#so this is kind of the bare essentials 'on the premise that they all hang out' version

[wishlikes]

Couldn't stop thinking about Them and had to draw this out. This is how they are. To me.

In case you can't read my handwriting, I've typed it all out and put it under the cut

Mob & Ritsu - brothers

Mob & Teru - romantic (at least from Teru's end...)

Teru & Ritsu - brother-in-law vibes

Ritsu & Shou - I don't know what this is but it's def on the aro spectrum

Mob & Tome - the strongest bonds of autism

Mob & Shou - it's polite and awkward for the LONGEST time... and then the prank war begins (also bro-in-law vibes 2.0)

Tome & Ritsu; Tome & Shou; Tome & Teru; Teru & Shou - basically no canon evidence for how they interact but it can't be anything other than chaos

[goldeneyedgirl]

okay, I need to know what sex worker alice is

Sex Worker Alice has had a few forms, but the current one is basically looking at how outdated and rigid the Cullens' view of sex and relationships is; and how Bella acts like she's very alone when she's so loved and supported by many non-Cullen characters.

The premise is that Alice - a year younger than Bella - is a foster kid in Forks, who has a relationship with Jasper. They have a lot of plans for the future until Breaking Dawn; afterward, the Cullens pack up and leave suddenly without telling Alice, convincing Jasper and themselves that this is to keep her safe from the Volturi. Being a foster kid, Alice has no support in a post-high school world and ends up moving to Seattle to take up sex work to save enough to go to college. Alice is nearly twenty when she runs into the Cullens in Seattle (back to visit Charlie).

It's kind of interesting writing that dynamic because you've got Rosalie's history, you've got Emmett who has supported Rose through her trauma, you've got Esme's trauma, you've got the religious views of Carlisle and Edward, you've got Carlisle's savior complex, you've got Bella who has essentially been bubble wrapped by the people who love her, you've got the entire family's very old fashioned views on women and sex, and then you've got Jasper who is not only emotionally invested, but also knows what it's like to hit rock bottom in hell and have to carve out some kind of life with the tools at their disposal.

And then you have Alice, who is angry and hurt and trusts none of them. She's making reasonable money in the hopes of going to college for a career that she has no passion for but will guarantee a home and a paycheck. She's dealing with a lot of very banal and ugly human problems that the Cullens have never dealt with or think themselves above. Plus 2 years for the Cullens? Barely noticeable. Two years for a human, especially at 18-20 years old? Formative.

So yeah, totally self-indulgent, overly dramatic and angsty but I'm having a good time.

I sat opposite Emmett and Rosalie, and I didn’t have the energy to leave as the waitress brought me some food. Grilled cheese sandwich and iced tea. I was exhausted and I wanted to go home, even if home was half a jar of peanut butter and passing out on the futon without taking my shoes off. 

“What do you want to know?” I asked, reaching for a napkin to wrap half my sandwich in to save for breakfast. I’d have to get some groceries in the morning. 

“Well, we don’t really,” Emmett said, frowning as I tucked my sandwich half in my bag. He wouldn’t get it - he didn’t eat food, and if he had, there was no way a Cullen would ever go hungry. “We kind of got all of Bella’s story and none of yours.”

I took a bite out of my sandwich. “Just ask Jasper,” I said. “He knows pretty much everything. I’m not that interesting.”

“We’d like to hear it from you,” Rosalie replied, and I reached for my tea.

“Why now? Because you have some moral objection to how I earn a living? Because you pity me?” I shrugged. “Foster kid my entire life. Working to save for college. That’s it, there’s nothing else to say.”

“We feel bad,” Emmett supplied, “that Bella…”

“Got everything?” I said conversationally. “The ring, the wedding, the family? The money, the education? That you all know her middle name and her mom’s name and whatever name she gave her first goldfish?” 

They both looked stunned. “What? I’m not going to make myself a liar and say that it doesn’t hurt or that I wouldn’t have liked those things. You bonded with Bella. That’s good - you’ll be stuck with her for a while.”

“Yeah, but we could have…” Emmett began, and I shook my head.

“What, taken an interest in the junior that your brother was hanging out with? Why?” I drained my drink and reached for the last bit of my sandwich. “Unless there’s a specific detail you want, this just feels like some kind of pity party, like I’m the current Cullen charity case.”

“Don’t be such a brat,” Rosalie snapped. 

“Don’t be so entitled,” I retorted. “You don’t get me to spoon-feed you my story because you cornered me after work. The cost of a sandwich doesn’t entitle you to my trauma because you’ve all suddenly come to the conclusion that disappearing without warning was a shitty thing to do.”

“Alice, we want to help,” Emmett pleaded, looking so sad. And I ignored that, picking up my bag and coat and sliding out of the booth. I tossed some crumpled bills onto the table. 

“And I’m sure the Alice from two years ago who thought maybe she’d finally found some people who could one day be her family would genuinely appreciate that,” I said, not unkindly. 

[someoneyoullprobablynevermeet]

Imm baaack :D and I had an idea for yet another cult of the lamb au called the unbalanced world or Loss of balance au the best premises based off something that people really don’t discuss for example, the fact that the bishops may have disrupted the balance of the world. in this au the prophecy didn’t ever happen, but they did kill a lot of lambs which was mostly by accident because when they imprisoned their brother They did something very bad they almost killed him somehow and how exactly you might be wondering well, they kind of broke his crown. The Crown still functions just barely when they broke it they fucked them up really bad sending him into essentially a coma for basically for all eternity since there’s no way to fix it (there at some point, but whatever there was is gone, they destroyed it)

and what makes that even more fucked up is they didn’t even know that he was in a coma they only figured that shit out when one of them had the idea to go check on him and what they saw scared them so badly that they had everyone come and check on him. And they saw him basically just hanging from the chains not even moving, barely even breathing.

Narinder can’t die because he’s dead, but he is never going to wake up ever again because the crown is linked to his soul. like I said they fucked him up really bad and that’s not the only problem they have to deal with because they also severed his connection to the domain of death meaning there was no one to regulate the souls of the departed it also had a various side effects on the people who followed him when they broke his crown, the followers who believed in him were connected to him, and when that connection snapped abruptly, their souls were harmed or in some cases destroyed altogether

Those who died afterwards, who believed in him we’re either stuck in the physical realm unable to move on or go anywhere, shoved into the white abyss that was his domain with no one to guide them to the afterlife, or stuck in the in between whether essentially unable to leave or stay stuck at the place they felt most connected to emotionally, or the soul was sent to the void, which is essentially oblivion anyone unfortunate enough to get sent there slowly fades away until nothing is left, another possibility is to get your soul split in half if that happens you don’t die but two things can happen. Your body contains two souls now or two 1/2 of the soul stays in the body the other half becomes a ghostly apparition of sorts.

Now this is very bad for them because not only on the soles of the dead wandering around, but people are just straight up getting wiped out of existence, which is not good and also the realm that used to be his domain the white void is starting to bleed into the world of the living, which is also bad because if you go there for too long, you start to lose parts of yourself parts of your soul. The same thing happens to people who get their soul split in half or fractured into pieces you lose parts of yourself like an emotions your personality, or even your sense of self. the soul is the essence of ones being and losing that can harm someone very badly

Also, due to the law implications of the original story that there were other gods at a point like a god of seasons, we can say that seasons are also out of whack here as there is no fall winter or summer just one which is presumably spring before their brothers imprisonment nothing really happened. There wasn’t any consequence, but that was because the world still had some of its key defining concepts able to hold it together but now the wall has become even more unstable than before, so we can say that now consequence has been enacted on all four of the bishops domains such as each domain having a set season be permanent.

Darkwood is set in an eternal season of Bloom Which at first doesn’t sound so bad but spring is when things start to grow and due to it being the forest of chaos things start to grow even more chaotic than before, like the plants becoming more alive than ever and even somewhat sentient in some cases.

Anura stuck in an eternal season of fall when things start to go into hibernation. this also has a negative like certain plants being unable to grow making domain of harvest almost obsolete in her own realm including a decrease in temperature.

Anchordeep in a state of eternal summer now this would not make sense if this was a logical change, but this is a magic thing the negative of this is that while it is nice and warm sometimes it starts to get too hot in certain places become uninhabitable as the water starts to boil in the day and the night cycle it becomes unbearably cold.

And silkcradle is in a state of eternal winter the negatives for this are obvious as insects are the main inhabits here they don’t really have anything to protect them against the cold in a natural way making them the least optimal ones for this as this is the season when things get really cold and snow starts to appear, and while this place is basically just a big cave it still manages to snow and ice also appears but not naturally as some places have flash freezes where instead of things just becoming cold spikes of ice start to protrude out from the ground and ice quakes start to happen, this does not only cause physical damage to buildings, but it can also in case things and crystals of ice and snow from the people who live there to the buildings and in some cases, ice crystals don’t even form the structure and people themselves become ice-like statues perfectly preserved in the cold however this does not kill people instead they get locked in a sort of stasis their body is perfectly preserved meaning they’re still alive when they frozen into an ice sculpture or into a crystal, it’s like going into a deep sleep, even if the person I had their eyes open when it happened they don’t remember anything and they don’t see or perceive anything

Another unintended side effect of the bishops killing gods is when they killed the God of dreams which created an island after the imprisonment, it’s relatively close to the continent of the old faith so you can get there by boat or even just by swimming there if you’re really good at swimming. The important thing is this place isn’t normal by any means as this is basically the dreamworld given physical form and shape. It’s also a place where it’s in an eternal state of night and you can go to sleep at any time and place but you can also do something really cool and also really dangerous. You can manifest dreams here and dream logic also applies. However, you can also manifest nightmares which is incredibly dangerous because it’s either your biggest fear or some sort of unfortunate situation that will literally come into being no matter how bizarre it is and if you die here you get stuck and you fall into an eternal slumber, unable to wake up and essentially go comatose. Another thing that happens here is the amplification of emotions such as joy, fear, and other things.

this is a place where literally anything is possible which includes very dangerous things like cognitive echoes of people who were particularly connected to the dream realm and also Narinder as he is not dead, but he is in a coma meaning he is technically still alive, but he can access the dream realm he can go there as his coma is more like a deep sleep so he can be there, but it’s not entirely him. No, he is splitting to three different beings, his subconscious a shell within emotion(think omori) , his consciousness(his personality and inner thoughts), and the trauma of the events that led up to his coma/imprisonment here in the realm of dreams(a shadowy version of shamura that acts more like a monster then anything and actively hunting him down, he has subconsciously blocked out the memories of shamura leaving an impression or a stain in the dream world, a stranger, this impact was so negative that I created a whole new part of the dream realm that could be the equivalent of backspace from omori)

Ok so far that’s all I got goodbye and oyasumi(goodnight)

[peace-coast-island]

Diary of a Junebug

Building cute mechanical robots to bring a smile to someone's face

I can’t remember the last time we had a crafting event related to mechanical stuff, specifically robots. Daisy Jane and I were just visiting to catch a performance at the opera house when Connie managed to snag some tickets for us. It was done by a local theater troupe, which was why that was possible, though just barely.

Seems like they weren’t exaggerating about how just putting Madeleine’s name on something will make crowds instantly flock to it. In other words, if it was a larger scale sort of thing, like the more renowned and well known theater troupes, they would be sold out in an instant, so getting tickets would be near impossible, especially if you’re not from these parts.

The show is called A Butterfly’s Rose, a loose adaptation of a mystery romance novel. According to Aurelie, who has tried to read the book several times, the story has a good premise, but the writing makes it difficult to follow. She said the best way to describe the author’s writing style is superfluous, which she finds a shame as it could’ve been good. A lot of people felt the same, and so it’s been adapted to theater multiple times in hopes of making a coherent story.

Prior to Madeleine and the Allaire theater troupe’s version, the last adaptation was done about 50 years ago. What makes this current adaptation different is how much it strays from the source material - in a good way. Basically, Madeleine took a lot of creative liberties and managed to condense the story by only focusing on one aspect and expanding on that.

What’s interesting is that the characters she chose to zero in on were Bea and Florentin as their parts are often left out of most adaptations. From my understanding, they’re more like supporting characters, but they kinda set the stage for everything else that’s going on, so they are important. Madeleine says she gets why they’re cut, and that’s why she wanted the spotlight on them because, like many aspects of the book, there was potential, but it all got lost in the chaos.

Since I know absolutely nothing about the source material, I find the play a good standalone kind of thing. I mean, I’ve been told that it’s a very loose adaptation, so the source material isn’t essential to know. Rather than going for a faithful adaptation, which sounds impossible and probably wouldn’t translate well to theater anyway, they went for the inspiration route, which they pulled off well.

I found the drama and musical numbers engaging, and based on the standing ovations, so did the audience. Pai did say that getting Madeleine involved is sure to elevate things, not because she’s practically a celebrity, but because she knows what she’s doing when it comes to the arts. The others note that she’s a lot happier working behind the scenes, especially now that she’s free to do whatever she wants without being burdened by her past.

While the show was the main reason why we’re up here, we also wanted to come to chill and hang out, as well as explore more of Marippe. Now that the cleanup is done and reconstruction is almost finished, things have been pretty much back to normal. Aurelie’s hometown, Marillon, was hit pretty hard, so they still have a bit of work left there, though it’s nothing they can’t handle, she says.

Compared to the last time I visited, the difference is like night and day. Sure, it’s a busy city, but things were a lot quieter back then, mainly because a lot of places were closed. It was also cold and rainy because it was winter, so obviously there wasn’t gonna be a lot of people outside. Plus, there was the fact that I didn’t really spend a lot of time at the city as we were underwater exploring some ruins.

We didn’t really have anything planned after the show, so we tagged along with Connie and Pai. Well, mainly Pai because Connie had some important matters to attend to outside of the city. It ended up working out well because Layla, Melody, and Bennett are visiting too because they were dispatched on missions here.

Then we tagged along with Topaz as he was commissioned by someone to make toy robots for a pediatric oncology ward. I remember Beryl saying that Topaz often works with mechanics and occasionally takes commissions for custom stuff.

Apparently, he often gets mistaken for an engineer from the research institute, and when they find out he isn’t, they often ask why. Truth is, Topaz doesn’t really have an answer other than he’s not the studious type, so he just says he doesn’t have time, which isn’t completely far from the truth. After all, he’s said that mechanics is more of a hobby for him and he wants to keep it that way.

Since this is a special commission, Topaz is looking for help, so this is where we come in. He wants to make it special for the kids, so he’s going above and beyond not just to make toys, but companions for these kids. Like, for example, one kid wants a koi fish that sings their favorite song, while another wants a penguin that can act like a pet - unique stuff like that. Obviously, Topaz wouldn’t have given the kids the options to personalize like that if he couldn’t do it, so I guess that says a lot about his abilities.

Along with me, Daisy Jane, Pai, Layla, Bennett, and Melody helping out, Topaz also found another helper, a visitor from abroad who’s in a bit of a bind. While the rest of us handle tasks like gathering materials and some basic crafting, Topaz and Misha did the more technical stuff. I’d say it’s not that much different than gyroid events, maybe just a bot more intensive, which I found refreshing.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen Bennett and Melody, so it’s nice to catch up with them. Bennett’s visited Marippe a few times and actually met the toymakers Topaz occasionally works with. Apparently, one of them was so inspired by him that he made a limited edition board game based on his adventures in Marippe. However, the gameplay was said to be a bit confusing and it didn’t really sell. Still, it made for a nice collector’s item if you’re into that sort of thing. Now I’m kinda intrigued.

Melody’s been busy doing doubles for Connie by going on various missions abroad, research on the side, as well as training Aurelie and Coralie, another new member of Connie’s ever growing adventure party. She’s one of the few members who’s on call, meaning that anyone in the group can call her over and she’ll be there, even if it’s overseas.

Even though she’s part of the same guild as Bennett, her job’s more of an office type thing where she doesn’t have to come in often, leaving her with a lot of free time on her hands while still being paid really well. Some have actually accused her of being paid to do nothing because of her hotshot adventurer parents, which is obviously not true. In a way, they did kind of hand that job to her, but they wouldn’t have recommended her to reconnaissance if they didn’t think she was up to it, nor would she have decided to stick with it.

With the process of getting clearance to travel to Sazona about to begin, Melody’s prepared to begin gathering information to prepare for what’s ahead. She did a thorough job with Adrikha and Marippe, and so by now she’s got a routine down. It’s a lot of work and someone has to do it, so why not her? She finds the work engaging, not to mention that she’s one of the first to travel to a new place. Sounds like a good deal to me!

Along with just wanting to travel and adventure more, another reason why Melody’s doing doubles is because she just got her own place, which happens to be in the same building as Meggie’s. She still has a lot to do, and part of it has to do with her not being home a lot, but since moving is expensive, especially when you’re starting from nothing, she just wants to be safe in terms of finances. Thankfully, the rent is low, which is why Meggie’s able to stay there.

Living on your own for the first is exciting and scary, so I wish her the best.

Speaking of new living situations, Layla’s on the search for a new place too. She went from living in the dorms to a campus apartment because it was cheaper. However, she’s not too satisfied with the housing arrangement as she’s living with four other people. Her roommates aren’t bad, but she’s more of an introvert, so having to share a space with them has made her feel kind of cramped.

What prompted Layla to move was that a couple weeks ago, one of her roommates got doxxed. Basically, a neighbor of the roommate plagiarized one of her short stories by tweaking some things and submitting it to a magazine for publication. The roommate considered suing, but then decided to talk things out with the neighbor, who was uncooperative and basically dared her to sue.

Roommate decided not to press the issue further as she saw it was pointless. Then for whatever reason, the neighbor decided to dox her and now he’s in a lot of trouble obviously. After all, he didn’t put her at risk, her housemates are also affected by it. Damn, fuck that guy.

Campus security has been helpful in terms of keeping everyone safe as well as trying to help those who want to move. Since Layla’s a student, her options are kind of limited at the moment, but she’s on the waitlist for a single dorm. She literally got an email this morning that there will be an opening soon as someone’s moving out, so that’s good news. That means when she gets back in a couple days, she’ll have a dorm ready to be moved in. That’s a relief!

Topaz’s assistant, Misha, is from overseas, though his mother was from Marippe and was actually a research engineer from the institute. He had hoped to follow in her footsteps, but realized early on that he wanted to branch off. As for what exactly that is, he’s still trying to figure that out. In short, he’s made some bad investments for some sort of project and is trying to dig himself out of that hole without having his family involved. Apparently, the last time that happened, his mother had to intervene, which I can imagine was embarrassing, and his reputation took a hit because of that.

It’s a good thing he ran into Topaz, who was looking for an assistant with specific skills. Pai says it’s not uncommon for her and Connie to run into people like Misha who are stuck in bind and need help. While getting paid is a factor, Misha also hopes this experience will help him bring some insights he can use to hopefully salvage the project. As for what it is, he says it’s hard to explain in layman’s terms because it’s super technical, but to put simply, he might have been too overambitious.

The reason why the painter, Desiree, commissioned Topaz is because of her son, who passed away a couple months ago from cancer. She had talked about her son as if he was still alive and really wanted to make something special for him. We later found out that her son basically grew up in the pediatric oncology ward and was said to be inquisitive and artistic. All he wanted was to be healthy enough to run around and play like other kids his age. Such a simple thing to ask for, and yet it was basically a fantasy for him.

About a year ago, his cancer became terminal. which made him depressed and withdrawn. Desiree tried her best to lift his spirits up, even giving him the possibility that despite his grim prognosis, maybe a miracle can still happen. In the end, however, that was not meant to be.

How sad it is to watch your child slowly wither and die in front of you? It’s not fair for a kid whose life is just beginning to just be taken away like that. No wonder she chose to live in a fantasy world where her son’s still hanging on for a miracle. I remember hearing something about how some people would rather believe a beautiful lie rather than confront the ugly truth, and honestly, who can blame her?

I think talking with the kids at the cancer ward was an eye opening experience for us, one that Desiree really needed. A handful of these kids are sadly terminal and they have their ways of coping with their futures, which is basically making the most of whatever time they have left. It can’t be easy, especially for those who have been sick for most of their lives, to live with the fact that your life is ending before it can begin.

So, along with making toys for the kids, we were helping Desiree deal with her grief. Misha seemed to be right when he realized that she was dealing with a lot of regrets, which isn’t uncommon. He was close to his mother, who died unexpectedly not too long ago, and that was what prompted this project, which was based on her research. In a way, he wanted to sort of cement her legacy, though he doesn’t think he’s doing a very good job of it considering the predicaments he’s in. Sounds like he was close to his mother and understands what Desiree’s going through, so it makes sense that he was able to reach out to the grieving mother.

After learning the full story, Topaz and Misha decided to go all out to create something special for Desiree. She had requested a heron and gave them her son’s illustrations as reference, which look like they came out of a fairy tale. According to one of the nurses who took care of him, he wanted to be a painter like his mother. Since he was often in bed, he would make up fairy tale stories with his paintings. Unfortunately, as his illness progressed, holding a paintbrush became difficult for him, and when he could no longer do that, it seemed like he lost the will to fight.

The heron took Desiree by surprise, especially since Topaz did a really good job of turning a painting into a physical object, like it was taken right out of the paper. He also gave the heron a voice, using various quotes from the story. Maybe for a moment she thought that her son really was right there with her, and because she could feel his presence, she could finally say goodbye to him. A bittersweet ending all around.

Of course, the kids enjoyed their companions, and now Topaz has more requests from other floors. Since he has the time, he’s gonna work something out. Misha’s not planning to go home anytime soon because of his predicament, so he’s happy to help out too. He said that he mainly tagged along in hopes of finding a distraction, but instead, seeing Desiree’s ordeal made him confront some things he’s been trying run away from, like his own grief. Despite the challenges he’s dealing with now, Misha’s determined to honor his mother’s memory like the heron and Desiree’s son. I wish him luck.

No matter how long or short your life is, it’s bound to leave an effect on someone. Regardless of what you might think, your absence will be felt. I know it’s hard to believe, but as I got older and experience more of the world, I realize how true it is. As insignificant as you think you are, as long as you exist, you’re still leaving footprints regardless of how much or little of an impact you think you have. And I think that’s what makes being alive worth it.

Now that I think about it, these robots aren’t simply just companions for these kids who are fighting tough battles with uncertain futures, but they’re something for them to leave behind, a reminder to the world and to their families that they once existed, that they will never really be gone. A lot of the more complex requests came from those who know their time is limited, so they want to offer a parting gift to those closest to them. I can imagine how special these companions will be long after they’re gone.

[alpacaparkaseok]

The Pact: Date #2

Pairing/Genre: OT7 BTS x reader (not poly), idol!BTS, best friend BTS

Word Count: 6.4k

Premise: The truth about the pact the boys have about you has been revealed. What happens when you agree to go on a single date with each of them?

Warnings: none, so much fluff (adkshdaslkfj...yeah. fluff.)

a/n: please, if you feel ok with it, let me know how this date was! Remember, you guys are deciding the outcome. Every little bit of feedback, even if it’s just unintelligible screaming, helps. I’d be very interested to hear your thoughts on how this date differed from last week’s!

Date #2

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It’s safe to say that by this point, you’ve replayed last Saturday’s date in your mind about sixty thousand times. Yet, despite your near-constant analysis, you find that you’re no more prepared for today’s date than before.

Perhaps it has something to do with the way it was described last week, giving you a little insight to how different this date would be compared to the relaxed atmosphere before.

Classic. Romantic. Picture perfect.

Your mind races with the possibilities; heaven knows that could be any of the boys. But you can’t help but expect one in particular to appear on your doorstep.

You shuffle back and forth before your mirror, triple checking your reflection. Jungkook texted you earlier this week with some instructions.

Dresscode was set to casual-nice. Whatever that means.

Make sure you’ve got your T-money card, which gives you access to the Subway.

Your green sweater vest is tucked neatly into your black skirt, giving you a posh academia vibe that you’ve honestly been dying to try out for a while. Hair falling in thick ringlets around your shoulders, the look is complete with black suede boots that only extend up to your ankle.

“Oh yeah,” you grin at your reflection. “I look good.”

And just there, resting atop the sleeves of your turtleneck, sits Hobi’s bracelet. The word ‘jagi’ is facing the ceiling, which is enough to soften your smile, remembering Hobi’s sweet date.

You’d gotten Jungkook’s permission to send a little message to Hobi, thanking him profusely for the date. It’d been fun to get to chat with him for a minute, already missing him. If you’re honest with yourself, you miss hanging out with all of them. It’s only been a couple of weeks since you were last all together, but it feels like months.

The upside to this Saturday is the fact that (after you’d sent some choice texts to Jungkook), you were given a time as to when your date would appear. Which is why you’re sitting on the edge of your seat at six o’clock ticks ever closer, waiting for the tell-tale knock on the door.

Every time a car turns onto your street, you’re leaping up to peek out the window, holding your breath until it passes by. However, this time you find yourself nearly passing out as a sleek black car rolls to a stop in front of your house.

You lose all ability to think straight when Kim Taehyung steps out of the car, straightening his beige cable knit sweater and puffing his cheeks out as he exhales. His black hair tumbles into his eyes, just long enough to brush up against his brows and make him brush it away.

Stumbling back from the window before he can see you spying on him, you bring a hand up to your chest.

“Ok, ok,” you rush to compose yourself. “Holy-”

A happy knock on your door cuts you off, and the only thing you can hope for is that you don’t say something stupid within the first sixty seconds of this date. If you can make past the first sixty seconds, you should be good, right?

Right?

You don’t have time to ponder as you force yourself to take a deep breath and open up the door. Sure enough, there stands Taehyung. Looking like he just stepped out of a French renaissance painting, complete with a smile.

A smile that’s meant for you, you realize with no shortage of shock. Grinning at you while he tilts his head to one side, his hair falls across his face from it’d been semi-parted.

“Hi, my name is Kim Taehyung,” he taps his heels together and extends his hand out. As he swoops into a bow, you can’t help the giggle the bubbles up at the silly scene before you. Gently placing your hand in his, you watch with wide eyes as he brings it to his lips. Planting a soft kiss to your knuckles, he looks up at you from behind his hair. “And you are?”

At this point, you’ve realized that there’s no stopping the mad blush crawling up your neck. Attempting to shake it off with a laugh, you shake your head.

“Are you lost or something?”

Taehyung gasps, stepping back and nearly tumbling down the stairs. “C’mon!” He groans, his smile never faltering. “I was trying to be classy!”

Shrugging, you grab your bag equipped with the essentials (keys, chapstick, mints...more mints), and lock the door behind you. Linking your arm through Taehyung’s and delighting in the momentary surprise that graces his features, you smile up at him.

“Where to, Mr. Kim?”

“Ah! That’s better.” The two of you make it to the car, Taehyung opening the passenger side before hustling over to the driver’s side. Once he’s in and buckled up, he answers your question. “Choose a number between one and ten.” Coming to stop at a stop sign, he looks to you expectantly.

“One.”

He raises his brows, making a show of turning the blinker on to signal turning right. “Good choice. We’ll get there in about...twelve minutes.” You nod, smiling softly. “How have you been?”

“Good. It’s been weird, not getting to hang out with everyone,” you admit. Tae hums in agreement.

“Yeah, it’s been weird not seeing you around the house. What have you been up to?”

The two of you get lost in conversation, relating your most recent horror stories from work or your classes. Taehyung listens raptly, snorting when you mention that you considered bringing your homework with you on the date.

“Seriously!” You laugh. “There’s so much of it. I swear, my professors have all ganged up on me.”

Tae turns into a closed off parking lot, swiping a small card in front of the monitor and pulling forward when the gates swing open. “Well, I’m glad you didn’t. Hopefully I keep you entertained enough to keep you from doing homework,” he teases.

You gape at the huge building before you, the architectural design enough to have your mouth running dry. It looks like it was taken straight out of ancient Greece, the pillars stretching up high and boasting chiseled divots. Leading to the entrance is a path of hanging wisteria, the soft purple petals swaying in the breeze.

In fact, if you hadn’t currently been sitting in a car that was definitely a product of the 21st century, you would have thought that you’d accidentally time-traveled.

Taehyung’s soft chuckle brings you back to reality, and you watch as he throws the car in park and rushes around to open your door before you even have time to twitch a muscle. You find yourself torn between gaping at the building and the man in front of you, as he extends a hand out to you and pulls you out of the car.

“What is this place?” You ask, afraid to even blink for fear of everything disappearing. Tae gently links your arm through his, which in retrospect was probably a good idea. Heaven knows you’re at risk of wandering off and never returning.

The evening sky does wonders for Taehyung, the sleepy golden sunlight settling over him. “It’s a project that’s been in the works for a long time, actually. They’re bringing together different artworks - some are replicas that they’ve been permitted to use - from all over the world. The best of the best, all in one place.” He runs a hand through his hair, looking up as you enter the small tunnel of hanging wisteria. “It’s not open to the public yet, they just finished moving the final pieces last week.”

You blink, looking up at one of your closest friends with awe. Squeezing his arm, you take a moment to pause and look around at all the beautiful wisteria.

“I’m friends with some of the curators here,” Tae explains when he catches your eye. “They said we could have a look around...if you want to…?”

In response, you wiggle out of his grasp and take off toward the entrance, Taehyung laughing and hurrying after you.

The art museum is, in a word, massive. The two of you fall into a companionable silence as you take in the artwork, occasionally wandering away from each other to get a closer look at something. Every so often Taehyung will call your name, motioning for you to look at a piece he especially likes.

There’s a point where Taehyung is trying to explain the difference between the replicas and the real oil paintings. “See, this one doesn’t have the same kind of sheen, so it’s obviously fake.” He reaches out to touch it, but freezes as soon as his fingers touch the painting.

“What?” You ask, craning your neck to see. He turns to face you with a horrified expression.

“It’s real.”

You choke a laugh, seeing the way he slowly removes his hands from the painting as though afraid to set off a bomb. “You’re joking.”

He shakes his head, looking up and down the hallway before whispering to you. “Run. They’ll kill me if they find out that I touched that thing with my bare hands. It’s like...three hundred years old or something.”

“Wha-”

“Split up!” He hisses, taking off down the opposite end of the corridor. Heart pounding even as you laugh, you run the other way. Taehyung’s laugh bounces off the walls, only making you laugh even more.

It doesn’t take long before the sun has dipped below the horizon and the two of you find yourselves in a spot dedicated to different sculptures. Sitting down on the bench in front of them, you realize just how long you’ve been up and running around.

“Wow,” you breathe out, Taehyung grunting in agreement. “So you weren’t caught?”

“Not yet, at least.” He fidgets a little beside you before speaking again. “Actually, there’s one more thing left to do here.”

You glance over at him, delighted to see that his hair has somehow grown even fluffier over the course of the date. “What is it?”

“Let me show you.” He hops up, leading the way to the end of the corridor. He enters a small room that’s completely empty save for a white backdrop and a camera.

He walks to the camera, making sure it’s on before gesturing for you to walk before the backdrop.

“Think of it like one giant photo booth,” he explains. “Pose, and I’ll choose a backdrop for you.”

You chew on your lip, feeling a little awkward as you stand before the camera. “What should I do? I’m not used to people taking pictures of me.”

Taehyung frowns. “What do you mean? I take pictures of you all the time.”

Against the start white backdrop, there’s no chance he doesn’t see your blush. “No, er...not like that. I’m not used to posing.”

“Oh.” He steps back, crossing his arms. “Just...smile?”

He snaps a few photos before rushing over to a small printer. You wander over as well, laughing when you see what’s become of your photos.

There you are, smiling awkwardly where Mona Lisa usually sits in her painting. “Oh, that’s horrible.”

“Da Vinci would love it,” Taehyung objects.

“Here, I’ll take your picture.” You run over to the camera while Taehyung steps up front, placing both hands on his hips while looking off into the distance. Selecting the ‘Starry Night’ background, you take the picture.

“Oooh, very nice!” Tae croons when he sees the photo. “But I want both of us in this.”

“What do you mean, both? There’s only enough room for one-”

“We’ll make it work,” Taehyung says as he drags you in front of the camera. Fiddling with it for a moment, he turns back to you. “Ok, it’s set to take four photos in a row. Stay still.”

“How are you going to…?” Your words fade out as a light in the camera begins to blink, counting down. Taehyung comes around you, slipping his arms around your waist as he rests his chin on your shoulder.

Just as the camera flashes for the first photo, Taehyung decides to try his hand at tickling you mercilessly.

You squeal, trying to get away but unable to as Tae keeps his iron-like grip on you. “Stay still!” He scolds in a serious tone, even as a smile is pushing its way onto his lips.

“S-stop!” You can hardly breathe as the attack continues and the camera flashes again. “Tae! You horrible human being-”

Suddenly he drops the attack, standing up straight and smiling at the camera. You take the opportunity just as the final flash goes off to shove him, laughing maniacally. He shouts, stumbling backward dramatically. Taking the temporary distraction to your advantage, you hurry over to where the pictures are being printed. As each photo comes out, you can hardly hold back your laughter.

Picking up the first photo, taken just as Taehyung had decided to attack you, you turn around to face him. “Look at how evil you look here!”

He saunters over, a lazy smile on his face. “Oh-ho, classic.”

Sure enough, the other photos are just as entertaining, although you can’t help but groan at the second photo which shows you with a mixture of laughter and annoyance as Taehyung fights a smile. “Oof, this one isn’t the most flattering…”

“Does that mean I get to keep it?” Taehyung asks quietly, taking the photo from your hands and looking at it closely. “You look cute.”

You blink, but shrug it off. Taehyung has always been a bit more forthcoming with his flirtatious manner, but it’s just now that you realize there was actually some sort of truth behind all of those silly remarks over the past few years.

Huh.

Taehyung checks the time, looking up at you with wide eyes. “Oh, we have to hurry!”

“Why?” You manage to ask before Taehyung takes off in a brisk walk. He grabs your hand, giving you no choice but to try to keep up.

He doesn’t directly answer your question. “You brought your T-money, right?”

“Yeah...but why?”

“Why do I feel like we’re going to get in trouble for this?”

“We won’t. I will.” Taehyung doesn’t look the least bit bothered as he slips a hat on over his hair. “That is, if we get caught.”

“So no pressure.” You say sarcastically, wishing you had some sort of invisibility cloak.

You never knew that the subway could be such a rush. It’s a Saturday night, people are filing in and out of the Subway at a rapid pace as they chat jovially together. Taehyung keeps his head down, attempting to blend in and completely failing.

“Tae, you’re going to be recognized.”

He shrugs. “I do this all the time. Hasn’t happened yet.”

You furrow your brows. “You do? I had no idea.”

“It’s nice to pretend to be normal every once in a while,” he confesses, looking down at his phone. “Just don’t tell anyone. It’s a secret I’ve managed to keep for years.”

“I won’t. Promise.”

Pulling up the timer app on his phone, he grins mischievously at you. “Ok. We have 60 minutes to get to three different places.” He holds up his phone for you to see. “First, we’re going to that night market you hit up all the time to get Tteok-bokki, which you love probably way too much-”

“Hey! It’s a healthy obsession!” You defend yourself, only earning an eyebrow raise in return.

“Whatever you say, weirdo. Then, we’re going to that walnut shop - you know the one at the end of the line?”

“We’re going to a walnut shop?”

“Yeah. Namjoon’s got this new obsession with them, so I promised I’d pick some up for him”

You snort. “Ok, and the last spot?”

Taehyung lowers his phone, toggling the timer to 60 minutes and looking at you and chuckling. “It’s a surprise. You ready?”

“Wait, how on earth are we supposed to get to all of these places within an hour?” You ask, incredulous. “Especially if we’re stopping to eat or buy stuff?”

Finger hovering over the start button, Taehyung looks around the busy subway station. “We hurry.” With that, he links his hand with yours and begins the timer. “Run!”

Taking off like thieves on the run, you swipe your T-money card and hurtle past the barrier, rushing to see which line to take. “It’s the red line, right?” You ask, roles switching as it’s now you dragging Taehyung behind you. “Hurry! It’s already here!”

Rushing over to where the red line train is just pulling in, you leap through the doors as soon as they open. Taehyung is right behind you, and the two of you stand off to the side with your faces down and trying to hide your giggles. He leans down to whisper something in your ear, your head automatically tilting to hear him better.

“Keep an eye out for our stop,” he urges, squeezing your hand. You nod, remaining on high alert even as you’re bursting with excitement. You know that if anybody found out that you and Taehyung were out here, looking very much like a couple, you would be toast.

The rush goes straight to your head, pumping you full of adrenaline as your stop approaches. A thought hits you, and you hurry to voice it before you have to jump out and run.

“How are we going to get you through the night market without being recognized?”

“Oh,” Taehyung angles his body toward the door, preparing. “I talked with the owner of the stall you go to. He promised to have the food ready and waiting for us, we just have to meet him in the back.”

You still have no idea how you’re going to make it through the market without being recognized, but there’s no more time for questions as the train slows to a stop and the doors slide open. In a single heartbeat the two of you leap out and take off toward the stairs that will lead you out into the night air.

It’s embarrassing just how much you’re panting by the time you reach the top of the stairs, but you shrug it off as you see the huge crowd mulling outside of the market. Without giving you a single second to doubt, Taehyung plunges into the crowd.

The two of you weave in and out, a startled laugh coming from you as the two of you pass by a stall filled with BTS merchandise. Taehyung hesitates for a moment, almost looking like he wants to stop in, but thinks better of it.

The people around you are so focused on the different stalls and their night out that they pay you no mind as you pass by, bumping into people with every step you take. If only they knew that it was Kim Taehyung bumping into them.

He never lets go of your hand as you make your way to your favorite food stall, for fear of losing you in the crowd. Glancing back at you, Taehyung shouts above the din.

“It’s been almost eight minutes!”

You nod, once again wondering how on earth you’re going to make it to all the places Taehyung has planned. Your mouth runs a little dry as you see the long line of people waiting at the food stall, all of them wanting a taste of the delicious tteok-bokki. Going in a wide circle around the crowd, the two of you end up behind the stall where it’s surprisingly empty.

Taehyung wraps on the back entrance, loud enough to be heard over the loud night. A moment later an elderly man sticks his head out, eyes crinkling with a smile as he sees the two of you.

“Ah, I was just wondering when you’d be showing up! Let me grab your order.” He winks at you guys before disappearing back into the little stall. You take a moment to breathe, looking up at the starry sky. Taehyung joins you, smiling softly.

“Why 60 minutes?” You ask quietly. Taehyung shrugs.

“I make this run whenever I can,” he responds quietly. “I’ve never been able to do it in less than an hour. Thought that it’d be fun to try to break the record with you.”

You laugh quietly. “How come I didn’t know that about you? Why didn’t you invite me before?”

Taehyung runs a hand through his hair, his other hand still hanging loosely in yours. “The pact.” When you look at him with a confused expression, he goes on. “Think about it: have you ever hung out with any of us just one on one? At least, intentionally?”

You frown, running through your memories. “I mean, yeah, but-”

“Intentionally, though.”

Automatically your thoughts run to the memory of Hobi and that night you’d vented in his car for a solid two hours, tears running down your face. Or that time you’d gone shopping with Taehyung, that was intentional wasn’t it?

“We went shopping that one time,” you say.

“Yeah, but that was an emergency of sorts. Remember? You’d spilled on your shirt and had an interview for your internship soon,” he reminds you. “I took you shopping and dropped you off after.”

You remember that, but there were other times that you just spent time with one of the boys on purpose, right? Taehyung sees your thoughts, giving you another example.

“And that time you sat and talked with Hobi in his car for hours? He’d seen you walking and offered to give you a ride. That obviously wasn’t planned.”

You blink. “How did you know about that?”

Taehyung turns a little pink under the starlight, realizing that he wasn’t supposed to know that. “Hey, it’s not my fault. He wouldn’t shut up about it. But that’s not the point!” He quickly tries to backtrack, mussing his hair yet again.

“Right,” you sigh. “So what does that have to do with the pact? And what does the pact have to do with you and this weird route of yours?” You laugh, Taehyung chuckling nervously along with you.

He opens his mouth to respond, but at that moment the door opens and the same old man appears with a bag of your food. “Here you go!” He happily hands it over to Taehyung, who thanks him and hands him the money and thanks him profusely. You also thank him, smiling warmly.

As soon as the door shuts again, Taehyung is leading you back out into the crowd. He keeps a firm grip on the food, and you stare at it longingly. The two of you manage to make it out of the crowd without any complications, except for the fact that you had to drag Tae away from the merchandise booth.

Descending the stairs to the subway, you glance over at the food again. “Are we gonna eat that, or…?”

He squints at the screen that shows the different lines and arrival times. “We have four minutes before the yellow line gets here.” Stopping at the bottom of the stairs and standing off to the side, he hands you your food, chuckling as you tear into it. He shares it with you, devouring the food at an alarming rate.

It’s embarrassing to say that the two of you finish it with thirty seconds to spare.

“Wow,” you groan, rubbing your stomach as Tae throws the container away. “We’re messed up.”

He chuckles at you, checking the timer. “That, we are. But it was good, right?”

“Ugh, so good. I swear, that place is magic.”

This time, instead of running to the platform, you waddle. You get there just before the doors close, sliding in between the door and pole, which you cling to. Taehyung stands across from you, resting against the pole as well and smiling.

“Ready to go buy some walnuts?”

The question has you giggling. “Definitely.”

You fall into a comfortable silence, waiting for your stop to arrive. The walnut shop sits on the other end of the line, one of the final stops. It takes a few minutes to get there, each second ticking down. Once there’s only one stop left before you have to get off, you ask Taehyung to check the timer.

He raises his brows. “We’re making pretty good time. Thirty minutes left.”

“Nice!” You give him a high five, smiling simply because he is. “Let’s get these walnuts!”

Nevermind the fact that people listening in to your conversation think you’re crazy.

Once you make it to your stop, the two of you settle for a brisk walk rather than running. Together, you walk down the street hand in hand while trying to find the walnut shop.

“You never finished explaining that thing about the pact,” you recall. You’d nearly forgotten amongst the rush of eating and the sleepy subway ride after. Taehyung glances down at you, almost looking a little bummed out that you remembered.

“Oh...right.” He stops on the corner and presses the crosswalk sign. “Well, that’s one of the things about the pact. I never invited you to come along with me because I couldn’t. It doesn’t allow for intentional one-on-one activities.”

“You know how weird that is, right?”

He snorts. “Yeah, I know. But that’s how it is, I guess. All of those other times you were with any of us, alone, it wasn’t on purpose. It just worked out like that. You know, something about keeping everything even. And, spending too much time alone with you would probably lead to breaking the pact.”

Nodding, you tuck this information away for further examination. “Sounds like you guys thought of everything.”

“Almost.”

“Ok,” you begin to cross the quiet street, this side of Seoul starkly different in comparison with the busy night market. “So what does this route have to do with any of that? Why did you even start doing this in the first place? It’s...all over the place.”

Taehyung chews on the inside of his cheek. “Well...oh! We’re here!”

You roll your eyes as Taehyung bounds up the stairs of the walnut shop, which appears to be nearly closed. Why they’re still open at this time of night is beyond you. Do they really have people coming out to buy walnuts at all hours of the night?

The little shop is warm, and the young girl behind the counter looks anything but shocked as Taehyung enters. She immediately leans down to grab a small bag, placing it in front of her.

“Just the one bag?”

You pause to wonder just how many times Taehyung has frequented this shop for the employees to be so familiar with him. The thought makes you smile, picturing Taehyung sneaking in here late at night just to feed Namjoon’s odd walnut addiction.

“Just the one should be fine,” Tae responds, looking at you over his shoulder with a warm look. You don’t notice it, lost in your own thoughts as you wander over to a display.

Once he’s finished with the transaction, he wanders over to you. “Looks like we might just make it.”

You turn around, looking at him expectantly. “How much time is left?”

“Sixteen minutes. Let’s go,” he holds out his arm for you, which you rest your hand on the inner crook of his elbow. Bidding the girl goodnight, the two of you wander back out into the night.

“Soooo...where to next?”

Taehyung shakes his head. “I told you, it’s a surprise.”

The subway on this end of the city is much less crowded, it’s easy to find the blue line and hop on. You realize that you’re heading back to a stop fairly close to the night market, which makes you wonder.

“Why’d we go to the end of the line before this?” You ask. “It would’ve been much quicker to go here second.”

“Because,” Taehyung sits beside you, stretching his legs out. “It’s a spot that you can’t rush in. It’s meant to be the final destination.”

Giggling a little, you nudge him. “That sounds a little morbid.”

The Han River glistens from your viewpoint atop the bridge. Sitting next to Taehyung, your feet dangling off the edge, you take a deep breath.

“I see why this had to be the final stop,” you say as you breathe out. The entire Han River lays at your feet, the city lights bouncing off the surface and creating a dazzling atmosphere to rival that of the stars above you. People walk along the edge or ride bikes, their small figures making you realize just how high up you are.

“Mmm,” Taehyung hums beside you. He leans back, glancing over at you as you take in the view. “This is always the last stop.”

You take a moment to allow the sounds of the night wrap around you, tilting your head up to the stars and watching them wink down at you. A profound contentment settles over you, a smile playing on your lips.

“And my last question?” You mumble out. “What’s so special about this route?”

The quiet moment seems to be enough to urge Taehyung to finally answer you. He sits up, admiring the way you look, sitting here on top of the world.

“About a year ago, we all talked about the normal, everyday things you like to do. What we would like to do.”

“I remember,” you muse. “You guys were talking about what you’d do if you weren’t famous. Romanticizing the mediocre.”

“Right.” He slings his arms over the railing, looking out over the people enjoying their Saturday night. “You talked about how you always go to that night market to get tteok-bokki. You basically swore by that one stall, it was hilarious. But you looked so...I don’t know, I just remember thinking, I’ve never seen someone so happy about some cheap night market food. But it made me happy. And then you said that you like to grab your food and head out to the Han River. Enjoy the evening with some good food and a view.”

A slight breeze picks up, ruffling Taehyung’s hair. He hardly notices, wearing an adorable look of concentration as he continues. “And that just seemed...I don’t know, it became this thing for me. Those late nights at work or when we were away, I’d always stop and wonder if you’d gotten to do what made you so happy. But then, I realized that it wasn’t enough for me to just sit and wonder. I wanted to- I wanted...to be there with you.”

Your breath hitches in your throat as you catch sight of the faraway look in his eyes. How many times had he stopped and wondered if you had gotten to do something that made you happy? Sitting beside this man who is such a force for good, you find that you are entirely out of your element.

“So, whenever I had a chance in the evenings, I’d make up an excuse about picking up some more walnuts for Namjoon’s stash, and I’d head out. They told me to be back in an hour, hence the sixty minutes. But I’d take the train to the night market, go straight to that stall and pick up some tteok-bokki. I knew that I couldn’t just call you up and ask to go with you, and I was kind of selfish and didn’t want the other guys to come along. It was...I don’t know, I wanted it to be our thing. So I’d go there and hope I’d run into you. Make it look like an accident, so we could hang out. Just the two of us.” He laughs quietly to himself. “I sound like a stalker, don’t I?”

You only manage to shake your head, at a complete loss for words. Taehyung continues on, feeling the need to get it all out.

“In my mind, I thought that it would at least take you about fifteen or so minutes to get from the night market to the Han, so I’d run down to grab the walnuts and then head up here,” he gestures to the bridge. “And I’d look out and see if I could spot you. Maybe run down to meet you, pretending to bump into you. Give me...an excuse to see you.”

Taehyung glances over at you for a minute, looking a little embarrassed. You stare back, the shock evident on your face.

“Really?” It’s the only word you manage to get out. He smiles gingerly, huffing out a breath.

“Really. Does it creep you out?”

You snort, scooting over a little closer. Taehyung instinctively wraps an arm around your shoulder, pulling you against him.

“No.”

“No?”

Taking a deep breath, you take a leap. “Am I allowed to tell you that I sometimes wished I’d run into you?”

Taehyung tucks a loose strand of hair behind your ear, looking at you with an indescribable emotion. “I don’t think you should.”

You frown. “Why not?”

The moon and the stars as your only witness, Taehyung gives you a long look before leaning down to press a kiss to your forehead. He lingers for a few seconds, his warm lips reminding you of spring after a bitter winter.

When he pulls away, he gazes down at you and you just know that he’s memorizing this moment. Tucking it away for a rainy day, similar to the rain clouds behind his eyes. “I’m scared of hoping.”

In the span of five syllables, he’s completely shattered your heart. It’s now that you recognize that look in his eyes.

How many nights has he sat up here, waiting for you to come along? Hoping that you’d bump into him at the night market, delighted to see him?

Hope can be just as devastating as it is uplifting.

Taehyung sees how you’re dying to reassure him, dying to just give your heart over to him at that moment. He knows it, sees how it could play out. But before you can open your mouth, he’s stopping you.

“For now, let’s just enjoy the view and try to stay warm,” he murmurs, pulling you impossibly closer. You rest your head against his shoulder, heart still aching from his small confession. “Don’t worry, jagiya. Just remember to have fun, ok? You’ve still got five dates, don’t forget that.”

How could you?

Time ticks by all too quickly as the two of you remain snuggled up together atop the bridge. Eventually you fall into a quiet conversation, Taehyung chatting happily about how he had a mini crisis on night when he came on this route and Namjoon complained about having not finished the walnuts from last night. He’d had to find some other sort of enticing treat that would act as a cover for him.

“When it comes down to it,” he says as the two of you enter the subway and find a seat. “I didn’t want the boys to find out, because I didn’t want them to think I was going behind their backs. They all deserve a chance, and me trying to find a way to bend the rules wouldn’t have gone over well.”

You marvel at how perfectly his hand fits in yours, sighing contentedly as the subway rumbles on. “You always have been a rule-breaker.”

You’re exhausted from having run all over Seoul, nearly falling asleep as you get back to Taehyung’s car. He grins at you, turning on the heater and beginning the drive back to your apartment. Your eyes struggle to remain open, slipping closed every few seconds.

“Sleep, jagiya,” Taehyung urges. “I’ll wake you up when we get there.”

“N-no,” you say between yawns. “I’m fine.”

Taehyung chuckles to himself when you fall asleep about thirty seconds later. The sound drifts into your dreams, where you dream of art museums and the Han river.

Needless to say, you’re a bit disappointed to be woken up from your beautiful dream when Taehyung opens up the passenger side door and crouches before you. He can’t help but laugh at how adorable you look, completely disoriented and staring at him like you can’t quite place where you’ve seen him before.

“Hey,” he whispers. “We’re home.”

Gently unbuckling your seatbelt, Taehyung helps you out of the car and only continues to laugh as you wrap your arms around his waist and bury your head in his chest.

“I’m so tired,” you groan. “I wanna go to bed.”

“Well, you can. You just have to unlock your door first, jagi.”

Somehow, in your half-asleep state you manage to fish your keys out of your bag. Taehyung helps you unlock the door, swooping in to help you when you nearly trip over your doorway.

“Woah, watch where you’re going,” he teases. Suddenly the world turns sideways as Tae places his hands under your knees and around your waist, literally sweeping you off your feet. “How about we get you to bed in one piece?”

Some small, semi-conscious part of your brain is currently screaming about how embarrassing yet attractive this entire situation is, but for the life of you, you can’t tell why. Instead, you opt to nuzzle in a little closer to Tae’s sweater as he uses his foot to kick the door shut.

“I love this sweater,” you mumble, eyes falling shut again. “You look so good in this sweater, did you know that?”

“Oh...thanks. And yes, that’s why I wore it.”

You hiss, swatting at his chest. “That was very narcissistic of you.”

“You’re too tired to walk, but you’re using words like narcissistic?” He shoots back. Making his way through the dark house, he enters your room and sets you down on the edge of the bed. You sit up straight, watching as his silhouette turns on your bedside lamp. Squinting at him, he crouches down before you, resting a light hand on your knee.

“Thank you,” you whisper.

“You’re welcome,” he whispers back. “You need anything before I go?”

Always finding a way to push the limits, you smirk down at him. “Are kisses really off-limits- ow!” You rub your knee where he just flicked it, appalled at him as he straightens up.

“Don’t get greedy,” he teases with a raised brow. Heading out of the room, he turns back to look at you from the doorway. “Goodnight.”

It’s this moment that you memorize. The way the light from the lamp barely reaches him, his dark hair a little messy and a tired smile on his face. The way he leans up against your door, looking for all the world like he belongs here.

“Goodnight, Tae.”

Your ears strain to hear his footsteps, a fissure forming in your heart as you hear him closing the door and driving off into the night. Eventually, sleep takes over.

Even as you dream, the feeling of being wrapped up in Taehyung’s arms while sitting above the Han River lingers.

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again, your opinion matters! especially in this series! if you’re comfortable with it, please please please comment or send me an ask with your thoughts! (i.e. chemistry, how this date differed from Hobi’s date, ect.) thank you for reading, and I’ll see you next Saturday with date #3!!

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[smoocheveryclone]

dirty old town

Gregor x jedi!reader, part one of ???, ~3k words, uhhh, i don’t actually remember if i gendered the reader? i have to check, no (y/n), no smut though it does begin to get very mildly suggestive near the end. pg13 i guess? if that?

premise: reader is the one to find Gregor on Abafar instead of Colonel Meebur “i am droid racist but will treat clones with even less respect” Gascon

under a cut bc long post

You have mixed feelings about these undercover missions.

On the one hand, despite the danger, there is an element of freedom to them that you relish. You’re not bound by the strict codes of the Jedi Order; you feel greater license to act and speak on impulse… but at the same time, you aren’t strictly yourself. You’re playing a part. 

And then you go home, to the Temple or to the War, and maybe it’s just mild disorientation, but you still feel like you’re playing a part. The part of a Jedi.

But you always end up leaving those feelings behind you, and do what you must do.

Your current mission is over now, and you’ve just started your journey home from the Outer Rim… but of course, nothing can be simple.

You end up having to pilot your ship through a- beautiful, admittedly- field of comets. Trusting in the force, you manage to get through it mostly without damage.

Mostly being the operative word.

You take a hit, and you lose your fuel tank, forcing you down onto a force-forsaken planet not far from the one you’ve just left.

You instruct your astromech to power down until you get back, because you don’t know when you’ll be able to recharge her battery next, grab a satchel with some essentials and a full canteen, and set off toward what you sense is some kind of small town.

It’s a long walk, and by the time you see buildings, you’re dusty and dry and tired. And there are battle droids here. Which is fantastic.

First things first, though. You see a sign for a diner and make a beeline for it. Never mind that it looks dirtier and more disreputable the closer you get; there’s food and drink inside. The door opens, and you stop.

That voice.

There’s no mistaking that voice, you know it as well as you know your own. Better. You’ve heard it in countless permutations, all with particular vocal tics, intonations, cadences, turns of phrase which you’ve gotten to know, in some cases quite well. So this one is familiar… but unfamiliar at the same time. 

By the time you’ve thought all this, you’re already staring… and not just in curiosity or surprise. You’ve never seen a clone wearing civvies before. You’ve seen them in their armor, whether shiny and new or scuffed and painted; you’ve seen them in their uniforms; you’ve even seen them in the black body gloves they wear under their armor, once or twice (an image you have to swat out of your mind like an insect buzzing around your ear). But never civilian clothing. Something about it plays havoc with your composure, but you can’t look away.

His arms are bare. His hair is attractively mussed, and he’s got a full beard. 

He’s also looking back at you.

You’ve seen eyes exactly like his so many times before; you’ve never seen them look back at you quite this way. Like he’s seeing… you. Not a Jedi, not a General, just you. Of course, you realize, you’re wearing civilian clothes as well. As far as he’s concerned, you are just you. 

It takes you long enough to wonder who he is and what he’s doing here that you feel a bit silly about it. But once you do wonder, it’s quite a puzzle indeed. Is he undercover, as you were? Is that done? You’ve never heard of it. Though if a man with a million identical brothers could get away with going undercover anywhere, it’d be out here on some Outer Rim dustball. The other possibility is that he’s deserted. You’ve never heard of that, either, though you expect that it must have happened before. 

You wouldn’t blame him if that were the case. You certainly wouldn’t squeal on him.

This attitude is, at the heart of it, why you have never, and will never, lead a battalion.

At the moment, though, either of these possibilities leaves you in a delicate situation. You can’t blow his cover, if it’s the first case scenario. You don’t want to scare him off if it’s the second. Then, of course, there’s the third possibility: it’s neither of those things. What else could be going on? But whatever it is, you can’t just avoid him. You can’t go on with your business, pretending you never saw him. The force is telling you that you are meant to be here, and you were meant to find him. Why?

So many questions.

You’ve been loitering by the door, staring at him this whole time, and he’s been going about his job, sneaking glances back at you as he collects dirty dishes and clears off the booths. A Sullustan- owner and operator of the place as far as you can guess- has appeared behind the counter in the meantime, and you give him only a cursory glance as you walk up and take a seat on one of the grimy stools. You pick one where you can peek back into the kitchen and follow him with your eye as he goes back and forth.

The Sullustan is chatting up a regular, which is fine by you. You may be hungry, but you can wait: there’s something far more interesting here than food and drink.

You watch the clone more or less discreetly, every so often letting him catch you looking. You’re waiting for a chance to speak with him, however briefly. Before you can find one, he comes to you.

“I haven’t seen you around here before,” he says, giving you a smile.

“I just got into town today,” you say, smiling back at him. Seeming encouraged, he lays down the stack of dirty dishes for a moment to loiter a bit beside you. “My name’s Gregor.”

You give him your name in return, and he tells you it sounds pretty. This unexpectedly beguiling exchange disarms you, and for a moment you almost forget why you wanted to speak to him in the first place.

“I’m very glad to meet you,” you tell him emphatically. You can’t really speak with him here, not beyond this chitchat, but at least you can hint that you’d like to. Gregor, meanwhile, looks delighted.

“Likewise,” he says, and there are a few seconds of oddly intense silence.

“So…” you say, nodding up at the menu sign behind the counter. “What’s good?”

“Well,” he hesitates pointedly, scrunching up his face, and you laugh. “Number four’s all right.”

“Thank you for the recommendation.”

“No problem.”

Your little conversation is interrupted by the Sullustan bellowing for him to get back to work. You have already decided that you do not like this man- Borkus is his name, from what you have overheard- but you order your food and the coldest drink possible, and are otherwise left alone until it arrives. 

From then until you finish and pay, he is mostly in the back washing up. You don’t get another chance to speak with him. Whenever he emerges, though, he meets your eye, and before you leave, you give him a lingering look.

Outside, you stop and lean against the outer wall of the diner for a few minutes, thinking. While you’re standing there, you hear something coming from around the back of the building. A door, the scraping of a container on the ground, something being lifted and emptied. You make a guess at what you’re hearing, and duck down the little alleyway. When you peek around the corner… there he is.

“Hello again,” you call softly, hanging around at the edge of the back alley, hoping he’ll come over and talk, away from the overflowing trash bins. It smells back there.

You can’t help noticing the way his face lights up when he sees you again. Peering backwards through the kitchen, he lets the back door close softly and, to your immense relief, begins walking over. You beckon him out to the side alley where the air is less foul.

“Hey there,” he says when he gets close. 

“I was wondering… will you be free later on?”

“I get off work in a few hours,” he says, with an air of cautious encouragement.

“Would you meet with me?”

You can feel a little ripple of (pleased) surprise through the force. Obviously he’s amenable to the idea.

“I’d like that,” he replies.

So would you, now it comes to it.

“Good,” you say. “I’ll see you later, then.”

Then, there’s the sound of the diner owner shouting again.

“Gregor! Where are you! Get back in here!”

There’s the sound of the back door into the alley being thrust open, and heavy, stomping footsteps, and you frown in the general direction of the noise. Gregor looks embarrassed; you reach out tentatively, and touch his arm in what you hope is a comforting gesture.

“Sorry,” you say quietly.

He looks at the hand on his arm. You pull it back. He looks at you. You look at him.

“Worth it,” he whispers as the Sullustan rounds the corner.

“What are you doing out here? You take an extra break, it comes out of your pay! Get back in the kitchen and finish washing the dishes!”

“Sorry, Mr. Borkus,” he says, slipping around his irascible employer and scooting back the way he came. “I’m getting back to work, right now!”

You hear the door open and close, and the Sullustan turns a disapproving eye on you. Before he can speak though, you raise your hand and wave it lightly in front of his face, which goes blank.

“You should stop yelling at Gregor,” you say. “I should stop yelling at Gregor,” he repeats. “You’re not going to dock his pay.” “I’m not going to dock his pay.” “You need to get off his back and let him be.” “I need to get off his back and let him be.”

Satisfied that you’ve done what little you can to improve the mysterious clone’s day- whatever his situation actually is- you turn on your heel and walk away.

You spend the next few hours as you had intended before meeting Gregor: enquiring about the parts you need to repair your ship, discreetly poking around for information, observing the battle droids. There’s something going on here (there’s something going on everywhere, these days) but you haven’t figured out what. Frankly- although you chide yourself that you are doing your duty and not to be childish- you’re bored. You’re very much looking forward to meeting up with Gregor later.

So you can figure out what he’s doing here, of course.

After the appropriate amount of time has lapsed, you meander back to the diner, and wait across the road, watching the door.

Eventually, he and the owner emerge. He sees you right away, and veers over in your direction immediately, waving and calling for you as his employer stares (and is ignored by both of you).

“I’ve been waiting all day to see you,” he says, with a big smile on his face.

“I’d be lying if I said I haven’t been doing the same,” you admit, smiling back. “How was work?”

“Better than usual.”

You smile wider.

“Glad to hear it.” 

“So… what are you doing here?”

You shrug.

“Passing through.”

“Oh? … How long are you staying in town?”

He looks hopeful. You stop yourself from chewing your lip.

“I don’t know,” you reply honestly. “It depends.”

You realize you’re chewing your lip again when you see the way he’s looking at you.

“On what?”

You can’t help smiling at him.

“Lots of things.”

“Hmm.”

The conversation that follows is, like your first exchange earlier today in the dingy little diner, oddly compelling. Repeatedly, you must remind yourself that you are trying to figure out what he’s doing here, but much like your earlier investigation into the Separatist presence on this planet, you’re getting nowhere. You even attempt, once or twice, to steer the conversation in directions that would raise the suspicions of someone under cover… but he isn’t suspicious at all, and you end up just talking.

Talking, laughing, enjoying each other.

He’s endearing.

But before you while the whole evening away just walking around town, chatting, you come right out and ask.

“So, Gregor… what are you doing here?”

“You mean… besides washing dishes?”

“Yeah.”

He shrugs.

“I don’t know. Surviving, I guess.”

You nod slowly.

“Hmm. How long have you been here?”

“About a year now,” he replies, and you manage to disguise some of your shock at his answer. ‘Undercover’ is starting to look less and less likely. “... What?”

“Nothing. Just. Wow. You’ve been working at the diner that whole time?”

“Yeah.” 

You grimace.

“Well, frankly, that sounds awful.”

He laughs, running his hands self-consciously through his hair.

“Well, it… it could be worse.”

That pricks at your heart. 

“Yes. I suppose it could.”

You know very well how much worse it could be.

He looks at you, but neither of you speaks for a long moment. Maybe it’s time for the two of you to speak more plainly than this.

“Gregor… Is there somewhere we can go and talk to each other privately?” His eyes are wide as he looks at you, and for just a second, you sense the buzz of excited nerves.

“Oh, uh… well, it’s- it’s not much, but, there’s always my place.”

“That sounds perfect,” you say, touching his arm like you did earlier. It seems to help.

“Great,” he says. “This way!”

He takes your hand, and leads you down the dusty streets that still all look the same to you. You’re not really looking at them anyway.

On the way, you pass by a man he knows in the street. They wave to each other, and- after the strange man glances at you- exchange smiles. 

“I’ve been really enjoying talking with you,” he says suddenly.

You look at him.

It’s been so nice, spending time with him like this. Just being yourself, with no part to play.

“Me, too.”

You’re almost there, now. You see the stairwell down into a basement apartment, and he’s slowing down. Before you get there, he stops, leaning against the wall. You can feel his self-consciousness.

“Listen, um, when I said my place wasn’t much? I… Well, it really isn’t much.”

“It doesn’t matter to me where we go,” you tell him kindly.

“It’s just… I wish I had somewhere nicer to take you. I’ve never met anyone like you, before.”

That affects you in a way you can’t altogether contain. For a second, you’re breathless.

“I’ve never met anyone like you before, either.”

It’s the truth.

He’s smiling again. Having never let go of your hand, he runs his thumb over your knuckles and begins leading you down toward his door. You would be able to tell he was nervous even if you couldn’t feel it through the force.

True enough, his place is small and as dingy as the rest of the town. But it’s his, and you decide you like it here, for that fact alone. You’re looking around when you notice him staring at you.

“... What is it?”

“You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen,” he says, completely guilelessly. It’s so plain and sincere that you can’t help believing it, and once again, you’re breathless. “I never expected to see anything so beautiful on this whole planet.”

Then, he leans in to kiss you… and you let him. You do more than let him: you kiss him back. The only concrete thought in your head is that his beard tickles. It feels wonderful. Is that noise coming out of you? 

It takes feeling his hands on your hips to realize you’ve got your own in his hair, and the way his fingers grip you makes your eyes roll back in your head. Your lips press together again, and again, and again; sometimes so softly you’re barely touching, sometimes so heavily you almost topple over, sometimes you can feel him humming against your mouth and it’s all you can do to stay standing. 

He’s guiding you gently toward- what? A chair? A crate? A cot? You don’t know, you don’t care; he sits down, and pulls you into his lap, and there’s nowhere else you’d rather be. You hold him so close, closer than you’ve ever held anyone. You love the way his hands feel on you, and you tell him so. In reply, he makes a sound you know you’ll hear in dreams for the rest of your life. 

The way he handles you- so sweetly, but so direct- makes you feel things you couldn’t repress if you tried.

But… of course… nothing can be simple.

You break the kiss, and take a breath.

“What is it?” he asks softly. “Is everything all right?”

“Before we go any further, there’s something you need to know about me.” He’s a little wary, a little worried, and you hate it, but you can’t just let this go without him knowing the truth. Maybe it was an illusion, but you already miss the way this felt so uncomplicated a moment ago. 

“You’re… you’re not married, are you?”

Your reaction to this question tells him you’re not, even before you actually answer.

“... I can never be married. I’m a Jedi.”

He’s still holding you, and he doesn’t let go.

“I don’t care what you are. We’ll work this out. I-if… if that’s what you want.”

Your eyes have never been so wide in your life. ‘We’ll work this out.’ He means it, you can feel it. You think you would believe anything this man said to you. 

But.

This is forbidden. 

If this is not an attachment, nothing is.

Can you do this? Can you work this out? The doubt is suddenly swallowed up by something you’re not sure you can identify, but feels very much like indignation. No attachment! But what is the bond between master and padawan but an attachment? What is friendship but an attachment? What are those bonds formed on the battlefield, are they not attachments? Can you name one single Jedi in the whole order who is wholly unattached? Who is attached to no one? Can anyone live in such a way?

It’s true, sometimes you must be able to let go.

But what value is there in anything without fondness? Without care? 

And enough of your philosophizing! What about him? Doesn’t he deserve to be loved? That question, at least, has a clear and definite answer. One that cannot be interrogated. The answer is yes.

You shift around so that you’re straddling his lap, and kiss him so deeply that you get lost in each other.

“I do,” you whisper. “I do want this.”

You can sense his relief. His elation. Something inside of you aches beautifully. Is this what love feels like? You kiss him. He kisses you.

“Good,” he says. “We’ll figure it out together.”

And then, he says something that shocks you so profoundly that you stop cold.

“... But what’s a Jedi?”

[infinitebells]

Ahh, they leavin downtown eh?? the moriarty gang (or whomever you want) suddenly got blasted to the modern era. You, living the life of a college student (imagine just livin in an apartment/dorm), try to close the one-and-a-half-century gap between you & handsome english men & help cope. Bonus: them trying to fit in (bc their sentence structure is a dead giveaway they are not in this era: "Brother, it is a quarter to 3 right now & we have to 'yeet' to the market."). Go wild & next moves, -soul

OMG YES

in the beginning...

✧ when you come home to your apartment to see five very tall men all standing in your living room in clothes that are very obviously not from this era, you’re fucking shocked to say the least

✧ “uhhh why the fuck are you people in my goddamn apartment?”

✧ william: madame that is an excellent question

✧ louis: *nervously panics*

✧ albert: are you a noblewoman? you don’t appear to be dressed as one

✧ moran: are women actually allowed to swear like sailors?

✧ fred: *ignores everything and takes an interest in your shelf of plants by the window*

✧ after a few seconds, you gasp in realization because holy shit it’s the moriarty gang and they’re casually standing in your living room

✧ you close to door upon recognizing them, introducing yourself

✧ “so, what year do you guys think it is?”

✧ william: well of course it’s 1890, however, this does not look like a usual apartment

✧ you calmly ask them wait there, grabbing your paperback volume of the manga and showing it to all of them, explaining that they’re from a popular book and tv series

✧ louis just about faints, william and albert are in quiet shock, fred could literally give two shits, and moran is up in arms whining about how he wants to go back

✧ you make them tea, explaining that it’s currently 2020 (let’s assume covid isn’t a thing) and a lot has changed in the 130 year gap between them and now

✧ you spend the entire night, letting them ask questions and explaining broader topics to them

✧ by the end of the night, william and albert have come to terms with it, louis is a bit calmer, fred is still quiet and absorbing everything, and moran is just impatient to go out and explore

✧ after telling them tomorrow you’ll take them out two at a time to get different clothes and necessities, you let william and albert sleep on the pull out couch, louis and moran use sleeping bags, and fred curls up on a bean bag chair

✧ you hardly sleep that night, writing out a plan to try and integrate the men into the 21st century

✧ by the time morning comes, you’ve barely gotten any sleep, but at least you have a plan

✧ you make breakfast for everyone, noting just how much moran actually eats

✧ you’ve been in shock for so long that by the time breakfast rolls around and the initial adrenaline has worn off, you realize just how damn attractive all of them are in real life

✧ moran notices you staring, poking fun at you before yelping in pain at the smack you give him, complaining how women in this era are much more violent

✧ after everyone’s done eating, you explain the plan to them

✧ you’ll help william and albert get a job at the college, william as a math professor and albert as a history professor

✧ you’ll help louis get a job as a chef in a nearby restaurant

✧ you’ll help fred enroll at the school you’re at or let him get a job, whichever he prefers since he is technically the age of a student

✧ you’ll help moran get a job in whatever field he prefers, opting to let the older man choose his own career path

✧ however, since they essentially have nothing, you all need some kind of job in order to buy a bigger apartment

✧ you offer them a chance to earn money so that you all can move to a bigger place and they can continue to stay with you

✧ william accepts for the group, knowing they’d all need help with this very new world

✧ with that, you start your master plan

after the start

✧ william eventually becomes a favored professor at your school, working on earning his phd on the side

✧ albert realizes teaching isn’t one of his favorites, opting to work at a nearby museum and work in the history department, analyzing old documents and artifacts

✧ fred decides to study botany at the school, and you and him grow to be the closest since you’re closest in age and you can hang out between classes

✧ louis makes a name for himself in the town as a chef, his restaurants always full of diners on the weekends

✧ because moran actually knows first aid and has some medical training from the war, he works at the nearby hospital as a medical assistant, hoping to one day get his md so that he can maybe enlist in the army and have a background in both sniping and medicine

general hc’s

✧ moran helps you purchase a nearby townhouse with four bedrooms

✧ william and louis share a bedroom, albert and moran have their own bedrooms, and you and fred share one (seperate beds) since you normally both have late nights for school

✧ because four of the six of you have steady incomes, you will sometimes take them on mini day trips and show them different areas near where you live and explain their significance

✧ william is still amazed by all of the new advances there are in math, constantly reading and doing research to learn more

✧ moran’s hobbies include hunting and teaching you how to defend yourself in a fight because “a lady should know how to fight”

✧ fred has a big tiny crush on you, and always leaves you flowers on your bed at random intervals during the day

✧ albert and louis take turns cooking meals for everyone, and have consistently smacked moran with a spatula when he tries to get food before it’s done

✧ moran and fred are goddamn amazed by the simply invention of tater tots, and both of them require a serving at least once a week

✧ fred picks up on 21st century slang easily because he listens more than he speaks

✧ william cannot fucking understand slang for the life of him, and moran will tease him until the end of time for it

✧ louis uses the slang in all the wrong ways, boasting that he “bombed at the restaurant” whenever he has a good night

✧ albert simply sounds like he’s just very british whenever he talks, so no one questions his lack of slang

✧ you have weekly movie nights, and these end with william and louis asleep with louis’s head on william’s shoulder and william’s head on louis’s head, albert’s legs draped over theirs with his head on moran’s lap, moran’s arm around your shoulder, and fred’s head in your lap with your hand nestled in his hair

✧ speaking of movies, they’re absolutely fascinated with them, and their all time favorite is the hunger games series since the entire premise is taking down evil ‘nobility’

✧ speaking of their plan, it’s something they talked to you about since you basically already knew about it from the book, and you promised to support them no matter what until one of their lives were in danger

✧ you and fred start secretly dating, and once the other boys find out, they’re like four older brothers

✧ fred has to run out of the room when moran sees a small hickey on your neck, threatening to kill him if you two had sex while they were in the house

✧ cue two very red college students

✧ at the end of the day, the six of you have an unbreakable bond, and they’re eternally grateful for how helpful you’ve been since they came to your world

[tvdstelenaforever]

Law & Lust

TVD Imagine: Enzo St. John

Premise: Y/N is new to town and finds out her new employer is a vampire, not long later things take a surprising turn.

Theme: Mature / Smut (18+)

Other: Y/N goes by she/her and is human

Word Count: 4.5k

Author’s Note: I hope you enjoy this smutty imagine, the idea randomly came to me so here goes nothing :-)

—————

It was a dark night as Y/N stood in the poorly lit alleyway, trying to find her way back home. She was new to the area and wasn’t fully acquainted with her neighbourhood. It wasn’t just a run of the mill move but an overseas one. Y/N flew from the south of England to move to the southern United States. A golden job opportunity arose that she couldn’t decline, plus she had dreamed of visiting since childhood.

Mystic Falls seemed like a dainty cute town and Y/N hoped to meet some like minded people that also liked hiking, going on spontaneous trips and eating out. Y/N wouldn’t consider herself an extrovert but she certainly enjoyed socializing in the right doses. The people here seemed friendly enough so it encouraged Y/N to mingle a little.

She was just walking back from a coffee date, well not exactly a date as such, with a sweet guy called Matt. She didn’t get his last name but didn’t care enough as she doubted she would see him again. As Y/N continued on she could hear some shuffling noises from behind. Ignoring it, believing it was some sort of animal, Y/N hurried along.

After a couple of minutes the sound renewed. Paranoid now, Y/N turned to face the source of the noise. Before she could process what was going on, she felt herself being pushed against a fence. A scream escaped her mouth as the culprit tried diving in for her exposed neck. Y/N could feel her heart beating erratically as she tried to fend for herself, to no avail. This stranger was strong.

All of a sudden Y/N could feel her aggressors grip lighten and eventually leave and came face to face with a young man instead, who had dark hair and light eyes. “Are you okay, miss?” The handsome stranger smiled. Slightly disoriented, Y/N nodded. “I can walk you to your intended destination” he offered. Usually Y/N would be wary of any stranger and decline, but this man seemed different. Honest and safe. “Okay, sure” With that the pair headed off to Y/N’s new home.

As they approached the front door the young man hesitated. Y/N noticed and smiled softly. “Thank you for walking me back home” He returned the gesture and continued with her to the door. “Goodnight darlin’, stay safe” Before letting him go, Y/N wanted to know his name. “I’m Y/N, what’s your name?” With a grin, he said “Enzo, Enzo St John”. As he said his last name he emphasized it with a British twang.

“Oh, you’re from England too?” Y/N asked as her face lit up. He stayed quiet for a moment but shook his head, smiling sadly. Well, that was odd Y/N thought but discarded that weird feeling she felt. “Well thanks again Enzo”. Taking a step indoors and closing the door, Y/N took a peek through the side window and there was no sight of the handsome stranger who walked her home.

Sighing, she got ready for bed and tucked herself in snugly. Eventually after pondering the earlier incident, she fell asleep.

***

The following morning Y/N went to work at her new law firm. She was excited to start this new venture. Her boss had informed her that she had a meeting first thing that a.m. With a latte in hand, she walked through the shiny doors and found her way to her boss’s door. Upon entering, she nearly dropped the cup on the floor. Y/N’s eyes widened at her new employer. The one and only Enzo. Enzo St John. Wow, she thought, perplexed.

His eyebrows raised quickly at his new employee, surprised to see it was the damsel in distress from the night before. “Y/N, uh, welcome” The sudden pause indicated his surprise and Y/N blushed involuntarily. Enzo noticed but didn’t react. He suddenly felt awkward and looked away, motioning for her to sit down. “Emily will show you around and get you acquainted with the office. If you have any questions just ask her. She’s been my assistant for over 5 years now and is incredibly efficient and sweet, so you’ll have no trouble settling in comfortably” he started. “I was very impressed by your interview notes that my colleague sent me whilst I was away on a business trip, and I look forward to working with you”. Y/N smiled and thanked Enzo for his warm welcome. As the meeting ended and Y/N got up to grab the door handle, Enzo touched her hand to stop her from leaving.

Y/N blushed again, feeling flushed. What was he doing? She thought. She bit her lip as he kept still, awaiting his next move. Instead of perusing her, he pulled away. Y/N took an intake of breath before pulling the handle, finally closing the door behind her.

Y/N was still thinking about Enzo whilst Emily gave her a tour of the office. Emily seemed nice and as if she loved her job. I guess it didn’t hurt having Enzo as her boss though. He was eye candy as well as seemingly being a gentleman. Y/N would be surprised if she found out he was single.

Once Emily’s tour was over, Y/N sat at her desk reorganizing the layout and filling the desk drawers with all her essential items. The day flew by as Y/N sifted through all the paperwork and made all the appropriate phone calls. As it was time to clock out, Y/N arrived at the elevator doors. When they opened, Enzo was face to face with her. They caught eyes and he immediately looked away. He was nervous much to Y/N’s obliviousness. All she saw was disinterest and professionalism as her eyes followed him walking away.

Y/N was lost in her thoughts as she walked home that night. It felt colder than it was so she hurried along. Y/N wanted nothing more right now than to drink a warm cup of cocoa and watch some Law and Order. Law enforcement shows were her favourite. That was the main reason for her going down the law career route. She was a while away from working with law enforcement though but this was a great step towards that. Luckily Y/N also had duel nationality with the US so she could work with the government if she ever wanted to.

Y/N was slowly starting to drift asleep as the TV hummed in the background. She finally fell unconscious as her dreams filled her mind.

***

The weekend rolled over fairly quickly and Y/N decided to go for a walk around town to get familiar with the place. Loads of people were gathered in the parks and coffee shops, the weather permitting such occasions. Y/N smiled as she breathed in the fresh morning air.

Y/N laid eyes upon the Mystic Grill and ogled at it. Boy was she hungry right now. She decided to have some brunch and relax. Pushing the doors open, Y/N accidentally bumped into Matt. “Oh, hi Y/N!” He grinned. “Hi Matt” she replied casually. “It was nice hanging out the other day. I have some friends that you may like to meet since you’re new here. I’m sure you’ll love them” Y/N smiled, he was such a kind person. It looked like he was just being friendly which was good. Enzo was constantly in her thoughts that Matt was invisible to her in that way.

Effectively Enzo was just a stranger. Now her new boss. No way were they ever going to be an item. He was classy, highly educated, owned his own law firm, and extremely attractive. Y/N felt like she was totally out of his league. Not that she was below par but nothing special.

As Y/N was assigned a table, she looked over the menu, eyes glossing over the irrelevant details. Eventually she found the perfect dish, a mushroom risotto and white wine. Once her order was placed, Y/N twiddled her thumbs.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Emily’s number popped up on the screen as the phone kept vibrating in her hand. Oh, a weekend emergency at the office? Y/N wondered. “Hi Emily!” Y/N greeted happily. “Hello Y/N, how are you? There are just a couple of things Enzo needs to go over with you quickly. Do you mind coming in as soon as possible?” Ah, Enzo needed her to come help him with something? How peculiar, especially for a weekend. “Sure, I’ll be there as soon as I’ve finished my food at the Mystic Grill. I’m literally nearby, I can be there for half an hours time”. Emily thanked her before hanging up.

The food made it’s way to Y/N quickly and she ate it promptly. She paid the bill when she was finished with her meal and headed to the office. The place was deadly silent which felt odd, Y/N was used to a busy office. Once the elevator arrived at the 3rd floor, Y/N found Enzo’s office and knocked.

He opened the door and pulled her inside. Y/N was taken by surprise at the sudden movement. As he closed the door he eyed Y/N, feeling anxious. “What did you need help for?” Y/N asked, confused. “I can’t keep this a secret anymore” Y/N shifted uncomfortably on the spot. He waltzed over to her and stared deeply into her eyes. Her eyes bore into his, completely mesmerized. It was as if she couldn’t look away.

“Y/N, don’t freak out. You’re safe and I wouldn’t ever hurt you. I promise you. I have to tell you what I am. I can’t keep this a secret from you, especially since I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you ever since that first night we met” Enzo declared. “I, I’m a vampire” He said after a short pause. He pulled away whilst still keeping his eyes locked on hers as he suddenly bared his fangs. Y/N’s eyes widened but couldn’t move from her spot.

“When I stop compelling you, don’t run away” he said as he took her hand and squeezed lightly. Enzo finished compelling Y/N and awaited her move.

“But, how? What? I must be hallucinating!” Y/N exclaimed, heart racing at the speed of light. She did as he commanded and stayed put but wanted nothing more than to flee. She had never expected even in her wildest dreams to come into contact with a member of the supernatural. Something completely fictional. Yet not fictional at all.

“Why can’t I leave? Please, let me go” Y/N said quietly, eyes watering. Enzo could feel the fear radiating from her and wanted nothing more than to bring her in for a warm embrace. He was aching for her. “Like I said, I would never hurt you. I really like you Y/N. You’re smart, kind, intelligent, interesting, and beautiful” He said beautiful slowly, taking a deep breath.

This was everything Y/N wanted to hear before, but now that he revealed himself to be a vampire, Y/N felt scared. She wanted to believe him, but she needed space. “Please, just give me some space and time to process this”. Enzo sighed in defeat and nodded. “Okay, but please come back to me when you’re ready” He pleaded, placing a soft kiss on Y/N’s forehead.

As soon as she could move, Y/N bolted for the door. She ran outside, ran as far as her legs could carry her and cried herself to sleep once she arrived home, curling up on the sofa.

***

Work was filled with awkward silences between Enzo and Y/N, Y/N avoiding his gaze every time she came into contact with him. One night after work, Y/N went to the Mystic Grill for a drink. Once she got to the bar she ordered a bourbon whiskey neat. After 5 minutes a friendly face appeared. Matt smiled at Y/N and took the free seat next to her.

“Hey, are you okay? You seem a little off” Matt asked worriedly. “It’s that obvious?” She laughed sadly. He squeezed her forearm and offered her a sympathetic smile. “What’s troubling you?” He asked. “You wouldn’t believe me even if I tried”. Matt felt like he understood what she was insinuating but let her continue. “Try me”. Y/N took an inhale of breath, afraid of sounding crazy.

“I found out my boss is... a vampire” Y/N cringed at how insane that sounded. “Ugh I know, you don’t believe me do you. I understand. I wouldn’t have if you told me the same thing. I feel like I’m either going crazy or I’m living in a much scarier world than I ever imagined”. Matt kept silent for a moment, and Y/N bit her lip in anticipation.

“Let’s talk somewhere a little more private” and with that he took her hand and they walked to a nearby park and sat at a lone bench. “The supernatural are real. I’ve lived among them for years, and at first I had no idea. I actually, um, really dislike them. Sadly some of my friends are supernatural but that’s just the reality of life here in Mystic Falls. People you care about most are undead or some sort of creature. Take werewolves for example”. Y/N’s ears pricked up at werewolves and gulped.

“I know this is overwhelming but you’ll get used to it. Anyway, so who’s your boss?” He asked curiously. “His name is Enzo St John”. Matt raised his eyebrows, stunned. “I know him. He used to date my friend Bonnie. He’s good friends with Damon Salvatore. He’s one person that gets on my last nerve, he knows it and uses it to his advantage. Enzo is alright, but I haven’t had much contact with the guy. If he was good enough for Bonnie then he must be okay”. Y/N took all this information in surprisingly well, Matt thought.

“I just can’t believe it, it’s just so surreal! I don’t know what to think. Also what do you mean by Enzo being okay if Bonnie dated him?” She asked curiously. “Bonnie had an aversion to vampires like me but since she’s a witch, she eventually fell for another supernatural”. Wow, Y/N thought. “There are witches too?” She said in awe.

Matt laughed, she was definitely taking this way better than he did. “Yeah... and hybrids, sirens, doppelgängers, heretics among others”. “Oh my, this is overwhelming. I think I just want to watch some TV and fall asleep” Y/N confessed. Matt nodded in agreement. “If you need anything, just call me. Take care” he said as they parted ways.

It was a few days later and Y/N was in her kitchen preparing some leftovers for dinner. There was an unexpected knock at the door. Y/N wasn’t waiting for anybody but as she opened the door she froze. It was Enzo. Y/N was starting to accept that she was walking among the undead and beyond. It was still a shock but the initial feeling wore off. She finally felt okay to be in his presence.

Y/N held open the door for Enzo to walk in but he quickly hesitated. “You can come in Enzo, I won’t bite” She said, unaware of the pun. Enzo was surprised at her casualness. He raised his eyebrows at her and she realised what she said. She laughed, for the first time in weeks.

She went back to her food whilst Enzo sat at the island. Y/N had a nice house for someone who just moved to the area. The place was already decorated and felt cozy. She definitely tried to bring her culture with her and it showed in the decor.

“Why’re you here Enzo?” Y/N wondered. “I wanted to check on you to see if you were okay”. Y/N could tell that he felt on edge. “I had a chat with Matt Donovan a few days ago and he told me everything about the supernatural, and about you and Bonnie”, Y/N said the last part a bit quieter.

Enzo’s head snapped up to look at Y/N. He wondered what Matt had told her about him and Bonnie. They were a thing of the past, a flame blown out. “We used to date, yes. But we’ve moved on. It was years ago. I don’t want to talk about it” Y/N smiled knowingly, she could relate about not wanting to talk about an ex.

“Of course, I understand” Y/N offered, feeling sympathy for the vampire. Enzo used his vampire speed to come up behind Y/N and slid his arm around her waist. He nuzzled into her neck and kissed her ever so softly. “I want you” Enzo closed his eyes as he moaned into her neck. His body was pressed closely to hers, the warmth radiating from her back.

Y/N pushed her plate to the side and gripped the counter for balance. Enzo was satisfied that she was submitting to him. He slowly shoved his right hand under her skirt and rubbed circles on her clit. She moaned out, eyes closed tightly shut. “I’ve dreamed about doing this to you since we met the second time at my office” he whispered seductively. Y/N quivered under his touch and her legs felt wobbly. Enzo held on tighter and squeezed her hips.

He wanted to take her right then and there but wanted to prolong the sexual tensions. He wanted to hear Y/N moan out his name so he pushed the fabric of her panties aside and inserted a couple of fingers inside her. Y/N licked her lips as Enzo kept sliding his fingers in and out. Eventually his name escaped her lips and he smiled satisfyingly. “Does that feel good baby?” He cooed. Y/N nodded, unable to use her words. The intensity increased and Y/N gripped the counter tighter, knuckles turning white. Enzo let go and gripped her hands as he pushed his body into hers again. This time both of them let out a moan, Enzo close to Y/N’s ear. She shivered from the almost touch of his mouth to her face.

Immediately, Enzo carried Y/N bridal style upstairs to the bathroom. Y/N raised her eyebrows in question. Instead of answering her he smirked and kicked the door shut as he sat her down at the edge of the bath.

“Ever had sex in the bath?” He winked. Y/N hadn’t, and the idea turned her on. They undressed each other and Enzo caressed her cheek softly, in adoration. He gazed into her eyes for a second, looking for any hesitation. Luckily Y/N stared at his lips, biting her own seductively.

“Has anyone ever told you how incredibly sexy you are?” Enzo said with his voice hoarse. Y/N could see his erection emerging so she grabbed hold of his waist and shoved herself against his body so that their naked bodies were molded together. The unexpected motion made Enzo groan deeply. His sound made Y/N feel wet down below. She wanted him inside her asap.

Y/N climbed into the bath and laid down, arching her back and touching herself, hoping for Enzo to ravishingly devour her. He went in after her and gripped her hips to lift her onto him. As she sunk down her weight they both exhaled deeply, a soft moan escaping Y/N’s lips and a deep groan escaping Enzo’s.

Enzo moved very slowly at first, then quickened his pace. He wasn’t going quick enough for Y/N’s liking and she sighed. “I need you so bad, please go faster” Y/N moaned, eagerly awaiting more friction. “I’m the one who’s in charge here, darlin’” Enzo used that term again for the second time, but on this occasion it oozed sexiness. He kept his movement slow just to punish Y/N. She jerked her hips up, grinding hard. “Please baby...” Y/N stuttered, who was beyond desperate.

Since she was so needy, Enzo pushed into her roughly and she screamed out. She gripped his arms as he kept his rhythm fast. Y/N then wrapped her legs around his hips to get him to go deeper. Enzo wrapped his hand around Y/N’s neck with light pressure as he pounded into her. “Does that feel okay?” Enzo asked breathlessly. “Uh huh” Y/N whispered. Y/N could feel herself nearing her climax. “Babe, I’m so close” Y/N whined. “Hold it for me” Enzo demanded, he wanted to cum with her.

“Can I cum yet?” Y/N pleaded, she was ready to burst. Enzo’s lips found hers to drown out her moans as he quickened his pace. He was nearing his climax and was about to come undone. He grunted as they were both ready to release. “Oh, fuck...” They moaned together.

Once they were finished, they ran the shower. Enzo lathered soap in his hands and rubbed it on Y/N’s back from behind her and moved his hands over her stomach and inner thighs. She rested her head against his collarbone as he massaged her body. Once she was all rinsed off she returned the favor. After the water washed over him, Enzo placed both hands against the wall while trapping Y/N between his arms. He rested his forehead against hers and closed his eyes. “How do you feel?” He asked genuinely, hoping she felt finally safe with him. “Like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be” She smiled.

Enzo felt reassured and walked Y/N to her bed where they laid together in a warm embrace. Y/N fell asleep quickly while Enzo just kept her close.

The following morning Enzo was still by her side and she looked up at him with a sweet smile. “Morning my love” He beamed. It was the first time he used the word love and Y/N’s heart fluttered. “Morning handsome” Y/N said into his chest.

Going to work after they became intimate went surprisingly well and with no hiccups. Nobody knew of their affair and even if they had been obvious around each other, Enzo would compel suspecting individuals to become oblivious.

***

Weeks had passed whilst Enzo and Y/N got to know each other more in their spare time. One night they sat on Y/N’s couch and drank some wine. “Damn, you’re so beautiful” Enzo said out of the blue. Y/N smiled, her eyes lighting up. “You’re quite dashing yourself” Y/N laughed. Enzo bit his lip as he stared at Y/N’s.

Instead of replying, he grabbed her face and kissed her aggressively. Taken aback, Y/N pulled away to catch her breath. Their faces found each other’s again and Y/N sat on Enzo’s lap. A low growl escaped his lips as Y/N slid up his crotch, the friction of their clothes rubbing against their privates making them both aroused.

“I’m desperate, please fuck me” Y/N moaned. This surprised Enzo but excited him at the same time. They both undressed and stared at each other whilst doing so, eager to feel the burning desire building deep inside them to become ignited. “Are you going to be good for me?” Enzo asked dominantly. “What if I want to be bad?” Y/N cooed seductively. Enzo laughed, not expecting that response. “I’ll only fuck you if you’re a good girl” He replied more confidently. “I want it to hurt” Y/N blurted out, surprised at her eagerness. It wasn’t like her to be so adventurous in bed but Enzo ignited a deep desire to be wild. Enzo was equally stunned at her sudden request. He was going to start softly and work his way to being rougher. He just didn’t want to literally hurt her.

First Enzo shoved his fingers inside her and moved around, starting his handiwork. Y/N started moaning loudly. “You’re gonna have to stay quiet if you want me to let you cum sweetheart” Y/N bit her lip instead of answering. He really wanted to shove her against the wall and fuck her senseless.

He couldn’t wait any longer so he took her in for a kiss as he guided her to the nearest wall. He pinned her arms above her head and pressed his body to hers. She could feel his dick pressing against her inner thigh and leaned forwards so she could rub against it. “I told you I was in charge babe” Enzo said as he pushed her off him an inch. Y/N groaned in response, all she wanted was for him to be inside her. She closed her eyes and tried to focus on every sensation he was giving her. He touched her core and hummed. “Gosh you’re so wet right now”

Enzo demanded that she turn around. She did as he asked and he parted her cheeks as he slid his cock inside her. She yelped out from the force of it but relaxed into him as he slid in and out or her wet center steadily. He pulled out so he could bring her to the kitchen counter. The cold marble sent shivers down Y/N’s spine as her back touched it. He resumed his previous position and continued pounding himself into Y/N’s core. He whispered in her ear “You’re all mine, moan for me baby”. Y/N happily let out her pent up frustrations, crying out in ecstasy.

“I’m about to cum baby, please let me” Y/N was in total euphoria. Enzo wanted to keep up his dominant persona but was just really into letting Y/N get what she wanted because he was so in love with her. “Let go for me” Y/N moaned several times as she came around him and clenched. Enzo groaned as he was reaching his own orgasm, the squeezing of her muscles sending him over the edge. They both panted from the intense fucking and fell limp in each other’s arms. Y/N started standing up but Enzo wasn’t having it.

“I’m not done with you yet” He said as he brought her close to him again. She didn’t know what he had in mind but awaited his next move. “Get down, now” Enzo ordered. Y/N’s doe eyes widened for a spit second as she obeyed. He used both hands to force her head to his member. “That feels so damn good Y/N” Enzo grunted as she took his whole length in her mouth. She gagged so he pulled out slightly. She then used her hands to pump him as he fucked her mouth. His own mouth hung open as he tilted his head back against the wall. He shook under her touch as she increased the speed. “I’m about to cum Y/N” Enzo gasped. Y/N edged him further as she wanted to hear his raspy voice curse out in pleasure. He grunted out repeatedly as he came in her mouth. His hot seed was falling down her throat as she swallowed. “You were so good babe, I’m still buzzing from that whole experience” He grinned.

Y/N took Enzo in for a passionate kiss and her tongue found his hungrily. When she pulled away, he grabbed her hand and placed his soft lips to them. “I love you”

She looked away for a moment which panicked Enzo. However when she turned back her eyes were watering. “Babe, are you okay?” Enzo asked worriedly. “Yes, it’s just that I love you too” She sniffed. Enzo’s heart felt full and he gave her an affectionate hug.

Y/N finally felt at home in Mystic Falls, but most importantly she found home with Enzo, her one true love. She smiled to herself as they fell asleep together, her dreams finally peaceful.

[thebibliomancer]

Essential Avengers: Hawkeye #1-4

September, 1983

Listen to the Mockingbird

Now for something completely different.

-OR- Further justifying why the posts are titled Essential Avengers when I’m just going to put a colon and then an Avengers to get Essential Avengers: Avengers. Its because sometimes its not Avengers!

Sometimes its Hawkeye.

Since I’m doing four issues in one post, I’m not going to go as in-depth as I usually do.

So, last times on Avengers as related to Hawkeye: Hawkeye was cut from the Avengers due to a limited roster. He eventually got a job as the security chief at Cross Technological Enterprises with the same lack of restraint that got him a job with the Avengers. He’s been doing that for a while, since pre-200. Recently the Avengers needed beef up their roster and Cap and Iron Man convinced him to rejoin, which Hawkeye has done while also keeping his security chief job.

During an Avengers mission TO RESCUE THE PRESIDENT, he broke his leg and was put on medical leave from the team. He got one of the CTE people to build him a rocket-sled that he could putt around in. Judging by the lack of cast, his leg is better but he’s still using the cool rocket-sled.

And that’s where we are. Hawkeye has a cool rocket-sled and is actually holding down an actual job at Cross Technological Enterprises. He’s seems to still be on leave from the team despite his leg being better.

The miniseries starts with Hawkeye congratulating himself on getting a cool rocket-sled, even though it cost all of his money.

Hawkeye: “‘Bad guys beware -- Hawkeye’s in the air!’ Hmmm, not the worst slogan an aerial archer could have... but close.”

At least he’s self-aware. Some days that’s all you can ask of Hawkeye!

He spots three suspicious characters suspiciously sneaking and swoops down on the rocket-sled, taking them out with ease with his totally sweet trick arrows.

Hey, note to comic makers of our modern day. Trick arrows are sweet. I don’t need to see people getting shot in the eyes with arrows when I can see like a net arrow or whatever.

The three suspicious characters are actually CTE employees that Hawkeye asked to come in on their off time to help him get a hang of archering from the rocket-sled. Including the scientist, Jorge, who built it for him!

Wow, Hawkeye!

Jorge at least was happy to do build the thing because he feels like his talents are wasted at CTE and Hawkeye encourages him to go into business for himself.

Which is probably the kind of thing that’s going to get Hawkeye a reprimand but hey, good looking out, Hawkguy.

One of the other CTE employees asks why Hawkeye uses a bow and arrow instead of... a gun. Why not just shoot people with a gun.

Hawkeye: “The bow is quieter, more versatile, and in my hands the deadliest weapon in the state. Or hadn’t you noticed, Howie?”

He doesn’t mention that its also more believably non-lethal than if he were going around with a gun. Because Hawkeye says its the deadliest weapon in the state but he’s also a huge proponent of “superheroes don’t kill!”

But point being, you can buy a comic book guy pinning people to walls with arrows or using trick arrows or shooting weapons out of their hands without killing anyone way more than you could if Hawkeye was just using a magnum.

Also, this:

I believe he is literally flexing on that dude.

CTE’s new public relations lady Sheila Danning shows up for a date with Hawkeye because I guess there’s no rule about dating co-workers. Or at least if they’re not in the same department?

Having a woman showing positive attention to Hawkeye is his cue to have a little internal monologue that’s a little bit sad.

Hawkeye: Man, this is the life! A ridiculously high-paying job, a fast machine between my legs, and a foxy lady who’s nuts about me. What more could a guy want? Until Sheila came along, I thought I was put on this world for women to dump on. Women... like the Black Widow and Scarlet Witch. No matter what I did, I just couldn’t get them to care for me like I did for them. Sheila’s different. Even though we’ve been seeing each other for only a month, what we have is special, real, like nothing I’ve ever known.

I don’t want to ruin his good times but I will remind the audience that he once rage-quit the Avengers because Scarlet Witch didn’t want to kiss him.

Anyway, Hawkeye is pretty enamored. He’s even thinking maybe it’s time he settles down.

He takes her back to his place and they start dancing to some Mantovani as he recaps his entire backstory to her.

In fairness. In faiiiirness. She asked.

But you should know the drill. Clint and Barney ran away from the orphanage to join the circus. Swordsman saw potential in Clint and trained him in archery and Clint began seeing Swordsman as a father figure so threw himself into training in hopes that Swordsman would be proud of him.

Which is funny in an odd way because there’s some same-face going on and Swordsman looks just like Tony Stark!

I wonder if Clint ever slipped up and called Tony dad and had to cover it up by continuing into a daddio.

Anyway, he caught Swordsman with stolen money and Swordmaster left him in a broken heap and skipped town when Clint wouldn’t promise to keep quiet.

Later, he saw the adulation that Iron Man got when he flew over the circus and thought wait I can do that. Got a costume and tried to become a hero. Oops, tripped into being a supervillain and enemy of Iron Man. Annd then joined the Avengers.

Hawkeye: “I’ve done many a stint with my Avenging buddies, but I think I’m finally ready to wing it solo for good. Much as I like ‘em, they cramp my style a bit too much.”

Sheila: “Fascinating story, Clint. Looks like I’ve got a real self-made man. How about if I try to unmake you a little?”

And then they’re about to do sexy times when Clint’s emergency beeper goes off. Because somehow the emergency always knows when you’re horny or mid-ablution.

Hawkeye has to suit back up and head out back to work

Hah.

But anyway, he catches a lady in a very sleevesy costume prowling around and during some back and forth and further back and forth pinned you no pinned you action, she introduces herself as Mockingbird, an ex-shield agent and freelance crimebuster (I think that means superhero?).

Some underworld contacts of hers led her to investigate Cross Technological Enterprises under suspicion that CTE is manufacturing mass mind control technology right under a certain Avenger slash archer’s nose. I.e., Hawkeye.

She wants him to lead her to warehouse 10 but their conversation is interrupted by a security night shift who rush in and surround Mockingbird despite Hawkeye ordering prior to the action scene to let him handle it.

They cuff Mockingbird and take her away but oddly claim that they thought Hawkeye sent the signal for them to charge in.

Hawkeye is perplexed and vexed wondering if there’s anything to Mockingbird’s story. He doesn’t know the full extent of what CTE manufactures and there was some shady business in Marvel Fanfare #3 where a vice-president was using CTE facilities to manufacture a bomb.

Mockingbird’s story bugs him so much that he returns home to Sheila and tells her that there’s something he has to take care of and sends her home in a cab.

He returns to Cross on his sweet rocket-sled and investigates warehouse 10, finding it empty but with a lot of fresh tracks in the dust, like something was moved in only the past hour or so.

Also, a bunch of security staff show up and point guns at him.

That’s also a red flag.

When reminding them he’s their boss doesn’t settle them down, he rolls to the floor to shoot out the lights like a cool action guy and then starts taking them out in the dark just by shooting whenever he hears one of the idiots make a sound.

But one of the guards has Sheila hostage even though she was supposed to have gone home so Hawkeye has to surrender.

The guards toss him into a pit with Mockingbird. Just an oubliette that CTE has on premise, as ya do.

Hawkeye demands to speak with Sheila so he knows she’s alright and whoops she’s in on it.

Sheila Danning, heartbreaker: “Barton -- you stupid fool! Why did you have to be so conscientious? It was my job to keep you distracted so you’d have no time to notice the operation Cross had been contracted for -- a very costly, deadly operation.”

Hawkeye, heartbroken: “What are you talking about, Sheila? Are you saying they paid you to -- to --”

Sheila: “Yes, they paid me. I was pretty convincing, wasn’t I? You never had the slightest idea that I could sooner love a dog than a cornball Romeo with delusions of adequacy like you.”

Hawkeye: “You can’t mean that! They must’ve brainwashed you, poisoned your mind against me! Or -- or maybe you’re not Sheila at all, an imposter, or a robot -- !”

Sheila: “Don’t kid yourself, Barton. I’m the one and only. The woman who could barely keep from snickering when you told her your carnival story this evening.”

Ouch.

I like to mock Hawkeye because he deserves some light ribbing but ouch, she slipped a knife right between those ribbings.

That poor dolt was thinking about proposing and she was paid to distract him by feigning interest. Oof ouch.

Anyway, since CTE has suddenly become Bond-esque, they start dumping liquid industrial waste into the pit to drown and/or melt Hawkeye and Mockingbird.

The stuff is like acid but Hawkeye is kind of wallowing in being dumped and doesn’t care.

Hawkeye: “I ain’t moving. All my life I’ve been dumped on. I’m beginning to enjoy it.”

Mockingbird tells him that if he lets himself be melted by industrial waste because he feels sorry for himself, his ex wins. But that doesn’t move him so she has to mock him into action. This is what she was named for!

Mockingbird: “So this is what they taught you in the Avengers? What a bunch of jerks! They should see you now. I’ll bet you let them down in a pinch, too. Whenever your feelings get hurt.”

Hawkeye: “SHUT UP! I’m gonna get us out of here, lady. Then I’m going to kill Sheila for what she did to me. Then you’ll get yours, too.”

Mockingbird: “Sure, sure. Get us out first.”

Hah, I like Mockingbird.

And I like Hawkeye too. He makes good use of what he has to escape this Bond-esque trap. He doesn’t have his bow or his arrows but he keeps a fifty foot length of cord in his boot and spare arrowheads in his tunic. He calls his rocket-sled with the remote control, ties the cord to a spare rocket arrow-tip and rockets himself and Mockingbird out of the pit and up to his rocket-sled.

Then Hawkeye says he has to go attend some private business and Mockingbird is like cool, I’ll wait for you and hops onto a roof.

Hawkeye rams the rocket-sled through the window of Sheila Danning’s office and jump kicks the guards she has with her and confronts her.

Hawkeye: “You hurt me, Sheila... More than anything ever hurt in my life.”

Sheila: “Stay back, Hawkeye! I - I --”

Hawkeye: “I could kill you for what you did to me. But I won’t. I... can’t. I just don’t care anymore... about you or about whatever scheme Cross is up to! Give me my bow and quiver back and I’ll go.”

Tangentially, like an anime, his shirt is a lot flimsier than his pants and melted off in the acid while his pants are tattered but intact. If only they made shirts out of pants...

And if only they made any outfit out of lady outfit. Mockingbird’s outfit has a few holes and tatters but her whole top didn’t dissolve like Hawkeye’s did!

Sheila does give Hawkeye his archery stuff but warns him that he Knows Too Much and Cross will come after him.

Kind of a weird flex to pull on AN AVENGER WHO KNOWS THOR but you do you, Cross Technological Enterprises.

Hawkeye just takes off on his sweet rocket-sled without responding, zooming past where he left Mockingbird who has to jump onto the moving rocket-sled because he does not slow down for her.

Mockingbird: “Got your business taken care of, sport?”

Hawkeye, crying a little: “Shut up, just shut up. If you hadn’t shown up, none of this could have happened.”

Oof.

That’s the hurt speaking buddy. Ignorance wouldn’t have been bliss here because as soon as Cross didn’t need to distract you any longer, Sheila probably would have found some excuse to dump you.

Also, their scheme was asinine! They don’t have other facilities? Just build the mind control doohickey somewhere else instead of paying someone to distract Hawkeye with horny!

October, 1983

POINT BLANK!

So after having his heart broken and wallowing in some acid sludge in the last issue, Hawkeye is in a bad place. Emotionally. And also geographically.

He’s standing on some abandoned railroad tracks under the West Side Highway and shooting arrows at a bullseye he crudely drew on a cement block.

And Good Archer Hawkeye has not hit a single bullseye because of all the emotional turmoil. Also, since he’s shooting at concrete, he’s breaking all of his arrows.

He’s also wearing his no-shirt acid-tattered costume.

And he’s been here for 42 hours without sleeping, eating, or managing to hit a bullseye.

He’s in a bad place.

So he passes out and he’s eventually found by some random street toughs who recognize him as an Avenger (although they think his name is Nighthawk womp womp) and decide ‘hey lets kick his ass and do him a murder maybe.’

Hawkeye comes to, as one might when people are kicking them in the head, and manages to nail three bullseyes on the three toughs he didn’t kick unconscious.

Hawkeye: Three bullseyes. Two kayos. Five sleezos in dreamland. Thanks, creeps. You gave me a reason to go on living. I’m just not sure what it is!

But now Hawkeye is at a loss of what to actually do. He refuses to go to the Avengers for help because blah blah blah muh pride. He can’t go and “mooch” off of them. So he decides to go check out the apartment he had through Cross Technological Enterprises and see whether they’ve cleared him out or not.

They have.

Everything he had to his name except the clothes on his back and bow in his hand gone. Arrow-making tools and spare costumes gone too.

But he also finds Mockingbird waiting for him.

Mockingbird: “Hello, Hawk. Can I buy you some breakfast?”

Hawkeye: “MOCKINGBIRD! Lady, you’re not one of my favorite people, but I know a good offer when I hear one.”

A free breakfast is a free breakfast.

Mockingbird takes Hawkeye back to her apartment and apologizes for blowing up his life but also says that it would have happened eventually anyway even had she never come along.

Which, yeah, you can only pay a person to pretend to love someone they hate for so long before the mask slips.

She also offers to mend his costume. Not sure how she’s thinking. Its not torn. Its half gone.

Hawkeye says yeah sure but hey why don’t you narrate your ENTIRE BACKSTORY.

So Mockingbird introduces herself as Barbara Morse, Bobbi to her friends.

She was a biology whiz at Georgia Tech and went with her favorite professor when she signed on to a government project to recover the super-soldier serum that made Captain America so super.

SHIELD was one of the sponsors of the project so Bobbi got to know several SHIELD agents and realized ‘hey being a spy sounds AMAZING’ and signed up with SHIELD’s spy school.

She graduated top of her class and was sent on a mission to track down Ka-Zar who SHIELD wanted to hire.

Mockingbird: “I found the jungle man all right. Even got involved with him, if you know what I mean. But things never quite worked out between us.”

Oh my god, what a power move to brag about nailing discount-Tarzan while recapping your life story.

Later, she investigated SHIELD itself at the request of a Congressman under the identity as the Huntress. But not the crossbow one. But because of her actions, she gained the reputation as a traitor to SHIELD.

So she changed her name to Mockingbird and took the evidence of corrupt agents to Nick Fury. And got shot a couple times in the attempt.

She had to spend six months recovering and after turned down a SHIELD promotion to go solo.

Mockingbird: “Not that I had anything against S.H.I.E.L.D... I just got used to operating alone. It wasn’t long after I got back into circulation that I came across the lead that took me to Cross Tech and I bumped into you. So that’s my lifestory in a nutshell, Hawk.”

I don’t know why I thought Mockingbird debuted in this series because she has a lot of backstory here. She showed up in Astonishing Tales #6 unnamed, was introduced as Dr. Barbara Morse in Astonishing Tales #12, was introduced in her Huntress (but not that one) identity in Marvel Super Action #1, and even Mockingbird debuted in Marvel Team-Up #95! Geez, Bobbi!

Annnnnd then Mockingbird realizes that Hawkeye fell asleep on her while she was recapping her entire life!

Bobbi doesn’t hold it against him, realizing how exhausted he must have been.

She tucks him in and heads off to go pick up some supplies to fix his costume.

Later, someone picks the locks to the apartment door and silently comes up and puts a gun to the sleeping Hawkeye’s head.

Perhaps it is instinct -- a survival sense honed in hundreds of life-and-death struggles... But somehow Clint Barton feels the cool gun metal at his temple, instantly recognizes it for what it is -- and reacts.

(We actually see a hint of this dingus at Hawkeye’s apartment when he meets Mockingbird there. Implying that he somehow followed them from there to Bobbi’s apartment. Somehow. Even though Hawkeye and Bobbi took Hawkeye’s sweet rocket-sled. Good tracking, this guy.)

Hawkeye manages to dive away from the guy’s gunfire and hide behind one of those tables that looks like a giant spool. He weirdly realizes that the assassin’s gun isn’t making any sound when he fires and the bullets aren’t making any noise when they hit.

He’s in a tough spot unable to reach his bow in time when Mockingbird comes back to save Hawkeye, flipping the assassin and telling Hawkeye to grab his gun.

The assassin jumps out the window rather than deal with the both of them (Bobbi speculates its because she’s not on his hit list).

Hawkeye tests the gun after and discovers that its not silenced which means that the silencer was all in the guy’s suit, muting all the sounds he makes.

He dubs the guy Silencer and he has a pretty neat gimmick but doesn’t seem to ever appear again after this issue.

Shame. Imagine this guy against Daredevil.

Anyway, Mockingbird also managed to make Hawkeye a new outfit while she was gone.

Mockingbird: “Here -- better put this on. Half-naked men with guns make it hard for me to concentrate.”

Hawkeye: “Sure.”

God. Hawkeye’s non-reaction to that blatant flirt makes me laugh. He may as well have Saitama meme’d.

So the new outfit.

The blue is a lot darker now. The dangly part of the tunic is a lot less dangly now. And the outfit has some asymmetrical sleeves. Also, its not entirely clear on this shot but the gloves are weird. They don’t cover the sides of his fingers. I don’t know if that’s an archery thing or what and I don’t know if that’s going to be a detail that lasts once other artists start drawing this costume.

All in all, not a bad looking new outfit. Its better than that time he didn’t wear pants.

Later that night, Hawkeye figures that they need to return to Cross and figure out who hired them to build that mind-control thing. But, they’ll need help getting back into Cross.

(Hey, I just realized. Hawkeye was double Cross’d by his employer. Hah.)

They go to visit Jorge Latham, the guy who built a sweet rocket-sled for Hawkeye so probably the guy he trusts the most now.

Jorge: “What happened to you, man? We got a memo two days ago that you were fired for incompetency, and I haven’t seen you since!”

Aw man, insult to injury! They told everyone that Hawkeye was fired because he sucked too hard!

Hawkeye tells Jorge the story, in brief, about how Cross is up to something, gets information on where the special projects are done, and tells Jorge to maybe get his resume in order in case he accidentally shuts the whole company down in the course of blowing this thing wide open.

Jorge is a lot more chill about learning he might be unemployed soon than I think a lot of other people would be. Although he had already expressed he wasn’t really satisfied in his job.

Hawkeye: “The info he gave us is going to save us a lot of hassle. Sure is good to have a few folks you can trust.”

Mockingbird: “You still don’t quite trust me, do you, Hawkeye? Even after I saved your life.”

Hawkeye: “No offense, lady. But it’s going to take me a while before I can fully trust any woman again.”

Geez, really hope that doesn’t last. He already teetered into disrespect of women without becoming a full-on misogynist.

Drink your respect women juice, Hawkeye.

The two return to Cross Technological Enterprises and Hawkeye uses his electronic security neutralizer arrowhead to neutralize the security on a window so they can jimmy it open and get inside.

.... Why do you need an electronic security neutralizer arrow? The way he uses it is tracing the circuit in the window and I don’t think you could shoot an arrow in a way that did that. And if you did shoot an arrow at a security system in a window, I think you’d break the window and set off the alarm?

What a mystery.

Hawkeye has never been in the special projects department but it doesn’t take a genius to find some filing cabinets.

Mockingbird: “Locked, of course. It also doesn’t take an electronic gizmo to open a locked file. Just a hairpin. See?”

Hawkeye: “Showoff.”

This would be banter if Hawkeye didn’t look so somber.

But Hawkeye gets to be useful too when he pulls out his....... penlight arrowhead?

WHY WOULD YOU EVER NEED TO FIRE A FLASHLIGHT? WHAT PURPOSE DOES THAT SERVE??

Mockingbird: “I just don’t know how I ever got along without you and your handy tools, Mr. H.”

DON’T ENCOURAGE HIM

The Silencer guy sneaks up on the duo as they’re snooping the files and something cues Hawkeye in to swivel around and fire an electro-stun arrow. Couldn’t have been a sound so lets say air flow?

The electro-stun doesn’t stun the Silencer so him and Hawkeye end up grappling right out the window. Because that’s the kind of life Hawkeye leads.

Luckily the rocket-sled (although he’s changed the name to sky-mobile by this point) was hovering right outside so the two wind up grappling on it as it rockets around the CTE compound.

The two wind up falling off the sky-mobile and onto a smokestack... God, its starting to be like one of those giant chicken fights...

Anyway, the Silencer catches the edge but Hawkeye misses and goes plummeting into a smokestack, hopefully not to find a Spider-Man skeleton.

The Silencer drops his guard to try to figure out how the heck he’s going to get down from here and Hawkeye reemerges, yanking the Silencer down and pulling himself back up.

Not sure if the implication is that Hawkeye killed him. Hawkeye is famously vehemently ‘Avengers don’t kill!’ and the Silencer isn’t confirmed dead but also never shows up again.

Hawkeye summons the sky-sled (the caption changed the name on me again) and rockets back to where he left Mockingbird and in the meantime she’s found all the information they need to find who hired Cross to build the thing.

Hawkeye: “Run into any trouble?”

Mockingbird: “Not really.”

Hah. Apparently she beat up a room full of guards while he was gone. Good on you, Mockingbird.

November, 1983

Beating the ODDS

Pretty neat cover.

Also, pretty neat logo. I didn’t mention it earlier but yeah you have a neat logo, Hawkeye.

Mockingbird and Hawkeye return to her apartment after breaking into Cross Technological last issue.

Something that they may have done well to ponder is whether maybe it wasn’t a safe HQ anymore if that Silencer guy was able to track them there.

What I’m getting at is that there are two more assassins - Oddball and Bombshell - watching from an adjacent rooftop as the heroes head inside.

And then the apartment explodes.

Hawkey and Mockingbird manage to escape the explosion though because Mockingbird never sweeps and noticed footprints in the dust and Hawkeye used a thermite-tipped bomb-sniffing arrow.

... Okay, that gimmick arrow is valid.

Mockingbird watches her apartment burn “in increasingly sullen fascination” for two hours before Hawkeye suggests maybe coming back after everything is cooled down.

Alas, the sky-mobile was destroyed in the explosion. Alas, alas, we barely knew ye and now you’re gone.

Mockingbird has an odd sense of what’s romantic because she decides that her apartment burning down and losing all of her possessions is.

Wow, she’s been friendly and flirty with Hawkeye but she’s downright into the lug. Right during the one period in his life when he wouldn’t enjoy that. How’s that for bad timing?

Also, someone is clearly shipping these two.

Mockingbird has assorted appearances before this miniseries so I wonder who got the idea to throw her together with Hawkeye. I’ve heard rumors that it was to copy the Green Arrow/Black Canary pairing. I don’t know if that’s true or just an assumption.

Anyway, Hawkeye also finds an 8-ball in the wreckage which is odd and a clue because Mockingbird didn’t have one of those.

The two heroes realize that Cross obviously sent more hitmen after them so they got to figure out this plot before they get got.

Mockingbird withdraws the rest of her money from an ATM (only $97. Freelance superheroing just doesn’t pay...) and Hawkeye insists on spending some of that money on some arrows since he’s down to his last one.

Mockingbird: “I thought you needed specially made arrows.”

Hawkeye: “My new modular arrowheads fit on any target arrow... get ‘em at any sporting-goods store.”

This issue is a gift.

And since they now don’t have enough money to take a cab to where they’re going, they get on the subway.

Where in one of those amazingly contrived comic coincidences, Steve Rogers Captain America happens to be riding the same car!

Cap recognizes that Hawkeye is on a mission and offers to drop everything to help him.

You’re a cool guy, Cap.

Hawkeye has concerns.

Hawkeye: Aw, no. Cap is Mr. Avengers himself. I know I’m at the end of my resources, maybe way out of my depth, but if I let Cap in on it, he’ll wind up running the show... and I’ll end up on the sidelines again, just like it was back in the Avengers.

Pride goeth before something, Hawks.

Although, knowing vaguely what I know is soon upcoming, its a very timely time for Hawkeye to worry about running the show.

Hawkeye: “Ah, it’s nothing I can’t handle, old timer. Just the same old bopping the bad guys stuff.”

Cap: “I read you, soldier. Anyway, you know how to reach me if you get in a jam.”

You’re a really cool guy, Cap.

Hawkeye and Mockingbird get off at the next stop and Mockingbird grills Hawkeye about the hunky stranger, recognizing that he was probably in the superhero biz. Adding some context to Hawkeye not wanting Cap involved perhaps. Although its still a lot of dumb pride.

Hawkeye: She meets Cap in his civvies and is bowled over. No wonder I always looked like a piker around him. You know, I never realized how second rate Cap makes me feel. I’ve just go to solve this whole mess on my own. If I don’t, I may never be able to stand on my own two feet.

Anyway, then an 8-ball rolls and bonks into Hawkeye’s feet and he sees one of the assassins lurking around the corner doing him a taunt.

This issue is a gift for out of context panels. I swear.

Hawkeye realizes Oddball is baiting him but also is the exact kind of impulsive person who takes the bait. So he runs off after Oddball.

Oddball is..... apparently a juggling based assassin. Dunno why that’s such a common thing in comics. But here we are. He’s a juggling based assassin.

Hawkeye runs on ahead after Oddball and Mockingbird gets ambushed by a nun as she follows.

Its that kind of book, I guess.

Also, the nun is the other assassin Bombshell.

She’s got a Black Widow style wrist launcher for incendiary charges.

Hawkeye and Oddball get into an archery vs juggling based standoff, yes really, and then Oddball jumps onto a subway train, further luring Hawkeye. Who should really know better but ignores the part of his brain that some call common sense.

Oddball, by the by, is somewhat of an oddball. He’s just giggling and joking his way through this mission to kill an Avenger. He’s definitely following the maxim that if you do what you love, you don’t kill for money a day of your life. Or something.

When he jumps on the train he goes with “We’re having fun now, all rightee! Care for another shot, sport? I’ll match my speed to yours anyday and twice on Sunday. Time’s up, gotta go. Ta-ta!”

Hawkeye jumps onto the back of a departing subway train to keep up the pursuit and you know what, he seems like he’s having a good time too?

Hawkeye: Man, there’s nothing like a good chase to make me feel great about myself again. Wonder if Oddball would consent to be my regular sparring partner? Cap’s got the Red Skull, Iron Man has the Mandarin. Me, I never had anybody all my own.

He must be feeling some chemistry with this dude if he wants to make him his archnemesis after only one fight.

Although after this

Hawkeye decides that Oddball is way too much to be his nemesis. He’s got standards, dammit!

Oddball runs off the train, pursued by archer.

Oddball: “I could pick him off any time I want. I know I can throw faster than he can shoot. But I’m having just plain too much fun to cut it short.”

Sure, guy.

Oddball and Hawkeye wind up having a stand-off in the rafters of the subway station because that’s the kind of guy Oddball is.

Hawkeye manages to pin the guy down with an arrow to his throat but while he’s been chasing an oddball, Mockingbird got her ass kicked by a bombshell.

So a distracted Hawkeye gets knocked out via bomb to the back of the head.

Bombshell catches Hawkeye as he falls from the rafters and Oddball wonders why not just let him die.

Bombshell: “I just got a call from [the boss]. He wants these two birds brought to him to use in some kind of experiment.”

And so the third issue ends with Hawkeye and Mockingbird being carried off to the perpetrators which saves some time but being brought in as prisoners is less than ideal.

Shoulda taken up Steve on his offer, Clint.

December, 1983

“TILL DEATH DO US PART...”

I guess Hawkeye fuckin’ dies.

He sure has a lot of friends but Johnny Storm looks like he’s annoyed that he has to attend. ‘What the heck, I barely knew the guy!’

Anyway, between issues, Oddball and Bombshell have dragged Hawkeye and Mockingbird to a place and strung them up on a thing.

The place is apparently a mortuary.

And they’ve been strung up for hours judging by how their limbs feel.

The man behind it all shows himself and guy knows how to make an impression.

Not necessarily a good one.

The cross shaped codpiece is killing me.

As is Oddball juggling in the background to remind us that he is a juggler.

Crossfire: “I am Crossfire -- master subversive, brainwasher, and entrepreneur.”

Credit where its due, that’s a funny line.

Crossfire: “In the typical fashion of someone who holds all the cards, I’m going to divulge to you more than you will need to know about me and my business...”

I want to question this but he’s too self-aware about how stupid it is. I have no room to operate here.

Here is something I WILL make fun of.

Crossfire’s real name is William Cross. He is related to the guy that founded Cross Technological Enterprises. So them screwing over Hawkeye was like a family activity.

But he’s using Cross in his codename. Like if Hawkeye was instead Bartonman. It’s a choice.

Anyway, Crossfire was a CIA agent but when he realized that his real interest lie in fomenting disorder for profit, he decided him and the CIA weren’t on the same path.

Which. Guy. Dude. Fella. No.

Crossfire also realized that superheroes would eventually get in his way so he decided that his first goal is to eliminate all costumed superheroes.

Moon Knight and the Thing thwarted a prototype over in Marvel Two-in-One #52 but Crossfire managed to get away to refine his plan.

(For bigger)

His plan is pretty ingenious actually.

He’s going to kill Hawkeye. So far so good. Then dump his body in Central Park where it will be easily found.

The Avengers will find out about his death and have a funeral for him. And Crossfire made sure they’ll use Restwell Funeral because it has the best name! But more seriously because its the funeral parlor the superheroes used for Whizzer’s funeral and because Crossfire will make sure every other mortuary is booked.

HE’S PLANNING EVERY ANGLE.

Then at the service, he’ll activate the Undertaker machine which will send a subliminal RAGE signal to all the superheroes and they’ll fight to the death.

Crossfire: “Yes, I fully expect my lovely chapel to be thoroughly demolished. Don’t worry -- insurance will cover it.”

This is such a hilariously mundane concern.

Anyway, probably the whole funeral party won’t kill each other but it’ll thin the numbers, the survivors will forever be traumatized at what they did, and the government will crack down on superheroes.

And as for why he chose Hawkeye?

Crossfire: “I would think it was obvious, Hawkeye. You are the weakest, most vulnerable known costumed crimefighter in town.”

Ouch.

There’s planning to kill a guy as part of a larger scheme to kill all his friends and then there’s just being hurtful.

Further insulting injury? Crossfire is not just going to kill them. He’s going to make Hawkeye and Mockingbird kill each other by testing the Undertaker device on them.

That settles it. This guy is a dick.

The Restwell mortuary has a super sealed room for testing the device. Twelve inch thick concrete and steel walls and a door sealed with electronic lock. It would take even the Hulk some effort and Hawkeye and Mockingbird don’t even have their weapons.

Plus, there’s three cameras watching the room and the Undertaker speakers are hidden and durable.

Alas, Crossfire wouldn’t make a good Bond villain. He’s too not leaving a blatant way out of his death trap out of arrogance.

Hawkeye and Mockingbird get up close with their backs to the camera so they can whisper and make a plan.

Unfortunately, they can’t really think of a plan other than ‘try to resist brainwashing I guess?’

Mockingbird knows some SHIELD techniques and Hawkeye just promises he’ll try really hard to resist.

Hawkeye: “I really don’t want to hurt you. In the last couple days, I’ve actually kind of started, well, liking you.”

Aw.

Aww.

But Crossfire is a dick still and activates THE UNDERTAKER right after they kiss.

They try to resist but yeah that plan wasn’t a plan and wasn’t even a concept. They start fighting to the death. Ironically, Bobbi “I know SHIELD techniques” Morse throws the first kick while Hawkeye is still trying to resist.

And Mockingbird is a lot better at martial arts than Hawkeye whose muscle memory keeps tripping him up into using a bow that he doesn’t actually have.

This issue is a gift.

But yeah, Mockingbird beats the crap out of Hawkeye. Not that he doesn’t get some hits in. He even manages to surprise Crossfire who was heavily betting on Mockingbird to easily trounce his ass.

Also, during the fighting, Mockingbird manages to kick one of the cameras, jarring it so it points at the ceiling.

And then double kicks Hawkeye in the dick.

Oof.

Watching two people fight to the death, Oddball has a question. How long does the brainwashing sound effect last after being turned off?

Crossfire decides hey actually that’s an interesting thought and turns off the machine to see. Plus, for dick reasons, giving them a brief respite will “make their plight all the more poignant.”

What a dick.

The brainwashing ends almost as soon as the sound does and the two heroes stop beating the crap out of each other to be disgusted by what they were doing.

In desperation, Hawkeye finally comes up with a plan.

It’s not a good plan but he had only a couple seconds and its impressive that he has a plan at all in that brief period of lucidity.

Hawkeye huddles into the corner that the jarred camera no longer covers and goes through his spare (mispelled as space for some reason, shrug) arrowheads and finds a hypersonic arrowhead.

And if he puts the arrowhead in his mouth and activates it, it will be really loud and drown out the ultrasound! Also, shooting hypersonic frequencies INSIDE HIS SKULL will probably be bad for his hearing but what can ya do.

Crossfire reactivates THE UNDERTAKER and Hawkeye activates the mouth arrowhead with his tongue. Which feels like a “dull knife lacerating [his] brain” but at least he doesn’t want to murder all the time.

That’s something!

(Also, it’s a neat touch but the EEEEEE of the hypersonic arrowhead covers the NNNN of the ultrasonic signal. Good SFXing.)

With his wits about him, he can actually beat Mockingbird by using his strength advantage, closing in, and not letting her use her fancier jumpy techniques.

After beating the shit out of Mockingbird and feeling like shit for having to do it, Hawkeye tosses her to misalign another camera, and then feigns that he collapses from exhaustion.

Crossfire thinks that there’s no way that Hawkeye could play dead under the effect of the RAGE NOISE so he’s really down. He sends Oddball and Bombshell to retrieve the two heroes to examine.

While being carried like a potato sack, Hawkeye grabs one of Oddball’s odd balls and knocks out the juggler and then bonks Bombshell unconscious as well before she has a chance to react.

Then, he runs to get Crossfire before the guy has a chance to figure out what’s going on.

Except, Crossfire has cameras all over the dang place and knows what happened and decides that Hawkeye is such a resourceful, worthy foe that he deserves to die by irony.

(Hawkeye has no idea what the guy is saying because he can’t hear a thing after sticking a hypersonic arrowhead in his mouth)

Crossfire tries to kill Hawkeye with his own bow but whoops, remember when Hawkeye was flexing on that guy earlier about his bowstring having an absurd draw weight?

Yeah.

The dingus got irony’d by his own ploy at irony.

Hawkeye ties up Crossfire, grabs his bow and arrows because they make him happy, and runs back to check on Mockingbird.

Hawkeye: “Mockingbird -- ? You with me, sweetheart? We won. I beat them. Every last bloody oen of them. Mock -- ?” She’s not breathing. I - I killed her...!

Mockingbird: “Those tears for me, sport? Aw, shucks.”

Even beaten to hell, Mockingbird gonna sass.

And then they kiss. Which strikes me as... not a good time for it? Her face is all bruised up and she’s got a little blood going on. Ah, whatever.

Awww.

An hour later, the police show up to arrest Crossfire, Oddball, and Bombshell. Presumably Mockingbird called them as Clint still cannot hear a single thing.

Which is unfortunate because Mockingbird comes over to talk and Hawkeye is like ‘geez what is she saying right now? I hope it’s not important’ and decides to get out of the conversation ASAP before she finds out he’s gone deaf and gasp pities him!

Mockingbird: “Look, I’m not much of a joiner or anything. But I must admit that the two of us made one heckuva team. I was thinking... maybe we ought to become an item, you know what I mean? After all, you are one of the cutest --”

Hawkeye: “Yeah, well, see you around then.”

Hawkeye, you absolute fool.

THANKFULLY

Thankfully, Mockingbird isn’t the type to just go ‘wow what a jerk’ without going and ripping a person a new asshole, verbally.

So she did do that. She ran after Hawkeye and ripped him a new asshole, verbally, forced him to explain himself, probably rolled her eyes, and then dragged him to get a hearing aid.

And one week later, they’re married and relaxing in a heart-shaped tub!

Wow, they operate fast!

I mean, in fairness, we knew Hawkeye was like that. He’d known Sheila Danning for like a month before he was contemplating marriage. And we can assume Mockingbird was like that too considering she knew Hawkeye like a minute before waggling her eyebrows and insinuating sex at him.

Mockingbird: “You owe me, pal. Sure, you saved my life. But what I’m going to do to your life is more than just a one-shot deal. I’m not just talking about helping you get a hearing aid. Or the blood test, or the license, or even arranging for a quaint little cottage in the woods. I’m talking about the rest of your life, and the difference having me around is going to make in it. Maybe eloping was my idea, but I’m going to see to it that for the rest of your life, you believe that it was the best idea you didn’t quite hear.”

Hawkeye: “I hear you, Mrs. Hawkeye. I hear you.”

Awwww. They’re a cute couple. And I do like their chemistry.

So that was the Hawkeye limited series. And it was pretty good!

It introduces some lasting changes like ‘being deaf’ and ‘being married’ to the character. Of course, because comics, both of those things will come and go. And in some cases come back. Lets enjoy them while they last.

Next time on liveblogging: something a little different.

Follow @essential-avengers​ because I just covered a miniseries. And then I had to redo the fourth issue in just an hour because tumblr didn’t save it. Please reward me. Also, like and reblog if you’d like to reblog.

[ladyloveandjustice]

Summer 2020 Anime Quick Takes

Thanks to pandemic delays, the Summer 2020 season was slim pickins (and the fall season has been A Lot in comparison) but there were a couple titles I enjoyed!

Appare-Ranman!

Appare-Ranman! technically launched in the spring, but thanks to COVID delays, most of it ended up airing last season, and that’s when I picked it up. The anime follows Appare, an eccentric inventor and his long suffering samurai companion, Kosame. Thanks to a mishap, the pair get blown from their home in Japan all the way to America, circa...well, SOMEWHERE in the late 1800s/early 1900s, but don’t expect much attention to historical accuracy here. Kosame desperately wants to get home to reassure his family but lacks the funds, meanwhile Appare just wants to build a cool car, so both of them end up joining the Trans America Wild Race, the first car race across all of America, and get mixed up with a variety of characters.

Appare-Ranman is just plain fun and I was honestly surprised by how endeared I was by it by the show’s end. The ensemble cast’s designs are all wildly over-the-top and blatantly stereotypical of their respective backgrounds, which is fine for Appare and Kosame, Japanese characters in a Japanese production, but may sit less well when it comes to the black and indigenous characters, for instance.

While I’m not here to say “look past the designs because the characters are ~secretly groundbreaking~” (they’re not, the struggles Hototo faces as a Native American are just barely referenced and Jing goes through a very by-the-numbers arc where she faces some easily resolved sexism and that’s about it), the series does do very well making the ensemble really fun, loveable characters who play off each other really well.. Episode 9- which just has all the characters hang out and interact with each other and goof off and I deeply loved every second of it-made me realize how much the cast had charmed me. Kosame and Appare being confused by American hotsprings! TJ making Dylan feel insecure about his hair! Sofia and Jing getting a cute bonding moment! It made me realize that this show had managed to do one of my favorite things- it could feature any combination of two characters and make the audience love and want to see more of them through small interactions.

Overall Appare is a really fun adventure romp that’s cool to just chill out to and enjoy the explosion of anachronism, action, camp, and cute characters having cute interactions. The final arc did kinda pull a couple things that annoyed me- a boring villain, one of the female characters getting held hostage and the other one being put in the typical “LET’S HAVE THE ONE GIRL ON THE GOOD SIDE AND ONE GIRL ON THE BAD SIDE FIGHT” deal, but other than that, it was a thoroughly good time.

Deca-Dence

Deca-Dence follows a young woman named Natsume and her grizzled mentor,  Kaburagi. Both of them work as maintenance grunts in a giant mechanical fortress called Deca-Dence where the last surviving members of humanity are holed up to shield themselves from the constant attacks of giant monsters. The humans are protected by a weird alien looking race of warriors called Gears, and only elite humans are allowed to fight the monsters alongside the Gears. Natsume desperately wants to fight, but is told she can’t because of her mechanical arm. But Kaburagi may have more experience than he lets on when it comes to fighting...

It’s hard to talk about Deca-Dence because it executes a pretty big second episode twist that changes the entire context of the show. Without spoiling, all I can say is it does end up having some things to say about exploitative systems, things that feel very relatable in the hell year of 2020. It’s definitely worth checking out the first two episodes to see what you think.

Other than that, Deca-Dence is often beautifully animated, has an ambitious, meaningful premise,  there’s some interesting nuance to how Natsume relates to her disability that’s briefly bought up, and it features a nice amount of female characters in prominent roles- in addition to Natsume, the strongest human warrior is a woman and a wonderfully acerbic hacker named Jill essentially holds the plot together with her competence. On paper, it should have been my favorite of the season, but while it was definitely a worthwhile watch... I think I preferred the wacky racing show despite all its problems.

Part of it may have to do with the fact Natsume and Kaburagi didn’t end up being true co-protagonists. It seemed like they might be in the beginning, but the latter half of the show definitely shifted the focus to Kaburagi as protag. It’s not fair to say Natsume ends up serving solely as Kaburagi’s “inspiration” but, despite her efforts to be active, that’s still the bulk of her role, especially in the finale, and it didn’t completely sit well with me and also kind of muddied the thematic waters a bit. It was a show in part about the exploitation of humanity where humanity felt kind of...marginal.

So yes, Deca-Dence is a solid watch and I’d certainly recommend it, but its whole feels a little less than the sum of its parts.

Fruits Basket Season 2 (13-25)

The back half of FB season 2 is notable for bringing one of the best parts of the series, the Sorta Cinderella play, to life. Other than that, not much to say other than what I’ve been sayin’- solid show, some dated aspects, lots of feels. Looking forward to season 3!

[thelastpilot]

The Monster in the Room- Chapter 12

An update!! And I’m already writing the next one. Happy Halloween! Get caught up on AO3. 

Some things changed after the trio of students had decided to visit, and some things didn’t. For one, the visits continued.

They had lingered for hours on that first day, speaking softly and through Alya most of the time. The Kitsune dutifully translated anything Nino wanted to pass along, which wasn’t much. He barely spoke after a while, but Alya and Marinette combined continued to monitor his reactions, and at no point were they asked to leave. A lot of that time was spent in silence, Nino speaking primarily to Alya but padding over to the others every once in a while, trading a subdued wag of the tail for a smile.

Eventually though, as lunch drew near, they were forced to leave.

Marinette was chittering quietly about how they probably shouldn’t have skipped so much class even if they had been given permission, but Adrien just patted her on the shoulder, assuring her that it was all alright and that no one would be getting in trouble (for as much her benefit as Nino’s who seemed to be worried about it, though he couldn’t say as much to him directly).

He was the first one to ask if Nino would rather have some privacy, or if he could bring him some food during the lunch break and hang out with him for a while. The knowledge that Nino was going to be alone for the weekend was nagging at him deeply, and even if he knew that he might be pushing it he was having a hard time leaving him alone knowing it would be days before he would be able to come back.

It was to all of their relief when Alya passed along that that would be… fine. He wouldn’t mind it if they did, but that he wanted them to go back to class for the rest of the day after. He didn’t want anyone falling behind for his sake, and Alya had huffed in disbelief at that.

‘You have every right in the world to worry about yourself too you know,’ the fox had told him as the group made to leave, leveling him with her sharp, unyielding gaze. ‘Not just everyone else or how everyone else feels about you.’

 Nino had thought about that for awhile after they left.

 He didn’t move much or speak much as time slowly passed him, wrapped up in the things that Alya had said to him. He was still… terrified. And misplaced and… and a thousand hard, heavy things. But he was thinking.

When he had been cowering under the bed alone, ignoring Ms. B and anyone else kind enough to try he had hardly been thinking really, he wasn’t sure if his dark, circling thoughts counted. It all always fell back on itself, every moment only colored with shame and self-hatred.

Those things weren’t gone, not even remotely, but he was thinking now, grasping at threads and trying to remember how they all went together.

Alya’s advice seemed like bullshit, the rest of the time they had been there only resulting in her rephrasing the sentiments she had originally shared, but it was all he had and he refused to just disregard it. He had watched her shift, in the same instantaneous way he had, it was the only grounds for comparison he had and he wasn’t sure if he’d survive it if he just ignored what she had to say. He needed something.

But accepting what she had said was…

Hard.

 “You can’t be Nino without this anymore.”

How could that be true?

 He was still sitting in the same spot when they eventually came back, and he was unsure how much time had actually passed. He could hear them approaching from ages away, and spent the time passively trying to guess which footsteps belonged to who.

The only one he could pick out right away were Marinette’s, if only because the other two were so much quieter by comparison. Marinette was hardly thundering down the hallway but the others just moved so quietly.

It was a nothing thought that yielded no purpose, but some part of him liked the idea of being to tell instantly at some point… if their kindness held out and he managed to reciprocate somehow. If they kept coming by, despite the state he was in.

He smelled the food they all had with them second, and his stomach crawled hungrily once he did. He was surprised by it actually, since he had had absolutely no appetite at all ever since… well.

Ever since.

Carter had been trying so hard to get him to eat every time Ms. B came by with something, but the only thing it had resulted in was a few stale pieces of things left discarded under the bed after his loyal dog had dragged them to him with worried whines. He had been too numb and detached to have even acknowledged him then…

As the students approached however he held on to that feeling of hunger, knowing that despite how horribly uncomfortable it might feel that he needed it. He felt like he owed it to Carter to at least try, knowing that he had been refusing to eat so long as Nino went hungry.

When Adrien entered in the lead he was carrying two trays, one presumably for himself and one for Nino which was piled generously with several types of things (all human, which he appreciated). He was surprised but happy to notice that Marinette also had a second tray with her, filled specifically with Carter in mind.

As the gang settled in it became instantly clear to Nino that despite his intentions for Carter’s sake that he was far too ashamed to actually eat in front of them, knowing he would be forced to pick at it with large unwieldy teeth like an animal. The mental image of doing so was so uncomfortable that he found his appetite quickly waning, and Carter was left whining in concern again.

He had been about to try and explain it to his dog when he suddenly felt that wave of nearly indiscernible static, and he whipped his head in time to see Alya shift once again into a fox, crouching over her food and shooting him a glance as she did so.

He watched for a while, which felt weird to do but she seemed to allow it. Alya didn’t appear to be making any effort at all to be lady like, picking at things and chewing them apart in her own, sharp teeth. Some pieces fell to the floor and she was making a bit of a mess, and any time she did she would give him a look.

Nino had glanced nervously at the others at the time, gauging their reactions to their friend first before… slowly, and delicately, he took a piece of his own food.

As soon as he had eaten even a bite Carter leapt at his own tray, tail wagging in excitement as he finally gave himself permission to eat and the sight filled Nino with just enough guilt and just enough concern to continue. Eventually, as he struggled his way through the first few bites, his hunger got the best of him and he kept going, checking for the others’ eyes less and less as they talked amongst themselves. They ignored him completely, seemingly by design, and he was once again grateful to them and their thoughtfulness. Even the choices of food on his plate seemed to have been deliberately picked to be as easy for him as possible, and though he himself did not participate much in the discussions they all had… he was fine with having them there.

Glad even.

 The weekend passed. He didn’t remember most of it, to be honest. It was a blur of stress and disgust, and hopelessness, pierced every once in awhile by a fierce kind of stubbornness that he clung to like a torch in the dark. Carter continued to dutifully feed him, insisting on the meals that continued to appear.

It seemed that the school was not as abandoned on the weekends as he had at first assumed, although no one but the worker who left him things outside his door every came through his hallway. Carter had reported, after several scouting missions of his own volition, that some other students lived on campus as well and wandered the premise, but never down his hallway. Never ever.

He was glad for that.

Despite his hours of effort and concentration he never once felt like he was getting close to finally changing back, the days where he had been trapped as he was slowly stacking up and driving him deeper and deeper into his own head. The only thing that kept him from succumbing entirely to his numbness was the things Alya had told him.

He had yet to follow her advice sufficiently, so he couldn’t actually disregard it yet. It seemed stupid, and useless and impossible, but it was the only thing he had been given and until he managed it and failed then he couldn’t really be sure it was useless. Even though his failures frustrated him… it was something.

He had to come to terms with the fact that this was him, as much as anything else. Somehow, if he did that, she said it would help. If he could decide who Nino was… what Nino was would become irrelevant.

Or something…

 The only thing the weekend actually served to accomplish was that he got used to moving around, though he tried not to as much as possible. Whether he liked it or not he was better at eating and walking. Using the bathroom was a trick but, if he could make Carter do it he could do it.

Carter himself was a steady friend, no matter what. He never got impatient or frustrated, he was only even concerned. He put so much hard work into dragging Nino out of the darkness, even just a little bit, even just for a moment, that there were very fleeting moments where Nino couldn’t resist entirely.

They played once, only once but it had made Carter so incredibly happy. It had felt bizarre and sort of… demeaning, but then Carter would bound at him and skitter across the tiles of their room and he’d feel a surge of fondness that made it a little easier to indulge him. Besides, he had reasoned with himself, how many times had he rough housed with his dog and chased him around the yard when he was at home, it was essentially the same just a little more… engaging. Instead of pushing his dog to the ground or wrestling him and picking him up he found himself forced to mimic Carter’s movements, able to actually lose himself in his dog’s eager enthusiasm for just a little while. It felt kind of like turning his brain off for a second, refusing to dwell in his horrible thoughts and doing away with them just for a moment, actually leaning into this new form without being outright disgusted of it.

Carter had charged at him and gripped him with his teeth, trying feebly to wrestle this much much bigger creature to the ground and never successful, although he didn’t mind it the slightest. It just took one big push from the wolf to send him sprawling, Carter laughing and barking as he tried to tackle him again. At first it had only been Carter laughing but eventually, this his amazement and immense relief, Nino laughed too. It was the first time he bowed back, spreading out his front legs in an invitation for Carter to try again, and his heart had soared. It was the first laugh without a trace of bitterness that Carter had earned since he tackled his boy in the woods on the side of the highway, but even then that laugh had been laced with tears and fear. This laugh was just… a laugh. It made him so happy.

Eventually they had stopped, panting in exhaustion and laying together on the ground. Carter’s heart had been so light that he was childishly hoped that the worst was behind them but…

Time keeps passing, even in the bright moments in long stretches of darkness time unfairly moves forward. Eventually Nino stopped laughing and he grew still. Eventually his thoughts returned to him and the bitterness Carter had barked away crept back in, and though Carter attempted to engage him again it didn’t work a second time. He would bound at him and ask him to chase, but Nino would stare forward at nothing and Carter’s tail would hesitate… and stop wagging.

That was the thing about pain, Carter was slowly coming to realize. Pain wasn’t exactly what he had thought it was. There were no things to fix or things to change. He couldn’t alter the path forward to avoid pain in the future, it was harder to learn from then that. Pain was sometimes a… state. It was a place you could get to and be in, and get lost in…

Carter was terrified that Nino might get to some place he couldn’t follow, where even if he was standing right there Nino would still feel like he was alone, like he had been abandoned somehow. What could he possibly do then, if he stayed right there but Nino couldn’t see him?

It scared him so much.

But he didn’t let his boy see that, or at least he tried. He hoped, and worried and tried. He cared for him and tried to understand, he tried all kinds of things. He wasn’t sure he was doing any of them right… but he tried.

For Nino’s sake.

 Monday came, eventually. Nino had some okay moments and some bad ones. Mostly he was just quiet, thinking. Working at something Carter could never understand.

Along with Monday though, came something else, something that Carter eagerly waited for. They had just been sitting quietly when Nino’s ears swiveled at some distant sound. Carter was a little bitter that Nino’s hearing seemed to be so much better than his own these days, a little put out that one of his key services to his boy was rendered moot, but he hardly worried about these things for long. He was instantly distracted when the noise came close enough for him to hear himself, distant at first but certainly… yes, it was-

‘Footsteps’ Nino huffed for the first time in a long time it felt like, poking his head out from under the bed.

‘Food?’ Carter asked, but it didn’t sound right for that. Nino shook his head, tilting it slightly as he listened.

‘No, I don’t think so. Maybe its… yeah. I think so.’ Nino started to crawl all the way out. ‘It’s Adrien.’

 It was the start of a routine. Very first thing in the morning, as the week picked back up and the school began to swell with others Adrien would run to his room. He was usually running behind and a little scatter brained, barely beating the bell or even sometimes appearing after it, but no matter how late it was going to make him Adrien always stopped by Nino’s room first. From Monday onward, Nino could come to expect the eventual pattern of footsteps, sometimes accompanied by others.

It seemed like none of these new people in his life had any grasp on when school actually started, something sort of… humanizing, for lack of a better word. While at first he was always ashamed to have them appear when he had made absolutely no progress at all, eventually he started to adjust. At this point they had seen and interacted with him more as an animal then as a person, but it didn’t deter them from continuing to show up. Despite everything… they really didn’t seem to mind all that much. He had convinced himself over the weekend that the pity and kindness of good-hearted people could only go so far, but as Adrien continuously made an effort he wondered how much of it was still obligation. Nino hardly had anything he could give back, he couldn’t even speak to him unless Alya had managed to make it to school with enough time, but regardless Adrien showed up every morning.

There were days at first where Nino could barely do anything, barely raise his head or look at him in the eye… but some days he was stronger. Some days he managed to look at him while he rattled on about something. Once or twice he even approached him on his own, headbutting him softly in one of the only gestures he was capable of.

He didn’t need Marinette’s ability to see how happy those little efforts made him, even if it was such a small useless thing to give back.

 Nino came to look forward to lunch time. He leaned into that feeling and allowed himself to be dully excited in whatever way he could manage, knowing that it was probably good for him no matter how tiny it may seem. It was something.

Marinette, Alya, and Adrien came by every single day for lunch, always showing up with two extra trays in hand. Once or twice Ms. B came by during this time as well, just to peep in and see how it was going. She visited him often on her own as well but actively encouraged her students to keep up the habit, but it was unnecessary. Without her prompting she saw their patterns change and move to include someone who needed them. And she was astounded again at the kindness of children.

 It was the start of the lunch period on Wednesday that Adrien knocked and entered the room to discover Nino already waiting for him, the large creature out in the open without being encouraged and waiting for him patiently. The girls were right behind him and seemed about as delighted with the change as Adrien was, everyone greeting Nino warmly as his tail wagged gently.  He even stood and crossed over to them, greeting each of them with a light touch. It was simple but he couldn’t speak and he didn’t exactly have hands, so he mirrored something he thought Carter might do and pressed his weight into their legs as he came up to them, looking each of them in the eye before trotting over to his spot.

To everyone else it seemed like fantastic progress, so the atmosphere was right away just a little bit warmer.

“You missed some fun stuff in class today Nino, I can’t help but think that you would have known a lot about it,” Adrien started conversationally after they were finished greeting each other, sitting down in one of the desks they had dragged out at some point to eat on. He stooped to put Nino’s down on the floor where he could get it, taking Nino’s tilt of the head as an encouragement to continue. “It’s all about media today. I was thinking Ms. B just meant like ‘mediums’ as in like art mediums? And she was talking about poetry and painting and singing and sculpting and stuff but she like right away lost half the class when she started talking about all the other stuff. The human ones.”

Nino tilted his head even further, and Marinette piped up around her mouthful of sandwich. “He means like human art forms,” she mumbled a little incoherently, swallowing quickly and making a vague gesture with her hand. “Like TV and movies. The discussion topic was on storytelling I think, all the different ways that creatures tell stories to their race and others.” She quickly took another bite, nodding to herself thoughtfully before swallowing again. “It was really interesting. I hadn’t exactly though about it, but it’s pretty true that the ways certain races tell stories to themselves is different than how they would share it with others. The act of crafting and passing down stories is nearly universal in all cultures though, isn’t that crazy? It seems pretty simple, but its so rare for there to be anything that exists across all realms. According to Madame Bustier it’s one of the only but biggest examples.”

“Well it makes sense doesn’t it?” Alya chimed in, still in her human form though she did tend to switch over at some point or another. “Any sentient creature has some form of communication, no matter how different it is from our own. The act of sharing information and data is not all that far removed from telling a story, even if it’s just the recounting of an event. That’s still a story isn’t it?”

“Yeah I suppose it is,” Adrien answered, Nino swiveling his attention between each of them as they spoke. “It might just be told like a memory but its still the passing of info. Which I guess still qualifies it as storytelling.”

“Yeah, which is pretty much a given no matter what race it is. I bet for some it might just stop there, but lots of races get really complex with it. Humans just went nuts with the concept I guess.” Marinette giggled at her last sentence, enjoying the look of utter exasperation that came over Adrien’s face.

“No kidding, I had absolutely no idea what she was talking about after a while. I mean she kept making analogies but I’m still super lost…” Adrien pouted and looked at Nino, including him again as he stated in defeat, “There’s no way I’m passing this test.”

When Nino pitched his head to the side again in confusion Adrien chuckled a little, but immediately rolled it back to try and deduce what Nino’s question might be. He hazarded a few guesses but smiled sheepishly when he was wrong a third time about what Nino was asking, the wolf fidgeting a little in frustration as how hard communicating was. Alya didn’t have to be asked to stand then, stepping away from her desk where she was eating to shift over and shake out her fur.

‘Okay sorry, what were you asking?’ Alya asked him once she was in her fox form, stretching a little.

Glad to have someone who could understand him (aside from Carter who was distracted by food and couldn’t answer anyways) Nino craned his head to look at her but was still pointed towards Adrien, who he was indirectly talking to. ‘I wanted to ask him what exactly has him so confused since he seemed to get the concept fine. Like what exactly is he worried about failing, the human part?’

‘I think that’s what he means yeah cause I don’t get it really either.’ She answered for herself, before repeating the question out loud for Adrien. She didn’t have to switch over when she did it, able to be heard even though the fox’s mouth didn’t move at all. It was like a disembodied voice that just projected out loud, and he found himself wishing once again that he could figure out how to do that.

“Yeah! The human part,” Adrien answered right away, looking at Nino when he did it. “Like, Ms. B started going in to all these human exclusive story telling mediums that you guys have and we don’t, or at least I don’t I mean, in the Never Never. We have things that are… kind of like that. Sort of.” He paused, mulling it over as he realized they really weren’t all that comparable. “Like okay we have moving images, but we don’t have fake ones, for fun. We don’t really…” he paused again, clearly struggling. “We HAVE plays and shows and concerts and things, but I’ve never seen something like a play with actors but shown just in moving images. Am I making any sense? I really don’t get it.”

“He means movies,” Marinette supplied helpfully, waiting until Adrien had thoroughly confused himself before chiming in with an answer she knew would make sense to Nino.

‘Oooooooh, okay. Wow seriously?’ Nino said at Alya directly this time. ‘The fae don’t have movies?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Alya supplied with a vague approximation of a shrug, ‘at least not how she was describing it. The fae have all kinds of ways to tell stories but the way she was trying to explain what movies are really lost some people. I’ve seen one before at Marinette’s house so I get it a little, kind of. But Adrien’s never seen one I think.’

‘Adrien’s NEVER seen a MOVIE?’ Nino barked out, Adrien looking over at Alya with an expectant smile as he hoped she would translate the sound.

Once she did everybody laughed.

“I don’t even know that that is!” Adrien exclaimed, laughing as he did but gesturing in exasperation. “What is that!? How am I supposed to understand that from a description, I was not the only one who was confused.”

Marinette was giggling helplessly as Alya agreed, and Nino shook his head at the confused cat man.

“What, are you judging me? What’s a movie then, you describe it.”

Adrien’s watched as the wolf’s expression became abruptly contemplative, the animal form still expressive enough to convey how deeply he was considering the question. How do you explain a concept like that to someone who’s never seen it?

He thought it over for quite a while, Alya popping up onto her seat and then onto the desk to continue eating as he considered how to put it. Eventually the wolf looked over at her and the group awaited his response, which took him and Alya a few moments to get across as she had to keep pausing the get the next bit.

“It’s a lot like a play that shows a fictional story with people playing different roles within the story that are different from themselves. They have set lines to deliver, and by doing that it tells a story that is not real and might not even be BASED in reality, it can be anything. It is recorded visually on a machine and can be shown on a different machine at any time, so its like getting to sit in the audience of a play whenever, without actually having to be there in person. You can watch the play from somewhere else as many times as you want.”

Alya finished repeating what Nino said and then mulled it over alongside Adrien, Marinette nodding in agreement. Adrien still looked a little confused but clarified. “So, it’s like a device used to show the same story later?”

‘Like a book you can see. You can read a book whenever so long as you have it, same thing with a movie. If you’ve got the stuff for a movie you can watch it whenever too.’

“That’s INSANE though, a book you can see? That’s crazy.” Adrien shook his head, getting lost in thought over it as he continued to eat.

“It’s something you just have to see for yourself, human’s have a lot of stuff like that,” Marinette explained. “They have inventions for pretty much everything. My mom didn’t grow up in the human realm so she says that adjusting to stuff like that was really crazy at first. I was raised here though so it’s something I see all the time. I hadn’t realized other people might not get it until I invited Alya over for a sleepover.”

Alya looked up at her name. “I loved it though, it was really cool. That sleepover was so fun girl, I love your house it’s amazing.”

“Aw I’ve never been to your house,” Adrien whined a little, and Marinette rolled her eyes.

“We can all have a sleepover again maybe, if my parents are okay with that.” After a moment she seemed to consider what she said and then abruptly her face lit up. “Oh my gosh a sleep over! That would be so fun actually! It was great when me and Alya did it! And we can say it’s for studying too because then we can all watch movies and it will help you guys with the test too! I have all that stuff at my house we can all do it, even if you guys can’t spend the night it would help right?”  

Adrien immediately jumped on the idea, surprised that his little complaint had actually gotten him somewhere all of a sudden and he was taking about it excitedly. Alya told her that her mom would probably let her spend the night no problem and Adrien happily reminded them all that his guardian barely knew where he was most of the time anyways, and it was only when Marinette started talking about an outing for ‘the five of us’ that Nino realized this included him somehow.

Nino’s heartrate instantly spiked at the idea, looking anxiously between them as they talked and moving to his feet. While at first Adrien and Alya didn’t notice, Marinette looked right at him immediately, aware of the sudden surge of panic.

He couldn’t go out, he couldn’t leave. The idea of leaving the school at all and meeting anyone and going out into the human world like this put him right on edge immediately. Marinette lived in the city he couldn’t-!

And then she was kneeling in front of him, demanding his attention as she was instantly apologizing.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry of course you don’t have to hang out with us! I shouldn’t have assumed I just- I’m sorry.” And she really was, the petite little witch was sunk in on herself, her baby blue eyes entirely genuine. “I didn’t mean to upset you I just- I got excited about the idea of us all going out together. I was just talking; I didn’t mean that you had to. Of course you don’t have to. I know you probably don’t want to leave the school; I shouldn’t have even said it.”

Her ability to detect emotion and act on it before he was even done feeling it was once again a little jarring, her reaction to what he was thinking often too fast for him to have even fully processed it. His heart was still beating quickly, and he was aware of Carter appearing by his side the second the atmosphere got tense, Nino left feeling a little exposed

‘Don’t apologize! I-I’m sorry too. Just hang on. I’m not mad you’re okay.’

Marinette looked over her shoulder as Alya said it for him, both her and Adrien looking a little on edge themselves. Nino felt a brief surge of guilt over having ruined the entire conversation all of a sudden, and then a slight edge of frustration as he could tell that Marinette picked up on that as well.

It was only when Nino was getting read in the middle of what he was feeling that Marinette’s empathic ability could get a little frustrating, because often he wasn’t even done thinking about what was happening just yet. Getting read for your initial reaction was ripe for misunderstanding, even if in this case he was actually uncomfortable with the idea he didn’t think that was her fault.

He conveyed the last thought to her through Alya, explaining that she was totally fine and that he didn’t blame her for anything. He also asked her to give him just a second to formulate his feelings first, and she hung her head a little.

“I’m sorry. I… I do that all the time. People always tell me not to do that, I really try I just sometimes,” she gave him a sheepish look, “… get nervous. If I think I upset people. I’m sorry.”

‘It’s okay, don’t apologize. It helps out most of the time. I don’t mean that I don’t want to hang out with you guys, I just… I can’t leave. I can’t.’

His ears flattened as he said it, unable to help certain physical giveaways. Adrien and Alya both nodded right away and everyone rushed to assure him that they completely understood. But he still felt just a little bit rotten over it.

‘I like doing this,’ he suddenly said, surprised that he meant it. He really was coming to enjoy lunch time, and he found himself wishing every once in a while that he could be out there with them and not stuck cowering in his room. ‘I like that you guys visit. I want to be friends.’ (“We are friends,” Adrien interrupted when Alya translated.) ‘Hanging out and watching a movie sounds… nice. And normal. And something I could actually participate in… I wish I could. I’m sorry that I can’t, but I hope you guys have fun.’ He peered up at them with his ears still folded back. ‘Tell me about it when you do. I’ll wait for you guys.’

Everyone was frowning by the time that Alya finished saying it for him, looking between each other as a short silence fell over them. Nino fidgeted uncomfortable as it went on, briefly wondering if they could telepathically communicate without him from all the looks they were trading each other. It didn’t feel like anyone seemed to like the idea now.

Then, once again but more hesitantly this time, that same bright energy seemed to flicker back into place in Marinette’s eyes. She leaned towards him again, still crouching in front on him and looking kind of small compared to how big he was.

“Maybe, only if you want, and it doesn’t have to be now if you don’t want, but… maybe, do you think, we could get permission to stay here?”

There was a pause as the beast looked back at her, before tilting its head further to the side then he ever had at this point, looking a little silly actually.

Marinette giggled just a little before hesitantly continuing, fiddling with her dress as she said it. “It wouldn’t be too hard to get a TV in here, I actually think most of the classrooms in this wing have a really super old one on wheels we could probably take! I could bring all the other stuff over from my house since it’s really close and we could all bring blankets and stuff here. We wouldn’t have to stay the night if you didn’t want us too, but we could maybe get permission from Ms. B to stay here after school and watch a movie in here instead. There’s lots of students here after classes end so I don’t think anyone would mind. What do you think?”

“That could be really fun too!” Adrien chimed in right away, “And then we could still have you come! You could explain how it works and even pick a book to watch.”

“Movie,” Alya corrected quietly, smiling in that foxy way she managed, watching Nino for his response.

Marinette and Adrien were both grinning hopefully as Nino slowly straightened his posture, looking between all three of them as he struggled to pull the thought together.

‘You guys want to… hang out? Here? But it’s so dusty and terrible. I don’t want you guys to not do what you were going to because of me and be all uncomfortable. It’s… really cool of you to include me and it sounds like a lot of fun but, don’t-‘

‘No hang on, stop, you’re being stupid,’ Alya interrupted him. The wolf gaped up at her and she ignored him with a swish of her tail, saying out loud a not so literal approximation of what he said this time. “He says his room is really dusty and crappy but that he is really happy you guys want to include him. Then he started saying something stupid about us not putting ourselves out just for his sake even if it sounds like fun for him, and then I stopped listening.”

‘Hey!’ he barked indignantly, but she was looking away from him smugly, letting the others jump in urgently.

“It wouldn’t be putting us out! We want to! We only wouldn’t do it if you were uncomfortable with the idea but don’t say no cause of us,” Adrien urged him eagerly.

“Besides!” Marinette jumped in, “Maybe we can make this room not so bad! I know you say all the time how you hate it, we could make that part of the fun! We could bring all sorts of stuff and clean up and make it better for you. I can’t believe they gave you such a depressing room anyways.”

“Seriously,” Alya said to everyone, looking around. “This place doesn’t really give off a ‘welcome to school’ vibe. I bet we can make it way better, home makeover style.”

“I’ve got loads of stuff my mom always wants to give away,” Marinette was saying, checking Nino’s emotional state again and again as she went but mostly finding him shocked and frozen. “It’s all just sitting around in bags for us to donate, I bet you’d like a bunch of it!”

‘Y-you guys, you don’t have to do that! You’ve already been so cool!’ he huffed at them, hopping a little bit on his paws to get their attention. ‘I mean, if you really want to, if you seriously don’t mind then… I mean, then, sure! I guess. I’ll really try, I promise. I know I can kind of get… moody. But I really will try. It would be cool, I promise I won’t ruin it. I’ll try and keep my head up.’

“He says yes, he wants to do it.”

‘Say the other stuff I said too!’ Nino growled a little, the fox chuckling and rolling her eyes but complying after a second. It yielded the expected reassurance from the group that he wouldn’t ruin anything, and an unexpected addition from Adrien.

“You don’t have to fake it around us Nino,” Adrien told him very seriously, smiling a little. “We want to have fun as a group cause you’re our friend now. If you need space from us or time alone or whatever you can always step out and we won’t bug you. If you want us to leave early we will, and if you ever need something from us just ask.”

Everyone nodded at his sentiment, said so simply and easily without any hesitation at all. Clearly its how they all felt from how quickly they agreed, moving on to discuss planning the event itself and who to ask and when, what to bring and so on. They talked amongst themselves to have a night in together, but Marinette could feel what he was feeling.

The wolf bowed its head and was supported by his dog, Carter nuzzled into his side. Nino had a quiet moment mostly to himself at what Adrien had said so effortlessly, and in the moment he didn’t have it in him to be ashamed that he needed it. What would being proud get him, when there were people who were trying to help right in front of him. How could he beg for a lifeline when he might be too stubborn to take one once it was there? Watching a grainy VHS with people he’s barely met might not have seemed so important a few months ago, but now? When he was so confused and scared every moment he was undistracted?

He wanted it so badly…

‘Okay,’ he eventually said, his tail thumping slowly and his ears facing forward. ‘Okay… let’s do it. I’m in.’

[bigskydreaming]

Ok, but how would you writte a court of owls and a dick grayson fanfic, focusing on the abduction too, after all the traumas that being destained to be a talon could carry with?, just imagine dick noticing his family could have known this, and then boom, someway the court makes his way to dick core, bat fam have to fighthim, but focusing in all those conflicts and not only the fights

LOL I have a few different Court of Owls’ ideas running through my head at any given time, but for various reasons, some of which I can’t even identify, they almost always tend to be AUs of some kind, where I also play around with different takes on the family dynamics or how the family comes together in the first place. I have no clue why that particular plot point, the Court, tends to pair itself with unorthodox Batfam takes in my head, tbh. It just does.

As an example, the one I’ve come back to the most often and most recently when fiddling around with various WIPs when the chaos of my life these days allows for it, lol.....its called “Where Last We Left Off” and it goes AU from general pre Flashpoint comic book continuity when Dick is still Robin, around fourteen or so. Long enough into his time living with Bruce that they’ve reached a point of considering each other father and son, even if neither is saying as such yet, and past the point where the Titans first formed and and even after Kory first came to Earth, so Dick has well established friendships with Garth, Roy, Wally, Donna, Lilith and Kory at least.

So in it, I set up an initial prelude and then there’s a time skip to five years later, where all the actual fic takes place. My premise is basically that Batman has been operating in Gotham for about seven years by the prelude, Batman and Robin about four or five, and its only in the last couple of years that Batman’s started coordinating more consistently and officially with other heroes as a member of the Justice League. And the point of departure happens when the Court uncovers Batman and Robin’s secret identities while trying to rid themselves of Batman’s interference in their operations even though he’s not aware of them just yet. When they realize that Robin is none other than their intended Gray Son, they decide to try and kill two birds with one stone.

Cue Dick’s abduction, but with a twist. Rather than make him a Talon and subject him to the Talonization process or whatever that’s called, and employ brainwashing or mind control techniques to control him, they make themselves known to Bruce as the ones who took Dick, give him a taste of what the Talons are capable of and make sure he gets a good look at the changes to their physiologies and mental states, and then they make their demands. They won’t subject Dick to any of that.....so long as Bruce agrees to hang up his cape and cowl, and cease all vigilantism and contact with other heroes. They give him forty eight hours to make his decision, and leave him with the body of one of their Talons to ‘study’...in essence, making both an example of how little they care for their tools and think nothing of disposing of one, and to give Bruce more information than he really wants at the moment of all the kinds of things that Talon was subjected to in the ‘making’ of him. 

Unable to find a hint of where they took Dick before the deadline, even when Bruce calls in Clark, Barry and a few others for help searching, Bruce ultimately agrees to their demands and ceases all activity as Batman in exchange for the occasional proof of life demonstrating that the Court are holding up their end of the bargain. If they see even a hint of vigilantism or working with other heroes, they warn, they’ll have no further use for Dick except as just another of their Talons.

Heartsick and with no real idea how to spend his days at first, or inclination to put much thought into coming up with ideas for that, as well as refusing to even speak with Clark and the others, let alone Dick’s friends, at the risk of that being overseen or heard and deemed ‘working with other heroes,’ Bruce ultimately funnels most of his time and energy into charity works and projects mostly born of idle ideas he remembers Dick mentioning every now and then, when complaining about how stupid the way certain things worked or skewering various flaws in the typical upper class reasonings of people he was expected to converse with at various galas....and then venting to Bruce all the way home.

Eventually, Bruce meets Jason in a different way than in canon, but still takes him in. Not to replace Dick of course, or because he’s given up on him (if he ever did that, after all, there’d be no reason for him not to go back out as Batman). But rather just because he has to do something, and the thought of caring for Jason and trying to be for him what he was for Dick, or at least hoped he’d been, it sparks the first real motivation he’s had since the abduction. The one thing he can’t bring himself to regret is taking Dick in, even as he blames himself for thinking so selfishly, since if he hadn’t done that, this would never have happened to Dick (not knowing yet that the Court was always intent on getting their hooks into Dick whether he was in the equation or not). But the point is, he can’t honestly say he wishes he’d never taken Dick in, even as selfish as he feels for that, so he doesn’t let his misgivings keep him from following his instincts with Jason, telling himself it’ll be different since he’s not Batman anymore. (Bottom line being his choice with Jason is still about Jason, not just as a proxy for Dick or anything).

Not all that long after, different events than canon result in him taking Tim in as well (with Tim not aware of his past as Batman at this point in this AU, since I’m positing that Dick was abducted before Tim happened to see Robin doing the flip that let him connect the necessary dots there). And not long after that, Bruce takes in Duke as well, and then finally, about a year before the five year time skip to present day, he takes in Cassandra, due to Barbara’s influence.

Babs has one of the bigger divergences in this AU, as I’m switching things around a little specifically to set Dick’s abduction at just before Babs becomes Batgirl. So she’s not really one of his friends at this point in life, and she sets out to become Batgirl pretty much right after Bruce hangs up the cape. Unable to even confront Batgirl as himself, lest the Court see that as an attempted return to vigilantism, but paranoid that they might view Batgirl as his attempt to work via a proxy, Bruce does a most un-Brucely thing....he anonymously tips off the Commissioner about his daughter’s vigilantism, and Jim Gordon puts a stop to that by unapologetically even playing the guilt trip card to keep his daughter from risking her life night after night. So Batgirl retires almost as soon as she begins, but that doesn’t mean Babs is out of the game by a longshot.

A big part of the reason for that divergence is I’ve always felt that Babs was going to become Oracle one way or another, no matter what road she took there, and although I love her as Batgirl, I don’t view it as fundamentally essential to her overall character as other early personas of other superheroes are. And despite the Bat theme, Barbara has never been dependent on Bruce either for guidance or resources, let alone validation......so I wanted to play around with what happens if you cut the Batgirl portion of Barbara’s life out of the picture completely.

So basically, she just starts becoming Oracle even earlier. She promised her dad she wouldn’t risk her life on the streets in a cape and a mask. She made no such promises about putting her computer skills to use for the greater good, in whatever ways she deems most efficient. Which ultimately leads to her working as a superhero information broker for a growing number of vigilantes who have no idea their cyber eyes and ears isn’t even quite of legal drinking age just yet, and from there, forming the Birds of Prey as satellite agents for missions she directs them towards in a Charlie’s Angels kind of way, where she’s just the voice on the radio so to speak. One of those missions results in Dinah, Helena and a couple others crossing paths with Cassandra, who returns with them to the States. She’s still just a teenager though, younger than when she first crossed paths with the Batfam in canon, only about thirteen here. And the Birds don’t think any of them themselves have the kind of home and stability they all agree she deserves, so they ask the ever mysterious Oracle if she knows of anyone....not realizing just yet that said Oracle is barely a decade older than Cassandra herself at this point. But the Oracle knows all...so she has an idea.

Bruce, being the Walking Guilt Complex that he is, felt shitty about interfering in her attempts at vigilantism even as much as he believes he made the right choice there. So after he adopts Jason, he contrived an excuse to hire Barbara in specific to be Jason’s tutor and catch him up to speed before he went back to school, so he’d have reason to allow Babs to become a regular presence at the Manor, and an excuse for him to help her out any way she might need or want. Not that she ever took him up on this, which frustrates him to no end, cuz can’t a billionaire just assuage his guilt complex in peace already, damn. But regardless, between Jason, Tim and Duke, she’s become a regular fixture at Wayne Manor over the years, even though for the opposite reasons as Bruce initially ‘hired’ her. After all, all three boys are basically geniuses in their own respective fashions, so its not like they need tutoring in the conventional sense once they caught up to speed in whatever ways they needed. 

Rather, Babs is their tutor specifically in the areas of ‘making sure they don’t get so bored with their schooling, they turn to blowing things up and/or world domination as a hobby’. Basically, an overachieving perfectionist know-it-all hired to help three overachieving perfectionist know-it-all kids reach their full academic potential unhindered by their conventional schooling, which at this point is basically just something that Bruce insists on so the boys get regular social interaction, while Babs concocts their actual curriculums that actually interest them and they do on their own time.

Anyway, so while seeking a placement for Cass that Babs thinks is deserving of her, she ultimately thinks of Bruce, and calls in that favor, albeit in a most unconventional sense. Babs doesn’t know Bruce was Batman at this point either, given how effectively he covered his tracks when he hung up the cape and how pointedly he’s kept away from all vigilantism since....but she knows each of his three boys have very different backgrounds and had trouble adjusting at first because of various issues...all of which Bruce spared no expense in addressing, more in terms of his own direct focus and parenting rather than fiscally. He’s a good dad, here, a great dad, since he’s basically poured all the energy and drive he once devoted to vigilantism to what he now feels he should have focused it on instead....being the father he wished he’d been to Dick and wasn’t going to make the mistake of not being now.

All of which makes Babs think that he might not only be willing to take in Cassandra, but that he might be the best one for her. And so after a lot of cloak and dagger obscurity that would be completely unnecessary if all the parties in question knew all the relevant information about each other, Cassandra ends up at Wayne Manor too. 

All of this is essentially backstory for the in between time between the prelude and the actual fic, unveiled and doled out via information conveyed in the present day. But where the actual fic begins, Bruce is committed to being Superdad to Jason, Tim, Duke and Cass, none of whom know he was Batman or the true nature of what happened to their mysterious elder brother who according to the news and what little Bruce and Alfred are willing to say, was abducted years ago with no attempt made to seek a ransom and no idea who did it or why.

Meanwhile, the kids have their own secrets, as Cass has been sneaking out into the city at night and stopping petty crimes and running into some girl in a purple hoodie who calls herself Spoiler. Tim’s preoccupied with a longtime personal quest of his....figure out who the elusive Oracle, all-knowing master of the cyberways is, and in doing so perhaps win their approval and mentorship. And Duke’s metahuman abilities have recently begun manifesting, and Jason ends up helping him test them and figure out what all he can do (after Jason catches Duke in the act of practicing his ghost vision and Duke has to convince him he’s not crazy and nobody needs to tell Bruce). 

And that in turn leads to Duke exploring the house with aid of his powers, trying to learn more about the mysterious missing eldest, and Jason distracting him every five seconds by whispering “what do you see now,” because Jason has also long been endlessly entranced by the mystery of Dick Grayson, and also, Jason has no chill.

With all of the above being the dynamic in existence in ‘present day’....when Dick escapes the Court and returns home.

So the story itself is all about Dick trying to deal with the aftermath of everything that happened to him while the Court’s hostage, and everything that didn’t happen to him and that he missed out on, coming in at the eleventh hour to a family that’s now almost fully formed all in his absence....with a seat at the table that’s been reserved for him the whole time, but with him uncertain as to where and how he fits in all of this.

All while being as cryptic about things as possible, because the one and only thing he and Bruce seem able to agree on, after their bittersweet reunion that doesn’t go how either of them ever imagined it....is to keep the other kids out of all this by any means necessary. Upon learning that Bruce hasn’t been Batman in years and the others know nothing about any of this, Dick’s firm on believing they should keep it that way as he doesn’t even know them yet, but he does know he isn’t willing to risk anything like what happened to him happening to any other child, related to him or not. And Bruce is perhaps too willing to accommodate Dick on this because he still feels this is all his fault, and telling the others everything would mean admitting to them what a terrible father he once was.

Which, he wasn’t, is the thing. One of the many things Dick’s struggling to reconcile now, because just like in the comics, Dick’s early years with Bruce were good more often than they were bad. He realizes upon seeing how easily the other kids interact with Bruce in a parent and child way that this is something he’s envious of, and in hindsight wanted even before he was kidnapped, but now he doesn’t know how to voice that or his fear that that Bruce would only be willing to offer that to him now out of guilt, that if he’d really wanted that kind of relationship with Dick, they would have had it before he disappeared.

Add to that the fact that Dick can’t make up his mind whether he’s grateful and touched that Bruce gave up being Batman just for the chance it might keep him safe from the fate of the Court’s Talons.....because sometimes, Dick resents it deeply...or not resents, per se, but more that he didn’t know the specifics of what was going on in the outside world beyond where the Court kept him, or that they’d made Bruce give up being Batman....so finding that out upon escaping is messing with his head more than he expected, and now he can’t help but feel aware of all the people over the years that could have been helped by Batman but weren’t, because of Dick. Basically, the Son of the Walking Guilt Complex, aka Walking Guilt Complex Jr., is blaming himself and his getting kidnapped, for being the reason Bruce isn’t a superhero anymore.

Meanwhile, it was not a good idea to keep all of this hush hush, if for no other reason than that its impossible to recover from a life-changing ordeal like this at home, when that home is filled with four other people you and two others are all committed to keeping the full details of what happened a secret from. Its not at all the homecoming Dick was picturing and had dreamed of, and he catches himself at times feeling resentful of the others for being there at all, before feeling guilty because the truth is he really is glad that Bruce took them all in and has been good for them, that he still found a way to help people and be true to himself even without being Batman.

There’s other stuff involved too, like the fact that Dick is still keeping things from even Bruce, like everything that happened to him in the Court, because a) he doesn’t want to talk about it, b) he’s afraid of the guilt spiral it’ll send Bruce into, to know that all this time he’d done everything he could to keep Dick safe by giving the Court no reason to break their word....when they never actually made any promise not to try and break Dick by methods not part of their usual Talon process, and c) he doesn’t want to talk about it.

And of course, all his old friends and teammates desperately want to see him and reconnect with him, which he fluctuates between wishing it was easier to explain who they were and have them around without risking their own identities with his new siblings.....and being grateful that keeping the Big Secret from said siblings meant they could only be around so much (like Clark and Diana, etc, who now simply would not be kept away period)....because like with Bruce, Dick is having trouble coming to terms with how much they’ve all changed while he was gone and how much he’s changed, and what this means for them all and how they even FIT now, if they even do at all.

All of which ultimately builds to Dick sneaking out at night to return to vigilantism himself, which makes Bruce throw an epic freakout when he finds out because he only just got Dick back and is not about to risk losing him again. And with Dick trying to convey that he NEEDS this, now perhaps even more than he ever did before, because its the only thing he knows, the only thing that feels familiar, feels right at this point, while everything else is confusing as hell. And even more than that, he needs it in order to feel like the last five years haven’t cost him everything, that they haven’t...’ruined’ him, because what’s the point of him even being home if he’s just as lost and confused as ever and he can’t even save people, do the one thing that’s always made all the shit he’s ever been through feel worthwhile, like it means something?

He needs it, he can’t give this up forever just because something terrible happened one time, that probably would have happened in some form even if he hadn’t been a hero, given what he found out from the Court about his family line. And he’s not wrong to feel that way, is the problem, much like its a problem that Bruce isn’t wrong to feel that if nothing else, its too soon for Dick to be doing this again, and he hasn’t remotely handled any of the many issues weighing on him and the trauma he’s still unwilling to address.

And it doesn’t help that all the while, Bruce has been wrestling with his own uncertainty as to whether to go back to being Batman now that Dick’s safe again and the combined might of the Justice League and Titans have followed his escape route back to the Court and come down on it with extreme zeal. Or whether he even wants to, anymore, if he can justify the risks it includes while now a father in truth not just to Dick but four other kids too (and yes, Damian exists in this AU, he’s just not here yet). He doesn’t want to leave any of his kids without a father, and even more than that, he doesn’t want any of the others following in his and Dick’s footsteps, which also plays a factor in freaking out at Dick’s quick return to a mask.

But he can’t deny that he does miss it too, and more importantly, he misses the way he and Dick used to understand each other without a word, in perfect sync as they swung over the city together. He can’t help but feel like it would be so much easier for him and Dick to understand each other, communicate with each other, if they were back on the same page even if just for one night for old time’s sake. And also he worries about Dick maybe growing to resent his siblings if he feels like they’re the only reason he won’t go back to being Batman, he won’t let there ever be a Batman and Robin again....which then startles him into worrying that on some level he’s afraid of growing to resent his other kids for being the reason not to do that. And around and around and around it goes.

And then the other kids figure it out in their own ways and everything really blows up.

And its hard and messy and painful and nothing short or easily fixed. And there are no good choices or easy choices or right choices. Just a lot of good people trying to make the most good come out of the most bad, and not a clue what that actually means or looks like, let alone how to go about it. 

Ultimately, its Dick at age 19, coming of age in the most unconventional of ways, trying to figure out who he is and who he wants to be after everything that’s happened, and dragging his whole family along for the ride as they’re all forced to ask the same question and then compare notes and hope that even if they’re not all on the same page, they’re all at least somewhere to be found in the same book.

Its about how you can’t go home again....even when home is exactly where you left it, and everything looks exactly the same but everything is different and nothing and no one will ever be the same ever again.

But that doesn’t mean the trek isn’t worth making, because sometimes the only way to make it forward to who you want to be now....is to first go back to where you last were when last you trusted who you were and what you wanted. So you can make your peace with leaving that road untraveled before finding your new direction and setting forth on that road instead.

*Shrugs* So yeah, that’s my ideal Court of Owls related fic. “Where Last We Left Off.”

Not quite the kind of fic you were describing, lol, but I do seem to insist on being unconventional with my takes, lmao.

[mrmallardsmobileposts]

My Star Wars Shipping Hot Takes

THERE WILL BE UNMARKED SPOILERS FOR THE ENTIRE SEQUEL TRILOGY IN THIS POST

TAG "#TRoS Spoilers" IF YOU WANT TO WIPE THIS POST FROM YOUR DASH COMPLETELY

THIS HAS BEEN MY SPOILER WARNING, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED ABOUT STAR WARS SPOILERS

Finn/Rey should have been endgame, or at least brought up by Finn instead of the BS non-committal "I've got something to tell you" line they play with for the rest of the movie. Bring it into text and acknowledge it fully instead of using it for a few cheap gags and leaving it hanging.

They had great chemistry in TFA. They bonded really easily and got along really well, it seemed like Finn was chatting her up a little at times and by the end of the movie they're incredibly close. Finn puts his life on the line and gets fucked up by a lightsaber to defend her. John Boyega and Daisy Ridley played off each other really well, they had really good chemistry. I really ship it.

The only hitch, imo, is the total lack of screentime they have together in TLJ. Finn's plot just kinda went nowhere and he got a rehash of his "running away" arc in TFA, and I think the Rose Tico kiss was really lame and forced. While I can appreciate their eventual reunion, and within the scope of the movie it's not unreasonable for them to not meet again until the end, I really don't dig how much time they spend apart in TLJ from a shipping perspective and I don't think the Finn/Rose pairing is very good.

To address the elephant in the room, I'm not the most positive person about Rose Tico, but I'm chill with her and I think her character would have been fine with better material than she had in TLJ. Not trying to chud things up, here. The most extreme thing I have to say about Rose Tico, within the scope of this post I'm making, is that I didn't think the actors had that much chemistry to justify a romance, the kiss was goofy with the laser going off behind them, and while I don't disagree that Kelly Marie Tran got screwed over in TRoS, I'm ultimately glad that her and Finn are good buddies in that movie instead of partners. I'm not saying her reduced role is fine, just saying I'm glad that this pairing doesn't seem to be canon. I'm glad they're still close, though. Finn is definitely the heart of the group, pulling everyone together.

The thing about Finn/Rey in TRoS is that while the chemistry isn't there on the same level as TFA - partially due to the hatchet-job editing of the first half where people are barely able to vocalise a single coherent thought before the plot ushers them along to the next point - I felt like it still existed for a while. They teased it with the "I've got something I need to tell you" line from Finn, and then they never bring it up again. Like what the fuck, wrap up the plot point instead of dragging it out for the most painful humor of the movie and failing to resolve it.

This brings me into the Reylo portion of my post.

While I don't ship it, I refuse to hate Reylo. I've got a great write-up of my Reylo opinion on my main blog which explains why, if you search for "reylo". Basic point is that a lot of the initial backlash was predicated on assumptions that people were adamant would be proven true in the next movies, and those assumptions turned out to not be the case 4 years later in 2019, so I refuse to treat it like the pariah it was in 2015 for those reasons.

I'll admit that I really enjoyed the ending with Ben Solo. Adam Driver sells the difference between Ben Solo and Kylo Ren so well, and while I understand that he did a lot of bad shit and wiped out planets and committed space genocide and stuff - Darth Vader also committed space genocide and killed hundreds of people, and his body count continues to rise in supplemental materials. And yet he was redeemed by Luke, and was able to return as a force ghost despite the genocides and mass murders he committed as Darth Vader. There is a precedent for people redeeming themselves just before they die in the Star Wars universe, even when they do some really heinous shit. As such, I am not against this happening for Kylo Ren. Star Wars is just that kind of series, for better or worse.

My opinion of Reylo is that it's kind of like fanfic mode a lot of the time. It got really wacky in TLJ, and it got way more pronounced in TRoS. That's not necessarily a detriment, but it was what it was. I don't buy Kylo Ren and Rey as romantic interests necessarily, especially when I think their relationship is really, really odd and reminiscent of fanfiction cliches, but there's enough subtext for people to read into it and I don't really care if people like it or not.

If Reylo is the endgame ship, then that's fine. I don't necessarily like it, even as I acknowledge that problematic ships will always have their audience. A ship can be used as a force for good, as long as it isn't being used to actively promote abusive tendencies or like really gross shit.

Some ships are off limits, straight up. Reylo is dicey, but I don't think it's worse than a lot of villain shipping is - there's been room for edgy villain shipping before, and I think Reylo occupies that space now and has every right to. As long as people aren't encouraging people to engage in abusive practices through their storywriting, or pushing alt-right talking points and fucked up things like that through their writing, Reylo has enough wiggle room to be a perfectly ordinary pairing in the fanfiction community.

Saying that, though - here's why I prefer Finn/Rey.

He's a close, friendly and positive force in Rey's life, they shared the start of their journeys and they helped each other grow into the heroes they became. Poe spent most of TFA missing in action, and he only meets Rey at the end of the movie. Rey and Finn spend the bulk of their character moments together, and it's the character development from these interactions - spurred along by Han and Chewie, of course - that fuels their ascent into hero figures at the end of the movie.

Why don't I like Reylo more? Because the Kylo Ren stuff seemed like essential backstory stuff, whereas Finn and Rey's characters naturally got along like a house on fire. Kylo Ren also spends most of the time getting rain on his gloves through inter-force touching in a bunch of weird, forced, fanfic-tier scenes, whereas Finn and Rey hug and celebrate and bond through conversation, not trite, rigid backstory.

I can buy Rey kissing Ben Solo at the end of TRoS. I can buy her feeling love for Ben Solo, and finding it frustrating that she can't break through Kylo Ren to get to him. Fuck, in that ending scene where Kylo is explicitly Ben Solo again, Rey and Ben have actual, honest to god chemistry, and it's cute as fuck. But that moment took a lot of catching up to get to, and before her and Kylo showed any hint of affection together, Finn was her comrade in arms, someone who shared her victories and helped to further her growth, and vice versa.

Reylo has a pretty solid conclusion, I will certainly give it that. But I feel like the Reylo conclusion is steeped in that classic "I can redeem the bad guy through love" trope like the original Star Wars, except with a romantic angle this time. Ben's redemption didn't have to be with a kiss - it could still happen without the romance angle, but the romance is added in to distinguish it from the other Star Wars examples.

Ultimately, I think having Ben's redemption spurred by romantic love is broke, whereas Rey finding a buddy in Finn, having their ups and downs together, shielding each other from harm and becoming close through mutual shared experiences and proximity is woke.

What about Finn/Poe? Ship it if you want, it's all good. I understand why this ship was initially so popular, and while I don't ship it, I'm not the shipping police and I get the premise behind it. Poe/CrimeGirl? This was shoehorned tf in, but if you think it's neato, it's neato. Poe/Rey? I think they would make a terrible couple, but whatever. Poe/Finn/Rey? Everyone wins. Add Kylo Ren anywhere into the mix and you can have yourself a party, depending on your stance on the character. Make any of the characters gay, bi, pan, ace - literally whatever, outside of a few significant parameters just about every ship is valid. I'm not a hard-ass, shipping is fun and outside of some really bad shit I'm generally down for people having a good time. I just like Finn/Rey the most.

Also, Maz Kanata is really neat and I hope she gets more screen time. If her lifespan makes it squicky to ship her with the younger characters, that's your business and I understand and respect that, but frankly I would write a romance story about Maz Kanata falling in love in a heartbeat - I just don't know who. I've written Doctor Who fanfic where a 2000 year old alien woman dates a 21 year old policewoman from Sheffield, so as long as the right boundaries are respected, I think a Maz Kanata story could be pretty fun and non-problematic like with a Doctor Who story.

Anyway that's my Hot Takes post

byeeeeee

[persona-minty]

Robot Revival AU

Sooo I was talking to @friskyghost about a certain AU they created (link) and they were kind enough to indulge me and talk about it for a while. It was really fun! Anyway, I asked and they said I could make a post about what we talked about and they said yes, so I’m going to do just that. @friskyghost is the primary creator of this AU, but this post is mostly mine with my own headcanons and details that may not hold true for friskyghost’s version of the AU. Persona 3 and 5 spoilers abound and this is a pretty long post, so be warned.

Premise/TL;DR

Minato, Hamuko, and Ryoji are all resurrected several years after the fight against Nyx, except there’s a catch. While their souls are still around and unable to naturally move on, their bodies have long since decayed, so SEES finds a way to infuse their souls into Plumes of Dusk and then crafts three Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapon bodies to put those Plumes of Dusk into. Later, Hamuko, Minato, and Ryoji are sent off to Shujin Academy along with Labrys and Ken during the same year the Phantom Thieves will be active. Naturally, they get caught up in the goings on of the metaverse.

Appearances

Minato, Hamuko, and Ryoji all look like they did back in 2009, except with several clear Anti-Shadow Suppression Weapon features, like the headphones and metallic shoulder and leg joints Aigis had. Labrys looks essentially the same, and Ken and all of the other members of SEES save Aigis are just older versions of themselves, likely similar to what we saw in Ultimax.

Prelude

Elizabeth and Theodore figure out a way to permanently destroy or detain Erebus, perhaps thanks in part to Yaldabaoth’s creation/birth. From there they dismantle the seal and set Minato and Hamuko, twins in this AU, free from the seal. Ryoji is there with them, has been since the creation of the seal, and decides that if the twins are leaving then he will too. Liz and Theo relay all of this information to SEES, and SEES acts by creating robotic bodies for the three of them. So Hamuko, Minato, and Ryoji all come back to life.

Of course then there are happy reunions. Hamuko, Minato, and Ryoji are happy to be alive, and their friends are happy to see them again. It’s great for everyone, but despite the fact that all of this is generally seen as positive, there are drawbacks. Hamuko and Minato have to get used to having suddenly jumped forward in time several years, all of the friends they’d worked so hard to make being so much older than them, technology being so much more advanced (a bit ironic coming from two robots), and so many world events having come to pass while they were in stasis in the Great Seal. Ryoji is less affected, having only existed for a couple of months in 2009 before. The matter of them finishing high school comes up, because Mitsuru has always been a bit of a stickler about that, though she is gracious enough to say that they don’t have to if they really don’t want to.

The original plan is for them to attend Gekkoukan, but they realize that most of the teachers that taught them back in 2009 are still teaching at the school, and furthermore, some of their friends/social links are still living in the area. They’d surely be recognized if they hung around the area, but they’re not ready to answer any questions about their miraculous resurrection to those not in the know yet. So Ken suggests that they attend the same high school that he does: Shujin academy. Originally he transferred to investigate the mental shutdowns that began occurring some time ago and showed several similarities to Apathy Syndrome, but despite that he was unable to find any potential crossover points where shadows could get access to those affected by the mental shutdowns in order to cause those shutdowns like how they caused Apathy Syndrome. Still, he stayed at Shujin partially because it was a school on par with Gekkoukan so he felt no need to transfer back, and partially because Shinjiro, not dead but permanently injured and therefore basically incapable of fighting shadows without putting himself at great risk, now lives in Tokyo and since waking up on graduation day, he and Ken have become closer and closer and healed past wounds.

It’s then that Labrys decides that she wants to attend school as well, and transfers to Shujin with them, both for her own curiosity’s sake, and to help them adjust to living in robotic bodies. So Shujin gets five transfer students that year: Minato, Hamuko, Ryoji, Labrys, and Akira. Minato, Hamuko, Ryoji, and Ken are all third years, while Labrys is a second year.

Entering Shujin

So the twins, Ryoji, and Labrys begin their year at Shujin Academy. Immediately there are whispers that one of the transfer students is a dangerous criminal, but it’s quickly determined that it isn’t the twins, Ryoji, or Labrys. Instead, it’s a second year transfer student that none of them know. Among them it’s decided that they shouldn’t make quick judgements on this student, but that they also have no reason to get involved with him and should just focus on adjusting. 

For the first two weeks or so, they just hang around and try to get adjusted. There seems to be five new rumors about the criminal transfer student each day, while Minato and Hamuko are gathering several admirers akin to Akihiko or Mitsuru in P3 because of their maxed stats. Ryoji, Ken, and Labrys share in that popularity to an extent.

Hamuko, excited about playing volleyball again like she used to, wants to sign up for the volleyball team. The coach of the volleyball team, Mr. Kamoshida, seems very supportive of this, but Hamuko discovers that her new robotic body might be harder to hide if she were to begin playing volleyball. This majorly bums her out, seeing that they can’t risk revealing themselves, but her friends are there for her and promise to play volleyball with her outside of school. She joins a less risky club, like the cooking club, and Minato joins something like the light music club. Labrys, meanwhile, takes interest in the student council and makes it her goal to become the student body president next year, after the current president has graduated.

Then, two weeks in or so, the twins have a very strange dream. It’s a place that’s a very familiar shade of blue, but so different from what they remember. Instead of an ever moving elevator, they find themselves trapped in a prison cell, peering out at Igor from behind steel bars. Liz and Theo have been replaced by two little girls named Caroline and Justine, and even Igor himself seems very different. He tells them of a place called Mementos and how to get there, and then they are released from the dream. They wake up, discuss amongst themselves, and then discuss it with Ryoji, Ken, and Labrys at school. They all decide to investigate after school.

Entering Mementos For the First Time

After school, they go to investigate the place called Mementos. It’s similar to Tartarus, and Ken theorizes that perhaps this is what he was looking for when he first began investigating the mental shutdowns. They run around for a little bit and discover that though Ryoji has no persona, he can still operate just fine as a navigator. Meanwhile, Minato and Hamuko have been “reset”, kind of, so they only have their respective versions of Orpheus and Messiah right now, but they still retain the ability to gain more personas through Shuffle Time. At the end of their investigation session, they venture into the Velvet Room once more and are told by Igor that Mementos is a manifestation of humanity’s sins.

Once out of Mementos, they discuss what they should do next. They agree that Igor must have shown them Mementos for a reason, and that it very well may have something to do with the mental shutdowns and/or psychotic breakdowns. So all of them agree to head back to Mementos again. Admittedly, it also feels good to fall back into the groove of fighting shadows. For Minato and Hamuko especially, since they’re struggling with the drawbacks of their new bodies and their sudden jump in time, so something familiar is extremely welcome.

The Calling Card

The next day at school, a calling card is posted about Mr. Kamoshida. It’s from a group calling themselves the Phantom Thieves, and claiming that they’re going to take Mr. Kamoshida’s twisted desires and change his heart. The next day, Mr. Kamoshida doesn’t show up for school. Nor the next day, and so on and so forth until the assembly where Mr. Kamoshida confesses his sins onstage and vows to kill himself. Mr. Kamoshida is taken into custody by the police, apologies are made to the people who Mr. Kamoshida’s actions affected, and rumors begin to swirl.

Minato, Hamuko, Ryoji, Labrys, and Ken are intrigued by the Phantom Thieves, but not overly interested right now. They’re more focused on discovering why Igor showed the twins Mementos, and they don’t yet consider the possibility that the Phantom Thieves may be persona-related.

Mementos Exploration (1)

They investigate further and further into Mementos, until they discover that they seem to have found the end of it. Mementos was much smaller than any of them imagined, and Ryoji even says that he was almost positive there was more. They discover the answer when they talk to Igor, and he says that they have barely scratched the surface of Mementos, but that to access more of Mementos the public would need to be aware of their existence.

(This is around the time that the Phantom Thieves first enter Mementos, but they do not cross paths with our group).

Making the Public Aware of Them

They discuss whether or not they should go forward with the exploration into Mementos. They are all a part of the Shadow Operatives, so taking care of shadows seems almost natural. Minato and Hamuko also trust Igor, despite him seeming very different, because of his assistance in the past, and the fact that it was Liz and Theo that freed them from the Great Seal. However, they have no idea how to proceed in Mementos, as they have to find a way to become known to the public. Ken, Labrys, or Ryoji then points out that the twins are musically gifted, and if they became famous that way then perhaps they’d be able to get further in Mementos.

After a quick brainstorming session, they come up with the idea to post a video of themselves on YouTube (or an equivalent), hoping that will be enough. Their video is a good enough quality that it draws in many people, but not enough to get them much further in Mementos. They try posting a few more videos, but the results are the same. They lament the fact that this does not seem to be working very quickly and debate just giving up on Mementos, but word of their struggle makes it’s way to the rest of the Shadow Operatives and the next day they find that their videos have skyrocketed in views because Rise promoted one of the videos they made.

(I haven’t decided quite what I want these videos to be about. Since the twins are always wearing headphones I definitely want it to have something to do with music, but I don’t know what yet. If need be, just imagine them posting covers to idol songs.)

Mementos Exploration (2)

The popularity that ensues from Rise’s actions is enough to get them further into Mementos, and it’s here that they discover that some people have actual shadow selves in Mementos. That’s when they decide that the mental shutdowns could be from someone killing these shadows, and first consider the possibility that there might be another persona user in Tokyo, and not one with good intentions. Remember, Ken was investigating the mental shutdowns from the perspective of someone who had dealt with Apathy Syndrome and automatically assumed shadows were the cause of the mental shutdowns.

Meanwhile, the Phantom Thieves take care of a few side requests in Mementos while looking into the Madarame case and Yusuke. When our group finds out about these requests, they officially determine that the Phantom Thieves can access the metaverse and are likely persona users if they can navigate Mementos without dying. That means they become suspects in the mental shutdowns case, at least to our group, but it’s not definite. They have no proof aside from both the assumed culprit and the Phantom Thieves likely having personas and being able to access Mementos, and the Phantom Thieves only showed up a little while ago while the mental shutdowns have been happening for a few years at least.

Still, our group makes the decision, with the approval of the other Shadow Operatives, to investigate Mementos and the Phantom Thieves further. If they wouldn’t, the Shadow Operatives would send others to check it out, because this seems important. As is, Mitsuru wants to send others in, protective of the twins after everything that’s happened, but they all but beg her not to. I think the twins would probably see this as a very good opportunity to get used to living again, especially in these new bodies in this new time. They really became comfortable with living their lives when they fell in with SEES, and this is a similar enough situation that they’re eager to get entangled with it. 

Conclusion

I don’t currently have anything more for this AU imagined, but I think it’s a strong start and has a lot of potential. The story from there would continue with the Phantom Thieves doing as they do in the game while our group investigated them and ventured further into Mementos. Meanwhile, Minato and Hamuko would be dealing with all of their emotional turmoil from being resurrected, being robots now, and being six years into the future. Like honestly, that’s a triple whammy right there, but at least they have each other to confide in. Meanwhile, we could get a more in-depth look at Ryoji, Labrys, and Ken’s characters, or at least a fan-written version of them.

I have what I believe to be a really interesting idea for the progression of this AU that involves our group joining Haru and Morgana in Okumura’s palace, but I haven’t fleshed it out yet so who knows if I’ll ever make a post about it. As it stands, if you like this AU you should go check out @friskyghost, who created the original concept for it. I think they’re a really cool person.

Thank you for reading this suuuuuper long post, whoever made it this far, and FYI, if anybody wants to come chat with me about any persona AU you or I create, I’m always up for it. Message me anytime. Seriously. I love fleshing out AU’s.

[momestuck]

Epilogues: Candy, chapters 1-5

This is gonna get long.

The Candy route is, in effect, the route where John refuses to go back to finish off Lord English, but remains on Earth C. Instead, the story begins by picking up another long neglected thread: Gamzee. Then it continues to various other places.

Contains: a rough recap of Gamzee’s story, a longwinded attempt to be evenhanded and not callous about the Gamzee Discourse, because it’s relevant again... and then I read the next three chapters, which visit some of the other characters, setting up the board for the new story (because let’s be real, this is a whole new story of its own at this point!)

a quick recap

It’s been three years since the comic ended so I’m gonna recap what I remember about Gamzee’s story. He was sent on a murderous rampage in the ‘murderstuck’ arc - there’s some debate if he was acting according to his own will, or that of Lord English’s agents, there, but either way he killed a large number of the ‘beta trolls’. He was ultimately stopped by Karkat, who deployed the ‘shoosh pap’ of establishing moirallegiance. During the three year meteor voyage, he entered into some kind of very harmful kismesis relationship with Terezi, but got very little screen time. And uh... then I get confused.

In the “game over” arc, he is mind controlled - I recall by Aranea - and used to bring about the deaths of most of the cast. This, of course, was retconned. Also I think I skipped over a bit.

And, in some capacity, he was present when Caliborn won the contest for dominance with Calliope. He assisted the young Caliborn’s villainous plan, and for his trouble got repeatedly shot to pieces, which he took silently.

And at some point he got locked in a fridge by the rest of the cast. We briefly see him get knocked about in there during ‘Collide’, and then he makes no further appearance.

Let’s go on the Homestuck wiki and see what I missed...

while under the sway of Lord English (murderstuck arc), he caused some of the kids to receive Lil Cal and a harlequin doll, which is what made their session ‘terminal’

he intervened in the alpha session, and was responsible for the prototypings of various dead trolls into combined forms

this:

The fridge remained on LOTAK until Lord Jack was decapitated which resulted in a black hole, somehow taking Gamzee, Crowbar's crowbar and Yaldabaoth to future Earth.

so i guess i missed that in all the chaos of Collide, but that explains how he ended up in Caliborn’s world.

also crucially, half of Gamzee is absorbed into Lil Cal along with Caliborn and Arquiussprite, which creates Lord English, the series villain.

so anyway...

The initial premise of this story is: John decides to remain in the C universe and enjoy his life instead of living in an undecisive fugue, rather than go out to fight Lord English and wrap up that side of the plot. Calliope makes a request of him: he should use his retcon powers to pull Gamzee out of the plot, someone ‘only he can save’.

The second chapter is basically a very sarcastic discourse post in Gamzee’s voice. Shortly after being rescued, Gamzee goes onto a long speech about how he’s prepared to redeem himself, and the ‘mitigating factors’ that make him worthy of redemption: (an ‘abusive childhood’ at the hands of his goat dad, and his socialisation). I’ll excerpt a bit to give you the general flavour, with the typing quirk removed for readability:

gamzee: i been all like. abused and stuff, homies.

gamzee: as a child, i got motherfuckin neglected on by a stern old fatherly goat.

gamzee: i was a disappointment on him, and can’t says i blame him for abandoning the shit out of his useless kid.

gamzee: i woulda motherfuckin done the same shit at me if i was a big cruel goat.

gamzee: so that explains like, pretty sure most of my crimes in a way that makes a motherfucker wanna take his forgiveness out for a fucking spin.

gamzee: there’s other reasons to consider, like...

gamzee: shit that makes this redemption arc fuckin tight like an uncracked elixir.

gamzee: like, hows my purple blood meant i got the culture pressures put on me to be a salty damn jester for life.

gamzee: what about that hand the messiahs dealt me, my bitches.

gamzee: a motherfucker’s gonna envy that like a wicked cod rash.

gamzee: so how can i full and truly fuckin get blamed on for, when it comes to a little bit of subjugglation i got culturally hornswoggled up to doing, and also tragically goat abused which needs to make you shed a tear for this motherfucker, lest you wanna be as atrocious as me.

This is reminiscent of V’s episodes in Friendsim, insofar as - we’re clearly not intended to buy it, but it’s directly mocking lines of argument in the fandom, about whether it’s ok to be a fan of Gamzee (because fandom is all about casting moral judgement on finding that you relate to fictional characters’ narratives in the wrong way, justifying your own attachments to characters and works as progressive, etc...).

By putting these arguments in a very explicit and ridiculous form (having Gamzee speak on whether he personally deserves a ‘redemption arc’), and then having the narrator and also popular characters such as Terezi dismiss them, V’s stance is fairly clear - at least these particular readings of Gamzee are to be dismissed. Terezi comments:

JOHN: apparently we’re going to let him have a “redemption arc”?

TEREZI: H4H4H4H4H4H4H4H4H4H4H4H4

JOHN: yeah, it’s...

JOHN: well, what is there to even say?

JOHN: it’s literally the dumbest fucking idea i’ve ever heard, but what can you do.

TEREZI: SHOV3 H1M B4CK 1N TH4T FR1DG3 4ND THROW 1T 1N TH3 OC34N, 1S WH4T

There’s two ways the story can go from here. One might be that this is the last we’re going to hear about Gamzee, it’s just a quick fuck you to one particular set of readings of Homestuck, and then on to whatever V considers more important. Another is that, a more subtle story is about to be told than the deliberately absurd framing here.

I should state my own stance, since it’s probably going to be relevant. I had a friend who cared a great deal about Gamzee, in part because he was essentially a chew toy in the latter part of the comic, who could be treated violently without consequence, which - as far as I understand their feelings - my friend found meaningful in relation to their own experiences of abuse.

I recall thinking there was some credence to ‘mind control’ interpretations, which posit that the difference between Gamzee’s chill affect early on and his ludicrously violent behaviour later was the control of Doc Scratch and other agents of Lord English; Gamzee in this reading is aware, and horrified (as hinted at by a brief window where Aranea’s mind control is released during the Game Over arc and he is ‘himself’ again, and cries and begs for mercy, before once again becoming extremely violent). Whether this is the case during the ‘fridge’ section is not clear. This goes some way to explaining why Gamzee is indestructible, and mutely devoted to assisting Caliborn when Caliborn treats him with nothing but violence.

In this reading, Gamzee is a tragic character to the point of absurdity. He is forced to witness another person committing horrific actions with his body, and then abandoned by those who’d care for him because they do not recognise the mind control. His only escape from one mind controller is another one.

However, that’s just a reading. For fans who identify strongly with Terezi, Gamzee is often interpreted as her abuser due to the effect his relationship is shown to have during the asteroid voyage (pre-Game Over). To these readers, people - such as my friend - who identify with Gamzee are engaging in apologetics for abuse.

Because this is so fraught, I am not going to make any claim that a particular reading of Gamzee is ‘unambiguously true’. I think a third interpretation is the ‘shitty writing’ one, that Hussie basically intended Gamzee as a joke character, not one with interiority. He’s a scary clown! Perhaps he didn’t realise how strongly this character, who from the start was presented as someone to laugh at, would resonate with the readers.

I hope that this discussion gives some sense of the different possible nuances of Gamzee, and I am hoping that this epilogue will not simply be a polemic for one particular reading.

now, chapter 3+

I read the first two chapters right after I heard about the upd8. From now on, this will be a true ‘liveread’, i.e. written alongside my first readthrough of the story.

At this point we switch viewpoint character to Dirk! This is a very short chapter: Dirk cancels ‘everything’ - all his ongoing plans - and does not explain why to Jane, or Jake. Whatever the reason is, it’s very bad news and has a short time limit.

Apparently John’s decision to say has had some kind of metaphysical effect, which causes Rose’s mysterious malady - and her various anxieties concerning ‘canon’ - to dissipate.

So she gets to spend some time with Kanaya. This is nice - we barely got to see Rose and Kanaya together as a couple in canon. It’s a sweet conversation... and makes me worry about what’s going to happen in the ‘Meat’ route.

There’s a little clarifying on Jade, Dave and Karkat’s relationship now...

JADE: i never thought id be thinking of you as my weird nerd friend by the time we were in our twenties

It’s a weird, intimate, and uncomfortably close to sexual thing to be doing in front of other people. Dave and Karkat share a vaguely mortified look. Jade sort of lives here, but she doesn’t that sort of live here.

The expression is so warm and blatant that it can’t help but draw Jade’s attention. She frowns and pushes her glasses up the bridge of her nose, making some quick calculations in her head. They’re so obvious, she thinks, and yet here they are. Virginal losers who are performative about sitting exactly a foot apart whenever they’re in public. It’s so pathetic it makes her want to howl at the moon in sorrow. 

so i guess we’re going to have a jade working very hard on getting dave and karkat together type arc

well i guess we are but oof, jade what the hell... jade decides to like, go in with all the subtlety of a train, aggressively flirt with karkat, up to the point of like, putting her fingers in his mouth... which to him is just like, a straight up assault. but it’s them who are ‘hopeless’, not her...

dave very awkwardly changes the subject to talk about the possible Jane presidency. apparently, Jane is very xenophobic towards trolls (which didn’t seem immediately apparent from the comic but I might have forgotten tbh). Karkat speaks of ‘the potential genocide of my people’

DAVE: but i dont think shed go so far as to commit genocide

DAVE: thats really exaggerating her faults

DAVE: like wed have to get pretty far away from the people we were when we started all this for that to be a viable outcome

...phrasing it like that... makes me rather apprehensive!

[xb-squaredx]

Knack Review: More Like Lack

In 2013, the PS4 hit the store shelves, its library littered with a variety of games that just happened to look slightly nicer than their PS3 counterparts. Amidst the “next-gen” ports, there was ONE game that stood out as being a true step forward. A glimpse into the future of gaming as we knew it, and something that could only be defined by the words “Next-Gen”: Killzone: Shadow Fall. Oh, and Knack was there too. A new IP and at the time one of the only real benchmark games out there for what was defined as “next-gen,” Knack is definitely an interesting title. While nowadays a punchline and meme (due to a certain YouTuber), I finally got a chance to run through the game and see just what all the fuss (or lack thereof) was about.

Knack is a frustrating game for many reasons, most of all that it has a fairly solid premise with some real potential…but the execution is overall lacking. The story of the game is simple enough; long ago, humans and goblins went to war over “Relics,” ancient technology from a long-gone civilization. Humans won, goblins were banished and human civilization flourished. Now, Doctor Vargas has achieved a new breakthrough in Knack, a sentient pile of Relics that can absorb Relics into himself to grow bigger and stronger, and it’s up to Knack to take out the goblin forces whenever they show up. The goal of every level (or Chapter) in the game is simple; get Knack big, so he can smash stuff. And yet the game tries to complicate the premise with the introduction of tons of human characters and their own interpersonal conflicts that either A) fail to endear them to you or B) are barely used.

Doctor Vargas (who is called only “Doctor” so often I quickly forgot his name) is either expositing, going on and on about his dead wife or being told he’s reckless and needs to be held back. Despite this, he’s not really what I’d call reckless throughout the game up until the ONE moment where the script says some conflict should happen. The world-traveling adventurer Flynn comes and goes out of the narrative to the point that he feels useless, and his nephew Lucas has his own personal character arc where he wants to earn Vargas’ trust, while still getting over the death of his parents and it’s given enough focus that you get the feeling he should be the main character. The problem with Knack’s story isn’t just the cliché dialogue and paper-thin characters; Knack is the main hero and thus solves pretty much every problem, which results in the human cast being useless 99% of the time. Knack’s own story rarely intersects with the humans overall; it feels like two stories violently fighting for screen time. The result is that you can come to resent the human characters because they do nothing but order Knack around, and you can’t really be endeared to Knack because he has almost no personality. He rarely talks, does what is asked of him without question or even a snarky reply and whenever he DOES say something it’s either a joke that falls flat or an attempt at sounding cool that is ruined because…just look at the guy. This is clearly not the kind of game you play for the story.

As for gameplay…it’s a mixed bag, really. I often saw Knack billed as a platformer; in some circles it was marketed as this generation’s Crash Bandicoot or Spryo the Dragon. In actuality, Knack is a 3D beat-em-up with minor platforming elements; the actual platforming is very simple, at times even automated. Many times throughout the game, rather than letting players jump down into a new area or cross a gap, the game will take control away from you and go into a brief cutscene where the jump is done for you. I suppose its fine that the platforming isn’t the focus, but if that was the case, I wish they had made Knack’s default jump better at the very least. He has a normal jump and a double jump, and in almost all instances, the single jump can’t clear anything. Every jump essentially requires two jumps to clear, and while that sounds very minor, it gets VERY annoying as time goes on. Mashing that jump button when it should be done in half the button presses makes the platforming feel like a chore when it should be…you know…FUN.

You spend the bulk of your time fighting though, the platforming just a minor break from the repetitive, monotonous combat. Knack’s move set is pretty basic; a three-hit combo and an aerial attack and…that’s pretty much it. He does have three special moves that can be performed if you find enough Sunstone crystals to charge your “batteries” but it often takes so long to build up uses, I almost always regret using them, even if they are generally good for clearing out a whole room of enemies at once. Knack also has a dodge move that feels very inconsistent; sometimes it comes out fast, other times it seems to not register in time to dodge. You can’t dodge in the same direction more than once, and you really don’t move that far out of the way, so in many cases I’d dodge at the correct time but still get hit by an attack. Oh, and did I mention dodging is done by flicking the right stick? It’s about as awkward as it sounds.

So if the right stick controls dodging, how does one control the camera? Well, Knack is kind enough to prevent any camera control at all. It either moves the camera automatically or more often has a fixed camera angle for many rooms. Generally, this was something done in the infancy of 3D games, before proper camera control was really ironed out, a result of necessity really. Seeing these techniques employed in Knack was a bit of a red flag, but admittedly fixed camera angles aren’t inherently bad…but it becomes clear early on that they are not used well in Knack. Enemies can go off-screen leaving you with no way to tell where they are or where to dodge, and since the overall premise of each level is for Knack to get bigger, he will eventually obscure a great deal of the camera in some spots, resulting in me blindly attacking and hoping I hit the enemies that are in front of me. I suppose I should be thankful the platforming isn’t more intensive or else the fixed camera angles could become more of a problem then they already are. The game is far from unplayable due to this, but it’s still far more annoying than it should be.

So with a limited move set, a stiff, at times unresponsive dodge and camera shenanigans aplenty, that’s a lot going against Knack’s combat, and that’s before we even factor in the overall difficulty. Now, difficulty is subjective; one man’s easy is another’s hard, and I don’t really like bringing it up unless it feels necessary. Knack isn’t a brutally hard game that only the hardest of the hardcore can beat, but considering how simple its mechanics are and how it’s marketed as a game meant for the younger set (in lieu of all the complex shooters out there), it feels far harder than it should be on many occasions. Part of this comes from enemies being very smart and often paired together in ways to ensure Knack is always at a disadvantage. Nearly every enemy in the game has superior range to him, either with large melee weapons or with projectile attacks, something Knack has no real answer for. Melee attackers will charge forward while the others hang back to pelt you with shots, and if you ever get close enough to attack, often enemies can roll out of the way of your attacks and then immediately retaliate; something Knack really can’t do due to poor range and attack speed. It’s still manageable though; you learn to bait enemies first rather than go in aggressively, and that’ll work out fine enough…however that doesn’t stop the constant frustration. One big problem I have with Knack that shines the most in combat is the rigid scaling it employs with everything. Knack starts each Chapter at his smallest stage, and he’ll fight enemies of a similar size; tiny goblins or bugs, usually. As he gets bigger, so do his enemies. He graduates from bugs to humans or human-sized robots, then giant goblins and robots, then tanks and attack helicopters and so on. The problems start when you realize that it’s often hard to appreciate how big he’s really getting when everything appropriately scales. It’s rare that he fights smaller enemies in his larger forms, and you NEVER encounter a bigger enemy when small (baring one real instance). The level itself seems to perfectly scale out to be just as wide as it usually is, the enemies can see you eye-to-eye at all times and while the game TRIES to hype you up as being big and powerful, it doesn’t work. This is also due to the fact that, regardless of how big Knack gets, he’ll be fighting enemies that will usually kill him in two hits, MAYBE three if you’re lucky. The attack scaling is so aggressive any sense of empowerment you had is lost instantly. There’s something so WRONG about seeing Knack’s massive health bar instantly halve when an enemy so much as touches him. It feels more appropriate when he’s small; it gives you a reason to get bigger and stop being a pushover, but the game never lets you flex those oversized muscles.

Knack feels like it could be a cross between Katamari Damacy and Hulk Ultimate Destruction. It should feel rewarding to see Knack at his biggest, something you spend the whole chapter accomplishing, but it never really hits that outside of some fleeting moments. A Chapter where you ward off a goblin attack in the middle of a city is one of the few parts of the game where it almost comes together. The townspeople in the distance combined with the buildings all around you establish appropriate scale and it feels like you’re in the middle of a monster movie. I wish more of the game had felt like that. That’s not even touching on the fact that no matter how big Knack gets in a chapter, he’ll ALWAYS shrink at the end, and you know you’ll be starting the next chapter out small and weak. Not exactly a great motivator to keep going. That’s not the only bit of potential being wasted either.

Knack is composed of a bunch of independent objects and that alone means he should be able to reshape himself into almost anything. He could form a shield or sword with excess parts, and really it makes no sense why his dodge barely covers any ground when he could just disperse the Relics that make him up and then quickly reform. The game even shows that he can amass other objects into his body for a time; reflexive crystal, ice, wood and metal, but outside of the crystal, the other forms are shown to be a poor man’s substitute for Relics. Ice Knack melts in the heat, Wood Knack can be lit on fire and burned away and Metal Knack is only usable in areas where powerful magnets either slow you down or strip the metal away. All three of these forms also don’t actually grant you more health and when you get hit, you lose those materials and shrink, allowing you to be instantly taken out by enemies that are technically one “tier” of size above you. Using the crystals though, Knack becomes “Stealth Knack” and the Chapters that make use of the form were actually pretty fun. Unlike the other forms, Stealth Knack is used when he needs to get small, walking through security beams and going into ventilation shafts, but at the press of a button Knack could switch back to a bigger form for combat. I really don’t get why only that form worked that way.

At the end of the day, Knack frustrates more than it excites or entertains. If not due to its restrictive fixed camera angels, dull and at times unfulfilling combat and shoddy excuse for a story, than for the potential that lies within. There’s a good game buried under here, somewhere. From what I hear, Knack 2 fixes a lot of these issues…at least as far as gameplay goes. Going into Knack, I expected it to just be kind of dull and unremarkable, but in the end I had way more to say about it than I thought I would. It’s a concept with a lot of room to grow and really it should have been grown out more before it was released. Knack feels less like a fully fleshed-out idea and more like a tech demo for the PS4 to flex its then-new muscles. Which makes it amusing when anytime I use a special attack the framerate dies. As a launch title for a new system, Knack had the unfortunate responsibility of being seen as an example of what games could do with upgraded technology, what the “next step” in gaming would look like, but it really looks like it might have taken a few steps backward.

Until next time.

-B