand on the small of his back. 

They walked up to the counter and waited for the lone waitress still attending to the restaurant at this hour to notice that they were there. Once she did, she gave them both a warm smile. "Hi, what can I get for you?" she asked, looking directly at Viktor for the information.

"Raspberry filled," he said, tapping the menu in front of him. Neither of them were very good with pleasantries anymore. Saying things in a polite way wasn't necessary when you knew exactly what every twitch and tick from your partner meant. "And a black coffee."

"Right. And for your son, ma'am?" she asked, pointing with the end of her pen towards Five.

"It's sir," Five immediately corrected. "And his son will have a black coffee."

"Right, I'm sorry. It's late," she waved her hand in front of her face, but Viktor could see her embarrassment at her mistake. Despite that, the dysphoria that had been creeping up behind him finally smacked him down. He let Five dig the change from their last mission with the Commission out of his pocket before he fisted it over to the waitress. They moved to sit in one of the booths as soon as she had given them the things that they had ordered.

“You know that you don’t have to do stuff like that, right?” Viktor asked awkwardly. He hadn’t been anticipating his husband becoming that overly protective of him now that he didn’t pass as well as he had before they had come back to the new timeline.

“I do, actually,” Five huffed out. He had already drained about half of the black coffee that they had gotten for him. It was something that he had done every time they had snuck away to Griddy’s when they were younger. Viktor smiled affectionately at him as he felt his heart swell with adoration in his chest. They were sitting across from each other, the furthest apart they had been in a very long time, but their legs were still tangled around the center pole of the table.

Viktor nibbled on the edge of his donut. “What do you think they’re going to do once they’ve discovered that we’ve deserted?”

The other man’s face fell so that it was deadly serious. Had Viktor not been trapped with him in the wasteland when they were both actually thirteen, it would have looked a little silly for someone so visibly young to look so mentally old. “I’ve heard that they do a myriad of things to people that desert their missions or the Commission altogether. I don’t think they’ve ever had someone as powerful as either one of us, independent and certainly not together, do so, however.”

“We can handle anything that they throw at us, I know we can,” Viktor murmured. He reached across the table and took the other man’s hand into his own so that he could thread their fingers together. He was glad that the cafe was mostly empty and the few patrons that were scattered along the bar couldn’t care less about the duo in the corner. Both he and Five knew who they really were and what they really looked like, but Viktor wasn’t looking to be accused of child trafficking or otherwise endangering the man that was his husband.

Five brought the other’s hand to his mouth and pressed a kiss to his knuckles. “With you by my side I think that I could take down the whole board. You are the most amazing person that I have ever met,” Five smiled. His eyes were shining with a kind of happy-romantic emotion that had been and always would be reserved for Viktor.

Sometimes, despite the fact that they had been together since they were thirteen and married since they were twenty, it still felt like they were love sick teenagers that had just discovered what real love felt like. Viktor hoped that they could keep that feeling alive and burning inside of them once they finally got the chance to save their siblings. Viktor had spent so long with his husband right by his side that it was nearly impossible for him to so much as imagine a world in which Five wasn’t right there with him.

They lapsed into silence for a little bit as they processed everything that had happened. Portaling through space and time wasn’t something that they were unused to, but so much had changed in the world that they had left decades ago. Something was still burning in the back of Viktor’s brain, a loose thread that neither of them had ever had the time to talk about before they had decided that they needed to execute their plan.

“Five?” he asked after a moment. He had already finished eating the jelly-filled donut that they had purchased and was using the pointer finger of his free hand to pick up the powdered sugar that had escaped him.

“Yes, beloved?” the other assassin asked as he set his cup of coffee down.

“Are we sure that the apocalypse starts on April first?”

The question had been plaguing Viktor since they began the process of getting back to the time where they could stop it. When he noticed, over his husband’s shoulder when they were still struggling through the wastelands, that Five was computing for almost seventeen years after the time where they had left. Viktor had figured out that the other man meant to stop the apocalypse instead of putting them back in the time where they belonged. That wasn’t really what disturbed him, but the date that his husband had chosen to revolve his computations around did.

“What other time would it be?” Five asked, his brows furrowing together like he didn’t understand why it was being questioned.

“You can get so wrapped up in your own head sometimes,” Viktor whispered. He adored his husband so much that his heart ached obnoxiously in his chest, but he could still be frustrated by him quicker than almost anyone else. “Five, how do we know for sure that the paper was printed on the day that that apocalypse started? It’s not like the headlines were about the moon exploding or the sky raining down on the world. It was about standard news headlines and the sports for the day. Nothing in that paper would imply that day specifically is when the apocalypse is starting.”

“I…” he paused. “I guess that we have to assume that whatever starts the apocalypse happens on that day because otherwise the headlines would have been talking about it.”

“I think that we should just be wary about the dates being wrong, is all. It’s been bothering me for a while and I wanted to talk to you about it before we really got going on looking for the owner of the glass eye,” Viktor explained. Sometimes when he got nervous he still overexplained himself like he was the timid twelve-year-old that he had been when they ran as far away from the Umbrella Academy as they could.

His husband was adoring and compassionate so didn’t judge him for it, even for a moment. “We’re going to figure this out, Viktor. I promise you that.”

They sat in silence for a moment longer before the doors into the cafe burst open so hard that the glass in the left door shattered down onto the floor. The sounds of shards hitting linoleum wasn’t something that was unfamiliar to either of them, and neither was what happened next. They heard the sound of gunshots, three shots flying through the the air and into the wall behind them as they ducked underneath the table with perfect synchronicity.

“I didn’t think that they would be able to find us that quickly,” Viktor muttered under his breath. He glanced towards the other assassin to make sure that he was still in one piece, and once he was reassured of that, focused back to the task at hand. He summoned up as much of his power as he could with how hungry he was after only a single donut and fluffernutter sandwich. He didn’t know where his body was in the recovery process that he had to go through after they were tugged out of the wasteland by their manager, so he didn’t want to overdo it just in case.

He translated the sound of the gunshots, pumping it through his body until it had turned into wieldable energy. He could feel it pulsing out from the bright white-blue light that was glowing just underneath his heart. He wrapped it around his hands and then pushed it out around them so that it was making a convex shield towards the enemies still shooting at them. The bullets hit the wall of energy and immediately condensed down into a coin before they dropped harmlessly down to the ground. The force that they were propelled with only served to push them a few steps back every time one of the bullets hit the shield.

Five walked behind Viktor, calculating every single possibility that might happen during the fight before he jumped into action. While the agents that had been sent to kill them focused on Viktor, he teleported behind them without a single one of the agents noticing. He jumped up so that he could wrap his arms around the closest agent’s neck and then jerked it to the side so that the spine held inside snapped. By that point, the others had noticed and turned towards him instead of Viktor.

He had just teleported away by the time that his husband released a burst of energy, removing the shield from where it was taking his energy, so that it knocked them all over. He grabbed one of the guns that had tumbled down to the ground and then fired it at the closest man next to him. He tossed it to the side when Five reappeared then and shot the shield back up where it needed to be as some of the other agents began to wake up. 

The other patrons and the cafe worker were completely hidden from where the agents were, so they didn’t have to worry about being stopped by them or having to protect civilians. They systematically took out each of the Commission workers until none of them were left. He didn’t usually do his kills like that when he was working alone, which was something he had only done a handful of times since he worked so much better with Viktor. Usually he was a lot more creative in his kills since he had the ability to surprise people with his teleporting anyway. With his husband by his side, however, he just wanted to get it done and over with as quickly as he could so that they could move on. 

Five tossed the gun down onto the body closest to him and then grabbed a knife that was laying, forgotten, on the table closest to the door. Viktor threaded their bloody, sticky fingers together immediately after he lowered the shield of energy that he had created. They then walked out into the cold night, already discussing where they thought the trackers might be. 

[oldnwise]

Stories I started and never knew where to take them...

I have a bunch of story snippets and ideas and things I played around with and many of them I just couldn't decide where to take them.

This one I liked but it seemed to be just too much like so many other stories of the same theme so it just sat there as I tried to come up with something different. So far, nothing different has occurred to me...

Apparently, suiciding via Darth Vader’s lightsaber to save Vader’s own children was considered, by the Light, to be worthy of a second chance.  Obi-Wan’s claim of being more powerful than his once-upon-a-time friend and brother had perhaps been a bit grandiose, if well intentioned.  Oddly it turned out to be true, even if indirectly, when the said Force determined that balance must be achieved by returning a tired old Jedi into the body of a somewhat less tired and younger Jedi at a pivotal moment in his past life. 

And when he returned to life and rather quickly recognised his situation, it seemed to be time to reconsider his options, especially as it related to Anakin Skywalker, and the aspect of the Force that needed to have balance applied to it.

“I am what you made me.”

Obi-Wan shuddered.  One moment he’d felt the scarlet lighsaber slice through him and being taken from life and into the Force, and the next – he was staggering upright, a lit lightsaber in both hands, and very much alive.  He blinked, trying to clear his focus and the Force hit him in a wave of familiar power.  The world around him was dark but that was simply the lack of normal light because it was night, and the weapon in his shaking hands cast a blue/white glow, almost blindingly bright.  But that voice was also all too familiar.  He lowered the ‘saber as he tried to collect his thoughts, to make sense of what had happened. 

But it seemed he wasn’t going to be given a lot of time to make sense of anything because the undeniable living bulk of Darth Vader…Anakin..started stomping towards him, the same lightsaber that had quite recently killed him held in his hands.

Mapuzo his damaged memory supplied.  Or perhaps the Force did in a handy sudden download of information to his aching mind.  He’d fought (fairly badly) against Vader there and barely escaped with his life after Vader had given into an urge to torture his old Master.  And for some reason the Force or Fate or something else had deposited him back there to enjoy the experience again.

“Wait!”  He held up a hand and, surprised, Vader had stopped.  “We need to talk.”

A snort of dark amusement came from the masked figure.  “We do not.”  He started walking again and, despite a reasonable instinct to back up, Obi-Wan stayed where he was.  As Vader reached him, he remembered the words he’d seen carved in the wall of the hut not far from where they stood.

Only when the eyes are closed can you truly see

He needed to focus, to block out everything, to think.  He closed his eyes and sought the Way.  Normally it would show him the Light but this time he sensed the Darkness in Vader, growing stronger moment by moment.  The Way of the Force, it seemed to say, was this time not into the Light, but closer to the Darkness, to find that balance in the Force that Anakin was meant to be.  It seemed more was required of him than to simply die again.

Obi-Wan opened his eyes that were filled with the humming buzz of a lightsaber very close to him and the man who held it filling his vision.

“No,” he whispered.  He looked at the lightsaber in his hand tossed it away.  No more fighting, no more cutting away at whatever was left of his friend.  “No,” he said again as he watched the dark figure pause, sensed his curiosity.  “I will not fight you.  Not again.”

Darth Vader…Anakin…walked the last couple of steps towards him, using a sliver of the Force to lift the fallen lightsaber into his hand.  “If you hope for mercy from me, you will be disappointed.”

“I expect nothing,” Obi-Wan said, holding himself firm as Vader came very close, the red light of his lightsaber casting an eerie glow in the half-dark.  “I am yours to do with as you wish.”

“Why?”  The voice was harsh, edged with uncertainty. 

“Because I am tired.  Tired of living in holes and hovels, sleeping in the dirt and scrounging for food.  I am tired of losing, it’s taken too long to get to the end of that loss.  And I’m very tired of being alone.”

Vader clipped Obi-Wan’s lightsaber to his belt as he stood and raised his own bright blade and Obi-Wan closed his eyes to not see another fatal strike.  He waited for the pain but when it didn’t come he opened his eyes and watched the brightness disappear.  A fierce mechanical grip took hold of his arm and pulled him forward so that he stumbled into the armored body and was held in place, looking up and up.

“I have searched for you for a very long time.”

“I didn’t even know you were alive.”

“And now that you do, you think you know me, know what to expect from me?”

The grip had hardened as both hands held him and he wondered if he imagined the brief shudder in that regulated breathing, or the slight shake of the iron grip.  “I don’t know what you are now, or how much of what you were remains.   We have each lost so much of ourselves.”  He licked dry lips and thought of ashes.  “But I would like to find out.”

He was released so suddenly that he stumbled, but managed to stand.  Vader stepped back and turned.  “What you wish or like is irrelevant.  You will follow me.” 

There was the assumption of control in that deep, mechanical tone but then Obi-Wan had basically handed himself over so running away again was hardly an option.  He followed, walking to one side and slightly behind the striding figure, feeling strangely serene.  He hoped that Tala had Leia and was on her way to Alderaan, but all of that was currently outside his control.  All he could do was centre Vader’s attention him and bury every thought and feeling about the children as deeply as he could.  The knowledge of Luke and Leia was one part of himself he could not reveal.  The rest was unpredictable, and oddly exciting.